Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey guys, welcome to A Little Help for Our Friends a podcast for people with loved ones struggling with mental health. Hey guys, today we've got a topic that I'm pretty excited about. It's not something I necessarily hear in a lot of podcasts, but it is infecting our society, so seems relevant. The topic is black and white thinking, otherwise known as like all or nothing thinking or dichotomous thinking, and it is associated more so with certain disorders, but it also seems to be associated with being on social media. So I think we've got a lot to talk about. Kibbe, how can you help with black and white thinking?

Speaker 2: 0:43

Yeah, so in Cool of Mind we say this all the time, but we are supporting people who have loved ones with mental illness, especially ones that are emotionally challenging, like with substance use, alcoholism, personality disorders or just have like anger issues and I feel like we're going to talk more about this in this episode but especially people who have a lot of black and white thinking, like really extreme loved ones really struggle, like it's really really hard for loved ones when there's a lot of this dichotomous, like all or nothing extreme thinking going on. So if you are struggling with this with your loved one or with yourself, you could reach out and see how we can help. You could find us on coolamindcom K-U-L-A-M-I-N-Dcom and we do one-on-one coaching. We have personalized resources and skills that we've learned from our many, many years of doing therapy, and also a community, so there's different ways that we support you through this which is good, because black and white thinking drives me bananas, yeah yeah it is sort of antithetical to how I don't know to me.

Speaker 1: 1:58

I always got in trouble on that, in like with bachelor nation or whatever, for being too like forgiving or too new like I. I think that I could maybe even be helped by being slightly more. I can wait sometimes, because I can tend to be like kind of an apologist, um, or just a forever devil's advocate. I'm like always trying to find the other side, like how you know, how can we actually flesh this out? And that also irritates people. But what can you kind of tell us about? Why black and white?

Speaker 2: 2:32

Okay, yeah, I mean I was also. I mean both of us really hate black and white or all nothing thinking. Let's call it dichotomous, because I feel like black and white lately has been it puts a little bit more of like a racial spin on it and people you know find that you know offensive, like good and bad, black and white, right, um. And I only know that because, uh, I have a friend who was going to do a, um, a movie about like a black cat on one of the major networks and they, hey, scrapped the project because they were, you know, painting the black cat as bad. And so they're like okay, we can't do like black is bad and white is good anymore.

Speaker 1: 3:15

Anyway, that is going to be my one black or white remark for the podcast.

Speaker 2: 3:22

Well, it creates like associations of like black is bad, right and white is good, which you know except that black and white thinking doesn't refer to good versus bad thinking, it just refers to extremes yeah, extremes yeah, yeah, whatever.

Speaker 2: 3:36

Yeah, I mean. I think that the way it shows up, typically it's it's called a cognitive distortion, meaning that it's a way, it's a pattern of thinking that is not helpful and usually leads to a lot of anxiety, depression, other mental health issues, and you can think of it as extreme thinking like everything is all good or everything is all bad. This person is toxic, or they're the best and they're the one, and they're everything. I'm worthy, I'm amazing, everyone loves me, or I'm worthless. There's never going to be good things in the future, or the future is bright, right? So these really extreme negative, positive zero nothing, it can be negative, positive or it can just be.

Speaker 1: 4:19

It can just strip all nuance and complication from the topic. Like, for instance, you know, know someone who is kind of like unless you love me the way I want to be loved, then you don't love me. Unless you agree that you'll never leave me, then that's not love and that's not good versus bad, but it's very like rigid this or that.

Speaker 2: 4:44

Yeah, very like rigid, this or that, yeah, all or nothing. It is, but the more I did a little bit of digging into this in the literature, the more it's. First of all, it's it in the psychodynamic literature is called, um, like a primitive defense. Right, it's almost, which is another way of saying this is a very immature, base, not evolved way of dealing with hardship and it. It boxes the everything into two extremes. Right, there's two categories. There's no gray area. There's no, as you're saying, nuance and complexity.

Speaker 2: 5:15

Um, you could only hold one thing at a time. Right, it's either white or black, good or bad, you know liberal or conservative, right, but I think what where it evolved is it could be adaptive in helping us have, like a very easy shortcut that makes things very simple and very efficient and fast, right, instead of having to be like is this person a good partner? They have good qualities and bad qualities, they care about them. But also things that are really hard about a relationship, it's like no, this person's toxic, get them out of my life. It makes it very easy to know what to do, right yeah, yeah, no, I think that's that's cool.

Speaker 1: 6:00

um, it's associated with cluster B. We know it's a major aspect of BPD, but I think the research you were doing earlier today is really interesting in explaining why this evolves in certain kinds of people. Do you want to kind of go into why that might be associated with cluster B?

Speaker 2: 6:23

Yeah, I was actually surprised because we've always learned dichotomous thinking is something that we work on in cognitive behavioral therapy, especially for people who are depressed or anxious. Right Like something's going to be dangerous. I always fail, I'm always hated and rejected, right, right. So then you kind of get this like like intense emotional response of anxiety or feeling depressed because it's like everything is hopeless. Right, there's no, there's no possibility, there's no gray area, there's no like window into something else, it's just all bad.

Speaker 2: 7:03

So I was actually surprised when the research shows that dichotomous thinking is really connected to cluster B traits, or what they call the dark triad, which is basically like psychopathic and those dark, malignant, narcissistic traits that we think are bad. But the interesting thing is that dichotomous thinking is connected to the adaptive forms of that, like ones that are able to like, manipulate and get ahead in different ways and survive, right. And I was like that's weird. Why would? Why would a primitive defense? Why would something that is not helpful actually be helpful or connected to other helpful traits?

Speaker 2: 7:48

And the literature is describing that, yeah, dichotomous thinking, along with a lot of other cognitive distortions, is a survival mechanism. So people who have these personality disorders or severe trauma have really difficult backgrounds where it was really hard for them to survive, and in order to do that, you have to develop like pretty hard and fast rules for how to survive, right Like I have to screw over everyone in order to get ahead. These people are bad and my people are good. You know it just very like clear-cut definitions that guide your behavior in order to survive. So it's interesting to think about how dichotomous thinking is a survival mechanism that gets in the way of relationships and your own mental health, but maybe helps you through like a traumatic environment yeah, I mean, my mind is going a couple different directions.

Speaker 1: 8:43

one is we've been talking about emotional immaturity, and this is kind of making me feel like I mean, it's not as though people with black and white thinking haven't developed, they just developed in a maladaptive environment. So it's not as though black and white thinking is always bad. It's just that in normal society it's not as adaptive, and so is that like? Is that like immaturity? Or when we talk about immaturity versus maturity, are we talking about people's? People just had to grow, like, adapt into a maladaptive society and then they never got to.

