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Was Chris Watts limerent?

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L-F
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Re: Was Chris Watts limerent?

Post by L-F »

SierraM wrote: Sat Feb 04, 2023 4:01 pm To this day, she shows no remorse and keeps inventing stories to explain the shooting, all more outlandish than the others.
Reading over this thread/post, and unless I've picked up the wrong end of this stick, it highlights that she was emotionally unattached to her children. Not sure where this sits exactly in terms of PD, however, it also reminds me of how humans are when it comes to animal abuse. Or eating the flesh of animals. How emotionally UNattached we can all be to a living creature unless a true vegan. Of course, it's a debatable subject, yet I can't help but think how easy it is to turn a blind eye to how animals are treated before they reach our plates. in some respects, we're all capable of closing ourselves off emotionally to suit our needs.
"And in the end, we were all just humans…Drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness." ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
L-F
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Re: Was Chris Watts limerent?

Post by L-F »

The main point above is,

That we are all capable of becoming unattached, emotionally,

when it suits ourselves.

Thus, making us no different to her.

Take for example, renting a house out to a solo mum paying minimum rent, and then choosing to increase that rent. Whether it's for love or greed or something else, we are all capable of turning off the emotional/empathy tap.
"And in the end, we were all just humans…Drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness." ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
JupiterTaco
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Re: Was Chris Watts limerent?

Post by JupiterTaco »

It has to do with PDs because Diane Downs was diagnosed with two PDs. And I agree, anybody can unattach to people. I have no lasting attachment to the people left in this world who share my DNA. Their own behavior did that. However that doesn't make me comfortable going around saying that given the culture we live in. If there was less stigma surrounding various family relationships that might help things, I don't know.
"You know for a big black guy Cleveland's got a cute little white ass!" Peter, Family Guy
"Um...that wasn't Cleveland," Brian
L-F
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Re: Was Chris Watts limerent?

Post by L-F »

I think the "showing no remorse" as Sierra pointed out is a protection thing so one doesn't go insane even though I'd question her sanity from the get go. Let's drop the PD thing for a mo, I believe that humans, in general, show no remorse when it comes to eating animals, and in cannibalistic societies, people. Showing no empathy or remorse for killing is not a purely sociopathic indicator. Humans do it without batting an eye, so long as it's done humanely (animals) and it's not family (I'm guessing cannibals don't choose to eat family). Although 'humanely' is questionable too as a majority of people I imagine couldn't stomach seeing what really goes on in slaughter houses. I can't help think how scared the animals are when jammed into trucks to be transported for a start, let alone when they arrive.
My point is, cognitively humans can 'switch off' with no remorse, even if they did see what goes on in a slaughter house. Again, to protect their identity and sanity. So, it's easy for me to see how Diane Downs can 'switch off'. I guess im trying to say is, one doesn't need to be diagnosed with a PD.
JupiterTaco wrote: Sun Feb 05, 2023 1:17 pm It has to do with PDs because Diane Downs was diagnosed with two PDs. And I agree, anybody can unattach to people. I have no lasting attachment to the people left in this world who share my DNA. Their own behavior did that. However that doesn't make me comfortable going around saying that given the culture we live in. If there was less stigma surrounding various family relationships that might help things, I don't know.
Nothing wrong in saying you don't like your family. David introduced me to Daniel Mackler who is the author of 'Breaking from Your Parents: Setting a New Precedent for Your Life and Our Species'.
"The book explores such topics as confronting parents, dealing with siblings, becoming financially independent, doing self-therapy to strengthen ourselves, grieving our losses, dealing with the world’s judgments and negative pressures, healing our childhood traumas, making respectful friends and living a healthy lifestyle. The book is direct, straightforward and supportive—and takes the point of view that there can be great value for us all in our taking distance from our parents."

Even though no longer a psychotherapist his writing focuses on "the causes, consequences, and radical significance of childhood trauma. I see childhood trauma as ranging from the extreme, which is common, to the mild, which is so much MORE common that few even notice it at all, much less call it by its proper name. I view the norm in our culture as being highly traumatized, and I view the average, and even above-average, childhood as being extremely traumatic – and the average parent as lacking both awareness of this and deep empathy for the child." https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/206 ... ur-parents

Might be worth a read? Anyway, I found his work informative when first introduced on here.
"And in the end, we were all just humans…Drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness." ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
L-F
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Re: Was Chris Watts limerent?

Post by L-F »

This makes me wonder how a society that houses cannibals would view Jeffery Dahmer.

One society condemns a certain behavior while another doesn't.
"And in the end, we were all just humans…Drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness." ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
L-F
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Re: Was Chris Watts limerent?

Post by L-F »

This now makes me wonder if limerence is a Western disease/infliction.
"And in the end, we were all just humans…Drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness." ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
SierraM
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Re: Was Chris Watts limerent?

Post by SierraM »

JupiterTaco wrote: Sat Feb 04, 2023 6:16 pm
I think with people who lack coping mechanisms, major stresses can start to add onto the already-heavy load of various addictions and increase the need to escape. Possibly for Diane Downs, she may have reached a point where she just hit bottom, lost all emotion and just wanted it all over. Getting rid of her kids was the obvious solution for her and probably made her think she'd finally get her man.
JupiterTaco I think your analysis about hitting rock-bottom is spot-on.

