#idk why i really like chess analogies i suck at chess | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rainbow-lucifer-doom · 7 years

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ignore, long post

I’m not sure whether to be super obvious about who I’m talking about or just do “_____” or a codename or something, lol. it’s not like the people I want to talk about will complain or care either way, but I guess I just want to avoid people being like “who’s that” or “why do you talk about this person you know all the time”. I guess I’ll go with _____ even though that’s kind of a problem since I know a huge number of people with 5 letters in their names, lol

okay so, _____ was reading this dbt workbook yesterday and just getting offended over literally everything it said. he apparently doesn’t understand that 1. the book isn’t sentient/a person, 2. the book doesn’t hold any kind of power or authority over him, 3. the book (or whoever wrote it) isn’t going to like get mad at him or punish him if he doesn’t strictly adhere constantly to everything it suggests? and 4. the book isn’t giving orders like “you must do everything written here constantly 24/7 Or Else”

I keep trying to make him understand that it’s giving suggestions, it’s not trying to say “if you ever aren’t “mindful” for a single second you are Bad and deserve to Suffer and Die”. like, the analogy I made was like, if I was giving someone some pens for some reason, like maybe this person only has one pen and it’s a really shitty pen so I’m giving them some new ones idk, that wouldn’t be me saying “you MUST use ALL of these pens CONSTANTLY FOREVER or ELSE”, it would just be more like “now you have extra pens and you can choose which pen to use when”, with no implication that they HAVE to use the pens I’m giving them or that not using the pens I give them makes them a bad person who deserves to suffer and die.

like I get _____’s reasoning, it’s kinda like jumping a few steps ahead, sort of like how professional chess players will be like “well, if I make this move, then the other person would be able to make this move, which would mean that I could make this move or this move...” etc, like thinking out all the possibilities in advance. like the reason chess players do that is so that they can figure out which move is the most logically beneficial, or whatever. what _____ is doing is more like, trying to figure out in advance how other people will respond to anything he ever says or does, so that he can avoid being hurt, punished, criticised, etc in any way, pretty much

but also in his mind “x is possible” becomes “x is guaranteed” (for some reason. we don’t know why but kinda speculate that he starts out assuming the only two possibilities are “always x” or “never x”, so if you say “x is possible”, you’re ruling out “never” but not ruling out “always”) so it goes something like, “if I don’t use mindfulness constantly, then it’s possible that someone (a mental health professional? idk) will use that fact against me”. and that’s true; it is possible. it’s just also possible for that not to happen, but because to _____ possible = guaranteed, he just assumes that it will happen.

so I guess then it’s like “if I want to avoid the possibility of someone saying that because I don’t use mindfulness constantly then I’m “not even trying at all” and therefore it’s my own fault I’m mentally ill and therefore I don’t deserve any other help ever, then I have no other option but to use mindfulness constantly, 24/7, every second of the day” idk. like “any single second of me not using mindfulness could be used against me as evidence that I’m not trying at all to ever use healthy coping skills”

so like... I’m not really sure how he gets from “mindfulness can help with emotions” or whatever to “if I don’t use mindfulness 24/7 they will tell me that I don’t deserve treatment because I’m not trying hard enough” it seems kinda like he thinks “it is possible to do this thing” = “you must do this thing or else”?

idk. I feel like if I could figure out what fucking thought process makes him respond to “try being mindful” with “how dare you say that if I ever do anything other than focus on the present constantly then I deserve to die!” then I could like reason against it a bit easier. but it’s like I can see how he gets from like, A to B, and like C to D, but not B to C? idk. like I have pieces of the weird thought process, but I don’t have all of it.

like I said, I think it comes from something reasonable, or like, it’s an understandable reaction that was drilled into him. like, of course you want to avoid people hurting you and dismissing you and refusing to help you. and of course you want to predict people’s possible responses to your actions so that you can avoid any possible harm or anything. the whole “think about how people might respond to an action and avoid any possible negative responses” is the kind of thing that prevents people from like going up to strangers and punching them in the face, lol. like, maybe you’re pissed off and want to yell at someone but then you’re like “oh wait, if I do that, then they might yell back/hurt me, and I don’t want that” or alternatively “if I do that then they might cry and then I’d feel bad and I don’t want that” (if you’re one of those people with “empathy”, lol) or whatever