Speaker 2: 9:30

yeah, yeah, I would say that this. It is adaptive and helpful in very dangerous settings. Right. If you have an abusive parent or family being like they're all bad and I'm good or I'm going to assume that I'm all bad, right.

Speaker 2: 9:51

There's just different ways to deal with a really dangerous situation. Just clear, cut, fast rules of survival, what's good or what's bad, and just don't nuance and complexity slows us down, makes it hard to know what to do. Right, we have to really think and take in all the data and all the information and ponder it and weigh what's the cost and benefit. Right it when you're really deciding like, oh, is this partner, someone I want to marry? Deciding like, oh, is this partner, someone I want to marry, for example, you have to actually take a lot of time to you know, gather all the information to make an informed decision. That's like a mature way of going about it. But if you are in a dangerous situation where this person is abusive, right, don't think about the new one. So take time to think about it. Get out of there. That person's bad, get out danger bad, right. So just it just makes survival easier.

Speaker 1: 10:50

But when people grow up, are in an environment like normal society or adulthood, where there is a lot of gray areas, then it might be maladaptive it might be less helpful yeah, yeah, I mean, a really obvious place where this can show up is PTSD, but I think it's different than kind of a cluster B presentation, which is that the PTSD presentation I feel like is more about certain thoughts the world is dangerous, other people, like people are bad, people are cruel, I'm bad versus kind of a black and white filtration system or dichotomous sorry filtration system whereby, like, everything is kind of filtered into rigid thinking.

Speaker 1: 11:42

With PTSD you're typically working with like a couple of beliefs and like, for instance, if you do prolonged exposure, you're typically countering the belief the world is dangerous and the belief like I'm I'm incompetent or I'm incapable and may in some other oriented beliefs. But I mean, for instance, like a cluster B presentation. I was sort of setting a limit with a friend recently and I didn't say anything about like if you ever do this again, then I will never speak to you again. But she responded with, like what I'm hearing is that there's absolutely no room for mistake and if I slip up, it's over. Am I correct? And I was kind of like well, where did you get that Exactly? That seems more like a kind of automatic like this is how I hear things and filter things, but I don't know if that's actually correct. What do you think?

Speaker 2: 12:44

What do you think? What, how, how do you see the nuance in that versus? I mean, I'm, I guess, like the. The situation is that there were, you were having conversation where, where there there were some elements where some things were particularly hard, right.

Speaker 1: 12:58

There was just a behavior that I was like this is burning me out, um, I can't like, I can't go into this place with you anymore. I can't like do this with you, this place with you, anymore. I can't like do this with you, um, and I don't know that. Therefore, if I can really be the kind of friend you need, but, um, that was kind of the gist. And then the response was am I hearing you correctly? That, like, there is no room for any error, any slip up, and it's not that that was necessarily untrue. I just didn't see where she got that from the message and to me that felt like a typical response from this person, whereas somebody with ptsd I don't know that that would, that that would necessarily be where they would go what do you mean?

Speaker 2: 13:37

like where do you think, uh, trauma response would be different than that?

Speaker 1: 13:41

I don't think it says listen, I'm talking out of my ass here a little bit, but we don't in our training for PTSD we don't necessarily talk about how, for instance, veterans just have dichotomous thinking all over the place. It's usually more like there can often be certain beliefs that are developed because PTSD is throwing you into a fight or flight stance kind of all the time right, and so the beliefs are are like the world is dangerous, look out, you know. Or there might be some like beliefs about the self that have become rigid, but I don't know that it necessarily would show up so consistently in things that aren't related to, for instance, safety.

Speaker 2: 14:23

Well, I think that's the difference between personality disorders and the way they think and the thinking that's involved, that versus like a disorder like that, which is a little bit more circumscribed and contained to a situation. Right, like PTSD, except for like extreme, pervasive, complex situations. Like it is a fear of that memory, of that dangerous time. So anything that is is connected to your risk, right, like hearing, something, being in contact, you know, encountering like situations that bring up that memory when you were traumatized. Then that's when the black and white thinking, the kind of like all or nothing responses come up. Right, because then it's like shut it out, like I don't want to think about it, I'm just going to think emotionally. Right, but with personality disorders, the idea is that these kind of disordered ways of thinking are everywhere. Right, it affects the way they feel about themselves and other people and the world and all different situations, right. So when you were saying that your friend was like wait, I'm going to. If I slip up, it's all over.

Speaker 2: 15:40

That's an example of dichotomous thinking. Because it sounds like a shame response, right, it sounds like okay, if I heard that. Well, actually that might not be worth it. I tend to like fall into like oh my gosh, that hurts so badly. What did I do wrong? What went wrong? Right, like what? What are they going through? What's up? But I, we were good friends before Right. Or maybe we can be friends again if I make up for it. So so a healthy way of thinking is like everything is not all good or all bad. I'm not all good or all bad, but maybe I did something bad, maybe like or maybe I'm bad in this moment in time, and then maybe I messed up and that's why she's rejecting me or pulling away. But someone who has like more dichotomous thinking will be like oh, one drop of bad means all bad. Oh, she's upset because of one conversation. She will like okay, that that means any speck of badness means we are done, it is over, right, very extreme yeah, I mean, I think it it is.

Speaker 1: 17:10

It's just an interesting because I'm thinking about like. Like ocd also deals with a lot of rigidity and some black and white thinking, but again, I don't know if that would show up as interpersonally as it would, because, like you're saying is that personality disorders are pervasive and persistent and so I can see different people having loved ones who demonstrate black and white thinking, but it coming up as a problem in really different ways. Somebody with a personality disorder it could be more of like a. Your core beliefs are incompatible with the way I see the world and we keep hitting up against them and they're not adjusting, yeah, and so I can't make my way through them or around them or anything. Versus somebody with like OCD, you might be encountering like a specific kind of area where the black, where the dichotomous thinking shows up and that's causing all sorts of problems. But you can still kind of have a conversation with them. That's on the same footing, yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:12

Yeah, For example, I mean my husband is going to kill me when he hears I'm talking about this publicly, but because he's so embarrassed about it, but it's so funny because I don't know, yeah, I don't care, it's very funny to me.

Speaker 2: 18:26

So he has more of a perfectionist like OCD type brain. Right and I. And perfectionism is a form of dichotomous thinking it's perfect or it's terrible and worthless. Right, it's not like me, I'm like man, it's fine, there's no, it's fine. And dichotomous thinking it's just like good or bad.

