Any advice for a deBurning Lion Primary on how to stand up for What's Right consistently? I'm just... so terrified of Exploding that I'll fold into the group too easily, and I've made a series of horrible errors because of it. I have a hard time holding onto my sense of what's real because I grew up gaslit and I'm a Badger Secondary, so trying to take in information that disagrees is really stressful and can screw me up bad.
The deal with delusional people (and Exploded Lions are delusional) is they don’t think they’re delusional. They think they’re the only clear-seeing, unbiased, practical people out there. It’s a very flattering self narrative.
So if you’re actively worried about this... my instinct says you’re fine, and not in any danger of Exploding.
And I hear you about the Badger secondary. I hear you about the gaslighting. And I can tell you that what worked for me - is diary writing. I am a big diary keeper, and I was an even bigger one when I was more Burned.
Here’s how it works. Something bothers you. Something makes you feel some kind of a way, but you’re not sure how or why. Write about it. No judgement, just write whatever comes up and stop when you’ve cleaned yourself out. By the end you’ll have sorted out your feelings a little more (they won’t feel so big) and you’ll feel better.
And then (this part is cool) you get a little bit of a reputation for being a diary writer. And the next time the gaslighting person says, “What? When did I do that? I never did that.” YOU can say - “Well, I think I wrote about it, I could probably go back to my diary to find the date.” It doesn’t even need to be true, in my experience just saying that makes the gaslighter back off. And if you catch yourself thinking, “I’m probably overreacting, it probably wasn’t that bad.” DIARY.
(my own diaries are all physical scrapbook/sketchbook/diary hybrids, and I used to hide them in furniture linings.)