Pearls 2: Michael, Shoshanna, et al

[TrueRebel1]

7 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

Including the Pearl family:

I wonder at what point Shoshanna really started changing her beliefs about clothing standards. It seemed to me she was still dressing quite conservatively when she "married" but she wasn't as frumpy as some fundies, even then. So had she ditched the full Amish garb by that point? I lost track of her for a few years and I remember coming across her fb around the time she was pregnant with Lincoln. She had numerous photos of her wearing shoulder-less dresses, tank tops, etc. I was pretty surprised considering her background. Does anyone remember her talking about this topic over the years? 

[JermajestyDuggar]

Someone on Reddit found this post I was talking about. I knew Shoshanna had talked about the airport lesbians before: 

[JermajestyDuggar]

I swear if they talk him into staying longer next week, I’ll be fucking fuming. 

[MariaariaM]

13 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I swear if they talk him into staying longer next week, I’ll be fucking fuming. 

As long as they think there's still money and he isn't actively dying they'll keep sucking.

[JermajestyDuggar]

47 minutes ago, MariaariaM said:

As long as they think there's still money and he isn't actively dying they'll keep sucking.

I just hope Justin misses his kids and family too much to listen to the quacks. 

[Howl]

I just looked up insulin potentiation therapy (IPT). WIKI popped up and they aren't having it.  Yes, I know WIKI is community sourced, but I suspect that this is the take from actual cancer doctors.  There are several sources cited, including the British medical journal Lancet. 

"Insulin potentiation therapy (IPT) is an unproven alternative cancer treatment using insulin as an adjunct to low-dose chemotherapy. It was promoted by a paper in the controversial and non-peer reviewed journal Medical Hypotheses. It is not an evidence-based cancer treatment, and the costs of IPT are not covered by health insurance.

According to Quackwatch, "Insulin Potentiation Therapy (IPT) is one of several unproven, dangerous treatments that is promoted by a small group of practitioners without trustworthy evidence that it works."

The low-dose chemo could let the most aggressive cancer cells to escape and develop drug resistance, making the cancer then resistant to traditional cancer drugs. 

Anyway, continuing on with WIKI: "Efficacy: IPT has not been proven to work. Lab research indicates that there is not even a theoretical possibility of it being an effective treatment for most cancers. Research over the decades has proved that most cancers grow when exposed to more insulin.

IPT treatment is also offered in at least one clinic in Arizona.  Health insurance won't touch it because *checks notes* it's an unproven treatment. 

 

[JermajestyDuggar]

Honestly if the whole family was there and they were all spending time together while he’s getting these quack treatments, it wouldn’t be as big of a deal to me. But those kids haven’t seen their dad in months. And he’s dying. Hope4cancer should be shut down. 

[Giraffe]

So he's experiencing more complications related to a terminal illness* and yet instead of either going home with his wife or his wife going back with him, his teenage daughter is with him to be his support and decision maker if needed**? Wow. 
 

* I'm saying terminal because with the scam shit he's doing it absolutely will be, even if earlier on there had been a chance. 
 

** imo, a hack place like he's at won't bother calling his wife for answers when his daughter's right there (if he becomes too incapacitated to answer), regardless of her age. 

[hoipolloi]

2 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

Hope4cancer should be shut down.

They are a bunch of fucking criminals. Should be renamed "Hope4$."

ITA that they will keep Justin there as long they have a hope of extracting more money from the family. Disgusting.

Thank you, @Howl, for the explainer on that so-called therapy heʻs staying longer & paying more to receive. I hope he survives it and gets home to his family in a condition that allows all of them to have quality time together.

[Xan]

I don't know that much about these people and I'm still furious.  This is what comes from being anti-education, anti-intellectual, and anti-science.  When you don't even trust anyone in the medical establishment to handle something as difficult and complicated as cancer, you're in trouble.  Even now, they haven't figured out how much their ignorance has cost them in terms of time and money.  And they haven't considered how much of this could be a scam.

I've been in cancer treatment for over 4 1/2 years.  Sometimes the doctors have made me a little angry or I've disagreed with an attitude occasionally.  Still, they've given me so much time.  I can't even imagine doing something crazy like insulin potentiation therapy.

[GuineaPigCourtship]

One of my coworkers was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer 2 years ago.  It had metastasized to her pelvis and that's apparently what makes it stage 4 because it can't be removed and doesn't respond well to chemo drugs traditionally.  I AM NOT AN ONCOLOGIST so this is my very basic understanding.

They have kept her alive and well enough to be with her underage sons to the point where she has a hope of not worrying about them if she dies... a few more years.  But they repeated a scan a few months ago and said that the pelvic lesion had regressed so much in response to the chemo that they were going to downgrade her stage, perform the mastectomy, and that she has a hope of being cured.  15 years ago, my manager's godmother was diagnosed with the EXACT SAME type of breast cancer and died within 3 months.  The progress in medicine is incredible and fast.  Sometimes it's a matter of buying time until better options are avaible.  These monsters are wasting the time of people who go to them.  Time that could be spend with their loved ones and time on medications that may prolong their lives while they wait for cures to become available.  It's awful.

[JermajestyDuggar]

Shoshanna posted a very long winded rambling video on Instagram about how she raised Jeremiah so well. And how he’s never done porn. I laughed at how she phrased it. She meant he’s never looked at porn. But it sounded like she was saying he’s never starred in a porno. She then makes this bizarre comparison about red trucks and porn. And I was cracking up. Because my son loves red trucks. And she was comparing really great looking red trucks being dangerous just like porn. I get it. Porn is not good for young undeveloped minds. But damn she is bad at getting her point across! 

[TrueRebel1]

23 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

Shoshanna posted a very long winded rambling video on Instagram about how she raised Jeremiah so well. And how he’s never done porn. I laughed at how she phrased it. She meant he’s never looked at porn. But it sounded like she was saying he’s never starred in a porno. She then makes this bizarre comparison about red trucks and porn. And I was cracking up. Because my son loves red trucks. And she was comparing really great looking red trucks being dangerous just like porn. I get it. Porn is not good for young undeveloped minds. But damn she is bad at getting her point across! 

I just watched it. Was she saying that people (women) with botox and fake boobs and showing off their bodies are the dangerous red trucks? To me it sounded like she was saying she taught her son that a woman with fake boobs is always going to lead you to destruction. Icky shaming on her part if that's the case -- like there could never possibly be a moral, good woman who had work done? 

If she raised her son with good values and to respect women, good for her, but does she *really* know if her adult son watches porn or not? And should she be tooting her horn about raising him *so* well while he's still so young? That's what her parents did though, paraded their "perfectly parented" kids for the world to see, only to have (some of) them disgrace their parent's supposed success 10, 20 years later. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

10 minutes ago, TrueRebel1 said:

I just watched it. Was she saying that people (women) with botox and fake boobs and showing off their bodies are the dangerous red trucks? To me it sounded like she was saying she taught her son that a woman with fake boobs is always going to lead you to destruction. Icky shaming on her part if that's the case -- like there could never possibly be a moral, good woman who had work done? 

If she raised her son with good values and to respect women, good for her, but does she *really* know if her adult son watches porn or not? And should she be tooting her horn about raising him *so* well while he's still so young? That's what her parents did though, paraded their "perfectly parented" kids for the world to see, only to have (some of) them disgrace their parent's supposed success 10, 20 years later. 

So many fundie parents do this. And then their kids embarrass them. Zoo bragged about her kids constantly. Now not so much. Same with JB. And now he has a son in prison.

[hoipolloi]

What is it with fundies and porn? Seriously, the only people who ever seem to have addictions to porn are fundamentalist Christians. Kind of like the vast majority of people I see being arrested/charged/convicted of child sex abuse crimes are white Christian males. NO drag queens.

3 hours ago, TrueRebel1 said:

If she raised her son with good values and to respect women, good for her, but does she *really* know if her adult son watches porn or not?

Of course not, unless sheʻs made him install "Covenant Eyes" - and we all know how well that works.

Edited July 9 by hoipolloi

[JermajestyDuggar]

3 minutes ago, hoipolloi said:

What is it with fundies and porn? Seriously, the only people who ever seem to have addictions to porn are fundamentalist Christians. Kind of like the vast majority of people I see being arrested/charged/convicted of child sex abuse crimes are white Christian males. NO drag queens.

Of course not, unless sheʻs made him install "Covenant Eyes" - and we all know how well that works.

There’s a lot of discourse about is porn addiction even real. I am no expert. But what I do think is if porn addiction is real, it’s majorly overblown. And those who make the biggest stink about it are the religious groups. Mormons make such a big deal about it. Evangelicals make such a big deal out of it. Fundies make such a big deal out of it. If you look at stats, the state that watches the most porn is Utah. That says a lot to me. Because I think that if you teach sexual repression, sexual shame, and that masturbation is wrong, you are going to cause sexual issues amongst people. And those people won’t feel like they can be open about sex and masturbation so they have to hide it. Which causes so much shame. It makes sense to me that people who aren’t allowed to ever have sex outside of marriage are watching tons of porn. If they could explore sex with a consenting partner, I doubt they would watch as much porn. 