Speaker 2: 18:47

Poor guy is is usually on a hunt for some piece of clothing that he was like oh, I picked it out, I really researched, it's customized or whatever. And then I'll see like a moment of relief and joy, like I like this. And then I'll watch him. Over the course of a couple minutes He'll start to move around like you know, adjust the sleeves, look at himself in the mirror, and then I'll watch his face fall. It's like it looks like a fall from grace, it's like I thought I found perfection and I didn't. And then he looks so sad Because you'll be like, oh, this, this seam is a little bit too long, it doesn't work.

Speaker 2: 19:48

All or nothing, it doesn't work, and luckily, since he doesn't have a personality disorder that doesn't extend to all parts of his life. It's just weirdly about clothes and probably other things that he's not telling me because it's so ashamed. But he, you know I can make mistakes, our son can make mistakes. Things could not go great and he could be sad about it, but not like well, it's time to divorce now, right, right. Then that would be more of a personality disorder response.

Speaker 1: 20:14

If he's just like you're not perfect, fine, goodbye, garbage is he able to see that what he's doing is crazy?

Speaker 2: 20:24

um, like in in some way enough that he knows to act ashamed, or like to be ashamed in front of me, even though, like you know, it's more painful for him to show it to me that I like I mean it's very endearing, yeah yeah, yeah, I'm super glad that this is the problem.

Speaker 2: 20:43

It's like he can't find clothes that doesn't fit him well, it's like I don't know. Anyway, but that's part of the OCD thing, though, like OCD tends to have good insight and also non-personality sort of feel Like you could have insight right, like even when I'm in a bad mood. I could tend to this where, if I this happens to me all the time this is a terrible habit. I go on LinkedIn. That't even know what TikTok is all about, but if you are into your professional identity, linkedin is just it's not good. So I go on, I feel good about myself. I'm like you know what I'm doing well in my life. I'm working hard, I'm doing things I enjoy. And then I look at LinkedIn and I see all the different posts that are like I'm thrilled to announce this new promotion or raising this money or this accomplishment, and I collapse into I'm a failure, I'm an idiot. I can't believe that. I thought that I was making any progress because clearly, I'm wrong.

Speaker 2: 22:03

Clearly, I'm like a fool, like there's no, like I'll get there. Kibbe, you've done some good things, but maybe you do want to aspire to the things that you're looking for. No, the envy just takes over into crushing self-doubt. I don't know why I got on this topic. So, yeah, I mean, I feel like I, that that's my area of disordered thinking. I forgot even what the question was, why I even brought that up.

Speaker 1: 22:26

Do you remember? It sounds like you have sort of episodic, episodic rigid thinking, which isn't surprising, because emotional states are going to throw us into rigid thinking.

Speaker 2: 22:36

And insight. You're saying insight, right, I think at least I've had enough therapy and skills and training to be like ah, kibbe, you're not all worthless, in fact you're. You're being crazy right now. You know, don't go on LinkedIn, that's all lies, you know. There there's, there's like an insight, there's a meta awareness somewhere that's saying that my all or nothing thinking is not accurate, accurate.

Speaker 1: 23:08

But it's just a feeling that it is.

Speaker 2: 23:09

So a lot of this is emotionally driven, right. It's just it's when emotions come up as we know, it really narrows your attention because it's really about, like, surviving and meeting a need. Right. And so you really have to your mind, kind of you know, when the amygdala gets fired up, when the prefrontal cortex shuts down. You really are just no longer waiting in the waters of nuance. You're just like, nope, this is all bad, so yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:38

I mean there's going to be some level of kind of emotion. Mind dichotomous thinking are when your emotions are in control. They're going to tell you a very particular story. Um, and that's normal. Personality disorder is more, more persistent, more of a worldview, and that can be really difficult if that is what you're in relation to to uh, find common ground on, because there can be a lot of like attributions of like if, if you are, if you have a loved one with bpd, for instance, there can be like a lot of behavioral attributions they make about you based off of their rigid worldview, and it's like no, no, that's not what's going on. But I can't make you see that because everything I'm saying kind of slips in the cracks between your dichotomous thinking.

Speaker 2: 24:26

Yeah, yeah, I think with personality disorders and some other people with low insight, they're just fitting information and what they see in the world and what's happening into their, the way they're seeing it, which is extremes, right. It's not like, oh, you know, today's a hard day and tomorrow will be better. It's like, no, all the evidence points to this is terrible.

Speaker 1: 24:54

Right, they just fit things into their lens, which is either zero or one, all or nothing so we were talking about the kind of environmental development of black and white thinking, slash, dichotomous thinking, sorry, where kind of an unstable, chaotic environment can propel this sort of development.

Speaker 1: 25:19

And I'm thinking about like why, in today's world where you know, like why, in today's world where you know poverty's down, education's up, literacy's up, mortality is down, we're actually you're making that face at me, but like the major metrics of like flourishing have been going up for decades. But at least if we look, on social media.

Speaker 1: 25:47

I mean it seems like people are living in a war zone, and that might be because I don't know if that's because our perception of the world is that it's a war zone, or if it's because social media actually is a war zone.

Speaker 2: 25:57

I don't know what's going on. I have now so much more respect for you and compassion for you Not that I did before, but I'm brushing up against this. Okay, so I was inspired to do this podcast because I put up a post that I didn't mean for it to be political, which is so stupid of me, but I wrote. I basically wrote verbatim what I've heard from a couple of people. Right, I didn't really want to put judgment on it, but it was.

Speaker 2: 26:30

I was describing a situation that a couple of of people I know, like a couple of clients and friends, have mentioned, that their husbands are are struggling with depression in this really particular way that they are getting. Maybe they've lost their job or they had some some other kind of career upset or something going on. They get depressed, they get withdrawn, they start to use substances and drink more and they start to lash out in anger and then they start going down alt-right YouTube channels or like content. Okay, I said the word alt-right because that's what my friends used, and this is coming from conservative and liberal families, so I didn't really think much of it.

Speaker 2: 27:16

I just put it on as a post and I talked about things in the caption that we've talked about here, where men are struggling and they don't really have good outlets for their emotions. So what do we do about it? Now I put in the I'll write YouTube channels. It was like this is an outlet where people are finding, where men are, are finding solace and a sense of empowerment. Well, if you guys look on on, cool mind.

Speaker 2: 27:43

Oh my God, the comments are appalling. Okay, so I just got roasted. It was just like a conservative, like roasting of Kibbe, and they were saying things like well, I would drink two if my wife looked like you, or I mean, there was a lot about it was interesting. There was that dichotomous thinking with men and women, as well as the political divide. So like, well, this is the problem with society.

Speaker 2: 28:13

You like liberal nuts, you know radical leftists, or think that that's the only solution where there's a lot of good stuff in conservative you don't know anything. Shut up, you're an idiot. A lot of good stuff in conservative. You don't know anything. Shut up, you're an idiot. It's like what. I honestly used that alt-right term just because my Republican friend used it, like I didn't know that I was stepping into this, but I was just surprised by how, even if you mention right, like a nuance, and I even try to say and this is not a political thing, this is just like a trend Suddenly it becomes I'm a liberal radical and I'm an idiot and I don't know anything and I think that conservatism is bad. I was like whoa, here's one.

Speaker 1: 28:57

And this comes up constantly. Here's one comment Leftists are desperate Shitposting about alt-right, which is in reality, a very small group of extremists that are not part of the MAGA movement. Okay, but you didn't say that it was a problem that their husbands were becoming Republicans. You said they were going down alt-right, which it seemingly he's agreeing could be a problem. So people are like that's a like, that's a derogatory term. It's like okay, I mean mean first of all, they're all coming about like libtards and everything. I mean they're all using like derogatory terms for liberals but?

Speaker 2: 29:30

and women, oh my god. There was one comment that said strippers and therapists are all the same. Take away the money and they're gone. And my first response was like isn't that all jobs, I mean anyway. So every part of what I am was bad. And there's also the same attitude with like men and women, like like don't listen to this woman idiot say what it takes to be a man. I was like whoa, I wasn't even claiming that. I was claiming that these husbands have been doing this thing and it's so sad and what? What can the wives do to support them and what could the men do to heal? I mean, I was a fool.

Speaker 1: 30:10

My favorite comments are the ones that assume that you're actually talking about your own husband, which is just such a hilarious thing for anybody to do.

Speaker 2: 30:18

It's like it's because you're not putting out.

Speaker 1: 30:20

I was like okay, there's that one.

Speaker 1: 30:25

Yeah, I, I, yeah it's amazing, you know, because they there's no Acknowledgement. I mean they say that like Alt-right is a derogatory term on the one hand, but, you know, then they're Trying to make, then they're trying to say that really You're just talking about Republicans in the next, and then they're like, yeah, there's bad things on the left side too. Like, yeah, fuck, I'd love a post on why some people go into the like the alt left rabbit holes, because I don't like them either. But yeah, yeah, exactly, coming at you with so much vitriol and trying to tear you down, make you feel stupid. You know, there's nothing constructive. I mean there are a couple like semi constructive comments or criticisms, but it's just like and then we're supposed to.

Speaker 1: 31:19

We're supposed to be like oh, you're right, being a Republican is a good thing. I mean, it's like. This is what always amazes me about social media. You know, it's like people will try to drag you for your beliefs, but then they completely confirm your beliefs by being such dicks about it.

Speaker 2: 31:36

Yeah, yeah. And then introducing nuance is not popular. Introducing gray areas or seeing the other side that we love to do is really not popular. I remember I did a post about from our narcissistic parents episode about, I think we were talking about like can narcissistic parents actually love their child? And I was thinking like, yeah, some, and the way they express or they experience love or learned how to love is like not healthy, but they do love. Oh my God, I got roasted for that too. They were like. They were like this is poison. How can you say this on the internet? You are toxic. I was like whoa, every single person with narcissism is unable to love. That is all or nothing thinking. Narcissism equals zero love. That is extreme.

Speaker 1: 32:33

It's not only extreme, it's incredibly unhelpful and it's going to trap people into relationships with narcissists, because if you believe that narcissists can't love, and then you start dating a narcissist. What you'll discover is that they sure act like they can love, and you'll get very confused.

Speaker 2: 32:51

Or there's actually good parts of them.

Speaker 2: 32:53

Or they are trying, or they do love you and just the some of their behaviors are quote, quote toxic. So you just want, everyone just wants, like, let's give me the signs that this person is toxic, like, and when we, when we do this character judgment right, this all or nothing character judgment, that just makes one person all one thing, they are all liberal, they're all bad, they're all, you know, whatever. And they strip away any other piece. And I understand why. Because if you were to say, hey, you know, maybe my narcissistic parent does love me and maybe I should keep trying and try to get them to like see me for who I am, it's like, actually, maybe it'd be better if you just like x it out, cut it out, just stop trying to find the nuance and clinging to that piece in a problematic way. So I understand how it really can maybe help you set those boundaries, because some people can set boundaries of like all right, it's bad, yeah, done.

Speaker 1: 33:57

No, I mean, this is what I was noticing back, especially in 2018, but mostly from the left which was a sudden reliance on rules. And it's weird because the left had always kind of been the party of no rules, right Of like free love and you know, be who you are, and authenticity, and yada, yada, yada, and to suddenly be like what can we say and what can't we say? Who do we call out? Who do we call in? Who do we, you know, cancel? It was just like whoa and you know if, like, somebody said the wrong thing and they were painted as totally terrible and you know, of course, this is going on in the right too, like Joe Biden's just completely terrible. Everything he's ever done is terrible. Now, of course, we do do that to Trump. So, okay, that's a both sides problem, but you know it's it's liberals are destroying religion and destroying women and destroying family, and I mean it's just like insanity.

Speaker 1: 34:54

But when do you want rules? You want rules when you feel that, when you feel, feel instability, you're looking for more structure, you're looking for more order, and so there's gotta be some sense that we're living in some kind of chaos. And I don't know if that's been because, with all of this information coming from so many different. I mean, it's not just news anymore, right, it's your neighbor, it's that random person down there. It's like, whoever you follow, right, whoever the algorithm pushes you. It's really hard to make sense of the world now because there's so much freaking information. It's all contradictory, and so you know, if you can kind of like hold on to something solid, then maybe that's going to be comforting to you, but it's going to run you into a lot of problems, I agree.

Speaker 2: 35:39

I think that to be on the other side of the dichotomous thinking is really painful because you have to hold the nuance. You have to hold the other information right, like when I um get into arguments with my mom, for example, and she's like really upset and it's you know, you're all about. How can you do this to me? Like just all blanket bad everything. I have to hold the full picture in my mind alone, right, like there's some things I did that are good, some things are bad. You know, like I do care about you a lot and I show you in all these different ways and I'm doing something that is against what you want, and so that feels painful. But then she'll be like you don't love me at all, right, so you have to be like wait, no, no, no, I have a gray area. I have like evidence to the other side and the other person doesn't want to hear it.

Speaker 1: 36:49

I mean, I think like the real danger in dichotomous thinking is that the world's not dichotomous, so in relationships certainly aren't, you know. So if you have somebody who's saying like love me the way I want, or else, or you don't love me at all, then the other person is in a huge pickle because that leaves no room for the other person's needs and that leaves no like understanding of you know, sometimes I can't love you the way you want because I'm protecting myself, I don't have the time, I don't have the energy, I don't want to like. I mean, I've got other things going on. My life is filled with all sorts of things and you're one of those pieces, but you're not everything. And that doesn't mean I don't love you, that doesn't mean I don't hold you in high regard.

Speaker 1: 37:35

But if every time I don't get it right for you, then you tell me that I don't love you or I'm not putting an effort, I Don't care, I'm a shitty person, I'm an ex fill-in-the-blank person like why would I stick around? Because there's just so many ways to fail all the time. And then, in order to not fail, in order to keep the relationship going, the person with nuance has to bring the nuance, as you're saying, and that takes a lot of effort too. That's a ton of work and then it doesn't get through, and then you're just kind of like, okay, well, I see value in this person, but it's too exhausting.

Speaker 2: 38:11

Yeah, yeah, it's fairly, it's. It's what we were talking about immature thinking. And I really am learning so much about immature thinking or emotion dysregulation, all this stuff by watching my two year old who, literally before this, he was like I want to watch a movie. He was like I want to watch a movie and I was like, wow, we're so lucky that at your fingertips you have Disney plus channel Me. I had those big VHSs and I had like four and like that's it, but you have the world of Disney at your fingertips. We could watch anything.

Speaker 2: 38:50

Moana 2, let's give that a try, maybe you'd like it, maybe it fits this mood. No, I was even even when I suggested Moana 2 instead of what he wants to watch Toy Story 2, over and over he it wasn't like, oh, mom, okay, well, I get a movie, but it isn't the one I want and that's okay. It was like nah, like you, you would have thought that he, like the world ended right, it's just all or nothing, it's either, like he's. And then, as soon as I turn on Toy Story 2, he's like oh, thanks, mama, you know. So it was just all or nothing. And yeah, and when you grow up you have room for you know I'm disappointed and I know that that emotion is doesn't inform all of the information that's available here.

Speaker 1: 39:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean the ability to keep multiple, multiple perspectives in mind means that dichotomous thinking just can't, just can't work. We're just too complicated for that. Yeah, means that dichotomous thinking just can't, just can't work. We're just too complicated for that. Yeah, um, and online, I don't know, I mean it's. I guess dichotomous thinking is a good way to have your worldview confirmed in certain ways, but you're gonna you risk missing out on a lot, a lot of possibilities, a lot of friendships, and you, if you set a hard rule and then you encounter something that's nuanced, you're not going to understand that, like, I mean that's a narcissist thing, right, like, narcissist can't love, okay, then when I see a narcissist, if they act like they love them, that's not a narcissist. Oops, I'm with a narcissist and it's three years down the road. I mean, it's like that with anything, right, yeah, republicans are all good, okay, well, now I'm with a republican and he's a dick. What if this doesn't conform? Like you can't have these rules and expect to succeed in life.

Speaker 1: 40:44

And I mean I think with like, if you think of the ptsd type of situation of black and white thinking, where it's like the world is a fully dangerous place, you know like I like worked with you know a black man who had like a lot of racial trauma.

Speaker 1: 40:59

And it's really interesting when you're in that situation, because when a black man says to you, like white people are dangerous, as a white person I can't be like, nah, they have been. He's right, you know like he's at a higher risk. The problem is it's like if then he's got like health outcomes that are going down because of high stress and blood pressure and high cholesterol and there's like heart problems, and then you know he's like insulating or not comfortable at certain places where there might be white people, it's oh, like how's this belief going for you? Because on the one hand, it's protecting you from ever being hurt by a white person but on the other hand, it's tearing down your life and that's the kind of like that's that's the kind of I don't know push and pull you have in ptsd. It might be like the world is a dangerous place. Well, like what, if you live in the bronx, like maybe it is pretty dangerous but how?

Speaker 1: 41:53

far are we going to go with that rule? Because if you just adhere to that rule, you're never going to leave your house.

Speaker 2: 41:59

Yeah, yeah. I think your example of trauma is is really, really helpful, because if I categorize everything with good and bad, everything was good and bad I know what to do. It's very simple and I really protect myself. If I'm like all white people are bad, I'm going to avoid them all. You're pretty much going to 100% protect yourself from the dangers of white people. Maybe not because racial oppression is insidious, anyway.

Speaker 2: 42:34

But okay, let's say all narcissists are bad. I'm never going to date one. Well then, I'm never going to be hurt by a narcissist because I'll never, ever be in that situation. Whereas if I open myself up to like, oh, some of them can love, some of them can change, then I'm probably increasing my chances of reaching danger, probably increasing my chances of reaching danger. Right, so it is simple just to cut it all out and say no, but you're cutting everything out. So, when it comes to dating, I mean, people know what this is like. If you are looking for anything that's a red flag, well, anything can be a red flag, and then you're just going to cut out people because there's like a couple of things that you don't like about them.

Speaker 1: 43:18

Right, I mean nurses don't walk around with a giant N on their forehead. So in order to avoid that, you have to avoid everything and that you know it sucks, like it, it. It sucks when these people have been really, really hurt and they have every reason to want to avoid certain outcomes and it's hard to tell them like yeah, you should just probably Hakuna Matata it Like you're going to be okay. You know, if you walk outside like everything's going to be totally cool, cause it's like no, they've had an experience where it wasn't. They're not dumb.

Speaker 1: 43:52

Um but then you see the PTSD destroying them from the inside and it just costs so much. So, yeah, so that's the trauma side of it, and I mean a similar thing happens with with OCD, right. The attempts to keep yourself safe through the ritual bury you.

Speaker 2: 44:12

Yeah, yeah. How do you have any black and white thinking, all or nothing thinking anywhere. You are pretty flexible. You are sometimes, yes to a fault, too easy to find the nuance, yeah, which could leave you in a place where you, uh, accept probably more than you need to.

Speaker 1: 44:37

But do you have? I don't have body image.

Speaker 2: 44:43

Do you have moments where you go? In that case, do you have moments where you're like I'm all bad or I look terrible?

Speaker 1: 44:52

I'll be like my body's disgusting.

Speaker 2: 44:54

Oh, okay, and how could Jason?

Speaker 1: 44:55

truly be attracted to me that kind of thing, or I look terrible, I'll be like my body's disgusting.

Speaker 2: 44:59

Oh, okay.

Speaker 1: 45:00

Yeah, and how could Jason truly be attracted to me that kind of thing? Oh, I know.

Speaker 2: 45:03

But good thing Leifo sucked all those thoughts away, just like my husband one day will find that perfect shirt and those perfect pair of pants. You know, it's out there.

