Cognitive distortion

ACoAs being ‘RIGHT’ (Part 2)

dmtorbi 12-step, ACoAs, al-anon, Alcoholics Anonymous, alcoholism, Personal Growth, Problem-Solving, recovery , , , ,

IF I’M NOT RIGHT,
then who am I?

PREVIOUS: Being Right (#1)

⬅ “ARROGANT BOSS” by DMT

 

🟧 WHAT’S WRONG With Being ‘Right’?
Unhealthy (mild): The narcissist in us (& every ACoA has one) will think or say “If I can see this so clearly, why in the world can’t you? // If I can do that task, what’s your problem? // If I love that, I assume you will too. If not, why not?!”
This attitude makes no sense at all. Even identical twins are different in some fundamental ways. One person is not automatically better or more correct than another – just different. (See “Symbiosis & ACoAs #3“)

UNHEALTHY (severe) Addicted to being right (aBR)
🖤 This character defect (a cognitive distortion) applies TO :
— some adults we grew up with, AND
— those of us who have copied them , &
— anyone we’re ‘stuck to’ as adults who is like that

A Closed System – The state of a person or thing being isolated from its surrounding environment.
a : Any one person so rigid in their opinions that they can’t let in anything which differs from their own determined ‘correctness’

b :  2 people, a Dominant (D) & a Submissive (S) personality, who interact in an ongoing feedback loop, constantly exchanging limited, often distorted, info – characterized by coercion/compliance, co-dependence, sameness & symbiosis (like Mrs Bucket & husband)

For the D – there is no concern & equality for others, or desire to change, and –
For the S – there is no autonomy, questioning, rocking the boat, separateness, speaking up or taking a stand . (More….)

● GROUPS: (family, academia, church… )
Groups who assert they have the only right answer – discourage change, differences, disrupting the status quo, equality, independence, objecting, questioning, or taking a stand.
They tend to promote factions, gossip, immaturity, repression, secrets & triangulation. It makes members reactive & anxious, even if this is hidden from each other. They don’t feel safe to question or disagree leadership or the official rules, feafulr of disapproval, punishment or rejection. (MORE…)

🔒 At the extreme ‘right’ we find the ‘Right-ists’.

● RIGHT-ists are in a world of their own, extremely self-absorbed & arrogant – The accuracy or importance of whatever point they’re pushing is not as relevant as their need to be agreed with.
Their rigid thinking is used in a power struggle to bring everyone else to their knees – psychologically, mentally & emotionally. They want to capture other people’s thoughts – even in situations truly & totally beyond their control, such as with the active addicts .(Serenity Prayer backwards“).
Ingrained Right-ists truly feel justified in their position, rarely if ever seeing the arrogance & selfishness of their attitude. Sure of themself & comfortable in their superiority – so there’s no internal cognitive dissonance.

NOTE: Some right-ists camouflage their compulsion by seeming concerned for others’ welfare, sounding reasonable or just giving ‘helpful’ suggestions. But all the while they’re trying to control their environment – to make it conform to their world-view.
One hint: they consistently make unsolicited & often unwanted suggestions, give advice & offer help – there version.
DO NOT be taken in by the presentation. If your own opinions & needs are often or always ignored or over-ruled – you’re dealing with a sneak-narcissist.

Re. SELF,  RIGHT-ists:
• are rigid & controlling, so they don’t work well with others
• can become quite aggressive in order to eliminate the threat to their (secret or unconscious) weak self-image
• experience anyone who opposes or simply has differing opinions – as a direct threat to their sense of well-being
• lack empathy, have no patience with others & are often snide
• need the world to revolve around them

Re. OTHERS., RIGHT-ists :
• alienate others without realizing it, OR of they do, they wonder why, then assume it’s the other person’s fault
• can end up isolated & deprived of companionship, love, affection, …. unless they find a passive person who uses the ‘Right-ist’ to think for them!
• can’t imagine that other people actually have different needs & opinions from their own (NPD mother = “Put a sweater on, I’m cold”)
• may push good info from ‘good intentions’, without considering that they’re discrediting another’s process, boundary invading, & being arrogant (“others NEED me”)
• regard others’ ideas or viewpoints as inferior or worthless, often losing out on new info, & wonderful opportunities or relationships.

