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Attention Seeking Faker
- Post starter shimmerz
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scout86
VIP Member
Forgetting that doesn't seem possible, but it also doesn't seem like a good idea.
After the "the tiger is gone" blow up, we talked about the idea. My T said that he very much gets that the tiger, in reality, is never "gone", He says it's also not always hungry and in search of a meal. And that it's extremely useful to be able to accurately assess the difference.
You may never be truly helpless again, but people still play games. Some of them are still life and death, "Forgetting" is a bad idea, even if it's possible.
And......Did you ever watch MASH? "It's nice to be nice to the nice!" :p
- Post starter
- #27
One day I will figure out who the 'nice' really are. Maybe.
scout86
VIP Member
:roflmao::roflmao::roflmao::roflmao:!
The way I see it "they" are whoever I think they are! :shifty:
The way I see it "they" are whoever I think they are! :shifty:
Eleanor
Diamond Member
Lecture alertI
I do philosophy for a living, and philosophers go round and round on this stuff - and I often (now) wonder how much of it is for just these reasons. I find I have the very DEVIL of a time getting my students (some of them) to buy that Truth is something that is useful and better than lies. This is surprising to me, personally, for I have always been a BEAR about wanting to know what is true and NOT wanting to believe things (even in error) that are false. Of course, this makes me crazy. And is probably why I do philosophy. Because philosophers, as a tribe, are bedrock committed to Truth. Beauty and Goodness they are sometimes a bit shaky about, but Truth. We are all on the same page there.
Truth is a tricky deal tho. The upshot (and I'm hoping this turns out to be useful here) is that truth comes in three flavors; correspondence, coherence and pragmatic. Correspondence is when your ideas actually match up with your experience. So I believe that it is raining out, then I walk outside, don't get wet and see no clouds in the sky. Huh. Guess I was wrong. My experience doesn't match up with my belief. I believe that yeast has nothing to do with bread rising, so I leave the yeast out. The bread doesn't rise. Huh. Didn't see that coming. Guess I was wrong. When the evidence contradicts the belief, the belief has to go (or be modified... which causes a lot of trouble but more on that later)
Huh. Guess your belief is wrong. The technical name for this take on knowledge - that what is true has to match up with our (and I do mean "our" here) experience is empiricism. If your theory says one thing, and the evidence says another, it is always the theory that is wrong.
This is a good place to start with all that sorting out of truth from lies.
For what it is worth philosophers - those most skeptical of people - pretty much all agree (after decades of discussion) agree that if you feel like you are in pain, no two ways about it, you ARE in pain. Feeling pain just IS what pain is. Even derealized pain!
The second flavor truth comes in is coherence. The idea here is that our ideas have to "cohere" or hold together logically. It is important to recognize that some people (for reasons that remain mysterious) just don't give a hoot about coherence, and happily go on their merry way contradicting themselves left and right without a second thought. I have a hard time fathoming such people, but I've run into them enough that I am sure they exist. "It is always bad to steal" such a person might say, and then go off and steal something and then when questioned say "but of course it is ok to steal." ??????? I avoid such people.
So we use coherence when we have a pretty good theory and some belief we have contradicts it. So we throw out the belief. A theory is a set of beliefs or story about how something works or operates, usually a theory tells us about stuff we can't see. If you've ever dismissed a claim because "that can't be right" you are making a judgment based on coherence. I once had a bank make me show my driver's lisence and put my fingerprint on the register to deposit a check. I asked why? The teller said, "for your protection." I said, "Ok, I'd like to change my account so that anyone who wants to put money in it can. If some random person just walks in off the street and wants to put money into my account, I want to be on record as giving them permission to do that." She said, "but no one is going to do that!" "So what is this all about?" The belief that some random person might try to put money in my account didn't cohere with all her other beliefs - so it must be false. We do this kind of thing all the time. Theories are very useful shortcuts. Coherence counts. We want our ideas/theories to hold together.
