Therapy..disconnecting reality.

It's me who has to lead my therapy...so...do it at home version!
What do I believe and what happens if I re-frame it?

OK, I believe that I will never know what the right thing to do is.
That's a fact.

The world is very keen on telling you, me and them what should be done, and it isn't even because 'the world' will have to live with the consequences. It is just true that there is a way to do things that will get to the best outcome and there are ways that will make things worse, and it is true that most of the time the path to getting it right (the best outcome) will feel like the wrong path. And the path everyone tells me, you and them is the right path, will be wrong.

Because no one knows!

Now reverse that to get a re-frame.
The world isn't keen on telling you, me and them what not to do because the world will live with the consequences. It is untrue that there is a path to better or worse outcomes. Doing things that makes it feel better is better than making things worse. And I can know!

Right...
Writing this is making me feel better so I will continue.

Regards triggering playback...I supported someone whose mental health issues destroyed our marriage.I didn't tell anyone about the abuse I suffered because it was better for him to keep his status as a sane person.Telling may have got help? I will never know.

My choice almost led to death.

I got out alive, by keeping my head and taking damage until I could get away to a safe place. From there I began to reconstruct my life.

So, here I am again, supporting a person with mental health issues - who likewise is full of self-pity, delusional thinking etc - and just now I've narrowly avoided being punched. I'm in tears because he was trying to smash things (less and less around to smash easily...so it is getting harder for him) and yes, of course each time he spirals into rage I feel that I'm facing my death.

Obviously I can see why we (the counsellor and I) don't come to this place.

If I were her I'd be seriously thinking of phoning the police, or anything to rescue me.

Much safer we talk about my old wounds and hope that gives me enough strength to begin to think more clearly.

Nevertheless, what do I mean by disconnecting the two realities?
The two realities:

• What really happens
• My interpretation.

On one hand the ability to disconnect chronologically based, actual, physical events from mental interpretation is a survival technique. I'm trying to stay social, I try to talk to him...talking is part of our social programming. Sure fight+flight are what I feel, but I'm not doing that...because this is my home and this is my son.

Nevertheless, the fear is real. To get the feeling tone, ask yourself, what are the options when the monsters come? Those primal monsters who used to live under the bed?

• To  dissociate, stay quiet and hope the monster goes away, or 
• run and fight and be caught? 
• Or to placate?

This is an equation worked out deep within the brain. When it is a person I love I'm going to talk and engage, dispute, listen, argue.

Which is to placate in this three option system

I need more George Simon...Definitely. Whose theory is, my son's increasingly loud complaints of  victim-hood are not about defending himself, instead I should see it as fighting.

Fighting because:

 "There's not enough anxiety present"

I don't really understand that statement - not enough anxiety present? But a memory of father-in-law, of his face when I got angry with him. I'd never seen anything like this before. Never met anyone who enjoyed facing anger...So, who knows!

I just don't understand why anxiety is preferred, yet. I look forwards to getting the answer. For now though, I'm going to call this a 'stuck process'. It runs like this:

1. Something awful has happened and a person can't cope
2. So they seek others who will help them.
3. When they feel un-helped they blame others for not helping.
4. But more than that, the helper becomes the object towards which the victim directs all the negative energy and pain associated with the original wounding, all the rage, fight and flight that wasn't accessed at the time of the wounding.

Up to point 3 whoever was asked to get help didn't have the time, the skills or plain didn't want to. To be honest it isn't easy to help someone..But the world is a big place, full of people and new experiences and plenty of ways to access and mend damaged minds.

When a person in stuck process feels un-helped he defaults to rage. But it isn't allowed, because the sane part of him knows the helper, no mater how useless isn't really the cause of the first wound and isn't on any level a deserving target. So the rage exists in an implacable, hidden form.

Now the victim is becoming a predator, an ultra victim by spewing the damage from the original wound over whoever they believe is failing them. It happens because the ultra victim denies any real hurt, or real anger and consciously or unconsciously (who knows!) is beginning to realize the power of  manipulation. Which looks like this: Ex-Service-user talks about nothing except himself. He shows zero concern or interest in the feelings of others. The form the content takes is to demonstrate to who ever is listening (or not) that he is powerless and a victim, and the only thing that would make it better for him would be something that is impossible. This script is repeated regardless of what anyone is doing, interrupting conversations, disrupting any activity. And it is aimed primarily at me.

My first thought in reaction to that is if I don't listen it causes him to be violent

Well no actually! Re-frame: when he is not listened to he becomes increasingly aggressive. Therefore it is manipulative. At best he wants help that I'm unable to give. At worst there is an agenda I can't guess.

This theory still doesn't make sense to me, but I'm sticking with it. I mean, do the mind experiment, imagine you need to be heard by someone who wont listen. You feel that your communication is vital. But the person just says to you,

'Sorry I really have heard you tell me this before'. 

Is hurting yourself, smashing things, or screaming the same words over and over at the person who isn't listening, about being heard? Or is this aggression?

Wouldn't you chose to think about why you want to say what you want to say? I mean perhaps the person really has heard you say it before. So then wouldn't you ask yourself what's up that I don't remember that, what's going on with me?

Point is, if I'm trying to change the outcome by rage and belligerent action, that is manipulative. And if I stay with the manipulation theory...next important question is, what is the win?

Ah, now that is a question I really can't answer.

For ex-Service_User a win seems to be to get me to collapse into hopeless and helpless. Because it stops, I've backed down and gone away. Also I guess he gets that hit of self hatred? OK in truth right now I'm recovering from being bullied. I'm being kind to myself. I write because experience tells me, this is a good way for me to take care of myself. Watching the part of me that expects him to feel any remorse for causing me to cry (part of getting through the fear I feel) shrink. I'm slowly getting my head around that his behavior is dehumanizing. And that he won't change.

Understanding that this has to be managed.

So more questions for myself, the theory asks me to consider where is my own locus of guilt and remorse? What do I think I need to make reparations for? Who do I think I've hurt, why am I letting myself be bullied?

These are the real questions for my therapist and me to work on together.

Next conclusion I need to say no  more often and to more.. I can't allow things to be as they are. This will mean I have to be prepared to phone the police. And make it clear that we will not have him back in our house.

I'm not prepared to take that step yet.

And finally, how good am I at trusting my gut? For nine months now, my skin has been crawling, with constant feelings of unease and discomfort...But it is getting less am I learning to ignore, or are things getting better?

Basically, I'm not good at tracking, need to work on that.