Do you have Magical Thinking? - 4 Examples From Childhood Trauma
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 พ.ค. 2024
- Do you have Magical Thinking? - 4 Examples From Childhood Trauma
In this video we cover: magical thinking, OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder, clairvoyance, shame, mental boundaries, path, attachment, highly sensitive person, triggers, survival strategy, therapy, childhood trauma, toxic family systems, boundaries, inner child, , c-ptsd, ptsd, toxic parents, narcissistic abuse, healing, abusive parents, emotional abuse, childhood ptsd, repressed memories, hsp, hypervigilance, narcissistic parents, emotionally abusive parents, child abuse, narcissistic father, childhood emotional neglect, abuse, narcissistic mother, alcoholism, scapegoat, genogram, siblings, dissociation, trauma
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
3:52 What is Magical Thinking?
6:08 Connect With Me
7:45 Four Examples of Magical Thinking
8:22 Magical Thinking Example #1
11:45 Magical Thinking Example #2
16:12 Magical Thinking Example #3
18:32 Magical Thinking Example #4
22:18 What to Do About All of This?
23:33 Final Thoughts
24:07 Outro
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My videos are for educational purposes only. Information provided on this channel is not intended to be a substitute for in person professional medical advice. It is not intended to replace the services of a therapist, physician, or other qualified professional, nor does it constitute a therapist-client or physician or quasi-physician relationship.
If you are, or someone you know is in immediate danger, please call a local emergency telephone number or go immediately to the nearest emergency room.
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Hope it's helpful! Leave a comment about what you'd like to see next for videos!😀
Consider offering a poll on coming video topics.
Emotional neglect please
The death of a toxic parent please please please even if it's not in your webinar format. I will take any help I can get to navigate this process. Thank you for all you do to help us heal and create a peaceful life.
Hello Patrick would you please consider doing a video on burnout/compassion fatigue for survivors of narcissistic abuse, especially regarding children who were expected to care for the parents and everyone else around them into adulthood but got fed up of their own needs being neglected? My apologies if you have already covered this topic in another video and I'll go back and check in case. Thanks again 🙏
Thanks so much for this! Especially the journal prompts… Can you do a video on “catastrophizing” also? I feel like it is intertwined with magical thinking - at least for me.
As a child my mom would regularly chastise me for things she "knew" I was thinking. For example, I remember being in a store looking at a stereo I liked and suddenly being under very public attack for doing so. In her mind, me looking at the stereo was the same as begging her for it. I did want it, but in no way would dream of asking my parents to buy it for me. I was punished all the same. Later in life I became paralyzed with fear that people would misconstrue what I was thinking. That everyone could magically read my mind, or more so misread it. So I did my best to become invisible in order to survive.
I’m so sorry, that sounds so difficult. 🌸
i experienced this with a toxic sibling, and its always in public
I was taught that God knew everything and would punish me for my thoughts.
Punishment for thinking is abuse
I can so relate, Laz LR. Especially with the becoming invisible part - just so I don’t have to feel like I’m bothering anybody (which, turns out, is another form of “magical thinking”). I’m 50, and I struggle with that to this day - but at least I’m aware of it.
"Not trusting the adults to take care of things, that's the beginning of obsessive compulsive thinking in some ways" Well, this probably explains my lifelong obsession with making sure things are locked and anything that might start a fire.
Oh my gosh, this is exactly how I feel 🖤
Yeah I always have to triple check the stove and the door before I go to bed. When I leave work or my home too I rattle the handle a bunch because I feel like I need to keep checking. I don’t count how many times I do it, I just do it a lot. What’s crazy too is I’ve left the stove on and even left my keys in my door because I was so fatigued from school and work… I’m lucky nothing happened but it scared me even more so I’m very vigilant about making sure it’s good.
My dad is exactly like that! For some reason it didn't rub off on me.
I’m the same way ❤️🩹
Yesssss
My rescue-based thinking was having my own house so no one could ever bother me again. My own space would bring me peace. Now my solitary life in my own house brings me tears from time to time.
So maybe you have to view things and act in an other way. ❤️
I haven’t ever owned a home but lived in many lonely apartments . It used to feel so tragic and oppressive until I invented a strategy. It could be helpful to fill your house with moments of joy. Those memories will make the house more comfortable. Joy comes from acts of loving kindness. What worked for me was doing something kind for others (even strangers) and celebrating that action when I got home. I started to have friends or neighbors over and do a very innocent activity, like baking or making crafts or playing a game, or jumping on a trampoline when I had a yard. I built up joyful memories in the apartments almost like decor. It will feel silly and awkward at first but at least for me it worked.
I felt like this too all my childhood, I was running away all the time getting myself into shitty relationships from a young age because I couldn't stand being in my house. Now I can't hold any type of relationship, just broke up with my bf, im 29, no friends, living with my parents again because I can't even hold a job. I feel that my life is falling appart.
You answered one of my biggest questions: will I feel better when I get my own place? I live with 2 sisters and our mom. Although it's spacious it can still feel suffocating at times. My sisters have social lives. My mom is focused on work. And here I am alone with no friends but with goals and dreams that I'm struggling to achieve. I have good days and bad days with my family. But when I hear them talk about their friends, when I see them go out I feel so alone that my anxiety kicks in. Yeah, I should step out of my comfort zone but I literally can't. I don't have a car and I don't have a driver's license. I have no one to rely on. My family give excuses to not teach me. So I can't go out unless it's to where they want to. I don't know what to do to better my life.
Practise Buddhism, solitude is priceless. Solitude without meditation is pure hell. Meditation experience without solitude is like with-holding heaven.
TV, specifically comedy shows, was my sole source of comfort as a young child growing up in a traumatic household. Later on books became another safe haven. I still gravitate toward those media. We are all just big children looking for love and comfort.
My brother escaped into books. He could ignore almost everything going on around us until they started saying my name and focusing unfairly on me. Then he would say stop. He was older than me. Then he would become quiet and disappear inside the book again.
I developed maladaptive daydreaming at around high school, and it still occupies a large part of my life. Life was so unbearable back then, my imagination saved me. It feels like betrayal to let it go now. Even though it has become distressing and denies reality.
And later it morphed into a trapp. Sort of hell you can't shake to finally feel reality .
Yup. I definitely identify with this.
Except mine started extremely young-and I still struggle with it as well. 😬
Tbh I wouldn't completly let it go. Daydreaming is ok and normal, just the intensity might be too much. It can be a nice coping mechanism in f.e. very boring situations. Like I'm now on a train for hours with nothing to do ( 5 hrs )
I think as long as it doesn't take over someones life it's fine. There are studies that found that it's healthy and actually a sign of good visual memory f.e. They could see it in the brains of people who were daydreamers that some areas were more developed due to the people using them heavily.
In the end, without dreaming, there would be no books, tv shows or fictional stories to tell.
If it brings you harm, I suggest first finding different coping mechanisms that can take the place and then slowly letting go of it a bit until it's at an intensity where it doesn't interfere anymore.
So I kind of agree with the video, but would have liked for him to mention tge difference between magical thinking ( if I don't do this, something bad will happen ect ), maladaptive daydreaming ( I live in a fantasy world and have my own universe to escape reality and face bad consequences for it ) and normal daydreaming ( dreaming about all kinds of things, but it doesn't interfere with real life, but is a good addition, because we can f.e. come up with good ideas daydreaming ).
@@marimil1469 did you or anyone you know made it out of the trap? Are there things to do that help to make it less distressing? Not get rid of it completely, but to just allow life to unfold with me being present in reality and not lost in fiction.
@@glorygloryholeallelujah have you tried anything to cope better? Or are there things you found to be helpful?
"If I'm good and achieve a lot, my family will respect me and wont abandon/disregard me"
Ouch this one hit me
Omg this one 😢
Nah, makes no difference what you do, ask me how I know?! 😅
The first thing I thought about when you said magical thinking in traumatized children was Lilo from Lilo & Stitch. We don't hear much about it in the movie, but we find out that her parents died in a car accident, and it's heavily implied that wet/rainy road conditions caused the crash. So Lilo now has a superstition that she must feed Pudge the fish a peanut butter sandwich, because he controls the weather. Likely it was a behavior she engaged in routinely before the accident, and she forgot to do it the day her parents died. So she made the connection between feeding Pudge and good weather due to the incredibly traumatic event.
wooow thats ....
Damn! I never even thought about that. Makes sense.
💔
And here's your honorary psych degree 🗞🎓
Thank you for explaining this. I was given a hard time when I tried to explain it to the other kids back in the day.
Lately I've been wondering how much excessive television watching as a child might really distort one's world view, especially in a neglectful/abusive household. I remember growing up with the impression and belief that "adult life things", such as having a job, dating, marriage and maintaining friendships were all things that would basically happen to you, and wouldn't require the level of work that it actually does in reality. I remember being scolded by my father, who would always accuse me of "living in a fantasy world" and that I wasn't focused enough on reality. He would be so angry with me over it, which would just solidify my disassociation. On top of the scolding, there was no consistent effort to get me to engage in the real world, we were largely kept in our rooms growing up, with little socializing allowed outside of the home, or even within the family. For some reason, socializing was not understood as a human need and was treated like a privilege to be earned. TV was an escape and a way to distract/ comfort myself from the perpetual isolation, and also the only thing I really had to model what "life" is supposed to be like.
Yes me too.. I’ve been thinking a lot about how I learned how to be human from tv. And i think that’s the reality for a lot of folks. The television, in the absence of caring and emotionally available parents, becomes the model.
Our brains really absorbed all of that… it’s really scary to me to think about how much of who I am is really an amalgamation of many different characters from film and television.
Slowly unpacking 🙏🏾
Omg yes. My dad would tell me I live in a fantasy world, while we lived between country towns with no access to friends and he has zero friends and supplied no positive example of how to make friends.
Same happen to me, idk how to get out from this. My dad used to tell me the same thing that I used to live in a fantasy World and I still am. I also believed that adult things will just happen. Im so scared how my life will be in the next years if i don't change this.
Wow that's really insightful and explains some aspects about myself. I escaped into my books and animes, especially the latter.
Wow. Same experience exactly. I have wondered about it too. Our real life family was a shit show but I watched TV constantly about highly idealized often unrealistic families.
how to reconcile the two agonies "nobody is going to save you" and "i desperately need help and i cannot do this by myself" also "i need love support and connection and nobody owes me anything"
A great therapist will help you!
@Sunny Baby Exactly! my feelings as a child! Well said.
- somebody out there can help me save myself
- there are people who want to connect as much as we do and we can love and support each other. It's two way street.
I feel like the phrase "nobody owes me anything" is very problematic we all owe each other compassion, consideration, and empathy to some degrees. To go at everything alone is not natural.
@@blackstarkitty9387 correct.
as a childhood trauma survivor where all the burdens fall on you: even if you clean up the house it becomes a mess again. over and over you can go a head and play cinderella and nothing changes, it devolves and looks just like it did before you did you super hero trick. hoarder house problems. the mess is a symptom, the cause is the sick system. its not your fault.
For me a clean house means I'm clean. If the house is dirty I feel that dirty, defective, unlovable feeling. I also feel imaginary judgement as if someone is saying I'm gross.
