Iria Vasquez-Paez
Bio
I have a B.A. in creative writing from San Francisco State. Can people please donate? I'm very low-income. I need to start an escape the Ferengi plan.
Stories (411/0)
Gaslighting: What it Is.
Gaslighting is rewriting reality to suit the needs of the person doing the gaslighting, because gaslighting is one pretty, nasty, little lie, and I have been gaslit by my family since I was born. One book I have called The Gaslight Effect, is incredibly useful to me since I put it on my iPhone, since one exercise recommended is about living 24 hours with only your own opinion in your head, and it is lovely that the book refers to gaslighting as the gaslighting tango since it takes two to tango with that. The term "gaslight," comes from an old movie from the 1940s, called Gaslight, which came out in 1944 and is about a woman whose crooked husband wants to steal her jewelry while he changes the lights around in order to make her feel crazy, when she isn't. The husband then isolates the wife from the outside world. Gaslighting is about making someone think something. It is about lying to them while coming up with your own version of what happened.
By Iria Vasquez-Paez4 years ago in Humans
The Year In Entrepreneurship Ideas
2020 is around the corner. I have many ideas I need to act on. This year is the year of making real money for me. I have tried to open sources of income. Transcription for Everyone is my new job, since they hire with limited experience. California AB 5 is a real bill that has impacted my life as a freelancer. My business is writing copy for Textbroker.com but they can’t pay me right now either since they are switching to Payoneer only because I live in California. So I must look for other sources of income or write more articles I need to publish. So my business idea is a social network for psychics. I have posted about this on my blog and it is time to tell other people my business ideas. I want to start this business because I feel it will make independent psychics money if they get paid to lower their prices.
By Iria Vasquez-Paez4 years ago in Journal
The Winter Solstice
Winter solstice is celebrated around the world quite often because not everybody celebrates Christmas. The Christmas holiday is a modern invention that was invented with the rise of capitalism in mind. It is why gift giving is emphasized but I’m not buying anybody presents this year. I’m pretty much done celebrating Christmas with my family since I have no money for presents anyway. Besides, they put me down, so I’m like, bye, not going to be there for that. My knee hurts anyway, I can’t go out late. The holidays cause me undue stress because I know my family is floored by the real truth. Christmas comes from Saturnalia, a Roman holiday that occurred around this time of year. Saturn was the God of agriculture and time.
By Iria Vasquez-Paez4 years ago in Geeks
What I've Been Reading About Codependency
I’ve been reading a book called The New Codependency. Help and Guidance for Today’s Generation. It is a good read from Codependent No More’s Melody Beattie. I’ve come to realize that blocking my mother on What’s App is a good solution as she picks fights on any Internet medium there is as a way to substitute picking fights in person. I realize through this book that I have to set boundaries by saying that I have to be treated a certain way or that person will not get communicated with. I will not tolerate being made to fight with this person for fun. It causes me stress, anxiety, and many a mental health problem blow out. I would go as far as to say that getting into a fight with someone triggers mania. Not even explaining that via a doctor’s note will sway my mother. Although I have contemplated getting my doctors to write letters to her, from primary care all the way down the list. I have tried time and again to set boundaries with my mother for goodness sake but nothing works.
By Iria Vasquez-Paez4 years ago in Motivation
Codependency
Back when I was trapped in my codependent friendships, I felt that I was doing way too much work, which is why I dumped the ex in the first place. An ex friend was busy relying on me (female), to meet all of her needs. I wasn’t getting much in return. I was all too willing to help her at first but then I realized just how very manipulative she was being towards me. This is why I dumped her as a friend. I was busy letting her continue her self-destructive behavior. I was raised in a dysfunctional and ill family, of course. This is why it went that far. I have massively low self-esteem I’m working on. I’m terrified of moving to Los Angeles and starting school, and being so overwhelmed by my feeling of inadequacy that I start drinking again. I feel guilty about feeling good because of my medication while my family doesn’t do medication at all.
By Iria Vasquez-Paez4 years ago in Motivation
Fake News, Alternative Facts and Political Brainwashing
What is fake news? What are alternative facts? What is political brainwashing? Fake news is called such because it is seen as being reported by a non-legitimate news agency, thus becoming political gaslighting. Alternative facts are about total lies to the American people by the Machine. The mere division between Democrat and Republican reeks of political brainwashing because really, they work together to further national interest. The Machine only takes news questions from Fox News. This is the way Republicans think, even though Democrats are part and parcel of the same coin. “Fake News” is a term that undermines legitimate news sources like CNN. Supporters of the Machine are brainwashed into believing what the Republicans say. Politicians deal with many untrue news stories that are, in fact, the real fake news. Real journalists use the term “fake news” to call out news that is an obvious fabrication.
