Believing two very opposing things at once? What is this?

[Cat of the Canals]

My husband and I have both noticed that PDmil has a tendency to believe two conflicting ideas at the same time, often speaking about them in the same conversation with no real acknowledgement that she's contradicting herself. It's like cognitive dissonance doesn't exist for her.

(TW: suicide)
I wish I had a better example that wasn't so upsetting, but this is the clearest example I have at the moment.

My BIL committed suicide early this year. There shouldn't really be any doubts about his manner of death, as he sent "goodbye" messages to several people, my husband and PDmil included. But... there were some serious underlying medical conditions discovered during the autopsy. Coupled with inaccurate information in regards to how BIL might have taken his life (MIL being the source of this info and not knowing the full story) and finding no evidence of it, the medical examiner ruled his death "natural."

PDmil immediately rewrote the story of his death to match the ME's report. It's a legal document, after all. Physical "proof," if you will. I can sort of understand that.

What I can't understand is when she tells my husband, "I'm coming to terms with the fact that this was all inevitable because of the [underlying conditions]."

OK. That makes sense. But then the next sentence out of her mouth is: "But [ex-girlfriend] did break up with him, so she played a role."

This isn't the first time she has cast about to lay blame, but that only makes sense to me if you believe he committed suicide. How can she not hear how she's contradicting herself?

Anyway, I'm curious if there's a name for this phenomenon. It's almost like the opposite of black and white thinking. Instead of a hard either/or, it's like she wants it to be both at the same time, depending on what suits her in the moment. When she wants to assuage her own feelings of guilt, she plays up the natural death angle. When she wants to be nasty about BIL's ex, she pretty much flat out says it's all her fault.

[Andeza]

Plasticity of beliefs. I've noticed it too. They wobble around what they actually believe because they're trying to get a certain reaction from a certain person in that moment. It's all about getting what they want.

My uBPDm used to say, repeatedly throughout the years, that suicide was the cheap way out of your problems and you ought to face your problems head on. Then, when my endad left her, you guessed it, she landed in the hospital for exactly that reason. She told me it was the cheap way out because that's what she thought she was supposed to say as a mom of a teenager. But when her own situation got tough her actions and previous statements were completely opposed to each other in order to get a desired result. (It didn't pan out the way she expected.)

Her statements on it mean nothing to me. I hold my own opinion instead.

[Cat of the Canals]

Thanks, Andeza. I guess it kind of goes along with "feelings over facts." When she feels shame or guilt over it, she quickly rearranges the "facts" to make his death unavoidable. But then she still feels resentful, so she rearranges things again so she can more easily put the shame and guilt on someone else.

She was once badgering my husband about something, and said, "It's really time that you do X. You can't just avoid it forever." and then in the next breath. "I don't think you can do X." He said, "So I absolutely MUST do X but I am not capable of doing X? That doesn't make sense." To her credit, she agreed it made no sense.

[square]

I call it the reality distortion field.

There are no facts, there is no reality, just the story you want to tell in the moment. Story A has a particular value that can be leveraged, and Story B has a different benefit.

People who live this way rewrite things so much that it comes naturally and they don't understand the discomfort people who live in a more objective reality have. (I mean, we all construct reality, and accuracy is always flawed, but most of us live in ONE cohesive reality that makes logical sense).

[Call Me Cordelia]

Orwell called it doublethink.

There is objective reality. That fact can be an inconvenience or an anchor. We can try to confirm our beliefs to that objective reality as much as possible, or decide we don't give a damn about the facts and decide we've already made up our minds. Until it's convenient to change the story. We don't put together reality, we put together our perceptions into our interpretation of it.

I'm sorry if I'm coming across as a pedantic philosopher, square. This is an important distinction to me. My father's favorite saying was, "There is no reality, only perception." Control perception, control reality. That's so SO not how it really works. Consequences are gonna bite you in the butt at some point, whether you acknowledge it or not. Of course pwpd regularly ignore that and just about any other uncomfortable facts. You are so right though that swift switch between narratives happens so effortlessly. Which I think is in itself a form of gaslighting for those of us observing it. How could they lie with such confidence? We certainly couldn't! The trick is they don't acknowledge what they are doing as lying, or acknowledge it whatsoever.

