Filters.

Ok, I am back again to tell you more about what I have learned through being on STEPPS.

In our second week we learnt about filters.

Filters are a bit like the negative side of rose tinted spectacles, what you see is not the truth. When you are put into a situation that causes negative thoughts these thoughts are often fuelled by filters. This part of the course I have probably found the most helpful. It has been great to see how my thoughts are affected by seeing things through glasses that constantly warp my vision.

So what are these filters? Well I don't think I can actually write them out here plainly as I think that would be stepping on copyright laws. But I will try and explain what they are about.

If you are looking through these filters then you may believe that your emotional needs are not being met. You may think that someone is not caring for you in the way you think that you deserve. This can mean that you always want to be independent from others and may not ask or accept any help from anyone else. These filters can also cause you not to trust someone. You may think that if you put any trust in a person that they will go against you or maybe even abuse you in some way. So you end up expecting bad things to happen all the time. You can also end up pushing others away so that this can not happen.

You can be forever thinking that the people that you are close to are going to leave you. As I said in my previous post, I really struggle with abandonment and this is something that I am really having to work on in my therapy. It really hurts those involved including yourself. Because you are always worried that someone is going to leave you, you can end up going to extreme lengths to try and keep them there. The other thing that you can end up doing is pushing the person away thinking that if you break the friendship up first then it will be less painful. From experience this doesn't normally work. Them going may in itself be less painful, but often it still causes pain because you have to find reasons to hate the person to make it easier to push them away. This is what can then be painful. As I have said, this is my experience of this anyway.

You can believe that you are different from other people in a negative way. I personally think that if I let people in past my barriers that they will see the 'real' me and they will hate me for this. They will see how different I am in a negative way and hate me for it. This can make me very sensitive to anything people say to me that I could interpret as being negative. It also makes me very sensitive if I think that someone is rejecting me in some way. It makes me very insecure and means that in social situations I can feel very uncomfortable as I always think that people see me as being as bad as I see myself. I hate myself and a lot of the things that I do and this is due to this filter kicking in. It stops me from being able to see the good things. And if I do see good things about myself I then feel extremely guilty for it.

I have a huge fear of failure and this is due to 2 more of my filters, one of them makes me think that I am unable of achieving anything good or doing any thing right I wont even try as I am afraid that if I do try then I will fail it. This fear of failure can happen in any area of my life and I often just feel totally stupid. I compare myself to people that are more clever then I am to try and prove that what I am feeling is true. The other one of these (as i have found that these two seem to often go together), means that what ever I do it is not good enough for me and so I assume it won't be good enough for anyone else either. This is my perfectionist side. I will do anything to try and avoid criticism and this means setting myself very high standards. The thing is it doesn't matter how well I do actually do at anything, it could ALWAYS be better and so I beat myself up for it. I am very critical of all that I do. When I do get going on something then I find it very hard to stop until I deem that I have finished and that it's acceptable to me (normally its acceptable to others before it is myself and people are shouting at me to stop, but I am just unable to). This puts a lot of stress and pressure on me and it can get me very down. So I often just won't start anything to avoid it. Very black and white behaviour.

There are 2 others that go together very well too. One of these means that I am always sacrificing my needs to put other peoples needs before me. This isn't itself a bad thing but when it kicks in it's often totally over the top. If I do not do this then I will feel awful and will end up beating myself up. I have huge amounts of guilt (can you see how other filters often fit in with each other?) Because doing this means that your needs are not met you can end up getting really annoyed at the person that you are helping. For me this often happens when I am in a lot of pain or really tired and I feel I have to help someone else and ignore my pain. Though I am getting a lot better at being able to say no. But this leaves me with a huge sense of guilt.

Often you end up doing this as a form of submission. You believe that if you do not do this then the other person will be angry at you or abandon you and you want to do everything you can to avoid this. You give up all your emotions and thoughts because you feel that you have to agree with the other person. You can end up confused with your identity and believe that your thoughts and feelings are not actually important. Your emotions are normally pushed down when this filter is in action as you feel you are not allowed to show your emotions due to them not being important. You always put the other person first even if that means that your needs are not met. You won't even let the other person know if there are any needs that need to be met. This normally means that if the other person finds out that you have been keeping something hidden from them then they can get angry and very upset. This just seems to reinforce that you should not let anyone know the way that you are thinking or feeling and just pay full attention to the other person's thoughts and feelings.

The next filter means that I am always thinking that everything will go wrong. That nothing in my life will ever go the way I want it to/ go right. Everything seems to be a major disaster and things are made mountains out of molehills when it's not at all necessary for that to happen. You think that you will never be able to handle what life throws at you, things will never change. So to avoid this you try and shut yourself away, believing that if you're shut away nothing bad can happen to you. I have often been known to tell people that I am not leaving my bed that way no one can hurt me. This is pretty excessive, but you believe that this is totally necessary.

The last filter is one that I notice in people all the time, not just myself. It seems to be human nature. That is that we believe that we should be able to say, think or do whatever we want when we want. If you want a hug or a kiss you want it right then and there, no waiting. If I am made to wait then I think the person hates me or I get angry because I think I deserve it right then. Nothing is going to persuade me otherwise. I am the queen and I should get what I want when I want it, no questions asked. You don't care about what others want or need and you can push people away from you whether intentional or not. You also are not aware of long term consequences of your actions when this filter is in action. This is basically selfishness.

These filters are things that everyone uses to some degree, but people with EID tend to use them more often.

In my next post I will talk about challenging these filters.