Presence of evil

[beachcitygirl]

Aibu to ask if you've ever felt yourself in the presence of evil. Following on from
The intuitiion thread.

I once met a friend of my ex in a coffee shop. The man was nothing but civil & friendly. Soft spoken & was an ex police officer. My then husband was there also.
I went to the loo & spent ages as something about him made me feel afraid. I stress it was just a feeling. Zero untoward behaviour.
Many years later he was arrested & found guilty of violent rape.

Has anyone else ever sensed evil? (For want of a better word)

@Kanaloa

Sorry, I didn’t realise you had deleted it. Maybe it touched a nerve with me along with all the nonsense about feeling sudden strange feelings of oppressive sadness while visiting Scotland - I’m actually Scottish you see (as in born and grew up there) and it just feels a bit silly. I mean, Scotland isn’t any more bloodstained than England, but nobody seems to be stuck down with pain and suffering in Manchester do they?

um, like you just said, you didn't grow up there - there's some really bad history of human misery there!

@Ijsbear

Have you misread? I did grow up there, as I’ve written extremely clearly. Along with lots and lots of other people. The idea that our country’s history is so utterly tragic that someone who’s never been there has to pine and wish they could go back in time to broker peace for us is a joke. Along with the assertion that even driving through the country stabs pain through the heart. People live there quite happily.

And there’s history of human misery everywhere. History is little but human misery.

I'm also a teacher and have taught 2 people who went on to murder and one serial rapist. All of them were nice at school- I wouldn't have predicted it at all (the rapist started fairly soon after he left)
I have only had one student who frightened me in 24 years. Like PPs, it was a very physical reaction. I was petrified of turning my back on him.
Haven't heard that he has done anything though

I meant Manchester @Kanaloa. There really are some physically dark and dreary spots that have a horrible feel, and when you do a bit of research you discover there's been a lot of misery in the past. But that's not the same as 'evil' to my mind.

I don't think that 'evil' is automatically linked to the supernatural though. It's a description of the extreme end of human actions, from the delightful Greek tyrant who created a hollow bull to roast prisoners alive to the snipers who set children running through a field towards their parents and then shot them to the atrocities of Rwanda. None supernaturally kick-started imo, all part of the extremes of unrestrained human impulses.

I was talking about the fact that people seem to have had a lot of these experiences in Scotland and are going on about it’s tragic history, but if tragic history left imprints of evil on a place we’d never be able to go anywhere.

I work in a secure psychiatric hospital and the particular ward I’m on is predominately personality disorders- so borderline personality disorder, sociopaths, ect. I notice the energy changes around them. Sort of an electric like feeling. Like fizzing. It’s strange. Just feels dark and unsettling. Not all of them but the ones who haven’t given me
That have normally turned out to have a
Different mental illness once assessed. It’s got to the point that I can tell when they walk in the room if they are very unwell without them opening their mouths even.

@Strawberry33

I work in a secure psychiatric hospital and the particular ward I’m on is predominately personality disorders- so borderline personality disorder, sociopaths, ect. I notice the energy changes around them. Sort of an electric like feeling. Like fizzing. It’s strange. Just feels dark and unsettling. Not all of them but the ones who haven’t given me That have normally turned out to have a Different mental illness once assessed. It’s got to the point that I can tell when they walk in the room if they are very unwell without them opening their mouths even.

I mean they’re hospitalised. They’re in a psychiatric ward, hospitalised in a secure area. Obviously you already know they’re unwell.

It would be more useful if you could sense this ‘dark energy’ before the person becomes unwell enough to be hospitalised, rather then when they’re already in a secure ward (therefore you don’t need to sense it because you already know).

@Ijsbear

I think you must have missed the original post that both @Kanaloa and I were responding to.

@groovergirl was claiming that despite not being Scottish if they could go back in time they could sort out the Scottish clans and prevent them killing each other because they are special or magic or some similar bullshit.

When I called them out they went bleating to Mumsnet and got their post and my reply deleted.

If you want to tilt at windmills start with @groovergirl and their amazing skills - maybe you can get them to solve world poverty next...

Speaking of… www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/20/story-inspired-by-near-miss-with-fred-west-wins-the-portico-prize

ChargingBuck sort of coming from our genetic makeup from our ancestors and their faiths, you mean?

RobbieWeirdicht Who knows but that it might be centuries into the future man has learned to time travel and is already creating havoc?

Strawberry33 I did too, but a long time ago. I was walking with a restless man up and down the corridor for a while and had the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I looked at him (I was beside him) just in time to see his shoe in his hand about to come down on top of me, yet I was completely unaware that he had taken off his shoe while we were walking.

It's totally normal to get bad vibes or feelings from people. The oldest pathway in our brains, sometimes known as the Lizard Brain is primed to read the signals we unconsciously give out. It's a throwback from the times when we lived among predators.

So, a person can be extremely charming or whatever but your subconscious is seeing that their smile doesn't reach their eyes (for example) so you feel wary of them in the way you can't put your finger on.

I've seen psychopathy used as an example on this thread, and my word yes they can do horrific things (not all will, but none of them will give a shit about you either). So, when people here have said they feel awful but they've felt it about children (no, not babies eyes) then it's absolutely not impossible. Psychopaths are born, not made. Nurture can play a huge part in HOW that psychopathy plays out in life but they have physically different brains.

A control group of non psychopaths and a group of psychopaths were put in an fMRI scan which is basically an MRI but functional (hence the f) which means you see a brain responding to stimuli in real time. They were all showed distressing images. The psychopathic brain showed less grey matter in the frontal lobe (your personality) the limbic system (emotional regulation) they have a much smaller amygdala (the fear centre of the brain) and a much larger nucleus accumbens (the reward centre of the brain) the control group showed totally expected reactions.

