If You Don’t Want To Do It, Don’t Say, “Yes”, And Then “Gunny Sack” It!
Many people play games and if they win, they can say, “Gotcha.” This first happened to me when we had our first child and my husband’s aunt volunteered to come with me and the baby to a specialist in St.Louis. Later I learned from her that she was just being nice and didn’t really want to do it. Sometimes I can be very independent because of this Catch 22. Especially when it winds up in the gunny sack which will be opened up at a later date and used against me!
Also, beware of narcissistic sociopaths and borderline personality disorders as they can manipulate you too. You will wind up taking the blame and the perpetrator will wind up smelling like a rose and be one up on you too. For these people lying is their favourite sport. They like to see how easily they can take you in and leave you in the dumpster.
Worse yet they can cause your friends to think bad of you while they get accepted as the “real” victim, not you. Initially, they can get you to care about them and take their side, but they are just as phoney as a three dollar bill. You know how poison ivy can spread? This is worse because you can never get over it. Accomplished liars are good at telling the “truth” and leaving you, not them in the lurch, And if they are good enough, then they can take all your friends away and make them their friends!
They can use anything such as a “fake” conversion experience to get you to take their side initially and to be considered to be a loyal friend by your former friend or friends. “The devil made me do it,” is an honest reason for doing this but they would never admit it. A good liar manipulator is often so good at this because they don’t really have a conscience to bother them like you do.
A family member like this aimed to put her stepfather in the nursing home so she could inherit. A stroke of luck as she died before he did. Sometimes I feel life is a snake pit and you always have to be on the lookout for snakes which might bite you.
The fraudulent manipulators never seem to get the blame; they just get the goods and take off with them. It can be very difficult because you may be the only person that sees through them. Good Luck!
It’s Their Drama, Not Yours
I learned a valuable lesson today: “It’s Their Drama, Not Yours! I’m a fixer-upper by nature and it doesn’t hurt that I am in a helping profession. “Did I hurt your feelings” Whose feelings are they? “You should have known in the first place that I didn’t want to do it!” “So why didn’t you let me off the hook?” Am I a bad guy because I should have known that even though they said,”Yes,” They really didn’t want to do it.and they felt it was an imposition.
Now whatever you do, they get mad because you couldn’t read minds. They take that load off their shoulders and put it on yours. Now you end up feeling bad instead of them. It is like a sudden rainstorm landed right above your head and you get soaked. They wind up feeling better and you have accepted a part in their drama that you really didn’t want and really didn’t earn.
What if you had a really good time and thought they had too. Whose fault is it? It’s not yours and why didn’t they “fess up earlier that they didn’t want to be there. Imagine you cooked a really good meal from a recipe you found and wanted to try and felt you had successfully mastered a good meal. Then someone tells you that there was something in the meal that caused an untoward reaction in them and you should have known it would, but they didn’t remind you and ate it anyway.
Another person who ate the meal smiled and said that they liked it but really they didn’t like casseroles as they were a meat and potatoes type of person. What happened is that you fixed a nice meal for a couple of ingrates. What a waste of time! and now you get mad when you didn’t feel bad before. Is it catching? Drama attracts drama. Sometimes no one is happy unless no one else is happy.
Is drama a disease? Sometimes it is not so bad when the contagion involves happiness and success. How about learning that someone is going to have a baby. Whoops there was one person in the crowd who is childless and unable to get pregnant or better yet did successfully have a baby by in vitro fertilization and then lost it to SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). This can be a wet blanket and the person with the news now feels bad that they even mentioned it in front of that person.
Some people even stage a situation so they can create drama. This woman had a display of fragile glass perfume bottles on a coffee table and almost the first thing that she did was to call the toddlers present attention to it and if they would not have touched the perfume bottles in the first scenario; but they will now. Possibly it will result in a broken bottle or two, maybe the most expensive ones. The payoff in drama is superlative and the instigator is super comfortable in her innosence, but the others don’t know how she did it or even that she set it up.
See the previous post, “Leave the Drama to the Lama”. Feelings can be catching; but often not in a good way. Have you ever left a group when an argument became heated. Some of these situations can leave you shell-shocked with PTSD (post-traumatic stress syndrome). This is what makes soap operas so exciting. What will they stir up next? Calm down. Go listen to some soothing music, take walk in the park. Make a quick exit back to where you are feeling good again. If someone had a bad cold would you stand close to them, kiss them or maybe even drink out of their glass. You wouldn’t expose yourself to that so don’t expose yourself to somebody’s drama.
