I wanted to start this topic because I feel that it is extremely important. I don't have the time to add to it right now, but I will later. Please think of some of the false logic which you have used in your life and post it here.

One example that I think is common:
"I just want to get away from here. I want to go somewhere where nobody knows me and start over. I want to go where nobody knows about the abuse. I want to find new friends who don't know anything about this. Ones who I can become close to and trust. I want to leave all of this behind and start with a clean slate."

EDIT:
I want to get away from all of my friends and everyone that I know and make new friends who don't know anything about what happened to me. I want to make friends with people who I can trust with my deepest secrets.

What I was intending to reflect with the statement above is the desire to be invisible and suppress things contradicting with the desire to be close to and trust people. False logic and justification for pushing people out of your life.

False logic, debunked through therapy:

• My father hit me because I made him have to do it and I was a disappointment.
• My mother neglected me because I was unlovable.
• My brother's sexual abuse of me was my fault because I should have told someone and/or tried to stop him.
• My ex-wife had affairs because of something I did or did not do. I'm to blame for what she did.
• All shame, guilt, and self-defeating behaviors I've had in life are deserved because I do not deserve to be happy since I am contaminated, damaged goods.

Man, makes me wonder how I ever functioned in life.

I don’t intend this as a criticism. More of an expansion really. The example of “false logic” that you gave is very good. But it is also false logic. Sometimes in fact, moving, changing locations, making new friends, getting a new job are perfect cures for the problems that plaque us. The false logic lies in the presumption that such changes will alter the essential YOU. The trick is to find a place and people who are compatible with who you are and what you need. That is not only possible, but a practical pursuit.

One of my favorite lines of false logic is this: If I am nice to people, people will be nice to me.

Aden

Aden, I didn't post this to start an argument. I probably didn't state what I meant properly. I was just trying to get the topic started because I feel that it is an important one.

Here's more along the lines of what I meant:

If I love the person, then I won't tell anyone because I don't want them to get in trouble or be hurt.

I'm disgusting, so I will block you out of my life because You are better off without me in your life.

I love you so much that I want you to be happy and the only way that will happen is if you are not around me.

This is all directly tied into the conflicts which the perps project upon us with the confusion that they create.

We expand upon this stuff later in life in many ways.

Not exactly in line with where you've been going, but a big one for me is that any show of emotion is wrong.

I still remember being told I was a wrong for crying when I missed my father.

The perp would say: "God doesn't give us more than we can carry. Unless he was wrong in your case. You don't mean to say God was wrong do you? When you cry, that's exactly what you are saying."

It was always that way. Complain, cry, shout, laugh, whatever and you got punished. Just shut up and take it and you were fine.

Jesus Fucking Christ there's no end to the shit I used to have to listen to. I'm not surprised my head is full of false logic. I'm surprised there's any real logic left in there at all.

(I learned to become virtually invisible when I was a child and now it is effortless.)

I have a desire to go within myself, as I often do (disassociating), and to stay there forever.

Inside are many beautiful and peaceful and, certainly, safe places. When I am there I float on cool air with giant wings like an angel. I see mountains and oceans and extraordinary vistas. That world seems full of hope and possibility.

I see myself as two people. The outer man is a shell protecting the child within. When I feel fear and pain, it is the child who is burstsing out with it. The outer man is not a parent (I am very uncomfortable with that word for good reason) but a truly kind older friend, offering sincere unconditional love.

It is hard to access that place sometimes but when I look back it is amazing how large and bright that child has become. He used to be a small and dark thing cowering in corners and hiding under furniture.

Dan,

you hit the target there. I used to think I had a really logical mind, but logic takes such a battering from all the emotions we had to deal with. I faced so many problems as a kid, that nothing I seemed to do seemed logical. If I was good, I was bad, if I was
bad, I was really bad. I always was seen as the problem in the family, was that logical?

I tried so much not to be, but families really don't know the damage going on in the kid, and they compound the damage, by thinking you should forget, and just be normal.
They don't know the amount of terror rippling through the kid, and just how much it affects him in a life situation, utter despair, and desperation in a totally hostile World. That was my perception as a kid, I still think that way today.

I haven't yet got a logical answer to tell me it isn't. :rolleyes:

Is that logical?

By the way, I only ever found any type of logic in this place, because I could never work this sh*t out without you guys filling in the spaces. Not being alone is a terrific feeling.

take care,

ste

Mike
I had over thirty years of thinking like this, all those examples you give have gone through my mind at one time or another.
What bullshit!

It's the self perpetuating effects of our abuse, we feel like shit so we 'believe we are shit'
And that's bullshit as well.

Once we begin to believe in ourselves again these thoughts begin to make no sense at all, we see right through the lies our abusers told us. Which is where the BS comes from.

Dave

Read as: I want to ignore and forget about it.

False logic being that moving will make that happen.