perspective – Page 2 – Real Social Skills

Distinguishing between gaslighting and distorted thoughts

September 14, 2014June 11, 2021 Real Social Skills

A reader asked:

how do you tell the difference between when someone is gaslighting you and when you’re doing the distorted thinking thing from anxiety/depression? (for example you KNOW they’re judging you because they’re your parent and you’ve learned what that LOOK means but now they say they’re not judging you which means you can’t trust your own perceptions)

realsocialskills said:

One thing that’s important here is that distorted thinking and gaslighting are not mutually exclusive. When you know that you have distorted thinking, gaslighting abusers sometimes exploit that to get you to doubt your perceptions. Even when you are having an episode of actively distorted thinking, that doesn’t mean that the things someone else wants you to believe are necessarily true.

I think there are a couple of things that can help to sort out what’s really going on and what’s distorted thinking: outside perspective, and paying attention to your perceptions over time.

Regarding paying attention to your perceptions over time: Even if you have depression, you’re not always going to be equally depressed. Even if you have anxiety, you’re not always going to be equally anxious. If you still don’t like what someone is doing to you even when you’re not actively anxious or depressed, it’s probably not distorted thinking.

Also, if every time you object to something someone does, they consistently convince you that it’s distorted thinking, something is probably wrong for real. Nobody is perfect, and sometimes you’re both depressed *and* reasonably objecting to something. If someone consistently uses your mental illness to try to make conflicts go away, that’s gaslighting and wrong even if your perspective actually is distorted.

(That said, if you’re actively anxious or depressed, it can be hard to tell in the moment whether or not something is a pattern. It’s possible to feel like it is a pattern when it isn’t, due to distorted thinking. That’s a reason why it can be really helpful to pay attention to how you feel over time.)

One way to keep track of how you feel over time is to write a journal. If you write a journal, you can pay attention to how you felt yesterday and whether you still feel that way today. Writing down your perspective is a more reliable way to track things over time than relying on memory. It’s hard to have accurate memories of how you’ve felt over time, and it’s particularly difficult to have accurate memories of what you thought when your thinking was distorted. (That said, journaling does not work for everyone, and if you can’t do it, that doesn’t mean you can’t figure things out.)

Outside perspective can also help a lot. That’s one reason that therapy is very helpful to a lot of people who struggle with distorted thinking. If you can find a therapist who you can trust to have a good sense of when you’re probably getting something right and when it’s probably depression/anxiety-related distorted thinking. This backfires horribly if your therapist *isn’t* trustworthy. I don’t really have any advice about how to find a good therapist (I wish I did, and if I ever figure it out, I’ll post about it), but I know that for many people it is both possible and important to find a good therapist.

Personal blogging can also help as a way to track your perceptions over time and get feedback, but be careful about that. Personal blogging attracts two kinds of people who can create problems for those who struggle with distorted thinking: mean people who try to make you feel awful about yourself, and people who unconditionally offer you validation no matter what you say or do. Neither of those kinds of perspectives are helpful for sorting things out. In some ways, unconditional validation is particularly dangerous, *especially* if there’s a possibility that you’re abusing someone.

Friends and relatives can also sometimes be really helpful, particularly if they know the people involved or observe things.

If you have a sibling you can trust (not everyone does, but some people do), you might be able to have this kind of conversation:

You: Sarah, when Mom made that face, was she judging me or was I imagining it?
Sarah: Yeah, that’s definitely her judgey face.
or, depending on what she thinks:
Sarah: Actually, I think she probably didn’t mean it that way this time. She just talked to me about her obnoxious boss and I think it was her pissed at my boss face.

Similarly, friends sometimes have a really good sense of what’s going on.

The caution about blogging goes for consulting friends/family and other forms of peer support. Be careful about people who offer unconditional validation of all of your thoughts and feelings no matter what. That can end up reinforcing distorted thinking, which is not going to help you learn how to improve your perspectives and trust yourself when your perceptions are accurate.

People who are offering you useful perspective will sometimes tell you that they think your perceptions are off base, and they will not be jerks about it when they are critical. They will also not try to coerce you into adopting their perspective. Sometimes they will be wrong. Sometimes you will disagree with them and be right. You are allowed to think for yourself, even if your thinking is sometimes distorted. No one else can think for you, even if you go to them for perspective and help sorting things out.

tl;dr: Gaslighting and distorted thinking are not mutually exclusive. It’s common to experience both, even simultaneously. If you have distorted thinking, people inclined to gaslight you tend to exploit it. Tracking your perceptions over time, and getting outside perspective, make it much easier to sort out what’s actually going on. Sometimes therapy is helpful. Sometimes blogging is helpful. Sometimes friends and family are helpful. Be careful about trusting people who are mean to you or who offer unconditional validation.

