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muppetmayhem

Friendly reminder classic moments like these with the kids are entirely unscripted.

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my heart exploded

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Were You Born Under The Gaslight?

When applied to a family, the gaslight treatment is a special form of dysfunction. It happens when you, a child, receive messages or encounter experiences within the family which are deeply contradictory. Messages which are opposing and conflicting; experiences which can’t both be true. When you can’t make sense of something, it’s natural to apply the only possible answer:

“Something is wrong with me.”

Today, scores of children are growing up under a gaslight of their own. And scores of adults are living their lives baffled by what went on in their families, having grown up thinking that they, not their families, are crazy.

I have seen gaslighting cause personality disorders, depression, anxiety, and a host of other lifelong struggles. Receiving contradictory messages that don’t make sense can shake the very ground that a child walks on.

The Four Types of Child Gaslighting:

1. The Double-Bind Parent: This type was first identified by Gregory Bateson in 1956. The double-bind mother has been linked by research to the development of schizophrenia and Borderline Personality Disorder. This type of parent goes back and forth unpredictably between enveloping (perhaps smothering) the child with love and coldly rejecting him.

The Message: You are nothing. You are everything. Nothing is real. You are not real.

The Gaslight Effect: As an adult, you don’t trust yourself, your validity as a human being, your feelings, or your perceptions. Nothing seems real. You stand on shaky ground. You have great difficulty trusting that anyone means what they say. It’s extremely hard to rely on yourself or anyone else.

2. The Unpredictable, Contradictory Parent: Here, your parent might react to the same situation drastically differently at different times or on different days, based on factors that are not visible to you. For example a parent who is under the influence of alcohol or drugs one day and not the next; a parent who is manic at times, and depressed other times, or a parent who is extremely emotionally unstable. Whatever the reason for the parent’s opposing behaviors, you, the innocent child, know only that your parent flies into a rage one moment and is calm and seems normal the next.

The Message: You are on shaky ground. Anything can happen at any time. No one makes sense.

The Gaslight Effect: You don’t trust your own ability to read or understand people; you have difficulty managing and understanding your own emotions, and those of others. You struggle to trust anyone, including yourself.

3. The Appearance-Conscious Family: In these families, style always trumps substance. All must look good, or maybe even perfect, especially when it’s not. There’s little room for the mistakes, pain, or natural human shortcomings of the family members. The emphasis is on presenting the image of the ideal family. Here, you experience a family which appears perfect from the outside, but which is quite imperfect, or even severely dysfunctional, on the inside. This can stem from Achievement / Perfection focused parents (as described in Running on Empty), or from narcissistic parents.

The Message: You must be perfect. Natural human flaws, mistakes, and weaknesses must be hidden and ignored. You are not allowed to be a regular human being.

The Gaslight Effect: You feel deeply ashamed of yourself and your basic humanness. You ignore your own feelings and your own pain because you don’t believe it’s real, or that it matters. You tend to see and focus on only the positive things in your life, which fit into a particular template. You are extremely hard on yourself for making mistakes, or you put them out of your mind and simply pretend they didn’t happen. You may be missing out on the most important parts of life which make it worthwhile: the messy, real world of intimacy, relationships and emotion.

4. The Emotionally Neglectful Family (CEN): In this family, your physical needs may be met just fine. But your emotional needs are ignored. No one notices what the children are feeling. The language of emotion is not used in the home. “Don’t cry,” “Suck it up,” “Don’t be so sensitive,” are frequently uttered by the CEN parent. The most basic, primary part of what makes you you (your emotional self) is treated as a burden or non-existent.

The Message: Your feelings and needs are bad and a burden to others. Keep them hidden. Don’t rely on others, and don’t need anything. You don’t matter.

The Gaslight Effect: You have been trained to deny the most deeply personal, biological part of who you are, your emotions, and you have dutifully pushed them out of sight and out of mind. Now, you live your life with a deeply ingrained feeling that you are missing something that other people have. You feel empty or numb at times. You don’t trust yourself or your judgments because you lack your emotions to guide you. Your connections to others are one-way or lack emotional depth. Even if you are surrounded by people, deep down you feel alone. None of it makes any sense to you.

