It is Probably You...

[kokopelle]

Are there times when a situation or a person really bugs you? It just gets under your skin and rankles your nerves? Have you ever asked, "why does this situation bother me? what can I do about it?". The good and the bad news is that the root of the issue is you and yourself. I say this will little interest in the blame game of life. I say this in the spirit of healing those things that can be healed, and laying down those things that just are.



Before I start into what it could be about you, allow me to state the exceptions to these generalizations I make below. #1, there are evil nasty mean people in the world. They are very bothersome, irritating, and generally not good to have around. Being bothered by this kind of situation is a reasonable reaction to external stimuli. #2, there is irritating stimuli in the world, period. These include beeping horns, smelly stuff, soggy clothes, bad lovers, etc. The litmus test is the question, "would most people find the following behavior/situation as irritating as I am finding it?". If the answer is a "yes", than you are probably reacting to the external world with no inner triggers involved. Society, as a whole, has probably set up some controls to avoid the same situations. If the answer is "no", the roots of conflict below may apply.

There are two ways the personalized roots of conflict are created. These mix and match, sometimes becoming indecipherable from each other.

The first root of conflict is an emotional memory. An event in the past creates an emotional association with a person, attitude, or arrangement. An example of this would be a person is bullied by large boys. The emotional stamp of this would cause issues with adults of similar stature. The person who had a difficult childhood with a redheaded mother may have instant animosity with other redheads. Yes, external things do happen to you. They do leave emotional imprints in your behavior. It's shitty and not fun, but it is your stuff. The redhead is not your mother and the "built like a jock" boss is not a childhood bully. While emotional memories are quite powerful, they can be owned by the individual. If the current redhead truly acts like your mother, than fine, call her on it. If the boss is a bully, than ok, you can react like you did in childhood. BUT, if the only similarity is on the surface, an informed insight into the emotional triggers can short-circuit behavior that is not appropriate in the present.

The second root of conflict is behavior projection, aka psychological projection. Very simply, this is where you take issue with other's behavior in the same area that you consciously or unconsciously condemn your own behavior. Some other definitions of this phenomenon include:

** "Projection is the opposite defense mechanism to identification. We project our own unpleasant feelings onto someone else and blame them for having thoughts that we really have."
** "A defense mechanism in which the individual attributes to other people impulses and traits that he himself has but cannot accept. It is especially likely to occur when the person lacks insight into his own impulses and traits."
** "Attributing one's own undesirable traits to other people or agencies."
** "The individual perceives in others the motive he denies having himself. Thus the cheat is sure that everyone else is dishonest."
** "A man harboring attractions for a woman would perceive other men as having the same attractions for her."
** "People attribute their own undesirable traits onto others. An individual who unconsciously harbors his or her aggressive/sexual tendencies may then imagine other people acting in an excessively aggressive or sexual way."
** "An individual who possesses malicious characteristics, but who is unwilling to perceive himself as an antagonist, convinces himself that his opponent feels and would act the same way."

I am presenting this as an option because I very much believe that it is in play more often than people realize. I often shock myself when I find that projection is the cause my "having a beef" or finding issue in somebody. While the detection of this internal conflict root is not difficult, it does take a large amount of personal honesty. The dissolving of the hate/condemnation/dislike/judgment of the other person is often replaced with a like call upon ourselves. If you are not ready to do this, and the mirror is turned back on you enough times, the admittance of projection becomes impalpable. It becomes easier to point out the splinter in another's eye instead of addressing the log in our own.

There are big benefits for those who are willing to own their own logs. IME (in my experience), the admittance of a personal flaw softens the heart to the flaws of others. It takes a "how dare you!!!" attitude and turns it into a "so you have it too???" frame of mind. The trick is to get past the self-judgment. Self-discernment is a better path. The proper acknowledgement of an undesirable trait allows for work on that trait. While complete elimination of a trait does not happen overnight or even in a lifetime, gradual improvement is possible.