So, psychopathy (sorry, ASPD as it is now known) is not a mental illness. It's defecits in the brain itself. However, there are two types of psychopath. Primary (no empathy, no fear, superficial charm etc...) and secondary who are thought to be those who have brain tendencies towards it but nurture plays a bigger role. Secondary do feel fear, remorse yadda....

So, yes, you absolutely can pick up on the dead behind the eyes thing without even realising you have. And yes, dead behind the eyes is a real thing and noted beyond the Hare Test which is the gold standard test for psychopathy. Other things are taken into account like childhood behaviour and a dead eyed stare.

None of it is woo, it's how we are supposed to be.

I gre up in a small town where everyone knew each other so I know quite a few people who have committed serious crimes. There is definitely a progression - eg slightly creepy guy commits crime at a young age and is shunned, so hangs around with the criminal element and gets progressively creepier. Some gave off no bad vibes, some clearly just took a wrong path and some were violent and aggressive all the time and were almost proud of their bad reputation

Strawberry33

I work in a secure psychiatric hospital and the particular ward I’m on is predominately personality disorders- so borderline personality disorder, sociopaths, ect. I notice the energy changes around them. Sort of an electric like feeling. Like fizzing. It’s strange. Just feels dark and unsettling. Not all of them but the ones who haven’t given me
That have normally turned out to have a
Different mental illness once assessed. It’s got to the point that I can tell when they walk in the room if they are very unwell without them opening their mouths even.

Can we just be very careful here about what you are saying. I want to be very clear that a diagnosis of any mental illness does NOT equate to evil, danger or the ability to carry out awful acts. You work on a secure psychiatric unit. Only those who pose some kind of threat to other are therefore on that ward yes? Or possibly threat to themselves?

A diagnosis of a personality disorder is NOT akin to evil or dangerousness. There are hundreds of people out there with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. Most are just human beings who suffered tremendously as children who therefore developed survival and coping strategies that had a detrimental impact on how their ‘personality’ developed for example.

@Millionairesshortbreadshort

Strawberry33

I work in a secure psychiatric hospital and the particular ward I’m on is predominately personality disorders- so borderline personality disorder, sociopaths, ect. I notice the energy changes around them. Sort of an electric like feeling. Like fizzing. It’s strange. Just feels dark and unsettling. Not all of them but the ones who haven’t given me
That have normally turned out to have a
Different mental illness once assessed. It’s got to the point that I can tell when they walk in the room if they are very unwell without them opening their mouths even.

Can we just be very careful here about what you are saying. I want to be very clear that a diagnosis of any mental illness does NOT equate to evil, danger or the ability to carry out awful acts. You work on a secure psychiatric unit. Only those who pose some kind of threat to other are therefore on that ward yes? Or possibly threat to themselves?

A diagnosis of a personality disorder is NOT akin to evil or dangerousness. There are hundreds of people out there with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. Most are just human beings who suffered tremendously as children who therefore developed survival and coping strategies that had a detrimental impact on how their ‘personality’ developed for example.

Glad it's not just me that feels uncomfortable at the connecting seemingly being made with those with psychiatric disorders and evil- goodness knows there are enough stereotypes and harmful assumptions anyway.

Yup, people with PDs are far more dangerous to themselves than anybody else.

@Strawberry33 didn’t actually say anything about evil or danger at all.

TatianaBis

@Strawberry33 didn’t actually say anything about evil or danger at all.

No but it was posted on a thread about ‘evil and there are lots of posts about murder and tape and other atrocities so I felt it was really important to make sure that we are clear there is NO link between mental health diagnoses and doing harm. I’m sure no explicit link was being made but in the context there was a risk of an implicit link being (accidentally) made by a professional working in the field. If would absolutely invite @strawberry* to clarify as I’m sure that isn’t what they meant.

*rape - not tape. Sorry.

@llizzie

ChargingBuck sort of coming from our genetic makeup from our ancestors and their faiths, you mean?

No, because faith does not transmit through genetic coding, @llizzie

@Millionairesshortbreadshort you read into that post stuff that wasn’t there. The thread has covered a random array of topics.

I don’t get the impression that MN posters generally need confirmation that something that is not in a post is indeed not in a post.

This

www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-60067264

TatianaBis

As a mental health professional I actually feel I have a responsibility to clarify that a mental health diagnosis is not linked to ‘evil’. There is a long history of stigma around our mental health that absolutely needs challenging. Whilst the post didn’t make the link explicitly, as I said before, it could be implied implicitly in this context, so needed clarifying IMO. I stand by my post but thank you for your feedback.

When I was 21 I went to Sydney with friends. We hired a car and drove up the coast to Byron bay with no plan once we got there. We realised we couldn’t all sleep in the car so myself and the other female (we were with x3 other boys) went looking for somewhere to stay. We found a motel with space and the whole place just felt off. I was honestly terrified. The people running it seemed strange and they were very adamant that there was no space for the 3 boys we were with. The motel room had a really eerie vibe. I lay in the bed and honestly couldn’t will my eyes to shut as I was sure something bad was going to happen. Me and my friend held hands all night. There was a strange bang in the middle of the night too. I could not will morning to come quick enough. I wonder if anything bad had happened there. I suppose it’s just a personal anecdote but it still strikes me as strange that in Byron bay (a wonderful fun hippie community) in the bright of summer I felt such a darkness from a place.