An honest blog about personal experience in psychotherapy.
I consider one of the main achievements of personal therapy to be the fact that I stopped living a fictitious life.
Since childhood, every day and every hour I lived two scenarios simultaneously - like two sound sequences during editing.
The first scenario is the real and external me. The one who remained silent, swallowed, did not do, did not say, did not come out, did not push through, did not express herself, and somewhere on the contrary - did not show herself the way she wanted. This part of me is 90% “not” and there are a number of reasons for this.
This is a movement from scarcity, not from excess. Conventionally, this is when we do something “as if it’s no worse.” Vivid examples: I don’t leave a boring job because I don’t know what’s ahead / I stay in a relationship so as not to be alone / I don’t speak publicly so as not to embarrass myself and feel ashamed. Many actions in my life were performed from a deficit and in order not to have something. I very rarely went to the point of yes.
And everything would have continued like this if it weren’t for the second audio track in the edit. If it weren’t for the second scenario that I was scrolling through in my head, I wouldn’t know that you can move towards and do it because you want to do it, despite everything.
According to the second scenario, I did everything, said it, pushed it, came up with it, went out and showed up. And I called this second scenario an imaginary me and an imaginary life.
But this was a purely internal fictional life, which rarely manifested itself outside. These were illusions about how things could be.
I was always sure that I was not smart enough, beautiful, talented, successful enough, and that all my achievements were an accident that I really wanted to repeat. And I repeated. I changed professions, searched for myself, built relationships with people, received feedback that I could not assimilate.
My egotism did not allow me to adequately assess reality and my contribution to it. Positive feedback passed through, and I continued to live in my illusions about who I really am - stupid, ugly, unworthy, etc.
I LIVED, BUT I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT IS.
I lived in a reality where I did something and something worked out, but at the same time in the illusion that, firstly, I had not done enough, and secondly, I could turn the world upside down.
For some time I even looked for diagnoses for this phenomenon. How to combine two realities in your head? How can I compare this ambivalent life, in one part of which I am a genius, and in another part I am a complete nothing?
Psychotherapy helped to make the comparison.
A long time in personal therapy, and then in group therapy, connected my two paths and brought everything into one.
Adequate reality.
Now it is based on what I know about myself and what I know about what people say about me. Now my reality consists of the facts of what I did, what I didn’t do and why. Now my illusions are the past, which has been successfully replaced by the present, where I have limitations, but there are strengths, where I change and accept these changes as something that is not constant.
Our opinion of ourselves is based on what we have been told and are being told. If from childhood a person hears that he is not good enough, this risks becoming a constant throughout his life, when he has already become more than good, successful, rich, smart, has reached all the peaks... but continues to hear a voice in his head that speaks in those words, what he heard once. This is an illusion, this is the inability to adequately look at the world and oneself in it. Getting stuck in an image of yourself is the most suicidal thing you can do with your life. I chose not.
Sad Tyrannosaurus
Look at this cute dinosaur. He looks with such an apologetic gaze, as if he had just torn up your sofa. Wait a minute, is he following you with his eyes? How is this possible?
Exposure
Exposure
Watch the video to the end, and you will see that the head of the tyrannosaurus is not convex - it is drawn on a piece of cardboard bent inward. Because of this, and the fact that one eye is larger than the other, your brain gives Another Brain-Melting Illusion: The Dragon That Follows Your Gaze the illusion that its face has volume. The illusion with a “floating” cube in front of a piece of paper has a similar operating principle.
This is called the "blank face illusion". According to The intelligent eye neuropsychologist Richard Gregory, any animal faces and muzzles seem convex to us because in reality we do not encounter creatures with concave heads.
If you want, you can carve your own Tyrannosaurus and amuse your friends and acquaintances. Here is the website of the manufacturer of such toys, where you can find many two-dimensional models for printing.
WHAT HELPED ME IN THERAPY?
Feedback, contact, relationships. It was the feedback from the therapist and classmates that helped me get rid of the derogatory image of myself inside. It was contact with other people that helped me understand that I was stupid, ugly, unsuccessful in the eyes of other people, and that was a long time ago. Since then, a whole life has passed in which I have done enough to become smart, beautiful and lucky.
It was the feedback that brought me back to reality, in which there was no place for genius, but there was also no place for insignificance. I found myself in this reality - a person who makes mistakes and takes steps, who can be good, or can be evil, who can achieve success, or can stumble upon failure, and this only speaks of what we have now.
Igor Pogodin says: all changes in therapy occur not because you add something to yourself, but because you allow what is there to manifest itself.
