How Could You Do That?! by Dr. Laura Schlessinger

Author:Dr. Laura Schlessinger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

GIVE ME THIS DAY MY DAILY MOLEHILL

Diane, thirty-nine, chooses to do this by making, in her words, “mountains out of molehills.” She thinks about a problem so much that by the time she confronts the person or situation, it's graduated to a crisis so powerful that it's impossible to deal with.

“Do you withdraw or get real mean?”

“Both. But I'm driving myself crazy about everything—my looks, brains, judgment…I guess I'm just insecure.”

“Insecure sometimes means that you haven't done the things you need to do so that your reputation with yourself has grown.”

“Right. I kind of avoid confrontations or situations where I could fail or feel bad.”

“Diane, everybody's feelings are hurt when they hear negativity. The task becomes to sort out the usefulness of the hurtful information. We do that by getting more than one opinion. We do that by measuring the input against the yardstick of our own earned self-assessment.”

Basically, Diane makes it worse as an attempt to avoid dealing with it concretely. Self-examination, the challenge of personal growth, is being cleverly bypassed.

I would see this maneuver in therapy sessions with couples. One spouse would voice a concern, description of behavior, or complaint about the other spouse. The reaction would be the most gross exaggeration of what was heard, in fact to the point of being ridiculous, in order to squeeze out from under it. For example: “I was uncomfortable with how you behaved at the dinner party” is responded to with, “There you go again, always complaining about my behavior…everything I do is wrong…I never meet your criteria,” etc., instead of owning up to the transgression and being done with it. But no. You don't want to look bad or admit to being bad.

Naturally then, time is spent fixing the “perception” before you can get to the avoided issue of the original complaint. In addition, the process of fixing the perception causes one to have to say things that makes the transgressor not look or feel so bad, right? Things like, “Yes, I know it isn't ALL the time,” or “Yes, I realize you have sometimes been nice to them,” etc. Clever.

Exaggerating complaints to avoid taking responsibility is a self-defense technique. Take this a step further and you have an individual whose virtual identity is as the “hurt one.” In a commentary about Burt Reynolds entitled, “Pain, Anger Stir Reynolds' Demons” in the Los Angeles Daily News (10/25/94), Phil Rosenthal wrote about this kind of problem: “They show us a chip with a man attached at the shoulder, angrily grasping for something from which anger can only separate him. Life is not a zero-sum game. Opponents, real or perceived, don't have to lose in order for a person to win. Misery is to be overcome, not passed on.”

Alex, thirty-eight, is struggling with this lesson. Alex's girlfriend says that he's always nurturing misery. He admits to being hurt or sad a lot. He says he grew up angry and is still angry. He says that his mom always treated him differently from the other kids.

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