Becoming Real

I was talking to my therapist this morning about how I feel in many ways like it is possible to control others.  I fully realize that it is an illusion, but what happens in reality is that we get a lot of positive feedback from our efforts.  The illusion goes like this:  We know other people really well.  We know how they respond to us.  So, we manipulate them by speaking or acting a certain way to get a predictable response or reaction.  We know them well enough that we can use our knowledge to tweak the situation and get the response we desire.  

I gave him an example of someone stepping on my foot.  I know they would prefer not to hurt me, so I tell them, "ouch! You are stepping on my foot. It really hurts.  Get off of my foot."  They remove their foot.  See? I just controlled that person.

"Ah," he says, "but it's not all black and white." There are those who are in denial of hurting you.  They'll say something like, "that's not my foot," or "I'm not stepping on it so hard it will hurt you." Or, there are those who deflect your pain and make it theirs by saying, "it's not that bad. My foot hurts, too. Someone stepped on my foot yesterday, AND my shoes are too small." Or, worse, they stand their ground and ask, "what kind of person do you think I am?  I would never hurt you," but they don't remove their foot, and now they are a martyr because you accused them of doing the unthinkable. 

When someone does that, it becomes very confusing.  After a while, you stop complaining that you are being hurt because no one is listening.  You lose touch, bit by bit, with your identity because the pain is now your destiny.

I believe in my heart I can tell someone that they are hurting me and that they will stop, but in reality there are those who just don't see the pain they cause.  They probably never will, and I can't change that.  I can tell them they are hurting me until I am blue in the face, and they will contend that I am wrong and they are right.

Pinocchio had a lot of lessons to learn.

This battle between the emotional and logical brain is frustrating, and it's where my fulcrum lies for personal growth and self-awareness.  How many times has something been so obvious, yet so foreign?  It seems like I have a knowledge about something that is plain and obvious but I can't GET IT emotionally.  I don't get it because I've been imprinted from early on. Why would someone not remove their foot from mine if they hear the words, "you are hurting me"?  My core emotional being tells me that if I just keep trying to tell them how hurtful they are, they will stop hurting me.  Or, it tells me to surrender.  Surrender because I am a prisoner to pain, and the abuser will never stop and they are the ones in control, and the world is unfair by nature.  My emotional self is very confused.  My logical self can see the truth.  It says, "theirs is emotionally abusive behavior." There are those who will never remove their foot, and that they will always believe they are righteous, and I know this to be true because it is what I have experienced. My therapist nailed it.  So, what do I do with this information?

I have to pledge to myself that I will stand up and speak up when someone is being hurtful.  I have to pledge to myself that I won't allow shame to creep in because I stood up and took up space that is rightly mine.  I can't let myself surrender to a destiny of pain.  If someone doesn't get off my foot because they are in denial of hurting me, I will call for others to help me see what is truly happening, and name it what it is.  This illusion of power over others is how we strip one another of our true selves, our identities.  I'd like to have the power to say "stop" and therefore make it so, but I can't.  I don't really hold their puppet strings at all; and neither do they hold mine.  

I have to recognize that continuing to fall for the slight-of-hand, the illusion of power over others, is enabling others to feel like they are in control, or enabling me to believe that I have power over them.  It gets me trapped in victimhood, a spiral of shame, and it is a distraction from growth and self-awareness. Who am I, really?  How can I figure it out if I'm stuck under someone else's set of rules that play to my emotions instead of actual logic?  I can't.  I have to get some tools, get out from underfoot, and avoid the trap in the future.  It's okay to liberate myself from oppression and to reject their martyrdom.  I am also permitted to care that they are being hurtful or abusive, to feel the pain and name it for what it is so that I empower myself, and don't resort to throwing in the towel.  I can climb off the crazy train and work towards my own sanity.