My original post will leave you on a bit of distorted thinking that makes NO SENSE. That is the point. Distorted thinking (also called a cognitive distortion) is all about faulty logic preventing you from having a healthy relationship with a person. It takes many forms, but experiencing repeated unresolved trauma often causes them. This chapter chronicles how my biggest barrier formed — how I cannot trust others.
Alright, to start with, here goes the heavily modified original post that prompted this diary. I has my personal childhood adventure with primarily the depression side of mental illness. Usually, this is the side that is detected first in bipolar disorder because it is fairly easy to tell when someone is depressed.
This post is going to tell some of my story that I’ve told no one but therapists. There are even some parts my OWN FAMILY doesn’t know! Family is always the hardest to teach mental health about for this very reason. They personalize and justify everything they do to you, and don’t like it when you call them out. They have a LOT of distorted thinking about you! Problem is, you have a LOT of distorted thinking about THEM, and it makes for a toxic conversation without outside support.
I hate tooting my own horn, but I was always smarter than almost everyone else in the room. But smart isn’t the same as wise! All of you are much wiser than I am. I am trying to force myself to learn wisdom these days, and wisdom means creating a very strong safety net given my entire life story. I'd like to think my situation over the past three months, which I am building up to, has taught me wisdom because I am so vulnerable now. I'm being forced to adapt, because I have no other choice for survival.
When I was six, the school I attended had a hard time placing me in a grade. Math wise, I was using ‘common core’ before it was cool and could do multiplication, division, fractions, and even algebra problems without ever seeing them before. Reading wise, I was at a middle school level. I was every teacher’s worst nightmare – I knew how to do what they were going to teach me before they taught it, and was a stubborn disruptive ass as I resisted the rote learning common at the time. Makes it the height of irony that I tried to become a teacher myself! My mind was allowed to wander, and I always concocted Anna-like manic schemes to amuse myself, and I’d have the brains to know how to get out of trouble for doing them. It’s called hypomania, and it is what made me such a damn good teacher when I am at the top of my game. It will also be featured in a later post.
It was decided to not turn me into the next child prodigy because of my lack of social skills. I had the social skills of an infant. I was depressive like Elsa already, because I wanted to self-isolate. I didn’t care to make friends, except through church (safe space). Problem is, the mania would pop out of self-isolation and want to be the class clown because boredom sometimes. Manic me would want to make friends, and not know how. I’d concoct the scheme for the bully to enact to pick on someone else instead of me. I’d do the work of the bully and get no credit or reward back. Because I had no social skills outside of church (safe space), manic me would get abused by someone like Hans EVERY SINGLE TIME, and then depressive me would take over BOTH characters when manic Anna realizes she’s been had, just like in Frozen when Hans is revealed for who he really is.
This morphed into a huge ball of distorted thinking logic, which jaded and depressed me at an early age. I was jabbing myself to bleed with a needle (much sneakier than cutting, it doesn’t leave large visible scars and has the same effect) by age 9. My problems got so bad and obvious in middle school that I had to go to therapy, get on anti-depressants, and my parents basically had to move to a small town nearby because of me. They were divided on moving before that, and my treatment and a need for change was the deciding factor.
Problem is that small town America is very cliquish and untrusting of outsiders. Mine was no exception. I was a marked man and embarrassed on my first day by the class bully. They ignored me, shunned me, or were Hans again to me. There were possible angels (Olaf) that saw my plight, and tried to help. But I had MAJOR trust issues by this point, and everyone failed my traps and my tests of trust. Thus, the second ball of distorted thinking logic was born.
My situation led to trust issues and having no self-esteem. Just like Kristoff from Frozen! Yes, my Frozen adventure metaphor is now ALL THREE MAIN CHARACTERS. This distorted logic chain is why I have problems trusting people who are trying to help me. Even if manic Anna gets her way, my Kristoff rears its ugly head.
#1: Kristoff enters the chat after being thrown out of the store: “Yeah people will beat you, or curse you, or cheat you! Every ONE of them is bad (except me)”. Everyone is a potential Hans to me.
#2: If they somehow don’t fall for your trust traps and tests, then they MUST be crazy to see something in you. Thus, there is something wrong with them. Think “Fixer Upper” gone wrong.
It’s where you see the flaws and not the good that person is doing. You choose to focus on the literal message of the troll clan (your conscience) pointing out the flaws, flipping the script and devaluing the rest of the message.
“Fixer Upper” is a song meant to defeat distortion #1, but in bipolar people the depression hijacks the message and applies “Fixer Upper” gone wrong with distortion #2. That’s my first huge cognitive distortion shield.
-me on Facebook, December 26, 2020
Now here is the actual song, try to listen to it in a literal sense, where the trolls are just critics. Then, try to find the true message of fixer upper (which is near the end).
Luckily, there is another hack that can defeat this tangled ball of distorted thinking that can overcome these issues. Brene Brown nails it once again by saying to ignore the critics, including the one inside yourself. This is your weapon against the Hans types (your critics) that look to ruin your life. It will even silence your inner Hans. It defeats the shields and armor you set against others and yourself.
There are three parts to this hack:
1) It is more important to show up and be seen than it is to play it safe and self-isolate.
2) When you do anything that takes courage, you are bound to lose the battle most of the time no matter what actions you take.
3) The only critics who count are the ones who are standing by your side and losing the battle right along with you. The Hans types looking to tear you down with their own plots and schemes are not important. This is why I am not going to play pie fight games with people who don't know what mental health issues are like in your life.
You will have to face your five critics: the possibility of shame and embarrassment, your credentials or the lack thereof, your desire to compare yourself to others, and your biggest external stressor. Finally, you are your own biggest critic. Face down those five fears and critics and your trust issues melt away. Have a conversation with them and take or leave their criticism. Just make sure you have an ally like Olaf right by your side to pick you up after being beaten down!
With trust issues so common amongst people in relationships, I think it was important to know who and what to listen to first before diving even deeper into the problem of not trusting others. Next time, you get to see exactly how I exclude people from helping me due to trust issues. Please look out for “Kristoff as a Weapon is a Song Called Hurt” — Why Trust is Complex.
Until next time!