Brainwashing -
An unsent Letter to my NECW
(A full text excerpt)

As part of my struggle to know where reality starts and insanity stops, I wrote this letter to my BPW. No, I didn't send it to her. It would only trigger an angry response, and never be forgiven. But I needed to do this to really see the true extent of what was happening to me.

Dear NECW,

Today I am going to write to you about how you are destroying my self-esteem. I'm going to use a description from SWOE p63 of brainwashing. So let me show you how you are doing this to me:

• Isolate the victim: This one is clear. You have insisted that I can only talk to a therapist about my life. When I've tried to do this in the past, you've told me you can't deal with this. You implicitly threatened to lose control and attack me even further if I had my own therapist. When I talk to someone at work, you attack me, and tell me I could have talked to my father, your mother, by brother, my friend. When I talk to my father, you accuse me of destroying trust in the relationship. In short, you insist that I isolate myself from everyone else I my life.
• Expose them to consistent messages: over and over again, you tell me how I am sick, how I will not take blame for our problems, how I never talk to you, never touch you, never respond when you "beg" me to change. You continue to attack me for dressing, acting, choosing cars and telephones in ways you don't want. You're not asking for change. You're not asking for anything. You're telling me you think I'm worthless and expressing unbounded contempt for me.
• Add some form of abuse: your rages are abuse of the first order. And contrary to your assertions, these aren't new. They've only become more frequent and more intense. They are violent, deliberately hurtful attacks. They serve no purpose except to demoralize me. When you are not raging, you are acting out quietly: calling me at work dysphoric, accusing me of not being alone; getting me in a room or on the phone and not letting go of me even though no purpose is served. This is painful and abusive.
• Get the person to doubt what they know: This one is one you're getting better at. Now that your therapists have had a look at me, you're perfectly positioned to bombard with me "credible" assertions about how awful I am. You consistently tell me what you say your therapist said about me - always bad. I know these are distortions, based on what you say, but over and over you use this tactic, and it creates doubt. Why does everyone in the world think well of me but you and your therapists?
• Keep them on their toes: this is your best. You are always unpredictable. Anything can change your mood from stable to threatened. When threatened, you become accusing, critical, and often attack me. I never know what is going to happen when I answer my phone, what you are going to do when you walk into the study, who will be standing in the kitchen when I come in.
• Wear them down: see all of the above.

So you see, you are intent on destroying my self-esteem - brainwashing me to think badly of myself - and you work tirelessly toward that end. And I deserve better than that.

Richard

© 2004-6 Richard, 21CP and Dalkeith Press