Here's Why You're So Easily Deceived By The People Closest To You

How did I miss it? How did it go on so long? And I had no idea. I get asked this question all the time. And you see the people that are asking me this question are just completely dumbfounded by the fact that there was something going on with their loved one, usually for such a long period of time, and they really had no idea. Or maybe they had an inkling, but they didn't have any idea how big of a deal or how much was actually going on. And when this happens to you, you feel silly. You feel like you're. You feel like, how did you. You feel like you're stupid. You're just like, how in the world did I not see this? And a lot of people carry a lot of, like, shame and guilt around about this, and they just feel totally duped. But it's actually really easy to lie to the people who, that you're around all the time. Your loved ones and the people that you love the most. In fact, it's easier to lie to the people who know you really well than it is to lie to someone who doesn't know you as well. And now that may be surprising to you, but in this video, that's what I'm going to explain to you. How and why that is. For those of you who are new here, welcome to Put the shovel down. This YouTube channel is exclusively to help you understand the science and psychology of addiction so that you are always five steps ahead of it. All right? Now, the first reason why it is so easy to deceive the people closest to you. In fact, more easier to deceive the people closer to you than the people maybe you don't know as well is this. And I'm gonna have to get into a little bit of science for you here, so just hang with me. You see, our brains are made to work efficiently, and our brains process so much information all the time that it has to have these, like, it really works on these fast track processes. So in order, and in order to be able to make decisions quickly, in order to be able to take a lot of stimulation and information in all at once, our brains kind of jump to conclusions. And so because of that, when you're looking out, have you ever been sort of, you know, driving down the road or thought you saw something that you didn't? The reason is, is because maybe you're, you know, you see something laying on the ground and it's brown and it's long, and your brain, before you really, really look at it, your brain immediately says, oh, that's a Stick. It just decides exactly what that is before it really looks. And like I said, the purpose for that is efficiency. Your brain has got to be able to take in a lot of information really, really quickly. And so it. It sees something familiar and it jumps to the conclusion about what it's seeing. Well, the people that you love and that you're around most often, especially the people that you live with, you've seen them so much, you've seen them so often, you know them so well that you don't look at them nearly as closely as you would look at another person that you either knew a little bit or you didn't know at all. Because when you're dealing with a stranger or a new situation, your brain actually tunes in a lot more closely to what you're dealing with because it's trying to assess the situation. And because your brain already has all these assumptions about the people in your life, it just kind of automatically it says, okay, that's what this is, and it just moves on without really, really taking in the information. So it jumps to a conclusion. You've already made decisions about who your loved ones are and what they're capable of and how they interact with you and how they feel and what they do. And so your brain just doesn't watch the people in your life that you love nearly as closely as it watches other people. And that is the biggest reason why it's so easy to fool the people closest to you. It's because of that sort of autopilot effect. And our brains, like I said, they're made that way for efficiency, which in most situations is a good thing. But if you've ever been the person who found out something completely shocking has been going on with a loved one, has been going on for a long time, then you know this feeling of, what? How did I not see it? And a lot of times when that happens, it's like literally the whole past, almost like flashes before your eyes, like in a movie or something, and all the dots start to line up and connect, and it's just like, oh, my gosh, there it was. And then all of a sudden, you can see it all. And as time passes, after you find out the piece of information, you can see it more and more and more. And when that happens, it's easy to get more and more upset with yourself and mad at yourself about why you didn't see it. But honest to goodness, it can and does happen to everyone. So really, truly, do not beat yourself up so much about that. Now I've got Two more reasons to add to that, as far as, like, why it's so easy to fool your loved ones. The second one is. This one seems kind of silly, but I see it all the time. But the second one is, is that you don't want to be perceived by your loved ones as mistrustful. Because somehow in our minds, we've decided that that's a bad quality to not trust the people that we care about. And we have. We would have shame about that if that's the case. So we don't want to look at them in a mistrustful way. And we certainly don't want to ask questions that would indicate that we were really mistrustful of that person. I always think it's really funny, like when families get in a fight and then somebody's done something they shouldn't have done, and the other person says, I can't believe you don't trust me. It's like a way of turning it back on the family member, like they're the one in the wrong because they didn't trust them. As if that's a bad quality necessarily about the other person. And that really goes to show how much on the inside, we really want to be trusting people. And we, for some reason, we feel like that's the way that we are supposed to be. We're not supposed to question people that we love. Like, if we really love them, we really cared about them, we would trust them. That's