This is what I do as an adult with my own house - I've hired a cleaner as an adult - I need one 💯- so glad I have access to one
@@Shortstacksandticktacks yes I had to have a therapist tell me that this in its self - that a dirty house means I am dirty / has any reflection on me as a valuable person / capability etc - is magical thinking. However it really does help to have a cleaner !
This is put so succinctly! I cleaned and cleared the parts of the house, like the kitchen that I observed how to from my parents. My room on the other hand? No help. Only ridicule and contempt that I always had things all over the floor and on the surfaces. It's funny though, as soon as I lived on my own at uni. My room was spotless and there was a place for everything. I had no shame in how I organised my space! When I returned home - the mess returned...
I still have nightmares about my dad’s quasi-hoarder house. He never let me or my sister throw away or give away old toys, making us feel guilty when we grew out of them. His entire house was a wreck and when we had to stay there, it was miserable. I have dreams that I’m stuck inside my childhood bedroom and unable to get to the door to escape because mounds of toys and clothing and junk keep falling on me as I try to get out. Shudder.
My dad always got angry or frustrated when I cried because I couldn't speak and cry at the same time. I have always cried in silence as long as I can remember. I have never been able to just go and take up space when I'm sad. I always try to hide it but I always get found out when I'm surrounded by people who are not my parents. I worked in a "community youth center" after school thing and I sometimes see kids doing the same thing as I did and I always try to see if they want to talk about something or just be sad, It seems to help. I know I needed that as a child.
I'd like to reassure you that most people can't really talk while crying. Go ahead and read Bessel van der Kolk's "The body keeps the score" where he discribes the mechanics behind it in great detail. The baseline is this: when we're stressed out, our emotional brain (limbic system and brain stem) take over, because it is responsible for survival. At the same time, the rational brain, the neo cortex, which in terms of evolution is the youngest part of our brain, goes more and more offline. The point is: the area responsible for language production is located in the neo cortex, the rational brain. That's why we tend to lose our capacity to speak (up) when we're upset or talk about our traumas during a flashback. In survival mode, coherent language production simply is not a top priority for our brain.
And yes, lovingly attuning to a child that is crying and just holding space for them to process whats going on is one of the key factors that make the difference between a stressful event and a traumatizing one.
You’re a good person for making sure they have a shoulder to lean on
I think my life feels stuck because I've found a way that I can retreat from the world when I'm sad, without anyone feeling hurt about it. That was a great thing for me to do as a kid, but now.... not so much.
My mother actually told us that it was up to us to make her happy. She really thought that children were supposed to fill the emotional voids of their parents. I was raised to be obedient, which makes for a great employee, but all I knew about relationships was that domesticity makes me a good catch. Men love women who can cook and clean, balance a household budget and smile pretty. My parents' conditional love had me working for approval instead of improving my social skills. To this day I can't understand why cheaters, mooches and slobs have a fantastic circle of friends.
That sounds like my soon to be ex-wife. She expects me to change to suit her. Meanwhile she expects that I have to get used to her. And, she can't go anywhere without picking out people that are responsible for her emotional state.
What little effort she is willing to "put into our marriage" is generally focused on gaining the approval and respect of people outside the marriage, meaning that I get basically no say in most marital relations other than saying no and withdrawing further and further.
The woman causes most of her own problems, but thanks to the magical thinking, everything is somebody else's fault, even though she's the one that's violating my boundaries at virtually every opportunity and pushing me out of the marriage, it's somehow my fault that she's treating me so badly. Nope, wrong, not my fault, I wanted her to go to a real therapist to actually deal with the root cause of her issues, but she won't do that for whatever reason. And since I'm not interesting in putting up with this garbage for potentially another 40-50 years, I'm going to have to divorce her. Which is a shame as things might have worked out if she wasn't so committed to ducking out on responsibility.
My dad, who I barely knew, would tell me to "know what's real".
OMG! A boss that I had a few years ago told me that it my job to “make her happy”. I was so traumatized by that, that I started crying very hard and couldn’t stop! I finally had to leave work because I was so traumatized by that statement. I wondered why I couldn’t handle it and just move on. Now I know! My parents said the same thing to me growing up! And, the thing was, as a child, I could never make them happy, no matter how hard I tried.
A great employee. So well put.
It actually took me more than 4 decades to really understand that I never had any power over my parents moods and my father's temper. That would be waaaaaaasyyyyy beyond puberty. 😀
I'm 44 and my parents are both passed and your comment just made it click.
@@youtubingbabs I'm 49... so I say it's never too late.
🙌 45 when I understood too xx
Both my parents are dead and I'm 52 and I am so relieved that they're dead. They were overwhelming me with their demands and blame. I got married when I was 22 and moved out. I received a phone call a week after my Honeymoon it was my Dad blaming me for my mother's stroke.
@@JenWIL641 baffled but not surprised, I see that type of reasoning often.
How can you be so young and be the best therapist I have ever heard? I so wish I lived in your state.
I used to get in trouble for getting ill. Constantly told I was faking the sickness. I can remember the doctor scolding my mother because she waited so long to bring me in to see him. That time I had a severe kidney infection, it was so bad, it was very hard to maintain consciousness. The first time I went to the dentist, at age 9, I was beaten when I got home because I had cavities. As an adult, I'll wait until I'm ready to go to the hospital before I take care of myself. Very hard to fight that feeling that I'm not that sick.
Wow. That is all so traumatic. I’m so sorry that happened to you. Good job taking care of yourself as an adult
I'm so sorry this happened to you x
Sadly, I relate to this all too well. I have nearly died 3 different times due to ignoring emergency-level pain that I believed "wasn't that bad"...such as not going to the hospital until I was in/out of consciousness after my appendix ruptured.
I just didn't want to be a burden to my hubby/kids, be a financial burden to my family, and firmly believe that I can just "power through it" as I have been doing my entire life.
It's VERY hard for me to seek/accept help in any form.
So sorry to hear this! I lived near a little creek and used to play there for hours, really enjoying myself. Once I got home with wet clothes and she told me I did this on purpose so I would get a cold and not have to go to school. Ummm... no?!
Wow the same thing happened to be almost verbatim, what a strange thing to see it wasn't so unique
I had a very similar childhood experience to that which you described. I believed as a child that if I cleaned my 3 story hoarded house in time for Christmas that my mentally ill mother and siblings would be filled with the magic of Christmas and all would be transformed. I still fantasize about going back in time and saving everyone with just hard work and my insight. My empathy to you for living with such a difficult experience. Thanks for making this video.
Idealism mind virus, I blame media
Me too! I'm 35 and often catch myself fantasising about going back in time and sorting all my family's problems. I thought it was just me.
Did you actually clean it? I remember cleaning on big room in the house that was a hoarding mess. Took me days to finish it. That probably something a child shouldnt have been doing but the responsible adult should have taken care of it.
Oh boy is this relatable except for I was an only child until I escaped and then my mom decided to get pregnant again. That let me trying to save her and my sister for years and years, as opposed to running as far as I could away from all of it. Fast forward another 10 years I haven't spoken to either of them in a very long time. I had to do it as an act of desperation to save my own life. It took me a really long time to realize that you can't save anybody they have to want to save themselves. It hurts. It's lonely and I have had to Go through really tough things by myself with a few close friends but it's not the same as having a family. Thank you Patrick for making those of us who feel alone, and ashamed for where we came realize that it's not our fault & We aren't the only ones. Bless you & everyone healing from a childhood that they survived. ❤
Emotional neglect please. I suffer from CPTSD but my parents were not overtly abusive as often described in your videos eg. Not alcoholics, no physical or sexual abuse. But, there was a lot of dysfunction , my mum resented my dad, my dad was probably depressed ( emotional trauma from his childhood) , dad could be controlling, angry (not shouty more moody, tone of voice, contemptuous,) I had a huge sense of being unfairly punished when he was in a bad mood, we got smacked, he was also a bit of a fundamentalist in his politics, his philosophy was children were to be seen and not heard. I grew up feeling unseen by both my parents. I was a very sensitive child and became a kind of container for everyone’s emotions.. But in other ways was spoilt and well looked after.
Emotional and psychological abuse always causes more damage than physical forms of abuse. Words are the most piercing weapons anyone can yield.
And emotional neglect causes the exact same damage as emotional abuse! Both break the kids.
this is my story. i have all the symptoms but cannot remember any traumatic experiences like being hit or having had to deal with alcoholic parents. i did have a brother that was a huge trouble maker when i was a kid and i certainly suffered from it. i do remember emotional neglect as in being left alone with my fears or feeling unseen. when i achieved something, nobody cared much. as a kid, i always said i raised myself. i remember developping magical thinking and later ocd. i also remember obsessing over safety when i was as little as five years old.
as i said, the symptoms are there. but i never know what to make of it because i cannot remember any major trauma.
@@marihi8621 we all dissociate either partially or completely during a traumatic experience, that’s why all of us survivors have major gaps in our memory.
I’m so sorry you went through this, but know that you are in the perfect place and time to HEAL. It is perfectly possible, don’t worry.
The number one thing you need is emotional literacy exercises. The Richard Grannon method for emotional literacy literally saved my life. I am not exaggerating at all. Look up this method of TH-cam.
Emotional literacy is the polar opposite of emotional abandonment. It is self acknowledgement, and the thing that any good parent must do in order to soothe a child and teach it how to soothe itself.
While doing those on the daily on paper, I suggest you take Thais Gibson’s attachment style quiz and watch the healing and reprogramming videos which correspond with your attachment style also here on TH-cam. Here’s the quiz: attachment.personaldevelopmentschool.com/
I also highly recommend checking out the crappy childhood fairy’s videos and Michelle Lee Nieves videos as well.
Healing can only be done if you understand your old, toxic brainwashing and programming, and then commit to new habits and frameworks of being that solidify your chosen positive and truthful mindsets, void of any deprivation or self hatred.
Just how you were negatively brainwashed via neglect, which is a form of abuse, you can now positively brainwash yourself.
This is abuse darling
“ If I can’t stop thinking of this bad thing then it’d going to happen”. I am 40 and live with this every day. It’s torture 😢 I have every single one of these. It’s so refreshing to understand where this is coming from. Patrick you have helped me in so many ways. I have to join your sessions. You are amazing ❤
Wow same here.
I used to pray that my mom would get sick. I would specifically pray that she wouldn’t get cancer but it would be something close. A few years later that’s exactly what happened and it solidified my magical thinking. I used to fear that someone would break into my siblings second story windows and if I made sure their faces were covered by blankets they would be safe. So I’d go to each room after they went asleep and cover their faces. When I heard about the school project example my heart stopped. I had never heard anyone validate what I was feeling. I appreciate you sharing this knowledge and insight.
24:09: If I'm thin, other people will like me and I will be accepted. If I'm more interesting/thin/successful/healed whatever desired person will want to spend more time with me. That is a BIG one.
I so appreciate when people who've had a really tough childhood make extra effort to be a good parent rather than some people I've known who use their childhood experiences as an excuse to treat people badly now especially their children it's like they want to punish the children for what their parents did to them it's messed up
What about people that are really damaged though they always think they can magically fix themselves which some of this video is about and then everything spirals when they start families with the non stop stress etc
That is what narcissist parents do.
