Lies Are Truth

[Tinyflame]

But it's not an 'it' @stenni . It's your childhood. (I get it too.) :hug: :hug: :hug:

 

[Sandstone]

it is an it I want nothing to do with. I won't have it making unreasonable demands on me.

And in three weeks I will have no-one to work on any of it with. Perfect timing.

 

[The Albatross]

Reasonable is entirely in the eye of the beholder. Totally self focused.

 

[Sandstone]

I know. This whole thread has been. I'll shut up now

 

[Ronin]

I'll shut up now

Please don't, Stenni.

Also, while not intending to speak for Alba, I doubt that is what she had in mind. Probably more something along the lines of time perception, and how you use that time, can be used more productively, that you can be self sufficient in the meantime and what may seem too long may actually pass quickly / what may seem as passing too quickly can be actually filled by a lot of productive work, on your own?

 

[Friday]

Unlike you I'm not playing a game, I'm trying to find a resolution that allows me to retain something like sanity. This is not a circular argument it is at best a multi-layer structure. Except that that sounds like something that cannot be true.

I'm not playing a game.

The 5yo who lies and says they broke the vase, so takes the slap across the face busting their lip... To save their little brother -who actually broke the vase- isn't despicable. They're brave.

I could list off 100 examples, a 1000, where someone lies to directly protect someone else. Ranging from small things like a busted lip, to being willing to die to protect the ones they love.

The rape victim, with the knife at their throat, who lies & says "I like it" to save their own life, when their rapist demands to be told they do? Isn't despicable. They're fighting back. Using the only weapon at their disposal.

I could list off 100/1000 examples where someone lies in order to fight back. Where a lie is the only weapon they have, and they have their priorities on completely right; telling the truth to a rapist? Isn't worth their life. Their life is worth far more than a lie.

The ambassador, the author, the spy, the abused kid, the battered wife... I could list off thousands upon thousands of examples where people lie and are not therefore despicable.

People lie for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes? For sure. Cowardly, despicable, pointless, dangerous, stupid. Other times? Brave, just, loyal, kind, smart.

I don't like lies. Have difficulty even with the polite social lies people almost constantly partake in, much less the self serving ones of cowardly assholes, abusers, manipulators, and others. I especially don't like the lies people use to protect others, & themselves, when having to choose between the better of two evils. Not because they are wrong to use them, or despicable for using them... But because they're put in a f*cked up awful situation to begin with, and the lie is the best, bravest, truest course they can take. Truth isn't always good, & lies aren't always bad. People who tell the truth & people who lie? There are cruel, despicable, terrible people who never lie. There are good, kind, brave people who are liars. A lie is neither good nor bad. A liar is neither good nor bad. Whether or not a person likes lies or not is completely irrelevant, because liking or disliking doesn't make something good or bad. It's not binary, not black and white. Life, quite frankly, is not that simple.

^^^^
That... Is what I mean by poking 17 holes in your arguments & conclusions. 1 down, that "I am a liar, and therefore despicable." 16 to go.

This is not a circular argument it is at best a multi-layer structure.

You've edited your original question. A lot.

If A then B, if B then notA, if notA then... Record screech. It was like no fecking wonder you're confused! Circular arguments do that. They're brain melting. How to break out of a circular argument? Best way I know is to break each piece down individually. Look for the flaws, look for the emotion driving it.

The reason I asked if you wanted to do that? Since the answer you kept coming back to was a moral judgement on yourself it doesn't really matter what the pieces are in the argument. Hating yourself doesn't need reasons, and logic won't help. Cause then you just hate yourself for 17 more reasons after the first 17 are laid to rest. Logic doesn't conquer emotion. 2 different languages. Like trying to dig a hole in water. Can't be done. <grin> Unless you freeze it, or build retaining walls.

How to hold 2 equal & opposite truths? That's pretty easy. Recognize that both can be true at the same time. Sever the self negating components by breaking each part down, or find the missing component(s).

How to change a moral judgement on yourself? That's much harder. And a totally different answer.

 

[Chava]

Might have missed something, or context somewhere, but I personally can have conflicting realities. I don't have DID, but I have these conflicts nonetheless (seems like a good reason to be in therapy). A big one has been wanting to live and not wanting to live...feeling a fighter in myself and also a self that is bent on self-destruction. I've strengthened the wanting-to-live part enough that I recognize it more as my true self. It can usually maintain witness and not response to the self-destructive thoughts and urges. But if I'm in meltdown mode I sometimes need to recognize that, do something, or reach out to my therapist for perspective. Basic grounding stuff too.

The self-destructive part is very real, but for me it was largely self-protective and "fight" energy directed at myself so early that I really believed I deserved physical punishment and suffering. There is more along those lines in my head, but basically I recognize these parts, one is traumatized, the other is a healing adult. But not two people. Just me operating on different mechanisms.

My therapist has also helped point out that paradoxes don't always need to be resolved (depends on context). For example, I can actually love and hate an abuser. That feels really difficult. But she told me one feeling does not have to cancel out the other. Fact is, I simply feel both.

 

[The Albatross]

Yes @Cashew I had to go to work so thanks for clearing that up.

 

[Ronin]

so thanks for clearing that up

You're very welcome, Alba. ;)

 

[Sandstone]

You all seem determined to miss the point. There can be only one truth. Truth or lie. Fact or non-fact

There is no mechanism by which I can have become dissociative, so I can't be. So anything that points that way must be wrong, either because I am deceiving, or because I have been deceived. I'm struggling with the insanity of believing two conflicting things.That struggle is making me desperately

You've edited your original question. A lot.

no, I removed one sentence, because your first reply focused on the least important sentence and I could see you would lead everyone else down that path. You can check - it is a direct copy from my diary.

 

[Ronin]

You all seem determined to miss the point.

Perhaps it would be helpful to speak more directly, then.

There is no mechanism by which I can have become dissociative, so I can't be.

And what you're relying on about 'dissociative mechanism' to begin with? Because dissociation is darned complex, and if you're going by denial about the simple parts... hello, that itself is a form of dissociating.

You were told what to do about it. Face reality & facts, understand your reasoning and effects it's actually having on other people/reality with compassion and careful self examination.

no, I removed one sentence

Often times, a changing of one word is immense difference. So a line would be a lot.

I could see you would lead everyone else down that path

Stenni, can we please not? Friday offered opinions, other posters offered opinions, that's all there is to it. Let's not jump this group-think wagon, especially as it's not very applicable to this forum's population in particular in many cases, as people arrive to a similar conclusion from a wildly different experience.

 

[Sandstone]

Face reality & facts,

I am endeavouring to face the reality that i have nothing in my past to precipitate dissociation, yet I am experiencing something that appears to be like it. So the most likely explanation is that I am wrong. I have deceived myself by reading too much about it, in exactly the same way that we can convince ourselves that a mole is cancerous if we Google enough.
That would be why I am grappling with this sense of believing the unbelievable - because it is factually untrue. Friday, and many of you are focussed on a moral judgement, I'm focussed on an internal mental conflict

Perhaps it would be helpful to speak more directly, then.

I have. Over and over. In every post I've said it

it is non-sense. Yet it makes sense,

Balancing those two impossibilities makes me feel crazy and want to run.

HOW I DEAL WITH ABSOLUTELY BELIEVING TWO DIRECTLY CONFLICTING THINGS TO BE TRUE SIMULTANEOUSLY WHILE ALSO BELIEVING THEM NOT TO BE TRUE?

simply don't know what is true, and I can't see how I can settle in either direction without holding myself to be a liar.

I'm certain there is nothing hidden. If there was a possibility of that then it might make more sense.

If you mean being open to the possibility of being dissociative, then yes I am open to that while at the same time being sure it is impossible. It makes sense, but is nonsense. Hence, the feeling of looming insanity.

They are both true, they are both false

I want to run, quite literally.

I don't trust what I experience or what I think or what I feel.

Sometimes I believe it fits, but even when I believe it I don't.

I'm struggling with the insanity of believing two conflicting things.

We are all well aware that there are many people here who have endured horrors. I haven't, I'm at the very mild end of the spectrum. I've even had to point out to my current T that things she labels as traumatic in my life are not Criterion A Traumas, and I think her determination to see things as worse than they are has influenced me unduly. Here I am wholly at one with Friday Jones who has repeatedly protected the importance of defining trauma accurately eg- end of a marriage - deeply distressing, but not Criterion A trauma. I barely scrape into enough for PTSD, so logic says I can't possibly have a dissociative disorder