Stepping In

by Cass

This is my first time posting here.

I normally don't insert myself into other people's conflicts, not because I'm fearful or avoidant--I'm neither--but because I believe that doing so isn't generally productive or healthy.  But our system is now in a situation where we're consistently plagued with unhealthy dynamics, both as individuals and as a group.

As is often said in 12-step recovery groups, we can't keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results.  And this includes negative results.  Some of the others inside flirt with the notion that if they foster enough dysfunction within, it will make it easier for us to end everything.  Well, I don't want to end everything, and neither do most of the rest of us.

As it is, the trio of Charity, Deborah, and Rachel has devolved into a jumbled mess of pain and dysfunction, sort of like a psycho-emotional surrealist Picasso painting.  They feel each other's feelings, and each one's actions affect the others.  And none of them has a true sense of self. 

Neither Mary nor Drew wants any part of this, but they're affected by it regardless, because anything that renders one person less functional puts more of a burden on the others.  So Mary (and Allegra, and now I as well) begin acting and reacting the way Rachel used to do before we all started digging deeper.  We end up reflecting each other's least desirable traits.  And our T has been sidelined by back spasms for a couple of weeks now, so there's a limit to how much we can lean on her.

One of the subjects that frequently comes up during these rounds of internal conflict is the fact that Rachel walls herself off in a psychological bunker so that she doesn't appear vulnerable to anybody, including any of us.  It's her against the universe, and everyone else is part of the universe.  Everyone else is an enemy.

This morning I pointed out to whoever was in earshot that the only reason that anyone, Rachel included, would work so hard to not appear vulnerable would be if that person indeed did feel vulnerable.  We all need to remember this, and we need to keep making clear to Rachel that we are aware of it.  The game of illusion has to stop.  Now.