Brainwashing

[Sideways]

How do you find, or create, independent free thoughts about yourself, your place in the world, or your abuser, if all the thoughts and beliefs you have are the ones that you have been conditioned with?

How do you fill the great big hole that exists once you take those conditioned thoughts and beliefs away? How do you create thoughts and beliefs that feel authentically yours (rather than your abuser's)?

 

[Ronin]

How do you create thoughts and beliefs that feel authentically yours

I don't. I start with opposing /theirs/.

It's good enough: There's me in thinking something, anything else, than what I'm 'supposed' to think.

There's you in even thinking of how to get away from that shit. You wouldn't be doubting if you weren't free where it matters most.

 

[Sideways]

@Ronin - I'm not sure that I do doubt it though. I'm not even sure if I can. Whenever I get questioned, or whenever I start asking myself the questions, I've realised that the answers I have are all things that I was conditioned to believe.

But then if I say to myself, "That's just what I was taught..." there is nothing else, except me getting angry at myself for challenging the thoughts in the first place...

 

[Ronin]

I'm not sure that I do doubt it though.

But you're posing that question to a group of people you trust, with something so sensitive. In my mind that's critical thinking? <soft>

So start somewhere else: You arrive at the things you were taught, yes?
Meaning you have exceptional memory and ability to retain information, for that long.
Meaning you're damned good at associating things (we'll leave the 'it all goes to the same spot', for now.)
Meaning you learn things once and they stick - that's also not something that just happens, that's you being a good learner of bullshit you were spoon fed.
Meaning you're good at utilization of very scrap instructions, too. Meaning you're good at using f*ck-all tools for survival. That's a skillset on its own.

You also found enough maneuvering space to survive. To /keep/ surviving every day. That's not all them; that's you finding ways out of no ways, and using them, every day, to benefit you.

Or: That authenticity, that authentic you? IS there, shining through. That you can't think well about these topics you were brainwashed with and for? Does not mean you're not /thinking/.

 

[Sideways]

@Ronin - it's incredibly generous of you to say that.

It would be nice to be able to not have to think my way around it though. For autonomous thoughts to just flow through freely without bumping into the roadblocks of what I got taught.

 

[shimmerz]

How do you fill the great big hole that exists once you take those conditioned thoughts and beliefs away? How do you create thoughts and beliefs that feel authentically yours (rather than your abuser's)?

For myself, I recognized that my inner critic was actually the means by which my brainwashing got at me. The 'I am going to beat the crap out of myself until I get better' voice did not come from my heart. I knew this because I would never have spoken to anyone else like this. And I think that is the first step. Realizing what actually IS brainwashing. I have recognized that most of ME is scripted from people in my past.

Challenging the inner critic is a huge step I think. What I have been attempting to replace it with is my 'inner coach'. You know, the voice I use for those that I love in order to encourage them, support them, show them I love them and that I am on their side. When I can apply that supportive inner coach voice to myself is when I know that I am working with my own authentic self rather than other's scripts that were imposed onto me.

As far as the hole that you speak of, I had to practice putting the inner coach into place prior to stripping away my inner critic.

AND prior to all of that, I needed to practice making decisions for myself. Reminding myself that even not making a decision was in fact a decision of mine. I reminded myself 1000 times a day that every single thing I did was a decision.

 

[Sideways]

I have recognized that most of ME is scripted from people in my past.

Yes. Can't seem to answer questions about "it" (or me) without the scripted answers. They come out even when they don't necymake sense.

I love the idea of the inner coach. Like, I really love that. Coach Ragdoll, time to join the rest of the team:)

 

[Ronin]

Can't seem to answer questions about "it" (or me) without the scripted answers.

Is that applicable if you think of yourself in the first point of view, or is that applicable when you think of yourself from any angle?

(I get easily stuck in others' messages when I think of me in first person, but it's bit turnable around in third point of view, and unmanageable in second one. So not a friend of you-statements & I-statements every so often, but doing way better with he-ones, even more so, in a way that simply describes actions & reactions and doesn't get all hang up on personhood, in times personhood spins me.)

So: Would it be possible to switch a way of talking about yourself, to yourself?

 

[shimmerz]

Dear Coach Ragdoll --> :angelic:

Yes...... that name has a GREAT ring to it! Incredibly authentic to you as well from what I can see of your interactions on the forum.

 

[ladee]

Coach Ragdoll Circus.

This is going to work!
Thank you @shimmerz !if this helps my precious friend I will be forever indebted to you, another precious friend.

 

[asadafagahajakal]

Make a list of everything "different" you've been taught or conditioned to believe. That and everything you've been taught about theology, spirituality, politics or ethics, even if they make sense to you. A lot of things I've learned over the years made sense to me when they shouldnt. And one by one, think about why it's right or wrong, and "cross things out" that don't add up.

Your subconscious will keep telling you otherwise. I know things like this f*ck with me even when I know they're lies. But "catching yourself lying to yourself" will help keep your mind a little more clear.

If you can't handle the task on your own (a rather daunting one, I'm not even half way there) take it up to your therapist. At least you've pinpointed problematic points in your thought process.

 

[asadafagahajakal]

Make a list of everything "different" you've been taught or conditioned to believe. That and everything...

Your sense of identity will be changed by the things you learned through your life, and you wonto be the "you" you were meant to be, but you can always work to an even better you than before. Complex trauma is a real cnt