My Mind is a Rat!

No, not as in a "dirty rat," or a sewer rat, or a rug-rat. I am thinking of a lab rat--specifically a maze rat. You know, those tame white rats that scientists put in a maze to see how quickly they can find the cheese before and after receiving a lobotomy or, say, after playing Angry Birds for three hours. The first time through the maze the clever, adaptable rodent quickly negotiates his course to the reward. The next time, after the exposure to the variable, the poor little fella zips around all willy-nilly, exhausting himself, unable to get either his bearings or the Gouda.

Anyway, the point is not really be about rats or cheese, is it? Of course not. I remember some years ago going to "Mike's Maze" with some friends in Rockford Illinois. It was a big converted retail store that someone (apparently Mike) bought and filled with a huge maze created using plastic tarp walls suspended from lightweight cables. To beat the maze you had to bumble your way through the undulating plastic labyrinth, collecting tokens from a set number of stations throughout the course, finally making your way out. It was surprisingly challenging and frustrating--really kind of freaky especially for the anxious and claustrophobic.  I kept ending up at the same dead ends and token stations I had already visited. I was immersed in the halls of polyethylene for a long time before capturing all the tokens and finding the exit. (If you really got panicky or claustrophobic you could duck under the 3/4 length suspended tarp walls and make your way to the edge and freedom.)  Some mazers eventually panicked or gave up and headed for the edge and sanity.

Sometimes we find ourselves in life situations or unavoidable transitions that can make us feel like a befuddled and increasingly agitated rat in a maze. I am not talking so much about chronic busyness, hectic schedules, or the normal frustrations of life. What I am referring to is a broader, escalating sense of being trapped or lost somewhere in our life course, a feeling that begins to rise toward and sometimes beyond the threshold of panic. We need to know which direction to go, to find the way out, to arrive at a conclusion and find some kind of solution that seems to deliberately and deftly elude us; it is up to us. We begin to run--to scramble--first this direction, then that direction; dead end...backtrack...another dead end...first dead end again. Time is running out, panic swells.

And all this is taking place in your mind; racing thoughts that begin to whirl in an obsessive blurr that greets you in the morning and climbs into bed with you at night. You feel desperate and responsible to find and implement the solution but you are becoming more exhausted and less clear-headed. Hope slips away as misery rises. I have been in this place--and I am not referring to Mike's Maze. I have felt like a very hungry, weary,  and increasingly desperate rat lost in an impossible maze, unable to find the cheese or the exit. Exhausting. Maybe this is where you are today.

So, is there a solution to the problem you are facing, is there a path to freedom? No (well that's comforting) and...yes. What I mean is, there is not always a linear, cause and effect type solution to certain problems. You can't un-get laid off or request a do-over for deciding to go ahead and have the affair. Traumatic events can't be undone either and we can't go back and be born into a more nurturing family. We have to live with some problems. That's the "no" part. (I'll get to the "yes" part.)

Often, what we are experiencing in the maze is coming to grips with our grandiose illusions about control. The older we get the more we realize that what we can actually control is a percentage at best and not a large one at that. If you believe that you can (and should) control your way into everything you want and out of everything you don't want, you are deluding yourself. You are also setting yourself up to become a self-recriminating maze-runner when faced with trouble you can't manipulate away. 

The "yes" part--the good news--is that we do not have to remain trapped in the crazy maze of obsessive rumination and breathless panic. We can learn to find peace in the midst of life's unsolvables. But this usually involves the dread injunction "let go." It seems almost paradoxical to many of us that the First Step in Alcoholics Anonymous famous Twelve-Step recovery program is an admission that we are not in control: "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable."  The "First Tenet" for controllers has always been: "I must remain in control at all times and at all costs--and if I lose control it is because I am not trying hard enough."

Beside releasing our sweaty grip on the controls, escaping maze-induced panic will usually require faith and trust in something bigger than ourselves (no, not the IRS). AA's second step is: We "Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." Ouch! A blow to our very western ideal of self-sufficiency, yes. And here we'd been led to believe the tenet "I am the master of my fate and can do all things by myself if I learn how to be strong and perfect the art of using things and people to my advantage."

Finding relief from the panic of the maze sometimes comes as a clear solution to a solvable problem and it's great when that happens. Sometimes, though, it's about learning to find peace despite imperfect and painful circumstances. While this is usually a process, we do not have to be doomed to run until we drop, exhausted, like some poor lab rat chasing cheese and escape.

Copyright 2012 John D. Deyo, M.A., LMFT

Snipers & Zingers - Part II

This is the second part of a two-part blog.

The Zinger

If you haven't read the previous installment you might want to check that out before going further. Let's talk about zingers. Zingers are those loaded one liners we sling at someone with intent to injure. Not as deadly as the snipe, the zing is an effective way to diminish or demean the recipient, but with some subtlety. The versatile zing can be used both offensively and defensively, publicly and privately, making it very popular with couples. I witness many zingers in marital therapy.

My picture for the zinger is the Chinese ninja throwing star. Didn't know there was such a thing? Well, a throwing star is a sharpened, disc-like weapon you whirl at your opponent--kind of like a mini saw blade, a lethal Frisbee. 

Less deadly than the snipe, the verbal zinger also makes an ideal hit-and-run weapon and can be used quite effectively from behind in a group setting like the workplace. In fact, true zingmasters can throw so quickly and deftly that you may not realize you were zinged until you later discover the deadly Christmas ornament lodged somewhere in your back. I call this popular model the Deft Star. You know, it's that "humorous comment" that is barbed with malevolence but discreet enough so as to provide plausible deniability for the one doing the zinging: "Just kidding, ha ha ha" or "Oh, I didn't really mean it" or even flat out denial, "I didn't say that." Just try and pin their nasty zing on these ninja masters of duck and dodge!

