Out of the Storm

Symptoms => General Discussion => Topic started by: schrödinger's cat on September 21, 2014, 07:53:25 AM

Title: Brainwashing...?
Post by: schrödinger's cat on September 21, 2014, 07:53:25 AM
There's a text somewhere out there saying that emotional abuse has an effect that's similar to brainwashing. I did some research on that, and found several websites of women who've survived hellish marriages, and they also say that emotional abuse brainwashes you. If this is true for emotional abuse you get as a grown-up, it has to be doubly true for the abuse you get as a kid. If a grown woman is eventually worn down, then what hope has a child?

I'm torn. On the one hand, it fits to what I know of myself. Even some of the stages of brainwashing applied - I remember one of them very vividly, and I remember how terrifying and painful it was, but it never made sense at the time and so I thought it was just me being overdramatic or thin-skinned or whatever. But then I read that text about stages of brainwashing and I went: "...sounds familiar... hm, a bit familiar... nope... yes, that there is familiar again... and what's this? AAAGH!" I closed the tab and sat there, utterly spooked, heart pounding. Finally, that one hellish time in my life made sense. Hooray. That's good. But it also means that it really happened, it really was just as bad as I felt it was, and that is scary. (I'm fine - I've got time enough to work through this, and dh is a very good listener nowadays.)

But can this really be true? It's not like I grew up in a cult! What do I have to complain about? It was just emotional abuse, it wasn't the GULAG.

On the other hand, to this day I've got trouble believing in my own opinions. I'm so used to thinking: "oh, but that can't be true - after all, it's me thinking it." Now THAT certainly isn't an attitude I was born with.

How about you? Anyone else feel that? Or is it just me? What are your experiences with this? If this truly is a part of CPTSD - being unused to validating one's own opinions and experiences - then that would be a major stumbling block on our way to recovery, right? How can I win if I haven't got myself on my side?
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: keepfighting on September 21, 2014, 09:36:32 AM
Quote from: schrödinger's cat on September 21, 2014, 07:53:25 AM
I closed the tab and sat there, utterly spooked, heart pounding. Finally, that one hellish time in my life made sense. Hooray. That's good. But it also means that it really happened, it really was just as bad as I felt it was, and that is scary.

But can this really be true? It's not like I grew up in a cult! What do I have to complain about? It was just emotional abuse, it wasn't the GULAG.

That sounds pretty frightening. I am glad you've got your DH on your side to help you cope with the horrible memories.

The way I see it, we did grow up in a cult called the 'family system' that centered around one or more toxic person(s).

Are you familiar with Steven Hassan's BITE model? It's a good resource for the different levels on which mind control works (another term for 'brainwashing').

https://www.freedomofmind.com/Info/BITE/bitemodel.php

Somewhere at the beginning of Pete Walker's book on CPTSD, he mentions that his method can also help cult victims.

Quote from: schrödinger's cat on September 21, 2014, 07:53:25 AM
On the other hand, to this day I've got trouble believing in my own opinions. I'm so used to thinking: "oh, but that can't be true - after all, it's me thinking it." Now THAT certainly isn't an attitude I was born with.

How about you? Anyone else feel that? Or is it just me? What are your experiences with this? If this truly is a part of CPTSD - being unused to validating one's own opinions and experiences - then that would be a major stumbling block on our way to recovery, right? How can I win if I haven't got myself on my side?

You're definitely NOT alone in this - we were programmed to believe in the superiority of their judgment and our own inferiority. The ability to trust in my own judgment is a skill that I haven't mastered yet - and I'm in my forties and have been NC with both my parents for more than 13 years.

Like you said: Time to get ourselves on our side!
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: Kizzie on September 21, 2014, 09:44:28 AM
Quote from: schrödinger's cat on September 21, 2014, 07:53:25 AM
Finally, that one hellish time in my life made sense. Hooray. That's good. But it also means that it really happened, it really was just as bad as I felt it was, and that is scary. (I'm fine - I've got time enough to work through this, and dh is a very good listener nowadays.)

But can this really be true? It's not like I grew up in a cult! What do I have to complain about? It was just emotional abuse, it wasn't the GULAG.

On the other hand, to this day I've got trouble believing in my own opinions. I'm so used to thinking: "oh, but that can't be true - after all, it's me thinking it." Now THAT certainly isn't an attitude I was born with.

How about you? Anyone else feel that? Or is it just me? What are your experiences with this? If this truly is a part of CPTSD - being unused to validating one's own opinions and experiences - then that would be a major stumbling block on our way to recovery, right? How can I win if I haven't got myself on my side?

If one or both of your parents had a personality disorder (PD) then absolutely it can be true that most of what you went through was a form of brainwashing, not as clearly cult-like as some organizations, but nevertheless a closed system in which you are required to subscribe to the beliefs and edicts of those who hold power,  which suppresses individual thinking, and from which you don't feel you can leave. 

You might want to swing on over to our sister site "Out of the FOG (http://out%20of%20the%20fog)" and have a read through the sections "Disorders" and "Traits" and see if any of that fits your parents. Also, if you check out our home page (http://home%20page), you'll see some of the PD behaviours that if long term can lead to CPTSD. They can be described as brainwashing, esepcially when it's young children as you point out.

Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: schrödinger's cat on September 21, 2014, 11:52:01 AM
Thanks, both of you. I'll look at these links, they sound interesting.

I'd be surprised if my mother had a personality disorder, though. She had a crap childhood and basically had no one to help her deal with problems. She parented her younger siblings and did grown-up work from the time she was... four? And she and her siblings were never allowed to rest or play. They always had to work at something, even if it was simply just knitting stockings. She doesn't talk much about that time, but I get the impression that she was a functional adult by the time she was about eight, give or take a few years. My working theory is that her parentalization plus overwork explains her erratic parenting.