I didn’t add anything to myself in therapy. I simply saw my illusions, how far they were from reality, I allowed all sides of me to happen, and not just those that were known to me. I stopped living a fictional life, and started living a real one.
And I like this real life many times more than the one before. In addition, it is objectively different - in this life I do in reality what I could previously do only in my head.
Life and the illusion of life
Join our Telegram
Inevitable distortions of perception
“All our representations are objects of the subject, and all objects of the subject are our representations.” - this is what Schopenhauer wrote in “The Fourfold Root of the Law of Sufficient Reason.” The idea is not new; Plato, and not only him, spoke in approximately the same spirit. The topic is really interesting and relevant.
To put it simply, we cognize the world around us through the mind, using the sensory apparatus available to us. So, the point is that by passing the outside world through the prism of our imperfect perception and analysis, we do not get the true picture, but are content with the products obtained as a result of the activity of our brain.
This approach primarily illustrates the imperfection of a person’s ability to understand the world, but at the same time perfectly shows the peculiarities of the work of the human psyche, aimed in some cases at the “conscious” (although it would be more accurate to say unconscious) distortion of reality for one’s own purposes, using the amazing imagination various variations. That is, on the one hand, the human cognitive apparatus is objectively imperfect and, on the other hand, we ourselves can subconsciously stimulate the projection of a certain image that we desire for one reason or another.
Thousands of people, men and women, of different ages, professions, education and intelligence, day after day, invent their own lives.
Illusions are not scary, living in illusions is scary
In itself, this mental feature is normal, inherent in almost all people and usually does not cause problems. It all depends on the latitude and depth of the projection. For example, when something bad happens, it is completely normal to try to think about something positive and thus reduce the impact of the negative event. Moreover, it is not so important whether this is a memory of some pleasant situation that happened in reality, or something invented, fantasized. Problems usually arise at the other pole - when a person does not simply use images and fantasy as periodic protection, but practically ceases to live real life, moving into the realm of illusions. In this case, real life seems to exist, but is separated from consciousness in an illusory way, into which a person is immersed. Sometimes a person never realizes that he is living incompletely and incompletely. But very often, usually already at the end of an active life, awareness and enlightenment can suddenly occur. Of course, it’s never too late to live, but the opportunities available at different ages change, and the “woke” person can get stuck at a very different age. Naturally, disappointment arises, internal conflict, horror from the realization of wasted years. And since there is no habit of living in the real world, all this can end in depression and, in some cases, even suicide. These are exactly those cases when you can hear such test phrases as “I just now realized that I haven’t lived all this time...”, “Life passes, but there is nothing to remember,” “Is this really life?!”
Extreme manifestations, when all life is a kind of illusion, an unreal image, are by no means so rare (although it would be more correct to consider psychotic manifestations as extreme manifestations). Thousands of people, men and women, of different ages, professions, education and intelligence, day after day, invent their own lives.
What do we want, what do we dream about?
So what happens, people don’t have enough of the life that they already have? Obviously yes. But isn’t it normal to dream about something more, about something better, for example, to try to push aside all the visible wretchedness of our, especially Russian, life? After all, you can often hear that this is normal and natural. But it's not that simple. In most cases, there is a confusion of goals and fantasies (or lifestyles). A person who fantasizes about how good something would be and then he will leave..., or do..., go..., sing... and so on remains a dreamer. A person who understands what he wants sets a goal and fulfills it. That is, he is real in this life, his goals are real and are based on real, conscious desires, which, in general, are a priori feasible and, moreover, the person wants to fulfill them.
Life is real and you can only achieve real success in real life.
Life itself is nothing
The fact is that if we talk about this particular example, then life, as a phenomenon, is neither sad, nor wretched, nor difficult, nor cheerful. She just is. Specific people put specific meaning into it and do it for themselves and for others. This means that every person has a choice of how to consider life - to put their own meaning into it, or to use someone else’s. The problem is that when taking on a certain meaning, people often use terms such as “our life”, “we are forced to live in this...” and so on. That is, a person often joins the party of a particular life - for example, the “party of bad life.” This does not solve the main problem - what is happening to your own life, man? And usually, in such cases, not very good things happen. Having fantasized some ideas about life, thus “blurring” reality, a person cannot realize what he came up with - his fantasies usually lack driving force. Thus, he requires a “bad” life, within the framework of which he could not realize his good one. Of course, this is only one part. There is also one when a person will try to realize his fantasy - and even seems to achieve a lot along this path, but will never complete this path to the end, because the illusion can merge with reality only in our consciousness, which can only happen in people who definitely require the intervention of a psychologist, and in the case of a complete merger, a psychiatrist.
Is dreaming harmful? Is it beneficial not to dream?
