I had a discussion tonight in my group session that I thought I would share. It was about how people, any people, can get hooked into a triangle. The 3 corners of the triangle are 1) victim, 2) persecutor/abuser and 3) rescuer.
I can understand it to a point but to actually start to talk about it is hard so there is still a lot of work I have to do to understand it. In any interpersonal drama there is this triangle and people can slide from one corner to another depending on what they are trying to do. A person who is having a crisis can pull us into the triangle by being a victim but then they threaten to do something if they don't get the attention they want and then slide over into the persecutor corner and we are left to become either their rescuer or their victim. The other option is to get off the triangle, to disengage from it. The hard part is knowing when there is a legitimate need to be in the role and when we have to disengage.
For most of us, especially those of us with childhood abuse, it is the first type of human interaction we learned. We are forced into a victim role or to get any type of need met we have to learn to manipulate someone else into that role or to become a rescuer. In some dynamics the persecutor forces us to be a victim and then manipulates themselves to be seen in the role of rescuer. It can be crazy making and we don't even know we are caught up in it. There is also the dynamic where the persecutor can hook us in to the role of victim and we pull in a third party because we are looking for a rescuer. In this scenario, in most cases we need to take a breath and realize that we can rescue ourselves. It is just our experience that keeps us in the role of victim and we don't have to be there.
There are a lot of articles on this triangle and at the heart of it is the need for control. The aggressor controlling the victim, the rescuer taking control of the situation and the victim giving up control. It is a concept that seems so simple but can get complicated so quickly as some people can be master manipulators on this triangle.
I can understand it to a point but to actually start to talk about it is hard so there is still a lot of work I have to do to understand it. In any interpersonal drama there is this triangle and people can slide from one corner to another depending on what they are trying to do. A person who is having a crisis can pull us into the triangle by being a victim but then they threaten to do something if they don't get the attention they want and then slide over into the persecutor corner and we are left to become either their rescuer or their victim. The other option is to get off the triangle, to disengage from it. The hard part is knowing when there is a legitimate need to be in the role and when we have to disengage.
For most of us, especially those of us with childhood abuse, it is the first type of human interaction we learned. We are forced into a victim role or to get any type of need met we have to learn to manipulate someone else into that role or to become a rescuer. In some dynamics the persecutor forces us to be a victim and then manipulates themselves to be seen in the role of rescuer. It can be crazy making and we don't even know we are caught up in it. There is also the dynamic where the persecutor can hook us in to the role of victim and we pull in a third party because we are looking for a rescuer. In this scenario, in most cases we need to take a breath and realize that we can rescue ourselves. It is just our experience that keeps us in the role of victim and we don't have to be there.
There are a lot of articles on this triangle and at the heart of it is the need for control. The aggressor controlling the victim, the rescuer taking control of the situation and the victim giving up control. It is a concept that seems so simple but can get complicated so quickly as some people can be master manipulators on this triangle.
