distortions

I am learning that I do not perceive or portray prominent people in my world very accurately. I still dont have it all yet, but as I am starting to see it, I feel really bad about the way that I have misrepresented people. It wasn't intentional, and everything that I have said has felt very real to me at the time, but it still isn't right and isn't fair to the people I talk about. Maybe I should just never talk about anybody in any way, just to be safe. Part of me must have known it all along too, because I have felt very uncomfortable about the possibility that they would see what I said, and then I would have to face my distortions, as well as their hurt and anger about what I have said. That thought is so, so scary! I always distort things in the direction of me being picked on, I guess because I am comfortable playing the role of a victim. It tends to get people to offer me support and caring. Maybe that's the only way I know how to get that.

People I distort include my family (husband, sister, parents - maybe my children, I'm not sure) and my therapists past and present. I can't even tell what is real and what isn't. I feel like I need to take some things back that I have said. Some of you will know what I am talking about. Even though I complain about people and tell about how they are harsh with me or cause me discomfort, those things are my reactions and I do like and respect these people. Then I feel like I need to clarify and defend them from other people's negative feelings towards them based on what I have reported. I am confused.

Rap

falling over tired after driving long ways to and fro therapy today....

questioning what was authentic a few years back in therapy was real turning point as it shed much light on perceptions, views and other things as they related to our world and how we applied them and to which degree.

authenticity. ponder that word and all its meanings as it applies to your life.

we'll drift off to sleep with that word thought. too much driving tomorrow as well so hopefully by wknd we'll check back in.

tc and you're doing your work. good stuff Rap. good stuff.

Hey. I remember going through a time in therapy finding the same thing. Feeling ashamed and embarrassed etc etc. But like you said, you didn't do it on purpose, you just didn't know any other way. Sounds like you are making some good progress with some really hard stuff in therapy :-) Hang in there.

One thing I learned about (that helped me) was 'I statements'. Instead of talking about what other people do (where we evaluate their behaviour) to talk about what other people do in value neutral terms and then to say how we respond to their behaviour, especially with reference to our feelings.

So instead of 'you got home late on purpose just to %#@&#! me off you jerk' you have something like 'when you got home late last night i felt really upset because i put a lot of effort into making a nice dinner we could enjoy together'.

It is a hard thing to learn... I'm still working on it. I used to do practice exercises with my t. It is hard. But it can be done. I never learned it because... My mother didn't know it for her to be able to teach me :-( Still... At least I get the opportunity, I guess.

I just mean to say... There is hope. Try not to beat yourself up. There is a way forward :-)

Not sure whether this is quite what you meant or not. But just in case it is... I thought I'd post it.

Part of it is developing perspective. Someone might do something really hurtful to you and you think they are a horrible person. But then you learn more about their full motivations, and what (if anything) you brought into the situation, and it shifts how you see the person. So that might be part of it. And the other part might be that you really wanted/needed a certain response from your therapist, and that's why you had to portray them a certain way... if you got that need met, you might be able to see the situation more clearly.

Keep searching for authenticity... it's hard work.

Rap, would you like a buddy while you work on this? I need to work on it too, I guess. I have a hard time seeing how I do what I'm told I do when it comes to describing situations in my life accurately, because they seem accurate to ME, as you said. But apparently this is a real sticking point for me, too. Maybe we can help each other work on it, and point out to each other when it might be happening?



I think you're great, BTW, and I would never call you a victim!

Love, Candy

((((((((( Rap ))))))))))

I know you and I know that you have a kind and loving heart. You would never hurt anyone on purpose.

Hugs,

Jan

This question is so hard to deal with. Well, not really a question, is it. This issue, anyway. It makes me fall asleep or spend hours staring at the computer screen or avoiding everything by playing stupid computer games. I can't get my homework done either, and I have lots of stuff due tomorrow. The same theme keeps coming up though. I keep discovering that my perception is off, and also that my judgement of my perception is unreliable too. I want to be real so bad, but I am so afraid of what real is and that maybe it's not something I will like. Authenticity is a good word.

How far do you drive for therapy? I usually do online work, but when I go it's a long way too.

No, not on purpose, but it still hurts people, and the last thing I want is to hurt people. It is very hard. I can use I statements, but sometimes it seems like I focus too much on just myself. I remember a high school English teacher telling me not to use "I" so much in my writing, so it doesn't look right to me if I have too many sentence starting with "I." T has seemed to regard use of I statements as progress though. Maybe, like most things, it can be overdone. Maybe this is an example of my distortions and twisting things around to mean what I need them to mean.

I don't know your story... but for me.. growing up in a world of abuse.. nothing made any sense... so perceptions are extremely difficult for me as well....

Its something that can be worked on I think... I hope so...learning how to perceive things normally...I feel as if I never learned how...

Good Luck with it!

Yes, exactly. I do bring stuff into the situations, and people react to me in ways that are not really characteristic of them. Also, I often wish that T would be comforting and soothing, but she gets very direct with me because that is what it takes to get me to see the problems, and she makes me scared and uncomfortable, but if she didn't do that I might never change.

A buddy would be nice! This is what I have to work on now - finding out who I am and what distortions I make, etc. It is so scary! I know it is what I need to do, but it's hard, and I don't like myself, and I am afraid of what I am going to find.

((((((((Jan)))))))))

No, not on purpose. It hurts that I have hurt people.

One of the hardest things for kids to overcome is being taught that their feelings and perceptions of the world were wrong or bad. They can't tell what is right after that, because they have had to question themselves and everything that they think.

I don't know if anyone would really consider me to have been abused. Nothing was really big, anyway. But I was not allowed to do things for myself. I didn't know what to do with my anger, because there was no place for it to go, and I couldn't talk to anyone. When I started trying to talk to people outside of the family, my sister always seemed to be there to inform them that I was just wrong and selfish and bad for saying that there was anything wrong. But that is probably a distortion too.

Is this T major messing with your head? I would definately seek another opinion on this. Can you see someone for three visits to discuss this issue and this issue alone?

I know that I tend to spin things to make me smell a bit more rosey at times. Other times, I spin things to make me sound worse than everyone else. I have discovered some pretty odd distortions too because my sister jumps down my throught when I pull major negative thinking distortion. It seems to rip her heart out when I do it.
You sound like you're saying that you distort their behavior towards you and make you seem like the victim. Learning new perceptions and behaviors is very hard. It sounds like you are doing good work though. Does other people other than your T say that you do this? I kind of prefer to pay attention to how others respond to me too for an indication of if I'm pulling a distortion or not.

She is doing her job, and her job isn't to make it easy for me. Actually, I noticed that over the last few weeks I have been questioning the way that I perceive things. I keep doing that, and I asked her whether my perceptions were all off or what. She turned the question back around for me to answer it, and it works out to that I distort some things, and there are others where I'm seeing it accurately but won't trust myself over someone else, and that doesn't work out too well either. Sometimes I can't tell which is what.

So, now I have to work on seeing and hearing myself and being aware of the distortions, half-truths, and errors that I hide in. I know they are there - just need to get them sorted out.

It's a little nice to hear that I'm not the only one who does this. Yeah, I tend to distort things so that I seem like the victim. My husband sees it too. He somehow lives up to my distortions to fill the roles that he perceives that I expect him to play.

Rap,

I think recognizing and challenging distortions is something pretty much all of us have to go through in therapy. My therapy has been almost a continual cycle of that, as I've had to learn that T is not my mom or dad, or even that YOU are not my mom! lol! And I still struggle with it all the time.

Sometimes it feels like every single thing I see is seen through the lens of my past. It's pretty hard to wipe all that away and be able to see clearly.

Anyway, I guess my point is that I think it's par for the course not to trust your own judgments, and a lot of us from a variety of backgrounds struggle with it. And I believe that the farther along you go in therapy, the better you'll get at recognizing it. In fact, I think maybe you're moving through this kind of stuff a lot quicker than I've been. So I think there's hope in sight. I think someday you'll learn when you're distorting versus when you're perceiving.

Good luck!
~A

Thanks. This is so scary. I know it is important though, so I hope that I do get it.

These types of issues are difficult enough to work out in f2f sessions... when the T CAN confront us right then and there with our distortion... somehow I think it loses it's effectiveness in an email therapy situation imo. If it were IM, that would be different, as it's immediate at least... good wishes on this!

It would be nice if she would do IM. I haven't quite dared to ask her about that. F2f is nice when I can get there, but e-mail has it's advantages for me too. I take a long time to think about things sometimes, and sometimes with e-mail she can ask me a question and I might take a day to think about it, and we can go through that cycle several times in a week sometimes.

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Rapunzel said:
This question is so hard to deal with. Well, not really a question, is it. This issue, anyway. It makes me fall asleep or spend hours staring at the computer screen or avoiding everything by playing stupid computer games. I can't get my homework done either, and I have lots of stuff due tomorrow. The same theme keeps coming up though. I keep discovering that my perception is off, and also that my judgement of my perception is unreliable too. I want to be real so bad, but I am so afraid of what real is and that maybe it's not something I will like. Authenticity is a good word.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post"> classic avoidance and dissociative behaviours associated with such major foundational issues in therapy and life.

questioning what is authentic for you....learning who you can trust to bounce ideas off of to help you figure out what info to take in and what info to ignore and release.........these are the things that are going to help you discern what is reality and how closely that reality aligns with the general population........not to say you have to agree with all things but to become more aware of when your reality is at total odds with those you trust around you.

of course change is scary and the idea of not liking what we find after peeling away these layers can be a huge deterent to making those changes. there comes a point when you can only live life so constricted and confused for but so long.

sounds like you've hit that point.</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
How far do you drive for therapy? I usually do online work, but when I go it's a long way too.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post"> let's just say it is longer than a quick jaunt and remote enough to be dangerous w/o adequate gas. online hasn't been part of this therapeutic relationship, or any other for that matter in our case. glad it is component that is working for you.

well...was going to quote more of the thread from others and put in two cents but spaciness is winning out so gotta go take care of that.

takes courage to admit one isn't happy or content and to do something about it. something is working right if you're facing your stuff more squarely now.

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
learning who you can trust to bounce ideas off of to help you figure out what info to take in and what info to ignore and release

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

I have at least a couple of people I trust for these reality checks. You know what? I think that is at least part of what I am trying to do when I do talk about people, especially when I am upset about something they said or did. I have never really trusted my own perceptions. The idea that if someone disagrees with me then I am always wrong goes back well into childhood. When I share things about someone that I am upset about, I think that what I really am doing is asking whether or not my feelings and perceptions are accurate. But I probably don't provide enough information, because generally I just tell the parts that I am upset about, which makes it a distortion. And I must have recognized that too, because it is tempting to share the entire conversation, in hopes that by doing that someone have enough information to see both sides of it, and maybe be more objective. But even if I do that, I can't share then entire context of the relationship, etc., so it's still going to be just the part that I am upset about and still will be skewed. And then, a lot of people probably pick up on the fact that I get something out of seeing myself as a victim, and therefore tell me what they think I want to hear. Let's face it, it's pretty hard when someone asks for help to reply directly to them and tell them that they have it wrong and you actually are more inclined to take sides with the person they think is picking on them. But from now on, if I do ask for feedback about someone I think is picking on me, I hope that someone would tell me the way it really is, and not just say what they think will make me feel better.

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there comes a point when you can only live life so constricted and confused for but so long.

sounds like you've hit that point.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

Yeah, I keep hitting that point.

Wow! What an insightful discussion. I've been lurking on the boards for a few months (too shy to post) but this series of posts really opened my eyes. Rapunzel - you expressed everything that I've been dealing with (and thought had handled) for over 20 years. We go on about life thinking we're seeing things accurately and perceiving people as they truly are, when, at least in my case, I'm bringing 30+ years of judgments and loading them onto any new person that I meet, expecting them to see something wrong in me (as I see in myself) - and at the same time I'm closing down any possibility of a friendship that might have had a chance.

I've been in therapy on & off for 10 years now and *distortions* have been an issue but I never realized HOW MUCH they affect my daily life.

BluBird, I'm glad that you learned something too. I am just starting to recognize how much I distort! Some of it I would never vocalize, but it's so thick in my internal self-talk, and I've kind-of known that it was there but I didn't want to see it. You bet it affects my daily life.

Also look at the list of cognitive distortions in the sticky post up above. I have been aware of those for a long time, but didn't think that I was doing them this much. It was an eye-opener when my learning group did a presentation for class on how this could be used in the treatment of depression. We took a list of negative thoughts from The Feeling Good Handbook, and did a role-play. Every negative thought on that list could have actually been mine, and countering them was hard. Again last night I got into a conversation with a friend and started talking about therapy and I got upset and felt like my therapist must hate me because I can never be good enough and I do too many things that I know she would never approve of, and that I am sure hurt her when I tell her about them, and she confronts me with those things, and did recently. I started crying about it, and my friend asked what I was so upset about and where it was coming from. We went through that list of cognitive distortions and found every single one of them. I was blowing things out of proportion and making assumptions about what someone else thinks and feels. Lots of black and white thinking and emotional reasoning and catastrophizing. At the risk of engaging in more of these, it seems like if someone were to open up my head and look inside, it would be nothing but a swarming mass of distortions. Ugh.