I guess _____ just takes that too far?? idk. like, he’s afraid to do anything for fear of someone yelling at him or whatever but then he just gets pissed off about the perceived limits that that fear is placing on him, and resentful that he’s being “”prevented”” from doing things, as if other people are the ones saying that bad things will definitely happen if he does or doesn’t do whatever

so back to the dbt thing, like, the book will say “try being mindful and focusing on the present” and he’ll get really pissed off and be like “what the fuck, how dare this book order me to never ever think about the past or future ever” and I think he’s scared that he’ll be punished if he goes against anything anyone ever says. so suggestions become orders, like “try this” becomes “you must do this Or Else” with the implication of “if you don’t do this then you’re Bad and will be Punished and hurt”

oh yeah, and he interprets everything as a fucking constant extreme thing. so “try focusing on the present” apparently = “always think only of the current second, never ever think of anything that isn’t happening right now” like obviously that would be stupid and impractical. of course if you’re on a 3 hour train journey you’re allowed to daydream instead of just staring at the seat in front of you and thinking only of that and your breathing, lol of course if you have an exam next week you’re allowed be like “hmm, I have an exam next week, I’d better study now” instead of just never thinking about it and never making any plans ever of course you’re allowed make plans for the future or acknowledge/remember things that happened in the past, or let your thoughts wander and think of things other than what’s happening right now, like, idk, if you see an ad for the power rangers movie and then are like “oh I remember power rangers, I used to watch that when I was young, I wonder if the movie’s any good, I heard the blue ranger is autistic and done really well. oh that reminds me of the autistic puppet Julia on Sesame Street, I heard they didn’t consult with any actual autistic people and that sucks but I still like the picture of her with her blue feather” like yeah none of that is “focusing on the present” but it’s not bad, you’re allowed do that, like to have thoughts and think about things and whatever.

the whole “focus on the present” thing doesn’t mean “focus only on the present constantly and if you ever think of anything else you’re bad”, I take it to be more like “practice focusing on the present sometimes so that if you’re ever in a situation where your thoughts are upsetting or distressing you or out of control, then you’ll be good at focusing on the present instead, and you can use that skill then to get out of the obsessive loop you’re in”

like, just because mindfulness exists doesn’t mean you’re obligated to use it constantly. I really think you only need to bother trying to “focus on the present” if you’re like ruminating on something upsetting in the past, or stuck in a loop of imagining the same upsetting hypothetical situation over and over, or worrying obsessively about the future, or something like that. that is, if your thoughts are actually distressing and bad. if you’re having fun daydreaming or remembering things or planning for the future then yeah obviously you don’t need to stop doing that?

basically yeah all of this seems obvious to me, that when something says “focus on the present” it doesn’t mean all the time always forever with no exceptions, it’s just telling you a thing you can do, like giving a suggestion that is optional and can be used selectively but somehow when _____ sees something say “focus on the present” he takes that as “always focus on the present forever with no exceptions”, lol. and doesn’t get the same implied common sense or whatever that I do. like he’s like “well if they mean only to do it sometimes, then why don’t they say to only do it sometimes, instead of saying to do it all the time?”

but. they never fucking said to do it all the time. they just never gave any specification, presumably assumed people would fill in the specification with something reasonable, and he filled in the lack of specification with “always” idk if that’s an autistic thing or a bpd thing or either/both or whatever. I don’t think it’s something he’s just doing on purpose to be annoying, lol, but I also think that “most people” wouldn’t interpret an unspecified thing as meaning “always with no exceptions and you’re bad if you ever don’t do this constantly”, idk.

