TIPS FROM THE QUEEN OF REJECTION®
Elayne Savage, PhD
October, 2009
Exploited! Bamboozled By a Helium Balloon By Elayne Savage, PhD
The Balloon Boy story is old news now . . . and you're probably as over-saturated with hearing about the runaway mylar balloon as I am. Yet, I just can't get the story out of my head.
I guess I'm taking it personally. Personal memories started running rampant whenI learned how six year Falcon and his brother were exploited by the parents.
The recent court affidavit states the mother admits the whole saga was a hoax. They knew all along that Falcon was hiding in the residence. The parents instructed their three children to lie to authorities as well as the media.
Exploitation has lots of facets: taking advantage of, using, manipulating, misleading, profiting from, coercing.
Taken Advantage Of at Work
The Balloon Boy saga reminds me of the many disturbing stories I hear as a workplace coach:
- When bosses take advantage of employees
- Or employees take advantage of bosses
- How someone takes credit for a coworker's idea
- Someone pushes work onto another member of the team
- When a manager or co-worker asks someone to 'cover' or even to 'cover up' for them
- Feeling like a 'doormat' because of someone's attitude
- Finding yourself on the receiving end of inappropriate comments or actions
- And you know there's lots more . . .
The bigger your overreaction to these types of actions, the greater the chances you've experienced some form of manipulative, coercive or exploitive behavior in the past.
Taken for Granted By Family or Friends
There are times we feel used by family or friends as well.
You might feel taken for granted when:
- Someone asks for favors, but rarely offers to reciprocate.
- A friend contacts you when they want something. Asking how you are doing seems like an afterthought.
- A relative borrows money but doesn't return it . . . and they don't return your messages either.
- Your friend is always 25 minutes late for a lunch date, and as the minutes tick by, you feel more and more unimportant. At least that's not quite as bad as your ex-friend who used to totally forget you had a date and not show up at all.
And again, most of us have much less patience for these behaviors when we have a history of experiencing them.
Resentment Builds, Trust Erodes and Future Relationships Suffer
It's hard not to take these things personally. Because they are so hurtful, they feel like injustices and rejections. And if these experiences repeat, resentment builds, trust erodes, and future relationships suffer.
So I've been figuring out why I got so upset by the Balloon Boy hoax. It brings up all the times I've felt taken advantage of. Often it was by people I trusted to protect me. Some of it started in childhood, but it impinges on present personal and professional situations.
I, too, was glued to the TV mesmerized by the mylar balloon floating over Colorado. I watched as the story of the six year old boy unfolded. I watched as we learned he was not only told to lie low.He was also told to tell a lie. As I watched him get tangled in the web of deception and exploitation, I was getting sick to my stomach.
No wonder the Balloon Boy vomited while telling his story on two television shows.
This kind of exploitation reminds me of my Child Protective Services days. As you can guess, we heard lots of horrible stories of abusive exploitation of children. One that got to me the most, however, was the mother who trained her four year old daughter to crawl under restaurant tables, remove billfolds from purses, and bring them back to mom's table.
Watching the Balloon Boy hoax I was getting pretty upset. The family perpetrated a hoax on the media. The media bit the bait and perpetrated a hoax on the rest of us. I felt swindled. Duped. Bamboozled.
Maybe I was getting upset remembering the how that little girl was coerced to steal billfolds. Maybe I began reliving my own growing up experiences with a stage mother mom who pushed me to perform. She was the one with long-time stage ambitions and visions of fame. It wasn't me. I just wanted to be a kid.
"Hit a Home Run for Me!"
This is a good example of vicarious parenting. It is a form of exploitation - coercion is often involved. The sad result is a rejection of the child's authentic identity.
In 'Don't Take It Personally! The Art of Dealing with Rejection' I write:
"When parents try to live their lives vicariously through their children . . . some confusion about personal boundaries, they don’t know where they stop and where someone else begins. Vicariousness is often a form of coercion. Children often feel pushed beyond their comfortable limits, but are afraid to say “no” to a parent.
Vicarious parents encourage their children to meet their own unmet goal — vocationally, religiously, or romantically. Or they urge the children to live out their own unfulfilled dreams by being the “performer” the parents never quite became—in school, on the stage, on the playing field.
These parents see their children’s performance in life as a reflection of their own competence. If the children do well, the parents feel like good parents, successful parents. If the children fall below expectations, the parents feel inadequate and shamed. Then the children are often made to feel inadequate and shamed. The children may lose their sense of self, trading “self” for service to the parents."
Sometimes parents or grandparents want to 'shine' in the eyes of other relatives, coworkers, or friends. They brag about a child's accomplishments to look good. One women told me that her dad bragged about her art talent to all the relatives. Yet never once did he tell her directly that he was proud of her work.
Bragging Rights
The following is a pretty subtle form of exploitation, but I hear stories about it all the time. The child is made to feel incompetent so the parent can feel more useful. This behavior sometimes continues into adulthood as well.
Again from 'Don't Take It Personally!':
“My mom seemed to be waiting for me to mess up so she could step in and rescue me,” remembers Georgia. “Sometimes she’d ask me to do chores around the house that were too difficult for me. Then she’d step in and show me ‘how to do it better . . . . and take over." Georgia did the same when she grew up, taking over for her husband, then chiding him for being 'helpless'". Hmmm. Wonder where she learned that!
I've mentioned before that 20 years ago I served on a National Task Force on Psychological Maltreatment. Exploiting/Corrupting is one of the categories we defined:
"Encouraging child to develop self-destructive, antisocial, criminal, deviant, or other maladaptive behaviors (This includes micromanaging the child’s life, encouraging developmentally inappropriate drug-related or sexual behavior, or interfering with appropriate autonomy or cognitive development. It also includes using the child as a pawn in divorce proceedings.)"
And back to the Balloon Boy: Coercing the child to lie to protect the parents is surely a maladaptive behavior. And it has long term effects on our view of the world and the people in it.
Tips for When You Feel Taken Advantage Of
Here are some tips for dealing with an inequitable situation.
This happens to be a workplace example,but you can most likely
adjust it for a personal situation.
Step One: Describe the behavior in observable, non-blaming terms. "I've been noticing that I seem to be getting the more time-consuming jobs assigned to our team." (This frames the interaction from your own perception in a way that the other person feels less defensive and less likely to argue.)
Step Two: Describe how you felt about the action. "I get upset (hurt, angry, upset, confused) that it seems so uneven lately.
Step Three: Describe how you explained the action to yourself. For example, "When I get these complicated assignments, it does not feel fair." (Note: In certain appropriate personal situations you might want to add how the behavior re-creates old messages from childhood. "This is the same situation as when my older sister used to give me the jobs she didn't want to do." Use this step selectively only in situations where it feels safe. Probably not with most coworkers or bosses.)
Step Four: Describe how you would like the interaction to go next time. "In the future I need to know that assignments are being made equitably. This will do a lot to enhance everyone's productivity."
When have you felt taken advantage of? What do you remember about it? How it has affected your subsequent relationships or situations. I'd love to hear your experiences.
© Elayne Savage, PhD
Until next month,
Elayne
Elayne Savage is the author of books published in 9 languages.
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