Posted by trouble on March 13, 2002, at 12:22:24
In reply to Re: Mind Games, posted by johnX2 on March 13, 2002, at 9:42:13
I don't know what to say. It looks like most of y'all, including Dr.Bob have used the term mind games like a rorsarsch test, and it seems pointless to try but I just feel like I need to add something constructive before letting this go and I don't know where to start, please bear w/me.
Basically, the mind games Dinah spoke of were real, they were apparent and sad. If you look over her last week of posting, especially btwn her and myself it becomes clear that something painful was compelling her to feel badly about herself. In retrospect I believe her "gremlin" (the inner critic who is never satisfied until you're a puddle on the floor) had her by the balls, and I spoonfed that thing out of my own ignorance and narcissism. In retrospect, again looking over the posts it's clear, I see where things went off-track, it's all there in our discussions on anger and values and principles, she set me up, and this is a game, and it's not evil or deceptive or dishonest, god nothing is that simple, but her gremlin set me (really herself) up w/ her inquiries regarding middle class values, she wanted me, specificlly to share my ideas on middle class values, and this is where I should have asked why, why me, she knew on some level that she was throwing raw meat to a starving tiger, and I responded accordingly, like the passionate, grass-roots Marxist I am, boo to the middle class, that is to say I was talking from an ideological perspective when what Dinah needed was more therapeutic and validating in nature.
WE all dropped the ball when she asked for help about the bullying husband, when she came back and said forget it, that she was a terrible wife for talking about her marriage, that was an obvious "game" she had set herself up for that went completely over my head, busy as I was feeding her gremlin.
Then she proclaimed that a rest cure was in order, and would take a break from typing, and I applauded that. I believe that by this time everything I said to her fed the gremlin, and you can see that in the posts if you have the stomach for it. She came back that night and posted several times in game-speak, and I and others replied playfully in kind, which was our mistake.
By now she must have been grasping for whatever remained of her self-respect, you can almost see it draining out of her as she tried to regain her footing on PBA w/the That Was Beautiful, Dr. Bob post, which began, "As one who finds true beauty in justice..."Whoa, hold on there. Justice is a moral principle, and I had been attacking moral principles from a pedagological point of view, which, in my conceit, I didn't realize was taken by Dinah as a personal attack. I'm supposed to know all about mindgames and be so adroit at turning them around but I was blinded by my own narcissism run amuck.
Final and most poignant conversation btwn us was on PB when she, fresh from the rest cure gave someone advice w/ her usual creative wit and metaphor, and I posted Brilliant Wit, Dinah, You're Peaking Again! I hope it's apparent how stupid that was, how stupid Face Value can be. How do you think she took that? Her response made my hair stand on end. Had I been the least bit sensitive to the "dance" we were doing, and not the face-value intellectual boob that I was she'd probably still be w/us today.By the time I realized what went wrong it was too late and complicated, she was too demoralized.
So yes, I think it's important to grow up a little and look into what Eric Berne called the psychology of human relationships, or "Games People Play." They are more about pain, than they are The Talented Mr. Ripley.
trouble
poster:trouble
thread:19517
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020305/msgs/19767.html