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by Mark
Sichel,
LCSW
"My
father always had a list of people who he felt were "bad." These bad
people, he felt, had insulted, injured, or treated him unjustly. I
was often on that list; at one point, he would not talk to me for a
period of five years. As he got older, his list grew and he became
even more isolated, angry, and bitter. It was very sad to watch, and
it was horrible to have to worry about it until he died when I was
in my fifties."
Barbara* is a 67-year-old woman who is
telling me about her difficulty in letting go of a chronic need to
please people. She feels that her need to please others is highly
related to having grown up with a parent who was an injustice
collector. Barbara identified with her mother, who was a People
Pleaser until the day she died, but her sister Eileen, on the other
hand, inherited their father's destructive habit of collecting
wounds, insults, slights, hurts, lack of respect, lack of
understanding, and whatever other grounds either of them could use
to place people on their "Bad List." Barbara and her mother are
examples of People Pleasers; Eileen and her father are examples of
Injustice Collectors.
"Eileen seemed to want to spoil every moment of happiness in
everyone's life but her own. She always seemed to be able to
manipulate a story and present it in a way that would portray her or
her family as poor pitiful victims of whoever in the family seemed
to be having a good day. For years, rather than get angry, I would,
as I had learned from dealing with our father, quickly apologize and
scramble to make everything ok again. I never really felt that I did
anything terrible to Eileen, certainly nothing to merit her levels
of rage, but whatever it was, I'd always make the peace."
Barbara told me that her sister's chronic drama would
repeatedly take the form of hurling accusations at her or her
husband or children, and then saying, "I'm done. I'm never speaking
to you again." Barbara would immediately say she was sorry, and then
spend inordinate amounts of time courting Eileen for forgiveness.
Whatever Eileen accused her of did not make sense to her;
nonetheless, she immediately felt that it was her fault. She felt
overcome with shame and guilt, and in her self-blame would readily
prostrate herself before Eileen, groveling to get through the
episode and avoid an ugly scene at a family event. When Barbara's
oldest son Lawrence was getting married, he had decided to have a
small wedding, and to that end, while he had invited his Aunt Eileen
and her husband, he had not invited their grown children with whom
he had never been closely involved. Two days before Lawrence's
wedding, Barbara had received the dreaded call of rage from Eileen.
This time, however, when Eileen shouted, "I'm never speaking to you
again, instead of scrambling to fix it, Barbara simply said, "OK.
Goodbye." She hung up the phone and never looked back.
"My
father died a bitter, lonely and angry man, taking his precious "bad
list" into the coffin with him. The funeral was sad for me, not
because I would miss him and his atrocious behavior, but because by
that point he had alienated everyone but my mother and sister, and
we were the only ones at the funeral. I realized with my sister that
she was going to play out the same ugly drama, and I finally decided
that I didn't need or want to be part of that."
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Characteristics of Injustice Collectors:
- Injustice
Collectors are convinced that they are never wrong.
How is it possible that they are never wrong? It is
simple: They are always right.
- Injustice
Collectors never apologize. Ever. For anything.
- Injustice
Collectors truly believe that they are morally and
ethically superior to others and that others
chronically do not hold themselves to the same high
standards as the injustice collector does.
- Injustice
Collectors make the rules, break the rules and enforce
the rules of the family. They are a combined
legislator, police, and judge and jury of
- Injustice
Collectors never worry about what is wrong with
themselves as their "bad list" grows. Their focus is
always on the failings of others.
- Injustice
Collectors are never upset by the disparity of their
rules for others with their own expectations of
themselves.
- Injustice
Collectors rationalize their own behavior with great
ease and comfort.
The unfortunate
outcome in the dysfunctional family is that either the
People Pleaser has to become progressively more crippled
and entrenched in their subservient role in the family,
or else they become healthier and stronger and
ultimately are accused of breaking up the family. The
sad part about this drama is that once the People
Pleaser has grown to the point where their self-respect
is high enough to not grovel and shake in the presence
of the injustice collector, the family remains divided.
To find out more about People Pleasers, read
People
Pleasers.
To discover why a family estrangement
is almost never about one single incident, read
"I'm Done" - The Family
Drama.
To learn more about rifts in the
family, read When a Family
Divorces.
*The names of all clients have been
changed to protect their identities.
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"Healing From
Family Rifts" offers hope to those coping with a split in
their families. Family therapist Mark Sichel addresses the
pain and shame connected with family rifts and offers a way
through the crisis and on toward healing and
fulfillment...Includes inspiring and instructive stories drawn
from the author's patients that help readers put their own
situations in perspective." -- Book Description
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