Defining others = emotional abuse

One thing that I liked about the way the neurofeedback guy approached the whole dream interpretation thing, though, is that he didn't try to tell me who I am or what my dream meant. He asked me. My therapist is also huge on that -- will let me drift and drift and drift for months and years even until I learn a particular principle for myself. He says it's because that's essentially the best (only?) way for lasting change.

Sometimes I see people in life and here trying to tell people their truth, and I certainly have been 100% guilty of that in the past. I'm not sure if the impulse to dictate someone's truth is more likely to come from a largely ignorant or mislead desire to help or from a more ego driven desire to tear someone down or to build ourselves up as the keeper of Truths (capital T) about the world and other people. One thing that I have learned from therapy is how sacrosanct people's concept of identity is, and how so many behaviors can be traced to their identity, often negative behaviors occur when people believe that their identity is being threatened or has been mangled somehow. And one major type of psychological/emotional abuse is for the perpetrator to pretend to have the power to define the people in his or her life -- either as explicitly negative things like being stupid, no good, incompetent, ugly, or even as things that appear to be neutral but still are oppressive because some outside force as deigned to tell you what your thoughts, feelings, motives, etc. are and to try to impose their view of the world on you. These efforts are as emotionally violent to a person's sense of self or identity as punching them in the face, in fact most people would probably prefer to be punched in the face and have that unwanted invasion of one's personal space than they would an assault on the very thing that makes life seem worth living for most and what Victor Frankl credits in part to his survival in the concentration camps -- the no matter their circumstances, they still have absolute control over how they choose to view their circumstances and the power to define for themselves what they know to be basic and unassailable identity truths.

One reader posted in the "resources" post a book from this psychologist, that has coined the term "verbal abuse" and has written several books on the phenomenon:



It's interesting, she suggests that men who do this are much more likely to be trained out of it -- she believes because they have been accidentally trained into it as part of their socialization to be a "man" in this society. My brother said something like that to me once -- that he realized that he was a horrible boyfriend and was always undermining his girlfriend's sense of self in subtle ways to get her to be more what he needed and wanted her to be. After he realized what he was doing, he was able to stop. But there are others who have slipped into this behavior who apparently are not self aware enough to stop. She believes that most women emotional abusers fall into this category only because they're less likely to have stumbled into the behavior accidentally from a place of otherwise psychological normalcy. Consequently, if it shows up in women (despite all odds), there's likely something fundamentally psychologically wrong with them that is causing both the impulse to define others in this way and also is likely preventing some self-reflective insight that would help them see the truth of their behavior and get them to stop it. 

Gaslighting or cognitive distortion?

From a reader:

i am in a 7 year long relationship with a sociopath. he does not call himself a sociopath, but does joyfully brag that he is a full on crazy person & that it will be the reason he will be a millionaire, world leader, famous etc. he is very controlling and emotionally abusive, but also tries his best to be kind to me and show positive emotions. i will not be leaving him as most would suggest i do. i own that i am in an unhealthy relationship, and that i will feel more pain from leaving him than i will from staying with him. we both work to be happy as hard as it is. we argue a lot which is expected when a sane person is trying to have a successful loving life with a crazy person. the arguments stem from his cruelty, dishonesty, drunken blackouts to the smallest nothing that i can't even believe it caused an argument. one thing is constant though, every argument turns him vicious. screaming, threatening, punching holes in walls, breaking up with me (with no intention to do so) the works. he will say and do things, then a moment later, vehemently denies having said or done these things and calling me delusional or a lier. he seems so convinced that these things did not happen or were not said, he acts offended and hurt and very angry that i would accuse him of these things. possibly because he's said them in heated un warranted anger, then realizes how crazy or cruel he sounded and is embarrassed. i don't know the reason, but its surely not that he doesn't remember these things, he knows they happened. it is impossible to resolve an issue when the whole discussion turns into me working like hell to get him to admit what has just happened. knowing that they happened and that he is trying unsuccessfully to manipulate me does not resolve anything. many women in abusive relationships roll up in a ball and submit. that would reduce the frequency of the disagreements. however i do not do that. i fight for myself and what is true, and how i should be treated in a certain way. i definitely match him in battle, though its exhausting and feels foolish to entertain.

 i really am striving to have a productive situation that i can live with and be happy. this can not happen if i can't find a way around the habitual gas lighting. any advice would be appreciated.

