Replies to 'Defining Your Authentic Self'

I just finished reading the living to your labels section of Self Matters. This is easily the third time that I have read that section, only this time I recognized that I have been living to the label the Gestalt Leader gave me, Limited Individual, not person but individual..something. I dont think that by the end of my group experience he saw me as a person. Theres a good chance that he never saw me as a person.He spent a good bit of energy promoting me as a 'thing'. However, I digress. I was examining HOW I live to that label and what the pay-off has been, for me. Since I learned that the more that I disproved that label in that group, the more angry they became and ostracized I became in that situation, which was quite hurtful. I dont believe that the healthiest part of me was willing to give up a lot of my attributes- my humor, my investment in helping those, under my care, that others saw as non-persons because of their drug addiction/Alcoholism, I wasnt willing to give up my creativity but I at some point I made a decision that I wasnt going to be hammered because I expressed those things either. I protected what was left of my battered ego and moved forward by trying not to make those attributes so obvious. I would lend the ideas, credit for what I had done to someone else to avoid the hammering that beyond that group probably wouldnt have ever happened.

I also recognized my mother in that chapter! The person who wants so desperately to hang on to the patient label. That role is more important to her than any person in her life. She has gotten the entire familys undivided attention and controlled them using this label. (My mother believes that the only reason God placed other people on this planet was to serve her in some manner.) I dont really believe that she thinks of people as people either but as things, who if she is passively manipulative enough (i.e. passing herself off as a poor and pathetic old crazy woman) that others will look at this thin veneer and say, Just look at this poor woman, how sad. She needs others at her beck and call.

That works well for her among those outside the family and to a degree among some of the large extended family. Recently, when she fell and her physician saw her. He immediately asked, And just where was your daughter, the RN? Why wasnt she there?

I believe that the core commonality between the Group Leader and my mother is that neither ever saw me a person. Hence the return of the nightmares!

Well, thats as far as Ive gotten with that one. Got to figure out where I go from here.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Brenda

I just finished reading the living to your labels section of Self Matters. This is easily the third time that I have read that section, only this time I recognized that I have been living to the label the Gestalt Leader gave me, Limited Individual, not person but individual..something. I dont think that by the end of my group experience he saw me as a person. Theres a good chance that he never saw me as a person.He spent a good bit of energy promoting me as a 'thing'. However, I digress. I was examining HOW I live to that label and what the pay-off has been, for me. Since I learned that the more that I disproved that label in that group, the more angry they became and ostracized I became in that situation, which was quite hurtful. I dont believe that the healthiest part of me was willing to give up a lot of my attributes- my humor, my investment in helping those, under my care, that others saw as non-persons because of their drug addiction/Alcoholism, I wasnt willing to give up my creativity but I at some point I made a decision that I wasnt going to be hammered because I expressed those things either. I protected what was left of my battered ego and moved forward by trying not to make those attributes so obvious. I would lend the ideas, credit for what I had done to someone else to avoid the hammering that beyond that group probably wouldnt have ever happened.

I also recognized my mother in that chapter! The person who wants so desperately to hang on to the patient label. That role is more important to her than any person in her life. She has gotten the entire familys undivided attention and controlled them using this label. (My mother believes that the only reason God placed other people on this planet was to serve her in some manner.) I dont really believe that she thinks of people as people either but as things, who if she is passively manipulative enough (i.e. passing herself off as a poor and pathetic old crazy woman) that others will look at this thin veneer and say, Just look at this poor woman, how sad. She needs others at her beck and call.

That works well for her among those outside the family and to a degree among some of the large extended family. Recently, when she fell and her physician saw her. He immediately asked, And just where was your daughter, the RN? Why wasnt she there?

I believe that the core commonality between the Group Leader and my mother is that neither ever saw me a person. Hence the return of the nightmares!

Well, thats as far as Ive gotten with that one. Got to figure out where I go from here.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Brenda