Posted by Timne on May 19, 2009, at 22:23:24
In reply to Re: I'd rather not say this, but...., posted by Sigismund on May 19, 2009, at 16:55:22
> I curl up at night and read whatever's lying around, in this case Peter Padfield's "Himmler".
>
> It helps me feel less need of other people too.I was there, TV being the drug. I cut that out, and now get my fix with a popular online and mail-order movie service. Which is how I saw Angel Eyes last night, as we were chatting here about avoidant tendencies and as I was looking for meaning in my personal avoidant reactions.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0225071
Odd, I guess I'd seen it before, so I knew it was an avoidant-tendency flick, but I didn't think so much of that until I was into the plot a bit.
The flick explores a triad of avoidant personalities and contagion that affects three others.
Sharon (Jennifer Lopez) makes an emotionally potent date then casually breaks it after being up all night worrying about it.
"Catch" wades right into the potential relationship ("Your standing in my bedroom looking in my panty drawer," said Officer Sharon, laying in bed drinking coffee Catch brought her after she stood him up). But Catch is -- maybe this isn't avoidant, he doesn't avoid people until they try to make him confront his recent past, which he represses from his memory.
Then Larry Pogue Sr. avoids Sharon because, well, she had him arrested for beating on Mrs. Pogue. Unfortunately (not that unfortunate - they were all paid well for making the flick) Mrs. Pogue, Sharon's bro and his wife side with Pa, basically booting Sharon out of the family. That's contagious avoidance. By the way, it can really suck when an entire nation gets affected with something like that at once, and tries to avoid some significant part of its own people. There's one good reason to understand and find ways to resolve avoidant tendencies some times.
The sweet thing about this flick is that it explores the interplay between avoidant personality traits and social events.
Larry's conduct toward his daughter might never have been so avoidant if not for the domestic violence arrest. (I'll take the avoidance, if that's the cost. Nobody deserves to be beaten. Except maybe terror suspects hiding actionable intelligence about imminent mass destruction.)
Catch was driven to avoidant behavior by the tragedy, but we get the sense that he might have avoided family business before the family died, setting the pattern that became more serious avoidance in the face of trauma. Sharon seems to have second-generation avoidant traits.
Each of them is socially integrated in their own social world, but their avoidant patterns impair someone else's desire, and hence restrain the "community" from what might be optimal performance. We can stipulate an optimal social condition is one in which families are all loving and all forgiving, but that's not always the case. Sometimes we can strive for that, and some of those times we get what we want. Other times, circumstances and personal tendencies are just too strong, or there is too little direct, qualified support and counseling to ferret out the tangle of social and personal influence.
Now, in my case, as in Sharon's case with her father, efforts to resolve avoidant tendencies can instead exacerbate rather than resolve the situation.
What's the point? I'd rather avoid that ;)
poster:Timne
thread:896495
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20090513/msgs/896718.html