The point is to build

August 1, 2014June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

A reader asked:

Your last post mentioned “coming to terms with how awful the world is.” When recognize that injustice is everywhere, and that you personally benefit from it, is it ok to find joy in the world even though it’s awful? Things like (in the US) visiting a national park and having a fun hike, when the land was taken a long time ago from Native Americans; or watching a good movie that’s problematic; or enjoying sledding after a snowstorm that was responsible for a few deaths?

For me it is impossible to keep injustice in mind all the time. So whenever I have fun, or feel happy, I feel guilty later because that fun indirectly came out of injustice, and instead of fighting that injustice I was enjoying it. How can you keep in mind that the world is a horrible place without neglecting your right (is it a right even?) to joy?

realsocialskills said:

The world contains much, much more than pain and injustice. It’s important to acknowledge and fight evil. It’s also important not to become so consumed by the fight that you can only see the horrible things.

The point is to build and to love. (And, sometimes, to fight battles that need fighting.)

Sometimes, people try to seek out some sort of purity by cutting out everything tainted by injustice. That doesn’t work, because everything is tainted in some way. If you go down that road seeking purity, you get stuck cutting out more and more things and not being able to find anything pure enough to like without shame. That doesn’t help. Everything is connected to something destructive. Sometimes particular kinds of destructiveness are dealbreaking, but it can’t be everything that has any connection to something bad. You can’t become pure that way, but you can do a lot of harm to yourself and others trying.

Liking things is good. Misery isn’t a moral accomplishment. If you want to make the world a better place, treat people right and build something good. The point is not to be miserable at the horrors of the world. The point is to build.

This is not about attaining moral purity through abstinence and misery. It’s about doing the work of making things better and building worthwhile things, and loving others more than our culture hates them. Your purity will not help anyone. Your work can.

To use some of the examples you gave:

Regarding the snow: it didn’t snow so that you could sled. Enjoying the sledding will not hurt anyone. Just don’t brag about sledding to people who are really upset about the snow. People who have been harmed by the snow might not want to hear how much you’re enjoying the snow, but that doesn’t mean that enjoying it is wicked, it just means it’s important to be considerate.

Watching a good movie that’s problematic: All movies have horrible aspects to one degree or another. It’s ok to ignore them and like something; *that’s the only way anyone ever gets to like anything in the media*.

But it’s also important to be willing to acknowledge that the problems are there and not be obnoxious about other people not wanting to hear about the thing you like. Everyone’s patterns of what’s deal-breaking are different. If the ableism in a movie is dealbreaking for someone, respect that, and don’t talk to them about how great you think it is. If someone got badly injured in the snow, don’t talk to them about how wonderful the snow is. Being considerate of other people’s boundaries, and their right to decide what is and is not personally dealbreaking, goes a long way.

You are allowed to be happy. It’s good to be happy. There’s a lot that’s wrong with the world, really really wrong, even. But…

The point is not to be constantly miserable about it. The point is not to wallow in shame. The point is to build.

Some building is activism and advocacy and fighting injustice. Some of it is just… building. All of it involves identifying situations in which you have the power to act, and finding things you can do that make good things more possible.

You can like things; you can love; it is good to like things and enjoy life. Refusing to ever like anything impure will not make the world better; your work can.

When people you love are mean

July 3, 2014June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

So, in a recent post in which I referenced “You’re ok, they’re mean” as a response to ableism, I got responses along the lines of:

“But what about when it’s my parents? Or people who are really nice in other ways? Or my friends? Or people I respect? How can I say they are mean?”

The short answer: people are complicated.

It’s possible for someone to be mean sometimes, but not always. Actually, most people aren’t mean all the time. (Even if they are mean to *you* all the time).

Hateful aspects of someone’s personality or behavior don’t cancel out the parts of them that are loving and respectful. They coexist.

And it cuts both ways – the loving or respectful aspects of their personality or behavior don’t cancel out the parts of them that are mean.

