7:30pm September 11, 2014

Be careful about “things aren’t so bad”

lichgem:

realsocialskills:

When people are freaking out, it often feels like the best thing to do is to tell them reasons that things aren’t really so bad, eg:

• “It’s ok. It’s not so scary.”
• “It’s only for a week weeks”
• “It’s ok. There is no need to freak out. This isn’t such a big deal.”
• “It’s just for one night.”
• “Don’t worry so much; this is one of the more treatable forms of the disease.”

There are some situations in which those are good things to say. They’re hard to describe, but they exist. Some situations in which reassuring someone by saying this kind of thing are along these lines:

• You understand them and the situation well enough to be fairly confident that their perspective is seriously skewed in way that are causing them distress
• You’re able to express this in a respectful way
• They trust you as a check-in person and are open to that kind of feedback from you
• They trust you to respect their boundaries when they’re *not* open to that kind of feedback about something personal

There are also situations in which it’s likely to be counterproductive to try to convince people that things aren’t that bad:

When things really are that bad:

• When things really are horrible, trying to convince someone that things are ok won’t help
• If you can convince them, then it will skew their perspective and make things harder to deal with
• If you *can’t* convince them, then it will add the problem of them having to deal with you invalidating their perspective when they’re upset
• So, if you’re trying to reassure someone with facts, make sure you actually understand the facts

When you’re not someone they trust:

• If someone doesn’t trust you, trying to get them to adopt your perspective is unlikely to be reassuring
• Even if you are right about what’s going on and they are wrong
• Even if you’re completely trustworthy and they are wrong to be wary of you
• Being vulnerable and having someone you don’t trust try to make you change your perspective on something you’re upset about can be a very frightening and unpleasant experience

When you’re really trying to convince yourself:

• When someone is very upset, it can be upsetting to others
• It can be tempting to try to make them calm down as a way to reassure *yourself* that the situation isn’t as bad as they think it is
• That’s not a very nice thing to do to someone
• Especially if they are right about how bad things are, but even if they aren’t
• People have the right to be upset, even if their feelings about what’s happening are distressing to others

(That said, it’s still ok to have boundaries even when people are very upset. The fact that someone has a right to be upset doesn’t necessarily mean they have a right to your attention or support when they’re upset. It depends on the context, what they’re upset about, how they’re expressing it, and what your relationship is.)

tl;dr When someone is very upset, it can seem like a good idea to try to calm them down by convincing them that things are actually ok. Sometimes that actually is a good idea, but in other situations it’s a really bad idea. Tread carefully, and make sure the way you’re interacting with upset people is respectful.

These parts stand out to me:

• They trust you as a check-in person and are open to that kind of feedback from you
• They trust you to respect their boundaries when they’re *not* open to that kind of feedback about something personal

• When things really are horrible, trying to convince someone that things are ok won’t help

Sometimes I have legitimate fears about things based on experience. For someone who doesn’t have that experience but knows I’m schizoaffective to dismiss that as ‘paranoia,’ it’s a surefire way to land themselves on my ‘do not trust’ list.

For instance, people tend to assume that official programs and organizations are professional and helpful. They don’t know about the classism and ableism in those programs, and the kind of judgments I have to carefully navigate while dealing with people who work there. 

Sometimes people try to talk me out of noticing red flags. If I were to listen to them, I would be PUTTING MYSELF IN DANGER. That’s not okay.

Sometimes I am experiencing paranoia as a symptom. Designating someone as my check-in person is something I would have to talk about with them beforehand, and they’d have to be willing to let it go if I didn’t trust their check-in over my own perceptions. People acting like it’s automatically their job, as the “sane” one, to tell me what’s real and what isn’t, without asking first, is ableist and unsafe.

Mentally ill people, especially people who experience delusions, paranoia, and hallucinations, are really vulnerable to gaslighting, because there’s a ready made excuse on hand for anyone who cares to use it, and bystanders are more likely to blame the “craziness” than see the abuse. That’s why it’s so, so important to be respectful of mentally ill people’s perceptions, and their right to trust those perceptions, no matter how wrong you think they are.

The scariest thing about delirium-induced paranoia for me was that the things I was paranoid about were plausible (in fact my paranoia and hallucinations started because of a real incident with a really nasty piece of work hospital worker), and I had to at some point either trust everyone else that I was paranoid, or trust myself, and I kept going back and forth, it was awful.

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