Control addiction
Oct. 23rd, 2011 11:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabrinamariI think I have two posts in me today: one is about imposing control in relationships, and the other is about colonialism. Really, they are about the same exact thing expressed at two very different levels: the harm that inevitably emerges from one entity's all-encompassing attempts to control another, whether the entities involved are individuals or nations.
I've been thinking about this a lot over the last week or so, probably because I've been making arrangements to go home and I've also been been watching and listening as friends and dear ones around me attempt to grapple with their own control issues.
There's also another reason: I always look at things through the twin lenses of agency (or lack thereof) and resilience, because (together with compassion) they make up some of the most important concerns in my life.
Living with my mom, I discovered early on the absolute futility of attempting to control the behaviors and beliefs of others. My mother was the unlucky recipient of the kind of parenting that left her perpetually anxious, fearful and angry. What little I know about her own father makes me think he was a perfectionist with a strong tendency towards obsessive-compulsive behavior. And although she never speaks of it, I don't think it was an easy childhood. In the time I've known her, my mom has interwoven her love with a deep-set need to control the behavior of the people around her, especially those to whom she is most close. By attempting to control our choices, actions and even beliefs, she has tried, rather unsuccessfully, to keep herself safe from all the things that scare her. In so doing, she has pushed away almost everyone who loves her in one way or another.
And even after all these decades, she does not seem understand why her children are not as close to her as she would like, why her relationships are not as satisfying as she would hope, and why the same kinds of conflicts seem to emerge in her life over and over again.
After watching this dance for several decades, it is my belief that In things both small and large, attempts to control others will inevitably fail. They will never succeed at bringing those you love closer to you. They will, however, breed mistrust, keep you from developing resiliency, and push away those you love at the very moments in which you long for them the most.
The one thing I do not understand is how to communicate this in a way that can be easily heard and understood.
All around me, I see people in the grips of pain, loneliness and fear, tugging mercilessly at those they love. I see people imposing rules and boundaries on each other that cross the line from safety to insanity as they try, so very desperately, not to lose the love that makes their lives worthwhile. In so doing, they invariably drive that love away, just as my mother spent decades driving me and my brother away. And yet, they do not see it.
Perhaps this cannot be communicated, but only experienced. I do not know.
Wondering...
I've been thinking about this a lot over the last week or so, probably because I've been making arrangements to go home and I've also been been watching and listening as friends and dear ones around me attempt to grapple with their own control issues.
There's also another reason: I always look at things through the twin lenses of agency (or lack thereof) and resilience, because (together with compassion) they make up some of the most important concerns in my life.
Living with my mom, I discovered early on the absolute futility of attempting to control the behaviors and beliefs of others. My mother was the unlucky recipient of the kind of parenting that left her perpetually anxious, fearful and angry. What little I know about her own father makes me think he was a perfectionist with a strong tendency towards obsessive-compulsive behavior. And although she never speaks of it, I don't think it was an easy childhood. In the time I've known her, my mom has interwoven her love with a deep-set need to control the behavior of the people around her, especially those to whom she is most close. By attempting to control our choices, actions and even beliefs, she has tried, rather unsuccessfully, to keep herself safe from all the things that scare her. In so doing, she has pushed away almost everyone who loves her in one way or another.
And even after all these decades, she does not seem understand why her children are not as close to her as she would like, why her relationships are not as satisfying as she would hope, and why the same kinds of conflicts seem to emerge in her life over and over again.
After watching this dance for several decades, it is my belief that In things both small and large, attempts to control others will inevitably fail. They will never succeed at bringing those you love closer to you. They will, however, breed mistrust, keep you from developing resiliency, and push away those you love at the very moments in which you long for them the most.
The one thing I do not understand is how to communicate this in a way that can be easily heard and understood.
All around me, I see people in the grips of pain, loneliness and fear, tugging mercilessly at those they love. I see people imposing rules and boundaries on each other that cross the line from safety to insanity as they try, so very desperately, not to lose the love that makes their lives worthwhile. In so doing, they invariably drive that love away, just as my mother spent decades driving me and my brother away. And yet, they do not see it.
Perhaps this cannot be communicated, but only experienced. I do not know.
Wondering...
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-23 03:58 pm (UTC)It's hard to communicate messages the other person doesn't want to hear. Messages that challenge self-image, in particular, are hard to acknowledge, and when heard tend to cause anger.
From a place where the recipient feels safe and loved, something happens to trigger a receptive mode, but I don't know how this works. Then the messenger delivers, from a centered, loving place, a message that will help the receiver achieve their desires, but from the messenger's perspective. "Telling me how to do the dishes makes me feel like you're trying to control me, instead of making sure the dishes are clean."
If you figure out how to do this, please let the rest of us know how!
no subject
Date: 2011-10-23 04:04 pm (UTC)Again, it's the whole culture giving us warped messages about what love is, how to get it and hold on to it, how to dig in to certainties that aren't, how to keep living in ways that enslave us, keep us fearful and off balance, block us from our Selves.
Stepping out of that is tough, and stepping out of it in one area of life is no guarantee that we'll do it in others.