So when people get too close, she unconsciously sees this as "yet MORE work" and "yet ANOTHER person who wants to be taken care of". She uses Medium Chill to put distance between her and others. Once the relationship has cooled to a temperature she feels comfortable with, she takes it back up again. She is generous with her help, but only in places where she could pull back any time she wanted. To me, she's always been a fair-weather friend. But why shouldn't she be? After all, she was a functional adult by the time she was eight! She must've seen me as a functional adult by the time I, too, was eight, which explains most of the neglect. My father was critically ill for years, so that was her focus, everything else had to wait. The over-worrying and micro-managing - I've begun to wonder if she didn't simply project her childlike, vulnerable need for guidance entirely onto me, so in "protecting" and "guiding" me she assuaged her own inner pain.
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: Badmemories on September 21, 2014, 08:13:35 PM
I have been reading a lot lately on gaslighting. They consider it a form of torture and brainwashing.

wrote by schrödinger's cat,

I'd be surprised if my mother had a personality disorder, though. She had a crap childhood and basically had no one to help her deal with problems. She parented her younger siblings and did grown-up work from the time she was... four? And she and her siblings were never allowed to rest or play. They always had to work at something, even if it was simply just knitting stockings. She doesn't talk much about that time, but I get the impression that she was a functional adult by the time she was about eight, give or take a few years. My working theory is that her parentalization plus overwork explains her erratic parenting.

That is like the childhood that My mother had, on top of that her st. Father was an alcoholic and abusive. I think she did so much better than she was treated.

@kizzy
You might want to swing on over to our sister site "Out of the FOG" and have a read through the sections "Disorders" and "Traits" and see if any of that fits your parents. Also, if you check out our home page you'll see some of the PD behaviours that if long term can lead to CPTSD. They can be described as brainwashing, especially when it's young children as you point out.,

I just want to know how YOU do that... shorten a web address and write a small explanation and it goes to the link! Is it easy?  You can see I underlined it from Your post and I know it will not go to the website but it would be so much easier!!
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: Kizzie on September 21, 2014, 08:37:36 PM
BadMemories - whatever the link is you want to insert - copy it, highlight where you want it to go in your post (in this case you would highlight "Out of the FOG"), and click on the little globe icon above this text box second row, second from the left.  Easy peasy  ;)

Katz - what about Avoidant PD re your M? She sounded a bit like that to me but you of course would know best.  And perhaps if she doesn't have a clear PD, but her parenting was erratic, that's where your sense that part of what happened to you was brainwashing rises from. E.g., she may have had "rules" about how she was to be treated that she didn't articulate but that you knew all too well. There were probably unspoken rules about your F as well because he was so ill for so long and the family's attention was on him.  I think using "medium chill' on loved ones who have a PD is healthy, but when it's used on non-PDs it's more of a negative control behaviour (i.e., pushes people away).

The other thing that popped into my mind was that you may feel less than confident in your decisions, your choices, in your "self" because what 8 year old takes on an adult role and would not feel like they were "winging it?"

Just some random thoughts to chew on  8)
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: Badmemories on September 21, 2014, 08:46:04 PM
@ Kizzie,
I copied and pasted this so I can try it!  :)
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: bee on September 25, 2014, 03:48:08 AM
I know I was brainwashed. The only valid opinions were my uPDM's.

I remember learning about the difference between fact and opinion one day in school. It was the first time I understood that opinions can't be wrong. Unfortunately I was still naive enough to think that M just didn't have that little piece of information. I went home so excited to explain the difference to her. I explained that I could have a diffferent opinion than her. She said, "not when your opinion is wrong you can't". Then she ranted about about how stupid educators were.

When I was growing up my term for brainwashing/gas lighting/manipulation done to me by M was 'mind f**king'. I didn't know at the time how spot on that descriptor was.

I haven't been brave enough to read anything about brainwashing.
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: schrödinger's cat on September 25, 2014, 07:43:02 AM
Oh goodness, yes, it's been a huge shock to read it, very chilling. Back then, I knew precisely what was happening, with clear and calm clarity, but I had no words for it and no way of ever getting even the SLIGHTEST and TINIEST bit of help. So yes, those texts pack a bit of a punch, in my opinon.

Sorry to hear you had to go through all that. You never deserved to be treated that way. Seriously, some families are like totalitarian regimes.
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: selfcompassion on September 25, 2014, 02:45:22 PM
"After all, she was a functional adult by the time she was eight!"

No, she was a damaged and disfunctional child. Forcing her to replace the adults in her family did not make her an adult, it made her an abused child. There is nothing "adult creating" in that system. And far from "a functional adult", she was a child being forced into an adult caretaker role. That creates damaged and suffering adults. Your mother needs your compassion, as she never got to be a child. She missed it all. How sad for her.
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: schrödinger's cat on September 25, 2014, 03:57:51 PM
I was too vague, then. Sorry - English isn't my native language. What I meant was this: seen from her point of view, it wasn't abusive to expect an eight-year old to function the same way a grown-up would. So she expected me to not need guidance, to not need much of her company, to not need comfort or expressions of affection (hugs, time spent together,...). When I told her I was bullied at school, she expected me to deal with it by myself, without one word of guidance or comfort. This was how she herself had to live when she was that age. She knows her case wasn't the norm, but she thinks of it as simply just a hardship she's overcome. I fully agree that she was most certainly overworked, overburdened with too much responsibility, and damaged.

