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Abstract

to tell others why someone is setting you on edge, it often sounds so trivial. As the words are coming out of your mouth, you find yourself thinking, “Wow, I probably sound super paranoid.”</p><p id="2b40">So, instead of going with your gut, you tell yourself the innocent explanation must be the correct one. You keep going along with it.</p><p id="2666">All those pink flags only start looking red once you’ve seen enough of them — <b>once you’ve noticed a clear pattern emerging.</b></p><p id="a47d">Depending on how experienced you are at dealing with people’s shit and how overt the asshole you’re dealing with is, it could take hours, days, months, or years before you piece it all together.</p><p id="619a">Recently, I had someone reach out to me who gave me kind of weird vibes. I felt like he was laying the groundwork for something (what exactly, I don’t know, but something).</p><p id="dc34">First, he reached out with some effusive praise on one of my articles. But he did it as a private message, not as a regular response.</p><p id="6e44">That made me a bit ill at ease. But I had a hard time really understanding why. I mean, private messages are a thing, and he didn’t say anything off color in it.</p><p id="a878">The private messages kept coming. I ignored them (can’t clap on private messages and I had nothing to say), but had the same odd feeling that I couldn’t fully explain.</p><p id="0ced">Eventually, he gave me some effusive praise and I thanked him. He responded within an hour asking if we could talk off Medium. Ostensibly, it was so we didn’t have to deal with the character limit (though there would have been none if he had just sent me regular responses).</p><p id="75b2">I decided to check out some of his stuff. The first thing that stood out was a very misogynistic article. And then I came across not one but two love letters he wrote to an unnamed Medium writer, each of them with a strong stalker vibe. (I don’t know if they were about me or not, but either way, they were creepy.)</p><p id="b8fb">When I told him I didn’t want to move my relationships with my readers off Medium, he made up an excuse and backpedaled. He claimed he was a professional sex coach and only wanted to offer me some advice about my clitoris.</p><p id="d078">Then, before the day was over, he went back to a post I wrote weeks before called <a href="https://readmedium.com/no-one-owes-you-a-chance-bef1a3ac4072">No One Owes You a Chance</a>. He left a lengthy response that implied that women who don’t give him a chance (e.g. me, just earlier) are bitter, angry, heartless bitches.</p><p id="9b52"><b>Yeah, his intentions were <i>totally </i>professional…</b></p><p id="fe6b">At that point, I cut communication with him before he could try to take things further. I blocked him. He deleted his response. And I hope that’ll be the last of it.</p><p id="0089">Now, given everything I know now — especially those super stalkery posts — it’s clear to me that the private messaging was a red flag. It’s also clear that asking to communicate off Medium is a bit of a red flag here. It’s quite likely he was laying the groundwork for something.</p><p id="a8c5" type="7">But up until that point, each of those individual actions seemed kind of innocent. Pink flags at best.</p><p id="682a">And that’s another way women “ignore” red flags — because each of them on their own doesn’t look that bad.</p><h1 id="3135">“Not All Men” Men Need to Sit the Fuck Down</h1><p id="f59f">There’s one more reason women ignore red flags. <b>We’re constantly being told we should.</b></p><p id="ec92">One big part of the problem is all the men who cry out “Not All Men” whenever women discuss the shit they deal with.</p><p id="c488">We have a lot of reasons for sharing our stories — it’s cathartic, it’s healing, and it helps us bond and understand each other.</p><p id="640e" type="7">It’s also a way of issuing warnings.</p><p id="2010">It’s because we share our bad experiences that we know about fuckboys and how to spot them. Or what to do if our boyfriend turns out to be a narcissist. Or that “Nice Guys” often have a total disregard

