Mind control

[frogthroat]

Anyone know anything or have you yourself experienced brainwashing? Combined with the violence I experienced personally I often find myself really believing things that aren't true that were driven in by a sadist. For example, this is gross, sorry, I sometimes believe my insides are rotten and they're falling out during my period because he would tell me he was carving chunks of me out and sometimes I didn't know if the blood was from my period or him. This is deliberately trying to mess someone up. Also, he told me he knew I wasn't really a kid and I was an animal and he could tell when he looked in my eyes that my soul was more like a dog's than a person's. This particular thing has sadly messed me up so much I have a hard time making eye contact. I know it's not true but sometimes I literally am afraid someone is going to find out I have a dog soul. How do you handle a deliberate lie that's been cemented by other trauma like that? Has it lessened for you over time? I know therapy is huge but I was just curious how you stop those thoughts.

 

[Sideways]

How do you handle a deliberate lie that's been cemented by other trauma like that? Has it lessened for you over time? I know therapy is huge but I was just curious how you stop those thoughts.

The lies I got were obviously slightly different, but yeah, similar deal. Certain lines I had to repeat over and over during my abuse, and also being taught about my inner lady bits being his property etc. It doesn’t actually matter how ridiculously false those things are, they still feel like absolute truths. And actually like my safety depends on my ability to ‘keep believing’ in a way.

It is lessening for me in terms of acute distress. I spent a long time doing thought diffusion work and interrupting them when the words and statements start repeating over and over in my head. I don’t just let it play on repeat anymore - I consciously interrupt it when it starts and remind myself that’s just my abuse, it’s simply not true. Combatting it similarly to how I’ve handled flashbacks - really stopping your head, and reorienting myself back to reality each time it starts up.

In terms of actually changing the beliefs on a fundamental level, that’s much slower. They’ve been embedded pretty deeply, yeah? Believing this stuff kept us alive, so our brain isn’t going to let go of it easily.

But in terms of the actual statements? The core tenents that I had to be able to quote verbatim? For me it’s easing up as I work through processing the trauma, in much the same way as my flashbacks and memories. The distress associated with it is easing as I make a conscious point of letting it go. It does, slowly, get easier.

ETA For me personally, I didn’t experience the same level of sadism, but I felt like a sick sort of science project when I began to understand the multiple different forms of programming my abuser had used with me.

The big turning point with that was actually getting my head around the fact that my mind really isn’t being controlled. All I’ve experienced is a far more deliberate and considered form of programming that others experience with chronic abuse. The messages are more explicit, and the methods of teaching them to me was far more calculated. But the end product is false beliefs as a consequence of trauma.

Normalising it like that helped me a lot.

Maybe that’s just denial!!

 

[frogthroat]

Yes, I relate to feeling like a science project. I always felt like I was literal meat. He liked boys more (or so he said) so I was the "dog" and he would make me lay in his lap like one. I could never have clothes on etc. He terrorized them like this too though.
I feel like I'm sort of two seperate people - the one that pays the bills and the other one I put away so I could live. Now that one demands attention and it seems those thoughts are cycling more. I have lots of work to do as in my low points I still feel like he's still got some sort of mystical hold over me even though I know he doesn't. I can't normalize these things no matter how badly I try.

 

[littleoc]

Again, I got different stuff, but yes. I was convinced that there was a while unseen world that only I could see, which I knew was ridiculous. But I had to be available to prove it was real, constantly. So it got firmly imbedded.

I was also taught that I am not human, which is why one of my daily chants to myself now days is, "I am a human being." It feels weird and it feels like I'm lying, but I do it anyway.

I had the fortune of knowing lots of non-human friends, and being close to them made it even harder to see myself as human. I was even socialized mostly with animals, and not with humans.

Like I said, I remind myself as often as I need to that I'm human. I don't really give myself much proof, which probably contributes to it feeling unreal, but it's much easier to disprove than it is to prove. So I disprove that I'm not a demon, or a reborn spirit, or whatever other ridiculous thing pops into my mind that I was taught.

You seem to be on the right track.

The big turning point with that was actually getting my head around the fact that my mind really isn’t being controlled. ....

Normalising it like that helped me a lot.

Maybe that’s just denial!!

Maybe, but it's helpful enough! I'm going to keep that in mind too :)

 

[Muted]

This is hard. I was told things over and over and over again. Now, when someone says something similar to things he used to say even like phrases, I have to fight my mind from going back in time. It’s like my mind automatically was trained to replay the conversation in my head and it’s really hard to stop it. Those close to me know those triggers and they try to avoid those phrases, but sometimes they forget. This is the probably worst part for me to deal with.

I also had no clue I was being brainwashed until I began to document everything and that was horrific to go through and realize what this perpetrator had been doing to my mind.

 

[mumstheword]

I feel a little blessed in that I can recognize the ploys better now that it's been done to me, for so long and so systematically.

It nearly killed me so that was a rude awakening that jolted me out of that reverie.

Mine was more subtle though, over a very long period of time. Like a frog cooking in water that doesn't register the water is getting hotter. Luckily I jumped out of the pot before it cooked me.
Repetition and framing were two very used ploys, on me.
And of course manipulation through fear, fear of loss.

 

[Sideways]

I still feel like he's still got some sort of mystical hold over me even though I know he doesn't

I had a pretty nasty case of Stockholm syndrome. It’s really only in the last year that I’ve stopped calling my abuser “the nicest man I ever met”, but I still catch myself occasionally still wanting to make him proud of me.

It gets easier. Keep reminding yourself that he’s not here anymore, you’re safe now, and he doesn’t control you anymore. At first you’re not going to believe that, but it slowly takes hold if you persist. You really are free of him now.

 

[frogthroat]

. It’s really only in the last year that I’ve stopped calling my abuser “the nicest man I ever met”, but I still catch myself occasionally still wanting to make him proud of me.

I still have a hard time not calling him "Master"or thinking of him as that. I don't know how I feel about him really because I don't feel like a person right now. He was my entire everything for 2 and a half years.

 

[frogthroat]

And it was only 2 and a half years so I shouldn't be so messed up but he was just mean and he did lots of body horror? type things to us.

 

[Sideways]

And it was only 2 and a half years

That’s actually a really long time for someone to be messing with your head, particularly given the methods he was using.

 

[frogthroat]

That’s actually a really long time for someone to be messing with your head, particularly given the...

He was so much worse than that. He was horrible. I dread trying to explain it to a therapist.

 

[Sideways]

Just take it slow. But with the right T, as painful as it is, I think it will be a relief to finally be talking about it:hug: