Karpman's Triangle - Emotional Addiction

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

How it works

The controller-dictator does not give rest to the victim, builds it up, forces it and criticizes it.

The victim tries, suffers, gets tired and complains. The Savior consoles, advises, substitutes ears and a vest for tears. Participants periodically change roles.

Such a melodrama can last for many years, people may not even realize that

stuck firmly in the triangle. They may think that they are actually happy with this state of affairs. The controller has someone to pour out his negativity on and someone to blame for his troubles, the victim receives sympathy and gets rid of responsibility for his life, the savior enjoys the role of the hero.

They all depend on each other, because they see the source of their problems in another person. And they endlessly try to change a person so that he serves their purposes.

Partners switch between the roles of the triangle and either control or

save each other. And such a relationship is definitely not about love. About desire

dominate, self-pity, exhausting claims and unheard

excuses. But not about love, not about support, not about happiness.

- Aggressor.

There is a special flavor of their identity in their struggle.

They only have them during a storm. They cannot imagine that everything that they experience in a storm is in a calm state for an ordinary person.

These people are at war at the stage of building security. Because we are convinced that the best form of defense is attack. They like the enemy to match them. Fighting is what real life looks like.

This can last until such a person notices that ordinary boring people around them accumulate goodness, make friends, work where they are respected and listened to, loved ones, children, etc.

A key feature of such people (before the exacerbation of internal conflict) is their enthusiasm for their ideas. They value them very much. There are they, their ideas and the third, so, a misunderstanding, you need someone to listen. Service staff.

Because it sounds impartial, they will hide this triangle from themselves. They will be extremely polite. In their minds, their image almost shines. But this is a tragedy that happened to him, and not a great insight. The personality of such a person is like a ship in which there is a hole and a list. He is forced to make attempts to align, to fight in order to stay afloat, but all the time he falls in one direction or the other. Now in arrogance, now in insignificance.

A difficult test for such a person is to see himself through the eyes of another. Withstand the blow that the other who is nearby has seen all this time and knows this about you.

Then, after the discovery of a stable and important other, the test will be even more terrible. Because such pain is exposed for which there are no words. All emotional experiences of abuse, betrayal and rejection come to life. Something that hid inside for so long and is overgrown with the armor of the winner.

When I felt abandoned and unnecessary and there was no option where to go to cope with this experience.

These ordinary, boring people have somehow survived their usual human suffering. Left in the past.

And the fighters made fuel out of it. Sometimes effective for achievements and earning points. But fuel, endlessly tormenting themselves.

The role of the rescuer is the most difficult to analyze. This part of the self is like a sparkling shield, like beautiful armor that protects so well and shines so beautifully that it is difficult to give up and “change clothes”. Even when already tired of their load. It's like giving up love, because armor is a way to satisfy the need for acceptance.

The rescuer feels discomfort that he does not seem to belong to himself, but these thoughts disappear so quickly, one has only to feel the thrill of being needed again. "I am as long as they need me."

There is no autonomous stability and self-determination. Failure to meet the expectations of other people turns out to be such a serious challenge to their personality that it is experienced as a variant of abandonment.

Those. the lifeguard is the one who turned everything inside out. He took control of abandonment by becoming hyper-functional. One that cannot be refused. And at the same time, the rescuer did not abandon his vulnerable part. I just put it all in another to be rescued. This will be the main trap. Saving another, he metaphorically saves himself, but the saved one takes the real salvation with him.

This is how a “successful self” is formed, devoid of connection with one's own sufferings and unpleasant experiences. Receiving powerful positive reinforcement from outside.

The rescuer is the one who controls everything. Sometimes at the cost of so much tension that it begins to seem like there is nothing to breathe.

The rescuer is poorly aware of himself and sees others very fragmentarily. He is like Batman, hears cries for help, but does not hear calls to share moments of pleasure. It is beyond the imaginable - just to be next to another, participatory, sharing the atmosphere of what is happening. To be with the other, not to do something for the other.

Failure to use the rescuer while maintaining an attentive presence near him, acts on him like a burn. He cannot allow anyone to be with him for his own sake.

-Victim

When I imagine this state, it consists of contradictory colors:

I feel:

- the injustice of what is happening;

- offense;

- indignation;

- despair;

- helplessness;

- envy;

- rage;

- stubbornness to achieve your goal;

- vindictiveness;

- powerlessness.

Metaphorically, it is like a short circuit. Violation of the conductivity of electrical impulses in the network when a light bulb flickers. In this state, one has a lot of strength and hands clench into fists, then they hang down like rags on the sides and seem to be sewn, foreign. They shrink again sharply and there is a desire to wave them, then they fall on their backs.

To become a victim, you need to do the following: split off an essential part of your power and influence in a situation and place it in another.

And then the struggle begins to subordinate this other to his will, so that the other begins to obey. Those. the victim suffers because she is not obeyed, she is hurt by this. The world does not live by its rules.

The victim easily finds herself at the center of a natural disaster over and over again. Because this state arises from the mechanism of elimination described above. And the victim always carries this mechanism with him and is ready to use it at any time. The real victim owns it perfectly, and does it with his eyes closed, on the machine.

She does not notice how this mechanism is triggered. She does it unconsciously.

She has her own interpretation of what is happening, which successfully closes the logic of events from her. And this is the main trap. This is why the victim gets stuck and cannot get out of the situation

Victim - feels robbed, used. She feels inadequacy, that she is deprived of something - and this is a very accurate experience of herself in the situation. It absolutely corresponds to the description of the mechanism, but has lost its coherence. The victim robbed herself, but did not see how.

One has only to tell the "victim" about this, she is immediately imbued with a sense of guilt or righteous anger at you. Because you blame her. No, you are not trying to help. You are trying to convict her that she is to blame for everything.

The most difficult and most important thing in working with a sacrificial state is to remove the link "I am responsible for what is happening" = "I am to blame." And understand the concepts of "power" and "influence"

Power is what the victim wants. And this is a good goal, this is a wonderful healthy ambition, to have an impact.

Another thing is the way in which the victim is accustomed to receiving this power, he most often turns against herself. And very often it works terribly poorly in the long run. In a long-term relationship, the victim causes fatigue, boredom, irritation, a desire to withdraw, increasing disgust or pity.