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for our sexual consent.</p><p id="02c9"><b>That shit’s fucking critical.</b></p><p id="4234">I didn’t have those kinds of conversations when I was younger and I didn’t have access to them online. So, I ended up in some risky situations, or got too close to guys who deep down did not give a shit about me, because I was figuring it all out on my own.</p><p id="8542">But now when we finally share our stories so that we can show each other (and clue some guys in) the red flags and pink flags we need to be mindful of, we keep hearing from men who are annoyed that we’re painting them with a broad brush.</p><p id="3147">Sometimes they don’t say “not all men.” Sometimes, they say that we should give guys a chance even if we feel weird. Sometimes, they say it’s not fair that they get treated like potential rapists just because they were being really forward because damnit they mean well.</p><p id="9486"><b>But in the end, what they’re doing is telling us not to trust our instincts. </b>They’re telling us that we need to give men the benefit of the doubt. They’re telling us to set aside our gut feelings because following them might mean we’re judging a decent guy too harshly.</p><p id="a9f5" type="7">And that’s one of the reasons women ignore red flags — because we’re constantly told we should, even when protecting men’s egos puts us at more serious risk.</p><p id="440e">I’m sure it sucks being treated with suspicion, but there’s a reason we have to be suspicious even if it has nothing to do with you personally. Those guards she’s putting up — the ones that make it trickier for you to interact with her — <b>they might be the only thing keeping her from being abused or having the worst night of her life.</b></p><p id="0515">So if you ever feel like a woman is unfairly treating you like a potential threat, understand that she has to put her safety first. <b>She deserves your empathy, not your contempt.</b></p><p id="cbb2"><a href="https://emmaaustin.substack.com/p/welcome-to-my-newsletter"><b><i>Let’s keep in touch! Sign up for my weekly newsletter</i></b></a><b><i> (I won’t send you anything without your enthusiastic consent!)</i></b></p><p id="0320"><b>❤ If you liked this post, you might also love:</b></p><div id="c7dc" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/the-real-reason-shes-not-being-honest-with-you-76ebab3ff50c"> <div> <div> <h2>The Real Reason She’s Not Being Honest With You</h2> <div><h3>She wants to be straightforward — it’s just not safe</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*5gk1jvdsTLP_qzsFVPr3tg.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="17a8" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/men-hitting-on-women-online-need-to-up-their-game-8c077ca48fc"> <div> <div> <h2>Men Hitting on Women Online Need to Up Their Game</h2> <div><h3>It’s not hard — here’s how to do it</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*M_wLC7GCweb2S5mI8TLexw.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="0e7a" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/signs-your-new-boyfriend-might-be-a-narcissist-e55b2e6d7e2b"> <div> <div> <h2>Signs Your New Boyfriend Might Be a Narcissist</h2> <div><h3>After years of narcissistic abuse, I’m on the lookout for red flags</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*xekbc_KPuOOC_xD8maW9Kw.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

Five mind-shifting stories from an Auschwitz Inmate

A book review for “Man’s search for meaning”

Photo by Severinus Dewantara on Unsplash

Imagine for a brief moment what it would be like to live in a concentration camp. Your perspective of the world would change dramatically. Beyond the 3 stages that the inmates experienced, Victor Frankl, in his book “Man’s search for meaning” describes his 3-year experience as an inmate coming from the perspective of a psychoanalyst.

If you have trouble imagining yourself as an inmate, the book contains vivid descriptions of the mental and physical abuse that the inmates suffered.

It is extraordinary the numerous life lessons that this book provides. Especially from a man who was walking almost barefoot in the snow, working as a slave with one meal of soup (mainly boiled water), and experienced torture in a mental as well as on a physical level.

Entering the reality of Auschwitz, human decency and the value of life was as scarce as food and proper clothing. The inmate was being transformed into a number (which was visible either in his uniform or jacket. The sole purpose of the concentration camps was to take every ounce of any inmate’s energy and then be disposed of him or her.

Two stories in the book that shocked me

Right or left?

When Frankl arrived at the concentration camp along with a friend and hundreds of people from all over Europe, the es-es forces arranged them in a straight line. At the end of the line, there was an officer. To avoid mass panic during the trip to the station, the german-nazi troops let the future inmates hold their luggage with them. No one was able to guess the changes that they will face in the foreseeable future.

