It's Not Your Fault and You Didn't Do Anything Wrong
Spidey Sense, passive aggressiveness and other dysfunctional communication styles
The faintest whiff tension sets its off. Like a bloodhound, you pick up the scent - your partner is pissy, your kid seems off, a sudden chill from your boss - and your mind is off to the races. You just know it’s your fault, or at least it’s yours to fix. Your old job from childhood goes by many descriptions: calm the storm, keep the peace, or lighten the mood. You may even realize it’s the dysfunctional dance of codependency again but the tension is just too hard to bear otherwise.
The dance takes a toll. The cost? Self esteem. Depression. ANXIETY. So many issues — from social awkwardness to conflict avoidance — are rooted in sensing then taking responsibility for someone else’s bad mood. This hyper-attunement trains you to take things personally. I witnessed many a ping-ponged marital fight with couples, struggling with an oversensitivy to each others’ moods. Through this filter, every comment tells the story of insinuation or accusation. When you view those closest to you through the lens of threat and attack, you can’t help but responds defensively. Don’t try to change this reaction - get to the root of it.
It’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong.
The ‘Spidey’ Sense
To understand The Spidey Sense, we must examine the original templates — our primary caregivers. Most of the time, it’s your parent(s) but not always. Anyone who was a significant caregiver in your childhood counts. These are the major influences in our young lives; the people who looked out for you (or didn’t) and whose voices became parts of your mind.
If one or both of our parents had problems, be it mental illness, addiction, abuse, or unhealthy coping patterns, then as kids, we picked up on it without exactly knowing. A non-functioning parent literally risks the child’s survival. If your mom is too depressed to fix food, you will starve. If your grandfather explodes in rage after five beers, you better count. Adapting to signs of danger served the young, developing mind - the spidey sense. Like the ability to smell rotten milk, this special attunement and attention to your parent’s physical and/or emotional state kept you alive. One of my clients calls her her bloodhound sense. I love that.
A highly developed ‘Spidey Sense’ gave your kid-self the best chance for detecting the first hint of trouble. Your young mind watched the adults in your life - scrutinizing facial expressions, listening for tone, and paying attention to body language. Analyzing their words for hidden meanings helped you to predict, and maybe prevent, the next slap, tearful breakdown, or slow motion, pill-slurred, monologue.
It Must Be My Fault
Children learn what they need for the environment they’re born into. You don’t magically acquire good coping skills - they must be taught to you. No parent is perfect and every single one is limited by what they learned and how far they advanced on their own. When a bad thing happens, we want to make sense of it. With only a few years of life experience and not a lot of knowledge, a kid without healthy models draws flawed conclusions regarding cause and effect. Parent ignores child’s need? I must have done something to upset them.
Without another answer, kids defaults to self-blame to explain another’s neglect, abuse or maltreatment. These patterns run deep. Into adulthood, faulty predictions transfer over to our spouse, friends, and children’s moods. This is especially the case with those we see as authority figures. You carry forward a belief that sending your energy out to pick up clues, you will anticipate and control potentially unpleasant situations. You don’t know any different because it is so ingrained that it feels normal.
The Hint that Keeps on Giving - Passive Aggressiveness
A close cousin to the spidey sense, passive aggressiveness is communication that comes out sideways. It’s the subtle hint to what the person wants or thinks is right. In order to pick up on it, you have to be specially trained during - you got it! - childhood. Unless you’re attuned to subtle signs, you won’t see it. Each passive aggressive person is their own language. The learning curve is painful - tension arises out of nowhere and you get in trouble for crossing some line you didn’t even know was there.
Codependency in Action
What we’ve been talking about is codependency. Notice the “co” - you can’t be codependent by yourself. Let’s look at a prime example from my own life. A long time ago, I was married to an active alcoholic. On the drive home from work, I would start to get tense. My neck and shoulders got tight and I’d get a headache. Note - it took me a loooong time to even put two and two together so don’t feel bad if you’re just making a connection in your own life.
I’d brace myself to walk in the door - should I be full of false cheer? Gently fish for signs of a bad mood? Anticipating my partner’s irritation, I looked for advance signs of what I was walking in on.
It was a setup: I didn’t cause the irritation but because I knew about it, I had to fix it.
My partner employed a ‘kick the dog’ strategy. You know this one — something at work makes you mad and instead of dealing with it like an adult, you bring it home and pick a fight with your wife. Yeah, we’re divorced now.
You Can Change Your Life
1) Raise Awareness
It’s easy to recognize these pattern but so hard to change it. It means resisting this great internal PULL that says DANGER! As with all change, you have to map out the territory with awareness before moving forward. Figuring out what I was feeling as I drove home and entered the house was the first step. I had to stop tuning in to others’ feelings and tune into my own. Then I had to decide what was an appropriate and expected response to a given experience. I decided that coming home from work should be emotionally neutral. If nothing else had happened, nothing should be wrong. Taking this stance, puts the emotions back where they belong — in the other person’s hands.
2) Tolerate Discomfort
Listening to our friends, partners, and kids as they vent their feelings is a loving thing to do. You, me, others — we can’t help how we feel — only what we do with those feelings. Hearing them express their pain, fears, and even anger, without trying to make it all better or minimize it, is important. When we empathize with another’s discomfort, it naturally becomes our own for a small time. By listening, we show them they are not alone. It is when we think we have to DO SOMETHING that we fall into the trap of responsibility without power. We cannot manually turn the dial up or down on someone’s feelings wheel without the risk of stomping on their emotions. Telling your loved one they shouldn’t feel ________ about something only invalidates what they DO feel in the service of our own discomfort. The only real power we have is to soothe ourselves.
3) Recharge Your Battery
Your power is within. I know it sounds cheesy but it’s true. After listening to someone vent, if you get the signal that all is not right with you, use that information to meet your own needs. Believe it or not, this is in service to your loved one — in the most meaningful way. By soothing yourself, you fill your own cup, giving you the most resources to help others. You stay calm and even, ready to assist or soothe others. Your battery is fully charged.
4) Stay Emotionally Balanced
Diving down the rabbit hole of reaction with your partner is a habit. Resisting that pull can feel kinda mean at first. Essentially, it’s a mis-attunement — meaning, you are purposely creating emotional distance when the other person gets stormy. Remember why you are doing this — it’s a long-term investment in the health of you and your relationship. It’s a vote of confidence and validation in the other person. You’re saying, “I hear you and I trust you to work this out. I’m not lost and I know you’ll work this out.”
5) Change the Pattern
Before change sticks, you may experience what we call an ‘extinction burst.’ Habit will pull you both towards familiar patterns of unhealthy behavior and may leave you with doubts. The child in both of you sees the old threat. Trust the process as this is temporary; wait it out. Over time, you’ll see and feel a positive difference in yourself and those around you and gradually gain a greater sense of ease. Assess your progress and adjust strategies as needed.
6) Trust Yourself
When you understand the reasons why you or others think, feel or act, everything gets better. Always ask yourself questions and answer until you are satisfied. Whether you believe it now or not, the truth is, you are the final word. Try this test — you picked up on something funky from your partner, boss, or friend — some irritation or sadness — and asked if everything was okay. That person said everything was fine. Do you believe them and go on with your day? If you said no, you’re trusting your instincts (and maybe thinking you did something wrong). If you said yes, you’re still trusting your instincts but this time, you’re also taking care of yourself by trusting the other person and yourself to handle whatever comes your way.
Need more ideas? Check out the REFRAMED Toolbox.
Wonderful, yes, and the interesting thing is that codependency can obviously come from a dicey childhood, but I think it also gets woven into the fabric of being a woman. We are often made responsible for other people's feelings.
Childhood's a bitch.