Friday 18 October 2013

I-You Versus I-It

       For the most part, whenever someone would mention my sister to me, invariably they would say: "She ignores me" and I would respond:"Yep, that's my sister: if she has no use for you...she's not interested".
       I felt there was something intensely de-humanising in treating people this way, as if they were mere pieces of machinery. You always felt sort of lifeless after interacting with someone like that, whereas with other people I felt energised after spending time with them. I remember discussing this with various friends and acquaintances, but I seemed to be the only one who was aware of this "effect". Most of my interlocutors would look at me as if they hadn't the faintest idea of what I was talking about. I had started wondering whether I was "imagining" all this, when I found an explanation in the book ("When You're Falling, Dive" by Mark Matousek) that I was reading at the time. 
       It seems to me that certain books have a way of "finding" me instead of me finding them. At times when I was feeling really stuck and not being able to move forward, I would either be browsing in a book shop and some book would catch my eye, or someone would come along and lend me a book; and in that book there would be something to help me move along in the path. This was one of those books. (It is not an easy book to read. Some of the stories are brutal and Matousek does not shelter the reader from them, but although harrowing, it has a raw honesty that you don't find in many books. He tells you the truth that you don't want to hear: that there is no way around pain but through.)
        In one of the chapters in the book, "The Net of Indra", he interviews Dan Goleman, who discusses some points of his book "Social Intelligence". Dan Goleman explains that "the brain itself is social" and  "One person's inner state affects and drives the other person. We're forming brain-to-brain bridges -a two way traffic system- all the time. We actually catch each other's emotions like a cold". He then goes on to say that "If we're in distressing, toxic relationships with people who are constantly putting us down, this has actual physical consequences. Stress produces cortisol, a chemical that hinders cell health." So there it was: the explanation of why some people would make me feel ill, literally. It is so reassuring to the soul to be validated, and to realise that all those feelings that you had, you weren't imagining them: they were an actual process taking place. That was validation 1, now for nr 2... 
    As the chapter continues, Goleman goes on to describe two types of relationships: "the I-It and the I-YOU (first described by the philosopher Martin Buber). I-it relationships happen when we treat people as objects or functionaries because we want something from them. In I-YOU relationships, there's a human connection. There's feedback, a loop, because who the other person is, and what they have to say, matters."  

14 comments:

  1. Thank you Kara for posting this. This is a key to what I need to do next. I discovered the same thing you did. When I get stuck a book comes to me to give me hints, tips, clues, and ideas of what to do next. I'm adding this one to my list.

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  2. You're welcome Ruth. I hope it helps :)

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  3. Catching a cold! An emotional cold. This makes so much sense. I've often complained about picking up on what others feel. I thought I was weird. I think a lot of people learn to tune it out, but as an ACoN it was a matter of survival. I needed to read the slightest change so I'd recognize a blow up before it happened instead of being too late. Thanks for sharing what you're learning, Kara.

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    1. You're welcome Judy :) Yes, the hyper-vigilance developed out of necessity. I guess the trick, now, is to be aware of this and learn to use it to our advantage. I'll write more about that in the next post.

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    2. Judy describes how I feel too. I think so many people are able to tune some of it out (while not really venturing into the I-It frame, they simple are able to distance a bit from people if necessary). But I'm very much attuned the energy of people and the room and everything around me. It can be exhausting. (And as a side note, I think children are very attuned like this. It's necessary for their survival too, to be very attuned to their parents emotional states. I wonder when we grow up and are able to not be quite so effected by it...or rather, when this happens for other people. As an ACoN, we must not go through this stage.)
      Music comes to me like books do to you. It's interesting how things find us like that.

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    3. I wonder whether, in a normal development, the children gradually adjust this tuning as they grow up. Because Nparents are unwilling to let their children individuate, maybe that's what keeps us in this state of hypervigilance?

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  4. That lifeless, drained feeling after interacting with certain people, it can be so hard to outline exactly what it is about the person that makes you feel this way. That's why it's so crazy making. Interacting with my mother used to make me feel that. Its hard to be around someone who is treating you like you're not really "there." It's puzzling, and often we feel puzzled unconsciously. When I was in my early twenties, I'd leave from seeing my mother and I'd feel "frozen" inside. I didn't understand. I felt emotively paralyzed. It came from "catching" how she felt about me, that I was a thing, an object, an "it" instead of a "thou." Creepy.

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    1. Yes, very creepy. It's hard to get one's head around that some people operate that way, particularly if you are not one of them. It's good that we now have access to the science behind it (i.e. how all this interactions affect us physically), I wonder how much longer will the medical profession be able to maintain that depression is just an "illness" in the light of new research.

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    2. Interesting point about science maintaining the depression is an "illness" without an interactive, intersubjective etiology. For me, i know for a fact, it was kindled, caused, deepened, aggravated, and cemented in, by ET's treatment of me. And my father's. I came out of that household, as a young adult, feeling like I was worthless. My parents literally did not care about me. My father moved away and my mother just turned away. That's no way to begin a life. So whatever effects that has on the brain, it has causes that begin in relationships.

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    3. Yes, in a way is like being sent "into the world" without resources, and then expected to give back to them any "resources" that you might be able to build for yourself. How can anyone not be depressed having to live with that premise?

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    4. ^^^
      Yes! You've hit the nail on the head again, Kara.

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  5. This is a great post and great conversation. I'm looking forward to reading this book - adding it on the list.
    Your post found me at a time when I'm putting together what I've gotten out of the tapes with BiL and SiL; this post connects a lot of dots on the emotional physical connection. Hope to post on it in a few weeks.

    It is funny what you say about books finding us; this is also true of posts finding us. :)
    Hugs, TR

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    1. Thanks, TR. That's so true about post finding us. It has happened to me often enough (also with posts of yours) :) xx


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