When coherence is not secondary to evidence it causes ALL KINDS of problems. (For example, it derailed western science for several hundred years...) So when a belief contradicts the theory, BUT matches up with the evidence... Evidence always wins and theory must yield. But coherence is mostly what we operate on from day to day. Learning to be careful to check our theories against the evidence is a tremendous cultural and personal achievement.
Precisely. If we start out with a BAD theory, one that puts important falsehoods (My mother would never hurt me. I am not lovable. I am a faker) at the center of our belief system, we will get all kinds of things wrong for a good long time. Start this kind of thing early enough we get in the habit of ignoring or dismissing the evidence or WORSE get confused about what evidence is. All kinds of bad things happen. Over and over and over again. "My parents were good parents." is a false theory that is terribly hard to unravel when their faults were mainly emotional neglect.
Nope. It never does stop. Ever that I can tell. And it is not a good thing if it does. In fact, it is pretty much always a very bad thing when it does. It shouldn't. And that's ok. Philosophers call this fallibilism. The idea is that we hold our beliefs, but we hold them loosely. We are always, in principle, ready to re-examine and test our beliefs. Making the transition from absolute certainty to fallibilism is kind of like 'finding your sea legs," terrible at first, may involve a lot of throwing up, but then you get the hang of it and it feels perfectly natural and secure.
That's the vomiting part.
And the third flavor, pragmatic truth, is a bit trickier and higher level. Sometimes, we have these random beliefs that don't really fit with our theories, but they work for us. Or we don't have enough evidence to believe them (and can't get it) but it makes a difference if we believe it or not. So then.. we should believe what works best for us. AND in extreme circumstances it is totally fair to believe false things if they get us through the day and on to the next. If the belief (even if false or incoherent) helps us survive, that's good enough for pragmatists.
We shouldn't blame ourselves for beliefs that enabled our survival, but which turn out to be false.
I do philosophy for a living, and philosophers go round and round on this stuff - and I often (now) wonder how much of it is for just these reasons. I find I have the very DEVIL of a time getting my students (some of them) to buy that Truth is something that is useful and better than lies. This is surprising to me, personally, for I have always been a BEAR about wanting to know what is true and NOT wanting to believe things (even in error) that are false. Of course, this makes me crazy. And is probably why I do philosophy. Because philosophers, as a tribe, are bedrock committed to Truth. Beauty and Goodness they are sometimes a bit shaky about, but Truth. We are all on the same page there.
Truth is a tricky deal tho. The upshot (and I'm hoping this turns out to be useful here) is that truth comes in three flavors; correspondence, coherence and pragmatic. Correspondence is when your ideas actually match up with your experience. So I believe that it is raining out, then I walk outside, don't get wet and see no clouds in the sky. Huh. Guess I was wrong. My experience doesn't match up with my belief. I believe that yeast has nothing to do with bread rising, so I leave the yeast out. The bread doesn't rise. Huh. Didn't see that coming. Guess I was wrong. When the evidence contradicts the belief, the belief has to go (or be modified... which causes a lot of trouble but more on that later)
Huh. Guess your belief is wrong. The technical name for this take on knowledge - that what is true has to match up with our (and I do mean "our" here) experience is empiricism. If your theory says one thing, and the evidence says another, it is always the theory that is wrong.
This is a good place to start with all that sorting out of truth from lies.
For what it is worth philosophers - those most skeptical of people - pretty much all agree (after decades of discussion) agree that if you feel like you are in pain, no two ways about it, you ARE in pain. Feeling pain just IS what pain is. Even derealized pain!
The second flavor truth comes in is coherence. The idea here is that our ideas have to "cohere" or hold together logically. It is important to recognize that some people (for reasons that remain mysterious) just don't give a hoot about coherence, and happily go on their merry way contradicting themselves left and right without a second thought. I have a hard time fathoming such people, but I've run into them enough that I am sure they exist. "It is always bad to steal" such a person might say, and then go off and steal something and then when questioned say "but of course it is ok to steal." ??????? I avoid such people.
