The Stories We Tell Ourselves

We went over and over this with Joel in counseling.  Over and over this.  For years.  We talked with him about this concept of the stories we tell ourselves.

After so many years, the evidence of the truth was clear...and our counselor (and others) tried to help him to see the TRUTH instead of the 'story he was making up.'  He had zero evidence for the stories he told himself and others.  He still has zero evidence.  Yet, he tells the same stories...and people just believe him (until they talk to me and see the evidence; yet it's rare that someone actually talks to me and seeks out truth).  

Two things:  

1.  Something that happened our last Christmas in Brazil (we had just gotten some really bad news at that time, so it was already a hard time for me) came up the other day...Christmas 2011.  I had JUST unwrapped a gift from my aunt.  It was beautiful, and I had just gotten a glance at it when the kids got too rambunctious and broke it.  I got understandably upset.  Now, that kind of upset doesn't look like some of the 'upset' from some people I know...there was no yelling, no hitting, no cussing, no none of that.  But, I was upset, and I let the kids know that I was upset by just using my words.  It wasn't pretty and tidy and 'happy.'  What did Joel do?  He was about to stop our video camera (we recorded all of our Christmas mornings) and erase that part.  Hadley, esp., remembers that incident, but she didn't remember that Joel part.  I told that part the other day when it came up and she was like, "Whoa, foreshadowing."  I told him then..."Look, I'm upset.  But, we'll get through it, it will be resolved, and we don't have to hide real life from our videos.  It's fine.  Why would you want to erase that?"  Hadley's absolutely right...major foreshadowing.

A decade of that same sort of behavior.  And then...

2.  Skip to Christmas this past year, just a month ago...the week of Christmas 2021.  He posted about the girls.  Each of them commented on his post...comments that told the truth about how they feel, comments that were NOT flattering to him or the image that he fights to protect at all costs.  What did he do?  He hid his daughters' comments.  He silenced them on his page.  It didn't line up with what he wants the world to think of him.  It didn't line up with what he himself thinks of himself.  So...he erased it.  He erased their words and their feelings and their thoughts.  He acted like it never happened, like he never read those words.  And then he continued to ask our counselor to ask the girls how they really feel and help him to understand them (as if the girls and our counselor haven't already told him these things, and tried to help him understand for years already).  He REFUSES to actually hear and take in the things he doesn't want to hear...the things that don't align with the image he has of himself.

It's what he does.  He is so committed to the image that he has of himself, and the stories he tells himself, he has lost EVERYTHING.  Everything.  

Brené Brown's 'number one life hack' for lasting relationships:
https://www.businessinsider.com/brene-browns-biggest-life-hack-is-a-simple-phrase-2015-8?fbclid=IwAR0PzuGb1uAy3nHNhm3LP_ZzeYmq6BlZPt-2JpulKonmSv4zppwjZIPUt60