Brain Washing

[UnKnown-Self]

I am with a new T and so far so good. We are still in that getting to know you stage.
She had mentioned I really need t work on my self esteem ... And that usually gets a "no shit Shelock" and if I knew who I was, I'd be happy to do that. But I held my sarcasm at bay and tried to explain the inner debates and how when one part says really negative things to another part. Like when a binge eating episode happens, or I call myself stupid ass , well that list is endless...anyway I tried to explain I don't think it helps if I talk or even feel negative to the part saying the mean things. I mean they are a part of me too and I have had it happen where I scolded one part for the mean things he was saying to another part. The part I thought I was defending, defended the abuser part.
I said I think all my parts think they are doing the right thing and don't understand the damage being inflicted.
That is when T brought up brainwashing. I have heard many on the forum speak of being brainwashed. I didn't really understand until then what they meant.. There are deep rooted beliefs/truths that I was taught and for parts of me those things are as true as three are clouds in the sky. I have to think about this.

 

[joeylittle]

There are deep rooted beliefs/truths that I was taught and for parts of me those things are as true as three are clouds in the sky. I have to think about this.

I dunno....I have very deeply held core beliefs that go back to my pre-trauma years, and they were things that my parents taught me - but I wouldn't at all consider them as brainwashing.

In order to be brainwashed, you need to have a belief system in place, and then have that belief system dismantled and replaced by a new, radically different belief system.

I think your therapist maybe means to be talking about conditioning, or perhaps even 'programming' - though the most correct term would probably be conditioning. I think understanding what your therapist means by saying 'brainwashed' is much more important than getting too hung up on the word itself, which has situational connotations that may or may not apply to you.

I don't mean to be so semantic about it - it's only that these words (brainwashing, programming, mind control, conditioning) - are all connected in our minds to certain kinds of situations. Sort of like, if you've been kidnapped, everyone thinks 'stockholm syndrome', when - in fact - that phenomenon is pretty specific, and not a catchall term for 'adaptation for survival'.

The concept that you were raised with beliefs, and adopted them early, is an important one - also, very tough to untangle. I can only imagine it's more complicated if you've got parts all carrying aspects of the belief system.

 

[ladee]

Yes, brainwashed or gas lighted into believing what others actions said we were.... Of course I was 'worthLESS', when I needed attention and didn't get it.. that meant that I was worth LESS than what was going on at the time.. and the list goes on....
I remember always being told what was bad and wrong about me, but no one showing me another way to do things. I became very good at parroting what I saw others do... still didn't get me positive attention, but my brain already had been told, it really doesn't matter what you do, how you act, what you say, it will never be good enough....
So 'unlearning' all that has been a lot of work... but I am worth it today, I am no longer worthLESS

 

[UnKnown-Self]

I see what you mean. There was never a before trauma so it would be more like learning a new language than unbrainwashing. I'm constantly at odds with myself.

 

[joeylittle]

more like learning a new language

Exactly.

My therapist tells me that all children are born deserving love. Believe it or not, I have a very hard time accepting that. And it's not because I was taught differently, it's because my experience is so different from what he is proposing. I don't think some children are born bad, necessarily - just that deserving has nothing to do with it. Some are loved and some are unlovable. I believe I'm in the latter category. It's a very difficult thing to challenge, because I accept is as true the way I accept that things fall when they are dropped. It's just a basic truth of existence.

And I know that it's not, I know that no-one knows the answer to this question, really, so I could choose to believe differently. I could choose to believe that there wasn't something wrong with me. Intellectually, I see that option is there. But it's untouchable, for me, still. I don't know when enough other things will change in order for that to change.

 

[Powder]

Absolutely. I hear you. At least one of my parts still believes the almighty parents are good, too. Imagine! The rest highly oppose this fabricated/distorted view point. But yet, feel pity for the part who needs this or is stuck.

Rather than argue a point with parts, I think some compassion and realization that they NEEDed to believe in certain things at certain stages in order to survive that phase of life and get to here, is due. And I'm not in T for this, but am working it as best I can at home in recognizing, respecting, and loving whatever I find.

I'm working with love, trust, and listing within myself.

I think of Loving my parts/flashed back "selves" who bring me memories of traumatic times as a means of setting my parts free to be. Each act of love essentially opens the cage that self was trapped inside. Each part will fly in turn, when ready to be free. And as they fly, some transform, some rise from the ashes! And some will return to the familiarity of the cage for comfort. It's all part of the dynamic of growing up with high dissociation spectrum for survival.

 

[ladee]

Good point @joeylittle, I felt brainwashed in NA... but I felt that was a good thing. Washing my brain of some old beliefs that kept me high.... in many ways it set the foundation for my healing work with PTSD...so ya, a difference there...thanks for making that more clear...

 

[ladee]

@Muse , where were you with those words of wisdom when I started my healing journey !! That would have made so much sense to me back then... so simple, not easy to do... but accepting each part of me helped me survive so therefore had their own story.... Hopefully people just getting started will read this, and it will give them a different perspective and hope...

 

[Powder]

I think a child is more suggestible than an adult.

Maybe NA is more like "reprogramming" than "brainwashing" in intensity. I don't know personally, just a guess at this point.

 

[ladee]

Agreed @Muse , but it felt so good to know that getting clean,meant I could hear what was being said to me, that I had a chance to stay clean and have a different life... I think we tend to look at 'brainwashing' as most time something negative... but I had to 'unlearn', before I had any space to learn other ways to do things. Like when we hear the word 'consequences'... we usually always think negative... but if I didn't use that day, then I had good consequences..... hope this made sense..

 

[Sideways]

I'm one of the prime suspects for tossing around the term brainwashing in respect to my trauma. But it's actually a term that I have (somewhat reluctantly) consciously decided to do to be more realistic with myself about my situation. I used to refer to it as "psychological abuse", which it was, but actually, it was bigtime deliberate and maliciously calculated core belief-altering stuff, and I need to be honest with myself about that (cause I still struggle to see it that way).

Agree totally with @joeylittle explanation above. It's about deliberately altering core beliefs. And it can be good or bad.

Eg Good brainwashing: deliberately working to make your kids believe in the tooth fairy so that losing a tooth becomes a good thing, rather than distressing.


In my case, I use the word because my abuser actually deliberately set out to gradually embed a new (and bogus) belief system in my brain over countless structured lessons designed for that express purpose.

I don't like the term. I always thought it was clinically vague and unhelpfully emotive...but there are some cases where it is appropriate. Still, it should be used with caution and I'd encourage you to have a dialogue with your T about why they used the word, because it's not like it wouldn't effect a person hearing that word being used about them.

 

[Ronin]

replaced by a new, radically different belief system.

And even then that would be quite debatable, given 'radically different' belief system, in order to work, is still based on something intrinsic to the person, so is it really 'radically different' instead of just a very different take on the same already held belief system?

IMHO that line of pre-existing & newly accepted thought lines & emotivity can get rather blurred rather fast when one goes to the depths of it and causality.