I am at a loss, and it’s no one’s fault. If I was different, I would have put an end to it. But I am not. I am who I am. I am self-centred and limited. First, I experience moments for myself, and second, for others.
I am selfish and care for myself foremost. I am subjective in my communication and choices. I hold my own meaning and understanding of the world.
My loss began with a misunderstanding and lost meaning somewhere in spoken and unspoken words. Two friends not hearing each other while coming to their own conclusions about a complex and inconsistent context.
We often lose relationships to this. To perspectives we hold about contexts, other people’s communication and behaviour.
Individuality
Becoming, accepting and growing into myself—I’ve learned that individuality hardly extends to other people in full. It is a private thing dancing around different things, i.e. context, perspective, meaning, self-awareness, history, internal feelings, inner conflict, trauma, object relation, etc.
All these things come together to influence how we feel and react to things happening around us and to us.
That’s why people can experience the same moment together but hold different opinions about it.
“We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.”
– Anais Nin
Object relation theory
Melanie Klein was a psychoanalyst focused on child analysis. She is also the founding developer of Object relations theory.
Object relations is a psychoanalysis theory that focuses on the relationship between an infant and the mother. Using breasts to make her point, Melanie emphasized infants’ relate to their mothers and things around them as objects. When frustrated, these objects are bad and vice versa.
So, you see, the world does not work against or for you. You work in relation to the world. You take the world in and you react to it.
Intricacies you forge in your relationships do not begin with other people, but within you. These intricacies do not remain intact through and through. They fluctuate according to how you see yourself, others, and the world.
Relationships teach each and everyone of us about ourselves. They transpire from outside to inside, establishing meaning from inside to outside. How we relate to others dances around the balance we maintain, and the feelings we have in different contexts transpiring in our relationships.
This is a good thing.
And a bad thing when it happens in extremes.
Object Constancy and self
Object constancy is a term concerned with how we relate to other people as individuals. It is the ability to hold together the belief that a relationship is stable, even when there is conflict and distance. The ability to live with the ambiguity of a relationship without being extremely anxious or shutting down.
A healthy object constancy can hold on to the reality that one is safe and loved even without constant reassurance and presence.
“The ability to see objects as different from one another precedes the ability to appreciate self as a separate entity”
Self
Self has many definitions. The mind; soul; spirit; oneness; self-thoughts; self-image, etc. “But self as a mental representation — that is, an idea, feeling, or fantasy of self. That is me.”
Mental representation of self comes alive through feelings, thoughts, perceptions, contexts, ideas, fantasies, etc. Holding our mental representation in mind, we receive and respond to other people’s communication and behaviour. We assume a position and respond accordingly.
This is a classic case of I vs you.
I don’t want this. You did this.
Splitting
Spectrum, right?
Spectrum is a term used to explain things that can’t be placed in one position—like sexuality.
In psychology, we classify mood disorders as emotional spectrum disorders, i.e. depression and bipolar. This is because, for people with mood disorders, emotions don’t shift steadily. They shift in extremes. In a steady spectrum, we should be able to get angry at someone and still feel love for them at the same time.
Unfortunately, for people with emotional spectrum disorders, two things are hardly right at the same time. They are either happy or sad; in love or out of love. We call this splitting. Black and white thinking. Here, the spectrum has two sides — things are either all good, or all bad.
Context and Perspective
Back to context and perspective.
Individuality, object relation, object constancy, self, and splitting. These phenomena happen within contexts created by people who hold their own subjective perspective about specific contexts. (Hold this thought.)
I can’t think of a more silly reason for my loss. And this is a subjective view influenced by how I experience and view the world. My friend, on the hand, could disagree. And she wouldn’t be wrong as far as her subjective world and perspective are concerned.
However, what remains true for both of us is that we are multifaceted beings. We can be good but still do bad. Sometimes we are bad but do good. Sometimes we are neither because we are not bound by goodness.
Sometimes we navigate contexts, thinking logically. Sometime we apply experiences in present moments. Sometimes our subjective worlds are stereotypical and shallow in reasoning. Because of this, we don’t consider other people’s multifaceted ness concerned with:
- Self – subjective views only.
- Object constancy – Failing to see how a relationship is still a good relationship despite conflict.
- Splitting – Thinking that if one does bad, then their entire being bad.
This is problematic.
Ambivalence
Ambivalence is the state of having mixed and contradictory feelings about someone or something. It is not the greatest feeling in the world, but is inevitable.
Being okay with it creates a space for relationships to grow because it means you can work through negative emotions without tipping to an extreme end — good or bad.
After all, people have negative traits, and so people can behave negatively. That’s just a part of them. It does not overshadow their good traits.
That’s why you can work past problems in relationships. Because you can try to consider other’s position as individuals and vice versa.
Two things can be true at the same time when you mind your context and perspective.
So, mind your context and perspective.
Ndinae K
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