By Iria Vasquez-Paez4 years ago in The Swamp
Media Brainwashing
Whenever an anti-vaxxer friend of mine posts rude things about how vaccines cause autism, I’m reminded that vaccines do not cause autism. It is impossible to correct somebody that brainwashed, if only because they truly believe what they have been told. College teaches you to think for yourself. Some of these people lack a college education since college teaches one to think for themselves. Having met people on the autism spectrum, I’m now more aware that autism has genetic causes. Autism is something you are born with, not made into. I’m just a neurotypical schizoaffective according to Community Health Awareness Council’s psychiatric evaluation. I’m just an ordinary schizophrenic, in which case, we will be moving on to what fake news is. Our current climate has people brainwashed into believing that normal media outlets that criticize are fake news. Well, there is such thing as the tabloids, which are pretty much fake news.
By Iria Vasquez-Paez4 years ago in The Swamp
How to Fight Brainwashing
First off, start with not believing everything you hear, read, or listen to from the brainwasher. People who try to force you to believe certain things mean you very serious harm. It is worse when they say that they have your own best interests in mind, seeing as they want to help you. If they say, "I’m doing this for your own good," beware because their actions are not meant for your own good. Really listening to your gut instincts helps you when you are in the presence of someone who is gaslighting you or saying, “It really didn’t happen that way,” and messing with your perceptions. Brainwashers try to learn what they can about you just so they can manipulate your beliefs, replacing it with their own beliefs that they want you think about yourself. They want to know of your weaknesses as well as whom you trust. When they know which persons you trust, they brainwash you out of trusting them.
By Iria Vasquez-Paez4 years ago in Psyche
Why Some People Want to Brainwash You
A brainwasher has genuine ill will towards you because they want to make you believe what they believe about who you are, which I learned from If You Had Controlling Parents, How to Make Peace With Your Past And Take Your Place In The World, Dan Neuharth. Many of them mean you serious harm because they want to strip you of what makes you, you. Cults do this for power and control over people who join them. Often, cult victims are lonely people who do not have solid friendships although personally, I’d rather be lonely than in a toxic friendship like I was in three years ago. Control over someone else is a ridiculous motive because no one can have total control over someone else’s mind, body and soul. Although to me, I feel that this occurs in my family, almost as if someone controls someone else’s spirit. Brainwashing happens in cults when control of sleeping habits, and control of access to information can happen. (Neuharth p.100) It is why I didn’t know much about schizophrenia or psychic stuff growing up because my family didn’t provide me with many resources about it.
By Iria Vasquez-Paez4 years ago in Humans
How Not to Get Brainwashed
That expression, “when something is too good to be true, it usually is,” has actually been real in my life. Because of my current set of medications including Lamictal, I find myself harder to brainwash in the immediate present since I started Lamictal until now. The way brainwashing works is that the brainwasher starts off by making you feel really good. If you struggle with self-esteem like I do, then they make a huge effort to make you feel really good. This is why I’ve stared therapy at a local college yet again. I have stuff I need to sort through, skills I need to learn, and in general, I have to get my head together. Brainwashing is a repetitive phenomenon in which you are told the same things over and over again until you believe it. Some people are so used to it, they walk around unaware that they’ve been brainwashed to put up with abuse.
By Iria Vasquez-Paez4 years ago in Psyche
Why the Establishment Denies Climate Change
They do not know any better, despite all the proof they are offered. To place Republicans, who as a general rule, deny climate change, in positions at the Environmental Protection Agency is just wow. Climate change is real, it is a fact, and it is not going way. 2018 marks the end of seven years of drought in California. Think about what that means; many have done away with their lawns except in Southern California where the snoots actually import water for their prissy, perfect lawns while poorer neighborhoods have soccer lawns dry up. Yes, Los Angeles is a land of a lot of income inequality. Conservative Republicans hang on every word of the Trump administration until hurricanes devastate other states, since humans driving, for example, cause climate change. The ideological hot mess between Democrats and Republicans will only get worse until Republicans get their heads out of their hats in order to see that climate change actually happens. Gallup found that 85 percent of Democrats are reasonable enough to see that human activity has lead to climate change, and 38 percent of Republicans agree. To continue to deny climate change is just ridiculous. If a friend of mine in the 1990s mentioned that having to wear shorts in the winter means that climate change is happening, then by now after the seven year drought we had in California, I agree with her. Climate change should not be up for debate on this planet. We are stuck with the one planet we have and we are busy polluting, causing our own problems, and shooting ourselves in the foot. Regardless of what side you are on, conservative or liberal, you have to make sure to see that climate change needs to be addressed formally. It is backwards to pretend otherwise. Should we all be putting aside our differences and working together to fix the problems we have made for ourselves?
By Iria Vasquez-Paez5 years ago in The Swamp
How to Fix Our Climate Change Issues?
The alternative fact that the current administration is not doing much to fix climate change let alone fund research that can do something about what is going on is that other people are always doing something. For every organization that is not doing something, there are those that actually are doing something. In California alone, our seven-year drought is over, finally, because that seven-year drought was what made our air hotter, drier, and even dried up our lawns. We have solutions to global warming out there that people are working on without the blessing of the current aspect of the party in power. Companies are working on electric car options, self-driving electric cars, ethanol-powered cars, and despite the current administration stoking the power of oil, gas, and coal companies, many are starting to get through their heads what the real expert scientists are desperately trying to say to us. Environment America is a part of The Public Interest Network.
By Iria Vasquez-Paez5 years ago in Futurism