So we use coherence when we have a pretty good theory and some belief we have contradicts it. So we throw out the belief. A theory is a set of beliefs or story about how something works or operates, usually a theory tells us about stuff we can't see. If you've ever dismissed a claim because "that can't be right" you are making a judgment based on coherence. I once had a bank make me show my driver's lisence and put my fingerprint on the register to deposit a check. I asked why? The teller said, "for your protection." I said, "Ok, I'd like to change my account so that anyone who wants to put money in it can. If some random person just walks in off the street and wants to put money into my account, I want to be on record as giving them permission to do that." She said, "but no one is going to do that!" "So what is this all about?" The belief that some random person might try to put money in my account didn't cohere with all her other beliefs - so it must be false. We do this kind of thing all the time. Theories are very useful shortcuts. Coherence counts. We want our ideas/theories to hold together.
When coherence is not secondary to evidence it causes ALL KINDS of problems. (For example, it derailed western science for several hundred years...) So when a belief contradicts the theory, BUT matches up with the evidence... Evidence always wins and theory must yield. But coherence is mostly what we operate on from day to day. Learning to be careful to check our theories against the evidence is a tremendous cultural and personal achievement.
Precisely. If we start out with a BAD theory, one that puts important falsehoods (My mother would never hurt me. I am not lovable. I am a faker) at the center of our belief system, we will get all kinds of things wrong for a good long time. Start this kind of thing early enough we get in the habit of ignoring or dismissing the evidence or WORSE get confused about what evidence is. All kinds of bad things happen. Over and over and over again. "My parents were good parents." is a false theory that is terribly hard to unravel when their faults were mainly emotional neglect.
Nope. It never does stop. Ever that I can tell. And it is not a good thing if it does. In fact, it is pretty much always a very bad thing when it does. It shouldn't. And that's ok. Philosophers call this fallibilism. The idea is that we hold our beliefs, but we hold them loosely. We are always, in principle, ready to re-examine and test our beliefs. Making the transition from absolute certainty to fallibilism is kind of like 'finding your sea legs," terrible at first, may involve a lot of throwing up, but then you get the hang of it and it feels perfectly natural and secure.
That's the vomiting part.
And the third flavor, pragmatic truth, is a bit trickier and higher level. Sometimes, we have these random beliefs that don't really fit with our theories, but they work for us. Or we don't have enough evidence to believe them (and can't get it) but it makes a difference if we believe it or not. So then.. we should believe what works best for us. AND in extreme circumstances it is totally fair to believe false things if they get us through the day and on to the next. If the belief (even if false or incoherent) helps us survive, that's good enough for pragmatists.
We shouldn't blame ourselves for beliefs that enabled our survival, but which turn out to be false.
Eleanor
Diamond Member
"Nice" is as nice does?
Until they are not. And then... all bets are off.
"Trust everyone, but always cut the cards." - Brett Maverick (that's where I heard it, anyhow, on the tv show!)
Until they are not. And then... all bets are off.
"Trust everyone, but always cut the cards." - Brett Maverick (that's where I heard it, anyhow, on the tv show!)
This sister's actions sound too familiar, and I feel a healthy anger that I need to allow for my own mental health. I grieve that siblings from an abusive family do not all make it out unscathed. Unfortunately, for them, the price of admission to a health-ier sibling's life is they need to sort themselves out, too, or they don't have access. Tough love? Yes, gotta be tough to love myself after that family. I am 100% done with them and they are with me, whether they know it or not. We have 0% in common other than DNA because I don't feel entitled to be an a-hole to family members as a right of coming from a long line of Royal a-holes.
For what it's worth, and feel free to disagree, my Definition of "Healthy people" is they: won't ever ASSUME they can read someone else's motives. They won't accuse or assume (faking) anything. They don't call people a liar. If they think that, they keep their distance. Rather, they will ask questions, listen, critically think for themselves, only empathize sometimes if it's appropriate, and keep their diagnosis/opinions of most others to themselves, where it belongs, unless they are ASKED or CONSULTED. They share notes with trusted others and keep it confidential. They don't emotionally hold others hostage or vent in ways that harm.
