• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

Who says it’s a cognitive distortion? ?

Status
Not open for further replies.
.....anyone can post anything on Instagram, no matter if it’s true/real or not.

Instamodels. I rest my case.


This is true.

And part of why I am comfortable questioning it.

But the same of course goes for lots things..... many societal beliefs are, I believe cognitive distortions.

Some random guy, I hope it doesn’t challenge our friendship to suggest I think you aren’t right in saying men are a risk to women ... if I also add I think the risk women are is woefully, woefully understated. The statistic I have read is I am twice as likely to be SA’d than get breast cancer. If fate is kind my confirming the prior so thoroughly might suggest I really don’t get cancer. ( jk - I know my humour gets missed here). As someone who was sexually assaulted by a woman too, i still feel the men- I have allowed close to me have been the biggest danger.

Those we let close are both our safety/ normality / humanity and our weak spots - This is regardless of gender of course but for many women it will be men, just as for men it might be women.

Edit - if it’s the word predator you take issue with - I get that. I too feel individually it’s not true. I do think our culture however does encourage this mindset, not to view others as predators, but to behave individualistically at expense of others. I certainly think this is translatable to sexual behaviour and the way we view ourselves in a ‘post feminist era’ as well as before it. How exactly I feel about that I am not sure- it changes daily.
 
Yeah, I get it too. We live in a time period in which men are assumed to be predators just because they're men. Eventually the pendulum will swing back and people will be OK with men again. Until then, I'm a predator. That's the way it is.

Calling men a woman's natural enemy is not only over the top, it's also just damn mean-spirited. Certainly any woman that actually believes that, @HaveWorthjustLiedTo, should be able to go forth and live a life completely without men. Good luck - I'm rooting for you in your male-less life quest.
 
Last edited:
Yeah, I get it too. We live in a time period in which men are assumed to be predators just because they're men. Eventually the pendulum will swing back and people will be OK with men again. Until then, I'm a predator. That's the way it is.

Calling men a woman's natural enemy is not only over the top, it's also just mean-spirited. Certainly any woman that actually believes that, @HaveWorthjustLiedTo, should be able to go forth and live a life without men. Good luck - I'm rooting for you in your male-less life quest.


Hmmm. I see it differently. I don’t think individuals have to be ‘predators’ - a word I agreed I think is unhealthy- for people to have gendered experiences. To have fear based on being ... and I am deliberately sticking with that word... ‘predators’’ desired demographic. That who and how we view who the dangers are is false is part of the problem but statistically for females it is men we know. The walking with keys in our hands as heathrobinson weaponry seems to me the cognitive distortion.

Similarly the idea that a proportion of women are wary of men doesn’t mean we all view men as ‘enemies’. Many of us have Male friends ( I count you as someone I am growing a friendship with) and partners and well respected colleagues, family members. Some even idolise some men.

For me I just .... don’t idolise anyone anymore. I also don’t believe the mantra all men are predators. I go further - i’m Not wholly convinced all rape is about power/ predation but rather just ... selfishness? Greed? Lack of empathy? As you know I have scrutinised my own behaviour and found myself wanting in my ‘unwitting accomplice’ in taking someone’s agency. I take that EXTREMELY, harrowingly, seriously. But I never classed myself as a ‘predator’. I don’t think it’s this black and white.
 
Not feeling real well right now, and maybe this is black and white thinking, but it seems to me that every woman has a choice to distrust men and assume they're predators just for being men, a la @HaveWorthjustLiedTo - which is where the cognitive distortion I mentioned comes in - or you can see men as people instead of predators.

Basically, I mean you can either see men as risks or as people. If you choose to see men as walking, talking risks (I.e. predators) ... maybe that means a life full of completely unnecessary fear.

Or maybe it really is a completely necessary constant fear to have - I guess, not being a woman, I wouldn't really know. But then why would anyone here want to talk to me at all, if I'm truly a potential predator?
 
Last edited:
Ok, I'm extra stressed today so I'm being unnecessarily uncharitable.

I went through a hellish few months where women triggered me. Usually multiple times a day. I got it under control fairly quickly, probably because I'm on the PTSD side of things, not C-PTSD. It also helped to know that women tend not to be violent or carry weapons.

So it must be truly hell for a woman who's triggered by men. Worse and worse if she's a CSA survivor, which can make victims feel powerless lifelong. Of course there are just more women abused by men than men abused by women (although the ratios are almost certainly much closer than people think). Men are bigger, stronger, louder, scarier, more violent.

So yeah, my message to "get over it" - unhelpful. What helps is remembering we're all people, and any of us can be victims. And people are usually scared of other people for real reasons, even if I wish it wasn't so. Apologies.
 
Last edited:
Not feeling real well right now, and maybe this is black and white thinking, but it seems to me that every woman has a choice to distrust men and assume they're predators just for being men, a la @HaveWorthjustLiedTo - which is where the cognitive distortion I mentioned comes in - or you can see men as people instead of predators.

Basically, I mean you can either see men as risks or as people. If you choose to see men as walking, talking risks (I.e. predators) ... maybe that means a life full of completely unnecessary fear.

