CCChat-Magazine_Issue-27-Survivors-Speak

I'm trying to relate it to something
called schema theory, which is a theory
that clinicians can use to assist people.
It's related to CBT. It’s exactly that,
you begin to do more, because you
don't want to be what he perceives you
to be.
M: Yeah, so you're trying to mould
yourself into his ideal but, at the same
time you end up actually effectively
mothering him.
C: Yes, and losing your autonomy, who
is she? Now she's gone. That person
that you are, at least for me, it was the
person at home, I wasn't totally
different, I was happy and outgoing
C: I would definitely concur, there was
pretending all the time that my life was
okay when it really wasn't, but I'm
grateful I was able to have an outlet,
my work became my outlet, thank God.
I'm wondering if you experienced
gaslighting by therapists, where you go
to see a therapist and she's like, oh,
you have depression and anxiety
without even really giving some
significant thought to what relational
difficulties may be going on to cause
the depression and anxiety that
happened to me several times.
M: I am familiar with that and I think
a lot of readers will be too. I think
“You go to see a therapist and she's like, oh, you have depression and
anxiety without...giving some significant thought to what relational
difficulties may be going on to cause the depression and anxiety."
but at home, I had to be someone
different and so you lose that ability to
be who you truly are.
M: I’d put on this brave face to the
outside world and it got to a point
where I couldn't actually work
out what my feelings were, because I
was so used to hiding them and it was
incredibly hard always being told, I'd
grown up being told you mustn't be
angry, anger is a bad emotion and if
you feel angry you have failed, so I had
no idea how to express my anger in a
healthy way and it was really hard
trying to figure out what I was feeling,
what my emotions were and then how
to change it. I didn’t know who I was.
All I knew was how to how to cover it
up and be this actor.
there is a big issue with confirmation
bias and identifying who is a victim
and how we aren’t really addressing it.
C: I think you're absolutely right.
People don't like to talk about it, but
the elephant in the room is patriarchy,
even though we know sometimes
women can do this, their ability to
decimate victims is not quite the same.
We have to really start talking about
something that nobody wants to talk
about, that all of these people have
personality disorders and how are we
not talking about this issue?
M: I think it’s easy to get frustrated at
professionals for not being able to see
the abuser as an abuser and it’s easy to
forget how easy it was for us to fall for
them.
Making The Invisible Visible