NEXT: Being Right (Part 3a)

ACoAs: RESPONSIBILITY (Part 1a)

dmtorbi 12-step, ACoAs, al-anon, Alcoholics Anonymous, alcoholism, mental health, Psychotherapy, recovery, self growth, self-help , , , , , ,

responsible??IT’S TOTALLY UP TO ME
to make everyone happy!

PREVIOUS:
Re. book “Trauma & Recovery”

 

WHAT IS IT? 
In its simplest form, Responsibility (R) is first of all : Honestly admitting, to ourself what we feel, think & have done – or – not. (T.E.A.).
It includes acknowledging both our limitations & our gifts, our ignorance & our knowledge. And if possible, always doing this without guilt, without judgment, without shame.  MOST of ALL – without self-hate.

DISTORTION  = ACoAs grew up with a great many cognitive distortions CDs , so it makes sense that we would carry them into our adult lives – as if they were the truth! One of these has to do with the issue of Responsibility (R). 12370991801134292684yyycatch_people_biz_-_male_sad.svg.med

FEAR of Responsibility 
For many ACoAs, R. is a dirty word, both an absolute requirement & a hated burden!  We take responsibility for others’ actions & emotions, while in many ways not being responsible for ourself, hating ourselves (S-H) for the very things that make us human.

We believe we MUST take care of others instead of ourself, or someone will die & it’ll be our fault.  We’re overwhelmed by the heavy weight of it but believe we can’t escape. We were not taught healthy R. – which is taking care of ourself – so we find convoluted ways to avoid self-care.

👼🏼 🫃🏽 CHILDHOOD ORIGINS,  creating our aversion to R (FoR)
1. “I tried to fix them so they’d be OK”
GOALs:
✦ To stop them from suffering & make them happier, AND
✦ To make them ‘well’ so they would stop hurting us…..
….. AND be able to take care of us, the way all children need

COMMENTS – We were forced to be responsible (R) for our unhappy, angry, crazy, drunk parents, & sometimes siblings & extended family members. Many of us had to be the ‘designated adult’ even when we were very little, because of the adults’ incompetence, selfishness & addictions. We got the RULE loud & clear “Everyone else’s needs are more important than mine”.

• We understood early on that they couldn’t cope, so we had to be R. for ourself, to not ‘bother them’, to be self-sufficient
• We felt a great burden to fix their problems, make them feel better, to give them what they wanted – even when it was presented in the form of Double Messages.
• We were R. for doing whatever they wanted, how they wanted it, yet having to figure it out alone, because they didn’t say, or changed the rules arbitrarily, endlessly confusing us

• We may have lived with one parent who was totally irresponsible & we swore to never be like that, AND/OR with an over-R. parent, which we copied. Yet, some of us may have resented the responsible one for being too controlling, & adored the careless one, for being charming.

2. “I failed to make them better & so to stop my pain”
REALITY
✦ It should never fall to a child to have to try healing their parents’ damage, in a role-reversal of being the little grownup
✦ No one can cause an adult to “heal & grow”. People can only improve their life if they’re willing to do the work required to change. In any case, it’s not something for a child to do, who needs to be cared for

COMMENTS: No matter how hard we tried we were never able to create a genuine improvement in our parents. This was devastating for us, because we needed them to be mentally sane (T), emotionally stable (E) & consistently dependable (A).
As kids we desperately wanted to stop hurting, AND get our needs met. So we made every effort to please them & minimize the damage they could do us, but nothing we did worked

Our ‘failure’ left us with 2 conflicting states: failed hope
• Hating ourselves: We concluded that something was profoundly wrong with US – we weren’t smart enough, attractive enough, perfect enough…. to have an impact on the adults

• Hating them: We did/do in fact love our parents very much – no matter how they treated us. However, years of abuse & neglect gave taken their toll, building & building our helpless rage, which we had to deny.