Speaker 1: 45:15

Just keep finding it.

Speaker 2: 45:17

So what do we do about this? I mean, I don't know, man, society, I don't know. I feel like society. You know it's interesting because it's just like there's nothing that energizes people more than just black and white thinking. Right like you can. It is very easy to control a group of people who are all or nothing. I'm like, oh, do I want more engagement on Instagram? I will just mention alt-right. I'll just put a post of me and put alt-right and then watch as that post blows up. I mean, that's what the news does both sides.

Speaker 2: 45:51

But as a person, I think it's the same as what we do with any kind of disordered thinking. We, we ask, we ask ourselves, or that person like, what is this costing you? What, what? What is a? How has it served you? You know this all or nothing thinking. But how? What does it cost you? Now, listen, I have some pretty all or nothing thinking around bungee jumping and I'm not. I'm like it's, it's all bad, I'm not gonna do it and that's it's pretty good. It's gonna be pretty helpful for me to avoid having that rope snap underneath me and we've plummet to my death right. So it's helpful to avoid situations where it's really not worth it.

Speaker 1: 46:30

They miss out on the theoretical awesomeness of bunch jumping.

Speaker 2: 46:33

I mean I'm I agree with you, I'm never gonna do it, but you know, I mean, there's other ways to get that awesomeness you know you could do skydiving, you know yeah, I do think bungee jumping looks horrible, like painful and nauseating, and when I went skydiving, the guys who did it, who were like teachers, who would just take us, take people up for like 20 jumps a day, they were like, oh, I would never go bungee jumping. Those people are crazy. I was like, oh, ok, I'm never going to do it, right? Sure, yes, I am sacrificing the joy of leaping off a cliff tied by a rope, but I don't think that that joy is worth any risk of 1% risk. So I'm just like bungee jumping is all off the table. So you kind of weigh the cost like your perfectionism.

Speaker 1: 47:25

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 47:26

How like it's serving you in some ways to be motivated, but it's also costing you because people have to. I mean, the amount of shirts that my man has ordered over the past, you know, two years is astounding, you know to use my shop, my links, which really grinds my gears um, I mean, you didn't give him any reason that it would be benefiting him, but yeah, it would be a nice thing to do. It would yes.

Speaker 1: 47:57

We have black and white. I mean, we have rules and limitations all the time, right, like a boundary. You could say that's like dichotomous thinking, but it didn't necessarily get there because of dichotomous thinking. But yeah, I mean, I think you said at the beginning of the episode like it serves people when they're in dangerous situations. So if I'm in Syria, I'm probably going to be fucking terrified and not go outside unless I'm like covered, and you know I'm going to. I'm going to be like this is a dangerous place, this is not a safe place. I'm going to stay inside and you know the cost will be that I miss out on seeing Syria, but the benefit will be that I don't put myself in any like dangerous situations. That's not, that's not dumb, right? It's just when it generalizes then to a safer, a safer scenario.

Speaker 2: 48:49

Yeah, like abuse, right, if someone, if there's domestic violence and someone goes, oh, but I could see the nuance, I could see why you know he or she was in a really bad place and you know they have good sides, then they might.

Speaker 1: 49:04

then it actually might serve you to be like no, all physical violence against your partner is bad and should not ever happen again yeah, yeah, this is where my nuanced thinking gets me in trouble, not with physical abuse, but with putting up with too much from other people. Okay, but if you want to work on your black and white thinking, well, first of all, dbt is very helpful if you have or or other disorders. Probably not the right place for like OCD, though, um, but one of the reasons is because it's dialectical, so it's kind of underlying philosophy is how do we bring two seemingly opposing things and and let them coexist? So it might be something as simple and I find myself doing this all the freaking time now as saying like I'm I'm angry with you and I miss you. That would be a good like breakup.

Speaker 1: 50:03

Um, instant right where people are like because I miss them. It means they're amazing. It means that I idealize them they're all good, it's like-uh, you can miss them when you hate. I mean because not all of you hates them yeah.

Speaker 2: 50:19

Yeah, that trick is using the and instead of, but use the and right. So, like he loves me, right, but he's a narcissist. Or like, uh, he's a narcissist, but he loves me and he really cares about, right, the but we'll negate the first thing, so it only it. It implies that you could only have one thing true, um, uh, he's a narcissist, but he loves me means like the loves me is more important. But if you say, yeah, he's narcissistic, does things that really hurt me and he really cares about me, then it leaves room for both things to be true. The good and the bad can exist together right.

Speaker 1: 51:01

I think, like when looking at our feelings, there's this tendency to say you know you're gonna. If you think of yourself as a cornucopia with a whole bunch of different things in it, and some of them are going to be conflicting and contradictory, whatever, but if you can just put ands in between all of those things, then you're doing kind of dialectical thinking, right, like, um, I have I'm trying to think of a good example um, I have a body that has beautiful parts and parts I'm insecure about, and people are attracted to me and some people aren't attracted to me and some, some days I love myself, some days I don't like myself, like you know, just allowing all the contradictions to be there instead of oh, this person isn't attractive to me, it isn't attractive to me, therefore, I'm not attractive.

Speaker 2: 51:59

Oh.

Speaker 1: 52:00

I don't like my stomach. Therefore, I don't like my body.

Speaker 2: 52:03

Yeah, yeah. And I think you don't have to um depend a decision or like um set boundaries or make a decision based on all or nothing rule, for example. You don't have to be like, well, that person has to be toxic for me to cut them out of my life or say goodbye or not to put up with them, like you're waiting for that person to be all something, an evil person that you have to cut off. It's like, no, it could be, like there are many good things about this person. I could even care about them. I had great times.

Speaker 2: 52:41

Maybe in the future things are going to be different, but and right now you know the behavior is not something that's healthy, and so I'm going to choose to leave Right, so you could base decisions on taking in all the information still and then making an informed decision there, instead of like, yes, no, swipe left or swipe right, kind of rule yeah, yeah, um, republicans, they voted for what I think is a rapist and they might not think that he is, and they love their families and they're very scared about what's happening to values they've cared a lot about and they see different solutions to the same problems, and you know what I mean.

Speaker 1: 53:26

Like there can be. It was like. This is how we find our common humanity.

Speaker 2: 53:34

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 53:35

We don't categorize and I think you know. I think a good way to see if, uh if, dichotomous thinking is a problem for you is to ask yourself if you're miserable, right Like, you're always going to find the good side. If you like with perfectionism, right Like. What's the good side about dichotomous thinking? Some of your work is really good. The bad side is that you're miserable, so it's like okay, my perfectionism. Sometimes it drives me to complete really good work, and a lot of the time I feel anxious and not good enough and worthless, and sometimes I procrastinate so much that actually my work isn't as good because I'm so scared of making a mistake. Yeah, so is it worth it?