How could they possibly guess the horrors they were about to face?

Frankl describes it as the “optimistic phenomenon.” This phenomenon states that whatever the circumstances, people would always find a positive aspect that they are willing to hold on to.

Unfortunately, whatever hope these people had would vanish (for some along with their own body) shortly after. Once they set foot on the concentration camp, they had been ordered to let their bags behind and form a straight line. At the end of the long line an officer was standing.

When Frankl arrived at the tip of it behind his friend, he noticed that people were separated to the left or right, based on the officer’s examination. His friend was sent to the left side, and nodded Flankl to come closer. The es-es officer took a good look at him and put both of his hands on him. Frankl did his best to show that he is in good shape. With a mild hesitation, the officer directed him to the right side.

The same night he asked one of the other inmates who have arrived sooner, the possible whereabouts of his friend.

-Did they send him to the left lane? -Yes -Then you can see him right there. -Where? The inmate pointed to a chimney that was puffing smoke. “There is your friend, going up to the heavens.”

Waking from one nightmare to another

The dreams of an inmate consist of basic necessities, such as a warm bath, a slice of bread, and cigarettes.

One night the author, woke up due to weird sounds and groans that were coming from a fellow inmate. It seemed that he was having a nightmare. He felt an innate urge to put the inmate out of his misery and wake him up, but for a second he hesitated. It was in that moment he realized that whatever his compatriot was dreaming about, it couldn’t be as horrible as the reality they all faced and the world that he was about to bring him back to.

What’s the meaning of life?

As you might have guessed there isn’t a single answer to this question.

As Frankl states: “What’s the meaning of life?” is like asking a chess player, which is the best move.”

Even though I suck at chess, I know that there isn’t any right move. It’s impossible to give an answer to that question because every one of us possesses different skills, experienced a different childhood and aims at different goals.

It’s the uniqueness of each and every one of that manifest as the meaning of life.

Is love the salvation of human beings?

One day at the camp, while the sun was rising, Frankl, along with other inmates, were crossing the gates of the concentration camp in Auschwitz to reach a construction workplace. One of the inmates whispered, “Imagine our wives looking at us right now, I hope they ended up in better camps and don’t have a clue about what is happening to us.” At this moment, everyone was thinking about his wife. Victor Frankl showed his wife smiling back at him, with a reassuring look on her face.

“Real or not, she was now brighter than the sun.” “As the poets say, love is our ultimate goal. The salvation of the human being comes through love.”

Reading this book, I realized that if they take everything from us, all our possessions, our loved ones, and all the validation we crave daily. We are still capable of finding the meaning of life through love.

A story dedicated to the power of now

During his three years of experience in concentration camps, the author met a man, who every day he walked into another working station, believed that this would be his last day.

For the majority of the inmates, the word “FREEDOM” was a distant, non-approachable reality. So it would make more sense to live in the past, right? Who would want to experience hell if he could just go to the memories of the past?

According to “Man’s search for meaning” each time you crave the past, you “plunder” the future. Furthermore, to consider your current living situation as “unreal,” you end up losing control over your life and the challenges you face. On the other hand, facing a difficult situation gives you a chance to grow emotionally stronger.

A story about the importance of faith

‘The inmate who had lost his faith was doomed…”

At the beginning of March 1945, the inmate responsible for the sack told Frankl that a voice came into his sleep and said to him that he could answer any question the inmate wishes. The sack-taker wanted desperately to know the day that the war will come to an end.

“And what did the voice answer?” The inmate whispered with a tone of certainty, “On the 30th of March!”.

The days passed, but no news had passed through the sacks about the end of the war. On the contrary, the war was still ongoing. On the 29th of March, the sack-taker got sick; the next day, he fell into a delirium.

The day after, he died…

“According to the doctor, he had died of typhus.”

A last note

This book is a complete paradigm swift for everyone who thinks of having a bad day.