What I notice is that when I'm in my right flow, in my Integrity, I don't feel the desire to control; it affects how I act, and it seems to affect others. It seems that everything we do is infectious, so that where there's someone panicking, the people around them will become increasingly tense; when there's someone standing firmly centred, others become calmer, laughter is contagious, and so is kindness.
Maybe all we can do is get closer to right relationship with ourselves, and trust that those moments of sanity and peace will be as infectious as tears or fear or joy or the giggles.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-23 04:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-23 04:17 pm (UTC)Perhaps focusing on your own peace and centredness and allowing them to respond to you until they're used to being around that, and then allowing them to slowly unfold in their own time because of that sense of safety? I suppose we go back to the whole concept of abandoning the desire to control/fix/jump ahead, and stay instead in being present.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-23 04:18 pm (UTC)Alcoholic behavior tends to span generations, even if there is no current alcoholic, because it is learned from one's parents. It may have colored your mother's behavior and, in turn, your own. My own mother was bitter about how her life was unfulfilled, but she learned how to be an addict from her morphine-addicted mother and enabling father. Similarly, my father learned how to be an enabler from his mother, in response to his alcoholic father.
In my own journey I learned that repeated exposure to my parents merely reopened my own wounds until I stopped trying to control the situation myself and also ignored their own controlling attempts. I made it clear that my life was satisfying enough on my own terms, and that I did not need their approval or even their acceptance. That broke the chain.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-23 05:49 pm (UTC)I like this turn of phrase, and hereby appropriate it! :-)
no subject
Date: 2011-10-23 07:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-24 01:45 am (UTC)Along this line is also Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families - all the problems of a dysfunctional family without a drop to drink. When there isn't an outside influence such as alcohol or drugs, there seems to be nothing to specific to point at for a cause or reason. Gentle and commitment working to change the survival skills into conscious choices of self.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-24 01:47 am (UTC)Yeah, I thought you would like that phrase when I read it and glad you saw it :)
no subject
Date: 2011-10-24 03:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-24 08:41 am (UTC)I encountered an interesting line concerning this very matter. As you well know, I have recently faced quite a bit of stress, not only with my mother's illness, my father's institutionalization, other family drama and issues surrounding my boyfriend/partner. I tend to be as subtle as a hammer at times, and know my bluntness can be offensive to some. I'm not the easiest person to deal with and as I age, I am far more cognizant of saying/doing the right thing than ever before. Control is a big part of my life. Heck, I wouldn't be a good dominant without it. I felt I had to take control of some situations, or abandon aspirations of control, because things were getting out of hand. There were deciding moments where the push/pull of "relationships" was so destructive to my energy stores, to my very survival, that some felt as though they weren't important enough to continue. That I was having to do risk/benefit analysis at a time like this, having to hold people accountable for being a good, responsible adult and a decent friend in the face of this catastrophe.....it just wasn't right. You did give me the 'zomg are you completely insane?' look when I discussed ending my relationship with D the night before Mom's memorial. It was about respect, self-preservation and most importantly, loving MYSELF because he was falling painfully short in many areas of our partnership. I can't predict the future, but I've not closed the door on him; I've closed the door on the behaviors, namely my being made an option in his life.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-24 08:43 am (UTC)Thanks for this reminder, Glen. I can let it go any time I choose.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-24 11:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-24 11:30 am (UTC)I LOVE IT!
no subject
Date: 2011-10-24 11:40 am (UTC)I looked at you like you were crazy because I thought, "Oh honey, things are already so hard on you! Why make additional painful decisions right now?".
I am careful, slow, deliberate and reflective. I don't like pain, either. So when I'm confronted with hard things, I just reflexively slow down and think, and often that means refraining from doing something rather than deciding to do something. Plus, I tend to move away from pain rather than towards it, at least at first.
So it may be that our styles are simply very, very different.
Ultimately, making choices for yourself is not controlling of others. Insisting that they change in ways that you prefer is, however. To say, and to mean, "I cannot l cannot live with this," is not control addiction. To hound, undercut, flagellate, shame, blame and threaten another to try ad get them to do what you want is.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-24 11:50 am (UTC)Some visits have been really good. Others have started really well and become excruciating.
I can't control what happens this time, but I can think about my options in advance and make a list of strategies to draw on.
But I do tend to connect the things around me as I experience them, so it's just easy to connect my experience with my mom to the experiences I observe in others whom I care for.
I'm OK. I haz tools, powerful, transformative tools.
Also, I am a phoenix as much as a rabbit, and anytime there is a tough conundrum or a major challeng, I can say, with an honest and peaceful heart that others had better bet on me. Cause I *am* resilience. : )
no subject
Date: 2011-10-24 12:07 pm (UTC)Incidentally, I was awfully slow in my decision and I moved away from pain when I made the decision to end the relationship. I'd suffered 5 months of my mother's illness; he wasn't present by my side for one day of it, and I agonized each and every day after she died over the knowledge that he probably was going to fail me again. I just couldn't reconcile the anger and hurt.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-24 06:09 pm (UTC)