There’s an expression for when something occurs that causes an uncontrollable response of acute distress. It’s called ‘triggering’, ‘trigger’ and being ‘triggered’ and under certain circumstances you can find yourself in a constant state of acute distress without even knowing the cause. I am in that situation and this is an exploration of my circumstances and the cause (real and present but hitherto hidden from me) because I cannot go on like this.
It relates to childhood abuse (1950’s Britain), unresolved to this day, and I am losing my mind. It all relates back to the particular circumstances of my childhood. The loss of my Father when I was 5 and the social consequences. The constant distress, shame and terror, of my mother as a single parent living in extreme poverty with no ‘bread winner’ in the house, fighting her own family to hold on to us. Schooling, infant and junior schools in which teachers treated me hatefully and brutally, with extreme prejudice, as an illegitimate bastard because I had no father at home. As it happens, he was locked up in an insane asylum. Time in a children’s home, staffed by sadists, a place my brother and I swore at the time we would one day burn to the ground. Childhood sexual abuse from a close family friend who we loved. In order to understand what’s going on in the present, it is vital to understand my history which occurred without any discussion, understanding or consent and without the power or ability to do anything about it over a period of many years when I was a dependent, socially and sexually immature and undeveloped, child. Years which are rightly called our formative years.
I have known and understood for many years why I can’t live with a television in the house, spoon feeding us so much that’s bullshit and nonsense, why I HATE adverts and why I detest being told what to do without bothering to discuss it with me or asking for my consent. Most of the time, I have learnt to bite the bullet and not respond in any way because, in general, people are all too ready to throw their opinion at things that are nothing to do with them, about which they know nothing of the circumstances and about which their opinion has not been sought. That’s just the way things are, but there’s a line beyond which silence is no longer good enough to hold my own against the onslaught.
Curiously, the tipping point has been Windows 11, in which Microsoft exploits Push Ads and psychological manipulation. This is what ‘they’ call it. “Push Advertising definition. Push ads are a type of native ad format. Push advertising means delivering ads to users’ desktop or mobile devices in a form resembling usual push notifications, thus offering a non-intrusive, user-friendly, and highly engaging way for advertisers to reconnect and expand their audiences.”
This is a pack of lies, there is nothing user friendly in something that is built in and that we are, in general, powerless to prevent, which is imposed without consultation or our permission. Just because people may not be put-out or annoyed by this stuff, does not in any way make it acceptable, or right. Computers have gone from being a useful tool for work and play, in which we could access enough of the processes to make them fit for our individual personal use, to the present situation where the processes are hidden and everything is about push advertising and control of our (paid for) property and, thus, our minds.
You may disagree, but the fact that I am losing my mind tells me I am neither lying nor wrong. Something I learnt long ago about those who have suffered abuse, we are experts who are poo pooed by those who have never lived and experienced what we have lived through and it is not we who should be silent.
We are living in a time where the UK government can do whatever it wants with impunity. After the 2010 general election, the gloves came off, which led me to write a Letter a Day to Number 10. I began writing when I could no longer tolerate being silent in the face of government abuse. A street protest or a letter to the editor was completely inadequate, I needed to follow what was going on and express my protest daily. I did it for four and a half years until I burned out, since when it has got infinitely worse. Now they are literally tearing our lives apart and corporations, like Microsoft, are free to exploit us with absolute impunity, protected by those who are meant to serve us, but who, in fact, rob us. Whilst we are being robbed blind for domestic energy, Shell, to name but one, has recorded profits of £32.2 billion in 2022, double the previous year’s total and the highest in its 115-year history. That’s gone from anything that can remotely be called sane to outright abuse (we could quite rightly call it domestic abuse).
However, what was the trigger for this piece and where was the line crossed that sent me into a raging storm? It was the splash screen which pops up when I wake my computer, before I get to the log in screen. It’s a push screen designed by Microsoft, click bait, on a computer I paid for and own and which a good friend built for me. And that sums up Windows 11, it’s a dumbed down, click bait, ad driven piece of shit in which even the file extensions are hidden until I found the way to display them. For someone whose computer is a working computer, something like that is an insult to intelligence and that’s just one of a plethora of mind numbing shit issues that wind me up every single day. But here’s the thing, it pales almost to insignificance compared to how we are all being used and abused on a daily basis, but it’s the little things that get you in the end. The straw that breaks the camels back might be the smallest, lightest straw in the whole load, but that’s the thing that breaks it’s knees and drives it into the ground… and me into uncontrollable spastic rage.
What is going on is unbelievable abuse, and MP’s are just like those who abuse children (some actually do), with their filthy secrets and their attempts to silence us and force us to be complicit in their despicable crimes. They are, above all, cowards who hide in plain sight, pretending to respectability, they are crooks in suits, abusers of faith and trust, the real bastards of this world, whose rightful place is behind bars. All this is also true of Corporations whose loyalty is to shareholders and we are just cash cows to be robbed and exploited.
I cannot afford to hide and nor can I use self medication (drink, drugs and smoking), to ease the pain any more, I’ve used them all in the past and none of them work and denial is just self abuse and unintentional complicity with those who intentionally abuse us.
None of this has been easy to find and see, I couldn’t figure out why the Windows 11 push screen was driving me crazy, I wasn’t seeing the bigger picture and it’s taken weeks to see it and now that I have it’s already changing inside me. I am no longer a fish on a hook, where I go from here I don’t know, but IT STARTS HERE!
I am sharing this because I know I am not alone.
Love and peace my friends. Keith. 20 February 2023.
Conspiracy of Kindness 