By Patricia Lefave, Monophrenic
As I have said before dysfunctional relating “works” in a way as long as everyone in the relating style accepts and performs in his or her assigned ROLES. These may be misery-producing relationships but they have the value of being FAMILIAR which is why most people keep supporting this relationship style. It creates a sense of connection. The connection itself may be a miserable one but at least it IS a connection.
I am suggesting we let this dinosaur of relating go with the time period that spawned it and embrace a new “puppy” to the family of humanity. This puppy may be whining a lot, throwing up worms from eating and drinking the wrong things, demanding to go outside at odd hours, fighting the leash, dropping turds on other people’s driveways, snapping at other dogs, and peeing on the floor of it's new home BUT, unlike the dinosaur, we can get this one trained and make good friends with it.
First though, let's really look at the Old Dinosaur.
The Usual “Choices”
The “choices' offered in dysfunctional relating are pretty standard.
Be an aggressor as that seems “strong.”[1]
Be a victim.[2]
Be Switzerland....and SMILE..”.welcome to Fantasy Island” as Ricardo Montalban used to say.
In other words;
Dish out the same old crap.
Take the same old crap.
Or
Pretend there is NO crap there at all and SMILE.
The choice not offered in group dysfunction is;
Identify the crap.
Stop the aggression
(including the passive variety like chronic gossiping, endless, pointless, comparisons to YOU, and story telling.)
Stop accepting being told that being victimized is “normal” and unresolvable.
Look DIRECTLY at the crap itself, face it, deal with it, and for God's sake stop all the moronic SMILING and pretending the blatantly obvious isn't really there.
To stop dysfunctional relating and change the world; change YOUR MINDS; not our brain chemistry or our brains.
We don't need to SMILE while children are being murdered all over the world or being used as sex toys, or starved to death as if they were not real, or human, nor should we be smiling.
We don't need to SMILE while we are dropping chemical bombs that are going to destroy the whole planet so that some moron can feel ''superior” while he and everyone else is dying by our own hand.
We need to stop SMILING as a “solution” for violence and contempt for “others” who “aren't like us” and stop the violence and contempt by recognizing it's existence in every day reality and looking at the causes for it and the PAYOFF people get for engaging in it, especially as part of a group.
Very often, the most inappropriate affect of them all is SMILING and rarely does that one get labelled as such. Perhaps if the inappropriate smilers had to worry that the thought police were going to pick THEM up and get them the help they needed[3] to wipe those vacuous, plastic smiles off their faces, a lot of the companion/opposite mental illnesses just might clear right up... as if by magic.
The Dysfunctional “Game”
If you look for sense or “logic' in the dysfunctional 'game' you won't find it, although there is a brand of what I call, “anti-logic” [4] in it. It can't however be understood logically. The dysfunctional game is about the superior/inferior, “them and us”, split. The purpose of the “game” is the running, and the maintenance, of the game ITSELF. We have to understand the purpose of the game itself, to be able to get OUT of It. If you stay IN it, classified as EITHER superior OR inferior in inherent worth as a human being, you will remain trapped within it.
When in it, it will not MATTER what you think, or don't think, say, or don't say, do or don't do, as the “inferior” one will be invalidated, no matter WHAT is true, and the “superior” one will be validated for it, will validate him or herself; again, no matter WHAT is true, or not true. The ONLY way to “win” THIS game is to STOP playing it. PERIOD.
We humans are all equal in inherent worth; no more AND no less.
Does that mean I think the murderer and the murdered are the same? No. It means that I think the murderer and the murdered are equal in inherent worth and if the murderer KNEW that, there may never have been a murder and/or if the murdered one was someone who provoked the murderer with a contest, then again, there may never have been a murder. What happens in each case of course, depends upon the concrete specific details leading up to the murder. These vary from case to case, which is why we have a job category called “detective” and why it should not be defined by psychiatrists who claim they “know by what someone says or feels” exactly what happened because it is written as a formula, or magic , in the book they wrote themselves to prove it. (DSM -the Dark Secrets of Metaphysics.)
To change the dysfunctional relating style and aim for peace, anchor yourself to the premise of equality as your defining principle and don't let It go. Envision it as your lifeline.
Using it and not letting it go, means BOTH;
Don't let go of that principle as your psycho-spiritual anchor
and
Don't let this dysfunctional relating continue unchallenged, and unresolved, as it is now going...and going...and going.
If you choose to use the principle as your anchor, the premise that does not change, you can eventually work your way through all the chaos and confusion generated by the reality splitters; yourself included as one of them.
Don't see yourself as inherently defective and don't lose hope. You can be part of a new group that changes the world for the better for BOTH yourself and others and know that this is not a “choice” of one or the other that ever needs to be made.
There is only ONE choice...All for One and One for All...you can make it.
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