Discussion Holding Two or More Opposing but Equally Valid Points of View

[GoodPersonEffed]

For those who have black-or-white, all-or-none, and/or perfectionistic thinking, it can be really challenging to hold two or more opposing but equally valid points of view. It is so much more comfortable to view something as completely horrible or completely good, but nothing exists that is either one or the other. Some, such as Buddhists, would argue that good and bad don't even exist. That can be highly uncomfortable for those who were, say, raised in an environment of non-acceptance of others or of the self. Even saying something is all good is, at worst, an annihilation of that thing, or at best, an illusion that may eventually sting far more than acceptance of its co-existing bad.

What is, is not always comfortable, but that doesn't change that it is, just as it is.

One of the most difficult oppositions for me to hold is the love and hate/rejection I feel for my parents. They were abusive, but they were not total monsters by any means. There was also a lot of love and laughter and bonding. In some ways I got good foundations, in others, they tried to negate and destroy my inherent foundations. I sincerely care about them, and there are things that I do like, respect, and admire about them, and yet it's best to have zero contact with them as they will always try to fight and annihilate what is about me that they cannot accept.

Because of acceptance, I recognize that it would be folly to try to ease their suffering by writing a letter should I move forward with the choice to ctb, because they are not capable of hearing me or my intentions, only what comes through their distorted filters. I did not cause their problems, I cannot fix them, I cannot ease them, I cannot cure them; I spent a lifetime trying, and a letter would be a final wasted effort, so it's best to leave my last wasted efforts as the final ones and move forward, away from them, their filters, and all that I cannot change. It is difficult to hold this and not fall in the trap of adopting a total "fuck you" attitude to give me strength to follow through, nor a total "I love you" attitude that weakens my hard-earned, rational resolve.

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What about you? What kinds of challenges have you experienced with opposing but equally valid points of view? How do you work through it? Have you already found a way to be at peace and not feel bothered by the fact that there is more than one valid way to view an issue, or to not feel pressured to choose the one that feels most "right"? Are you comfortable with acceptance, and not leaning toward either validating or condemning?

 

[pete_x]

I recognize my adoptive father was a beaten man with hopes and dreams in spite of his cruelty. My holding pattern exists because of the few decent things he said to me. "You'll be the one to take care of your mother since you're not doing anything anyway and, Protect your mother from your sister. " So, complication. There's another flavor of choice and that is obligation borne of a belief system I think. The dark side is so wet and luxuriant, but ultimately problematic. Still, i would rather have a red lightsaber. As to leaving a note, it's situational. My approach is going to be journaling in my thread. If it's found or not, i'm good with that.

 

[Deleted member 1496]

What about you? What kinds of challenges have you experienced with opposing but equally valid points of view? How do you work through it? Have you already found a way to be at peace and not feel bothered by the fact that there is more than one valid way to view an issue, or to not feel pressured to choose the one that feels most "right"? Are you comfortable with acceptance, and not leaning toward either validating or condemning?

I think points can be opposing and valid, but not necessarily equal. In voting for a politician, they've done some good, some bad, but one can be greater than the other. Since voting is binary, I must decide which side has the preponderance of the evidence. As long as I'm being generally objective and logical in my analysis instead of wallowing in confirmation bias, I can't deny the points that lead me to my truth. Granted, other people may have a different truth, but this analysis is for my vote, not someone else's.

For my parents, they're not all evil or all good. And I recognize the bad may be explained by the way they were raised or their own traumatic experiences, though neither exonerate their behavior (Heck, I was raised the way they were raised and I've had my traumatic experiences, but I keep my damage to myself). As every self-help article discusses, I've attempted discussions, but I learned the futility of talking when only one party feels burdened.

So I have all these bullet points on my weight balance scale. Ultimately, I looked at how I feel in my interactions with them: I feel like a worthless slave, who feels subservience rather than equality or individualism, who has no right to any voice, who feels hesitancy, shame, and exhaustion when I stick up for myself, who endures my mom's narcissism and my dad's derision. I've compensated for their and my siblings decisions and short-comings instead of focusing on finding and expressing myself. (Aside: I wish any of my therapists would have listened and analyzed me before throwing me the cognitive dissonance book; maybe I could have recognized and limited the damage. In my 50s, I don't have the physical or mental energy nor the social skills to build or create a new life from scratch on my own.)

Anyway, acceptance for me is realizing that they are who they are, not people who are looking for change or solutions so that all boats are raised. There are points where I could praise them, like working to put food on the table, and points where I could condemn. But answering the point-blank question of how I feel with them was the clarity I needed in deciding whether I should wait for them to pass before I passed. If there's one time where I have a say in my own life instead of the enduring the messed-up enmeshed family, it is the decision on whether I have the right to die, to end my misery. I'll be leaving them with my own financial savings, technical and legal documents, and end-of-life planning all finished for them, so I'm not completely abandoning them.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

@TiredOfCoping, I've used scales as well to weigh things out and found it a useful tool, once I stopped giving inappropriate weight to everything -- way too much to things that didn't deserve it, and way too little to things that deserved much more.