Speaker 2: 54:20

Yeah, it's trying to figure out if the dichotomous thinking is helpful for you and why and where does it cost you and choose to make that hard and fast rule when it is helpful and to allow the nuance when it's not. I mean, the traditional cognitive behavioral therapy or the CBT approach to dichotomous thinking is to challenge that thought, right, it's to look for signals of those extreme beliefs, like anything where you say always or never, I'm never right, I'm never successful, I'm never successful, I'm never, I'm never loved, no one ever stands by me in times of hardship, right, like these all or nothing words are not accurate, right, because you know life is full of counter examples, right, and so you're just wiping out those counter examples. So in cognitive behavioral therapy it would be like okay, let's actually notice when you haven't always or never thought, and then ask yourself what am I missing here? What is evidence that that rule isn't true? Okay, I always feel like everyone rejects me and leaves me. Well, let's think of one or two examples where someone's still stuck by you. And already just one or two examples and one, one little hint of gray area means that that. You know, black and white categorization is not, it is not accurate.

Speaker 2: 55:56

Um, I, I think that's fine, but I'm not a big fan of like thinking your way out of it, because if I'm really thinking black and white like that, I'm feeling an intense emotion and I just my mind. I like, yeah, sure, I know that it's not like there are some good sides and bad sides, but right now I'm all bad right, and so I think that I tend to go a little bit more into the emotion. Like, what is the emotion driving those hard and fast rules? I'm so ashamed, I'm so disappointed in myself, I'm so scared that no one's actually going to love me unless I'm perfect. Like that is something that it's easier for me to tap into than for someone to talk me out of like. But wait, there's some good things I'm like oh fine, you know.

Speaker 1: 56:44

Yeah, I think for me, um, it can be unhelpful when people try to talk me out of things, but that's primarily because I've already done it, like I'm a major cognitive restructuring person already and that's my first go-to with everything. I'm like, oh, here's my assumption, uh, okay, but, and this gets me, this is, this makes me put up with a lot of people for too long. I'm like, okay, well, what's their possible perspective? And okay, what else is going on? So, you know, I try to dial down the catastrophizing pretty quickly and what I think I need to do is say, okay, even even when I restructure it, that doesn't get rid of the entire emotion. That is protective and it's a good mechanism, but ultimately there's still going to be discomfort and there's no talking myself out of that, and so I have to figure out how to just, you know, urge, surf or breathe through it, sit on my hands, you know, and not try to just reason away the, the feelings. But I do think it's. Yeah, I made a huge.

Speaker 1: 57:51

If you're not, if you're not restructuring like, if you're not, if you're not restructuring like, if you're not, and this is, you know, this is why, like cognitive work, I mean, I think people can find it invalidating. But if they truly don't, at other perspectives, if they're not kind of dialing down the intensity on the, you know, on these worst case scenarios, they're going to get stuck there, and I think it is a good line of defense. So it is worth. You know, if you've never done that before, if you've never said, oh, am I making a statement with always, am I assuming the worst case scenario? Am I, you know, completely making assumptions about the other person without considering at least three different options for what their perspective might be or why they might that might have happened, and I think it's a good thing to try. It's not the only thing, mm, hmm, mm, hmm it's tricky.

Speaker 2: 58:59

There's one area that's really tricky and that is, uh, abuse, like domestic abuse. Because, if you think about it, um, a former dichotomous thinking that people with personality disorders do often is I'm the victim and you are the one to blame. You're the perpetrator. Yes, I might have caused this problem, but I'm, I did it because I'm the victim and you are the one to blame. You're the perpetrator, yes, I might've caused this problem, but I'm, I did it because I'm the victim and you are the problem. Right, it's so. It's very much like I have one role, I'm the good one and you're the bad one, and then you watch them flip I'm the worst, I'm, you know, I'm the whatever.

Speaker 2: 59:28

And although you know so, you would say, hey, actually the research, the real research, shows that people who engage in intimate partner violence, like domestic abuse, often people flip roles of perpetrator and victim, right, actually, there's a lot of cases where both parties hurt the other one, right, and so I find that really tricky, because then for people who've experienced like sexual assault or other kinds of horrible abuse, for them to have a little bit of blame of themselves and like, oh, I'm a little bit bad, that could be really damaging. So I don't really know what to do there, except for like the all or nothing of like. That behavior is bad. Everyone should stop. Doesn't make you a bad person, but you should all stop that.

Speaker 1: 1:00:26

That is the tough part, you know. But you know I mean interestingly, with sexual assault or rape, you know, I mean there's black and white thinking here too, which is unhelpful, which is like if I, the common belief people have, is like maybe I made the person like think I wanted it and I think the nuance there is, who cares you?

Speaker 2: 1:00:48

didn't.

Speaker 1: 1:00:49

And he violated you. Um, but then the problem is then you have to, then you have to create a rule, and that can be tough if you're constantly taking different perspectives.

Speaker 2: 1:01:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So those situations are really tricky to know what to do with the dichotomous thinking. Yeah, but that's why it's.

Speaker 1: 1:01:08

That's why it starts for some people, right, it's because they've been in these situations and they probably had to make hard and fast rules like that person's dangerous, don't allow it, do not let that person in. I have to keep myself safe. Da, da, da, da, da da. Work with a therapist.

Speaker 2: 1:01:23

Yeah, get a therapist is the tip. Um, yeah, and I would say that the tip for loved ones who are watching a loved one uh, go into all or nothing thinking. I think I I learned that one of the biggest mistakes I made in therapy as a therapist was I had a patient who had, um, a personality disorder or probably, you know, a combination of personality disorders and and, uh, she was, she was poor things. She just was convinced that everyone hated her, that she's worthless. Anything we would do, anything we would say, nothing would pierce that belief. She was all bad all the time and she had a husband who loved her, she had kids who also loved her, she was well liked at her job. And she would tell me these things, right, she would just be like, yeah, my husband said he loved me and I got, I got hired for a new job and they were really like they gave me a good performance review and still like she was like all bad.

Speaker 2: 1:02:24

And one day, when she was really upset, she came in and she was crying and she was like no one cares about me. No one cares about me at all, no one on this planet. And I, I, you know, I did the natural gut instinct thing that was wrong, which was like wait a minute, didn't you say your husband said he cared about you, I care about you. I really did Like I was like I care about you, I've said this to you and I really enjoy working with you. I actually I think about you and I care about you and I want you to, I'm here for you. And I thought I was like, oh good, I'm giving her counter evidence to this, like inaccurate, extreme thought. Good for me, kibbe, telling her that she's not alone in this world. But then she got really upset and she quit therapy.