I mentioned earlier that the two roots can mix. This can make for inappropriate reactions who's roots are difficult to find. The emotional memories can both create and augment traits that are undesirable. Let's say that mom, the redhead, was abused by father. The emotional memory of scorn may be applied to redheads, while a compulsive desire to control the environment was created by the abusive environment. Let's say that the person than, years later, has an office mate who is a red head who also seeks to control their environment in extreme ways. All the danger flags would go off. The red head triggers the emotional memory of the mother. The controlling nature of the office mate triggers a psychological projection of the self-inherent need to control. The result is an instant hatred of somebody never met before, and for "no good reason". Like a complex knot, somehow the two issues, hair color and projection, are later untangled with the childhood as the root cause.

The "probably you" reactions of life can be quite frustrating, and quite frankly, destructive to the life of the person with these reactions. The identification and resolution becomes important for the sanity and quality-of-life for those afflicted and affected. I write about these because I am dealing with these modalities myself. I blog for myself, to put myself on paper, and later articles will touch on these behaviors. Feel free to add anything to these observations!

Comments

[qassandra.livejournal.com]

Untangling the two is a huge issue for me in my current relationships. I've been in a couple severely abusive situations that took me a longer time to get out of than it should've, because I inappropriately identified things as my problem. Now, I'm with someone who is wonderful, but we fight (verbally) more often than we should, because I do the opposite.

[greensh.livejournal.com]

When you say, "I inappropriately identified things as my problem", do you mean that you took on the burden of the problem, i.e. "it must be my fault, I must be the broken one"?

Your comments allow me to see that the dynamics are an outward (external origin), inward (internal psychological/emotional integration), outward (people/events/situations triggering) flip. We are greatest victims to the "probably you" scenario when we are ignorant that we have a stake in our reactions. Our ignorance, willing or not, gives away our power to react appropriately.

[qassandra.livejournal.com]

I took on the blame, but before I ever did that, I would tell myself that I was overreacting to what was being done to me. In fact, most of the people who have abused me have directly told me that I was overreacting or being overdramatic. The man who eventually raped me at one point said that I was reacting like he was an abuser and that was hurting his feelings; in hindsight, I've realized that I was reacting that way, because that's what he was.

My current boyfriend, who knows more about my past than anyone, doesn't tell me that I am bad and wrong when I lash out inappropriately at him, even though I know it hurts him. Instead, he makes sure to tell me that I'm safe and that he knows I've been through a lot in the past, but "that's all over now". (I mean, we have our fights, especially when I hit on one of his wounds, but this is where things end up.) I'm getting better, we're getting better, and I know he's willing to stick with me while I work through this.

[greensh.livejournal.com]

There are good, bad and ugly people in our lives. They have their own issues. Sometimes we are beat-up by their stuff. Often those with a spiritual bent ask, "gee whiz, why did this happen to me? This, along with your reply and the sh*t in my own life, prompted me to write an article (http://greensh.livejournal.com/51736.html) that I've had in the back of my mind.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

A woman I used to be good friends with displays psychological projection constantly, to the point where she has lost several friends, me included. She has accused people of things that only she had done. She was convinced that everyone else had severe issues, not her. She had convinced herself that the boyfriend she'd broken up with, our friend Lex, was her true love and would not leave him alone, even after he started dating someone else two years later. Now, she has convinced herself that his girlfriend is a horrible, vicious person. She though everyone was abusing cocaine, when she was. She insists she does not have any psychological or behavioral problems, when she does. She lies, manipulates, and deceives to get her own way, and doesn't listen or seem to care when other people call her out on it.
In essence, she is dead to me. The girl I used to know and love has been replaced by someone very bitter and angry with herself, and there is not much I can do. She has become toxic. She cannot and will not admit her own flaws. She moved ten minutes away from Lex, claiming he could help fix her computer if it ever broke (he works with my husband as a computer tech). His girlfriend, Lena, who is now one of my best friends, worries that she may try to push her way back in somehow, and that her behavioral problems will cause damage.
It's a little heartbreaking to witness. I keep hoping that one of these days Beth will come back, but I feel she is too far gone.

[oceans-voice.livejournal.com]

I totally agree. It has been my observation, and sometimes a painful self observation, that I am really the only one who matters when it comes to what someone else does or does not do to bug me or not bug me. If they bug me or not... that has nothing to do with them and everything to do with me and what has happened in my past to bring me up to that very moment. People in general do nothing to us at all. It is our own past and reactions that are what we need to look at.