M.E.:

It actually doesn't sound like he is gaslighting you so much as that he is delusional. He doesn't sound self-aware. A lot of people with personality disorders suffer from a belief that their reality is objective Reality, their truth is objective Truth, no matter what evidence to the contrary is presented to them. There's someone like this in my own life. For him, he doesn't believe that he creates reality per se, or that he controls reality in any way. He actually believes that there's an objective reality that he cannot control and that everybody's experience of reality is different, but he believes that his experience of reality, for whatever reason, happens to be unfailingly accurate to the objective reality. (I feel like this belief is also related in an odd habit of his to believe that he is not making choices in his life, but that he is just fulfilling a predestined course of action in direct reaction to things he has no control over. Conveniently, this means that he is also not responsible for anything he does, because he is never able to choose any other choice then the one he chose. The logic is very Sam Harris to the illogical extreme with a side of hindsight bias -- i.e. if he is the person he is, and if the person he is had a mind that naturally thought the thoughts that naturally led to that particular action, it must be that he had no other option or choice but to engage in that action. This link calls this an external control fallacy.)

But all people with personality disorders often (always?) suffer from cognitive distortions (I do too, of course because I am personality disordered, although I have gotten a lot more aware of it and consequently hopefully better). See this link for common examples of reality distortion, also here. The problem with this particular trait in a relationship is that it can have the same effect as gaslighting because this stuff is truly through-the-looking-glass crazy making. You will feel like you're losing your mind because your boyfriend's reality is so different from what you perceive to be reality and he is so insistent about it being true. I think that being in this type of situation could make anybody crazy, and it certainly historically has made plenty of people crazy. I myself feel like I have taken a small detour to crazy town when I talk to people who present with this trait. Sometimes it is particularly maddening, e.g. when the person says things about me, my profession, my philosophical or spiritual beliefs, or other things that I identify more closely with than others. I doubt that you'll be able to handle this constant onslaught to your sanity without incurring significant damage to your psyche or without intensive therapy. For something related, you could look up videos or writings about verbal abuse, which has a similar effect on people.

And further thoughts for the blog audience:

This issue is particularly relevant right now because I've been seeing a lot of this on here recently. It's a variation of what I tweeted recently -- there are a lot of uses for reason, but changing people's cognitive distortions is not one of them. I have tried a million times to reason with people in my life who suffer from cognitive distortions, but I have never been successful. All I have seen work is extensive therapy by someone incredibly qualified who is somehow able to teach them to first recognize that they aren't happy with the way they deal with the world, second want to figure out if there's something they could be doing better, third identify specific patterns of negative beliefs (i.e. cognitive distortions) in their life, fourth get them to consistently detect instances in which they do this, and possibly finally (and by this time they probably don't even need it because they've already reached the right conclusions themselves) -- reason.

The person I know with the belief that he is the only one consistently seeing reality for what it is just recently confessed to me that he now recognizes that just because he feels something doesn't mean that his feeling necessarily reflects reality. (The first link calls this "emotional reasoning": "We believe that what we feel must be true automatically. . . You assume that your unhealthy emotions reflect he way things really are — 'I feel it, therefore it must be true.'".) Wow, that's amazing. If he can get there, there's hope for everyone, but not likely via well-meaning others trying to show them the error of their ways by trying to rationalize with them.

Why is it that we can pass by someone crazy on the street or on a bus or train and just mentally give them a pass but the seemingly normal people with cognitive distortions drive up our blood pressure and drive us crazy too? Maybe because the crazy person is obviously crazy, so we just write off their crazymaking behavior without internalizing any of it. But the more you learn to recognize cognitive distortions in others, the more they become obviously crazy too, which hopefully leads to less craziness in you. 

Am I a sociopath? (part 3)

I'm going to publish the responses from our questioning reader in roughly the same time sequence that I received them and responded so you can get an idea of his thought process, which may be very familiar to a lot of you:

One other diagnosis I'm considering is Aspergers Syndrome. Everything I said in my last email is true, but I lack the ability to blend in socially that I've read most sociopaths have. I'm oblivious to non-verbal communication, and there are many quirks that set me apart from those you might consider normal. I may simply share the emotional detachment, and a few other traits, with sociopaths.