Or maybe it really is a completely necessary constant fear to have - I guess, not being a woman, I wouldn't really know. But then why would anyone here want to talk to me at all, if I'm truly a potential predator?

‘People instead of predators’. “Predators” ARE people. Not monsters under a bed.

And hmmm, yeah i’d Say it’s an ongoing work, not against men but with PEOPLE. With ourselves. At the most basic level - Maintaining boundaries and communication. E. G. Without wanting to sound like the town bicycle I have known a few men. Nice men. Men in ‘nice jobs’ from ‘nice backgrounds’ from ‘nice schools’ . Of those the once who practised ‘affirmative, enthusiastic , informed consent’ particularly in one on one situations is .... one I think. I might be wrong. But I was kind of surprised the first time DH asked if I was still in to it, and APOLOGISED to him. The sadness of that now I am middleaged makes me weep.

I think this is not ‘the mens’ fault only. It’s and I certainly don’t consider all the inconsiderate sex I had SA. But I also don’t think it was healthy and I do think the men AND ME contributed to ( not shorthanding out of respect and care to you!) poor gendered expectations that contribute to what is slackly termed ‘rape culture’. When this happened ALL participants were at fault. I was not traumatised but it embedded my expectation that my consideration was not important- my partners might have learned it was ok to treat their future partners without requiring enthusiastic and affirmative consent. I failed other women.

So this is where I think your thinking in this is .... seeing you as an enemy. We can negatively impact someone without predation, without forethought, without any thing more than lack of empathy.


I’ll be truly honest- what I am interpreting as your ‘anger’ over this, while useful to me is also terrifying and were I less open and if I were a ‘men are bad, women are good’ person I fear I might be small minded enough to find MY fear and MY feeling intimidated a notch in the ‘men are bad’ column. That I can identify it’s MY problem is petty a saving grace. ?
 
Ok, I'm extra stressed today so I'm being unnecessarily uncharitable.

I went through a hellish few months where women triggered me. Usually multiple times a day. I got it under control fairly quickly, probably because I'm on the PTSD side of things, not C-PTSD.

So it must be truly hell for a woman who's triggered by men. Worse and worse if she's a CSA survivor, which can make victims feel powerless lifelong. Of course there are just more women abused by men than men abused by women (although the ratios are almost certainly much closer than people think). Men are bigger, stronger, louder, scarier, more violent.

So yeah, my message to "get over it" - unhelpful. What helps is remembering we're all people, and any of us can be victims. And people are usually scared of other people for real reasons, even if I wish it wasn't so. Apologies.


I just like you SO much. ♥️

You DO get it.

And it IS people not men. But I think you see that because you had it from the less heard perspective as an adult Male?
 
  • Like
Reactions: ...
When this happened ALL participants were at fault.
I wish more men, especially sexually inexperienced men, could read this, and your entire post.

All people in any kind of a sexual encounter should receive and give consent. All people in any sexual encounter should also define their boundaries before the encounter begins.

Only consent is ever discussed, and apparently only men need to get it to proceed. That leaves men in charge of every sexual encounter. And if men are in charge of every sexual encounter, they will mess it up and leave women feeling unsafe ever after.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mee
I wish more men, especially sexually inexperienced men, could read this, and your entire post.

All people in any kind of a sexual encounter should receive and give consent. All people in any sexual encounter should also define their boundaries before the encounter begins.

Only consent is ever discussed, and apparently only men need to get it to proceed. That leaves men in charge of every sexual encounter. And if men are in charge of every sexual encounter, they will mess it up and leave women feeling unsafe ever after.

I think a problem for me is .... I was already impacted both by ‘gendered expectation’ and negative consequences of CSA. I had learned of you don’t comply or if you complain it’s worse than just complying.

It’s my belief this happens to women on a wider scale. I think by the time we GET to ( consensual) sexual encounters a number of us are already planning or complying.


An example. Of my three friends who haven’t been SA’d one had a one night stand where a video camera was set up. The ‘date’ asked to film and she said no. She wanted to leave but felt it risked escalation so she stayed and had sex. Part of her safety protocol was attempting to protect her self by seemingly non chalently hanging her coat over the video camera ( so it couldn’t film ) and putting her handbag on his laptop, so it couldn’t be opened to film. I don’t view that as ‘ affirmative, enthusiastic, informed consent’. I just don’t. To me that’s intelligent fawning. Complying for least risk. Negotiation. She does see it as NOT SA because she protected herself before getting out. good for her- I love her.

She doesn’t view people as risk. I feel her story confirms that it’s a risk. A risk I would never take again. - one night stands.

I am also not so stupid as to think women aren’t risks though I used to be. I was shocked to be raped sharing a bed with a female friend in a hotel. It’s something I just didn’t have on my radar- than women might lie about their sexuality or desire. Maybe experimentation in teens and twenties, but a woman in her forties with another middle aged woman in her thirties? It just seemed like two women friends not drinking and driving.

