childish behaviour

I’ve been reading a book suggested by my supervisor, all about psychological games. It’s a bit complex, and I’m not going to try and explain it all here. What I’ve learnt is more about how I relate to people. I think I’ve always known I’m a people pleaser, but I’ve learnt that its often me relating to people from a child perspective, often seeing the other person as a parent. This means that whenever I fail to please someone I feel I need to be punished, often punishing myself with lots of worry and self loathing. As I read the book, I identified with different aspects, though I am not sure about what to do about it. And so I thought the first step would be to try and articulate here the areas where I need to work at it!

Work relationships - I need to see ALL relationships (with adults) on an adult to adult level. I think I’m doing ok on this at the church on the hill. The relationships which have potential to cause problems are ones where authority is involved - e.g. with my line manager and supervisor (where they have authority over me) or volunteers (who I have authority over.) I can see where the problems may be. Only this morning did I spend a good hour feeling guilty that I had missed a supervision appointment, when according to me I didn’t. As a child, I take all the blame on myself (as the parent is never wrong) but actually we are both adults, and an adult misunderstanding took place so the blame is shared. Hopefully I will learn to see each situation as an adult-adult encounter over time. 

Family - Um, it was through a discussion with my supervisor about how I relate to my parents which brought this whole thing up in the first place! Her suggestion was to work on being an adult when relating to my mum. This will be hard, but may bring the most impact. I may need to make this my number one aim!

Friends - The less well I know someone, the more likely I am to come home and then worry about what I’ve said and how I’ve acted. I’m not sure if this is part of the child-parent thing. It’s not really a game, as it’s not how I act with the person, it’s my state of mind after! In these situations I just need to remember who I am and have confidence in who I am!

Perhaps I’m not so much of a game player as I thought I was. But hopefully from now on I’ll begin to see myself more as an adult (which I am at 28!) and have more confidence.