When they are being mean, it’s important to recognize that they are being mean, and that it’s wrong for them to be mean to you. Even though they aren’t mean all the time and you respect them in other ways.

Sometimes, when people who you love are mean, it’s possible to talk to them about it and show them that it hurts you. Sometimes they don’t realize they’re being mean, and sometimes they stop once they realize. But not always. Sometimes they don’t believe you, or don’t care. You have to use your judgement about which kind of situation you’re in.

And in any case, it starts by recognizing the mean behavior or attitudes as mean. If people think less of you because of your disability, or who you love, or anything else like that, they’re being mean. It’s a reflection on them, not you.

You’re ok. They’re mean.

Empathy With Storybook Villains

June 16, 2014June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

A reader asked:

Does it say something bad about me that I empathize with storybook villains?

realsocialskills said:

I doubt it. There are a lot of good reasons that people emphasize with storybook villains, for instance:

Storybooks can be very simplistic.

They don’t tell the whole story.
The things villains do often don’t make apparent sense
They’re crying out for an explanation
And if you make up a backstory of a character, it’s likely to be a sympathetic read of them. Because people create characters they like, more often than not
In that case, it’s very likely that you’ll sympathize with your version of the villain over the canon version of the hero

Sometimes the villains seem to have more agency than the heroes in storybooks.

Sometimes, villains make choices and do things, while it seems that the hero just sort of has a lot of things happen to them
Eg: the hero wanders into the enchanted forest and shares his lunch with a witch, or doesn’t, according to how he’s accustomed to behaving. The witch had decided to hang around that part of the forest, and decides in fairly creative ways how to curse or bless the hero.
That’s sort of.. more personal, somehow?
So it’s possible that you have more empathy for the villains because they seem more like people and less like simplistic embodied morals of the story

The heroes are sometimes not actually in the right.

You don’t have to like the hero just because the story says they’re the hero
Eg: in Jack and the Beanstalk, the hero steals all the giant’s stuff and then kills him.

It might have to do with your experiences being treated as bad:

If you’ve been taught to think of yourself as bad, it can be easier to identify with villains than heroes
If everyone treats you like the wicked witch, ogre, giant, or evil queen, you’re likely to identify with the villain than the people who kill the villain
When you’re bullied by a mob a lot, it’s not so appealing to cheer on a mob that rips someone apart
The story may call them the villain, but so do the people who call you the villain
And the villain may have had the chance to defy them, or come close to winning, in ways that you’ve never been able to do

I think the only way it might say something bad about you if it’s part of you convincing yourself that it ’s ok for you to treat others badly. Or, if it’s part of building your identity as a person who is intrinsically destructive of everyone, and seeing that as a good thing. If you’re doing that, you should stop. But that’s probably not what’s going on.

Remembering that people with disabilities have always existed

January 31, 2013June 20, 2021 Real Social Skills

Content warning: This post talks about institutionalization in graphic terms. Proceed with caution.

Sometimes people say things like this:

“When I was a kid, no one had all these learning disabilities and syndromes!”
“We’re all so much sicker these days. I never heard of all these diseases until recently.”

And – people who say this? You know why you never met anyone like this as a child?

Because, when you were a kid, people with learning disabilities, syndromes, illnesses, etc weren’t allowed to go to your school. A good percentage of them weren’t even allowed to live in your town.

They were kept away from people like you, and kept in horrifying conditions, so that you and other more socially valued people wouldn’t have to see them or know they existed. (It’s not your fault. You were a child and didn’t know. But it was done in your name, partly.) And a lot of them did not survive childhood because they were not given the care that would have made it possible. And this isn’t over. This still happens.

(And people with disabilities are still afraid of it happening to them).

But thing are getting a bit better – or, more accurately, people who have been fighting this evil for decades are starting to win.

So, these days, many children like those who were carefully kept away from you and your peers are allowed to grow up in families. In schools. As part of their communities. Visibly. And, this means more of them are suriving childhood.

And some adults with disabilities are now treated as adults and allowed to acknowledge disability without forfeiting adulthood. Not everyone, not yet. Not enough. But some. More than there used to be, fewer than there should be.

People with disabilities have always existed. And the fact that everyone now has to notice that they exist is a dramatic improvement. It’s a good thing that you see more people with disabilities now. It means some of them aren’t brutally hidden in institutions. Your children are growing up in a better world than you did. Remember this.