a thought that we have in our head. After you've been deceived, then you probably lose a little bit of that and you become a little bit more discerning, which is another really good point. After you found out the big thing, maybe you found out your spouse had been using pain pills for 10 years or something like that, and you automatically found it out once you found out that piece of information. Now you have that piece of information, your schema or in your. Your history. And so then you can see it more clearly. So it may have gone on for a long time before you found out the first time, but it's not likely to go on very long again because now you are scanning for that because it's in the history, your brain. It puts that in that autopilot thing to be scanning for that. And so I know a lot of people feel like they can't trust themselves to see what's going on because something went on for so long. But I'm telling you, after it's. After it's come out, you. You're Just you're looking at it differently and you're assessing for it differently. And if anything, you can be over overly hyper vigilant about it and may think you see it when it's, when it's not going on anymore because you're really looking for it then. Now this third reason is a really important one because it's really kind of a. It's a defense mechanism and it's one that you need to watch out for because this one is going to get you into some, some difficult situations, some trouble here. The third one is that you. It's almost. I wouldn't say it's like a conscious thing that you're doing, sort of semi conscious maybe, but maybe you are not seeing something that's going on because you don't want to deal with the consequences of what it would mean if it were going on. I know that seems complicated. Let me explain. Basically, it's like if I acknowledge that I know my husband's drinking, then I've got to do something about it. Or if I acknowledge that I know my kid has a problem with substances, whatever that substance is, what does that mean? What, what does that mean about me? What does that mean about what I've got to do? You know, what have I. What kind of like rules have I set in the past? And a lot of times we can kind of say semi consciously, like I said, be turning a blind eye because we're scared of what it means that we'll have to do, you know, does it mean, oh my gosh, I'm gonna have to send them back to treatment and it's gonna cost $50,000. Oh my gosh. I told them that if they used to get them, I have to kick them out of the house. And I'm just not prepared to do that. You know, now I'm gonna have to tell their family and I really don't want to do that. I don't want to cause all those problems. So sometimes, like I said, we'll be not seeing it. Not necessarily on purpose, but on that really weird, like, I don't want to see it kind of level. And when you find yourself doing that, that's when you seriously are ignoring big giant red flags. Like I said before, when it happens the first time, it all comes out, that can happen. That can and does happen to everyone, actually. But when you're doing that purposeful, like, I just, I just can't deal with what the repercussions of what that is going to mean and the decisions I'm going To have to make that's a little bit of something different. And we see that very often in families because we know that the implications are huge and it means something big. And it's going to put you as the family member or the person on the other side of it in a very difficult situation to have to make some super hard decisions. You're gonna get backed into a wall. You're gonna be in this like rock and a hard place kind of situation where there's like a no win. And for that reason it's easy to pretend like it's not there. The thing of it is, is it's gonna keep showing itself over and over and it's going to be louder and louder and louder until you really just can't ignore it anymore. Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever missed something for any one of these reasons that we named? Have you ever just completely missed something for like a long period of time? And it's like, oh my gosh, I cannot believe that went on so long and then had that like really crazy experience where all of a sudden it's like lining up and the stars line and you literally can look back that whole hindsight's 2020 thing, but man, that's true. And you can just see it. It all comes together perfectly. Like I said, it makes you feel just like such an idiot. But we've all had that experience. Hey, Donnie. Hey, LW and Pamela and Meredith and Valerie, thank you guys for joining us. I'd love to hear some about your experiences. Do you have any questions about this? See, Meredith says, is it harmful to ignore it? Well, yes, because like most problems, if you ignore most problems, they just get bigger and bigger and bigger until you really just can't ignore them anymore. Now, I will say this sometimes and I'll coach people to do this. Sometimes you make an active choice not to address it right this moment. But it's a very conscious choice. And even though you're not doing something, it's an active plan. So sometimes I'll say, I don't want you to say anything or do anything until X happens. And, and I tell people when you're doing this. I was like, I know it's going to feel like you're not doing anything, you're ignoring it. But there's a difference in ignoring something and making a strategic plan to wait to address something until the timing is right and the situation is right. So ignoring it usually means it gets bigger and worse and better until it can't be ignored, which is different. Than making that active decision to wait until a certain period of time or certain kind of situation aligns in order to address it. Let's see here. LW says sometimes my gut told me something was not right, but I didn't want to. I didn't want to accuse and didn't want to accuse of being wrong. And some things I never, ever suspected, and then I was blindsided. Yes, I've been on both sides of that right there with you, lw, most of the time, if your gut's telling you something, in fact, I would say