Some more thoughts on 'double bind' situations.
Anger didn't get me far, I have to tell you, most likely because I left it too long. Again, this felt like a double bind situation. Damned if I got out of the situation, damned if I didn't and .... well.... life continues with me sweeping up the fragments of improperly timed, poorly assigned and mis-directed anger.
If you think about childlike anger, it's often labelled as
throwing a tantrum. Let's say anger is part of the RAGE circuitry (in panksepp's 7 core emotions model), and unfiltered RAGE is more like a child 'throwing a tantrum', compared to the more socially accepted adult anger expression of more clearly and specifically directed filtered version of RAGE (blame & shame?).
So if you missed the opportunity to learn and develop Anger as a child, with pre-verbal or pre-abstract thinking which means expressing anger by throwing tantrums. Learning as a adult, where there's extreme social judgement against an adult 'throwing a tantrum'. This creates a double bind situation. Society allows adults to only express anger in a highly skilled way, but in order to learn anger, you have to learn by expressing and doing anger, which will be in a very unskilled way (ie. adult tantrums), and that way of learning is socially unacceptable.
How to break out of this double bind?? Well how about trying to bend the rules of social expectation and social norms? The long term goal is to develop anger skills, the way to learn anger is through expressing it and messing up. So focus creative thinking on finding safe pockets of society and relationships, where you can more authentically express your anger. At first it will be lots of messing up, along with social judgments for acting crazy or not being so 'nice or kind', but if you're open to learning from mistakes, with practice you will improve and get better.
I'm reminded of various breaking free from narcissistic relationships or codependency recovery models. They describe similar dynamic when they address creating boundaries.
Dr. Ross Rosenberg on Codependency Recovery stages & warnings:
Dr. Robin Berman on breaking the cycle from Narcissistic Parents:
You are going to need to
discover boundaries —where you begin and your parents end—
to free your authentic self.
When you choose who you want to be, rather than who your parents wanted you to be, you break free from their narcissistic grip.
...
Next, you don’t want to repeat/generalize the relationship that you had with your narcissistic parent to your coworkers, partner, or friends.
Realize where you are meeting the needs of other narcissists in your life, real or imagined.
Sometimes children of narcissists assume that every person they’re close to will need the same kind of hyper-attention and appeasement that their parent did—and unconsciously begin
doing mental backbends to please others.
...
Try just being frank, try not to rush in and take care of their feelings.
If being different from your loved one feels uncomfortable—or if you feel you’re risking love with that stance—just notice it.
Watch how much stronger your bond is than what you secretly imagined it to be.
This is the gift of evolving past the scene of the original crime—your own childhood.
Surviving childhood meant taking care of the narcissist and swallowing your feelings.
But now as an adult you can begin to surround yourself with people that you feel safe and at home with—like soul mate girlfriends—who know and love the real you, and this can be deeply transformative.
-- "The Legacy of a Narcissistic Parent" full article:
http://goop.com/the-legacy-of-a-narcissistic-parent/
As an adult, we have the gift of imagination and creativity
This is something I feel I lack in. I hear what people come up with as solutions to problems on this board and scratch my head, wondering how I could have possibly missed that. Before the PTSD rekindling, I was an extremely logical thinker. People came to me for my opinion because there was no emotion in my solutions.
Maybe you're spending all your creative imagination resources towards playing nice? Hiding our needs from ourselves and others, suppressing our anger is a subtle form of deception. And we often underestimate the amount of energy it takes to lie or for self-deception.
I often get into double bind situations when dealing with constantly changing and confusing social and relational expectations. The easy choice is to go for short term safety, but the harder choice is to 'do what's right' and follow principals and ideals, to follow my conscience. Both choices can lead to suffering. I've learned to try to 'do the right thing' even at the risk of short term punishment, keeping up with principals and ideals is more consistent and predictable to me in the long term, than trying to keep up with a confusing moving target which is how social norms and expectations appear to me.
But I do recognize the reality and importance of social survival and acceptance. I still often yield to other's boundaries, limitations and expectations; but I try to do the best I can to focus on the long term, trying to creatively incorporate meeting needs of everyone involved in the bigger picture. Adding in consideration of other's needs adds another layer of double binds, and I suppose that's when compassion, empathy and selfless service come in.
The truth will set you free. I think that we underestimate the value of honesty and a clear conscience. I wonder if honesty naturally increases energy and deception naturally drains energy? Though more sociopathic types seem to get a 'dupers delight' high when they deceive, but I have also read that admitted sociopaths would still prefer to have the freedom to be honest. Everyone might still be hard-wired for unconditional love, the freedom to be fully seen and accepted as exactly who they genuinely are (all the good, bad and terrifying parts).
Dr. Jordan Peterson describes the downsides of lying in this interview clip:
