Defense Mechanisms Help Or Harm Us?

[Dana1010]

The past week or so has been really rough. I was fed up with constant (trauma-related) loops and fantasies that go through my head all the time. They are distracting and they keep me out of touch with the present. So I started doing some aggressive grounding techniques to stop the loops and the daydreaming and face the present.

I've had some "success," but the grounding has not been a gentle hang-glide to earth. More like dropping from the top of the Empire State Building at 200 miles per hour to a hard thud on the concrete.

I feel like I'm really facing myself and my reality much more squarely than before. I don't like myself at all, I want to be someone else, I feel that I'm not salvageable and I feel really hopeless.

So now I'm wondering how far someone like me can make it without the crutch of denial or some similar defense mechanism. Do I need to falsify my story and my identity somewhat -- as unhealthy as those things sound?

I remember one therapist telling me that your mind doesn't do things for no reason -- if you developed some defense mechanism, it is because you needed it.

Is this the only relief for those of us with hard-to-face pasts (and presents)? To go through life on crutches of denial our whole lives?

 

[Friday]

I feel like I'm really facing myself and my reality much more squarely than before. I don't like myself at all, I want to be someone else, I feel that I'm not salvageable and I feel really Hopeless.

So now I'm wondering how far someone like me can make it without the crutch of denial or some similar defense mechanism. Do I need to falsify my story and my identity somewhat -- as unhealthy as those things sound?

That's one option. Another would be to start changing the things you don't like about yourself.

 

[Dana1010]

Another would be to start changing the things you don't like about yourself.

That isn't an option. Too much to get into.

 

[Ronin]

Do I need to falsify my story and my identity somewhat

The thing is, you can't.

It won't bring you peace & defense. Even if you lived for a time as someone else, you'd have to adapt everything about your life, and the trauma that's real would make it go sideways in ways that are not good, because it's just not damned possible to falsify effects THAT has on your life and health and processing everything; you'd have to do the /opposite/, build the masks /around/ what's real.

Which still means facing yourself.

 

[Dana1010]

Even if you lived for a time as someone else, you'd have to adapt everything about your life, and the trauma that's real would make it go sideways in ways that are not good, because it's just not damned possible to falsify effects

I may be misunderstanding you. What I meant by "falsify your story and identity" is to do so in your own mind by sugarcoating or spinning the truth. Or maybe just blocking certain things out.

 

[Ronin]

What I meant by "falsify your story and identity" is to do so in your own mind

That would only get you to building a layer of memory that wouldn't hold though, &/or distorting what's real, which also doesn't hold for a long time and creates more complications than it solves.

& You'd have to either remember, or be able to remember later, just how exactly you changed the truth, to be able to return to it. It's more difficult than it sounds.

 

[Keming]

defense mechanisms are both positive and negative. When positive, the mechanism is mitigating harm; but when taken too far, when the defense becomes normal, it turns negative.

Lashing out with a forearm is positive in a dangerous setting; negative at work. Not gonna hate it; not gonna condone it. We slowly desensetize, we build filters and controls, until the defense system is once again in our control, and doing its proper job.

For exercise, consider that polar thinking, the Good/Bad reflex, is a faulty mechanism. Polar thinking is very useful: it allows us to make sense of a terrifying world very quickly, and formulate rapid responses - but easy and rapid are not necessarily accurate and useful.

as for lying about yourself - it's just gonna mean spending energy convincing yourself of something that isn't true. better to spend the energy slowly, gradually approaching reality than running from it again.

 

[Dana1010]

When positive, the mechanism is mitigating harm; but when taken too far, when the defense becomes normal, it turns negative.

So you are saying I should pretend to be someone else some of the time, but revert to reality at other times? The problem is that coming back to reality after living in denial is like crashing from a drug. Having to go through the crash on a rapid cycle is a lot to take.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I think by changing what you don't like about yourself is a very good choice. I am currently doing this myself after facing down some hard truths about myself that I did not like about me at all. It is sink or swim time girl.

 

[Dana1010]

@gizmo, some things can't be changed -- they are just unalterable facts.

 

[Ronin]

they are just unalterable facts.

Such as?

Most of the things about personality & can be sooooo wildly altered 'facts' is the last thing I'd call them.

 

[Dana1010]

Such as?

Most of the things about personality & can be sooooo wildly altered 'facts' is the last thing I'd call them.

Haha. Such as things I won't be going into on this forum. And no, they've nothing to do with personality.