I see that you had your own final decision to come to, whether or not to wait for them to die first, or to do something for yourself, and part of that was to dis-enmesh. Much respect. This is really hard stuff.

Enmeshment sucks. I was basically given the choice to remain enmeshed or be sent out in the wilderness alone. Turns out I actually have more tools for managing the wilderness alone than the enmeshment! It's not nearly as crazy out here as it was with them, I wish I'd known that at 17 when I had a chance to emancipate. I didn't yet have the tools or skills, and maybe I would have just been victimized by someone else, but maybe not. I'll never know, that was over 30 years ago. But I have the foundation now, better late than never.

I would gladly do as you've done and set things up for my family so they could better manage the process after my death, I wanted to so much! But in my personal situation, I've had to deal with the reality that no matter how I set it up, no matter how I present it, they will interpret it through their own filters, and act based on their filters. I could make the process so much easier for them, I have analytical and logistical skills out the wazzoo, but it's like I'd be wrapping a diamond in fancy gift paper, hand it to them, and they'd see dirty rags, surrounded by flies, and concealing a turd.

So when I do my own personal weighing (just processing here), what has to hold more weight is that: 1. No matter what fucked them up to the point they were abusive to me, that created their filters, and caused them to shut me out, I'm not responsible for it. 2. If they shut me out, it is a natural consequence that they get no consideration from this side of the door that they closed. 3. Whatever caused them to close that door and experience consequences, I'm not responsible for it. I agree with you that I was raised how they were raised and I did not become an abuser, I did not perpetuate the cycle. Even if they're not capable of taking responsibility for their own problems and actions, that doesn't mean I should or even can myself. And that's more dis-enmeshment.

It's also something I've had to learn to hold: They caused me much pain. I owned the impacts, I owned myself, I worked to heal. Someone else caused them pain, they did not face it, they did not own the impacts, they do not own themselves, they do not work to heal. What I've learned to hold is actually a letting go: I don't own it (whatever "it" is in that moment), those who are responsible don't own it, and I let the pain and the past go with no one taking responsibility for it, it just flies away. It tries to come back, and I release it again. It's not black-or-white, the good guys aren't totally winning, and the bad guys aren't paying at all.

I've worked with some co-dependency tools in dis-enmeshing. Much of it comes down to not owning others' stuff, but even more deeply for me is the next step, the next challenge, which is accepting the total non-ownership. I can't lay it anywhere that it's not accepted, I can't own it, I just have to keep releasing.

Anyhow, I just babbled here. I think your comment in response to my OP may have been some processing, and now I've processed some more as a result of reading what you processed. Thanks for participating in the conversation. I hope you got some good out of it as I have.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

Pretty much all my views often seem contradictory in nature if they are fully explained to others. It bothers me not at all that my views are contradictory, as I see reality as complex and multifaceted, where many things that are generally accepted as mutually exclusive are in fact perfectly possible, even fundamentally necessary.
I think this is how reality is arranged and that simplistic views tend to see only one facet, just as travelling any one pathway to a place precludes travelling by all the other pathways. Perspective is important to me and I want to have as many perspectives as possible.
What does piss me off is that this seems to be a hard concept to explain to people. I'd love to say that I don't care what others think about what I think, but I do, and it's annoying that the very nature of contradictory viewpoints makes it hard to express beliefs that are held like that.
So mostly I don't bother, I just say things that confuse people.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

@Underscore, I perceive exactly what you're saying, even aspire to it, in some ways already do it and live it.

What I aspire to is it not being bothersome, not being an experience of cognitive dissonance and therefore uncomfortable. As I alluded to in the OP, it is a challenge to break from all-or-none, black-or-white thinking -- and not just thinking but feeling, as if being driven by those modes. I'd much rather relax into what you're talking about. I don't know how to do that.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

@Underscore, I perceive exactly what you're saying, even aspire to it, in some ways already do it and live it.

What I aspire to is it not being bothersome, not being an experience of cognitive dissonance and therefore uncomfortable. As I alluded to in the OP, it is a challenge to break from all-or-none, black-or-white thinking -- and not just thinking but feeling, as if being driven by those modes. I'd much rather relax into what you're talking about. I don't know how to do that.

I wish I could advise how, I really do! It's an attitude I've always naturally had, and TBH I've sometimes wondered if life would be easier just picking a viewpoint and sticking to it. It's not an attitude I've aspired to at all, it's just how I'm wired, and it often makes communication about intellectual things really confusing for me as well as whoever I'm talking to.
I actually envy people with singularly entrenched views for their comfortable complaceny.
I guess I do, or did, have cognitive dissonance over some things but that's faded as I've accepted who I am in this regard. Now I can't see things any other way.
I think Rudyard Kipling's 'If' says it well, if you overlook the sexism. However, I prefer my signature's bastardised line, which I think sums up why I don't feel comfortable with complacent views.
Reality is confusing. If you aren't confused by it, then you are probably paddling in the shallow end of the pool.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

@Underscore, there is always something to overlook with Kipling!

 

[Epsilon0]

"If you can dream—and not make dreams your master"

Yes, life would indeed be a walk in the park, if I could dream and not desire the content of that dream.