Understanding that has made it easier to accept what's happened to me. She only handed down what was given her. It's very possible that no generation of my family has EVER been properly parented. They were always very poor, living in an area where people had to work hard, and in the 19th century, many of them had to leave their families as children to earn money working on other farms. No wonder they were crap at parenting. It makes me wonder if some forms of emotional abuse aren't, at the end of the day, caused or at least made worse by social injustice.
Title: Anger and Compassion
Post by: Kizzie on September 25, 2014, 07:34:23 PM
I just wanted to note here that depending on our stage of recovery we may not be able to feel any compassion for those who abused/neglected us and that is perfectly OK and very natural.  The anger we feel helps to engage our self-protective capacities which are important in recovery if you agree with Pete Walker (CPTSD: From Surviving to Thriving).  It's when we get stuck there in the anger that it's not healthy. 

And I agree with Walker when he suggests we do not have to be angry with our present day parents (unless they are still alive and behaving in an abusive manner), it's the ghost parents we carry around inside of us we need to wrestle with:

"In most cases survivors do not have to directly anger at and blame their living parents. They key place to direct it is at your internalized parents - the parents of your past. The most common exception to this occurs when a parent is still abusive" (p. 223)

In my case it took a whole lot of anger and grief to move into acceptance that my FOO was never going to be what I wanted and deserved and I let go of that wish before I began to feel any compassion and understanding. And even with that I still protect myself through low contact with my present day FOO because I do not want to be drawn back into the daily chaos (abuse) that PD behaviour fosters and which can still trigger me.   

I am able though to look at my present day M (she has NPD) and see now how she became that way and my F an alcoholic. Both my M and F were forced to act like adults very early on because of the depression, war, and poverty in which they grew up.  Both of my GM's died early on, and both my GF's were alcoholics so neither of my parents had a childhood. It's no wonder the cycle was handed down! Someone has to interrupt it and for whatever reason I escaped a PD and think/hope I have managed to do so.  My NPDB has not unfortunately so the cycle continues in his FOC. 

Self-compassion - It would be helpful if you could share with us how you moved into feeling compassion for the person(s) in your life who contributed to you developing CPTSD.  I know I always take heart/guidance from people who are further along in their recovery and I'm sure there are other members here who do as well.
   
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: Badmemories on September 25, 2014, 10:20:06 PM
Right now I am  :stars:  :stars:
Floored...  :aaauuugh: :aaauuugh:

I was reading this link... Human trafficking bite model (http://human%20trafficking%20bite%20model)

OK, here what I have to confess is that My uNPDH was a pimp about 7 years before I met him. I think/thought nothing about it... I mean he is not a pimp now... I have never had sex in any unusual way in my marriage of 17 years. Who would know that someone with a past would use the experience as a PIMP to brainwash ME!

One time early in my marriage I saw a poster in OUR local country Social services office about counseling for former prostitutes...I honestly was going to get the toll free number and call it. The poster disappeared. I did try googling things about relationships with pimps but I did not get any notable hits.

I always wondered what charm or control he had over me. normally when I was being abused by anyone I was out the door, and fast. With HIM I just couldn't seem to move! I felt trapped. I felt frozen.  I guess for now this has me in a state of shock! I went over the list line by line. almost every brainwashing technique has been used on me! I guess this is an ???  ??? moment for me.

No wonder I have such a little bit of will power, to actually leave and move on with MY life. I guess to get over this I really am going to need a therapist!! I don't know how this leaves me. the bite model does not say anything about therapy for the victim of a pimp...

@kizzie... that was easy! TY for information.
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: schrödinger's cat on September 26, 2014, 09:54:14 AM
Badmemories, what about websites for victims of domestic abuse?

I googled a bit and found this: http://lifemadesimple.typepad.com/abusednomore/2010/10/brainwashed-by-the-misery-trilogy.html (http://lifemadesimple.typepad.com/abusednomore/2010/10/brainwashed-by-the-misery-trilogy.html) . I've no idea who writes this blog, and what it's like, but this one text sounds sensible and kind, like this person knows what she's talking about.

On this website, a survivor of domestic abuse writes about what the process was like step by step: http://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/verbalabuseinrelationships/2012/06/brainwashing-abusive-relationships/ (http://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/verbalabuseinrelationships/2012/06/brainwashing-abusive-relationships/). As I said before, this was difficult to read, so make sure you're safe. Another website with information about brainwashing is this, and it's written in a more matter-of-fact and dry-as-bones tone, so it's not tinged with personal experience and might be easier to stomach: http://abusesanctuary.blogspot.de/2008/10/inside-mind-of-abuser.html (http://abusesanctuary.blogspot.de/2008/10/inside-mind-of-abuser.html).

There's something on Stockholm Syndrome on Out of the Fog: http://outofthefog.net/CommonNonBehaviors/StockholmSyndrome.html (http://outofthefog.net/CommonNonBehaviors/StockholmSyndrome.html).... not that I'm suggesting you have it, but maybe some of the advice given there also applies to brainwashing (it's at the end of the text).

All in all, it's probably good that you found this out. But what a situation to be in! And you've got such a lot of other things going on in your life right now, too. I'll be thinking of you. Stay safe and take good care of yourself.
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: keepfighting on September 26, 2014, 11:49:51 AM
Quote from: Badmemories on September 25, 2014, 10:20:06 PM
No wonder I have such a little bit of will power, to actually leave and move on with MY life. I guess to get over this I really am going to need a therapist!! I don't know how this leaves me. the bite model does not say anything about therapy for the victim of a pimp...

I've read Hassan's book 'Freedom of Mind' (http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Mind-Helping-Controlling-Beliefs/dp/0967068819). His approach is centered on getting everyone involved in trying to free the mind of a cult victim and bring back his/her authentic self. It's very loving and a very powerful approach.

In our case, the 'loved ones' more often than not are the (emotional) abusers, so we have to be creative about whose help it is wise to enlist and whose 'help' would only get us deeper into the FOG. But anyone fighting our corner - professionals, friends, people you meet in a forum ... -  is just as fine.

