@Gashlycrumb said:
It’s horrible. I’m not sure what a therapist could do about it, though.
[…]
There’s probably some super-expert therapist out there who teaches other therapists how to deal with this, but it does sound like a hell of a challenge and a special skill.
Disclaimer that I’m not a therapist/doctor of any kind, but my understanding is that mentalisation therapy (MBT) can be effective on abusive types if they’re at the point where they actually want to change. That can sometimes happen after they’ve burned every last bridge and start to gain an inkling that they might be the problem, but don’t bank on it.
What I’m probably more qualified to say is what helped me personally, which is letting go. Like I would just stop spending so much energy wondering what’s wrong with them, and how they can be helped, and why they did what they did, and how they can be made to understand your perspective, etc. In a way they’re still controlling you when you have this mindset because your inner world still revolves around them, and you wanna snatch that right back and instead start thinking about who you are, and what you want, and all the cool things you can do without all that dead weight dragging you down, regardless of whatever irrelevant motives they had for all the nonsense they caused.
I have a family member who’s genuinely very insane, whom I still have to see on occasion. And I’ve come to just think of them as a cat. A cat has no intention to hurt you. A cat isn’t thinking about you at all. A cat doesn’t knock the glass off the counter or bite your feet and scratch up your legs in the night because of some misunderstanding, miscommunication, or wrongdoing on your part, they’re just doing what cats do. And no amount of tearfully explaining to that cat how important it is to you that they don’t knock the glass off the counter is gonna make them understand or care or not do it, because they’re a cat and have a cat brain. And it doesn’t make the cat evil, it just makes them a cat, they literally cannot comprehend evil. There’s no reason to ever take anything a cat does personally; they’re a cat. So then whenever I see this person and they act insane or make inappropriate comments about my body or whatever else I can just think: cat, and compartmentalise all their lunacy separate from any standards or thoughts or feelings I would ordinarily apply to interactions with an actual human being. Oh and you know, don’t try to rub their belly when you know it’s a trap.
That’s what helps me, anyway.
