In the
previous
post, we explored a couple of ways a person can work on their own
to develop better Emotional Self-Regulation after exiting or after
growing up in a high demand group. Healthy internal dialogue and
building self concept provide individuals with a good opportunity to
do a great deal of healing and growth on their own.
The
concept of “Locus of Control” comes from the study of the
psychology of personality and is viewed as another important aspect
or component of self concept. It refers to the amount of control that
a person believes that they have over what happens to them. Like
everything else, we human beings need a sense of balance in this
aspect of life to be healthy and to connect socially with others.
When we
feel empty inside or have low self esteem, it is natural to feel
powerless. We can believe that we have control over nothing in our
lives. Or we can compensate to protect ourselves from feelings of
true helplessness by pretending and believing that we are more
powerful than we really are, running roughshod over people. Both of
these unbalanced approaches ultimately harm us and harm others.
Personal
Power
In high
demand groups, members are forced into an acceptance of an external
locus of control. Cliques within groups and leadership bestow success
and personhood upon members when approval has been adequately
merited, teaching members that they must work to gain worth. An
individual member seems to be able to make choices for themselves,
but to remain a part of the group, their choices are quite limited by
what the group will accept and reward.
Members
learn to look at the world as though they are subject to others and
whatever life hands them. Those who grew up in a high demand group
may never have been given any autonomy and may have no experience
with personal power and self-determination. If they demonstrated any,
they likely were shamed for their efforts if those autonomous choices
didn't meet the approval of the leaders.
When
some members exit, they can become intoxicated with the sense of
power that they've never had before, and that too requires some
practice and skill to regulate. The work of developing healthy
boundaries goes hand in hand with that process, as it is likely that
the former member lacks realization of how their new found sense of
power and the use of it can affect others. They need to learn how to
negotiate and to be sensitive to others while also mastering their
own wants and needs. The process can be very stressful and lessons
are usually learned through hard experience.
Boundaries
When
anyone leaves a high demand group, they don't just flip a switch and
turn on a healthy perspective about self to fit appropriately
(respectfully and functionally) into the world. They must go about
the hard work of learning about and then building healthy, balanced
self esteem, self-efficacy, boundaries, and reasonable/realistic
expectations for themselves and others.
Cultic
systems make boundaries seem very fluid, and any boundaries that do
exist can often be unhealthy. A former member must work to learn a
healthy style of interdependency, as they've previously lived and
observed a mishmash of a boundary mess of extremes. No one can really
have a private, inner life, but at the same time, they may also learn
that they can overstep the privacy and ownership of other members.
As the
former member works to learn what is healthy and functional outside
of their group, they learn to identify skewed ways of thinking about
self and others. High demand groups focus on inflating the worth of
members by demeaning those outside of their group, they can project a
sense of entitlement because of that special status, and that can
contribute to arrogance. Sadly, arrogance is likely the last thing
that the former member wishes to project, but it can also be the path
of least resistance as the former member struggles to cope with a
more healthy life outside their group.
In
contrast, high demand systems scapegoat hard times or pain onto
noncompliant members or on malicious outside forces. In an attempt to
displace responsibility in this same way because of what they saw
modeled by others in their group, the former member learns that
scapegoating and rigid rules as an easy way to diffuse their own
personal discomfort. Unfortunately, many will not realize that doing
so displaces their personal responsibility and shows a lack of
respect for others. They're taught to be dependent victims, and
though they hate the way that feels, it is often what comes most
naturally as they seek to cope with the natural difficulties and
tensions in everyday life. Their former system gave them the
expectation of living a life without the natural tensions and pain
that life imposes on us all, and it deprives members of practice and
ability to cope with tension and difficulty.
Abandoning
Illusions of Power
When a
member leaves a group, if they don't take a look at and work at
developing a healthy sense of control, they end up repeating the
constricted control that they lived in their group. Some remain
collapsed like victims. Some emerge in anger and learn to use anger,
control, and manipulation as a means of coping in the larger world.
It is all they know unless they make themselves vulnerable enough to
learn how to live and adapt in healthier ways.
Totalist
ideological systems oversimplify reality and reduce dynamic people
into objects which are then forced into static pigeon holes. They
also perpetuate their system by making empty promises which purport
to make life easier and less painful. But when the former member
leaves, a residual sense that one can find a better way of taking a
short cut around tension and interpersonal conflict can remain. They
may try again again to build that place of fantasy that they pursued
for so long while in their group.
They
must learn that there is enough personal power to go around for
everyone, and that if someone finds their voice and their power, it
doesn't mean that there will be less for them to enjoy and live out.
Learning how to share power or to give others room to work out their
lives in their own sense of autonomy can be painful and difficult.
Giving up on the fantasy of uniformity requires us to learn
toleration of diversity – and hopefully to eventually celebrate it.
But how
does one go about that? Stop back to read the next post.
