Wow, it’s really come full circle hasn’t it. When I read the youtube comment below in this video, someone said, thanks for putting into words my distrust and distaste for the phrase fake it till you make it. And something clicked.
Basically, the first time i entered a residential mental health treatment facility, I actually was having a huge break through as a patient, toward, my over all betterment right. When i engaged in group, as a shy person. And took a moment of like, brash honesty. I said, after we were prompted to answer the question, how do we cope. I said, “by pretending everything is fine.” And I got yelled at for saying that by the staff.
I think it was interpreted as disrespect maybe, looking back on it. But, I’m not, keen with social cues, sometimes. Lol. And so, I know for a fact in that moment i was genuinely just saying, how I actually cope with life. I was just being dead honest, dead serious. Not joking. I wanted to talk about that. You know, open a discussion into it… so that maybe I could learn how I could do better, than just, pretending. I didn’t know any other way really at that point in my life.
But, that’s beside the point. Based on this info I’m learning, about, a phenomenon which, I really feel like should be given a freaking name? Sort of like, Stockholm syndrome. It’s a very serious and pervasive, real, effect on the mind, that someone can experience…. In response to, say, a post traumatic condition of sorts, for example. And this ‘syndrome’ is sort of what happens when someone’s reality testing has been so gaslit, so profoundly to their core, that, they can lose sight of, what reality actually is all together.
Faking it till you make it can sometimes be, a ‘toxic’ response to trauma, or other reasons. And, you’re doing it because you don’t want to individuate from the reality you’re in, because it’s too harsh, to emotionally come to terms with. So you’ll do anything to sort of keep that reality going, taking that gaslighting and abuse out on yourself, as you live in a confined way, as the object of someone else’s reality…. So, sometimes there is a lack of awareness that they’re even doing it, almost like a dissociative state, where you’re pretending, but you’re pretending so well you’re not aware you are pretending.
I probably didn’t explain this well. But yeah, when I said to that staff member in the hospital, that I coped by pretending,…. That was actually a step forward, and he… used it as an opportunity to yell at me, “If you don’t stop pretending, you’ll end right back in this place.” And didn’t bother to explain anything further. I didn’t really understand what he meant, and, if you are sort of in this position, it’s rather unconscious until everythings brought to light very gingerly in therapy right, so….. pretending, can be a sign of someone who is in a post traumatic condition or state- and its very difficult to otherwise recognize, like, from a professional point of view, without asking the right questions.
I think the unit I was placed in was kind of a mistake too, because I was immediately categorized, upon arrival… just assuming, oh, you have suicidal ideation- you go in with the mood disorder people and people who having psychotic episodes.
Why they put mood disorder people who are suicidal with people who are in states of psychosis, I have no clue. But regardless, I remember that was one of my first comments when I was discharged, to my out patient therapist I said, “why is the anxious, put with the psychotic?” Basically, I knew on day one, that I wasn’t categorized properly by the system, and in reality, my condition was ptsd all along, underlying depression.
People with ptsd… put in that environment, is the opposite of helpful, if you ask me. All of us had our fair share of, toxic family systems or, dysfunctional family dynamics, I’m sure. But, still, a post traumatic stress reaction, when you’re in the midst of that, trying to calm down- and, having a mental breakdown from it. I don’t know, it makes sense that the only thing I learned there that helped me was guided meditation.