Honestly, I'm very confused. I would see a professional, but I have a problem with authority figures even though I find myself seeking some kind of validation. I'm not sure I could be honest with doctor, even if I tried--even if I thought I was being honest. As I said, looking into myself isn't something I'm very good at.

About being a sociopath... do you experience no emotions at all? This isn't how life feels to me. It feels to me like my emotions are filtered to the point of being beyond my comprehension, like an engine silently powering all of the logical mechanisms in my personality. To be honest with you, I didn't even recognize them until a phase of drug abuse cracked my ego. Coincidentally, it was the first time I realized I could be wrong and recognized that rationally, I wasn't the smartest person on the planet.

Anyway, that was several years ago, and I've come to recognize the existence of my emotions, but I can't embrace or express them because they're quite terrifying. They're very primitive... very simple and extremely powerful. To me, this doesn't really fit with what I've read about sociopaths. It seems like it may be a) an autism spectrum disorder or b) some kind of developmental disability. I find it hard to believe that a true sociopath could be made aware of his own feelings through drug abuse, though I suppose anything is possible. What's your take on this?

Thank you for your response. I'm glad you took the time to make one.

Children lying = high brain function

A reader sent this older New York Times article on the normal development of lying in children around two years old, including the fact that the vast majority of children lie routinely.

Among some of the findings about children lying, the children who start lying earlier than others are smarter and have better theory of mind (the ability to cognitively put yourself in another's shoes):

Other research has shown that the children who lie have better “executive functioning skills” (an array of faculties that enable us to control our impulses and remain focused on a task) as well as a heightened ability to see the world through other people’s eyes, a crucial indicator of cognitive development known as “theory of mind.” (Tellingly, children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which is characterized by weaker executive functioning, and those with spectrum disorders such as autism, which are characterized by deficits in theory of mind, have trouble with lying.) Young liars are even more socially adept and well adjusted, according to recent studies of preschoolers.
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Training children in executive functioning and theory of mind using a variety of interactive games and role-playing exercises can turn truth-tellers into liars within weeks, Professor Lee has found. And teaching kids to lie improves their scores on tests of executive functioning and theory of mind. Lying, in other words, is good for your brain.

Of course we all know that sociopaths are clinically bad at affective empathy (the ability to feel another's feelings) but tend to be quite good at cognitive empathy or theory of mind, so perhaps these results should not be surprising.

But what about the fact that lying children (or anybody) is a little creepy and problematic? Again, there are some definite parallels to sociopaths:

For parents, the findings present something of a paradox. We want our children to be clever enough to lie but morally disinclined to do so. And there are times when a child’s safety depends on getting at the truth, as in criminal cases involving maltreatment or abuse. How can we get our children to be honest?

In general, carrots work better than sticks. Harsh punishments like spanking do little to deter lying, research indicates, and if anything may be counterproductive. In one study, Professor Lee and the developmental psychologist Victoria Talwar compared the truth-telling behaviors of West African preschoolers from two schools, one that employed highly punitive measures such as corporal punishment to discipline students and another that favored more tempered methods like verbal reprimands and trips to the principal’s office. Students at the harsher school were not only more likely to lie but also far better at it.

Witnessing others being praised for honesty, meanwhile, and nonpunitive appeals for the truth — for example, “If you tell the truth, I will be really pleased with you” — promotes honest behavior, Professors Lee and Talwar have found.
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You can also simply pay kids to be honest. In research involving 5- and 6-year-olds, Professor Lee and his colleagues attached a financial incentive to telling the truth about a misdeed. Lying earned children $2, while confessing won them anywhere from nothing to $8. The research question was: How much does the truth cost? When honesty paid nothing, four out of five children lied. Curiously, that number barely budged when the payout was raised to $2.

But when honesty was compensated at 1.5 times the value of lying — $3 rather than $2 — the scales tipped in favor of the truth. Honesty can be bought, in other words, but at a premium. The absolute dollar amount is irrelevant, Professor Lee has found. What matters is the relative value — the honesty-to-dishonesty exchange rate, so to speak.

“Their decision to lie is very tactical,” Professor Lee said. “Children are thinking in terms of the ratio.” Smart kids, indeed.