I started this entry on December 11, 2010 but got stuck and couldn't finish it. I didn't like how it sounded and some of the concepts were just not coming out right. I came back to it today and am a bit shocked at how much transformation has happened for me in the past six weeks. Now it feels ready. Yay for me!
I find it amazing how much poison one person can spread. How one single, solitary person can be so poisonous, infecting everything they come in contact with. Just that one person can take a perfectly contented, smooth situation and tear it apart. A situation with lots of people involved, a variety of personalities and behavior patterns who have historically interacted exceptionally well. Each person brought their own strengths and added to group, which made the group better and stronger than any one person alone would be. Add poison. Instantaneous mess and chaos. Suddenly no one is happy, everyone is suspicious of everyone else, people are lashing out at each other, no one will reach their potential or be productive or sane. Each person is working alone, and the team dynamic has been killed. This person could be a family member, a neighbor, an in-law, a co-worker, the significant other of your best friend. A person you can’t just choose to quit being around. Someone you are forced to spend time with. Good manners or some other equally annoying set of circumstances requires you to put up with shockingly atrocious behavior in an attempt to avoid A) losing your best friend, your job, or your spouse, B) a major family rift, or C) a feud with your neighbor. Whatever the reason, you can’t simply stand up for yourself and plainly say what is on your mind. Mainly that you think this person is a complete jerk and that you fervently wish you had never met them.
I find it amazing how much poison one person can spread. How one single, solitary person can be so poisonous, infecting everything they come in contact with. Just that one person can take a perfectly contented, smooth situation and tear it apart. A situation with lots of people involved, a variety of personalities and behavior patterns who have historically interacted exceptionally well. Each person brought their own strengths and added to group, which made the group better and stronger than any one person alone would be. Add poison. Instantaneous mess and chaos. Suddenly no one is happy, everyone is suspicious of everyone else, people are lashing out at each other, no one will reach their potential or be productive or sane. Each person is working alone, and the team dynamic has been killed. This person could be a family member, a neighbor, an in-law, a co-worker, the significant other of your best friend. A person you can’t just choose to quit being around. Someone you are forced to spend time with. Good manners or some other equally annoying set of circumstances requires you to put up with shockingly atrocious behavior in an attempt to avoid A) losing your best friend, your job, or your spouse, B) a major family rift, or C) a feud with your neighbor. Whatever the reason, you can’t simply stand up for yourself and plainly say what is on your mind. Mainly that you think this person is a complete jerk and that you fervently wish you had never met them.
Even more surprising is how much such a poisonous person can seem to truly feel joy from infecting everyone that crosses their path. How can you get along with someone who enjoys such a thing? No matter how hard you might try, how nice you are, how perfect you act, how much you strive to behave what the way you think they want, how much you try to stay away from them, resistance is futile. If someone enjoys spreading their poison they will always find some way, some justification for their stunningly inappropriate and unacceptable behavior.
Lucky me, I am dealing with just such a person. Let’s assume this person is male, and call him Phil. Phil is a constant source of anger, stress, trampled feelings, frustration, resentment, crushed pride, misery, and overall distress. Phil has infected a part of my life that was once a wonderful thing. A place I felt accepted, useful, wanted, needed, trusted, competent. I look back now and realize how much I took that environment for granted. Such a shame that I didn’t appreciate it more, acknowledge and thank the people who made it be what it was. I was young and had no real sense of how lucky I was to be a part of it. Phil has taken all of those things away from me. And Phil simply seems to enjoy having the power to do so. Phil loves getting a rise, a reaction, seeing his negative affect on others. I can see it dancing in his eyes and lighting up his face. He adores his power. I am sickened by Phil's love for infecting others, by the joy he derives from exerting his negative influence however and whenever he can and then watching the disastrous effect he inflicts unfold. He lies, accuses, shifts blame, persecutes, spreads discord and animosity, belittles and patronizes, all in an effort to defeat the spirit of anyone he can.
Phil expects the worst, assumes the worst, and therefore sees only the worst. He is blind to any other possible explanation for behavior. Phil abandons any and all common sense in his dealings with others. He wants to see the worst, or fabricate the worst, so that he can wield his authority and make those around him suffer his poisonous wrath. Maybe he has been filled with poison for so long he can't fathom anyone being purely nice, kind, honest, and good. Maybe he is so rotten inside from his poison that he can't imagine others have the best intentions at heart ninety-nine percent of the time. It just doesn't occur to him that truly good people exist. He assumes everyone else is as poisonous as he is. He sees everyone as an adversary, an enemy that he must squash quickly, before they have a chance to squash him. And with the authority and power he has managed to gain, he has the ability to squash many people, often, and seemingly without consequences.