NEXT: Fear of Responsibility (Part 2)

ACoAs: BOOKENDING with the WIC (#2)

dmtorbi 12-step, ACoAs, al-anon, Alcoholics Anonymous, alcoholism, coaching, mental health, Problem-Solving, Psychotherapy, recovery, self growth, self-help , , , , ,

bookends 2
I CAN BE IN THE PRESENT
by being kind but realistic

PREVIOUS:
 Book-ending, Part 1

POSTS: ✦ Self-Hate
✦ Abandonment Pain, Now

See ACRONYM Page for abbrev.


TRYING to PROTECT ourselves (cont)
a. RULES & ROLES

b. CDs – Another strategy evolved into using Cognitive Distortions (CDs), B & W thinking being the most common – trying to have some predictive ability amid alcoholic chaos. We pickup them up from family, school & religion – as well as our own immature thinking. Ad now they’re entrenched in the WIC.

CDs were a way to project what we assumed would happen in any given situation, so we could either be prepared or avoid it altogether.  In terms of T.E.A., they’re forms of incorrect Thinking. But they’re too limited in scope to deal with most of reality, deep-rooted beliefs that leave out important info & lead to incorrect conclusions.

✶ Unfortunately this strategy also backfired, just like many others the WIC (understandably) absorbed. This is mainly because we were / are still trying to do the impossible: getting unhealthy people to love us & stop being abusive.

The only thing that’s truly successful is to stop chasing the WIC’s delusion that we are responsible for the original abandonment, & the fantasy that we can somehow make ‘them’ see & accept uimpossibles!

CDs are so harmful because:
• they’re the twisted ‘logic’ behind much of our un-healed habitual actions & emotional reactions, which are inevitably self-defeating & painful – even torturous!
• it makes us think we’re crazy when other people use them on us – unless we’re familiar with the distortions & can counter them accurately.
However, once you know the various CDs & Logical Fallacies well, you’ll never again think you’re nuts. Never again! Hurray!

Negative USES of Bookending
a. overblown unrealistic ‘hopeful’ expectations
• Both types of expectations (over & under-realistic) are based on  the WIC’s narcissism – ‘everything that others do (to me) is about me’, but this one comes from the aspect of ACoAs that is grandiose, symbiotic & unrealistic about people & events

Again, this is the WIC who desperately needs & want something, but is not using real-world criteria to evaluate what’s actually possible is any particular situation. Because the imagined outcomes are not possible, we are inevitably disappointed.
This reinforces our original CD – that we don’t deserve anything good & that the universe is against us/
Some of these CDs are:  • over-estimating  • mind-reading  • wishful thinking  • externalizing self-worth  • always being right ….. Screen Shot 2015-09-10 at 3.33.35 PM

b. totally negative beliefs about how , hopelessly things will always turn out.
Some of these CDs are: • all or nothing  • only noticing the negative  • making everything about oneself   • jumping to conclusions  • under-estimating …..

ALSO, we use idealization / fantasy to mask how scared we really are
• because we’re not actually allowed to get our needs met, AND
• when we already know the person or situation is unsuitable, even damaging, but don’t want to leave & have to start over – after all, if it’s hopeless anyway, why bother!

✶ This defensive way of thinking is NOT the same as being Appropriately Positive and Realistically Hopeful – about what we are actually capable of accomplishing or ways we can be nourished by healthy environments. ACoAs are so steeped in the fantasy, we have trouble imagining wonderful, happy circumstances – for ourselves!

However, as we heal and DO get good things in our life – we will know & feel the contrast with our upbringing : THIS is the way it should have / could have been, but never was. We need to mourn that loss but stop looking back for something that was not possible.

NOW it’s time we give ourselves the happiness we never had as kids!

NEXT: Bookending- #3