Having cPTSD often makes you look at life through a black-and-white lens, and your trauma response to life is not just constantly assessing whether or not people are safe but also whether our environments are safe.
For a really long time, my thinking was on a black-and-white level. You either liked/loved me, or you didn’t. Yes or no. All in or not at all. I looked at life that way because the person I was supposed to trust and who was meant to protect me was my biggest abuser as a child.
I learned that I needed validation to be able to open up and trust someone, and the only way I could was to have guarantees that if I let you into my life, then I would get 100% in return. My trauma logic would dictate that if you don’t like me, whether you were good or bad, or couldn’t give me an all-or-nothing approach, then you are capable of worse, and I wasn’t prepared to be harmed anymore.
A basic way to look at trauma is that it is the result of experiencing danger. So, of course, your instincts would kick in, and you would seek out safety because so much of your learning experience as a child was teaching you that people are dangerous. To seek out guaranteed safety, however, is unrealistic, as nothing ever is. Life is all about taking risks and hoping that things will work out how you wish them to.
It’s not what we feel but how we feel
With black-and-white thinking, we tend to use the concept that it doesn’t matter how we feel but that it matters what we feel. We think reaching our potential or happiness means reaching a goal we set in our own minds. Forever analyzing, breaking things up, never being able to go with the flow, and being in the moment. We end up having a false sense of control and security. When we believe something to be either true or false, it stops us from being let down because we were so prepared for the worst outcome anyway.
Being so set in the extreme conditioning of black and white thinking only leads us down a path of insecurity, as we need constant reassurance from others, and if we don’t or can’t get the reassurance we want, then it only reaffirms our negative thought patterns.
It becomes a vicious cycle.
Changing how I view the world
With the help of therapy and working on my healing these last few years, I have been incorporating gray areas into how I perceive things because I now see through my thought process and actions that black-and-white thinking is a great way to miss out on opportunities, avoid risk, and shut out intimacy. Yes, it may make you feel safer because it makes the world seem a little more predictable, that you can identify problems before they come and prepare for them, and you can identify people who want to hurt you and avoid them, but it comes with a heavy price.
People will disappoint you, and life will challenge you. This is just a given. A well-thought-out decision can lead to something terrible you didn’t even expect, and a poor decision can be a blessing in disguise. Allowing black-and-white thinking to control how you view the world gives more power to cognitive distortion. It’s a filter on our thoughts that distorts our interpretation of reality.
But what do you get when you mix black and white? Gray.
All life is various shades of gray
Life is full of conflicts, but those conflicts we encounter provide opportunities to repair, heal, and bring us together—far more than conflict avoidance ever could. Alienating ourselves through black-and-white thinking only reaffirms the negative beliefs we have. We can’t decide outcomes or how people view us. Life isn’t all-or-nothing. It’s maybe’s and possibilities. To be in the constant black-and-white thinking trap, we only end up denying ourselves the best parts of life. Joy and happiness. When what we really want and need is self-acceptance, love, and community.
Photo by Hoach Le Dinh on Unsplash
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Jack Brody, born and raised in Boston and now a NYC implant where he has resided for the last 30 years. Proud father to a teenage daughter. Child abuse survivor who was diagnosed with CPTSD 5 years ago. He hopes in sharing his journey, so it can inspire and give hope to others out there and let them know they are not alone.
Thank you for sharing your insight on this. It’s extremely invaluable for the partners of those with cPTSD to understand how they may view things, especially so that we can work together to achieve a successful relationship.
I read your article last night and could see myself in them. The final words of “joy and happiness” have stayed in my mind. Today, I have a big event, usually I would be full of anxiety because I can’t control things, but this morning I feel excitement, joy and happiness. Thanks for your words, they give us power.