(though to be fair, it seems pretty common for people to fill in a lack of specification with “all” in some specific circumstances, like “men tend to... (whatever)” and people will interpret that as “every man always does this constantly” lol. but ironically, _____ understands that “x group does y thing” means “it’s common for a lot of people in x group to do y thing at least some of the time” as opposed to “every single x constantly does y all the time” but also doesn’t seem to get that “x thing is possible” doesn’t mean “it’s impossible for x thing to ever not be the case”. so like, an inversion of the average person, I guess?)

line separating because this is a mostly separate subject

I’m like 99% sure that _____’s mom is/was emotionally abusive

but he will not fucking listen!

like! he acknowledges that she instilled some fear reflexes in him, that the things she does/did are considered emotionally abusive or harmful, that he’s been negatively affected by her (and still is), that she’s generally a shitty parent in a lot of ways, etc, but ??? like he’ll acknowledge most of those things but once I’m like “what she did is emotionally abusive” he’s like “no that’s impossible”

I get that it’s denial or whatever and maybe I just shouldn’t be pushing it but to me it’s so! fucking! obvious! and the thing is, the fear she instilled in him with her shitty parenting influences and drives so many of his thoughts and actions, and if he doesn’t acknowledge that then I don’t know how he’s meant to like deal with any of it.

like, he can’t just pretend that he “mysteriously” has this massive fear of people punishing him for anything and everything he could ever do, and that it wasn’t caused by anything? or that there’s no reason that he’s constantly like “oh god what did I do, she’s going to yell at me/hurt me”? like the problems can’t be dealt with properly if he’s gonna pretend they just came out of nowhere. I think it would be a lot easier to try and address or deal with the whole “if I don’t do exactly what everyone says then I’m Bad and they’ll yell at me/hurt me” thing if he acknowledged that it likely comes from his mom always yelling at him and punishing him over random shit inconsistently and whenever she felt like it.

apparently she also used to slap him on the hand and then yell at him for crying, but idk whether that would fall under “abusive in some way” or y’know at least damaging and harmful (well no, I’m sure it was damaging and harmful, but idk whether that was something that she was “within her rights” to do or not), or if it would fall under “normal physical discipline”, unless you’re someone who believes that all physical punishment is abusive I know there’s been studies done on spanking, but that’s spanking, not slapping on the hand, and honestly idk if the location of a physical punishment changes how abusive it is??

but like also with that, he has no idea how often that was or why she did it, unlike with the excessive yelling which he knows was definitely pretty often and can remember tended to be for completely contradictory things (eg, she’d sometimes get mad at him for getting up before 10am on a weekend and other times for getting up after 10am on a weekend, sometimes get mad at him for watching tv without permission and other times get mad for asking permission to watch tv (as opposed to just watching it without asking), sometimes get mad for doing laundry or something without being asked and other times get mad for not doing it without being asked or for asking permission first, etc)

and like when I’ve asked him about it to try and get some kind of detail he’d be like “idk, the memories are gone, it’s like I can’t see them properly anymore” I find that suspicious/worrying, if the memories just “disappear” sometimes whenever he tries to focus on them??

he said that he’s reasonably sure that some of the times she slapped him were for eating candy or whatever without permission or something, he’s definitely sure that she’d yell at him for crying when she slapped him and be like “you’re just crying because I’m mad at you/because I slapped you!”, like yeah? he’s like 6? what do you fucking expect? anyway he’s also reasonably sure that she used to act like she wasn’t mad and that whatever he was saying or doing was okay if they were in front of other people, but then as soon as they were alone she’d yell at him and slap him

he also said that he thinks some of the times she slapped him was because he had “said or done something he wasn’t supposed to”, which is honestly vague as hell?? like okay, that could be anything from getting up too early/late (like I’d already mentioned) to like murdering someone? except I think the idea was that it wasn’t “something bad”, it was “something he wasn’t meant to do”, so like it wasn’t something harmful or immoral, it was something where literally the only problem with it was that, according to her, he “wasn’t supposed to” say/do it.

and apparently “something about being respectful/disrespectful”, which again is super vague, so idk

he did say that he remembers that he was always being told to “be respectful” but he had no idea what that actually meant, and that he’d look it up in dictionaries and google it but still have no fucking idea what the “be respectful” thing that adults were asking him to do actually was, lol. I’m gonna guess that if he was always told to “be respectful”, and that some of the things he got in trouble over were “saying/doing something he wasn’t meant to”, then it may be that some of what he got slapped for was “being impolite/disrespectful”? I’m just guessing/making connections there.