I agree!
My toxic ex actually said (forcefully and more than once) that it was "his turn" to abuse our kids. I told him he doesn't GET a turn to hurt people, and he thought that was really unfair.
@@annmerkel5476 that is why psychological help and understanding what your brain can do after trauma is so important because it is the only thing that creates hope for breaking generational abuse
Oh man, you don't even know.
Worst part is, about a year ago I kind of saw my magical thinking for what it really is, and it filled me with an extreme existential dread.
Ever since then I've been going in and out of magical thinking and accepting reality for what it is.
Nicely put. Yes coming out of the fog of fantasy is deflating:(. I realized how damaging it was because I was actually rejecting reality to a point that really damaged my life.
It is difficult to become a realist and not PHYCO POSITIVE, however it’s worth it.
Takes A LIT of practice. I started consciously making the shift at 38. I'm 56. Still trying.
@@Jen281 Me, too. Thank God we finally realized it. I wish I could get those lost years back. Good luck to you. 💕
@@cassandraknight8804 resonating.. oh my gosh, I spent years being rather psycho positive. Seeing “reality” minus all the nuanced magical thinking is where I’m at today. “this should be easier” than it is is toward the end of my psycho positive magical thinking~
Magical thinking is one of the worst repercussions of childhood trauma that I’ve had to deal with. A lot of it has gotten better but a lot of it is still there. This video was very very helpful in understanding myself more, thank you.
As a child I would pray that I was adopted. That for some reason they had to give me up and I ended up with a set of "fake" parents and thats why my mom hated me. In my mind, my adoption was suppose to be temporary and my "real" family was diligently looking for me and once they found me I would finally have the love I craved as a child. Thank you Dr. Teahan for these wonderful videos! I am learning and getting more comfortable with myself with each one I watch.
I was in the same “orphanage” as you 😞
Me too.
I used to pray the social worker would finally take me away and I'd be put up for adoption. I didn't expect them to love me but simply provide for me and not hurt me anymore
One time my sister said I was adopted. My heart soared. I thought "I'm actually not related to these people". Sadly, I was though.
Oh wow, same here. I was convinced that until I was 10 years old, I was not related to those jerks.
Sadly, I was.
My life has been ruled by magical thinking. Parents being apathetic about responsibilities and I often had to suffer from their inaction. My mom raised me with the idea that my thoughts create my reality. "Law of attraction" is the name of her belief system. If she just thought about something hard enough, that would make the thing she wanted suddenly materialize from thin air. I remember us going from store to store with an imaginary credit card to "practice manifesting." We'd swipe our imaginary card and pretend like we already had the item we wanted. Oh the disappointment I felt when that nice stuff didn't come home with us. She quenched my disappointment by saying it was coming, we just had to think positive thoughts and it would appear. (A decade later, I'm still waiting.) She also nearly made us homeless multiple times because she would wait for her perfect home to "poof into existence" even though the lease was running out.
She would explain unfortunate events by saying they needed to happen for some greater purpose that we don't know about yet. This is soothing for a kid to hear in the moment, but harmful in the long run because they never learn to accept the hard truths of reality. I've kept myself in abusive relationships & situations because I thought my suffering needed to happen for some greater purpose.
I'm studying biology in college now, and I'm learning that nature operates without a greater purpose. Suffering isn't caused by some greater purpose that will result in a grand utopia, it's just suffering. And things don't just materialize because I thought hard enough about it. When I tell my mom what I'm learning, she shuts down. She doesn't want her fantasy world to be punctured, even though it negatively impacts her life and her well being.
I'm taking steps to combat my OCD that's been caused by this magical thinking. I ignore astrology, go against superstitions, and try to think in terms of cause & effect based on evidence. Videos like these are an important step in the process, so thank you for posting.
I almost made myself homeless with this sort of magical thinking. I'm glad I didn't affect any children while doing it, or they would be writing about me the way you are writing about your mum now.
*sigh*It's all going to be worth it in the end, all this learning...
Maia Papaya: You're describing the spiritual industry with it's bizarre very trendy belief that if you think hard enough you can manifest anything and become anything you wish (without setting goals or actively, deliberately working toward those goals). I believe it's called the Law of Attraction. And if you don't manifest your desire by thinking it into reality... it's because you're not vibrating at a higher level! I have no idea what that means.
Then the spiritual industry contradicts itself ...it uses the term 'Divine timing' in relation to events happening or not happening because apparently an invisible deity decides when and what happens in one's life because it's in control and we're mere puppets.
And yet again, more contradiction ... when tragic events happen in one's life it's because we preplanned the tragedy before we were born into this life to teach us a spiritual lesson Thus it's our own fault.
And again when difficult events happen it's because of karma or because we needed to learn a spiritual lesson. There are so many charlatans, so much psychobabble and sheer nonsensical, magical thinking in the spiritual industry ...but above all it's profit driven.
@@kiraalialeeonfairythegreenone The LOA is very real, but like you said, the constant contradictions and rhetoric is what turns off most people, and for good reason. Yet, the charlatans only give you one half of the story on how LOA works, so that you'll continue to engage in their content. Thoughts + Emotion + Action is all you ever needed.
@@kiraalialeeonfairythegreenone You can find good spiritual teachings. Its the same with self help industry, a lot of people trying to profit, but also a lot of amazing information.
What a healing area of study! I imagine learning about measurable, proven science and the facts of causes/effects must be reassuring for you after a childhood based in fantasy. Thank you for sharing.
My magical thinking was - If I go into overdrive with doing everything wonderfully - addicts will get sober, violent people will quit being violent, self righteous people will start being accountable -- and cows will jump over the moon.
I would have done better waiting for the cows because they are cute and peaceful.
Seriously. I feel like I’ve wasted so much time bearing this weight of having the ability to “fix” things that I am missing out on laying in the grass the cows are chewing….
About a year ago I experienced what can be called a "mid-life crisis." Now it wasn't at all the extreme freak out and frantic life change event that you see in movies and other media. It actually was a matter of realizing I had come to a point in my life where I had been so stuck in fantasizing about my life improving only if something magical happened to change it, and I mean literally magical. I literally have spent a troubling amount of time considering how I would word a wish granted by a genie (or other magical being) so as to best avoid ironic, unintentional consequences. My crisis happened as I faced the radical acceptance that there are things I have been intensely wishing for in my mind are no longer any kind of possibility in my life.
"as I faced the radical acceptance that there are things I have been intensely wishing for in my mind are no longer any kind of possibility in my life."
.....
....
I haven't reached the no longer any kind of possibility part. But the radical acceptance....yeah, I'm there. Accepting that something might not happen, might never happen, and probably was never going to happen
What helps, well what helps me, is focusing on all the stuff I'm going to do, all the stuff that's well within my power, and there's a lot of it. The problem with magical thinking is that it pulls your focus into the unknown, the wish, rather than what's the right in front of you. The person right in front of you. The life right in front of you. The job or home right in front of you. All the many things that are there right in front of you, that could happen, right now, if you just say the word.
It never feels as satisfying, to focus on the real, but, there is so much we can do.
Yep, that's exactly what it is. A couple of years ago when I realized I was doing that, I called it "Disney Brain". It really had helped me as a little girl. Now that I understand what I was doing and why, as an adult, I'm so disappointed with the fact that everything was better in my head and the reality of people and their choices is shocking! It is so hard to accept how bad people in my family really are and sometimes I struggle so hard to accept that I MUST ABSOLUTELY stay away from them if I want to be truly happy.
Please dont take my magical thinking from me...
Isn't it good SOMETIMES? Lol 🤷♀️
🪄
@@kimberlymccracken747 it is! It’s like a little glimmer of optimism
Never learned how to "adult" properly, so .........
It'll be ok
I would make up my own fantasy narrative in my head to escape the terror, and this morphed into a point where I didn't always know what was the truth, because if I brought up an event, my mom would deny that it really happened, so I had no way of checking what was real and true, and what wasn't. It was easier to spend more and more time in a comforting mental story as an alternative to the frightening and unpredictable reality
What your mom did was gaslighting.
I still do that and I’m in my 60’s! It’s a difficult habit to break. Kind of addictive. I’m sorry you had to go through that. It’s no fun to have a childhood in which you can find no security. I feel for you. 💕
I felt that. :/
Oof. Yeah, this is almost identical to my childhood coping (and even now, occasionally…)😳😬
This happened to so many times with multiple members of my family. It messed me up real bad. I feel like I can't think right because of this. And it has also made me really forgetful.
As a child I was so influenced by fairy stories, that I believed everything would go away and I would be happy forever once I met my prince. Later the prince would be just a boy who is kind and brave. I craved for someone to love me, protect me and never leaving me alone. I was scared of my mum and scared of bullies at school and thought that I am not good enough to be loved. My father was an alcoholic who did not seem to care about us children whatsoever. I thought once my Prince Charming found me I would be lovable and beautiful. Luckily I grew tired of waiting for someone and ultimately I was to scared of rejection to get too close to anyone. Now I think this need/search for a fairy story relationship put a lot of pressure on my real life relationships in the past. Thanks for helping me connecting the dots.
I distinctly remember one day, my mother explicitly telling me that I was possessed with a demon. I was maybe 10 or 11 and it absolutely destroyed the next ten years of my life. I started cutting, self-sabotage, positive relationships made me feel uncomfortable because I saw myself as evil and unworthy, and eventually in college I admitted to her that I had been thinking about suicide for years. All I got was "Sorry, I did my best," and we never talked about it again. But I did at least get a blanket apology, so there's that.
I’m so sorry you went through that
I would have asked the demon for help honestly but I don't believe in demons I've seen them with substances but never scary just in their 3rd demention if it was real I didn't care I was like cool but scary?Nope sexy af actually.
Parents don't seem to understand the power of words. That was cruel to say to you.
Magical thinking was one of my coping mechanisms in childhood.
My parents were abusive and negligent. Therefore I convinced myself that I am adopted and one day my real parents would come to get me and in case that didn’t work out I was praying every night that two characters from one of my favorite books ( A cowboy and a red Indian that were blood Brothers) would come and take me to safety.
I had to put in a lot of healing and therapy work in order to feel comfortable and safe in reality
How my parents ever got the go ahead to adopt is beyond me.....
I'd lay in bed begging for my real family to find me. I had a stuffed animal that was my family that I clung to. Decades later, he still is by my bed.
The Indian in the cupboard! Wonderful book im going to read it to my son I had forgotten all about until just now 😃 thanks
This is an eye opening video for me. About a over a year ago I decided I was tired of being traumatized and decided to look into manifestation to visualize my way out of mental illness- reimagine past situations to be non-traumatizing to the point where I 'reprogrammed' myself to be a non-mentally ill person. I took on so much work because so much of this manifestation stuff is about embracing abundance and hustling and I thought- finally, I am someone who can face larger, productive society, be on their level, if I can do so much work.
I would spend hours writing affirmations and scripting how wonderful my life was- but I was miserable, and it led to this drastic mental breakdown. Days upon days of desperately trying to affirm over how bad everything was spiraling out of control. And when it all fell apart, I blamed myself, not for my flawed conclusions, but for not being able to keep my feelings together- when those feelings should've been listened to from the very start.
