By Elayne Savage PhD
The Back Story:
For months I’ve had a this recurring visual image prancing around my head – Donald Trump standing in his crib in diapers, smearing the walls with poop, making a big mess.
So I asked Barbara Dale, one of my favorite cartoonists, to illustrate my visual idea for this blog. It has been lots of fun collaborating with her . . .
I
llustration by Barbara Dale. © Dale Enterprises, Inc.
Poop smearing is great fun for toddlers but hugely exasperating for parents cleaning up the mess. Think of the supplies of Lysol, Clorox Wipes and Mr. Clean Erasers they have to stock up on.
To the parents this behavior represents disarray, chaos, impulsiveness, unruliness and willfulness and, yes, parents tend to take it personally.
Child development experts advise poop smearing is pretty normal and may be a way of expressing feelings of frustration and anger and counteracting helplessness and powerlessness. And for sure it gets attention when the parents freak out.
On the positive side this fascination with poop might indicate a readiness for potty training and thankfully by the age of 3 or 4 they outgrow the need to smear.
Confusion Between Fact and Fantasy, Truth and Fiction
Toddlers see themselves as the center of their universe – very me - me - me oriented with no ability to see another person’s perspective.
Related to this egocentrism is magical thinking, the belief that one’s own thoughts, wishes, or desires can influence the external world.
Young children live midway between the world of magic and the world of reality. Children from ages 3 to 7 create imaginary worlds in their play. Sometimes they’re not clear where their creations leave off and the real world begins.
In Don’t Take It Personally! I quote one of my favorite descriptions of the magical world of children in The Magic Years by one of my teachers, Selma Fraiberg:
“In the fantastic world of a two-year-old, all things are possible …. Fact and fantasy are confused because they’re fused together in the child’s mind, and their thinking style is dominated by fantasies and wishes.”
Children usually outgrow magical thinking by the age of 6 or 7, yet some never quite outgrow this confusion between truth and fiction, continuing to stretch the truth when they are grown ups.
Why? To get attention. To impress. To avoid trouble. To avoid conflict. To cover tracks. To shift blame.
Unfortunately others tend to see this behavior as deceitful and untrustworthy. Especially when there is out-of -control-non-stop lying.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325982#what-is-pathological-lying
Fraiberg also makes the point that the child feels he or she is the center of the world, believing that wishful thinking will make things happen.
Residing in the Center of Your Universe
As adults we may also find ourselves in the center of our universe, especially when we are taking something personally –– seeing ourselves as the target of slights or personal attacks.
For some, residing in the center of their universe can involve entitlement, specialness, grandiosity, arrogance, selfishness, a craving for attention and adoration, the inability to empathize, and having a bloated sense of self-worth. Are you recognizing all this as traits being written lately describing narcissism?
Trouble is, for many, being in the center of the universe usually includes having a false sense of self-worth. In fact, they have a need to puff themselves up because under all the self-hype they’re really feeling full of self-doubt and self-rejection with a tendency toward self-destructing by repeated self-sabotage.
When self-esteem is this low it is too humiliating and shameful to admit we made a mistake or were wrong. Instead of taking responsibility for our actions we tend to smear the bad feelings around by blaming others or by projecting our dark thoughts, vulnerabilities and fears onto others.
(Most recently I wrote about psychological projection last month in 'Finger-Pointing, Taking Things Personally, Rejection and Projection': "Psychological projection is a form of being in the center of our universe. Projection is when we attribute our own dark places, vulnerabilities and fears to others.")
Because blaming ourselves is an easy self-rejecting place to go to, it becomes difficult or impossible to take responsibility for our actions.
I’m always reminding my coaching and psychotherapy clients: “Taking responsibility for your own actions is not the same as blaming yourself."
Saboteurs and Provocateurs
Self-sabotage is self-rejecting behavior and mostly happens when self-doubt creeps in.
The definition of sabotage is 'an act or process tending to hamper, hurt or undermine a cause.'
History offers this intriguing image of how the word came to be:
You may know 'sabot' is a French word meaning wooden shoe or clog. During the Industrial Revolution discontented workers threw their sabots into factory machinery to damage it.
The word 'saboteur' came to mean 'clumsiness,’ 'botching' or ‘bungling.’ The meaning broadened to include any purposeful and disruptive behavior.
Self-sabotage clogs up our machinery with self-doubt about our capability and competence, feelings of inadequacy or working against our own best interests.
Just maybe, under all the President’s self-aggrandizement, grandiosity, self-importance and boasting, he really feels defective, inferior and ashamed. Maybe he can’t keep from reminding himself of his flaws by sabotaging himself with carelessness and hubris.
Sometimes we sabotage ourselves by taking chances and getting sloppy. And sometimes we get caught! Could it be that a part of us likes the excitement of getting away with something and a part of us kind of wants to be contained and restrained by being found out? It's easy enough to become forgetful and leave materials or devices around where others might find them.
Saboteur rhymes with provocateur – another way of smearing the shit around. Have you ever heard the term 'shit-kicker’ used for someone who disrupts things or picks fights and creates a crisis?
These behaviors easily promote chaos – an out-of-control environment of disorganization, confusion and turmoil. And by the way this is probably exactly how parents feel each time they walk into their toddler’s room and find the walls smeared with feces.
Self-Respect Instead of Self-Reject
Wouldn't it be great if we could become our own best supporter instead of our worst saboteur? Wouldn’t it be great if we could choose not to make messes, and avoid stepping in them?
Wouldn’t it be great if we could give ourselves some self-respect instead of self-reject?
Wouldn’t it be refreshing to be able to have self-respect as a model of behavior from our leader?
© Elayne Savage, PhD
Until next month,
Elayne
Elayne Savage is the author of ground-breaking relationship books published in 9 languages.
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