It is a very good roadmap back to our 'authentic selves' and the skills you learn are the same ones you need in order to pick up your life after a toxic childhood/relationship. (I was raised in a cult and escaped together with DH about a decade ago)

I once asked my T if she thought there was anything 'me', anything truly 'authentic' left to be found at all - what with being raised in a NPD-ed family and in a cult. She said: "Yes, there is. It's like a little gem that was so precious to you that you protected it with all the strength that was in you and you let no one touch it or destroy it."

I believe we all have some part of ourselves that was so precious to us that we protected it no matter what - and that's what we're fighting to (re)gain now: A sense of authenticity, a sense of self and of self worth.

Caron Zlotnick has done research on helping women that were (forced) into prostitution, I think???

Kudos to you, BM!
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: Rain on September 26, 2014, 12:11:55 PM
Thank you, Cat and keepfighting!    Perfect timing with these resources for me.
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: schrödinger's cat on September 26, 2014, 12:24:51 PM
Quote from: keepfighting on September 26, 2014, 11:49:51 AM
I once asked my T if she thought there was anything 'me', anything truly 'authentic' left to be found at all - what with being raised in a NPD-ed family and in a cult. She said: "Yes, there is. It's like a little gem that was so precious to you that you protected it with all the strength that was in you and you let no one touch it or destroy it."

Oh wow, I'm close to tears. Thanks for sharing that. That's such a wonderful way of looking at it. True, too.

Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: spryte on September 26, 2014, 04:02:33 PM
I came across something a while back that was incredibly helpful to me in understanding the "brainwashing" that went on in my family. This wasn't necessarily the intentional kind that results in power and control, but the kind that happens when your family teaches you, in implicit ways, that "hurtful actions" = "love".

This podcast isn't directly related to abuse, or healing from abuse, and in fact I think in the end he wraps it up with equating how this mentality gets translated into indoctrination by the State - political stuff, but he does do a lot of FOO work because he believes that a lot of the dependence on the State starts with the abuses in our families. (I don't agree with some of his stuff - he basically thinks ALL parents are abusive - but THIS podcast was like...paradigm altering for me.) I refer to the invisible apple all the time and it makes so much sense in regards to abusive people teaching us that their abuse = love and how that influences the ways that we interact with the world. 

I'd love to know if anyone else listens to it/reads the transcript and gets the same thing out of it that I did.

Here's the transcript - http://freedomain.blogspot.com/2007/12/transcript-of-freedomain-radio-podcast.html (http://freedomain.blogspot.com/2007/12/transcript-of-freedomain-radio-podcast.html)
Here's the video podcast - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxYJOBaXQww (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxYJOBaXQww)
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: bheart on September 26, 2014, 05:22:50 PM
Hello spryte, and welcome  :wave:

Thank you for posting these links.  Yes, listening did make sense for me relating it to the struggles I have had and my lack of self-worth and especially in not  belonging (feeling the odd man out). It definitely provides a different perspective.   :thumbup:
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: Badmemories on September 26, 2014, 11:03:52 PM
Thank You all for the links and help.

I have been reading 3 books I think will help me.


I have read some out of the 1+3 I just got #2.
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: Badmemories on September 27, 2014, 11:50:19 AM
There was a website called Mosaic. A site to determine how dangerous that the situation is living/being with someone abusive is. I scored an 8 out of 10. when You are finished it shows all the dangerous answers that you have given. It really makes it real.

I think that at times that we minimize how bad the abuse really is. I remember at one time in My life I'd look around and compare Myself to other women... I always came out last because I had some flaw!.Abuse is like that We can always see someone that HAS been/or is being abused worse!

I said to uNPDH a while back How something he did was emotionally abusive. On Thursday he told me I was abusive because I did not take care of him like he should be taken care of. He does all the cooking, cleaning, etc. and he should come home (from the street of Our trailer court. ) and has to do everything! THAT I WAS EMOTIONALLY ABUSIVE! Yes I quit doing anything around the house. Why should I do anything when You BI#%H at me on how bad I do anything! He'd stand over me and watch everything I did and tell me the whole time how I needed to do it his way.

He raged at me a hour before I was supposed to call Social Security on My claim. I was in a real panic attack by then! I told him how do You expect me to function when You rage at me? Then He goes through the same thing I am a Pisces and I am always going one way or another and never settled. ( I guess that is how they explain abuse in his family. ) The only thing You are good for is sex and I could buy that! Honestly when he does this I blank out. (freeze) then I hear how I am not listening to him! He used to punch me in the face when I wouldn't answer! (15 years ago) I did call SS disability after awhile,but his rage sure added stress to a stressful situation.

The rages and then the calm after the rages when he has a motor mouth... are brainwashing to me. he tells me how bad I am, how stupid I am, How much he has done for me.  :blahblahblah: :blahblahblah: :blahblahblah: i don't even hear it most of the time.  Since I am in a freeze mode then I blank it out! Then He yells about My mental illness and How I need to just trust in the LORD crap! (hey I am a Christian too) funny how they can even twist the word of G-d to make themselves right.

One of the preachers on TV we both like had a series on Husband and Wives. My Husband had to sit with me and make sure I heard all the stuff wives are supposed to do... he usually tapes all the sermons of this one preacher. He had erased ALL the sermons on what Husbands were supposed to do! Then during the whole sermon on wives he'd keep saying see... that is what I was telling you!  You never do this for me... etc.

