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Re: Night Moves Into Sadness and Pain

Posted by dj on June 20, 2000, at 9:13:37

In reply to Re: Night Moves Into Sadness and Pain, posted by shar on June 20, 2000, at 1:16:14

> Jupiter,

> You are the only one who knows when you'll be ready to venture into that area again. Let me encourage you at least not to push your husband away (if you can feel ok about hugging him, etc.).
>
> I think you should respond to your husband to the extent that you genuinely can, talk with him, and tell him how you feel about his love and kindness. Don't let imperfection stop you if you can help it--I'm sure you know what a double-edged sword perfectionism is.
>

Good advice from someone who has been there. Your description stirred some sadness in me, as it reminded me of an ex-girlfriend. Though we had a strong attraction to each other, which other folks remarked upon, there was so much mutual pain and mis-understaning on each side that it overode the joys we had shared as communications detiorated and we both turned asise and inside as the relationship detiorated and eventually blew apart and led me into some intense therapy...

I found the book: Return to Love by Marianne Williamson helpful in making some sense of my very confused feelings, at the time and her tapes as well. She speaks very eloquently about depression and some of the damaged relationships she's experienced and learned from...

The book "Undoing Depression" (http://www.undoingdepression.com) is also very good on depression and relationships and cutting through some of the jargon, diverse and contrasting theory and politics of psychological and psychiathric practitioners.

On page 92 of the hard back edition he notes: "The patient often must also change patterns of behaviour that lead to a depressed lifestyle. Most depressed people are perfectionists. We feel that if we don't do a job perfectly, our entire self-esteem is endangered. Often this leads to procrascination. The job is never really begun; outright failure is avoided but the depressive knows he's let himself down."

The following explanation about projection and projective identification certainly rang true for me, for the relationship noted above, and my ex and a friend who went through a similar situation and I imagine it may for you too:

"Two additional defense mechanisms...that contribute to problems in communication are projection and projective identification. Projection means that I take my feelings, disconnect them from my conscious awareness, and attribute them to you. "You really want to fight, don't you?" People who are very thin-skinned overuse projection. They take their own bad feelings about themselves and project them onto others, seeing themselves as victims of discrimination and collecting grievances everywhere. Projective identfication...occurs, when, as a result of your projection, I really do want to fight. I catch the feeling you attribute to me. The projector and the recipient can get bound together in horribly complex webs of feeling from which there seems to be no escape.

Like all defences, projection and projective identification are attempts to resolve a conflict between our needs, our fears (or our conscience), the expectations of others, and/or the strictures of reality. I need love and intimacy but I can fear it as well. If I let someone get close, I can be hurt. I can take that fear and project it, making anyone who comes close to me seem to be nosy, controlling, officious. Projection and projective identification can distort reality to a destructive, uncomfortable degree. And because they are so much a part of how we communicate in relationships, and because in human interactions things happen so fast that we can easily get confused, these defenses are less subject to reflective analysis than denial, isolation, or repression.

...When I assume I understand you without sufficient basis in reality, the cause can be either projection or projective identification. I think I can read your mind. I become convinced that I know what you really mean, despite all your attempts at claification. If I keep accusing you of really being angry at me, eventually you really will get angry at me. That's projective identification."

When I assume that you understand me, it's also a process of projection. When I become hot and bothered because I feel convinced I've made my wishes clear and you just stubbornly refuse to understand, I'm not communicating anything except my stubborness. These irrational sensations of knowing with perfect clarity exactly what the other person is thinking are sure indications of projection. They're fueled by emotions, not logic.

What we have to do, naturally, is check our assumptions."

Hang in there and make sure you get whatever help you need! Pills though useful can also have negative impacts as noted in the book "Prozac Backlash" where the author, Harvard Medical School's Dr. Joseph Glenmullen, makes the case for good therapy being the real key to dealing core issues and moving beyond them.

Carl Jung said that our “Psychic Scar”
may be our greatest gift. The challenge is to uncover and embrace that gift!

Sante!

dj


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