Life is surprisingly real
Life is real and you can only achieve real success in real life. Accordingly, you can only get real satisfaction from life by being in reality. But again, it's not that simple. A person does not create his unreal life in order to receive suffering from it. On the contrary, it is created for pleasure and, at the same time, suffering of varying degrees of severity is delivered by reality. Naturally this is something that needs to change. You shouldn’t think that such people don’t understand what’s happening to them at all. It’s rare that someone doesn’t realize it at all. The majority, even somewhere on the border of the conscious and unconscious, feel that something deeply wrong is happening to them. But only a few are capable of bringing this to the surface and trying to change the situation on their own. In general, a person who really perceives this life is usually not inclined to consider it too special - for example, terrible. Life is different and being in reality makes it possible to take advantage of all the benefits of society, since only society gives a person the opportunity to achieve success, move forward, evaluate their achievements, develop comprehensively, in general, live a full life.
Subscribe to my youtube channel
Strong clouding of reality does not occur very often; rather, these are either acceptable manifestations or fragmentary ones. By acceptable we mean those that do not complicate a person’s life so much; maybe he falls out of reality a little more, but on the whole he does not lose touch with it and his life is adequate enough that at the end of it he can say that lived it to the fullest. Although, of course, we must be aware that over time these manifestations often intensify.
Illusions: Survivability and Crash
If we talk about illusions that a person creates for himself, there are a huge number of them. They can be either temporary or permanent. Some tend not to dissipate throughout their lives, others almost certainly end after the program embedded in them has been completed or, conversely, its complete collapse. They are united by one thing - almost all of them are in one way or another connected with the impact of society on a person and give rise to internal conflicts, coming into conflict with the internal - subconscious desires of a person or even with themselves.
For example, the illusion of some girls about a prince on a white horse is usually productively dispelled after close acquaintance with the opposite sex and rarely lasts too long as it does not pass the test of reality. Or, for example, more generally, faith does not always help to live, survive, or promote emotional stability and confidence. As in most emotional states, there is faith that contributes to the development and successful activity of a person, and there is faith that rather contributes to the preservation of a person at a certain level and complicates his development.
For example, belief in magic. No matter how funny it is to observe in our time, the mass all-Russian insanity of the beginning of the 21st century and the pilgrimage of fellow citizens to sorcerers, magicians, psychics and other supernatural brethren amazes the imagination. Again, a one-time appeal in a “moment of spiritual adversity” is one thing. But the problem is that there are quite a few people who constantly do this and become so immersed in mysticism that they include it in the routine of their own lives, to the point that a stable addiction arises. In fact, in this way a parallel world is built, which is woven into a parallel reality and becomes indistinguishable from it. There is a dependence on people who, at least for the most part, are charlatans or mentally ill people. After all, hearing the voices of spirits pointing out something is interpreted by modern psychiatry rather as schizophrenia and the like, and not as messages from the subtle worlds. Naturally, to abuse mysticism usually requires a certain predisposition. That is, in fact, people with mystical thinking can form the backbone of the magical audience. Mystical thinking here refers to the presence, as the basic source of human activity, of his belief in the ability of certain supernatural forces to solve his problems.
At the same time, the options may be different - this is their own feeling of omnipotence, when some people are inclined to claim, for example, that they are very afraid of wishing something bad to someone - their wishes often come true. Or, for example, a feeling of complete predetermination - everything in life is planned out from beginning to end. Immersing yourself in a sense of predestination is very dangerous. Gradually, this feeling may intensify and the person begins to abandon many of his inherent functions - for example, development, the desire for a promotion at work, caring for offspring, starting a family, and others.
In this regard, the classic option is astrological dependence, because astrology directly professes predestination. Or, more precisely, it is generated by the knowledge of what will happen. Thus, mysticism turns into a way of thinking, which, of course, is radically at odds with reality. Friends of aliens, contacting, etc. – we must be aware that people who are actively interested in these things and, most importantly, believe in them, need help, although, it should be repeated, real madness among them, however, is rare.
Complications of life
Many more dangerous behavior patterns are based on unproductive confidence. For example, a person who believes that he is immortal and therefore does not go to the doctor. Or, for example, a person who exclusively accepts alternative medicine and, instead of serious treatment, takes dubious home-made drugs while a crazy woman howls. A huge number of illusions, which complicate the life of a specific person and in their mass manifestation, are hidden in attitudes, both of a private nature and inherent in the so-called mass consciousness.
That is, we must understand that under certain circumstances any moral values can be brought to the point of absurdity, but a person is not always able to realize this. Only passing any moral dogmas through critical thinking allows you to remain in reality and act from the position of a reasonable adult.
