Blind to Betrayal: Why We Fool Ourselves We Aren't Being Fooled Read Online Free PDF

distant cousins who did not particularly want her. It's easy to imagine four-year-old Judy's internal falling and whirling. She had to have something to hold onto, so Judy did what almost all young children do in that situation. Her foundation in this internal maelstrom became the very firm belief that she had caused her mother's death because she somehow hadn't been a good enough little girl. She also settled on a deep conviction that she was a bother and that her emotions were too much for other people. She put them away, even from herself.
     
    As an adult, Judy was haunted by self-doubts about her competence and basic goodness. She was highly anxious in relationships, often panicking when difficulties arose. She was constantly fearful that she would be left, and that it would be her own fault. So when relationships failed (as happens with all of us), Judy was quick to blame herself and become depressed. 1.
     
    As Judy began to understand the roots of her anxiety and depression, her internal world started whirling once more. When the anchor of her belief in her own badness and culpability began to erode, Judy initially grew more anxious and depressed, as is often the case. Yet this time she found herself in a therapeutic relationship that she could begin to trust, and the depression and anxiety that she had always felt now had meaning and could be rooted in her early experiences of betrayal and loss. Her anxiety, instead of being a “symptom” of a mental “disorder,” became an impetus to find another foundation for her life—one rooted in her innate goodness and trust in people around her. Her depression became a mourning for her years of isolation and for her mother, for whom she had never been able to grieve.
     
    Kayla, another psychotherapy client, suffered betrayal of a different sort. One night when she was six, her caring and loving father came into her room and molested her. Kayla's world was shattered. She, like all of us, depended on that interweaving of supportive relationships to understand herself and the world. Her father's betrayal of their relationship and the family's subsequent denial of that betrayal left Kayla no choice. The knowledge of the incident and others that followed was too dangerous for her to keep in her awareness. To maintain the only family she had ever had and the only reality she had ever known, Kayla put the knowledge of the molestation away deep inside, where it remained for years.
     
    As Kayla grew older, she had continuing problems with relationships. She could not become intimate with anyone, men especially, without feeling a sense of panic. Even friendships were problematic for her, because closeness to others meant closeness to herself and her secret—something Kayla could not risk. Kayla became isolated and depressed. She attempted suicide on numerous occasions.
     
    After a nightmare when she was thirty, Kayla began to know and understand the depths of the betrayal that had been perpetrated on her. As she gradually began to trust more and reveal more of herself in a therapeutic relationship, she began to know more about what had happened and how it had affected her. Her depression turned to rage, and her rage woke her to a new life and a new reality—one in which unconscious fears of another betrayal gave way to a conscious ability to relate to others and herself in a truly intimate manner.
     
    Rebecca's Story
     
    Judy and Kayla couldn't know their betrayals, although they had both suffered severe and clear betrayals. Their stories illustrate the importance of human connection and the damage that can be caused by the disruption of those bonds. They also illustrate how early betrayals can make us appear as if, and think we are, crazy. Let's examine a true story in more detail, as Rebecca Brewerman told it to us in her own words. Rebecca is an intelligent and sensitive woman in her early sixties. She was molested by her father during her childhood. We interviewed her at