Hopefully, I didn't Hi-jack this thread..I am talking about brainwashing... but more in a practical way on HOW it is done!
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: schrödinger's cat on September 27, 2014, 01:30:38 PM
No no no, you didn't hijack anything, I'd started this thread expressly to see if this had happened to anyone else. And holy sh*t has it ever happened to you, from the sounds of it. This sounds like simply just daily life at your place is like fingernails screeching down a blackboard. Or worse. Definitely worse. I don't even know what to say. Other than "RUNNNN!!" that is. I'm sure your husband has his good sides, or you'd never have married him, and he's probably a damaged person, but he sounds like he's being a real carbuncle. This was just chilling to read.
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: Rain on September 27, 2014, 02:32:12 PM
Badmemories, this is severe abuse, it seems to me, that you are going through.  This is only something to think about, and nothing to answer on ...if you read your post like it was someone else's post, what would you advice them to do?
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: Badmemories on September 27, 2014, 06:12:28 PM
It is like I said on one post I would have RUN from this behavior before... I don't know why I don't run now...

I do have a plan though. I filed for My SSDI I am eligible to get about 1300. from that, and I have $533. pension. that gives me $1800. that I can live on... I am an easy keeper that is a lot of money for me. I got My kids taking pretty good care of themselves now. 27 Son, and Daughter struggling financially but I babysit and that saves her a lot.

So, although uNPDH lives in this town. I am thinking of renting an apt in My daughters building. That way I can be close to the granddaughters. They do allow pets in this building. So I can have My Dogs. :) I have been thinking about starting to move things out of My trailer and start moving it slowly into her Apt. I think IF I AM close to him he won't mind to much...(I stay over here most of the time anyway).

Then If I can get help to fix My trailer I can sell it, with some of the lump sum I get from ssdi and that will help to pay down the payment on MY house. I can get the house close to free and clear.  Then I'd like to make a small move to go to a climate I can live in in the winter. I am thinking about Washington state. I see that some campsites that accept camper trailers in WA. that don't charge much by the month. If I bought a camper trailer then I could winter there pretty cheap. I thought I'd try it that way at first and IF i didn't like living there IT wouldn't hurt to much financially. If I do like living there then I could buy a Mobile home later with more space.

My problem right now is sorting through stuff ( think hoarding without the garbage) uNPDH is yelling about a trailer I own that I have stored things in for years... I have been trying, but not getting to far. I am having problems with grief doing this. Many beautiful things that I had hoped that we'd have a life together. uNPDH is yelling at me all the time for it and trying to get me to work on it. and I just get depressed and sleep for hours on end...more of that freeze syndrome :sadno: :sadno:

I am reading the book on splitting with a NPDH at least I started... Divorce is going to be *! My husband put me in a real financial bind. He filed taxes a lone single married. I was paying fro the business thinking it would come off My taxes, and Now I have to file at least since 2006 and I will owe big money. I did read that all bills come out of the Money so I am thinking If he wants to keep the trailer court that I can ask him to file and join out taxes like they should be. I lost head of household and his deduction, and his deduction...and on top of that filing Married single puts YOU IN A HIGH tax bracket. Maybe he will refile when He finds out that those bills will be taken out of what he conceives is his money!

Fear freezes me a lot. First since the kids father sexually abused them. I was afraid to leave for fear that HE'D end up with the kids... then when they got out of the house I worked and made all this money and he threatened to sue me for alimony! So I did not think about moving out then. Then I was forced to retire, so now I am dependant on him somewhat.. so I am waiting for SSDI to roll in and then I will have more money to deal with!

We have been separated since 2011 on paper. I guess I need to study more on out of the fog on fear... Reading all this stuff I have been reading is actually making me more fearful!l  Fear=freeze for me. 

I have been thinking about going to the abuse person here and getting counseling. I tried a while back to call the number for my county and she never got back to me  :stars:

I did see on the National Mental health site there is free counseling only 35 miles away from me.. I am thinking of starting that. I have the contact person on a computer post-it.

One of the problems I have is I try to do something... for instance I finally broke out of My shell and went to pharmacy to get My meds, and then MOST OF THEM were not allowed by MY new insurance.. so then It actually toke me over a month to get the meds I needed. I try and take a step forward and then I have so many problems with that step forward, and then end up going backwards. It is so frustrating to me! It makes it hard for me... so much to do...

Then this thread has been quit an eye opener for me.. I am going through the freeze more, and then I am starting to wake-up more and realize I AM IN DANGER! I minimized it a lot I think!

Thank You all for Your answers and hope! It is helpful to me! The One part of leaving an abusive person is when YOU LEAVE is the MOST DANGEROUS so right now I am safe somewhat. He has NOT physically abused me for 15 Years. So, I am biding my time, putting My ducks in a row, and trying to get emotionally ready for this. I am so thankful for this site and OOTF it is getting me closer to MY goal. I am healing not at a fast pace. Do we ever heal from CPTSD fast? I don't think so.
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: Rain on September 27, 2014, 06:33:31 PM
Send you a big hug, Badmemories.    :'(

Thank you for sharing where you are at, what you are going through, hopes, plans, barriers, possibilities.

I do hope you sit down with a professional and work through all of this.   We are here to support you, but there has got to be a professional(s) there that can guide you on this.    :hug:
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: zazu on November 05, 2014, 01:33:40 PM
I hope it's okay to resurrect this thread. It triggered some thoughts for me...

I also noticed the similarity between cult brainwashing and my FOO's behavior some time ago.  It's made me feel deep compassion for those who had been in an actual religious cult...well, actually I always had that compassion, even as a child, so perhaps unconsciously I knew more than I realized at the time.

Anyway, someone I know was in an organization commonly identified as a "destructive cult" for many years. He was brutally abused, and also admits to abusing others in the service of the cult. The members (including himself) would take the abuse, submit to beatings, imprisonment, being deprived of food, etc, because they believed they deserved it. Even when they could have walked free.