Why is poison infecting my life? Why has Phil crossed my path? Why now? Since there is nothing, at the moment anyway, that I can do about the situation it is time for me to use the ongoing experience as a growth opportunity, a learning experience. I believe there is much to be learned from Phil and my relationship with him. Through disengaging and observation, I have learned how not to act, how not to treat others, how it feels to be treated without respect. Through analyzing my reactions, I now comprehend how people can literally go crazy when they are stuck in a situation of constant harassment and oppression, verbal and emotional abuse, and complete lack of control or freedom. How a normally sane, kind, easygoing person can turn into the complete opposite, someone who says and does and thinks and wishes crazy, unpredictable, unkind things completely out of character for their normal personality. Becomes a person they are ashamed of being. I am also learning how to stand up for myself in a non-aggressive manner. I am starting to grow some balls. This has been difficult for me as I usually attempt to completely avoid conflict and normally don’t speak up and defend myself when I should. It has also been difficult because it has been a long hard road for me to realize that it's not really personal. Yes, his poison is directed at me some of the time, but it is also directed at anyone else within reach. I have felt personally attacked, bad-mouthed and ripped to shreds, falsely and unfairly viewed as unworthy and unimportant. But I am starting to realize that all of this is his issue and not mine. There is no need for me to take it personally. There is no need for me to live in fear. And those are a very powerful realizations. Powerful. Now who has the power?
Lucky me, I am dealing with just such a person. Let’s assume this person is male, and call him Phil. Phil is a constant source of anger, stress, trampled feelings, frustration, resentment, crushed pride, misery, and overall distress. Phil has infected a part of my life that was once a wonderful thing. A place I felt accepted, useful, wanted, needed, trusted, competent. I look back now and realize how much I took that environment for granted. Such a shame that I didn’t appreciate it more, acknowledge and thank the people who made it be what it was. I was young and had no real sense of how lucky I was to be a part of it. Phil has taken all of those things away from me. And Phil simply seems to enjoy having the power to do so. Phil loves getting a rise, a reaction, seeing his negative affect on others. I can see it dancing in his eyes and lighting up his face. He adores his power. I am sickened by Phil's love for infecting others, by the joy he derives from exerting his negative influence however and whenever he can and then watching the disastrous effect he inflicts unfold. He lies, accuses, shifts blame, persecutes, spreads discord and animosity, belittles and patronizes, all in an effort to defeat the spirit of anyone he can.
Phil expects the worst, assumes the worst, and therefore sees only the worst. He is blind to any other possible explanation for behavior. Phil abandons any and all common sense in his dealings with others. He wants to see the worst, or fabricate the worst, so that he can wield his authority and make those around him suffer his poisonous wrath. Maybe he has been filled with poison for so long he can't fathom anyone being purely nice, kind, honest, and good. Maybe he is so rotten inside from his poison that he can't imagine others have the best intentions at heart ninety-nine percent of the time. It just doesn't occur to him that truly good people exist. He assumes everyone else is as poisonous as he is. He sees everyone as an adversary, an enemy that he must squash quickly, before they have a chance to squash him. And with the authority and power he has managed to gain, he has the ability to squash many people, often, and seemingly without consequences.
Why is poison infecting my life? Why has Phil crossed my path? Why now? Since there is nothing, at the moment anyway, that I can do about the situation it is time for me to use the ongoing experience as a growth opportunity, a learning experience. I believe there is much to be learned from Phil and my relationship with him. Through disengaging and observation, I have learned how not to act, how not to treat others, how it feels to be treated without respect. Through analyzing my reactions, I now comprehend how people can literally go crazy when they are stuck in a situation of constant harassment and oppression, verbal and emotional abuse, and complete lack of control or freedom. How a normally sane, kind, easygoing person can turn into the complete opposite, someone who says and does and thinks and wishes crazy, unpredictable, unkind things completely out of character for their normal personality. Becomes a person they are ashamed of being. I am also learning how to stand up for myself in a non-aggressive manner. I am starting to grow some balls. This has been difficult for me as I usually attempt to completely avoid conflict and normally don’t speak up and defend myself when I should. It has also been difficult because it has been a long hard road for me to realize that it's not really personal. Yes, his poison is directed at me some of the time, but it is also directed at anyone else within reach. I have felt personally attacked, bad-mouthed and ripped to shreds, falsely and unfairly viewed as unworthy and unimportant. But I am starting to realize that all of this is his issue and not mine. There is no need for me to take it personally. There is no need for me to live in fear. And those are a very powerful realizations. Powerful. Now who has the power?
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