Does *The Absence Of Bad* = Good?
This is how abusive relationships lead to black-and-white thinking and warp our perceptions of “good times”.
The good times are even that good. Photo by Fillipe Gomes via Pexels
Have you ever heard of black-and-white thinking?
The very first article I wrote on Medium was on this topic. This kind of thinking is when you mentally categorize things into 2 boxes. They are completely one way or completely another way. There is no middle ground.
Some people call it 1. dichotomous 2. all-or-nothing or 3. good-or-bad thinking.
They all mean the same thing.
When you have been around abuse you have been around a lot of black-and-white thinking. It may have been:
a parent who was never satisfied with anything less than a perfect report card. (all A’s are good, but 1 B means you failed)
a boss who demanded all of your time and effort even away from the job
a partner who either had you on a pedestal or you were lower than dirt.
No matter how it showed up in your life, it did something to you. This kind of thinking pattern changes the way we perceive situations and sticks to us. Like the way gum will stick to hair. (We get rid of this kind of thinking the same way we would that gum. We freeze it and break it apart)
This comes into play when we are in the beginning stage of acceptance regarding abusive relationships.
Black-and-white thinking is considered a dysfunctional pattern if it is done regularly. At times it can be useful if applied situationally to achieve a goal. For instance, when an Olympic athlete is training, they may only keep winning and giving their peak performance in mind to push themselves to work harder and win that medal.
However, it can be detrimental to your mental health if you use black-and-white thinking all the time. It will leave out all of the middle ground and you force yourself, and those you come into contact with, into a narrow lane.
It is a self-limiting activity.
So how do abusive relationships set us up for this kind of thinking?
“It Was A Good Week.”
If you have been working on your relationship with someone who is a narcissist, addict or abusive, you have uttered this term many times.
Maybe a counselor or a friend asked you how the week went with your partner.
No matter how it comes up, this is a common phrase in codependent relationships.
But, why is that?
There are a few reasons behind this:
1. Follow the leader
We pick up accents from our environment.
If you have ever traveled outside of your state, you can hear the difference in the dialects. Compare the way someone from Boston talks to the way someone from a small town in Alabama speaks. They are both speaking English, but they are very different. The same goes for food, clothing and daily activities. City activities are different from small town ones.
If you move from Alabama to Boston and live there for many years, you will pick up some of the lifestyle and speech patterns naturally. We mimic the environment around us.
Now imagine black-and-white thinking as a mental accent.
If the person you are around has this thinking pattern, you may pick up some of their bad habits.
2. Trauma Response
When you are in an abusive situation your brain is busy trying to keep you alive another minute. It doesn’t have the bandwidth to do heavy lifting and multi-level thinking.
Simplifying things into only 2 categories is a survival technique.
Good = safe
Bad = danger
(This is often why the person using it on you does it. It doesn’t excuse their behavior but it could explain some of it.)
3. Cognitive Dissonance
This is when you lie to yourself. You put blinders over your own eyes and convince yourself that the truth is something other than what it truly is.
Being in a dysfunctional relationship is hard. To make things easier, many of us lie to ourselves to make things seem better than reality.
“It was a good week.”
Was it really? Was it actually a good week?
Good is subjective. Good could mean:
We didn’t have as many fights this week.
They remembered my birthday this year.
We fought but I didn’t get hit.
She was out of town so we didn’t see each other for 4 days.
They noticed I cleaned the bathroom.
She only got high 2 times instead of 5.
He showed up to the parent-teacher conference this time.
He drank at home instead of driving intoxicated.
I only had to stay late at work twice this week.
All of these examples are some that I have heard from clients on why their week was a “good” one.
The good times don’t have to be that good when you have been conditioned to accept bad behavior.
Cognitive dissonance will rob you of the ability to see what is actually happening in your relationships. It slaps a shiny coat on trash and makes it seem tolerable.
4. Fake News!
“It was a good week.” is often said as an outright lie.
The lie said to build a narrative.
In my marriage, I used to say this all the time even when it wasn’t true because I desperately wanted it to be true. Maybe if I said it enough it would magically become true?
If you are in an abusive relationship you become a master liar. You tell people that things are good. You create a story for the outside world of a loving home life, partnerships, respect and civility.
At home, behind closed doors, the truth looks nothing like that. That doesn’t make you want it any less.
If you can find even a sliver of something that went right, the entire week can be put into the win column and all of your hard work was not a loss.
What Do You Do With This Information?
Like with many things. The answer is simple, but the way to complete the task is complicated.
Stop doing it. (if only it were that simple…)
You stop doing it by asking yourself clarifying questions and answering them honestly.
Think back to a moment when you said or thought, “It was a good week.” and ask yourself why.
What made it good?
What am I leaving out?
Take a single situation and ask yourself, “Was it really good?” at different time intervals. Don’t ask them once and never do it again.
One week out. Two weeks out. One month out. Six months out. One year out. (Or at whatever gaps you would like.)
If you incorporate this into your mindfulness practice you can see if there’s a change in the trendline. Some things were actually good and they will stay consistent, but others may move on the scale as you get some distance from the situation.
In hindsight is where I could see how I was lying to myself and others when I said that things were good. In the moment, I couldn’t see it clearly. Many others are caught in this area as well.