They often HAVE to be ASKED what they think, because 90+% of the time they won't say what they think; they own their thoughts and don't need to lampoon others all the time with their thoughts because they no longer self-doubt. No self-doubt. They know what they think and self-validate well enough. No need to vent and get a reaction. That has happened internally. No need to ensnare others in their web of emoting.
Even if they see something should be discussed, they will save it if it is not the right time, if it might be hurtful, or if it's not likely to help the person or relationship. They see no need to use others for a reaction to then justify their lack of change with their own issues and lay blame others.
This is my new definition of what everyone has as a right to expect from other people. Nothing less will be acceptable on a regular basis from anyone. A rare flare up will be tolerated if the person once told they are out of line, act like they are aware and will work on it. Anyone who does not fit this standard is not worth my time. I will minimize or eliminate my contact with them. Dramatic/narcissistic people are on my radar as not good for me.
Being someone's sister doesn't give one the right to be a psycho, no matter what she may have gone through. As an adult, we have a choice to either act just like our relatively F*cked up family, or we can act like all the friends, teachers, and other people we met over a lifetime who modeled something BETTER. The choice is that obvious.
I don't accept F*cked up actions or family members anymore because I decided that I never belonged in that gang and will not flourish in that environment. This is not because I have PTSD. This is because I am/choose to be a decent human being.
No matter that I have dissociative or C-PTSD. I am still a helpful and recovering friend to myself and worthy others.
I see you, Shimmerz, as a worthy other, too. Maybe my definition is a high standard, but it needs to be to correct a lifetime of accepting inappropriate treatment. I leave you to define your own limits with my blessing and respect.
Just noticing the behavior and labeling it is a huge step that, frankly, I have to work with all the time, over and over. It's hard work. I respect your efforts.
For what it's worth, and feel free to disagree, my Definition of "Healthy people" is they: won't ever ASSUME they can read someone else's motives. They won't accuse or assume (faking) anything. They don't call people a liar. If they think that, they keep their distance. Rather, they will ask questions, listen, critically think for themselves, only empathize sometimes if it's appropriate, and keep their diagnosis/opinions of most others to themselves, where it belongs, unless they are ASKED or CONSULTED. They share notes with trusted others and keep it confidential. They don't emotionally hold others hostage or vent in ways that harm.
They often HAVE to be ASKED what they think, because 90+% of the time they won't say what they think; they own their thoughts and don't need to lampoon others all the time with their thoughts because they no longer self-doubt. No self-doubt. They know what they think and self-validate well enough. No need to vent and get a reaction. That has happened internally. No need to ensnare others in their web of emoting.
Even if they see something should be discussed, they will save it if it is not the right time, if it might be hurtful, or if it's not likely to help the person or relationship. They see no need to use others for a reaction to then justify their lack of change with their own issues and lay blame others.
This is my new definition of what everyone has as a right to expect from other people. Nothing less will be acceptable on a regular basis from anyone. A rare flare up will be tolerated if the person once told they are out of line, act like they are aware and will work on it. Anyone who does not fit this standard is not worth my time. I will minimize or eliminate my contact with them. Dramatic/narcissistic people are on my radar as not good for me.
Being someone's sister doesn't give one the right to be a psycho, no matter what she may have gone through. As an adult, we have a choice to either act just like our relatively F*cked up family, or we can act like all the friends, teachers, and other people we met over a lifetime who modeled something BETTER. The choice is that obvious.
I don't accept F*cked up actions or family members anymore because I decided that I never belonged in that gang and will not flourish in that environment. This is not because I have PTSD. This is because I am/choose to be a decent human being.
No matter that I have dissociative or C-PTSD. I am still a helpful and recovering friend to myself and worthy others.
I see you, Shimmerz, as a worthy other, too. Maybe my definition is a high standard, but it needs to be to correct a lifetime of accepting inappropriate treatment. I leave you to define your own limits with my blessing and respect.
Just noticing the behavior and labeling it is a huge step that, frankly, I have to work with all the time, over and over. It's hard work. I respect your efforts.
Eleanor
Diamond Member
WOW. @Muse, I'm trying to figure out how to get this on a poster, or T shirt or SOMETHING.