[Boat Babe]

I call it the reality distortion field.

There are no facts, there is no reality, just the story you want to tell in the moment. Story A has a particular value that can be leveraged, and Story B has a different benefit.

People who live this way rewrite things so much that it comes naturally and they don't understand the discomfort people who live in a more objective reality have. (I mean, we all construct reality, and accuracy is always flawed, but most of us live in ONE cohesive reality that makes logical sense).

Yeah, I get that. I think it's fundamentally down to truth. PDs have a very questionable relationship with the truth. It's all relative and situational as Cordelia has said. I suppose that means they don't suffer from cognitive dissonance. At all.

Explains a lot .

[square]

Oh yeah there's DEFINITELY objective reality!

I just mean that we do interpret the world through our senses and we never get the full perspective.

The difference is that normal people attempt to perceive the world as accurately as we can.

PDs aren't bothered.

For you and me, it matters if something really did or didn't happen.

For a PD, it's not a concern. The only concern is whether they can convince themselves of it (and hopefully the rest of us as well).

[square]

I think they have cognitive dissonance as their PD is in the formative stages (as a child or teen) but after lying to themselves over and over, the dissonance fades away.

Like a pathological liar is no longer bothered by their lies. They can pass lie detector tests because there is no longer any stress - cignitive dissonance - with the lies.

The NPD I observed the closest was my former boss who was also a friend. I watched his NOD progress over a decade. When a set of facts distressed him, he'd try a few stories and see which felt best to him. I felt he had mild dissonance during this process, hence he would keep telling the story to others, fune tune it, try to get it to settle. Then he would get comfortable with it and seem to really believe it. The dissinance would fall away and he would bury the true facts and seem to really forget them.

Over time the process was quicker and easier. He had set up a few constructs that were ready to go, and he could pull them out easily.

As this happened, I (a "golden child" employee he previously trusted a lot) started pushing back increasingly. At first I endorsed his rewrites (I bought them). But they got increasingly problematic.

Since his golden child employee was interfering with his story writing, he pulled away, literally moved to another part of the state, and basically abandoned the company.

Until one day he went too far and I told him off and quit. Pretty epically.

Anyway, it was a process for him and I feel he was aware he was choosing to break reality. And it just got easier until it was hard to remember what was real ir not, which was actually a benefit once he committed to that pathology.

[Cat of the Canals]

There are no facts, there is no reality, just the story you want to tell in the moment. Story A has a particular value that can be leveraged, and Story B has a different benefit.

This very much describes my MIL. So much so that even before we had identified her as PD, we used to describe her as "floating." Her likes and dislikes, her wants, her moods... all seem to be floating around waiting for some stimulus to help her decide which way to go. And it's all temporary. She might hate something today and love it tomorrow.

[square]

At its worst, it makes for a non person, doesn't it?

All hollow inside. Shifting sand.

[Poison Ivy]

It likely is also difficult for your MIL (or anyone) to settle on one explanation or another when the professionals don't seem to have provided a clear explanation.

[Hazy111]

Regarding "cog dissonance", i think its a constant state for PDs. To stop this feeling they have to  "split " and "project" , otherwise life becomes seriously problematical in that moment. The problem is that life isnt as simple and childlike and these create further problems because they are based on gut feelings in the moment.  .

When they're confronted with a logical complete opposite reality to their view, they quickly change and then change back again or deny they ever said it or felt it so "denial" comes into play .

A simple example was my mother and her views on anything.  When i was a teenager i used to call it "this week the worlds flat" , who knew whether it would be round the following week. When i dared to question her contradictory views i was met with "Why do you analyse everything i say?"  So it was my fault . Projection by her.

Indeed There are no facts, there is no reality, just the story you want to tell in the moment. Story A has a particular value that can be leveraged, and Story B has a different benefit.

Life is one long "cognitive dissonance". This is the norm not the exception in my opinion.

[Cat of the Canals]

It likely is also difficult for your MIL (or anyone) to settle on one explanation or another when the professionals don't seem to have provided a clear explanation.