I absolutely wholly believe she doesn’t think she is a predator. Wholly. I think it would be inappropriate word. Yet she still SA me. Shrug.


I have been inappropriately touched by more men than I can count. Just going to work or school or buying a sandwich quite beyond the inappropriate experiences with men. I once worked a job I got BRUISES from the inappropriate touching ... it was not sex work. It’s kind of weird to think that I wouldn’t think people... particularly men can be a risk. Like cars, Which I like. Angry dogs ( I have two on my bed now). Horses ( which I adore) can be risks. And farming is! Life is. Life for me, and many other women before they even become adult women, includes men as a risk factor. For men I think it has included men and sometimes women? I don’t think that women have sexually assaulted boys and men should hurt me.... I think we should be talking about it MORE! Because it’s .... people.
 
In 100% of my personal experience, I was seriously harmed roughly 5 times a week until able to escape home at 17. I smelled slightly fewer than 4,000 people barbequed like pigs or splattered like tomatoes on 9/11. The smell was the nastiest part.

No, parents don't like to know that whatever they do to keep their children safe, one day their big soft eyes will fall in and melt off the bone. 100% guaranteed. That we can't do anything about.

Me? i have been careful. It's not pretty, but I would most certainly have been harmed a bunch more times if I hadn't had an inkling of something wrong. Yeah. Once it was a bear in the woods, and once it was women's major natural predator, a guy. On a bicycle. On a bike path. in a nice wealthy suburb of LA. Who when I turned around on my bike because I didn't like something about the way he looked at me when he passed me on his bike, emerged from behind the bushes where he'd been waiting ahead and out of sigh, chased me down, grabbed my bike handles and wrested them away from me. I fell, of course. but I fell headed the right direction and well clear of those trees. So when I levitated to my feet and ran, I was running the right way (toward people) and he'd no element of surprise. Still he caught me once and bit me before i yanked free and levitated across a highway to a condo guard booth. That was the closest. But aside from family members, I've been followed on the street, changed sides, and been followed to the other side. I wait those rather frequent kinds of things out in 24/7 stores. After a while they move on and look for less alert prey. I am sorry it will be someone who doesn't know she can be harmed and the world is dangerous; she should never have listened to anyone trying to tell her differently, and that person is the more culpable. Good male friends, good fathers, good brothers tell their loved women to be careful out there. Because the truth is hard, but some deaths are much harder and come too late rather than too soon. I'm not saying you're going to harm me. i am going to say that to expect me to not do due diligence has no upside for me and the downside is me dying screaming a long time after i started begging. Sorry, but i'll pass on the generalization of your reality to mine.

Think these things don't happen? Maybe not to you. But that is not a privilege i will ever be granted in 100% of my only lifetimes.

Never again, if I can help it. If that sounds neurotic, what should I tell myself instead, pray?


@HaveWorthjustLiedTo - your response makes perfect sense to me. My brother was not taught boundaries.....and with me, at a young age, he crossed boundaries....Then, I was attacked/raped, in a museum in DC at 16. I was brutalized by my first husband at 23, and almost died with his hands around my neck... and emotionally abused by my second husband. Then for two years, after a parental kidnapping, I was intimidated and scared for my safety for 2 years by a family member, also the kidnapper. I was not taught, as a child, that the world is a dangerous place....I learned the hard way....through experience.

Having a safety plan, a security system, or whatever makes you feel safe is important-a realistic plan for safety....if it helps reduce stress makes sense. Flight is a part of the PTSD process, and different for all. Hiding in one's closet, or sleeping with a loaded gun so you can get to sleep.....yep, sounds crazy. But it happens. We do what we believe we have to do in the moment....to be safe. We don't ask to be hurt....sometimes events are just plain random, sometimes we are collateral damage, and sometimes we are stalked. But when hurt by family member(s),....repeatedly, you learn not to trust.

Many of us, as kids hadn't been taught to read situations, and parents didn't pay attention to our being gone a good part of the day, and a lack of boundaries started in childhood....and over time, we learn to send out "vulnerability waves" and it started again. To stop the cycle....we must pay attention, be grounded, and look at situations in safe vs dangerous without being overly hypervigilent....just take care to make well-balanced decisions that don't put us in harms way or avoid unnecessary risks.

Most non-PTSD people I know list behaviors which are unsafe and to avoid when traveling or in their daily life. It is no different to take precautions with strangers, and size up situations. I don't drive in the wrong side of town. I try to avoid potentially usafe situations.

I started to buy a woman's pocketbook in a mid-west state today, and it had a "packing pocket" for a concealed weapon.....apparently this is very trendy and common. So it is not just people with PTSD who take precautions about their safety, it is becoming common place because of generally increased violence.....it is a common topic that non-PTSD people both discuss, and hope they react to in a calculated way. Staying safe.....is common sense, staying grounded in the moment.....and being prepared whether it's mace, a gun (not my thing-but it is prevelent in some places) or extra supplies in one's car..........is common sense-especially if you have been stalked, abused and anticipate that it is going to continue based on a repeated presence of danger or intuition.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top