[hoipolloi]

7 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

If you look at stats, the state that watches the most porn is Utah.

Reminds me of a relative who worked for decades in hotel management They said that the single biggest demographic for renting X-rated movies at their hotels were people attending religious conventions. 

Edited July 9 by hoipolloi

[JermajestyDuggar]

2 minutes ago, hoipolloi said:

Reminds me of a relative who worked for decades in hotel management They said that the single biggest demographic for renting X-rated movies at their hotels were people attending religious conventions. 

Here is an article explaining what I mean in much clearer terms. I’m not a fan of psychology today, but at least this explains my beliefs better than I can 🥴

 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-stray/201808/science-stopped-believing-in-porn-addiction-you-should-too?amp

[Smee]

Chiming in again as your resident addiction academic* to say that pornography dependence (like alcoholism or heroin dependence) does not exist, but if your understanding of addiction includes gambling addiction, social media addiction or even cocaine addiction, then yes, pornography addiction is possible. Basically, anything that gives us pleasure causes a dopamine response in the brain, we seek more of that good feeling, and over time the rush gets less and less from the same activity so we have to up the ante to keep getting the good feeling, and when we don't do the thing we feel awful. But there's no bodily reliance, and withdrawal symptoms are basically just cravings and general low mood/exhaustion. 

The line between 'use' and 'addiction' is not clearly defined by any scientific model; it depends on ideas about compulsion and free will, as well as what's socially acceptable and 'normal' for the person labelling someone (whether themselves or someone else) an addict. The DSM-5 criteria for substance use disorder says things like "continuing to use even when it causes problems in relationships" and "not managing to do what you should at work, home or school". If one strict private high school expels you for smoking pot, that's an adverse consequence that may not happen to the pot-smoking public school student down the road. So naturally, social groups where all porn use is condemned are going to have higher rates of people self-labelling as pornography addicts. On the flipside, the stats show that more than one in four Australians exceed the alcohol consumption guidelines laid out by experts, but I would struggle to find even 3% of people around me who would say they're addicted to alcohol or have a drinking problem. 

Not to derail the thread, but one of the things I find fascinating is how Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous have become such a fixed part of the culture around addiction and its treatment, including sometimes court-ordered treatment. Their efficacy seems to mostly come from providing a new social group with similar goals (i.e. sober friends who will encourage you to stay sober) rather than the 12 steps themselves. There is very little evidence to support the idea that total abstinence always and forever is the only solution for an addict, or that moderation is impossible. AA turned alcoholism from a disease into an identity, they declare that it is 'uncurable' without any data to support that.

 

*disclaimer: I'm nearing the end of a PhD in English, not medicine, and my research into addiction covers how it is represented in popular culture, looking at the political, social and historical factors influencing that as well as the science. I have read a lot of scientific papers about addiction but I do not pretend to be someone actually working with addicts or looking at brain scans etc.

Edited July 10 by Smee

[hoipolloi]

Justinʻs treatment doesn't seem to be going well.

 

[Coconut Flan]

I wonder how much time he has left.  Yes, that's a morbid thought, but if he knew maybe it would entice him to go home and spend it with all the family.

[JermajestyDuggar]

31 minutes ago, Coconut Flan said:

I wonder how much time he has left.  Yes, that's a morbid thought, but if he knew maybe it would entice him to go home and spend it with all the family.

They definitely won’t give him a number. Because if they did, he would leave immediately. 

[hoipolloi]

They will lie to him until there is no more money to be extracted.

 

[Bluebirdbluebell]

Most people would live life differently if they knew how much time they have left. We don't know how time he has left either. Even if his doctors have a prediction, I've known many people who outlived predictions.

[Giraffe]

1 hour ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

They definitely won’t give him a number. Because if they did, he would leave immediately. 

At this point I don't think he would. He's already sacrificed what little time with his children he had left and keeps extending his time away from them. They've raised so much money that I'm incredulous they haven't brought the children. What's another few thousand when you've already grifted ~$50,000? (I'm not saying they'd be able to see him much but right now they're not seeing him at all)

Edited July 13 by Giraffe