The Double Bind - Part Ii

[shimmerz]

This is my second posting on double bind. I didn't add on to the last one because I feel like my thoughts.information I have gathered has taken off in a different direction. This is more about how double binds can lead to Schizophrenic behaviour (Bateson). This challenges the present idea that schizophrenia is based on a poor gene pool only.

Anyway, this is the Spartan Life Coach - a video. I wonder if any of you can relate to this at all. I am certain that my family falls under this type of dynamic and I am researching how continued double binds can affect ones mental health in a horrible way. My thought is that if one can identify the double bind, then mental health will improve big time (as long as we keep out of the double bind dynamic).

For me this is a long story which I won't repeat but this really resonates with me.

Thoughts?

Bateson's "double bind theory of schizophrenia" 1984 psychology of torture, narcisstic abuse

 

[pixel]

Fascinating :alien:

@shimmerz, you've shared a bit about yourself here, so as I watched the video, I was thinking of you.

Basically, because of the double bind, a child clings to messages it wants to hear, "i love you", but has to filter out the metadata of "i fkn love you:mad:". so as the child grows up, it has learned to ignore the contradictory information and believe only what it views as important/vital.

How are you with jokes?
Do you get confused with the metadata?

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Wow!!

I didn't watch the youtube vid but i read it on wikipedia (first site that came up) and the Explaination area sounds VERY familiuar.

Double bind - Wikipedia

** I can't find your other thread (the part 1) so I appologize if this doesn't belong here as I am not schizophrenic **

"Do X or I will punish you" and at the same time "Don't do X or I will punish you" where I stood very confused. I really wanted to please them and not get punished but I didn't know which to do. I didn't know this had a name. I just said it was the way they f*cked with me to punish me no matter what I did, I always ended up punished for "not doing what I was told" or "being bad" though they told me to do exact opposites. I would have gotten punished no matter what.

Also the "Do X or I will punish you" and "Do X but only if you want to" was something else they commonly did. I didn't actually want to, though wanted to please them and not get punished, what I was doing wouldn't have normally been by choice. I was doing it because I was forced to. But this here is what led to my now statements to my therapist "I wanted to", "i chose to" etc. and the insane confusion about this I now have.

I don't know if this fits. It's as a common tatic they did, I think, for them to keep me confused of what was forced and my choice, and what was bad and what was good. And keep me compliant.

 

[scout86]

From the Wikipedia article on Bateson's double bind work.

"The Double Bind Theory was first articulated in relationship to schizophrenia, but Bateson and his colleagues hypothesized that schizophrenic thinking was not necessarily an inborn mental disorder but a learned confusion in thinking. It is helpful to remember the context in which these ideas were developed. Bateson and his colleagues were working in the Veteran's Administration Hospital (1949–1962) with World War II veterans. As soldiers they'd been able to function well in combat, but the effects of life-threatening stress had affected them. At that time, 18 years before Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was officially recognized, the veterans had been saddled with the catch-all diagnosis of schizophrenia. Bateson didn't challenge the diagnosis but he did maintain that the seeming nonsense the patients said at times did make sense within context, and he gives numerous examples in section III of Steps to an Ecology of Mind, "Pathology in Relationship"."

I think it's important to realize that the definition of 'schizophrenia' he was working with isn't the "hearing voices/ line your hat with tin foil so they can't read your thoughts" variety.

And......... What he was talking about actually sounded completely 'normal' to me. You mean families don't function like that?

I have a great sense of humor. (My T says so!) But, I have frequently been accused of thinking things are funny when they aren't and vice versa. And the whole 'not getting what's going on' thing is something I've tried to describe to my T as having huge blank spots in my road map of reality. (One of the things I most appreciate him is I can ask him questions that probably seem incredibly stupid to most people and he just answers them.)

 

[shimmerz]

Yeah, I wondered if I should have put in a disclaimer about the schizophrenic part. I like the first few minutes of the video - because he doesn't actually talk about schizophrenia at all - but more about the double bind tactic that can occur with a narcissist in a family or it can be a systemic family thing (or work or government).

There are a few things that he mentions as being necessary for a double bind situation.
1. 2 or more people - 1 is the victim (scapegoat)
2. It is repeated over and over again (not a one time thing) - it is a pattern
3. primary injunction - telling you to do something or severe consequences (may be implied)
4. secondary injunction that directly conflicts with the first injunction
5. perpetrator must have a relationship (power dynamic) over the victim

This tactic he says, will literally drive a person crazy. slowly, systematically. The family is actually ill (if systemic in nature, which it usually becomes) whilst the scapegoat (victim) is actually just the target and becomes a container for the family illness due to the gaslighting.

The video takes about 22 minutes but is really worthwhile to watch. I know a fair bit about this stuff but learned quite a bit. Robert Dilts has a video on youtube as well that goes into even more detail. It is fascinating and helpful in getting a real vision on crazymaking double bind situations and recognizing that there is or was truly NO way out. No matter what you did.do.

Pixel, I am looking at this more given my current situation with my family as it is like an everready battery. It just keeps ticking and ticking and ticking. As I have attempted to withdraw, the people involved have been incredibly persistent in using so many tactics in drawing me back in again. It is hard. Still working on it.

 

[shimmerz]

"i love you", but has to filter out the metadata of "i fkn love you:mad:".

I am sad to say pixel, that I just got the 'fk you'. Nobody was around to confuse me with any type of concept of love. There is no confusion there. I knew everyone hated me. They were more than obvious about it. So yes, metadata is confused but in a different way than he speaks of in the video.

That is one of the things they say about children who come from families with two severely mentally ill parents. There is nobody to go to - no confusion. Straight up fact.

 

[scout86]

You might find it interesting, as I read the whole Wikipedia article, Bateson is credited as being one of the inspirations behind NLP. (I thought I recognized that name.)

One of the things about this....... how do you ever know what an accurate interpretation of an interaction is? You take your best guess and see it the outcome lines up with your expectations? And then, how to you interact with 'normal' people? You expect them to be like everyone you're familiar with, right?

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I do not know if the experience I am going to share applies or not but here goes......

I came home from a high school football game late. Both of my parent were grilling me and would not believe me. This went on for a very long time and they kept telling me I was lying to them.

So I made up a lie and have completely forgotten what I said and both of my parents very obviously relieved, told me why did I not say this in the first place?

I do not remember what happened after that but it ended the horrid interigation. I was very confused by this experience and it left a mark on me.

 

[scout86]

Yes, that's basically what he's talking about. For it to have a profound, lasting effect, it has to be a regular way of dealing with things, but that's definitely the idea.

 

[shimmerz]

how do you ever know what an accurate interpretation of an interaction is?

You don't if you are in a double bind. Because it is based on non-sense. Everything is based on non sense. And there is intolerable pain no matter what the choice the victim makes. And, of course, it is all the victims fault. But the victim is given nothing but conflicting and impossible tasks to perform. All of which clearly lead to punishment or humiliation or degradation or abuse.

An example:

"Do X or I will punish you" and at the same time "Don't do X or I will punish you" where I stood very confused. I really wanted to please them and not get punished but I didn't know which to do. I didn't know this had a name. I just said it was the way they f*cked with me to punish me no matter what I did, I always ended up punished for "not doing what I was told" or "being bad" though they told me to do exact opposites. I would have gotten punished no matter what.

And as part of this as well, if one dares to speak out about the impossibility of these tasks, the obvious conflict and no win situation? Punishment, abuse or whatever for that too.

There is talk that this type of programming leads to BPD type behaviour as well.

 

[shimmerz]

as being one of the inspirations behind NLP.

Yes, because the double bind is huge tactic for crazy making, which of course, drives people literally crazy. Slowly enough that they don't realize it until it all falls apart underneath them.
I think that NLP originally (the 'good' originators) was intended to help to corrected screwed up brain patterns, thoughts that we had been programmed into. It was a way of deprogramming. It makes a great amount of sense to me that this would have been addressed by the NLP'ers.

Thanks for that Scout. I didn't put it together, but I was pretty sure Bateson was a name I knew as well. They all kinda float together these days with me.

 

[scout86]

You don't if you are in a double bind.

I didn't ask the question real well. LOL What I meant was, if you grow up dealing with double binds, and your version of reality is such that that is really and truly 'normal', and then you move on to a place where people aren't messing with you but are behaving in a straightforward, well intended way, what do you do then? And I guess I more or less know. But the point I was trying to make is that it's hard to avoid messing things up in the 'real world' when your base of experiences is from a rather screwed up one. (Which lead to my T repeating "Well, exactly when WOULD you have had a chance to learn that?")

This led to some interesting places. As I read through a bunch of background info, I came across several names I knew from doing intel on my T. (ok, so I might have a few trust issues and paranoid tendencies. LOL) And at least one name he's mentioned as someone he worked with early in his career. I think I also see some of the 'good double bind' stuff as being familiar, although he's so good at it I usually don't notice it when he's actually doing it.

So, what's YOUR take on all this? What led you to decide that what you were getting wasn't 'love'?