Many people who have never lived in an abusive situation have a hard time understanding that, but to me (and I'm sure others here) it makes perfect sense how that could happen. Brainwashing is brainwashing, whether it's family or government or religious group. 

This person eventually escaped, although he had to finally hit bottom before he felt he could run for it. I asked him how long it took before he really felt free. He said it was 5 years before he stopped waking up in a panic thinking he was "back there", and the programming started losing its hold. Now his life seems more or less "normal" (whatever that is). Speaking out in public as an activist has helped the process, too, I think.

I know 5 years might seem like a long time, but compared to how long some of us have been living with this, 5 years doesn't sound so bad. To know that these miserable feelings could have an end, that the brainwashing could eventually fall away, with a little work - that gives me hope.

And this might sound kind of weird, but it also helps me, personally, to remember that while people like my friend were threatened with losing their eternal life and failing the entire universe if they did not submit to their leader's will, I just have to fear one crabby old woman who isn't even especially clever. I mean, she may think she's the queen of the universe, but she's not, not by a long shot. :P  Not meaning to make light of anyone's suffering, it just helps me to keep my own situation in perspective.
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: schrödinger's cat on November 05, 2014, 02:36:50 PM
Quote from: zazu on November 05, 2014, 01:33:40 PM
And this might sound kind of weird, but it also helps me, personally, to remember that while people like my friend were threatened with losing their eternal life and failing the entire universe if they did not submit to their leader's will, I just have to fear one crabby old woman who isn't even especially clever. I mean, she may think she's the queen of the universe, but she's not, not by a long shot. :P  Not meaning to make light of anyone's suffering, it just helps me to keep my own situation in perspective.

This made me laugh. Thank you, I really needed this.

I keep on sliding back into my old mindset, the one from way back when I was a child and a teen, when the least passive-aggressive or abusive thing they said to me was always so earth-shatteringly important. And it's not. Not anymore.
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: keepfighting on November 05, 2014, 03:23:11 PM
Hi, zazu,

nice to meet you on this forum  :wave:.

So sorry to read that a friend of yours was also victimized by a cult. I'm glad he made his way out of the cult itself and out of the cult brainwashing later on. It's a hard and lonely road and not many people understand or are willing to listen and not judge. It's nice that he found such a person in you!

Hope you'll also be able to break free from your one and only queen of the universe ;D.

Best wishes, kf
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: coda on November 05, 2014, 07:18:45 PM
Quote from: spryte on September 26, 2014, 04:02:33 PM
I came across something a while back that was incredibly helpful to me in understanding the "brainwashing" that went on in my family. This wasn't necessarily the intentional kind that results in power and control, but the kind that happens when your family teaches you, in implicit ways, that "hurtful actions" = "love".

....

Here's the transcript - http://freedomain.blogspot.com/2007/12/transcript-of-freedomain-radio-podcast.html (http://freedomain.blogspot.com/2007/12/transcript-of-freedomain-radio-podcast.html)
 

spryte! Thank you so much for this link. Though I have to admit some of his diversions seemed extreme to me, his core message -- that the apple that does not exist but the the child is coerced to agree it does -- struck me as brilliant, absolutely true and SO helpful. That's exactly how it was (and still is) for me. You buy into the lie or suffer the consequences.

I think what resonated most of all was the notion of virtue and morality:

The problem that power has is not with other people who want power, but rather with people who are moral.

Morality is the opposite of power. Morality is the opposite of dominance. Morality is the opposite of subjugation, or exploitation, because morality is all about finding what is common and true in the world – common to all human beings and true empirically and also biologically – and therefore it's not about subjugation, because it is creating one rule for everyone, and the only way that you can have subjugation or exploitation is if you create different rules for different people.

 
So much of my life has been spent trying to square my sense of what's ethical, good, right with the actual behavior (not the words) of my FOO. There's no apple.

Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: Badmemories on November 07, 2014, 06:16:45 AM
Coda wrote:

Morality is the opposite of power. Morality is the opposite of dominance. Morality is the opposite of subjugation, or exploitation, because morality is all about finding what is common and true in the world – common to all human beings and true empirically and also biologically – and therefore it's not about subjugation, because it is creating one rule for everyone, and the only way that you can have subjugation or exploitation is if you create different rules for different people.

When My children were little I taught them than RESPECT was earned. I taught them that They could NOT DISRESPECT anyone because we are all human. the trailer home court that i owned has always had a combination of various people from different stages of rejection in their life. Some heavy drug users, some drunks, some mentally Ill. Although I trusted most of the tenants... I did not like how they felt like they could order MY children around. I always forbid them to get beer out of the refrigerator, I wouldn't let them pass cigarettes for some ( when they should have got off their butts and got the  things for themselves.)

I taught My kids that they were not the subjects of anyone but me and uNPDH. Hubby was very opposed to My line of thinking. He thought that Adults were GODS... and that children were servants.. :stars: He felt like I was not teaching them to respect their elders.

IMHO I think that When kids are taught to respect all adults etc..then when they get into situations that are not good for them, then the lesson to respect becomes the idea in the child's mind is that they have to DO WHATEVER THEY ARE TOLD TO DO, by anybody. i know In My life as a child some of the molestation incidents happened to me because I did not know how to say NO to an adult. They were GODS! As a child sometimes it was even worse. in the 50's. When I grew up the adults told on You and got You in trouble with YOUR parents. Any minor infraction was known by the whole small community and You might get in trouble with all of them.

I'm not really sure where this is going... but just wanted to throw it out there for You all to think about!
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: schrödinger's cat on November 07, 2014, 09:10:17 AM
Hm, I do think it's connected. If I want my kids to be safe, I need to enable them to keep themselves safe. If they're to keep themselves safe, they need to be strong. They need to have a certain inner independence. I mean the kind that lets you see things around you clearly, develop your own opinion about them, and find your own ways of dealing with them. Without that, you can't have a moral code, you just have a set of prejudices and pre-programmed scripts handed to you by your elders.

