The field of psychology and counseling is fond of talking about our "repetition compulsions" and the predictable patterns we often follow... but who is actually directing and responsible for the pattern?
I think we have to look closer at the deep-seated loops we perform and patterns we follow in life not only from within, but also from an external perspective.
We're often told that when a number of things in our lives go the same way over and over and over again — even though different people may be involved — the common denominator in the situation is allegedly ourselves rather than them.
Is that always true? Is it 100% true?
Maybe it is and maybe it isn't, but I think there is actually a fine line that you have to walk between looking at where you are at the core of the pattern because of what you do and where the other people are causing - or are participants to - the situation constantly being repeated. Often it turns out that your pattern is actually a joint dance of dysfunction.
One of the difficult issues I had to deal with and overcome — with respect to my own childhood, youth and upbringing — were the patterns that I learned from my parents' relationship, and subsequently from my mother, after my parents got divorced.
My mother was a somewhat psychologically toxic person (but I suppose it depends on how you look at it, and who you are) so when I look back on my early life, I became aware of the way I repeatedly found myself in relationship situations where my primary preoccupation was trying to navigate the situation in such a way that I would not be yelled at, screamed at or shamed... for taking even one tiny step outside a line of "requirements" laid out by the person whose company I was keeping.
So I was basically avoiding being harshly judged. That was a recognizable pattern. Now, we can say that's all about me and my childhood.
But what also holds true in such a situation is that the people we choose to be with on repeated occasions will generally be personalities who expected to be served and who believed that my primary function in their lives was simply to be the person who took care of their every wants and need, while they did not consider it particularly important to care about anything other than their own needs and desires.
And so, when those needs were not met, they would yell and scream and shame, so to speak.
But getting back to patterns those people also represented a particular category of person, with a particular psychological profile, that likely led them through a cycle of people with personalities similar to my own. And that's not my repetition compulsion, that's theirs.
I believe it was Leo Buscaglia who once observed that if you put 1,000 strangers in a room and come back 12 hours later, most will have paired up along their mutually complementary dysfunctions. But it's a two-way process, not a one-way process! It's not just one person doing all the "choosing" while the other is passive.
In my own outlined situation, you could say that we were drawn together for some reason. Most likely — when such things happen in relatively early adulthood — we have to look to the "familiarity factor."
When I look at that, then I have to consider some of the not directly stated — but certainly implied — lessons that I came into my early adulthood with, starting at maybe the age of 15, 16 and up to 18 and even 20. Unpacking it 30 years later (with a therapist friend) I "learned" from my mother her perception that essentially the role of men was supposed to be "wallets with legs who did useful things occasionally."
Although we are supposed to develop our own sense of self when we're young, in toxic parenting situations the lessons learned aren't necessarily good. But they still subtly imprint on us, and inform our decisions in unfortunate ways. So even if it wasn't direct, my mother raised me to have some of the attributes that would satisfy her own sense of "what men should be like."
Try as we might, we could be doing all we know to NOT become that toxic parent... and yet, we end up there!
Breaking free can be a lot of soul-searching and emotionally painful work... but it is essential work, if we're to grow into whole and emotionally healthy individuals, capable of making positive choices in our relationships.
In this sense, it's also important to be mindful that it may not just be ourselves battling our repetition compulsions, but also the people who choose US.
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great week ahead!
How about you? Are you aware of having any relationship or other psychological patterns? Are you aware of them repeating? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)
Created at 2024.02.26 00:08 PST
x706/1941