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When it comes to failing relationships, both in my personal life and in the lives of my clients, there is a theme where one person is “evil” and the other one is the “saint” and it is mostly reversed for the other party. This happens especially when a relationship went real sour, filled with constant rife, or when it is abusive.
A few things usually happen; one party thinks that they are always right and that they are the victim, or one party tries to see another’s point of view and justify their behavior even when it is inappropriate and hurtful. Only very rarely this happens; one party knows that they were wronged and they also see another’s point of view, but they use this information to discern the dynamic of the relationship and how it became the way that it did.
In my sessions with clients who are having a hard time coming to grips with what happened to their failed marriage, there is a lot of blame, and the victim mentality is very apparent. One of the scenarios would be that one party feels misunderstood and neglected and the other party feels that they did everything to please the other to no avail.
The truth is that nobody wants to be a “bad guy” and really there are no inherently bad people out there. All of us are creating and defending our “comfort zones”; however, it is the means that we use to do so that are tremendously diverse and in some cases heavily questionable. The resulting dynamic between these means is what we call a relationship.
In order to demonstrate this point I oftentimes use the metaphor of color mixing. When we mix blue and yellow we get a very functional and pleasant color green. Red and yellow create orange, also a recognizable and pleasing color. But try to mix brown and blue for example and we’ll get a muddy color that may not be all that desirable. But would you blame either blue or brown for creating that muddy shade? Of course not; it would be silly to say that if only brown wasn’t so damn brown then the mixture would have turned so much more pleasant. These two are colors in their own right with specific components that make them what they are. Both contribute to the mixture, but neither is inherently bad on their own. Same with people – neither person in a relationship would be inherently evil, but when mixed together they create a dynamic that might be poisonous and unhealthy. I could run with this metaphor for a very long time, discussing the chemical composition of
I could run with this metaphor for a very long time, discussing the chemical composition of colors and comparing it to the psychological composition of people, but I will limit it to one main point: both of you contribute to, but neither of you is inherently bad for mixing up a relationship of poor quality. In order to understand this concept, one must challenge the commonly accepted mentality of blame, and my color metaphor begins to unravel it.
As it is my custom and style, I opt to move on from a metaphor to a little bit of neuroscience. Our behaviors are influenced by a myriad of cells that construct a large number of organs that in turn form into systems. The nervous system is one important influencer and decider of our behaviors, and plainly, it consists of the brain and the neural network.
I will skip over many intricacies of the brain and its centers and connections because I really want to talk about the amygdala. It is a small organ that sits in the thick of the emotional brain and it acts as a smoke detector for the body. It is responsible for detecting a threat and then signaling to mobilize the body to respond to the detected threat. This response is very familiar to all of us – elevated heart rate, shallow breathing, feelings of anywhere from annoyance to anger and rage, fear and the like. The system that is responsible for these calamities is called sympathetic nervous system (SNS), it prepares us to fight or flee and it works like a clock. This is a very ancient mechanism and it is present in all mammals. Amygdala is involved in producing fear and anxiety, but also it is responsible for aggression. Stick an electrode into someone’s amygdala and you will get yourself an enraged person. Importantly, in humans the threat need not be solely physical, it can also be psychological. A psychological threat is something that is not well understood or thought of. Being lied to can be experienced as a psychological threat, and, very interestingly, instability of your social situation is seen by the amygdala as a threat.
The system that is responsible for these calamities is called sympathetic nervous system (SNS), it prepares us to fight or flee and it works like a clock. This is a very ancient mechanism and it is present in all mammals. Amygdala is involved in producing fear and anxiety, but also it is responsible for aggression. Stick an electrode into someone’s amygdala and you will get yourself an enraged person. Importantly, in humans the threat need not be solely physical, it can also be psychological. A psychological threat is something that is not well understood or thought of. Being lied to can be experienced as a psychological threat, and, very interestingly, instability of your social situation is seen by the amygdala as a threat.
During our life and especially during the formative childhood years, amygdala really learns what to respond to, how, and with what force. This functionality is coded largely to reflect the childhood environment and in order to survive in it until one can leave and fend for themselves. The events that trigger the amygdala activation are our future “triggers” and “buttons”.
So, here you are, all grown up with your very particular fears, and triggers, and buttons and your two amygdalae on each side of your head. Then you find someone and fall in love, and they also have their own buttons. Now there are four amygdalae in the scene. And so it begins, the interaction of your nervous systems paves the way for your future relationships. Our nervous systems are so sophisticated that we are able to pick up barely noticeable changes in facial muscles and the voice tonality in order to judge the emotional state of another human being standing before us. We don’t even need to train it; we are born with it, aside from the individuals on the psychopathological spectrum… but that is another story. For example, perhaps when you were a kid your parents used a specific tone of voice before they doled out a punishment, so that tone of voice is now a trigger for your amygdala that something bad is about to happen. Your current partner happens to use that tone of voice when they would like to discuss something serious. Your brain hears the tone, analyzes it and it arrives at your amygdala who goes ape immediately and gives you the sympathetic arousal. You feel guilty and anxious and uncomfortable for a seemingly unknown reason. You do not listen, become defensive,
For example, perhaps when you were a kid your parents used a specific tone of voice before they doled out a punishment, so that tone of voice is now a trigger for your amygdala that something bad is about to happen. Your current partner happens to use that tone of voice when they would like to discuss something serious. Your brain hears the tone, analyzes it and it arrives at your amygdala who goes ape immediately and gives you the sympathetic arousal. You feel guilty and anxious and uncomfortable for a seemingly unknown reason. You do not listen, become defensive, passive-aggressive (maybe even actively aggressive), and eventually snap. And all they wanted to discuss was your habit of piling your clothes on the dining room table… nothing life-threatening.
Without being aware of this and not being able to observe these internal reflexes, the behavior becomes habitual and your partner becomes convinced that you do not respect them or that you are too sensitive, among other things. In the meantime, back at the ranch, their amygdalae are also receiving your aggression and formulating what to do with it. Their response might be dictated by something that was coded for them in the past; it could be an active aggression or disengagement to the point of ignoring and tuning out. Then round and round it goes – the interaction of the amygdalae of all involved, with both of you not really knowing why some situations escalate so fast … In time, these interactions become a norm because certain responses are expected and then reacted to BEFORE they even happen. Dysfunction ensues… Fighting never stops.
“You never listen to me, and you never even ask any questions!”
“Because I can never say anything to please you! Your reactions are always so bitchy…”
It can get worse than that and certainly can get a lot more intricate, but this is the color that these two people are mixing.
Even though I picked at amygdala here, it is not the only culprit for our behaviors, and the system for processing external data and generating our actions is a lot more complex and multilayered than that. Amygdala is a part of our chemical composition, a small facet of how our “color” interacts with others’ “colors”.
Thinking of relationships this way oftentimes removes the emotional blindfold that prevents us from successfully repairing fractured familial ties and domestic partnerships. It removes the blame, which is the main obstacle on the road to gaining a perspective. Ultimately, it creates balance in the perception of ourselves and how we relate to others, and it infuses rationality into a predominately emotional problem.
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Photo: Pixabay