How to overcome the habit of self-criticism?
Personal headache
A particular person has his own personal headaches, which are embedded in him from childhood, either by inheritance or by being instilled in the public consciousness. For example, you need to be good. Being good is good. It's bad when you have to be good for others. And it's even worse when it's for everyone else. This is a big problem. It is impossible to be good for others, at least for all others, which is revealed in internal conflicts. The conflict can be of this kind: you need to be good for others, which doesn’t work out because it’s impossible; at the same time, you want to be good for yourself, which is wrong, because it is selfish. Therefore, a gnawing feeling of guilt arises that accompanies a person through life. Being good for everyone is an absolutely unrealistic, illusory position, to the point that some people who are caught in its clutches understand this mentally, but continue to suffer, because for the person himself these are absolutely real experiences that he can rarely overcome on his own.
The more anxiety there is in a person, the thicker the illusory layer should be. Under completely unbearable tension, a person can create and completely leave the real world, plunging into an illusory life.
Why are illusions so important?
And finally, the question arises - why are illusions so important to people and how are they formed? If you analyze their structure, it becomes clear that most often they are a buffer between our “I” and the external environment, or reality. So, this buffer is mostly required for protection. That is, in people who have it clearly expressed inside, there is anxiety and fears on a subconscious level that need to be relieved. Illusions protect us from the external environment, make our encounter with reality softer and more tolerable, so much so that they allow us to endure this external influence. The more anxiety there is in a person, the thicker the illusory layer should be. Under completely unbearable tension, a person can create and completely leave the real world, plunging into an illusory life.
Sign up for our psychological consultation (Moscow), in person or Skype:
Psychological violence, recovery from abusers and narcissists, breaking up with an abuser, changing abusive behavior, self-esteem, relationships, loss of meaning, nice (comfortable) person syndrome, age-related crises, existential problems, loneliness, relationships “adult children - parents,” and more...
About us/Make an appointment
How are illusions formed?
How does this happen? In fact, some role, of course, is assigned to innate predetermination, but it seems that this is not the dominant basis. Still, most often these are psychological traumas, dysfunctional family relationships, etc. For example, children experience the first awareness of death around the age of 5-7 years, and if the experience happened correctly, then reconciliation with harsh reality occurs and this does not interfere with living in the future. If this does not happen, then fear can accompany a person for a long time, he begins to experience anxiety that does not stop, and in order to extinguish it, a person begins to spend a lot of time in a fantasy world where he is omnipotent and immortal. At the same time, reality seems to him hostile and life-threatening. People may begin to pose a danger; a person may feel an unclear threat from them. Additionally, this basic fear may be superimposed on by other events that aggravate this anxiety, causing the person to break away from reality more and more.
Or, for example, in childhood a child was told that he should be the best, better than others, he deserves more than everyone else. In principle, the message is good, but not always feasible due to even some objective reasons. But such a suggestion may still prevail and require implementation. And, as a result, it comes into conflict with reality and the production of illusions that protect against it can begin. For example, gradually a person can fantasize that there is some kind of conspiracy in which everyone is against him and is preventing him from achieving success. It may be otherwise - a person can put himself on a pedestal, create his own illusory image that corresponds to his ideal idea of who he is and what he should achieve in the end. Accordingly, a person begins to act based on his illusory image, which captures him so much that it can actually become a second “I”. In the most unpleasant prospect - for example, the ruler of the world, or, at worst, Napoleon. Of course, these examples are simplified for clarity, but very often they, or similar ones, serve as triggers for our mirages.
Return to reality
In some cases, a person may randomly return to reality under the influence of circumstances. For example, in the case of severe trials - for example, going through military operations, death of a loved one and similar in impact. But again, this is a hypothetical possibility. Typically, working with such clients involves returning to reality, expanding the field of awareness, and working with the initial events that caused certain manifestations.
- about the author
- Copyright materials
Andrey Petrakov
Hello! This is a blog on psychology, in which significant attention is paid to the topics of psychological violence - abuse, narcissism, relationships, personal crises, taking responsibility for one's life, increasing self-esteem, existential problems. The cost of consulting a psychologist is 3000 rubles/hour, in person (Moscow, Maryina Roshcha metro station), or via Skype About us/Make an appointment
Latest materials: (See all)
- What is toxic shame and why shouldn’t it be mixed with guilt? — September 14, 2020
- Video: the fundamental difference between an abuser and a non-abuser? — September 12, 2020
- Six signs of covert hostility (passive aggression) - September 3, 2020
More:
About intolerance
Self-reliance: how to find your inner core?
Do you want to be free? And are you ready?
How to understand that you are being manipulated?
Share:
