Victim Vertex meditations, part 2

On the way to Van Horn TX on day one of this little epic, I was reflecting on various strategies, behaviors, redirections and perspectives to help myself move from the victim vertex of the Karpman drama triangle (keywords: "I'm blameless") to the vulnerable vertex of the "Winner's Triangle," (god I hate that)-- where getting to the vulnerable vertex has to do with problem solving, options, consequences. Basically, the idea is that one transforms the central idea of being a victim ("I'm blameless") into a realistic and more empowered perspective. 

VS.












Isn't that graphic cute? I am well on my way to writing a best selling self help book, with graphics like that. 

Anyway, it seems to take a lot of energy to hold on to being blameless, since it isn't possible to keep that position without also blaming others. There's a profound self defense involved there that powerfully blocks the bigger picture. I was talking with a friend yesterday who is having serious difficulties in her marriage and she was bemoaning how all of the outside observers judge and criticize the person who wants to end a marriage or partnership. "Isn't it like slavery if you just try to stay in it, even if you are unhappy?" And I saw from an outsider's perspective A's choices-- I assume she ended the partnership with me because she was unhappy and wanted to take a chance on happiness. Since I was completely capable of supporting my friend-- "Yeah, even in the face of a commitment, people need to be free to find their own path to their own happiness and others have no right to judge"-- it suddenly occurred to me that (in theory) it ought to be possible for me to reach acceptance of the decisions A made. 

Our emotional anosognosia is corrected by conversations with others, at least in part. 

Reflecting more on this, it occurs to me that a central reason why we might be able to support a friend in behavior that we feel victimized by when it comes from a partner is that we do not take the behavior of our friend personally. The central pain of my victimhood regarding the end of the partnership is a maelstrom of personal feelings of hurt, ruin, rejection, abandonment, etc. I imagine some weird far shore of equanimity where I am able to not take being broken up with personally. 

If it's not about me, though, then I don't need to defend myself. Theoretically, I could take off the armor and start moving toward responsibility, empowerment, problem solving, etc. 

Sounds like relief

All well and good. But some of this gets to what I distrust about self help stuff-- helpful insights, clarity, resonant ideas that make perfect sense-- but no lasting, fundamental behavioral change. Maybe it's just me, but I can easily think that I have a solution to ineffective ways of doing things as soon as I assent in my mind to the reasonableness of the larger perspective. And yet, sometimes abjectly, I am entirely stuck in the mire of unconscious patterns and bound to repeat them again and again, in my actual real world non-intellectual blood and guts behavior. 

One of the unlikely but true aspects of Alcoholics Anonymous is that, in the early days and perhaps still in areas of the world where there are no meetings, people got sober entirely from reading the Big Book. I think this was possible because, while the text definitely outlines the situation clearly for the mind and lays out in very reasonable terms the problem and the solution, it shifts to a chapter called Into Action. The program of recovery goes far beyond knowledge and insight into actions one must take in order to live happily sober. Most self help books of the insightful kind stay almost entirely in the realm of the "aha! how true!" and ask nothing of the reader in the way of behavioral change. 

Here's another million selling graphic:

It's such a simple idea. But I am so easily convinced that, if I just change my perspectives and my thinking, my life will change. In some ways, of course, this is true. But it is only partial and can even be a dangerous delusion, in my opinion. And I admit to some laziness in this, because I find it very easy to "change my thinking" or to "have a realization," but I find it very challenging to "change my behavior" and "make different choices and stick to them."

So, as annoying as the 12 step people can be when they suggest "shallow" behavioral approaches to potentially fatal delusional behavior, they are often right. Paraphrasing the Big Book, be quick to see where behavioral psychologists are right. 

Back to the core wound of the victim: taking the words, behavior and choices of others personally. What actions could I take to ameliorate this tendency? To get a larger perspective that honestly assesses what is about me and what is only about the other person? And when it is about me, accepting it anyway and moving on? Using it as a path toward lasting change? Chalking it up to something other than being loathsome and worthy of abandonment? 

A whole series of actions seem to promise at least some reduction in that personally affronted, searing, wounded feeling. I'll start with the first three that come into my mind.

1. Forming a reliable, realistic and trustworthy relationship with oneself. This probably involves a commitment to being alone long enough to make it real. Not with the goal of "becoming ready" or "becoming perfect" so that one can finally be in a "healthy relationship," but with the goal of simply having a solid place to stand. I have always felt that, when a partner ends things or when I end things, entire energies of my core identity also end. It's a killing feeling. I imagine it would be more enjoyable all around if I had a solid core of reliable and trustworthy connection with life and with myself that was not so seriously shaken by partnership, either good or bad. 

2. Daily silent meditation practice. I have been meditating most days for 10 minutes since last July, and have found that it is a reliable and fairly realistic, doable way to get a bigger sense of things. A larger perspective. A daily contact with the essential core feeling that everything is okay. I've been centered down from some extravagant delusions and a false sense of urgency many times through this practice. For me, to really get on a cellular level that everything is exactly as it should be and that all is well is a miracle. 

3. Discussing everything that is going on honestly with trusted others, either professional or not. I was headed toward an unconscious repeat of a self-destructive set of behaviors recently and simply saying out loud to my counselor what I was doing and what I was thinking of doing broke through my delusional re-enactment inclinations completely. It was crystal clear to me that it would not serve me at all to act out of those inclinations, and I was actually able to refrain from doing so. In the step 10 part of the Big Book, one of the key actions one is supposed to take in response to selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear is to "discuss with someone immediately." A huge behavioral change for me, since my usual strategy is to "figure it out" and then go ahead and do whatever my impulses are telling me to do anyway. It takes a definite vulnerability for me to just tell people what I am thinking of doing and to have that possibility of starkly seeing how self destructive it could be. 

So- deciding to be alone, meditation, discussion. 

A few actual behavioral changes. 

Simple, right?