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eskielover · May 06, 2021, 08:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Open Eyes

@AzulOscuro I respect your effort to try very hard to interact in English when it’s not the language you normally speak. I think you try very hard and tbh I don’t think I would do all that well if I was trying to interact in your language.

We can’t just expect other people to navigate the way we need. People are all different and develop their own ways of navigating.

I struggle with ptsd and it can be extremely hard to manage. I have had to reach out for help and therapy and have had to do a lot of reading in an effort to understand it. I have shared and ongoing challenge with my older sister and I will say therapists have used the term toxic and disordered and narcissistic to describe the behaviors that have actually traumatized me. So I have probably used the word toxic myself from time to time. I had never used those labels before. I think that my therapist gave me those labels to help me see that her behaviors were bad because he noticed I was being treated badly and he wanted me see that instead of trying to empathize so much.

Now I can look back and realize that many of her behaviors were due to how she was actually stealing and did not want me to find out.

I have noticed how people do use the label toxic too much. And people also use the label narcissistic a lot too. More than one therapist used that term a lot as well. A lot of people have labeled her Evil and a witch and some words that won’t come up in print. Entitled is another word used a lot.

I do think it is important to pay attention to one’s own behaviors that may contribute to our challenges. People are complex and all our lives we will come across behaviors in others that can be a challenge to navigate around. It’s called learning to be self aware and seeing our own part when having challenges with others. Not everything that challenges us is external.

That’s what I noticed about my sister. She blames too much of her own issues on others. When someone is like that it’s often a waste of time to convince them otherwise. Therapists have told me that as well.

The section I made bold says a lot. I think a lot of the terminology has come from the use by our therapists to help us understand what we had been dealing with that has caused us problems. Then instead of just applying it to our situation for understanding, we tend to start labeling others that seem to be similar to what we dealt with that caused us problems, then we start labeling situations the same way.

OK, I am guilty of using the term "dysfunctional" way too much because it actually described my parents & also my now EX husband. My T helped me understand that they were dysfunctional & that the way I reacted to them was because their behaviors were NOT normal & that my reaction was actually an appropriate response to behavior like that. So then I tended to start saying that anyone who behaved in a similar way was IMO, dysfunctional & in reality that is just the same as the overuse of the term "toxic".

Another term that I remember learning in therapy is about "validation". Good to know when we need validation from others or self-validation is better. It is important to know that what we are thinking is along the right path but even that is a term that can be overused.

Having had 2 years of intense DBT therapy, it was good for me to learn terms that could describe what I had experienced & was experiencing to help me learn how to express my thoughts & feelings. But when we take it past that & start applying it to everyone else & every other situation we come across, I think that is where the problem comes in.

I honestly NEVER heart the term "toxic" ever used in the 2 years of DBT or with any of my good T's I have had since moving here. Probably why I never apply that term to any of the situations I find myself in because they seem to me to be more dysfunctional than toxic which is based on our own personal experiences how we see our situations.