Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Damned if You Do… & Damned if You Don’t: The Double Bind, Learned Helplessness & the Victim Identity

I just experienced another, mercifully brief autonomic meltdown after having gotten bleach on a prized pair of pants. The cause was self-evident: I was too tired from doing yard work in the hot sun to change clothes when I should have. 

My wretchedly CPTSD-remodeled brain's default mode network regressed under stress and went immediately into self-recrimination and autonomic imbalance, and I had what my simple-minded, relentlessly abusive, authoritarian and anything but authoritative parents called a "temper tantrum." 

But instead of having it UNconsciously and mindlessly, I was able -- with the help of six years'  practice of this stuff -- to have it consciously and mindfully. I can still interocept the chemical residue in my score-keeping body, but my mind is calm enough to write this less than five minutes later. 

And realize that my brain's DMN was programmed, normalized and neurally hard-wired by the time I was three to a nasty double-bind that insists upon perfection here... and requires that I screw up again and again to prove that my parents were right about me being a little fuck-up there.  

The typical survivor of family-of-origin abuse was conditioned, in-doctrine-ated, instructed, socialized, habituated, and normalized as children to believe that he or she  is supposed to be a) perfect and b) screwed up... because they were told repeatedly that they were this and then told repeatedly that they were... that

These children grow up in a relentlessly impossible dilemma and no-win situation that is a very common feature of Diana Baumrind's concept of "authoritarian parenting" on Stephen Karpman's Drama Triangle.
The justifiably renowned Gregory Bateson wrote in the 1950s, "If the child tries in his naturally childish way to be perfect, he is damned by his abusers for thisAnd if he fails at it, he is damned for that."
Bateson called this squeeze play the "double bind."
Paraphrasing further:
After years of being some combination of being neglected, ignored, abandoned, discounted, disclaimed, and rejected, as well as invalidated, confused, betrayed, insulted, criticized, judged, blamed, ridiculed, embarrassed, humiliated, denigrated, derogated, set up to screw up, victimized, demonized, persecuted, picked on, dumped on, bullied, gaslighted, scapegoated, and/or otherwise abused, the child slips into hopelessness, learned helplessness, dread & a victim identity.
And accepts the belief that HE is at fault... never Placing the Blame where it Truly Belongs, which, IME is a crucial component of Resolving the Causes & Effects of serial abuse.
If interested, see The "Classics" on "Crazy-Making" from the mid-20th Century:
Bateson, G., Jackson, D., Haley, J.; et al: Perceval’s Narrative: A Patient’s Account of his Psychosis, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1961.
Bateson, G.; Jackson, D.; Haley, J.; Weakland, J.: Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia, in Journal of Behavioral Science, Vol. 1, 1956; reprinted in...
Berger, M. D., ed.: Beyond the Double Bind: Communication and Family Systems, Theories, and Techniques with Schizophrenics, New York: Bruner/Mazel, 1978.
Bermann, E.: Scapegoat: The Impact of Death-Fear on an American Family, Ann Arbor: U. of Michigan Press, 1973.
Esterson, A.: The Leaves of Spring: Schizophrenia, Family and Sacrifice, London: Tavistock, 1972.
Henry, J.: Pathways to Madness, New York: Random House, 1965.
Jackson, D. (ed.): The Etiology of Schizophrenia: Genetics / Physiology / Psychology / Sociology, London: Basic Books, 1960.
Jackson, D.: Myths of Madness: New Facts for Old Fallacies, New York: Macmillan & Co., 1964.
Laing, R. D.; Esterson, A.: Sanity, Madness and the Family, London: Tavistock, 1964.
Lidz, T.: The Origin and Treatment of Schizophrenic Disorders, New York: Basic Books, 1973.
Lidz, T.; Fleck, S., Cornelison, A.: Schizophrenia and the Family, 2nd Ed., New York: International Universities Press, 1985.
Milgram, S.: Obedience to Authority, London: Pinter & Martin, 1974.
Miller, A.: For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child Rearing and the Roots of Violence, London: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1979, 1983.
Miller, A.: Prisoners of Childhood / The Drama of the Gifted Child, New York: Basic Books, 1979, 1996.
Miller, A.: Thou Shalt Not Be Aware: Society’s Betrayal of the Child, London: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1981, 1984, 1998.

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