The Sarcasm Star is another popular model with both men and women. Ouch! You know when you're hit with this one as it lodges in the tender flesh of your ego. Will you laugh it off? Will you zing back? Will you unsheathe your sword and escalate the match to the next level?

Seriously though, zingers don't usually kill instantaneously but over time create what I call a "foxhole relationship" where each party digs in, creating a defensive position--a foxhole--where they can pop up from time to time and shoot at each other or lob the occasional grenade (pardon my mixing of metaphors). Zingers always damage intimacy and hinder more sensitive dialogue about the real issues that motivate the zings. Habitual zinging leads to more serious sniping with the bullets of contempt (see previous blog). 

So why do we do it? Well, often we are using an offensive tactic defensively to keep the other at a distance and off balance. We feel threatened or we feel angry; we feel hurt and sad but unsafe to display or talk about these more poignant and vulnerable emotions. When I confront couples or parent/child dyads about their zinging they are sometimes unaware of how much they are engaging in this dysfunctional communication style but more often they shift to the "I do because you do!" "No, I do because you do!" "You started it!" "No, you started it!" chicken or the egg argument. Assigning blame to the original offender is usually impossible and not awfully useful anyway. 

The point (no pun intended) is that the attack/defend dynamic has to stop--a truce called--if two individuals are going to create or restore a loving and intimate connection. Zinging activates defenses, period. It is impossible to hear or be heard when we are in zing mode. We are too busy defending and formulating our next argument to hear anything except threat. Until we understand and gently expose the roots of the real relationship issues, things like pain, fear, anger, sadness, insecurity, old relationship models, pride, resentment, and our own unfinished emotional business from the past, we will have a very slim chance of experiencing the flow of love we long to give and receive.

The cure is both simple and difficult. Stop sniping and zinging by learning to say what you mean--what's really going on at a more vulnerable level. Learn to listen deeply to yourself and to the other person, especially at the emotional level. Seek marriage counseling and personal therapy if necessary. Above all, ask God for the gift of grace and love to fill your heart. Remember that change is nearly always a process.

My apologies to all the good ninjas out there.

 Copyright 2011 John D. Deyo, M.A., MFT

Snipers & Zingers - Part I

This is the first of a two-part blog.

Do you Snipe? Do you Zing? Maybe you do both.  

"Well, before I answer that," you may be saying, "what are you talking about?" Okay, fair enough. Sniping and zinging are two nasty verbal relationship assault tactics we have all likely engaged in at one time or another. Some of us have reached the Master level, the Black Belt, the Ninja status in sniping and zinging "skills."

THE SNIPER:

You know what a sniper is, right? An assassin. In the World War II movie he's the specially trained marksman who hides in the bell tower of some nearly demolished church and picks off incoming enemy troops one at a time using his high caliber, scoped rifle (and usually gets blown up by a bazooka blast shortly thereafter). He is first, however, able to kill some hapless incoming soldiers and because bullets travel faster than the sound, they are shot through before they even hear the crack of his rifle. By the time the other troops hear the shot their comrade is down and the sniper has ducked for cover, leaving only a drifting puff of gunsmoke to betray his position. Very sneaky, very deadly. 

So, you can probably see where I'm going with this. We snipe...with words. We snipe our partners, we snipe our kids, we snipe our parents, we snipe our co-workers. We snipe. We hide, we scope the target, we fire, and we duck for cover. 

The primary characteristic of the snipe, as opposed to the zing (which I will get to in part II of this blog), is that a snipe moves beyond mere complaint or criticism to contempt--character assault. That's what makes it deadly. Contempt is not an expression of anger or disappointment at something the other person did or failed to do; it is an expression of disgust with and disdain for who they are. "Nag, nag, nag! You're just like my mother, only ugly." "Yeah, well if you weren't so stubborn and lazy I wouldn't have to nag, Mr. muffin-top!" (f-bombs omitted.) 

Snipers hide. One favorite hide for the word-sniper is the public setting. You know, you're out for dinner with friends and Jen takes a nasty shot at her partner where she knows he probably won't engage her in a public battle. "Well, maybe if you were a real man you'd get a real job we could go Hawaii too." OOOH, let's not go out with Jen and Jim again. How about the phone comment--just before the hang-up, or better yet the duel to get the "last word" in a text message war.  Of course you can always hit-and-run before you rush out slamming the door. "Well, you do whatever you want, that's what you always do anyway!" Clients share the pain of these deadly word bullets with me, sometimes just a debilitating phrase, a piece of verbal shrapnel, that has remained lodged in the soft flesh of their self worth since childhood. Very nasty, very deadly.

Marriage expert and researcher John Gottman in his book Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work has identified contempt as a late stage sign of relationship deterioration and the deadliest of what he has labeled "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" that herald looming marital collapse. If you are engaging in contemptuous, character assaulting sniping in your marriage, look out. Seek help today, not tomorrow, if you hope to save your relationship from the skids of dissolution.

Sniping is a no-win situation because when we lacerate another's character--their sense of who they are--we send them into defense mode, further rupture the relationship, and make sensitive healing dialogue nearly impossible. To complicate things further, we are sometimes sniping not just at the person we are currently hurt or angry with but at unseen ghosts from past. This unfinished business or "offline content" as one of my professors liked to call it shows up in our relationships like a personal plague that knows our address. If past wounds and resentments lurk outside our awareness we will tend to think the problem is everyone else even though we are the common denominator in our wake of relationship wrecks. 

Perhaps it's time to lay down the rifle and get serious about your own healing and liberation from destructive relationship patterns.

In Part II we will look at "zingers," a less destructive effective form of verbal assault.

Copyright 2011 John D. Deyo, M.A., MFT