Bradyesque

Depressive thoughts can convince someone that they know better the meaning of things; anxious ruminations can frame someone as being a better judge of problems and solutions. With regard to personality disorders, a histrionic personality is believing oneself to be more deserving of attention and attraction; a paranoid personality is believing oneself to be uniquely adept at understanding reality better than others; an antisocial personality exudes superiority in being above society and relational needs. However, it’s easy for most people to accuse another of being narcissistic, simply because they see a degree of superiority in their personality or character… And yet, superiority is neither exclusive to, nor the sole expression, of narcissistic personality disorder. A better diagnostic differential question, then, is: what is this superiority in service of? What is the aim of this superiority? To me, that is the important question in differentiating narcissism from other psychopathologies.

In conflicts and arguments, it’s sometimes difficult discerning its beginning. Accordingly, I’ve found that all too often, the first attack exists, as it were, in a hostile interpretation, and more hostility and conflict ensues thereafter. Working with this then involves not simply acknowledging the start of an argument as a hostile interpretation, but helping a person realize that they are interpreting and do not have absolute knowing; that they are unconsciously provoking, and not simply defending.

The work in never ending battles is to allow for more space between them, and an integral understanding of that space is intentionally having its own clear moment. To put a bow on a conversation, to wrap up an argument, to hug, to high five, to kiss, to recognize the importance of this moment being at end, allows for a deeper felt sense of the conflict being at end. In that bow, in that moment, there is felt togetherness in the conflict being solved, there is felt unity in being able to see it to the end, and there is a felt sense of the relationship remaining even after the conflict that is important. The battle wasn’t for winning or losing, but for a deeper sense of relating if that moment is allowed. To forsake that moment, to forget to put a bow on a conflict, is to miss that opportunity for deeper reflection and integration of that conflict.