That's true. But as far as she's concerned, it was natural causes. End of story. When we got the autopsy report, everyone else had that cognitive dissonance moment. That, "Wait... what? This doesn't make sense...." She didn't have that (or at least didn't show it). On the surface level, at least, she accepted it 100%. To the degree that we haven't broached with her how much it doesn't make sense, or explained what might have happened, because it would just be ugly. (Not to mention that dead is dead and it sucks no matter how it happened.)

So when she makes her weird blame statements about the ex-girlfriend, I don't think she realizes how that conflicts with what she "believes." (Or is "supposed" to believe, maybe?) If my husband were to say, "How did her breaking up with him cause him to have a heart attack?" She would probably backtrack and admit it doesn't make sense.

[Poison Ivy]

Thank you for the clarification, Cat of the Canals.

[Empie2204]

Just adding my experience with my stbexh:
Often when I let myself into circular conversations, I noticed at some point that he "crosses" to my side.
Since I can be stubborn and I cling to logic, he didn't want to lose, so he simply overtook my arguments I presented them as his. Without a wink. Even more, he sometimes added "Yeah, that's what I said at the beginning."

[1footouttadefog]

Feelings as facts.

She changes the fact used based on what she is feeling.  If she feel ashamed or guilty about her son's suicide the md report is the basis if facts used.

If she is feeling angry and wants to blame and Kash out the Breakup and suicide become the facts used.

It's not based on n logic it's based on n ever changing emotions.

[Empie2204]

I see your point
1 footouttadefog.

Yes, they don't value logic, but are ready to be contradictory if that suits their needs.

[Cat of the Canals]

Thank you for the clarification, Cat of the Canals.

Thanks for your post as well. Thinking about it in that context made it more clear for me that even if it seems like she has adopted one singular explanation on the outside, it is clearly more complicated internally. Which is, given the circumstances, totally understandable, as you've pointed out. It also that leads me to think the people here who have suggested that PDs actually have a lot of cognitive dissonance but learn to ignore it is probably correct.

[j.banquo]

I've seen this taken to absolute extremes - often, just before I was banished, going over the same thing six times in a row, step by step, agreeing on what the conclusion would have to be, and then having the conclusion disagreed with. It was... unreal.

"Yes. Of course. I agree. I see that. All those things together, absolutely. Yes."

"So the conclusion is what we just said, simple!"

"No."

So I'd try a new example to demonstrate simple concepts I knew were already known to them... repeat.

Total disintegration of reality, time, everything.



Sometimes it's for fun, I've seen the subtle smile.

Sometimes for a specific effect. Often gaslighting.

Often it's their unstable sense of self, not being able to choose which perspective to think from. The more emotional and complicated the topic, the worse it is; it often looks like short-circuiting, a total meltdown of meaning and logic. I hear a lot of common phrases instead of thoughts around the same time, like "don't cry wolf," "a place for everything and everything in its place," "don't talk to me that way," "if you treat your friends the way you treat me, I'm surprised you have any friends at all." Ready-made responses, either as a broken record or borrowing from culture. Doesn't require as much cognitive effort. I'm speculating, obviously, lol... It seems that way though. Knowing a few random examples of what you're supposed to say, and saying one of them when you don't know what you think or feel.



There's a lot of internal chaos, leading to spite and maliciousness, and abuse, that's sometimes enjoyed temporarily. I think.

[Cat of the Canals]

I hear a lot of common phrases instead of thoughts around the same time, like "don't cry wolf," "a place for everything and everything in its place," "don't talk to me that way," "if you treat your friends the way you treat me, I'm surprised you have any friends at all." Ready-made responses, either as a broken record or borrowing from culture. Doesn't require as much cognitive effort. I'm speculating, obviously, lol... It seems that way though. Knowing a few random examples of what you're supposed to say, and saying one of them when you don't know what you think or feel.

We've definitely noticed this with my MIL. She goes into "platitude mode." Some of her favorites are "this is beyond the pale," "but that's your family," "I won't be around forever, you know," "everyone else manages to do just fine..."