A manifesto of Mental Health.
An awesome behavioral standard!!!!!!!
Martin Luther, move over.
What cathedral door could this be nailed to?
A manifesto of Mental Health.
An awesome behavioral standard!!!!!!!
Martin Luther, move over.
What cathedral door could this be nailed to?
Just because it bears repeating. Over and over again.
But, I don't always live up to my own standard. I don't always hit my bullseye. Mistakes, fail my own standards. Check, check.
But I'm learning that isn't the point. The point is to try every day, really hard, and get better, expect better.
I've got three wonderful people in my life :hug::hug::hug: and a sweet dog who I love way more than I could ever love myself. They don't deserve the crap family I come from, nor the previous me who grew up that way: abuse-tolerant, "just-kick-me-while-I'm-down," self-critical, hurt, confused, dissociated, perma-triggered version who let the :poop: hit the fan a lot.
It's my choice to do better, be better, and only accept better. Bad days happen. But we press on for the reasons stated above, and really, what's the alternative?
I'm pretty keen to support every one of you who grew up with this disorder, or the family motto: "PTSD: Don't Leave Home Without It!"
@shimmerz, I don't know your story or how you see this, but I support you in your healing, however you opt to do it, by the way. There's different levels of separating oneself from trigger people, so I don't expect everyone to follow my example. Just sharing my story and how I'm working on recovery. Some families have more recovery in them and are more worthy of contact. I don't like how your sister seems to be assuming negative things about you in her statements toward you. Even if she doesn't mean it, she should not do that.
Thank you for sharing your pain so eloquently. I feel it with my sister, too, and boy does it hurt! Seems like they ought to know better, but I guess not. Sad.
But I'm learning that isn't the point. The point is to try every day, really hard, and get better, expect better.
I've got three wonderful people in my life :hug::hug::hug: and a sweet dog who I love way more than I could ever love myself. They don't deserve the crap family I come from, nor the previous me who grew up that way: abuse-tolerant, "just-kick-me-while-I'm-down," self-critical, hurt, confused, dissociated, perma-triggered version who let the :poop: hit the fan a lot.
It's my choice to do better, be better, and only accept better. Bad days happen. But we press on for the reasons stated above, and really, what's the alternative?
I'm pretty keen to support every one of you who grew up with this disorder, or the family motto: "PTSD: Don't Leave Home Without It!"
@shimmerz, I don't know your story or how you see this, but I support you in your healing, however you opt to do it, by the way. There's different levels of separating oneself from trigger people, so I don't expect everyone to follow my example. Just sharing my story and how I'm working on recovery. Some families have more recovery in them and are more worthy of contact. I don't like how your sister seems to be assuming negative things about you in her statements toward you. Even if she doesn't mean it, she should not do that.
Thank you for sharing your pain so eloquently. I feel it with my sister, too, and boy does it hurt! Seems like they ought to know better, but I guess not. Sad.
In my family you are 'alive' or 'dead' (that's the only time it would be sufficiently serious to say anything, aka 'complain'. And then you're gone lol).
Maybe it has to do with the other person's fear, or feeling it's going to impact on them, or something will be expected of them?
Maybe it has to do with the other person's fear, or feeling it's going to impact on them, or something will be expected of them?
Over the rainbow
Bronze Member
I'm sorry that your belittled, I know what it's like to feel alone in this. When I told the woman who adopted me I had PTSD, she chuckled at me and said in a very insulting manner- " what? Like the soldiers have!"
That was a knife through the heart, a downplay on the hell I endured.
Iv had to distance myself from my adopted family because of the downplaying of my emotional scars.
It just added to what I was already going through.
Stick to those who hold no bias, just a sympathetic ear in your time of need.
"Out of the ashes we will not be victims, but the victorious.!"
That was a knife through the heart, a downplay on the hell I endured.
Iv had to distance myself from my adopted family because of the downplaying of my emotional scars.
It just added to what I was already going through.
Stick to those who hold no bias, just a sympathetic ear in your time of need.
"Out of the ashes we will not be victims, but the victorious.!"
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