Sometimes drama is fun like in movies or books; but you know it is not really happening in front of you. You might get scared, laugh hysterically, or even shed a few tears but you know down deep that it isn’t real. If you tend to take some things seriously, then you might avoid certain types of stories. Me, I don’t like horror shows. There are enough really scary things happening in real life. Has anyone followed the news lately?
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Reading Their Minds: Politicians And Others Of Such Ilk
Watched a discussion of what a politician did this week and how it turned out for him. There has been and still is a big conflict over leaks in President Trump’s administration. Then one of his close advisors enabled information about his personal opinion of what this administration is doing wrong to be accidentally by leaked someone on the left who he forgot to tell that he was talking confidentially and it got out.
Curiously another former staff member of President Trump made some very obcene comments about a staff member in the White House just before he got canned. Should have both these men have known better? These men both had been involved with dealing with the media and with dealing with leaks in the White House.
It seems that information about the President and his administration should be confidential and he will decide with input from his trusted? staff what to release. Shouldn’t his advisors ask to see the President in order to tell him their concerns and this should be confidential and not released to the media by them only by the President?
Doesn’t this pattern fit recent staffers who recently got fired or resigned? In many places of business, employees are supposed to keep their mouths shut about what goes on in the business. For example. banks, law offices, and mental health facilities.One staffer went so far as to take notes of a conversation with the President and had a friend leak them to the press. This was just before he got fired. Don’t I see a lot of sour grapes here? Wt happened to ethics and keeping the law while in public service?
Mercy Me,if I can see through this, why can’t you? Ordinary people can see through this. What do they think we are dupes? easily fooled and manipulated. Sometimes it is just better to keep your mouth shut especially if you want to keep it secret. Also, don’t you think it is media’s job to notice this and figure out what is going on?
The People Of The Lie Are Excellent Manipulators Because they Have No Conscience
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Shame The Great Manipulator, The Great Trap Of Unworthness
I was raised on shame. It was my claim to fame. I was not recognised for what I did well, but for those things I did not do so well. I was also convinced over time that I could not do them well and when that happened that people would give up on me. I thought there were only so many things in life that other people would approve of and that I was not capable of doing them well enough to make other people proud of me. I was recognised for what or where I could not meet up to other people’s standards and I felt like I was a great disappointment to my family so much so my relatives did not want other people to know that I was related to them.
I was so easily made to feel shameful that I was bullied, I was suicidal, and I was made to feel that I could never meet up to other people’s standards (of which there was only one set) and I would ultimately be rejected and thrown out on the street if that was possible. There was only one person to blame and that was me and I didn’t know any different.
Appropriate or Inappropriate? Wanted Or Unwanted?
Worse yet I realized that in sexually inappropriate situations the victim (that was me) was always the one who should feel ashamed and had something to hide instead of the reverse. Getting caught in a sexually compromising situation was something I should cover up, sneak out of, and pretend didn’t happen even though I now know it qualified as sexual abuse. It was something to be covered up and forgotten if possible.
Brene Brown with her doctorate in Social Work found that we have three shields that we can use as shields against shame. We can forget or not talk about what we see as a shameful situation. Men will tell you that they are not comfortable talking about certain things that happened to them as they were growing up or even later in life such as post-traumatic stress syndrome and even had pushed these things so far out of mind that they did not remember them.
Another shield against shame mentioned by Dr. Brown was appeasement. If someone is dissatisfied with you or something you have done, you try to make it up to them or make them so happy or satisfied in another way that they will forget that you did not or might not make them happy. Another word for this might be “brown nosing”.
Another possibility would be going towards or against the person or situation that makes you feel shameful and take it out aggressively toward them or it. This is the third shame shield mentioned by Dr. Brown. Could the liberal Democrats’ behaviour after the election of President Donald Trump be an example of this? Are they ashamed that their candidate did not win over such an unlikely candidate?