assuming that’s the case, then like, 0/10 for her, ‘cause if you’re gonna slap a child for something I really don’t think “eating without permission” and “being disrespectful” are good reasons, because nobody’s literal safety is in immediate danger or anything. like I can’t think of a good reason necessarily anyway, but maybe if they were bullying another child or something? trying to literally murder a younger sibling maybe?? idk

also he said he thinks it doesn’t count as bad because she didn’t seem to do it impulsively? like something somewhere said that the difference between “physical discipline” and “abuse” is that discipline is like structured and on purpose or whatever, whereas abuse is “out of anger” but the thing is, she did slap him (and yell at him) “out of anger”, but it also wasn’t “impulsive”

but I mean whatever, even if it doesn’t fall under physical abuse, I’d personally count it as emotional abuse anyway because, combined with the (seemingly) made up rules and inconsistent punishment and yelling, it fucking damaged him.

oh also, in the one incident that he bothered to write down (to be fair he said that he remembers being too scared to write in his diary or do anything at all when his mom was mad at him, in case she got more mad at him for that, and she did read his diary, so it’s understandable that he never wrote it down when she yelled at him or whatever), what it was was that she grabbed him and shook him and yelled at him that he was stupid and so on and the reason for it was because earlier that day he’d worn mismatching shoes, and then he was meant to wake her up at a certain time but forgot. like seriously?? why would you fucking shake someone and scream at them for that? is there even any good reason to do that kind of thing? like maybe if they weren’t your fucking child, like if they were equal to you as opposed to you having complete power and authority over them, and they had like, repeatedly destroyed your possessions or something and you’d already told them to stop a billion times? idk.

anyway so I’ve always been like “why are you always so terrified to say or do anything? why do you always seem like you’re afraid that someone’s gonna hurt you? you honestly seem like you’ve been abused in some way” and he’d be like “nah that’s impossible, my mom is the best parent ever and has never been anything other than perfectly nice to me. except for those times she wasn’t, but I was bad then and completely deserved it so it doesn’t count”

honestly saying it like this just makes me really fucking surprised I didn’t notice sooner based on that fucking bizarre answer. so he’d basically be like “yeah I have no idea why I react like someone who’s been yelled at and punished for anything and everything, I must just have been born like this and naturally have an inherent fear of being yelled at or hurt for doing or saying anything “wrong/badly” or without permission, for no reason” ?????

like would it just be cruel to be like “listen to me! your mom is/was clearly fucking emotionally abusive to you! she harmed you and fucked you up and you fucking know this! just admit it and acknowledge it and get the fuck away from her as soon as you can!” obviously trying to leave or whatever wouldn’t be easy, or actually would be incredibly difficult for a lot of reasons, but still, that’s not the main point I’d be trying to make.

I’m not gonna say I “don’t get” why he’s so fucking insistent on denying it, because I know it’s a thing for kids of emotionally abusive parents to (sometimes) think their parents are great and not realise that what they were doing was bad, and to rationalise it or whatever. but like, the evidence is right there, and to me it’s so obvious!

and like. he massively resents her and is generally unable to feel sympathy/empathy for her (his mom specifically, as opposed to pretty much anyone/everyone else in the world), so obviously he must know on some level that she treated him badly, or else why would he be so pissed off? but he won’t admit it. even though it’s right fucking there. as if emotionally he does know but consciously or whatever refuses to acknowledge it anyway. idk.

like, his denial wasn’t even this bad about his drug problem, I don’t think. I’d be like “you have a drug problem” and he’d be like “nah” except, idk, he was more open to acknowledging it? he wasn’t like “that’s completely impossible”, it was more like “hmm, maybe I do. actually, no I don’t. actually, maybe I do.” back and forth over and over.

I guess that’s all I wanted to say, I’m not entirely sure where I was going with both of those things, idk

just complaining about _____ I guess, lol

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