What have you learned from TrueCrime to better protect yourself?

Here's a bit different set of tips and one of the main reasons I'm into some forms of true crime. Try to avoid making people into criminals or contributing to their spiral (or your own), as well:

  1. If you have a child be moderate about your rules and discipline. Being too uptight about certain subjects can lead them to develop bizarre fixations. Start with love, be firm but always ending with the love for your child as an independent being who needs your guidance and your tenderness. Not all parents will win with this battle and I'm sure there are children who need a bit more than this, but most will do just fine to be bonded and secure in their attachment to you.
  2. Treat people with respect, especially in romantic relationships, and if necessary do what it takes to keep them on an even keel even if it isn't the most sincere. You never know how a lonely or angry soul may be softened by you not abandoning them entirely. Yes, there are people who won't be able to take no for an answer or walk away but you may fend off the seed of revenge being planted in someone's mind.
  3. Avoid the near-occasion of sin. Simply put, by avoiding certain situations, avoiding people who set off your alarm bells, you reduce your chances not only of being a victim of crime, but of yoking your destiny to those of people who have debased and degraded themselves to the point of rage, nihilism and violence.
  4. Don't be impulsive. Yes, some people are more wired to be this way than others, but the more you can be clear-eyed about your own intentions, motivations, or the possible outcomes of a choice, the more you can both avoid danger from other human beings but also from the swings of emotion that may pull you into a crime of "passion." How many of these stories involved normal people who committed a horrific act in a state of drug-addled or besotted impulsivity?
  5. The cornerstone of this is empathy. Cognitive empathy more than affective. If you understand that the normal, innocent and young person was killed no different than any other, you can begin to live your life in a manner that acknowledges that truly awful things can happen to you, leading you to be more circumspect about your own decisions, but also about your own motivations, the darker sides of your own nature. Again, I'm sure many pretty decent people became so degraded but always held onto the conceit, "I'm a good person but I'm having some trouble"---which eventually led them to hold a gun to someone's head and steal their money, or beat someone in a fit of rage. You aren't really special but by embracing this, you can become truly special.
/r/TrueCrime Thread