For Me

[Crazy Eddie]

Crazy Ed:

I think you are applying hind-sight adult logic to a situation of a child who does not have the ability to reason in such a fashion.

Well, yes. I find it helps some to see with adult eyes that a behavior or a feeling was a response to a situation that you either misjudged or you are no longer facing, as a way to convince yourself to start letting go of it. Not that it gets you anywhere near all the way there, but at least you can begin to detach from it and stop identifying the behavior as an "inescapable part of you" or defending it or blaming it on unwitting third parties.

And little kids do have the ability to reason. They don't do it as well as we do, but they do reason and they do make choices. Sometimes those choices need to be revisited and altered in later life, but that happens with choices we make later in life as well.

Blame is a process of anger, and a critical step in the healing process. Some people get stuck in anger, and never complete their healing process. The fact that Ms. Cac can remove the anger from herself and direct at someone else is a good thing. It means it is no longer buried, and she is completely aware of it... and more importantly, can allower herself to actually feel it.

I guess I'm not really getting that. Directing anger at parents feels to much to me like a "Devil made me do it" defense. Maybe you're right, that it is a step along the way, but it feels so much like misplaced blame and a distorted view of what actually happened.

I'm not accusing anyone else of actually embracing the "devil made me do it" attitude... just reacting to my own strong temptation to fall into that trap.

It doesn't really matter how any one of us might have handled the exact same situation. It is purely speculation.

But speculation backed up by experience and research. We had choices, even back then. Our parents did not have all the power. We could have done something different. And we still can, although long habit makes it difficult.

I think where Mrs. Cac might be getting a little frustrated is when people tell her it is her dragon/demon to slay... when she is completely and utterly aware of it. I mean, I can well imagine her sitting in her chair, reading, and going, 'well, NO DOI!!'

Sorry about that.

Such a habit can take the form not only of tangible actions and words, but also a raising of defenses in response to certain innocuous situations. When those situations call for playing with someone else or for getting work done, raising the defenses are quite a distraction and tend to ruin the whole thing.

That's what a defense mechanism IS, and they aren't quite so simple to overcome. Calling them a 'distraction' is such an understatement, it's almost laughable...

Yes, it was a deliberate understatement. Hey look, another defense mechanism! Cut the monster down to size, laugh at it, and maybe I'll have what it takes to attack it.

Or maybe, as one that's tempermentally prone to distraction, calling this thing a "distraction" is a way to excuse myself for not having gotten the better of it after all these years. And I'm back to "the devil made me do it". See how tempting it is?