When "building up" backfires

[LovebirdsFlying]

Recently I had a realization that, more than anything else, one specific mixed signal has been messing with my head for most of my life. On one hand, my mother and other family members would glow about how marvelously, wonderfully, outstandingly above average I am. Turn in mediocre results, and, "Well, I'm disappointed. This wouldn't have surprised me out of So-and-so, but I expected better from you."

Yet on the other hand, if I did some ordinary, routine thing most people my age do all the time without a second thought, I'd be praised to the moon and stars as if I'd performed a miracle. My mother ran through the house gushing for joy when I drove my own car for the first time. I was in my forties. She did not react that way for *anyone* else. Ever. My brother was utterly shocked that I'd even bought a car and was trying to learn. Why didn't he think I was as capable as anyone else? I don't want it to be a big deal that I can drive a car like everybody else can. I want it to be expected. The only reason I took so long at it was that nobody was willing to teach me before, at the same age when they taught my *younger* siblings. I had always wondered why.

All of this building up and high praise may have been meant to inspire me, possibly in an attempt to boost the low self-esteem they knew I had. I'm sure that's what they'd say, if anybody asked. Yet here is what it actually did:

1.) Repeatedly impressing on me that I'm so much "smarter" and "better" than everybody else set me up to be bullied. Naturally they wanted to take me down a few notches, to show me I'm nothing special. Who likes a stuck-up snob?
2.) Holding me to such lofty standards made "average" feel like failure, and that chipped away at my confidence. What's wrong with being average? Why does anybody have to be "outstanding" and "excellent" every time?
3.) Getting extremely exuberant praise for doing something ordinary gave me the impression that nobody expected me to be able to do it. There goes another chunk of my confidence.

Was that the goal all along? Were they pretending to build me up while in reality they were sabotaging me?

 

[Catherineanne]

It looks as if your family is working to a life script, and imposing it on you.

This is not healthy behaviour; it does not allow you to be who you are, but instead means you are continually compared with their own inner version of who you ought to be. When you conform they take it for granted, when you do not conform you are treated as if you are an alien just landed from space.

Aiui, the way out of this is to become very aware of the script you are choosing for yourself, and to discard theirs. You get to choose who you are; you get to define what that means. When we try to fulfill other people's scripts for our lives we end up stunted and harmed; a kind of bonsai people with bonsai emotional responses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Script_analysis

 

[Hieronymus]

And so we all look for the roots of the misery in our lives, and who is to blame...

 

[LovebirdsFlying]

Well, I suppose "who" isn't as important as "what." In a crowded room, if I feel a hard push behind me right before I tumble down a flight of stairs, the first priority is that I need to be evaluated to see exactly what my injuries are. Who did it, and how it happened, will need to be addressed, but *after* I get the medical attention I need. If it's a long-term injury, by the way, still being affected by it some time later does not in any way mean I have failed to "forgive" and "move on."

Why does it matter at all who did it, or how it happened? Well, if somebody did it on purpose, then a crime has been committed. At the very least, I should know who to stay away from in order to be safe from now on. If it was an accident, precautions should be put in place to see that it doesn't happen again.

Maybe that's why I am curious to know if I was deliberately set up for failure with these huge mixed signals. After all, the effect of most mixed signals is to throw somebody off, leaving them uncertain what they're supposed to do, and whatever move they make could be very wrong. Determining whether or not it was intentionally abusive could decide if there is any hope of ever having a normal relationship with my family, or if I should give up on that idea altogether.

I've had trouble deciding which of these life scripts is the one that has been expected of me:

1.) I'm a whiz kid with astounding gifts and talents. An average performance is a disappointment, because I could have done much better if I had really tried. If I haven't managed to knock down every obstacle in my way and become a world-famous superstar, the only reason for coming short is that I'm not using my gifts.

2.) I'm a mentally substandard clod who needs constant supervision, worrying about, and fussing over. An average performance is a downright miracle and cause for celebration, because it was far beyond what anybody thought I could do.

Thus you have a mother, for example, who one day is telling me my job is beneath me, and the next day wants to hold my hand when we're crossing the street as if I'm still a toddler. And it's the contradiction that's really made me dizzy.

 

[Danoh]

The thing to do is to focus instead on identifying the life script you would prefer to live and then commit to living it out as your response to your present patterns.

I once knew someone as sweet as can be who at the same time never allowed anyone an inch of space should they even think of messing with her.

Ever curious about the possible internal dynamics of that; I asked if she had always been that tough against the nonsense of others.

She related how that; as a child, her parents, who were very well off financially, had forced her to attend public school; where other children picked on her because she was obviously better off than they were.

One day, she found herself once more taunted throughout the school day that so and so was waiting to beat her up after school.

How that, this particular time around she just got it in her that enough was enough; walked outside, and when the other kid began their nonsense, she just laid into them with everything she had; as scared as she had been.

That since that day she had never again looked back nor allowed anyone since to get away with attempting to bully her.

In short, she took her lifescript by its' then scrawny neck; said enough's enough; decided to right then and there walk a new script and did just that.

Such people don't dwell on "what happened" much. That's for shrinks who continue to believe the often fool idea that dwelling on the past is the way to solve the present.

"We become what we think about....

Here is a great intro to a process for solving for serious trauma...

 

[Danoh]

Well, I suppose "who" isn't as important as "what." In a crowded room, if I feel a hard push behind me right before I tumble down a flight of stairs, the first priority is that I need to be evaluated to see exactly what my injuries are. Who did it, and how it happened, will need to be addressed, but *after* I get the medical attention I need. If it's a long-term injury, by the way, still being affected by it some time later does not in any way mean I have failed to "forgive" and "move on."

Why does it matter at all who did it, or how it happened? Well, if somebody did it on purpose, then a crime has been committed. At the very least, I should know who to stay away from in order to be safe from now on. If it was an accident, precautions should be put in place to see that it doesn't happen again.

Maybe that's why I am curious to know if I was deliberately set up for failure with these huge mixed signals. After all, the effect of most mixed signals is to throw somebody off, leaving them uncertain what they're supposed to do, and whatever move they make could be very wrong. Determining whether or not it was intentionally abusive could decide if there is any hope of ever having a normal relationship with my family, or if I should give up on that idea altogether.

I've had trouble deciding which of these life scripts is the one that has been expected of me:

1.) I'm a whiz kid with astounding gifts and talents. An average performance is a disappointment, because I could have done much better if I had really tried. If I haven't managed to knock down every obstacle in my way and become a world-famous superstar, the only reason for coming short is that I'm not using my gifts.

2.) I'm a mentally substandard clod who needs constant supervision, worrying about, and fussing over. An average performance is a downright miracle and cause for celebration, because it was far beyond what anybody thought I could do.

Thus you have a mother, for example, who one day is telling me my job is beneath me, and the next day wants to hold my hand when we're crossing the street as if I'm still a toddler. And it's the contradiction that's really made me dizzy.

http://www.nlpmind.com/nlp-articles/double-bind/

 

[Catherineanne]

And so we all look for the roots of the misery in our lives, and who is to blame...

Learning is not about blame. It is about learning.

 

[Catherineanne]

I've had trouble deciding which of these life scripts is the one that has been expected of me:

1.) I'm a whiz kid with astounding gifts and talents. An average performance is a disappointment, because I could have done much better if I had really tried. If I haven't managed to knock down every obstacle in my way and become a world-famous superstar, the only reason for coming short is that I'm not using my gifts.

2.) I'm a mentally substandard clod who needs constant supervision, worrying about, and fussing over. An average performance is a downright miracle and cause for celebration, because it was far beyond what anybody thought I could do.

Thus you have a mother, for example, who one day is telling me my job is beneath me, and the next day wants to hold my hand when we're crossing the street as if I'm still a toddler. And it's the contradiction that's really made me dizzy.

It sounds like a very unhealthy combination of the two; as if you are an autistic savant.

They want to be proud of your achievements, but that would make them feel inferior, so they counterbalance it with believing you to be clever in only one limited part of your life, and far below average in all other areas. This is win:win for them; they can take credit for all your achievements to themselves, while still despising you. If they were really honest they would have to feel inferior, and that is not going to happen.

You don't need me to tell you that you need not hold your mother's hand when crossing the street. If she offers again ask her if SHE feels unsafe, and suggest as sweetly as you can that she is not getting any younger and might benefit from a walker. Turn the tables and see whether that shuts her up.

Distance might be a good thing. Emotional distance to start with, followed by as much physical distance as you can achieve in years to come. Write your own life story. x

 

[Danoh]

It sounds like a very unhealthy combination of the two; as if you are an autistic savant.

They want to be proud of your achievements, but that would make them feel inferior, so they counterbalance it with believing you to be clever in only one limited part of your life, and far below average in all other areas. This is win:win for them; they can take credit for all your achievements to themselves, while still despising you. If they were really honest they would have to feel inferior, and that is not going to happen.

You don't need me to tell you that you need not hold your mother's hand when crossing the street. If she offers again ask her if SHE feels unsafe, and suggest as sweetly as you can that she is not getting any younger and might benefit from a walker. Turn the tables and see whether that shuts her up.

Distance might be a good thing. Emotional distance to start with, followed by as much physical distance as you can achieve in years to come. Write your own life story. x

I recall one time when my mom got really sick and my siblings tried that Double Bind nonsense on me.

None of them really wanted to step up to their responsibility to her.

As a result, they thought it great I stepped up.

At the same time theirs was ever one attempted derogatory inuendo after another for my having stepped up to the plate and by that making them look bad.

It didn't work, though, as I was already very well familiar with double bind theory and would simply turn it back on them.

Talk about a balancing act, though; I had to do that at the sane time that I had to strive to remain leery of not falling into their same animosity, lol

Its true; sometimes you can only love people from the safe distance they force you to have to force on them.

This is how you reach being able to forgive without ending up being fooled by your having forgiven another into believing its ok to go back and take more of their nonsense.

Just a matter of looking at such things with a smiling curiosity about how such things work.

Warmth towards self during such moments being just the love; the smile, the glimmer in one's eye; the warm embrace of one self during such moments that such moments threaten to deprive one of; if allowed.