Speaker 2: 1:03:13

After that. Um, she cause. I remember in the session she was just like no, no, you don't care about me, you're just paid to do this. My husband doesn't actually care about me. She just was just stuck and trying to fit everything into the no one loves me belief, no one being the extreme part, and for us to try to introduce that counter evidence it felt invalidating. So I should have. I should have rested with the emotions and been like, yeah, it must. You know, you must be in so much pain that it seems like no one is giving you the love that they want, that you want, like some other way to validate what she was feeling that led to that belief, instead of trying to argue against it. Feeling that led to that belief instead of trying to argue against it.

Speaker 1: 1:03:58

So don't do that I know I mean this like whole topic is triggering for me based on what's going on in my personal life, but I don't mean triggering like the kids use it. Um, yeah, it's. That takes a lot of skill and I think it's a lot to lay at the feet of loved ones, because to not to not a like be offended, you know, to not want to argue is like a tall ask.

Speaker 1: 1:04:29

And you know, with the friendship of mine, I kind of decided, like I'm not actually going to do the work, to like get, find the perfect response, but if it's your mom or your wife or, you know, your husband or something you might have to, and so, like, what would it look like to if I come to you and say, nobody fucking cares about me? Just what am I even doing here? No one's ever loved me. Like, what would you do with that?

Speaker 2: 1:05:03

I think I loved me. Like what would you do with that? I think I think I would. I think I would feel for that core belief of the like okay, if it's a loved one versus a patient? I think if it was a patient I'd be like, oh what. I try to understand where this emotion, like how long have you been feeling this way? What does it feel like in your body? Like, like what's going on? What emotion you're feeling. When have you felt that before? When did that thought first start Right, so then you can get kind of get.

Speaker 2: 1:05:26

Usually that leads you to, you know, when I was bullied as a kid, or my dad, you know, left, you know I just feel like I'm completely worthless and you could get to where that emotion is coming and where that like extreme thinking is coming For a friend.

Speaker 2: 1:05:44

That's tough, that's tough. I think I would still do the same. I think I would still try to validate the emotion. I think I would still do the same. I think I would still try to validate the emotion and I probably would still try to argue against it Like, no, I actually do care about you know, you are, you're great in these ways, but the smarter thing would be to validate, to try to go for the emotion that's leading to that that I don't care, like almost kind of ignore the details of what you're saying and be like your pain is so great right now like you're, you're feeling so ashamed that this is just covering everything you're thinking and seeing yeah, I think you know I have this image of like a, a pain demon, walking around with a bunch of clothes on, like a trench coat and a funny hat and a silly scarf and high heels.

Speaker 1: 1:06:44

But um, we are like our. Our instinct is going to be like Whoa, what are you wearing? Like take off a few items. That's not. But when, actuality, all you're dealing with is like the pain demon and it's just dressed up in particular ways. It's dressed up in self-hatred and nobody likes me and dichotomous thinking, yada, yada, yada, yada. And none of that really matters, because all it is is just window dressing for the, for the pain. And so, yeah, if you can just hold the pain, then maybe you'll have some luck, but that's hard work.

Speaker 2: 1:07:23

Yeah, I think I'm trying to put myself in the moments where I felt that all or nothing, thinking like I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm garb, I'm garbage, I'm really just, I haven't accomplished anything, I'm not good enough, whatever. And I think that for me, maybe I'm projecting, but that feels a lot like what that feels like is helplessness, and it just feels like a collapse of trying right, like if I, if I'm, if I have to hold out hope because no, there is a chance or I am good or whatever, then I'm like okay, I have to keep trying, but the mountain of barriers, it's just too much. So I'm like fine, it's all bad, right. So it kind of allows me to collapse into a little bit more of like this helplessness.

Speaker 2: 1:08:06

I'm, I've stopped trying, I'm tired and burnout, you know. Um, I mean, I'm just, I'm right now. I'm just describing the way it feels when I'm like when I'm there. Well, I'm just like totally useless and everyone hates I'm just, I'm right now. I'm just describing the way it feels when I'm like when I'm there, when I'm just like totally useless and everyone hates me. I'm just like I'm not even going to try, because it's way too painful to keep trying to find someone loves me and then to show up and be the best. I'm just tired and I don't want to do it anymore.

Speaker 1: 1:08:31

Yeah, yeah, no-transcript beneath it. You can. You know your partner might be saying like I'm worthless and I can't do anything right, but they're not like actively throwing darts at you or so incredibly self-absorbed that it is really aversive. But sometimes it's really hard to get to the pain because you're so put off by the dressing, you're so put off by, like, the behavior that the pain is radiating and that kind of has to be listened to for the loved one, right. Like that's where you have to set limits around it. Like when your parent is fuming at you, then it's kind of like okay, like you have the choice where you can. You can see the helplessness and validate it and sit with it and help them just experience it.

Speaker 2: 1:09:59

And you also have the choice to say uh-uh, um't, some, this isn't, it's not worth it to me, because what you radiate out when you're in this place affects me too negatively yeah, yeah, I think that the the those moral of the story is is all or nothing thinking cuts out a lot of the nuance, right, it cuts things that are out a lot of the nuance, right, it cuts things that are bad but also could cut out things that are good.

Speaker 2: 1:10:20

And if you have a loved one who is just so set in a core belief or dichotomous thinking, like these very rules driven, there's not a lot of room for you. And relationships in the healthiest sense is about a co-creation between two people At least that's what I believe. Right, it's like we are affecting each other. But if it's just like I am just going to step into your blueprint that you have, or I'm out, right, I'm this kind of daughter or friend or whatever, and I love you and I give you full access and I act this way and I don, and I then I'm just a role, I'm just like dehumanized into, like a figure, whereas, like you want to be a full person, right, you want, you want that nuance in you. You don't want to be seen as all good or all bad, you want to be seen for the other sides of you. And if that other person doesn't allow that nuance in you and your relationship, then you're going to have to leave that relationship in order to be whole again.

Speaker 1: 1:11:20

Yeah, that was well said, that resonated Good. Anyway, I think that does it.

Speaker 2: 1:11:32

Yeah, okay, any resources.

Speaker 1: 1:11:33

Yeah, okay, any resources.

Speaker 2: 1:11:35

Yeah, there's some interesting research studies that are kind of woven into what we talked about, so I'll link that in the show notes.

Speaker 1: 1:11:45

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Speaker 1: 1:12:12

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