Were you born under the gaslight? If so, you are not alone. You are not invalid or crazy or wrong. it’s vital to realize that you have been, by definition, deeply invalidated. But “invalidated” and “invalid” are not the same. “Invalidated” is an action, and “invalid” is a state of mind. You can’t change what your parents did and didn’t do, but you can change your state of mind.

SOURCE: [ x x x x ]

jonnoxvxrevanche

Hmmmmmm

swimmingblue

@ibijau, you had that anon who was talking about abusive and negligent parents … this post is really good for talking about non-physical child abuse. Seems very familiar in regards to a lot of people’s experiences!

pruehalliwel

piepublishings

okay, so here in california precautionary measures against COVID-19 have become increasingly intense. most schools have closed and are preparing to make the transition to “distance learning” aka online classes. this is a big change for many of us – but don’t panic!

welcome to surviving online classes 101!

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✐ self discipline

this is more of a warning than a tip. working from home means you will have to exercise a lot more self discipline. it can be a little bit boring or lonely at times. you cannot count on motivation from others (professors, classmates, friends, etc.), so you will have to learn some self discipline.

✐ create your own classroom

a good way to make the transition is to try and mimic the classroom setting as closely as possible. something that might be helpful is to set up a space designated for work. try to avoid the temptation to work in your bed or on the couch. that trains your brain to be alert in those places and makes it harder to relax/fall asleep. at least during online lectures, try and eliminate distractions that wouldn’t be present in a regular classroom (like tv or netflix playing in the background, or having your phone out)

✐ dress for success!

dress in the way that makes you feel most productive. if you’re one of those people who usually rolls into class wearing sweats and still kills it, good for you! if you’re one of those people who needs to put on a full face of makeup to feel alive and ready for the day, do that! even at home!! i personally never wear makeup but if i try to be productive in pjs… disaster. i’ve also found that cute workout gear makes me feel badass while still being comfy.

✐ create a schedule

now more than ever you need to figure out how to manage your time. you can use a planner, bujo, google calendar, the forest app, whatever. just make sure you keep track of things like

due dates and TIMES

exam dates

lecture times

hours spent studying

meals (pls eat 3 if possible)

water intake

sleep schedule

✐ pack your bag like you usually would

i know this probably sounds so dumb, but when you’re done working clean up after yourself. pack everything up like you would at school, to sort of signal to your brain that academic time is over for now. and then unpack and set up when you’re ready to get to work again. this is just another way to trick your brain into that school mindset while you’re stuck at home.

✐ don’t overwork yourself

break up your studying into chunks. being cooped up all day can make us feel like we’re wasting time, but be sure to schedule breaks and reward yourself after a solid study session. i’m a big fan of the pomodoro method, and it can be customized really easily to allow for more or less study/rest time.

✐ maintain a healthy sleep schedule

now is the time to develop that healthy sleep schedule we all dream about. staring at a computer all day is exhausting and hard on the eyes and brain, so make sure to give them enough rest and time to recover each night. also, consider investing in glasses that block blue light, even if you don’t usually use glasses. this will keep our eyes young lol.

✐ communicate with your teachers and classmates

most of us are making this transition to online learning together. any time you have questions, email your professor. reach out to your classmates at the beginning and exchange emails/phone numbers/social media so you can build a support system. if something goes wrong, screenshot it immediately and reach out to your professor. technology isn’t perfect, and mistakes can happen, just communicate them.

✐ turn things in early

this is my biggest tip. when you are relying on online submissions for assignments and digital lectures, you always want to allow extra time to fix any errors you might encounter. your professor will also be much more willing to help you fix a problem two days before a deadline rather than two minutes before a deadline. eliminate that uncertainty by playing it safe with online submissions.

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GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!! YOU GOT THIS!! WE GOT THIS!!