I need to guard myself against black-and-white thinking.
I recently began a journal entry with that statement, and less than an hour later, I got to an explanation of that trauma response/defense mechanism in Charles L. Whitfield's Healing the Child Within, a book I should have bought and read long ago. And I do mean long ago. I remember weeks of seeing and interacting with it and similar titles on a front-end display at the B. Dalton Booksellers I worked at during most of my time at college (1986 to 1990).
Before getting to Whitfield's words today, though, I wrote this: I understand that I railed against labels, rules, and black-and-white thinking because these things were too large and important a factor in my life and I wanted them gone. How could I effect such a change, though, when I didn't understand how they got into my life in the first place?
This may be a battle I'll wage till the end of my days. While I can now better see through the black-and-white thinking of other people and institutions, I can still be blind to it in myself. I am hopeful, however, that with Whitfield's help, I'll be better equipped to overcome this issue. Here's what he has to say about it:
All-Or-None Thinking and Behaving: This is the ego defense against pain that therapists call splitting. When we think or act this way, we do so at either one extreme or the other. For example, either we love someone completely or we hate them. There is no middle ground. We see the people around us as either good or bad, and not the composite they really are. We judge ourselves equally as harshly. The more we use all-or-none thinking, the more it opens us up to behaving in an all-or-none fashion. . . .
[All-or-none thinking] occurs especially often among fundamentalist religious parents. They are often rigid, punitive, judgmental, and perfectionistic. They are often in a shame-based system, which attempts to cover over and even destroy the True Self.
All-or-none thinking is similar to active alcoholism, other chemical dependence, co-dependence or active addictions and attachments in that it sharply and unrealistically limits our possibilities and choices. To be so limited makes us feel constricted, and we are unable to be creative and to grow in our day-to-day lives.
I grew up in a practicing Catholic home, with my parents being rule followers, but little more (until my father left the Church in the seventies). There was certainly plenty of all-or-none thinking in my family (we were Democrats no matter what; anyone who got divorced should be ashamed of themselves; in social situations, it was of the utmost importance that we not do anything that might bring shame on the family), but it became a real problem for me, especially in terms of religion, during and after my four years at a Catholic college. I spent a great deal of time and energy learning, understanding, and following the rules in order to end up with the right answer and to earn the love and respect of those who saw the world in the same way. Did it make me feel constricted? Absolutely, which is why I railed against it. Did it limit my creativity? You'd better believe it. Hundreds of thousands of words written in blog posts and attempts at novels and nearly all of it just plain BAD because I simply could not write anything that didn't somehow conform to and confirm my view of the world. It even showed up when I was planning my wedding: everything was chosen to conform to the rules and protocols set down by Miss Manners and Martha Stewart. Other people could choose those ornate and beautiful invitations featuring shimmering pastel orchids and lilies, but not me. My choice was limited to white paper and black script: the only acceptable format for getting people to a formal nuptial ceremony.
Pathetic, isn't it?
Ugh, I know what you mean.