siniang
Policy Enforcement
I've been subjected to years, if not decades, of my grandparents and to some extend a couple other people in authority positions (teacher, sport coach) trying to emotionally/mentally manipulate and gaslight me. Not necessarily consciously on their part, but vehemently nonetheless.
I say trying, because I've kind of always realized what they were trying to do.
The problem I face now is, that over time it resulted in three things:
1) It still worked to some degree and I now often have a hard time distinguishing which of my behaviors, thoughts, ... are a cognitive distortion as a result of this and what is valid behavior/thoughts (i.e. appropriate given the situation). This is particularly critical when it comes to upholding (or not) boundaries, or even when defining boundaries to begin with. I'm constantly questioning myself (goal: achieved)
2) Because I recognized those attempts, it let to me developing major trust issues. I now have the problem of always looking for a catch when someone is at first sight genuinely nice towards me, default to assuming they *might* try to manipulate me as well. Major trust issues bordering on paranoia.
3) I tend to self-reflect a lot, always considering that I *might* be wrong. So I ask for a lot of input and assessments from others to re-evaluate my own thoughts and conclusions. But, as a result I've often received a "you're overthinking/taking this too personal/seeing ghosts" response from outsiders, who obviously didn't have experienced the manipulation/gaslighting themselves so don't have the "inside" experience.... but they also don't have the potential cognitive distortions. So, as an extension of 1) and 2), I really can't distinguish between actual mental abuse and just normal human behavior+me overreacting, anymore. I can't trust my own judgment anymore. While at the same time, every time someone reacts in that way, it feels incredibly invalidating ... (and more often than not I feel like I'm not being heard when trying to reach out/open up)
Not sure what I'm asking from the community, I guess mostly just looking for input.
I say trying, because I've kind of always realized what they were trying to do.
The problem I face now is, that over time it resulted in three things:
1) It still worked to some degree and I now often have a hard time distinguishing which of my behaviors, thoughts, ... are a cognitive distortion as a result of this and what is valid behavior/thoughts (i.e. appropriate given the situation). This is particularly critical when it comes to upholding (or not) boundaries, or even when defining boundaries to begin with. I'm constantly questioning myself (goal: achieved)
2) Because I recognized those attempts, it let to me developing major trust issues. I now have the problem of always looking for a catch when someone is at first sight genuinely nice towards me, default to assuming they *might* try to manipulate me as well. Major trust issues bordering on paranoia.
3) I tend to self-reflect a lot, always considering that I *might* be wrong. So I ask for a lot of input and assessments from others to re-evaluate my own thoughts and conclusions. But, as a result I've often received a "you're overthinking/taking this too personal/seeing ghosts" response from outsiders, who obviously didn't have experienced the manipulation/gaslighting themselves so don't have the "inside" experience.... but they also don't have the potential cognitive distortions. So, as an extension of 1) and 2), I really can't distinguish between actual mental abuse and just normal human behavior+me overreacting, anymore. I can't trust my own judgment anymore. While at the same time, every time someone reacts in that way, it feels incredibly invalidating ... (and more often than not I feel like I'm not being heard when trying to reach out/open up)
Not sure what I'm asking from the community, I guess mostly just looking for input.