So I'd definitely say you're right and your husband is wrong, Badmemories. We have to teach our kids how to be adults. And an adult has to be able to draw a line and set boundaries, beginning with small tiny things like saying "I'm sitting really comfortably right now, get your cigarettes yourself". One rule goes for everyone. (So if I ask my kids to go fetch me something, then they get to ask me the same.) Morality and ethics have to be all about WHAT'S HAPPENING, not in WHO'S SAYING IT. Everything else would be slavish obedience. That word, by the way, translates into my language as something like: a kind of obedience that makes you act like you're a lifeless body which is moved by a will that's not your own. An ability to dig one's heels in is a part of being alive.

Which isn't saying anything about people stuck in a Fawn response. That's an automatic reaction of our psyche to overwhelming trauma. It's not who we truly are. I'm so often stuck in a Freeze-Type response, and I'm slooowly learning that this isn't who I am, it's just a mixture of this :sharkbait:  and this  :spaceship:  and this   :fallingbricks:  and, in the case of Freezing, possibly also these:    :spooked:   and  :disappear: .

I guess we get to celebrate every last little bit of eccentricity, mulishness, and boundary-setting that we can wrest back from CPTSD. Actually, realizing this about my own life has made it a LOT easier to deal with my kids' tantrums and protests. At the end of the day, it's simply them learning a new skill (in a ham-fisted way at first, like all new skills are learned).


Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: zazu on November 07, 2014, 12:11:51 PM
Quote from: schrödinger's cat on November 05, 2014, 02:36:50 PM

This made me laugh. Thank you, I really needed this.

I keep on sliding back into my old mindset, the one from way back when I was a child and a teen, when the least passive-aggressive or abusive thing they said to me was always so earth-shatteringly important. And it's not. Not anymore.

I'm glad you got a laugh out of that! ;D

It's true, about that programming that tells us to give every bit of attention and concern to those difficult people in our lives. I grew up having to respond to my mother's displeasure about anything as it were an international political crisis. There was no sense of proportion. A spilled glass of water or a barking dog would be treated by my mother with the same amount of gravity as a death in the family or an actual war. Often times it would not be clear (still isn't) what would be triggering her displeasure - but we were all trained to respond as if it were the most important thing that had ever happened to us. It's one crisis after another, and since she has very little insight into her own mental states or sense of personal responsibility, in her mind it had to be someone else's responsibility to "fix" her emotional state

The effect on me as an adult was that my anxiety also had no sense of proportion. The terror that overtakes me can be triggered by insignificant as well as important things, all demanding an emergency response. Like,"must fix, must fix...oh no, I can't fix it because I don't know what's wrong! Must panic!" It took a long time to see the relationship between the two, but once I did, it was easy to see that it was learned, programmed response. Not that it's so easy to get rid of... :sadno:

One of the hardest things to cope with has been finding out that some of these "crises" were actually engineered for control and manipulation purposes, to see us jump and scramble to fix the problem. That's one thing I'm still struggling to comprehend - I don't think it will be possible to overcome that part of the programming until I fully understand that someone could do that.
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: schrödinger's cat on November 07, 2014, 03:08:36 PM
That rings a bell, too. Thank you for sharing that.

Has your mother got a personality disorder? Mine doesn't - but she still had explosive rages. No physical abuse, but long angry rants, slamming drawers shut, recriminations, etc. And it's like you said about your own life: it was hard to predict what would or wouldn't set her off, so I learned how to be socially hypervigilant in order to read her moods. And it was always hugely important. Whatever happened that I did, if it upset her and/or if it was something she disagreed with or wouldn't do like that if she was in my shoes: hugely important. Spilling a glass of milk, things like that. She was under a LOT of pressure and often had to deal with difficult people. I'm now wondering if I was the one place where she could just let rip without fear.

Here's where I first realized that this had real consequences for me. (http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-stupid-habits-you-develop-growing-up-in-broken-home_p2/) It's an article called "5 Stupid Habits You Develop Growing Up in a Broken Home", written by an author who swears - so in case you find that offensive, here's the eye-opening part of the article with the swearwords asterisked:

QuoteYou come home from work, exhausted, and you just want to sit down, relax and enjoy the silence for a bit. You're not in the mood to talk. Your appetite is shot. You just want to be left alone so you can collect your thoughts and normalize. But every two minutes, your worried partner asks, "Did I make you mad? Did I do something wrong?"

Believe it or not, they knew about your mood long before you returned from the fridge, flopped on the couch and let out that long, beer-tainted sigh. It's another defense mechanism that they picked up years before they even knew of your existence. When Mom or Dad's moods started to fluctuate, bad sh*t happened. Over time, the kids learned that those moods always had telltale signs that predicted their eruptions. Ash that preceded the lava.

At first you take notice, even if it's subconsciously, that before Dad explodes, he starts rubbing his temples. Big, obvious things like that. But over time, you can't help but pick up on more subtle signs. He lets out a very soft sigh when it's going to be just a quick stick-and-move belittling session. He fidgets with his lighter when it's going to be a really bad one. The skill is developed so that when you see it happening, you can either brace yourself for the train wreck, or you can make yourself scarce so you don't have to deal with it.

Just like any skill, the more you use it, the better you get. Over the years, it becomes so woven into the fabric of your personality, you couldn't remove it without completely breaking down who you are as a person and rebuilding the cloth from scratch. So it's rarely ever a case of the person just trying to smother their partner with attention out of some sense of insecurity. It's force of habit. Alarms are going off in their subconscious that sh*t is about to hit the fan, and they need to defuse that bomb before it goes off. And anything can trip the alarm. The slightest change in tone of voice. The most subtle shift in eyebrows before you speak. The way you're standing. A simple change in your daily routine.

All of these things are fixable, but it requires you to take a long look at yourself and decide if there is even a problem in the first place. It's harder than you think. ... It's a whole lot more common than you think, so don't let the a**holes of the world make you feel weak for seeking help. You have as much of a right to be normal and happy as everyone else on this g*dd*mn planet.

He gives two links in this article, and I followed them, and then I followed more links, and then I found out I had CPTSD, and then things finally started to change for the better. It's rare that something literally changes one's life, but this article did.
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: zazu on November 08, 2014, 11:32:11 AM
Wow, Schrodinger's cat, it sounds like that writer was living in my house! Yes, I do that and it does have real world consequences. Luckily my husband knows where it comes from, but it's still annoying to him. He says it makes him feel as if he's an angry person, like my mother (who has NPD, by the way). It causes further problems in that I've been unable to stop.

Well, hopefully I will be able to make a better effort now. Thanks for the link.
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: schrödinger's cat on November 08, 2014, 02:00:45 PM
Glad you liked it, zazu.

Yes, it can be really annoying to people who have to live with that level of scrutiny. Having said that - I'm not really sure that the answer is to "simply stop doing it". That's probably not what you said, but it's what I tried to do before I read that article. It was really bad - I ended up feeling like this defective, needy person who had to struggle and fight in order to simply be normal. Since that's a really bad feeling, I felt a bit alarmed when you said you wanted to make a better effort now. In all likelihood, that's just me reading my own struggle into your text. If it is so, I apologize. But jiiiiust in case you're about to fling yourself into that same "I'm so defective, let me try to overcome this" mindset, here's my bit of probably useless advice.

The bit where the article says: "...it becomes so woven into the fabric of your personality, you couldn't remove it without completely breaking down who you are as a person" really gave me pause. Because it's true. It's who I am. It's not "me being oversensitive" or "me tending to accuse people of things", it's simply an automatic early-warning-system and my husband accidentally tripped a wire. It's a coping mechanism. It's how I see the world. It's how I see social situations. I'm socially hypervigilant because in the past, I had a good reason to be.

I'm now less apologetic about it. I told my husband what I know about my hypervigilance and how I got that way. He was very understanding. So now, I can simply just ask him for reassurance. Because I'm still insecure about all this, I pack it up in sarcasm. ("Now would be a really good moment to tell me: 'I may look really grumpy right now because my bread dough didn't rise, but I would NEVER dream of taking my frustration out on you because you are my sweet wife whose very presence is a balm upon my wounded soul.'") It makes him laugh, and he usually says something like: "No, I'm just frustrated, that's all. It has nothing to do with you. I like you a lot. Of course I wouldn't blame it on you, that'd be stupid." And then I'm feeling better and tell him so, which makes him feel good.

Seen this way, I'm not "defective and need to stop thinking this way": I have a coping strategy that has given me excellent mood-detecting skills (yay!) which occasionally hit my red alarm buttons without good cause. He isn't the suffering victim who has to endure his wife's insecurity: he's the good guy. He's the voice of reason. He's the positive "after" picture to my FOO's "before" - helpful where they were rejecting, sensible where they were bizarre. He gets to make a real difference simply by having social skills. Other guys would have to kill a dragon, he just has to say something reasonable. Luxury!
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: zazu on November 08, 2014, 08:25:36 PM
Hi Schrodinger's Cat -

No need to worry...I just meant that I may not have tried enough in the past to understand and gain some control over the behavior as it pertains to others. I ask my husband if he's upset so often that he becomes irritated, thus my worry becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is the part I haven't been able to get under control, and it does cause difficulties in our relationship.

Thanks for your advice.  You've done a good job of re-framing the issue to get a different perspective. That's an important part of managing these things, I think.
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: schrödinger's cat on November 08, 2014, 09:20:34 PM
It is, I agree. How we see things tells us what to do, whether we want this to be true or not. Sometimes, having an exaggeratedly positive image about something helps me counteract the exaggeratedly negative image I've already got in my head.

Glad that this was fine. All the best to you and your husband.
Title: Re: Brainwashing...?
Post by: Annegirl on November 28, 2014, 11:41:57 AM
Quote from: schrödinger's cat on September 21, 2014, 11:52:01 AM
Thanks, both of you. I'll look at these links, they sound interesting.

I'd be surprised if my mother had a personality disorder, though. She had a crap childhood and basically had no one to help her deal with problems. She parented her younger siblings and did grown-up work from the time she was... four? And she and her siblings were never allowed to rest or play. They always had to work at something, even if it was simply just knitting stockings. She doesn't talk much about that time, but I get the impression that she was a functional adult by the time she was about eight, give or take a few years. My working theory is that her parentalization plus overwork explains her erratic parenting.

So when people get too close, she unconsciously sees this as "yet MORE work" and "yet ANOTHER person who wants to be taken care of". She uses Medium Chill to put distance between her and others. Once the relationship has cooled to a temperature she feels comfortable with, she takes it back up again. She is generous with her help, but only in places where she could pull back any time she wanted. To me, she's always been a fair-weather friend. But why shouldn't she be? After all, she was a functional adult by the time she was eight! She must've seen me as a functional adult by the time I, too, was eight, which explains most of the neglect. My father was critically ill for years, so that was her focus, everything else had to wait. The over-worrying and micro-managing - I've begun to wonder if she didn't simply project her childlike, vulnerable need for guidance entirely onto me, so in "protecting" and "guiding" me she assuaged her own inner pain.

Omg, SC, your mother's childhood sounds very similar to mine, it opens up a lot of insight for me, into why, how i treat people.