Some new age teachers, self-help, law of assumption content is well and good.. Just wish that someone would talk about how horrible it is for your mental health to go into it with this idea of it being this magical wand that can change the fabric of reality. There's a lot of grifters preying on vulnerable people there.
I totally agree. this happened to me as well. affirmation work can be like putting a bandaid on an open wound. I thought something was wrong with me because I wasn't manifesting but in reality, I am a human who needs to fully feel my emotions to recover. You can't skip that step. and all of these people showcasing manifestation are literally children who have not suffered to the extent that children with cptsd had. and we are all different. I don't understand the idea that one size fits all. There are many paths to recovery
Oh, damn. I never got into those kinds of affirmations.
My 'affirmations' were like "all kids deserve better than what I got as a kid, so I also deserved better.". But I came at it from an internet slactivist lens, not a life coach type angle.
I'm glad you are getting better advice that helps you heal now.
This is very dangerous actually. I mean engaging in negative thinking is also wrong, but this manifest thing should be done with caution.
@@steggopotamus those are the types I listen to (like "I deserve to be happy") but I have heard of the deeper ones and it makes me uncomfortable. It's like brainwashing yourself into another reality that doesn't actually exist.
What you're describing is referred to as spiritual bypassing.. Which, yeah, can be rampant in metaphysical communities but it's really just rampant everywhere. It can take the form of anything that is used to escape having to feel & experience repressed emotions, whether it is tarot or manifestation exercises - or drugs, work, pharmaceuticals, etc. People who experience great suffering are the most vulnerable to the allure that there may be a panacea that can cure their malaise without having to feel the deep grief and pain they cannot bear to face.
I think my biggest example of magical thinking is that helping others is the only way to help myself. I know as a young man/adult (24 now) that isn’t true, but I can’t myself but to try to help them get better.
Mine is a story of coping with physical illness with magical thinking. I went to a moldy school from ages 7 to 19. At around 13yo I started getting ill *a lot*. Sore throat, fever, coughing, infections, constant headaches and vision disturbances, sinus and lung issues... We didn't know about the mold. Since I'd get better during holidays and sick again at school, I was often dismissed by doctors, saying I was just an anxious teen and my symptoms were psychosomatic.
Since I felt that doctors couldn't (or wouldn't) help me, I constructed a long set of rules in order to feel like I could influence things. I wore a scarf all the time for 7 years, even in summer heat and at night, because I was convinced that I'd definitely get sick without it. I always had too many layers of clothes so I wouldn't catch a cold. Some rules had to do with hygiene and made at least some sense, while others, like touching the thermometer every night before bed, were magical all the way. Every day I navigated a web of what to do and what not to do in order to not get sick.
And then I would fall ill again and blame myself. I could always find explanations: I had opened my jacket outside, or been barefoot even for a second, or even just thought the wrong kind of thoughts. I wasn't allowed to think anything good like "I'm feeling better today!" or I would be punished with illness. Every time the clock was any time such as 17:17, I had to make the same wish: I hope to stay well. I would get angry and blame myself for being careless.
I'm 25 now. Magical thinking still affects me, some of the same ones but many new "rules" have popped up too. But I have been scarf-free for six years! Every day I tell myself the world isn't made of rules that, if you follow, nothing bad will ever happen. Bad things aren't my fault and couldn't have been avoided by knocking on wood or touching a thermometer.
I'm so sorry to hear that. I developed OCD myself as a kid after being taken to watch an IMAX movie about all the most extreme natural disasters in the world, where I sobbed through it and was not taken out, nor explained that these things could not happen in Chicago. I also lived in an alcoholic home with an abusive narcissistic father. I made a deal with God at 6 years old that I would "be very good and watch everything I do" if these natural disasters would not come. Nevermind that we did have a tornado a little while later that we were in due to my father taking us somewhere exposed during a tornado watch. I developed severe OCD from 6-11 until I decided to stop most of those behaviors and then began getting panic attacks for a couple more years. Anyway, I still have some OCD as an adult. It sucks.
Your opening made me want to cry. Poor kids stuck in the car with a drunk driver. My mom wouldn't drive drunk with us but she did drive drunk all the time and I'd always cry myself to sleep thinking she would die and she'd get so mad at me. I love you, thank you for these videos.
Im really sorry this happened to you! :( when I was a kid, I often had to drive with a close family member who was high.. I would always be so scared, she would often run a red light or drive into the opposite lane, and I was sitting in the front seat, I had to grab hold of the steering wheel and get us onto the correct lane again. I was very young and it was scary to me. Once i got so scared when this family member just drove past her own house becsuse she was so high she didnt know where she was. I panicked and i just jumped out of the car onto the road White she was still driving. It was always scary when I had to take so much responsibility at such a young age, sometimes having to help my family member to bed and remember to turn off the stove cause they had just started to Cook something and then were too high to remember and I had to go around the house blowing out all the candles that they had lit. Maybe this is what caused me to get OCD
I screamed: "surviver!" Loadly when I heard this. I know a Little girl which grandma was driving with her drunk, and hit a lamp outside her home. Luckely the kid was all right and she wasn't even buckled Up 😭 I was soo so upset when it happened, the grandma hasn't got her licenser and can only see her granddaughter with company (she is not allowed to meet her other grandkids)
@@somethingbambi875 thats so awful! That must have such a traumatic experience 😞
I thought we were the only ones whose parents drank in the car with us. Dad used to pick us up from school with an open beer in the drink holder in the car all the time. Thanks for being honest. It helps.
@@remainunlisted2630 im sorry ! :(
I wonder if being taught not to trust your own logical thought processes is a part of this. Like a troubled parent might dismiss your idea about trying a sport because it's too dangerous, even though it's a regular sport like soccer, but their anxiety tells them that the possibility of injury is too scary. Or an egotistical parent might put you down whenver you come up with an idea, calling you the crazy impractical one. So if you don't trust yourself - you come up with formulas that make even less sense than your rational mind!
Omg this comment is spot on!!!!
YES! My grandma would dissuade me from doing many things because they were "too dangerous." Never move away, don't buy that vehicle, don't eat that food, or something bad will happen to you. I became very scared in life because normal things were treated as a threat. It led me to not trust my instincts. I'll be at the grocery store like "okay, I think this piece of salmon will give me a parasite, but this other piece of salmon right next to it won't." Or trying to buy a car like "I feel that this car's fate is to kill me in an accident one day and this other car's fate is to spontaneously combust with me in it. I'll just keep taking the bus for now."
Yeah that is definitely magical thinking. You didn't learn how to make logical, evidence based decisions, so you make up your own rationale because that's how you were taught to stay safe.
@@maiamaiapapaya I wonder what happened to your grandma that made her so afraid? I think it was a way to "manage" you so you wouldn't cause HER anxiety or trouble.
Fear is contagious, sometimes even without knowing you put your own fears in the heads of others.
My father would do that, until I became the one that was afraid, and I almost did it to my brother. Thanks to a psychologist friend of mine, I could identify it, but I still have a lot to solve.
I'm autistic, this was 100% my experience. Never believed and always told I was lying or making things up or overreacting, constantly mocked and not taken seriously
AMAZING how the brain protects itself... So strange how not until recently, soooooo many childhood memories & memories from college have been flooding my brain. Some good, some terrible. Out of nowhere! It has been so long, and it is like my brain is finally able to remember them because they can no longer hurt me anymore. I am much stronger now. The terrible memories don't tear me down it all. I have a bad memory, and just think, "wow, I sure have come a long way." For so long, I never thought of these things, and quite frankly, did not know they happened..... or was in a state of mind where I did not realize they were bad.
I've struggled with the thought that I "didn't have it that bad" for a while, and this makes me think that my childhood may have been "magical" and I just don't want to face the reality in retrospect. I fear ruining my own childhood by acknowledging what it really was.
It tends to.
I'm autistic, I've never heard the concept of "magical thinking" described so leveling and directly in several ways I could access. I now see the connections in a much clearer lighting. The work is on going but I'm starting to appreciate that which I used to loathe. I can't say I ever truly hated myself but everything I was taught to tell myself was certainly hateful. Once I cleared "them" out...there I was- I had never been truly borne into existence. I've cut them off and been reparenting ever since. I'm looking forward to making the name change legally binding, covid has slowed the process.
I love that line!! "I had never truly been born into existence." Exactly how I'm feeling today. I can't thank you enough for inspiring me w that, the writing you just evoked is something i love very much ^-^
I also changed my name to Willow and I'm on the spectrum. That's very surprising
@@willowrakiahcreager123 HI Willow I'm glad my words could help and reached you as well as the video.
It's been a very long hard journey as I'm sure you know, so much gatekeeping. The world was never our oyster because we we never taught oysters were a thing. When you have narcissistic abuse layered over autism it's even harder to find coherence. NOT cohesion!
We were never allowed this- on two fronts: first on a human level> The narcissist imposes their behaviors, beliefs and dogmas on newly forming human brains. second on a abilist level> NT abusive parents are unable to determine why their children are "not normal" ( aside from due to their abuse) we slip through the cracks and are misdiagnosed as JUST traumatized. Especially in presenting females.
So that's why we were never borne into existence. Not just birthed but borne into a life where you were unimpeded to strive within ones own personal compass in life and to have that fostered by both suffering and triumph.
Don't even get me started in how indoctrinated our educational system has us.😮💨 Whole nother can of worms.
To get to this place I've been watching and reading SO much. Learning to be critical of myself but ever so thoughtfully, dismantling the structures meant to bind me. This channel has been a resource but also a very intense but important one, Professor Sam Vaknin. He coined the phrase narcissistic abuse... I will not divulge too much only to say that his teachings are what the entire field is based off of. His terminology- flying monkeys, Grey rock, etc are ubiquitous within psychology. He is blunt so the point and hold no punches- can be very jarring at times. Between him and Patrick Teehan, I am autistic, very ill and disabled with absolutely not right to be of sound mind... it frustrates my medical teams who can't understand my justified depression and rational thought processes. I should be falling a part.
BUT you see there THATs what we were raised on. What we SHOULD be. How we SHOULD be presenting or acting. What our symptoms SHOULD be. How our emotions SHOULD work. How we SHOULD cope.
My insta handle is @ChronicallyAskew I advocate and write more of this all the time!♡
"I have never been born into existence" Yes! YES! This is it!!!
Grateful for this insight
After watching this video and digesting it a bit, it hit me how much I’ve suspended my reality with magical thinking to cope with my childhood. I have totally waited for my ‘ship’ to come in in most aspects. I probably fantasized about a Prince Charming from when I was five, placing that hope of getting my needs for safety and attention met in the future. It just dawned on me how much I haven’t wanted to let go of the fantasy because it means actually grieving that my childhood is over (I’m 38) and I didn’t get what I needed - and I don’t get to relive my childhood through adult relationships to make up for it. It’s over. It happened like that and it’s kind of like acknowledging a death, instead of trying to find that person who died everywhere you go. And instead of trying to mold a new person into the replica of the person who passed away. I’ve been in limbo my whole life, because of this denial. It’s really sad and sort of relieving to know that my childhood has passed on.
I feel the same. I'm 38 as well and I'm feeling so bitter that all my youth is gone and I didn't enjoy it. I was always living in my head, in a fantasy land. I daydream to escape reality which is something I did from childhood.
@@regularity2556 I’m very sorry for your loss. 💔
Thanks for saying this so clearly. I'm a few years older than you, a man and my childhood fantasies were usually about being some kind of figure like a cosmic Tony Stark.
@@suefluger3786 Thank you. I've started therapy recently and I think I'm going to get better
I am a man albeit not a normal one; I find it most comforting to cuddle up with my BIG teddy bear in bed, I love big teddy bears, they are also mentally therapeutic
It’s nice to have trauma and OCD related to it validated and explained instead of getting shamed or ignored.
I used to pretend I was chronically sick in the hospital and would fantasize about nurses and doctors helping and taking care of me. It helped me fall asleep at night.
As a kid, I played out some seriously messed up "damsel in distress" type stories. Some of them really freak me out because I'm not sure where I got the ideas while growing up in a sheltered Christian household- watching veggie tales and stuff like that. I was always in my imagination, making up stories where I'd be rescued and someone would just hand me the control and respect I desperately wanted. I'm writing a story now, and trying hard to subvert that. For the sake of good writing, but also for my inner child.
I understand that you might not take it this way - and you don't have to - but in my life the entire belief in christianity was a rescue fantasy. Being "sheltered" wasn't in any way protective, as we might expect when we think of the word "shelter." ...And I know that I grew up watching VT at bible camp, but it got progressively more uncomfortable to watch the more I got educated in things like healthy boundaries and codependency.
No matter how you end up feeling, I hope you get the healing you're after.
Aw that’s sad. What kind of things did you imagine? You don’t have to respond if you don’t want to.
@@lunalovegood7789 One particularly weird example, I'd have my Ken dolls bid for my barbies in an auction, and then once she was purchased, turns out one Ken was actually a "nice guy" and didn't want to "own" her. I was like 6, and it's so wild to me that I came up with essentially barbie x trafficking.
Wow, I’m sorry that you had to go through that. I also was raised in a Christian home. Everything was evil or diabolical to them. I became afraid of everything and couldn’t even make friends in school. This led me to spend most of my time daydreaming. I also imagined that when I became an adult I would somehow meet a man that would love me very much and take me to another country where we would live a peaceful life. I still like too read damsel in distress kind of stories. 😑
I can very much relate ❤️
Patrick, I love the way you approach any topic without condescending, shame and blame. I have been exploring TH-cam psychologists for quite some time and you’re the most helpful and professional out there, who doesn’t put a stigma on a person more than there already is.
I completely agree with you. Patrick has the best content and is so relatable. Thank you Patrick!
Having watched most but not all of them there is one trap where they all eventually fall, including Patrick. It's what I would call gnostic personalism. That is that there is some hidden spark or core that is the real you that you must serve and live for. That every man is their own truth. But of all of them he has said the most true and useful things on the way.
@@seriouscat2231trying to understand what you mean because it made me curious. Do you care to elaborate a bit more?
@@maghrath1, I don't know what to add. To reiterate, I do not believe there is an internal "real you" or "essential you" that is somehow prevented from "shining through". I also believe that the "inner child" is just a stand-in for person's emotional limits and capabilities. All meaning comes to the individual from the external world.
I’m grateful for when you share your personal childhood experiences. It’s comforting even though everyone here is healing from stories like these. I know my birth caused my parents trauma, they were both 15 and 16 yrs old. My mother’s brain, shame, hormones and nervous system were overloaded by all of it. Her doctor shamed her often. She tried to get an abortion she said, but the clinic doctor said she was too far along for it to not be damaging. So she had me and the star football/baseball player my dad was in high school getting good grades and love from his community stopped going to school to get a job. He became an alcoholic and drug addict and passed. My uncle told me my grandparents might blame me for his descent. My mother is a recluse, a brilliant woman whom fought her way as a single parent into UCLA. She couldn’t find affordable childcare and quit. Today she is mentally unwell living with my grandmother. We fought for most of our lives because she was always unhappy and a bully. Recently after regular intervals of not speaking we made up as we do and try again, but on my birthday she stopped talking to me. For no reason, my grandma asked her why she didn’t wish me happy birthday and she said, “oh she doesn’t care”. I feel for her that was an act of power, on this day that changed her existence and a being that causes her a lot of stress (I did) she stopped the story. I forgive her, I can’t imagine going through what she went through. I’m a very strong person and tend to these wounds. But now she makes my grandma’s life hell and I definitely want to help them both get away from each other.
@@SerendipityNJ thank you this came in time for my birthday and is a healing balm for the mother wound✨🥹💖
18:42 my mom lived in the exact same fantasy... she would always make me cry when she told me how hard she had it as a single foreign parent and how everyone else had support in the form of a man/woman.
I'm crying just by thinking of it.
the idea that in magical thinking we accept being stuck and don't take steps to pursue the things we want but instead wait to be rescued or for it to "find us" really resonates. i feel like part of that is my anger and resistance to accepting what my childhood was like - someone SHOULD HAVE cared, seen me, come into my life, supported me, shown me something other than abuse. So I refuse to move forward until someone in the world shows me love as I am now. i feel fiercely protective and loving of my childhood self and it manifests in this resistance to healing because I don't want to act as though that child's feelings are things I want to be rid of.
I think I'm really afraid of healing because it will feel like a betrayal - that love SHOULD HAVE been available to me before I "healed". I SHOULD HAVE felt unconditional love since I was a kid. (Obviously being unloveable is a trigger ...) I'm afraid that I will just be resentful of anyone who comes into my life once I am further along in healing trauma, because that implies I wasn't deserving of love before healing. (A part of me at least, other parts of me knows how this sounds :P) I want to refuse to work on myself and wait for someone to love me as I am now, to not suggest to myself that as I am now I'm unloveable. I guess the magical thinking is that if I refuse to change until I am loved, then in my childhood I would have felt loved and protected.
But, I should mention, in working on my issues with limerance recently I understood that the limerant fantasies were all around having a future or a direction to something and I finally started taking steps to the field I've been dreaming about for years - and found out there's a huge demand and got so many leads, it was shockingly simple to just reach out! And now with this actually real-world scenario to focus on I found my limerant fantasies and other obsessive thoughts just don't happen that much. It still feels scary to feel like I'm leaving part of myself behind, but it's also so hard to continue to live such an isolating life. Maybe I'll find in the future that i can find a way to work on my issues with trauma where I don't actually have to abandon that part of myself.
I relate very much. ❤️
Very well thought out. I also suffer from the dichotomous thinking that on one hand I resent that it’s my adult responsibility to heal all the BS (almost indicating I’m not lovable as I am now or as I was unless I heal). But on the other hand, it feels emotionally drowning and overwhelming and isolating for me to not take any steps towards healing. Really relate to your comment.
I think you need to accept your inner child, goods and wrongs in order to heal. Giving acceptance, valuing, honoring the suffering of your inner child telling her you are now an adult and will protect her, love her, nurture her, will calm her down. Take care.
I think this healing word is weird, it gives me the impression that with enough exercises I'll be reprogrammed and not have my ticks and pain anymore.
No... I can't self-project myself out of this experience. That's not the way life works. That's a relief. I'll always be me, always have trouble with emotions, and my job is to be more realistic with the direction of my compassion. Huge shift to say I care more about me than a drunk dude I may have offended. Pretty much screw everyone and eat 3x a day feels like the closest thing to healing.
@@whitneyv.8211 ugh yesss you get it
Your opening for this video was so on point. I recently had a breakthrough realization - I used to believe that my mother’s emotional instability was my fault. If only I was the perfect daughter, she wouldn’t be so angry or so unhappy. Finally understanding that her unhinged emotional wreckage had nothing to do with me - very freeing.
Yes same. I still think so.
" if only I was the perfect daughter...."
if only I could be more invisible..
if only I could magically succeed at everything.
😥
@@ebbyc1817 if only I was smart and talented. If only I could make up got the sacrifices she made. If only I wasn't broken.
My mother has told me multiple times in effect that emotional instability is normal, because people are their emotions. Trying to control emotions is the greatest sacrilege there is. Therefore all success is magical and not based on rational considerations or effort. She had a successful career in economics. Though she also said that she suffered enormously for not having the magic for it and having to really work for it. But she believes that I do have the magic, but I just have never wanted to use it and that's why I have never gone anywhere in my life.
@@seriouscat2231 " My mother has told me multiple times in effect that emotional instability is normal,..... and that's why I have never gone anywhere in my life. "
what you've written reads like a put-down, of you, justified by someone with "emotional instability"
1. You will be rescued 18:36
2. Clairvoyance 16:17
3. If I ignore it, it will go away 8:42
4. Anxiety management based magical thinking 11:43
Love this! Thank you :)
Thank you.
Reading the comments really helps me to feel not so alone. The majority of my anxiety is due to this over whelming concern about what others think about me. I’ll replay the day over and over at night when I’m trying to sleep. I pick myself apart and think myself into a dreadful place that I’m so sick of dealing with.
My anxiety sounds a lot like Number 3, Clairvoyance. I KNOW what people think about me. I KNOW they judge me. I KNOW they think I’m weird. I know he cheated on me. I know she betrayed me. I know they can’t be trusted.
How do we tell the difference between our deep rooted fears and our innate intuition? Are they one of the same? Do we listen to our gut or do we not? Is a gut feeling even equivalent to a fear? This one is so hard, because I want to trust myself, but I don’t know if I can if I don’t straight this shit out.
Wow your story hit me hard. I can 💯 relate
Im always stuck in that anxious mindset, I dont know how to break away from it. It sucks because a lot of times my anxiety is correct so then is it my anxiety and fear talking or my genuine intuition? Its so hard to tell ):
I ended a toxic relationship w a friend yesterday. Feels right. Also a little lonely though.
When I was a child, I sometimes thought people couldn't see me. When my 1st grade teacher was talking to the class, I didn't realize I was included. When the class was told they could go out and play for recess, I thought that didn't mean me. When I was a little older I thought if I waited a few seconds before starting something, I could prevent something bad from happening, like delaying getting out of bed in the morning for a few minutes. I wonder if this fits in with anything you were talking about here?
This is interesting to me. Non participating observer. I have a baseline feeling of being unnatural in the world and looking in on living people, from the silent outside. That was very profound in childhood and I can see how you'd enter that space of personal separation.
Your description really resonates with me; it took me a long time to understand that I wasn't invisible, and that I had presence in whatever place my body inhabited with others. That people knew and felt I was there with them. I spent a lot of time as a child in a dissociative state; I wasn't completely in my body, only partially. Sometimes this would involve long, intricate fantasies that would occupy my mind, leaving my body to 'fend for itself'. But other times I would observe myself almost like I was a different person in the room, but with a critical eye and opinion of myself, that is a really harsh judge. I still experience this under stressful circumstances. But more to your point, I hadn't connected this experience with an obsession I had as a teenager over the smallest decisions, but usually involved with choosing the route I would take to work/school/social event. I had this overwhelming sense that the route I would take would determine the rest of my life; like if I chose the wrong street or intersection to cross I would get hit by a car or die from some freak accident. It was paralyzing. I wonder if the dissociative state is connected in some way to that sense of decision doom.
Woah, yes! I did this too!
Oh my gosh yes! This was me but in a slightly different way - I felt that no one cared about me and therefore I couldn't really impact anyone else. I frequently turned people down to hang out because in my mind they were obviously just being nice. They thought I was stuck-up or uninterested, but I genuinely thought I was doing them a favor by declining. I hurt people badly because it genuinely didn't occur to me that they could care. Looking back, I think it was a way to avoid being hurt by neglect. If you don't expect anyone to care, you aren't hurt when they don't. This is something I've been working on unlearning!
@@Jennicorn I felt like that too
The second you mentioned the rabbit foot key chain I had to pause and burst into tears unexpectedly. Wow. I remember keenly how I would always make sure to keep one in my pocket, and would agonize for hours if I forgot it or couldnt touch it.
Another source of magical thinking for me was that every high HAD to have a matching low (equivalent exchange). If a good thing happened, bad thing was going to happen SOON to balance it. And bc of our household something would always end up happening regardless. But I also thought every bad would eventually lead to good, and would wait for hours, days, for something good to happen. To feel safe and loved. And eventually I just got so bitter and angry as a teenager.
Now as an adult I'm mostly better. I have to knock on wood or it makes me nervous, though I don't freak out anymore if I can't. Funnily enough what helps most is this inside joke with myself, where if there's no wood to knock on I jockingly knock on my "wood" right in front of my pants i.e. where my dick would be if I had one lol. Sorry for being crass but it really does help diffuse my anxiety sometimes 😅
I’ve only recently realized in the last year that I have spent my life going from one narcissistic relationship to another. It’s what feels comfortable I guess. I’m finally ok being single and staying that way to work on myself. You have been so helpful! More helpful than my ex therapist who was more interested in his big gulp soda than in helping me. I gave up on therapy long ago. Maybe the area doesn’t attract the best and brightest? I’m glad I found your channel. For the young ones, maybe a vlog with a cautionary tale to help them from having a lifetime of pain because of childhood trauma, if that makes any sense?
I had magical thinking well into adulthood. I would clean up for my mom who is a hoarder. I would clean her car, the fridge, the house, thinking if I did these things she would be happy. Then she could see how everything was organized and put away and that it felt good so she wouldn't have to go buy more things to make her feel good for a hot minute. It was a vicious cycle that ruled my life in a lot of ways even when I moved away. I would see my hard work just go to waste days and weeks later along with my hope for normalcy. Years of doing this and worrying about it became completely exhausting.
Sorry 😞 What an endless cycle. I heard somewhere (maybe here? Patrick is awesome) that ACA types only see potential, they don’t recognize abuse or neglect.
Wow you just opened my eyes. I clean my mom's pantry and garage every visit, then I fuss at her for not being organized.
Thank you so much for mentioning this, I have spent my whole life trying to clean up for my mother, my sister and I both cleaning out her hoarding multiple times. So ashamed of my home as teen and into my twenties, my mom even still asks for help and tells me every time I talk to her that she’s “going through things and organizing” but nothing ever changes at her house. After watching Patrick for awhile now I realize my inner child thinks that if my parents home was nice and clean and inviting then my childhood might have been too. But it wasn’t. And the rage I felt when I would go over and see all that cleaning destroyed after I had done it, unbelievable. I don’t touch a thing over there anymore and rarely visit, and just change subject or ignore when it’s brought up. And obsess over my own house lol which is very tidy! I wonder if Patrick would consider hoarding a form of child neglect or not, to me it’s a literal form of chaos in childhood!
@@karahanover5941 Yes! This is also me to a T! I rarely visit my mom's house and refuse to help with any organizing and cleaning. I understand that rage you talk about so very much, you are not alone! My house is immaculate as well. I'm extremely conscious of it. There's so much stigma and judgement that comes with being a child of a hoarder. The research is lacking and new. I am in therapy with a therapist that is very receptive to what I went through. It took me a while to find her but it's helping to feel validated in what I went through and why I have so much anger to deal with as an adult. When I looked up childhood emotional neglect I resonated so much. It's a form of neglect along with HUGE boundary violations. I understand my mom has her own mental illness along with a lot of trauma. I'm learning to have more empathy for her but I come first, bottom line. A book that has helped me is adult children of emotionally immature parents as well as books about boundaries. I would love to hear what Patrick has to say about it all.
@@freerangeboogie7293 Can I ask you what ACA type is? I'm not familiar with that. Yes, Patrick is awesome I agree!
In my household I *was* the problem. The unfixable problem because my existence was intrinsically wrong. My magical thinking and hyper vigilance combined with my complete lack of control over anything in life developed into full blown OCD and ED. My toxic family system still maintains itself by shunning and scapegoating me. Im working hard on myself to move on and deal with the trauma from the abuse once and for all. Funnily enough I frequently was punished based on what my parents “knew” I was thinking about.
I’m so sorry you went through/are going through this. Stay strong ❤️
I too was the scapegoat in my family of origin and still am, but have come leaps and bounds about buying into what they, or anyone else thinks. I walk to the beat of my own drum now and I know that I am the generational curse breaker. It takes bravery and a strong spirit to be the scapegoat but it's so much better than the alternative IMO
Omg I’m so sorry to hear that, and hopeful you are getting better and recovering. I had similar experience of developing full-blown OCD due to being there scapegoat and unfixable problem and eye sore just by existing in the family. Really relate to your comment. 🙏
@@kelpie1 I'm the scapegoat and I feel like I'm getting worse, when I was younger I would bounce back from stuff and think something exciting is waiting for me now I can't look forward to anything
Try go no contact or grey rock if you can't physically detach from them. It saves lots of energy.
I feel so unbelievably validated by this video. I engage in massive magical thinking every day, of almost every type described. I didn't have a name for it before but recently I've started to recognise all the patterns that helped me survive being a kid, that have all transformed into anchors in adulthood. Thank you!
Oof i felt that so hard
Anchors - yes, exactly that. I like that term.
Your videos really speak to me. I grew up in poverty in a house that resembled those you see on the show Hoarders. My mom would frequently start long conversations with us kids about what we would do "when we won the lottery." We would spend over an hour, talking about it and planning in great detail. This usually took place on days when she would purchase a ticket and there was a particularly large prize. I'd go to bed at night so sure that this was the time when we would win. Finally, when I was a teenager, I realized that we weren't going to win the lottery. To this day, my mom still tries to engage in these types of conversations and I really hate it.
I unconsciously believed that I had to protect my mom. I just turned 48 and realized that I can't bail her out anymore. I thought if I just explained things, asked nicely, then negotiated with her until I finally understood that she was doing this stuff intentionally. The other thing is, she would dangle false hope and I would feel like she was going to turn the corner and stop doing the stuff she was doing. Just a few months ago, I stopped expecting her to get better because I realized she was being manipulative. I have stopped letting her waste my time, and the nasty stuff she has done has basically severed any emotions I had for her. She has to do the work. No more believing her on her words.
On the other side of the family, I have repeatedly heard "get over it" so that the abusers don't have to answer for what they did when I was a kid. Just told an uncle about his behavior, mostly gaslighting about my parents and the way they were, and he was complicit. He was just completely shocked when I told him how I felt about that stuff, and he played the victim card to back out of the conversation and blamed me! But on a more positive note, I finally got an opportunity to tell someone what I think and how I've felt about them for several decades. I'm sure he called and gossiped to everyone else in the family so they can all keep each other's masks straight and make me the villain for escaping the toxicity.
Hey, family cutoff is always an optiom ... Patrick has videos on that too. You seem to be in the right track.
Radical acceptance is awesome isn't it? It releases you from the childlike hope that they'll magically turn into the unicorn... they're just grumpy donkeys.
"Keep eachothers masks straight", I laughed so hard at that one! Paints such an accurate picture of that darkly comical dynamic.
I just love patrick! He is so open and isn't condescending at all I wish I lived close and could see him professionally in person and I'm happy for those who can! Thank you Patrick!!
#1 is my Mom, which makes her remain married to an emotionally abusive man who abused her (and his) children
#2 is me, I grew up with a lot of stressful situations and believed I had to pray vehemently when there was a problem out of my control. Still did that in my adulthood regarding problems I had no control over, that were in the hands of other people to resolve for me (messed up, huh?), until I stopped, and realized the problems got resolved even without my anxiety-driven praying (I learned to say a prayer of gratitude AFTER the issues were resolved, which amalgamated the feelings of relief and positivity) (AND I learned to trust people with my problems)
#3 also me, navigating unpredictable, stressful situations, trying to read minds and emotions of people outside of my room.
Man what a stressful childhood. I just realized how little I felt I could rely on adults in my life for very essential needs and safety!
I'm in my 50s and my mom just passed away . I'm only now in therapy and realizing how messed up things were. I thought my depression and anxiety was on me and I needed to work harder to get better. Your video are so helpful and kind. Thankyou!!!
Thanks for joining the chat and engaging with your fans! It's a small gesture to join a chatroom for 20 mins and say hi and respond to some comments. But from a childhood recovery standpoint it is gold. It shows me that people can and do show up for others, even if they are strangers. We all deserved that growing up but our experiences taught us we were not worthy of acknowledgement. Thank you for showing up today and "witnessing" me. It means a lot.
You're kind and welcome Will!
This made me tear up. Thanks for explaining your experience with it.
@@patrickteahanofficial I used to steer the car for my dad as well when he would pick me up from school drunk. This was in 1975 before seatbelts were really a thing. I sometimes can't believe I'm still alive, lol.
Ignoring things so they would go away got me into a heap of issues... My mom treated me as an inconvenience whenever I had health related issues. This video is gold. Will rewatch many times!
I ignored physical pains in my body for years until I couldn't walk. My emotional healing and self advocacy has started with regular physical therapy sessions, without consulting my mom first/ever. I still have this fear though that in the next session I will be kicked out and told that I'm fine/stupid even though I won't be at a stage of health that I want/need to be at.
Could you do a video on the process and fears of getting help for things we never had help for as a child?
Omg, this! Even now every time I have an appointment, I think "God, I hope this issue doesn't go away before the visit, otherwise the doctor'll think I'm wasting their time and stealing time from people who 'deserve' it more"
This happens to me too, as a child is so confusing and as an adult is just constant anger. Maybe she's fine every other moment, but the moment I start feeling bad, she would ignore me or get very angry at me, she would say I'm exaggerating, as if me feeling pain is the biggest inconvenience to her, she would discard me until I end up in the hospital.
Maybe that's the reason I struggle so much with self physical care. 😕
That happened with me too, at Drs appointments. However it happened because of gaslighting drs rather than family.
I’m so sorry you have gone through this as well. I also denied physical pain and extreme fatigue until I collapsed 2 years ago and I haven’t walked since (at just 33 years old). It’s absolutely heartbreaking. I spent though first 6 months of being bedbound riddled with guilt for not being more proactive with my health and tortured by the what ifs and if onlys had i listened to my bodies pleading with me sooner. I’ve seen been able to forgive myself and this video really helps me realize WHY I did that.
@@user-dp4xc6hm6x Did your parents make you feel guilty a lot?
Combined with superstitious, ritual-based religion, this was pretty rough to get through. My life got much better when I realized the magical rescue I was taught to hope for was not coming.
So relatable. I used to fantasize that I was sent home with the wrong parents, and my real parents were looking for me, and would eventually find and save me.
it's really crucial for us to having reality checks constantly, and you really provide the missing pieces here. thank you.
you're welcome Suzanne!
@@patrickteahanofficial i went back and watched this video again, evidences just popped up one by one through the timelime of my life, even until these days.
growing up in an atheistic culture, even I knew from the beginning that it wasn't my fault, no matter how rational I tried to be, there is always a tiny part of me hoping that someday an UFO will come and pick me up to "homeland". or there was an ultimate answer lying in the bottom of some religious/philosophical system. however, with these fantasies are deconstructed one by one during personal development, it is inevitable to ask, is the endgame even exist? (obviously not nihilism)
yes, of course. the endgame is the silver line that you put in the end of every video. it's literally the underline of entire human history. not only inner peace, but inner joyfulness, constantly.
Patrick, what an meaningful name.
Yes!
Omg a minute in and I’m already right back in that little girl’s shoes again. 🥺 If only I am good enough maybe I can save my family. If I clean the entire house, my mom won’t have to do it while screaming and I will be loveable again.
As a spiritual person struggling with trauma this is a life saver. THANK YOU.
My younger sibling was diagnosed with adhd, and later a myriad of other childhood diagnoses, ocd, borderline, bipolar... Lots of stress that 'wasn't my business.' In my early teens I broke down and had a moment, I walked out to my parents crying and explained that I think I also wanted to see a therapist. My parents rolled their eyes. My sibling was the real problem child, my emotional difficulties were 'drama queen' 'attention-seeking' 'manipulative' and other toxic things. Despite always feeling intensely similar to my younger sibling, I still have a hard time as an adult excepting the reality that I *am* very similar - even despite actual same diagnoses...but I am a girl, the middle child, and just an attention seeker.
Nice. In my relationships with others and the world I internalised rigid ideas and patterns that helped make the world predictable, but were really primitive and absolute - and I think that's like magical thinking. I was unable to really test and explore past certain boundaries, because they seemed overwhelming dangerous in my mind, and that completely lamed lots of areas of healthy growth & development. Which is so shameful or scary to admit, I didn't even recognise it created a deep well of feeling of inadequacy.
There's a lot packed into what you're saying, and it's really, really good.
I feel like you've put the concept of "magical thinking" into different words and expanded upon it in a way that is really accessible to me. Sounds very connected to a lot of other concepts like all-or-nothing thinking etc
Great insight Peter! 👍
Wow, thanks for sharing this
Your work is so helpful to me. I've been in therapy since I was a teenager but had very little movement in my healing. The way you break down the childhood trauma is on point and helps to understand what's happening today. Thank you Patrick! ❤️
Same
My best friend's mom did eventually adopt me once I was an adult. Wasn't how I pictured it happening back then, and it took a lot of work learning how to actually have a parent who loves you, but the magic can become real.
Lucky you!
Exactly! You think and think untilly oh actually manifested it
You just described how I’ve been my whole life. I joke and always say “We have a runner!” . I’ve been running my whole life. Maybe if I run far enough it will all go away. My anxiety equals alcohol to make it all go away.
I used to struggle with drinking too. I wish you the best in quitting. Once you do, life does get better everyday.
20:17 I used to have a friend who was very prone to the, "when my ship comes in," magical thinking. He constantly seemed to think he would randomly discover some "hidden talent" and make big money on it, or something. He seemed to think he could afford houses that were well beyond his means, and he wouldn't accept any intermediate steps to achieve it. He hung on to a dead-end job, even when they were clearly trying to push him out the door. Rather than spending time working on any skills, he'd do something for a couple hours, *maybe* try it a few hours a day over a week, and then move on to the next thing; all the while saying "oh I tried it. It wasn't for me." He had the irrational belief that if he wasn't immediately an expert, then he shouldn't bother.
How do you know my ex-boyfriend?! Such a dreamer, then his Face glued to FB.
@@freerangeboogie7293 Haha I thought the same thing! Except my ex-boyfriend thought he WAS an expert after doing something for a couple hours. He would sit around waiting for a big name record company to sign him based on his 500 soundcloud plays. He'd find random sketchy cross country job offers on craigslist and tell me that everything is changing for him, that this is his big break, as if he could learn a skill that takes someone years to master in a matter of hours/days. But like you said, no intermediate steps would be taken to actually achieve success. He'd obsessed over the idea that in 1,000 years somebody would find the book he was writing, publish it, and it would change the course of humanity, making his life meaningful. He'd talk about how people in today's times don't like his music because their ears aren't advanced enough yet, but the people in the future will see him as a god. Maybe a little different than the friend mentioned above, but same problem of thinking everything will be good when his ship comes in.
Sadly, I realize that I am a lot like your friend, especially the "I tried it, it wasn't for me" bit.
This one hit close to home, I did this all the time as a kid. "if I do this, then this will happen" Like you said it was from childhood truma and abuse. Just looking for something to stop the fear I had as a kid. Some way to explain why my parents made me feel like I caused averything bad that's happening to them. We were blamed as kids for everything, if the VCR broke, which was 10 years old, it was becuase I did something to break it, not that it was old. It fucked me up as a kid, and I still have issues with this. Great video. Thank you.
I’m curious about extreme reductionism as a form of magical thinking, because from a young age I was drawn to math, physics, and anything else where I could prove my answer was correct. My household was largely controlled by my mom, a woman with her own untreated/unacknowledged complex trauma who behaved as a helpless victim most of the time. My dad worked hard outside of the house and was kind with me but pretty absent. I feel like he really modeled co-dependently staying with a toxic person, and since I perceived him as the safer parent I have re-enacted this painfully in my adult life, getting into relationships with people who have a helpless victim mentality and struggling to leave and move towards my own happiness.
My parents don’t believe in modern medicine and raised us on homeopathics, anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, and a mix of toxic neutrality and toxic positivity. It has been hard for me to recognize the neglect I experienced, and harder still to validate that neglect as abuse since they were never physically violent and rarely raised their voices, but they raised me and my siblings with so much dishonesty.
Now as an adult I have trust issues, with people, with the medical system, with my own feelings, and my major coping skill is returning to research and to what I can prove. It’s not the worse, but obsessive research and not having the ability to just trust what I’m feeling is hard. I’m seeing an IFS therapist and an SE coach and they’re both helping a lot, but I just felt drawn to sharing that my inner child magical thinking feels less obviously magical/imagination based, and more like a left brain anxiety attack that leads to a kind of robotic/deterministic thinking that drains me of freewill, agency, or choice. It feels like my inner child searches at times to prove the clockwork universe, that in an attempt to make sense of my upbringing my inner child would prefer to think it an inevitable and unavoidable outcome rather than acknowledge that my parents had freewill and so do I.
Just a shot in the dark but the idea of an inner child seems to be based on Eric Berne's theories, where inner Child, Adult and Parent are just different, more palatable names for Freudian Id, Ego and Superego, where the Child is the Id. That is, it's irrational by definition and aggravated by a malformed Parent or Superego. The job of the rational part of the personality, the Ego or the Adult, is to calm down their struggle by finding something that is outside its terms. Fighting science with science will not do it, because science properly called is just a collection of information. Science improperly called is just belief in one authority figure versus another, trying to replace one Superego with another.
"Free will" is absolute nonsense, independently from determinism. No matter how indeterminate things are, they are ultimately conditioned on things prior to your existence and the rest is random chance.
There is no wonder you are anxious if you hold on to a view that is fundamentally nonsensical and only pushed to justify shame and hatred.
Don’t get that homeopathy was abusive :\
Oh my god the end of this comment hit me hard. I always excuse what my parents did to me because they themselves have trauma. I can't even bring myself to feel any anger towards what I had to go through. But they have freewill just as I do right now, they could start making better choices at any moment yet continue hurting themselves and others. Fuuuuuuuck that hurts. Thank you for the eye opener. I definitely needed that perspective. I've probably been to easy and forgiving towards them...
Of these I personally identify with the rescue based magical thinking. It wasn’t until facing my childhood did that diminishes. “No one is coming. Time to get after it.” Is a thing I tell myself. I still trust others, just can’t dream of someone rushing in to save my life. I am deeply religious/spiritual. I have grown in huge ways on that front. I used to use it as a way to hide from reality or my emotions. Now it is something that I am more curious about and see it as a catalyst for personal responsibility. I won’t get too religious, but I don’t see it as something to put off my personal responsibility onto anymore. I was not raised in a religious home at all.
Religion is the very pinnacle of magical thinking.
Just because millions of others share your delusions doesn't make you less delusional.
Just bcs you think your gods want you to do something doesn't mean it's any less disempowering and misleading.
After abusive childhood I went straight to a new age cult at age 16 and then second cult after that I escaped only recently. I had so much magical thinking about everything. My thoughts, my emotions, my "vibrations", my clothes, the colours I wear, the time I leave, the route I take, the leg a choose to step out of the bed, how I point some objects around me etc etc.. everything had some deep meaning and could totally change my day or my life. In the process of faith deconstruction I gradually challenged all of those thoughts and beliefs and liberated myself from them. I feel so much better, much less anxious, more safe without believing to all of that superstitious magical thinking crap. I felt really trapped by all of that without even realising it. I can also see now how I was so prone to adapt this kind of thinking in my childhood and early teen years. I was looking for escape, fantasized, read books with magical thinking in them, I was such an easy target for the cult, it seemed like the solution and explanation for everything, at the time..
New age spirituality was initially really important for my healing journey, but that was before I found your channel, Crappy Childhood Fairy, and Alan Robarge. And I started doing a bunch of reading. I have a clearer understanding of how my trauma history drew me to tarot videos--for instance. I realize they were just a coping mechanism for my anxiety, even though they were initially really great for me to build a relationship with myself and my intuition. Listening to those vids, however, often led to behaviors, thoughts, beliefs that I actually need(ed) to unlearn, work through, and question. I am also healing from magical thinking concerning my parents' expectations for me and my expectations for my success. They neglected and abandoned me and I got very far, but they were always saying "you are going to be famous" or be something "more" than them. Even after two Ivy League degrees (my parents don't have degrees) I worry about if my dreams or goals or even fears of success and failure stem from how they communicated what worthiness would actually mean. But yeah, I have experienced these other forms of magical thinking too. And I have started making choices that will change a bunch of this stuff and doing the work. So thanks so much for this, it was super helpful.
I’ve been thinking about this too - it seems the New Age thinking can become magical thinking soooo easily for me. In regards to manifestation, vibrations, what have you. Like you said, it has also helped me be in touch with my intuition but has also made me feel afraid that I’m the ‘cause’ of so many things that are probably not personal to me. For someone with magical thinking tendencies, this can turn into a nightmare when I’m triggered and am struggling to get out of it. It just adds more shame and fear to think I’m the ‘creator of my reality’.
Wow. Your comment is very mind-blowing and thought-provoking, especially the trauma surrounding expectations for achievement and success. It sounds like that trauma around “the real you is not good enough”. In reality, it really sounds insane that you worry about your success with 2 Ivy League Degrees, being judged by the standards of two parents with no degrees. But I’m the same way, I think it’s really abusive parents like these types are excruciatingly insane and unrealistic themselves and only want the children to constantly do more and more and more to make them look better when they have achieved little or nothing in real life. Just want to say I’m real proud of you and hope you get some healing around success and expectations.
Holy crap. I have turned to tarot reading so often to deal with the anxiety and dread over stuff I had zero control over. It can be a good tool to consider issues from a new angle, but yeah, magical thinking is really more why I use it.
New age and some tarot readers will tell you you chose your parents to learn a lesson from them. I think that's diabolical and can make you feel responsible for the abuse inflicted on you.
@@Lyrielonwind Yes and even if my son chose me, it’s certainly not ‘he gets what he gets’. I am the responsible adult and he is the kid who gets to be a kid and be taken care of. That belief can definitely make you feel like you can’t say anything, which is similar to the religious code of ‘honoring your parents’, I think. Honor has to go both ways for it to work.
This is the first video of yours that I’ve watched-and it was disturbingly eye opening…😳
I’ve had lots of health issues my entire life and I was finally able to start getting help for most of them, after we immigrated to America.
One of the main things I needed, were LOTS of extensive leg surgeries.
The surgeries would cause me to be bedridden for about 4-5 months at a time-which left me 100% dependent on my mom, who was/is a fairly severe narcissistic abuser.
(My dad and other siblings worked almost constantly to support us-so they were always either gone working, or grabbing a little bit of sleep)….
Suffice to say, the situation I was stuck in, with my mom, was a really hideous one (for obvious reasons) and so I would disassociate into my imagination, nearly all day, every day, while stuck in bed.
It took 10 rounds of surgeries to get me able to walk properly-and they were strung out over almost as many years(because of the long recovery time).
So, after spending so much time escaping into my mind, it took me a while to differentiate fact from fiction-and retreating into my imagination became the only way I knew how to cope with problems.
I’m 36 now and I no longer get confused about what’s real and what isn’t- but I still struggle daily with learning/using proper and appropriate coping skills.
I almost feel like a junky, because I’m constantly fighting the temptation to just “give in” and mentally escape from whatever stress I happen to be dealing with, at the moment.
It’s incredible how something as seemingly harmless as going on grand adventures in your own mind, as a child-can accidentally cause very serious lifelong struggles.
*Our brains really, really suck sometimes…*
🤣🤦♀️
You described it so well! Since about a year ago I've really tried to stop escaping to my worlds or "stories" as I call them. When my life was at its hardest I could spend hours and hours in my imagination, and then struggle to get back and feel grounded in reality. I'd often feel like I was floating in between, trying to do a task in real life when half of me was elsewhere.
I'm doing better now, but still feel the "pull" many times a day - and sometimes give in. When my aunt passed last year I gave myself permission to escape reality, and it felt so good - until I tried to get back and couldn't. I had to really drag myself back into the real world. I'm sure I'll "relapse" many more times, but I do believe the pull will weaken eventually! All the best to you ♡
Sending you a big hug.
I have done this my whole life. Now that I have daughters of my own I am noticing more trauma issues within myself. Things I’ve always assumed were normal for everyone. I’m realizing I came from generations of abuse. My mother and grandmother’s believed these same things, so it was deeply rooted in normalcy for me. Now, with a beautifully functioning family of my own, I am healing. I’ve never heard the term “parent yourself” until these videos. What a beautiful idea. I am focusing on changing my inner voice. To speak to myself as I would an abused child. Grace, love, and respect. Thank you Patrick.
Oh my word. You put a name to how it was to grow up with my mom. These all apply but the clairvoyance one really hit home. The constant living in a woowoo type of world. If this happens ,it means this, or it rains therefore your not supposed to do such and such. It's applied to every aspect of life. The praying and waiting for a sign from God to know if your supposed to buy a certain thing, or go to the doctor or take up a new hobby. Then if we did something and it went wrong, mom would go into a tail spin that we didn't listen to God and made the wrong choice and were being punished. It led to living extremely empty lives, never going anywhere, doing anything, no friends, just waiting on signs from God. For us kids the constant anxiety of nothing ever being done if we had needs, they were just pushed aside to resolve themselves.
When I was in 3rd grade, my mom sent me across the country to live with my aunt while they got a divorce. I believed that I could communicate with her dogs and that somehow, they could telepathically speak to my dog at home
My childhood trauma isn’t nearly on the level of what I see from others here, but this video did bring an example to mind. I went on a diet when I was 10, and I was expecting to look like a completely different person when I lost weight-obviously I didn’t, I still looked like me. My expectations were not properly managed. As an adult, the type of magical thinking I struggle with is the belief that “it’ll never happen,” or that I have to wait for jobs and things to fall into my lap (fortunately romantic relationships are not a problem because I’m aroace, but it’s been a very long time since I made a friend who wasn’t a coworker), because I feel like I’ve tried and failed things before, so that means it can’t be done. I’m trying to get over it, but it’s hard.
Anyone else have to walk on eggshells when Dad came home from work? It happened so much that we wished he'd stay late at work or not come home at all! So sad.
We used to think my Mom was a victim...and she played that up a lot. It took me years to figure out that my Mom was just as abusive as my Dad.
I got back with an abusive alcoholic after I saw the newer a star is born because of magical thinking. Instead of seeing as a sad story about an untreated suicidal alcoholic, it was a sign that I saw the movie shortly after the breakup in time to save him and in time for me to get the right insight about the tragedy I needed to free him from. This is because I was invited to see it by my older sister who saw the original with my mom who was married to an alcoholic my dad. It was one of my mom's favorite stories to talk about how much they cried when they saw it. The movie was like an alter of sacrifice for the whole family. Not consciously.... Until I watched this video.... So I spent 7 more months of allowing myself to be degraded into the ground thinking the point of that movies was that it was a call to action to saved self-destructive alcoholics. Try harder. Stay longer. Fix him better. Love harder... Pffffffffffff. No.
I love that movie. We all had to learn the hard way, that's why we're here!!
@@cynthiafortier2540 totally... Always growing always learning!
@veggiesforlife Thanks so much for sharing. I just broke up with an abusive alcoholic and have been feeling profound regret and guilt about it. Your post helps to remind me to stay strong and not go back and try to fix him. I swear, it's massively tempting to run back.
That's the exact kind of irrational connection that's nearly universally accepted and even praised in a religious context.
I’ve been a magical thinker all my life - surely they aren’t really that way, things are going to change This Year, and my personal fav: there’s still time, I can…. No, I can’t, nothing ever changed about anyone or anything, and they really are and always were. Lots of black pilling going on this year.
What's black pill? I don't really understand it.
@@Shortstacksandticktacks black pill is becoming so reality based that you don’t dabble in foolish anticipation that the situation is going to get any better. It’s a variation on The Matrix pill choice.
I do limerence or whatever you call it where I just get sick of all reality and I keep retreating into a more interesting romantic fantasy world
@@leahflower9924 that sounds like maladaptive daydreaming. I've done a lot of that over my lifetime, it can be comforting or it can be entrapping. The many times it was involuntary for me really ate up reality and some good opportunities, I had no other coping mechanism. I don't recall if Patrick has a video about it but I watched this one today by Kati Morton. I really encourage you to get help to get out of the fantasy world. It is a wonderful escape, but like other kinds of magical thinking it can eat up decades of your life. th-cam.com/video/ddf21KKr_Ks/w-d-xo.html
Omg thank you so much I am so guilty of rescue based magical thinking! I didn't even know that phrase exist until today so it's so nice that I can finally call it something! That alone makes me feel so much better, again thank you! 😃
The last few days I’ve started to realize I always believed in karma and that something supernatural is punishing me because my mother taught me that / probably this. I didn’t know it was from trauma until watching this.
I have such a terrible issue with clairvoyance because of my parents, but my father.. he genuinely enjoyed seeing me hurting emotionally. The example you brought up of "don't you think I don't know what you're thinking!" was his bread and butter. I'm now pretty sure he was/is psychopathic, he was grandiose, manipulative, callous and deeply insecure. One thing he did was to pretend to have magical powers - growing up he told me he could predict the future, that he could read my thoughts, could manipulate time.. I mean genuinely. He said these things. He would go to great lengths to prove it to us, e.g. using rigged 20-dices and then 'predicting' the result. You get the gist. He also liked to say "I'll tell you how I do it on your deathbed" when I asked him how he did these things, because he thought he'd live to 120 and past his own children! He said this to me when I was like 10 years old!! I don't think he believed it, he wasn't insane, but he made us just so he could fuck with our heads, especially mine. I was smart enough to know it wasn't really possible but it still really harmed the way I think.
As a result, growing up I thought the smallest thing I did would have an impact on the world around me. I would think if I left my apartment a minute later I would be run over by a train, if I got up from bed before my partner he'd want to leave me, if I did anything it would be bad.. all because of this. It led to paralyzing procrastination because I am so afraid to do anything. And rescue-based thinking was my mother's forte! And mine, my best friends' mother literally told me she would adopt me if anything happened to my parents. It was a dream of mine.
Oh my god. I so know the adoption theme.
I know the adoption theme. I felt romantically for my friend’s parent, and also wanted them to adopt me. Though I knew the two didn’t really go together in some ways, I still felt both intensely.
I resonated so much with the experience of yours with your father! Mine had his own way of fucking with me. And later I would find his father did the same with him. There was a time I really did think that was the way to go. Like I was continuing on some "right of passage" EVEN THOUGH I found it really distressing. Crazy huh? Now I want to be nothing more than far far far away from that behavior.
@@chickennugget6233 I don’t understand. If he knew how painful it was, why did he do it to his own kids?
I wonder what “benefit” he thought it had for himself (similar to how you did.) Or if he just decided it would be something he would enjoy doing.
This is a potent video. Just realizing how much magical thinking continued into adult life makes me feel like my inner child has been up front and center almost the whole time. This is so sad, but so validating. Thank you, Patrick.
I also remember one Christmas when I was turning 6 and my little brother was 3. It was the first Christmas where he was really excited for Santa to come. Mom said Santa wouldn’t come unless we were sleeping. I’ve always been an insomniac, was diagnosed with delayed sleep phase disorder at 8 yrs old. It’s something that’s been debilitating at times of my life. I honestly thought I was going to ruin my brothers Christmas because I couldn’t sleep. I had my first panic attack that night on the way back from the crystal cathedral theater. There were these beautiful flying angels in the play we saw and I prayed so hard to them to let Santa at least bring my brothers toys.
So sad, I am sorry this happened to you. My childhood sucked too.
My magical thinking is how I learned to save myself.
"i knew your father was a bad parent but i knew there was a greater purpose to being with him." Wow, that statement is straight out off my mother's mouth i only realised now it was magical thinking👏
Thank you for pointing this out, it was really mind-blowing for me as well.
My mother said that the devil would come in the window when the curtains were blowing and take my soul 😪. I was 5.
I can identify with this so much.
My magical thinking and subsequent rituals impacted hugely on my formative years. When the rituals became obvious, I was ridiculed and shamed about them to family and friends.
I also felt somehow responsible for the negativity of everything and everyone. It's been a lifelong battle.