According to Ann Rule, who wrote a book about the events, the prosecutor closed his argumentation during trial with a reference to an article that Diane Downs had written about child abuse, before the shooting, where she urged parents to refrain from beating up her children. Painfully ironic I know since she was not known to be particularly kind to her children even before the shooting. The prosecutor talked about how Diane must have felt trapped, and saw killing her children as an exit. Ann Rule reports that Diane Downs seemed stunned by this analysis, implying Diane was surprised that someone would have seen her so clearly. She was a divorced mother with three kids, had just moved out of state, her surrogacy business had failed, and the man she considered the love of her life had broken up with her, mentioning he did not want to be a dad for her kids.

She reportedly got drunk fairly often and smoked pot. Something that I find interesting, however, and circles back to the question of limerence, is that I read that although people with antisocial personality disorder, who can be quite "social" despite the name of the disorder, to your point about the quasi-universality of the need for human connection, disproportionately engage in substance abuse, they don't seem to be addicted the same way as other people and don't experience the same withdrawal symptoms. I don't know how valid the studies on the subject are, and I don't know if this depends on the severity of the disorder, i.e. where you rank in the spectrum, or if it's just an average. However, it has made me wonder if people with APSD would indeed experience limerence or experience it the same way as other limerents, insofar as limerence can be equated to a certain form of addiction. Or should a distinction be made between being limerent and being addicted to being limerent, the latter of which I identify most with for example?

Regarding her detached behavior, to say the least, the police actually acknowledged that at first they did not want to read too much into it, as different people respond differently to shock and trauma, but even then, they felt like something was off and started to look for (and find) material evidence against her. Her attorney also tried to explain that her detached behavior came from her overly strict upbringing, which pushed her to hide her emotions, from being beaten up by her husband, which he admitted, and from being assaulted by her father, although Diane Downs reportedly recanted this last accusation after the trial. I'd like to think that in this case the detectives were able to consider the case with some nuance but still had to fight to put her behind bars as she represented a permanent danger for her kids and possibly for others, based in part on her psychological evaluations.
SierraM
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Re: Was Chris Watts limerent?

Post by SierraM »

L-F wrote: Sun Feb 05, 2023 2:32 pm I think the "showing no remorse" as Sierra pointed out is a protection thing so one doesn't go insane even though I'd question her sanity from the get go.
Yes I agree. It happens to people without PD from what I understand.

My understanding of PD is also that they exist on a spectrum: we all reach a certain score but only people with extreme behavior get the PD label. For instance I'm not sure my LO would actually be diagnosed as NPD but I'm fairly confident that he would score fairly high.
SierraM
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Re: Was Chris Watts limerent?

Post by SierraM »

Something I forgot to mention, and perhaps speaks to the fact that we should not be surprised that people with ASPD can feel limerence, because again it is not a form of "love", although love is pretty hard to define, is the transference phenomenon, which could be considered evidence that LOs are in fact 'objects' for the limerent subject.

One thing that was said about Diane Downs is that she considered children to be "fungible". She had an abortion so she conceived another child to "replace" the previous one, in her own words. She felt lonely after being separated from her kids (and killing one of them), so she got pregnant again, to feel less "lonely", in her own words again. Perhaps if she had waited long enough, she would have found a "better" LO than Knick, her lover. For me the parallel with limerence is indeed that I've always been almost dismayed by how easily an LO would be replaced as soon as another, "shinier" one, came along, i.e someone less available, more narcissitic, more prone to play the rescuer/rescuee game with me or what not. I don't know if other people have the same experience but transference for me literally happened overnight in at least two cases I can think of. I do think affectionately about my former LOs. In a way, more affectionately than in the active stages of limerence, perhaps because, strangely, they become subjects instead of objects once they do not serve any distractive purpose.

Anyway, I'm still trying to determine the significance of the bond with my LO so thank you for indulging the PD questions.
L-F
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Re: Was Chris Watts limerent?

Post by L-F »

SierraM wrote: Sun Feb 05, 2023 4:56 pm For me the parallel with limerence is indeed that I've always been almost dismayed by how easily an LO would be replaced as soon as another, "shinier" one, came along, i.e someone less available, more narcissitic, more prone to play the rescuer/rescuee game with me or what not. I don't know if other people have the same experience but transference for me literally happened overnight in at least two cases I can think of. I do think affectionately about my former LOs. In a way, more affectionately than in the active stages of limerence, perhaps because, strangely, they become subjects instead of objects once they do not serve any distractive purpose.
This doesn't surprise me. Many have shared how they became fixated on a better shinnier LO. I haven't been in this kind of situation, though believe it's relatively easy to do if one's mind is set on it. At one point on here, some were trying to do exactly this to 'get over their LO'. I was told how some would, via PM, agree to be each other's LO, or at least try to be to 'fix' their previous fixation and work on problem-solving their newly found mutual limerence.
And as usual, I was very much against this practice and very vocal about it.

So in short, our "one and only" is a complete lie we tell ourselves.
"And in the end, we were all just humans…Drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness." ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
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