on delusion & defensiveness
Last week I was in a class and the instructor said—why not let yourself be delusional? Be so in your own belief about what is possible that people might think you’re delusional, but it doesn’t matter, because you know what is coming?
This pricked discomfort in me, because so much of the narrative of life has been that being delusional is a bad thing, that the worst thing to be is delusional, that recognizing you- -or someone else—are/is delusional is such a shameful and soul-crushing experience.
The idea of being delusional also feels inherently dangerous—what if you believe something that no one else believes? What if someone spins a story about you that’s completely false, but has real life consequences? What if you or someone else can’t see the truth of something, and that leads to more hurt?
I do think that, like any concept, delusion is much more complicated than that. Namely, I think all of us are delusional. Lol. Or, let me rephrase that—I think all of us hold on to delusions that we’ve built up for various reasons, and a lot of life is learning how to release those delusions, learning when you need to keep or build a delusion, and slowly learning when folks have made us feel delusional, when we have, in fact, been true. All of these things exist simultaneously, in a way that is ongoing.
The beautiful side of a delusion is you march to the beat of your own drum (or in the case of collective delusion, you find belonging in marching towards the beat of everyone’s drum), you’re moving towards something – a truth, a love, a version of reality or a version of yourself—that perhaps many others can’t see. The shadow side of delusion can be that you start to hurt people and others by not seeing other possibilities, or not seeing the full scope of a truth that might be more expansive than just your solo truth.
A lot of my own delusions that I’ve held on to were stories that I told myself in order to survive. Everyone is doing the best they can. No one would intentionally hurt me, so I must be the one that is wrong. etc, etc.
So much of this comes down to story: what are the stories we tell about ourselves and why? What are the stories we tell about others and why?
As humans, and as artists, so many of us build narratives of ourselves and others. We build definitions, containers, rationale for behavior, patterns that reinforce all of that. And then, one day, we outgrow those narratives. And we become stuck in an old story, an old delusion, until we are able to find the way to break free.
Over the last five years, I’ve had moments where I’ve strongly had to confront some delusions within myself, and realize that actually, they were the basis for so much of my pain. Shedding them was hard, because I’d spent anywhere from 27-30 years believing them, finding evidence that corroborated them, and ultimately, denying evidence that countered those stories. In particular, creating the art that I have over the last few years helped me confront a lot of the delusions that I had built around myself and my life, and in particular, my childhood. It helped me get integrate a lot of my own truth that I had been denying for the sake of a collective delusion, or collective story, and release unfounded blame and both the external and self-gaslighting that I had been holding on, and allowed parts of myself that I had been dissociated from—or parts of myself that I had sent away because my delusion made their existence impossible— to return and find a safe home within me. It also helped me to forgive people in my life that I needed to, and to also recognize when my own delusion harmed or contributed to gaslighting another.
The process was painful. It felt shattering, like walls were being torn down, like the foundations in which I had built my life were crumbling and everything was being questioned. Needless to say, a lot of my relationships changed, relationships that I had thought would be in my life forever. I had to learn how to stand more clearly on my own, how to recognize the truth within me, and how to follow that truth, even when it went against the stories of people closest to me—my family, sometimes my friends, ex-partners, etc.
The delusions that I shed had kept me safe for so long. They kept me loved by the people around me, and able to function in some of the communities that I had been a part of. Then, they started to deeply hurt me, and others, and I had to do a real accounting and inventory, make amends with myself and others, and move into the unknown, into space and territory that was unfamiliar.
Last night, I was on the phone with my partner and I was talking about the anxiety that I had been feeling around shifting communities in my life, and shifting relationships in my life. I was talking to my partner about how much pain I was experiencing from feeling like when I’ve told people that I’m close to that they’ve hurt me, being met with extreme defensiveness and gaslighting, and having to root in my own truth over and over while they attempt to discredit my feelings, rather than actually listening to it and apologizing. This trend has contributed to the way that I sometimes feel conflict-averse, where I would rather not say something than bring it up, or where I’d rather quietly remove myself from the situation than address the thing, because of the pain that I’ve experienced and fear of people’s reactions.
I know the opposite side of this too: when someone brings a hurt to you and it’s easier to shut it down or dismiss it as being invalid than actually do the work of understanding that you hurt someone you love, that there’s a dynamic in a relationship you’ve contributed to that needs to change for the health of both people involved. Sometimes it’s easier to stay in the momentum of something that already exists then to venture out on your own, or to actually cleanly break with someone or something.
After the call, which was so helpful, I had a realization that might seem very simple, but was very helpful: often, when you bring forth a hurt you’ve experienced and are met by defensiveness or gaslighting, people’s defensiveness is often born out of a response to protecting their own delusion. Whatever delusion they’ve created for themselves keeps a part of them safe—perhaps that’s because they haven’t been able to extend that part of themselves kindness or self-forgiveness, perhaps it’s because they can’t hold that they hurt someone they love, perhaps it’s because they don’t want to recognize or haven’t integrated the shadow part of themselves, perhaps they hold a shallow narrative of themselves that your truth threatens. But the defensiveness arises because they aren’t ready to shed that delusion yet, and the truth you bring or the experience you bring threatens that delusion. It’s easier to keep that delusion alive and safe by building up defensiveness and gaslighting rather than acknowledging the fuller truth of what is happening.
I’m trying to get better at holding space for the very messy moment of when this kind of conflict arises: acknowledging that someone is perhaps not ready to deal with something that threatens their delusion, while also affirming and validating my own experience, and recognizing that it’s not my job to convince them or to continually point out where the gaps in their logic lays. My job is to focus on myself, to tend to my own hurts and stories, and to see where those stories can and cannot coexist with another’s. To not internalize another’s truth over my own. And when to stay and when to walk away. And to work gently with my own delusions, my own defensiveness, to see what they are guarding and what lays beneath.
What does it mean to practice softness with someone’s delusions, knowing that we all have delusions of our own that exist in the shadows, the parts of ourselves that haven’t been made fully aware or aren’t integrated? But what does it also mean to respect yourself enough to not have to take that on, to walk away when someone else’s delusion is hurting you, keeping you trapped or threatening your own reality?
Building a delusion in survival mode can be life-saving. Shedding a delusion can be devastatingly painful. Both exist within us, simultaneously, and are necessary for our growth, survival, ability to thrive, and ability to move forward.