Storm,
interesting 3rd post on your thread, particularly:
There is also a paradox associated with splitting, as I see it: when you've split someone off as all bad, you still can't seem to 'let go' of them. Not really... there's always that longing to 'check'... But if you stop splitting, and give them back all the facets of their personality, it becomes much easier to give up on them - for a while, or forever, if necessary - when that is the only way forward. How can this be? Shouldn't it be easier to 'write someone off' if you regard them as purely bad?
It works the way it does because once you stop splitting, you are no longer carrying part of their personality within yourself. You're no longer enmeshed. You have returned to them what is theirs, good as well as bad; your integrity and theirs - in the sense of wholeness - is restored; and that makes it easier for you to own what is yours, separately, and do what you need to do to protect it.
Yes, war can only happen when you make your enemy all bad and you think you know that you are ‘right’.
When we see people as people and not enemies, when we see ourselves as people and not Gods, we might be able to get real, or at least a little closer to reality.
One question or ponder-point, when you say “and do what you need to do to protect it” I wonder what you mean or how this would sound. I think sometimes in protecting what is ours, we protect ourselves against imagined threats – possible enemies – and that builds up our unrealistic thinking. I guess it’s easy to see the theory but in practice, we’re all only human and fallible.
I got a bit lost in the next part – are you describing what is basically ‘divide and rule’ tactics? I wanted to ask:
In my reading I find this type of triangulation commonly described as a favorite pastime of people with specific diagnoses, and as though it only happens in an inpatient setting [patients playing staff members off one another].
What specific diagnosis - anti-social? Or what I used to call ‘being a right bastard’ when I saw it used by my bosses in the past? I mean, I've seen this and it stinks. The only way out of it is to leave, refuse to talk (document everything), or kill your boss (yes I am joking). The only way out is to leave. If you can wait until the bastard does something against employment law, then you can achieve some money in the process (usually not in tribunal or court, but through simple fear on the company's part). But it can take so long to reach that point and in the meantime, your brain is turning into a mess and your vital organs are giving you warnings (heart in my case). Yes, divide and rule, bully a scapegoat on the side and screw all the young female staff you can convince you're God to - my ex-boss and he wasn't even bright. In IQ terms he was dim, but as a street-fighter, not bad. What a jerk.