I really want to say all the time, but I'm generally opposed to saying all the time. So I'm going to say, like most. Most. Most of the time, your gut is going to tell you right now. Your gut doesn't always tell you every detail about what's happening, but it knows something's up. You get that feel, feeling. And like, sometimes that feeling happens over, like, little things. Like, sometimes I'll get the gut feeling that says, hey, you know, don't take that normal way you go home. You know, don't take that exit. And I don't even know why my gut's telling me that. But I'm always ignored. I'm always like, no, that's the fastest way. I'm gonna go that way. And then I take the exit and I end up in, like, some kind of traffic jam or something. Like, dang it. And I pretty much have never regretted listening to my intuition, but I have regretted not listening to my intuition about a million zillion times. Does that happen to you? Happens to me. Like I said, sometimes it's just little things and sometimes it's big things. But I hate that feeling of like, oh, my gosh, I knew that. And you just get so mad at yourself because you're like, my intuition was telling me that was a bad idea, but I didn't listen. See, Valerie says he puts our kids in danger, and I had to do something. Yes, there are sometimes, Valerie, when you just. We just. Just like Valerie said, you just don't have the option to ignore it or wait or anything else. Even if you're trying to strategically wait, when it comes to safety, there's no waiting. It's a have to deal with kind of situation. Catherine says, I'm not ignoring the hard stuff, but having. But having an opening by having peaceful home makes it easier to say what I see is happening. That is affecting me. Yes, that, Kathleen is. That's what I'm talking about when I'm saying strategic. You Know, just because you see something, do you want to address it immediately? You don't have to address it immediately. In most situations, unless it's a safety situation like Valerie was talking about, you can make a decision about when to bring something up, how to bring something up. In fact, I usually tell people, don't bring it up in the heat of the moment when you're really upset about it or if you just seen it, you probably really do need a little time to process it and make some decisions on how to have a conversation or how to address it or how to look into it a little further to make sure. Because when we. When we address things in the heat of the moment, we do it in a way that's not usually helpful because we're reactive. Have you guys ever heard that saying, like, don't go to bed angry? They tell, like, married couples that. And I always say, don't listen to that. Go to bed angry every single time. Because if you try to hash it out when you're still angry, you're just going to say a bunch of things that you didn't really mean, and you're not going to get the problem solved. You're probably just going to create more problems trying to talk it out when you're angry. So give it a little time. Be strategic. Be five steps ahead. Let's see. Jill says, how do you repair trust after being repeatedly deceived? The lying about the behavior seems to be the bigger problem for me. To unpave yourself, man, I bet, I bet, Jill, right now you're getting about, like, 25amens on that. There's a lot of people that just heard that that are like, I'm right there with you. It really is the deception more than the thing in a lot of cases, because it's that breach of trust. It's that breach of the relationship that hurts so bad and makes you question yourself and doubt yourself. And that's why you it like. Like what Jill is saying. It's the lying about it that's so problematic. Let's see. Taylor says, that's me, too. I never listen to my intuition. I know. Don't you hate it when you ignore your intuition? You're like, I knew that. I hate that. Elizabeth says, my gut has never misled me. I'm telling you. And maybe one day we'll talk more about the science behind that. But, but essentially the reason that is, Liz, is because. Because like I said before, your brain is picking up on a lot of information so quickly, and it's processing a Lot of the information on a subconscious level so quickly that you don't even realize it, but it's there. Like, for example, when I say, you know, something says in my brain, like, don't take that exit or whatever that you normally take on your way home subconsciously, I've probably seen a bunch of tail lights, red streak in my mind, and my brain has picked that up before I'm even conscious of picking that up. And so it's saying, don't do that before I even am aware of why my brain is saying, don't do that. And so it's actually, there's a lot of reasons for intuition. It's that. That quickness of your brain. It's that, like, you get that scary, icky feeling when you talk to some people. Sometimes it's because they're doing something or putting out vibes or having some kind of, like, tone in their voice or body language that your brain is perceiving on a subconscious level quicker than you can consciously figure out why you're having that. But it's giving you that information and it's telling you what to do with it faster than you can process it. It's almost like a safety mechanism of your brain. So there is a lot of science behind gut feeling. It's not just. I have a client who calls it woohoo, the woohoo stuff. It's not just woohoo. There's a lot of science in it. And maybe one day we'll. We'll talk more about that if that's something you guys want to know more about. But just let me just tell you. Your brain is trying to tell you something. I took a workshop one time, and I think it was called, like, the Gift of Fear. And it really went into all of that about intuition and how you know those things. It's those little subtle cues that you're subconsciously seeing but you're not consciously aware of. Let's see here. Andrea says, I'm pretty sure my family member is in active addiction, but the family members who live with her are sure she isn't using. Is it possible that someone behaves like an addict? Lying, manipulating, stealing, disappearing