Sometimes our entire life can be motivated by shame and others can get what they want us to do by shaming us and can feel better about themselves by winning over us in this way. I have often felt that being a woman, especially a woman professional, made me a target for this sort of thing. If a woman can do it (what I did) it must be something easy to obtain and therefore not worth much. The step between someone with a Masters degree and a Ph.D. must be pretty easy if she can do it. I did not attend the graduation ceremonies when I received my doctorate (because it was not such a big deal)?
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Is It True That Only Those Who Do Good Can Feel Guilty?
Is it true that only those who do good can feel guilty? Does it follow that those who do bad do not feel guilty? On top of this, this propensity for those who do good to feel bad is often used against them. People who do good (or the Goodies) when told that they did something wrong or that they made a mistake, it petrifies them and hinders their ability to do good in the future? Are there a lot of people out there that don’t want people doing good and this is the best way to stop them because they have a conscience and are therefore fearful that they might hurt somebody? The Badies are out there making sure that they get what they want regardless of whether or not they hurt somebody.
The Goodies are fearful of being caught in a lie even if they didn’t know it was untrue until the Badies chastised them with it. Badies lie all the time and to protect themselves from being called liars call other people liars to put the spotlight on someone else. The best defence for them is a good offence. The Goodies can become so busy defending themselves that they forget to point out the Bad Guy’s mistakes.
How can this be helped? The Goodies must become aware of what is happening so they can turn the tables on the Badies. For example, “You call me a liar, when you lie all the time.” When attacked this way by the Badies, a Goody can say this is none of your business. A Bady attacked me once about my hair cut. She loudly stated in a room full of family, “Who cut your hair?” I replied by saying, “Who asked you?” I had decided to not fall for her bait and to put the spotlight on her. It did shut her up and the family members went on with their catching up. Goodies can be too polite and these manipulators can count on this.
Badies not only lie, but they are good rationalizers. and can invent or find reasons why they are not guilty and should not be picked on. It is important to recognise that if a Badie asks noisy questions and is not being polite that a Goody does not have to be polite either!
We all have boundaries and Badies especially like to cross them. For example, within the nuclear family, certain issues are usually kept quiet and not shared with others especially when the Badies are just being noisy and want to lay these problems out in public so they can often give you bad advice and perhaps cause a spectacle. People are not entitled to know your secrets. These people can be very noisy. I had one who looked up our friend’s phone number and called them inquiring about us. Our friends had never met and were shocked and surprised when she called them up out of the blue.
The only boundaries Badies respect are their own and they are inclined to keep secrets. They can be very outgoing and social when things are going good and disappear when things are going badly for them. They can be very secretive that way and you can never get to know the whole person even when you find something that tells on them. It may be a good idea at the time to use a Goodies address, but then something like information about bad checks pops up in the mail or on the phone.
Badies make a bushel barrow of mistakes themselves and they can go far in and trying to cover up past mistakes which are often not found out about until that person leaves the scene. They make up their own rules to benefit themselves like when a person (friend, neighbour, relative) dies that they will naturally inherit from him or her and even ask for that inheritance early. See the story of the Prodigal Son” in the Bible. They can walk all over a Goody when they are alive and when they are in the grave, they don’t stop. An inheritance can be a windfall for someone but the will usually makes sure that all the bills are paid if there is money there to do it. Doesn’t it make sense that the person, often a Goody, who helps the most, inherits the most, even if he or she doesn’t think he or she deserves it.
Guilt is the primary tool of the Badies and they often think to themselves that if I get people to look at another person who is doing “wrong” they won’t see what I am doing wrong. Don’t look at me; look at him. If these defensive maneuvers work, then they can get off Scott free. When they judge others, they are usually revealing what others could condemn them for. “Judge not that ye may not be judged; condemn not that ye not be condemned.” It is written in the Bible. For example, it is likely that the marital partner that desires to commit adultery condemns his or her partner for adultery either while desiring to do it himself or herself or while secretly actually indulging in adultery himself or herself.
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Things That Children Absolutely Need (Which Usually Cost Nothing)
Children are like African violets. (A type of small very ticklish house plant which housewives of my mother’s generation raised.) They are very sensitive in terms of their response to the environment in which they are planted. Children were known to die in orphanages when they were physically taken care of but not emotionally taken care of. Yet some people give more attention to the African violets in their life than to their children.
As each African violet is individual in its needs for light and air and moisture so is each child individual in his or her needs for attention, love, and support. When this is neglected, the plant or child withers and dies inside if not outside like the plant. The payoff of proper care can be great in either case.
Perhaps one can afford to lose many African violets in this process but not even one child. Children can be resilient but still, can be greatly damaged and become of little use to themselves and furthermore to the society that child dwells in.
Moisture, light, and soil and the addition of fertiliser is needed for a violet to grow; but what is needed for a child to grow in the right direction? Love, support, attention, and unconditional love appear to be necessary for this to happen.
Caregivers can not neglect one child while caring for another, This has been shown to happen when a child has a seriously ill sibling. This child needs attention and care too especially if this child gets neglected while the ill child gets urgently needed care.
The sibling does not need to be seriously physically ill to take attention and care away from another sibling. Some children are more attractive to one or both of the parents than other children. How important is it for a parent to have an athlete or gymnast or beauty queen or a scholar over a wallflower, a geek, or any child who is not particularly gifted or attractive
Worse yet are parents who really shouldn’t have any children (P.S. I am not opting for abortion, but I am a champion of adoption in these cases). Sadly what welfare does sometimes does not necessarily encourage parents to be actively involved in bringing children up right.
Wealth is not necessarily the main factor in bringing children up right. The things that are needed to do this often can’t be bought. They often cost more time than money. First is unconditional love which occurs when a person often gives another person love no matter what he or she does or says.
Children need support, not just physical support, but emotional support. A child can do well at something, but this accomplishment might be ignored and/ or at least not supported emotionally by the family or guardian. The child can say to themselves, “Oh, what’s the use?” if the effort that he or she puts into something is unnoticed and they receive little or no help with it on top of that!
Prize winning entries at the county fair can go unnoticed and wining or losing a coveted position on a team or in a play can also be ignored. “You did what?, when said, demonstrates that at least part of a child’s life has gone unnoticed. Worse yet, a child can be hurt or sick and this goes unnoticed until the child is in serious jeopardy.
Psychological needs that go unmet can cause great harm to some children. Children that survive such circumstances can be very resilient but those who don’t are a drain on society and can be lost. Too often the people who make these decisions are incompetent as well. The judge in my family says that custody decisions in his court are given to the least competent to decide.
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FINALLY I AM FREE TO BE ME!
My happy face anyway!.
Finally I am free to be me. Are you free to be you?
I just discovered in my old age (where I have found that insights blossom) I am no longer bound by what others think. I don’t have to judge myself by people who are successful in my field or in any other field. I am free to be me finally. Instead of withering on the vine, I am growing again in new and different directions. I grant that I have had difficulty with the judgments of me made by others. I may not be the world’s expert on a subject, but more than likely they aren’t either.
Be on your guard as you may be greeted by the anger of others if you do assert yourself. Attacking what is the most defended by others may reach the highest rewards. Who am I? Am I what I want to be and can be if I only let go of others’ past influences? Make way for ME! I am discovering things that were lost or discarded as not achievable. Now can I trust my own judgment?
Would you, if you were a man, wear a suit that was tailored to fit some other man. I had a husband who was very particular about collar sizes and sleeve lengths in his shirts. I have discovered I only like music that is sung a certain way and any other versions can offend me. (Am I right or wrong? ) Or have I discovered music for myself?
Failures do not always define you. Whose judgment are you relying on? Come home to the person you should know ( yourself) and glorify that. This is not permission to clobber other people so you can have your own way, but you might make some people unhappy because they can no longer control you. We all do not have the same tastes!
You probably can no longer be the peacemaker just giving in because someone with a louder voice is used to making a group’s decisions. For example, such a person then picks the restaurant for a group to eat at which then decides what you can have to eat. Avoiding conflict does keep the level of the drama down but at what price to you?
I am becoming well-defined as I age and have lumps and bumps that may not please others or that may interfere with what they (not I) want. Who am I actually? Do I have undiscovered talents and interests that I can use to shape “my world”?
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Bullying The New Sport
(Rough Draft) As a victim of bullying, I have felt like the bull in the ring at a bullfight. Poked and prodded until he is exhausted, extremely angry, and unable to do anything about it but die. There have been attempts to outlaw bullfights for humanitarian reasons, but they never get it done.
This seems to be the same way with bullying as the victim continues to suffer and is expected to fight back in his or her own defense against a more powerful foe or gang of bullies. This seems to be shameful. Where does it seem fair to gang up on someone like that who has no defenders and is seen as weak by his or her foes?
Bullying hurts. It is not funny. Doing this to a person who is already down. If a group demands that you join them in bullying. Remember it is a hate crime. It can result in vicious mob behavior. Sometimes persons who should be supervising this group, egg it on and join the “fun” instead.
Sometimes people create a separation between what they call just teasing and bullying. They say it is all in fun and that the victim is thin skinned and needs to toughen up and to learn to take it without being a wimp. These people do not see or care that the person’s self-image is being reinforced as negative when teased or name-calling. Is it just in fun when the victim is being degraded and starts to carry around a nickname that is not flattering and really not funny to the victim?
Has overreaction to bullying and teasing that is not funny led to creating safe places and even offering play therapy where persons can go and take part if the behavior of others upsets them even though it is the right of others to have differing opinions and to share them in public. Now have we created wimps like these?
Taking responsibility in dangerous or difficult situations can create a type of toughness and self-pride that does the person well in future situations where they must take charge of things or do something difficult.
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I Am Free Of Judging Myself By Others
I just discovered in my old age (where I have found that insights blossom) I am no longer bound by what others think. I don’t have to judge myself by people who are successful in my field or in any other field. I am free to be me finally. Instead of withering on the vine, I am growing again in new and different directions. I grant that I have had difficulty with the judgments of me made by others. I may not be the world’s expert on a subject, but more than likely they aren’t either.
Be on your guard as you may be greeted by the anger of others if you do assert yourself. Attacking what is the most defended by others may reach the highest rewards. Who am I? Am I what I want to be and can be if I only let go of others’ past influences? Make way for ME! I am discovering things that were lost or discarded as not achievable. Now can I trust my own judgment?
Would you, if you were a man, wear a suit that was tailored to fit some other man. I had a husband who was very particular about collar sizes and sleeve lengths in his shirts. I have discovered I only like music that is sung a certain way and any other versions almost offend me. Am I right or wrong? Or have I discovered music for myself?
Failures do not always define you. Whose judgment are you relying on? Come home to the person you should know ( yourself) and glorify that. This is not permission to clobber other people so you can have your own way, but you might make some people unhappy because they can no longer control you. We all do not have the same tastes!
You probably can no longer be the peacemaker just giving in because someone with a louder voice is used to making a group’s decisions. For example, such a person then picks the restaurant for a group to eat at which then decides what you can have to eat. Avoiding conflict does keep the level of the drama down but at what price to you?
I am becoming well-defined as I age and have lumps and bumps that may not please others or that may interfere with what they (not I) want. Who am I actually? Do I have undiscovered talents and interests that I can use to shape “my world”?
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Precursurers to Domestic Violence
There are some things a woman should look out for when establishing a new relationship with a man. Don’t believe that his last girlfriend or wife deserved to be labeled as the “bad” one in the relationship. Be careful if either you or he came from a family where violence was common or accepted if a woman or child did not do the right thing according to the man of the house. Be aware too that men or women can come from families where violence was common among the women of the family.
There is no real excuse for violence. When anger is considered “justified” because the person who is angry thinks that someone or something made him or her feel that way and that is enough to justify acting it out. This can lead to a very explosive situation. Add alcohol to this in some people and the situation becomes even worse.
Anger Controls People
Being the only man in the family, besides my elderly grandfather, my dad was called upon to “handle” his brother-in-law when he was in an alcoholic rage in order to protect my mom’s crippled sister and kids. My dad had been quite an athlete in his youth but this did not always help when my uncle was threatening them with a butcher knife. Also, my younger brother was still at home and had to witness this. I don’t think Police usually made domestic violence calls back then.
Women and children and even some men are not punching bags and it can leave a strong impression on some children even if they themselves don’t get hurt. “Don’t hit him; hit me” was a brave statement made by a sister when her brother got hit, not her. How helpless does a child feel when they watch their sibling or parent get hurt on purpose when the other parent has a “mad fit” and takes it out on him or her?
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