without actually using? Yes, that is possible, Andrea, because it could be that they're sneaking something else. It could be that there's something sketchy going on, but maybe it's not using. If they have a history of using and that's the behavior that's connected with their history of using, chances are probably using. But it. But like I said that intuition doesn't always tell you exactly what. It just tells you something. It just says something's wrong or don't do that or do do this or make this phone call and doesn't give you all the details because like I said, it's that really quick safety mechanism of your brain. So yeah, you can get the details of it wrong. But when it's telling you some, you know when you have that feeling like something just ain't right, Something just ain't right. So it doesn't have to mean that they're using, but it probably means something. Let's see here. Deception is real. He denies to me that his behavior is bad and pretends he isn't doing it. I have openly brought it up to him and stated that my feelings, but it did nothing. A lot of times when that happens, when you know something's up and you confront it. Those are the times when you're. You might run into gaslighting type behavior where the other person makes you feel like you're crazy. They either make you feel really bad or guilty for mistrusting them or they tell you some kind of totally like u turn like lie. That's just like. It's almost like I always say, it's almost like they're standing there with the bloody gloves and being like, I don't even know what you're talking about. This isn't blood. Like this is red marker, but it's dripping. And your brain knows better. And it's like what is happening? But they're so convincing with their tone and their body language and the way that they're saying it to you that your brain is picking up those cues and it's thinking, well, maybe I am wrong. And that's that whole making you feel like you're crazy thing. And I do have a lot of videos on gaslighting. And I'll put them up here at the end of this video so you guys can watch them if you haven't seen them. Because if you're dealing with someone who has substance abuse problem, you're probably getting some gaslighting going on. But Deborah says between your the brain and the gut is your heart. And that's what gets me. I like that. Did you make that up, Deborah? It's almost like poetry. That's kind of nice. I like that. When there's a history of addiction and substance abuse. I mean, and the family members living with her every day say she doesn't use anymore. I'm not convinced. But I don't live with her, so I don't know if sometimes. Well, it could be that when you. I could see it either way, I guess, Andrea, because, like, if, like I'm saying, if you're living with someone, sometimes it's harder to see. Sometimes a third objective kind of outside person can see it easier. But then again, you know, I'm not, you know, you're not there. You don't know the situation. But I would realize that it is pretty easy to deceive the people. In fact, easier to deceive the ones closest to you. And some of that could be because that third reason, Andrea, that whole, like, I don't want to deal with what that means, that's just a guess. Obviously, I don't know the situation, but that could be what's going on there. Lori says I didn't. I don't want to not say something because he may think that he's played me a fool. I'm glad you said that, Laurie, because I think a lot of people struggle with that. And I run into this in counseling all the time. I'll have someone that's telling me a not truth or not telling me a whole story. And I think probably it used to bother me a lot more than it bothers me now. But I will strategically choose to let that go on in certain situations because I'm weighing so many things in my brain. That's where that strategic part. Is it going to do any good to call it out? Is it going to damage the relationship? Is the benefit worth the damage? Is it the right time? But, but the thing that compels you to want to deal with that is that it's your ego of being like, oh, I don't want them to think they're getting it by on me. But here's what your ego needs to say. You're going to say, yeah, I know you're lying. I'm five steps ahead of you. And just let your ego know that you got it and you're going to deal with it. And in fact, it's like they think they're manipulating you, but you got their number and you probably manipulating them back. I know that sounds bad, but that might help you feel a little bit better, Lori, about letting that go down. Valerie says, once I caught him sleeping, kneeled over, and when I confronted him, he told me he was praying. Praying? Worst gaslighting moment. That's pretty slick. Okay, is that like double sin points, lying about praying? Does that make it like, worse of a sin? I don't know. You let me. You let me know. Lw in my situation. I had 100% trust in the person for so many years. So when the addiction took over and the lies began, it was shocking. It. It is lwn, like I said, I talk to people all the time who just like, I just can't believe that went on. Another thing is depending if. If it's an addiction kind of issue. Not all substances make people look intoxicated. You know, it's not easy to catch. And that's. That's another reason why you may have missed it. And so like I said, don't feel guilty about it. It can happen and does happen to any and all of us. Hey, Amanda from Ireland. Lori says, very true. After years, I know he was what he was fixing to do before he does that, he could sweep the floor. And I immediately knew he was fixing to go do something that involves drinking. Yeah, once you know the deal, it's hard to unknow it. So once you know the truth is there and you're not nearly likely to keep missing it. Okay, you guys, I am going to put up some more videos for you to watch next about gaslighting and how to identify when someone's lying and most importantly, what to do if someone is lying to you. I'm going to put those videos up here for you to watch next and I will see everybody next week live every Thursday at 1.