posted by ds @ 9:35 PM
Friday, January 27, 2006
4 Comments:
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At 11:58 AM,
said… -
At 2:10 PM,
said…I think the orginal author of the post card works with disadvantaged children and based it on their experience. Many children who've had hard lives put up walls because of mistrust in others.
But I think in adults it wouldn't appear as anti-social behaviour.
I'm not sure what you mean by "defensive and manipulative". Please explain. -
At 3:36 PM,
said…Yeah I can see how the building of walls would work from a child's perspective, infact from anyone's perspective, had they endured hardship or suffering in some way. But I don't think children build walls just to see who cares enough to knock them down! Building walls isn't so much a conscious decision for children and there is no motive behind those walls other than to protect themselves, don’t you think?
Perhaps I’m interpreting the statement too literally, but I don't understand why someone would build up a wall with the intention of it being a test to see who cared about them? It seems rather contradictory to me. I think it’s a fearful (that’s better fitting word than defensive) way of allowing people to connect with you. And because it seems so emotionally contrived, I feel it’s rather manipulative.
Manipulative… I choose this word because if people consciously build walls to test others, they must know that it will actually entice rather than deter people? In my experience, I've always wanted to see what was behind people with those kind of mysterious ‘walls’ and the more I couldn’t see, the more I wanted to and did my best to climb over them. So to purposely prevent someone from knowing you, when essentially it’s what you want, why prevent it? It seems like a control issue to me this testing of people! It’s an odd way to establish if people care or not?
After all, what about the other person who is looking at you through the wall you've created? What about how they feel being put on the outside of the walls when perhaps, they just want to be inside? It’s kinda weird … I don’t know if this is making sense and I find myself becoming increasingly confused here … lol I don’t know … from a person carrying serious emotional baggage, I can understand the response! But there are people out there, who use these tactics to control other people in their lives, you know that emotional blackmail approach … ‘prove you love me while I make it so difficult for you that you break yourself trying to show how much you really do care!”
Ds you must’ve come across needy people like this before? It’s emotionally draining although I’m sure that the author of the postcard wasn’t referring to drama-mamas when she put the piece together!
Provoking! Yummy!
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At 12:38 PM,
said…
That sounds like something a certain 'St. Thomas'would say ... :) I don't know if I buy it though! A person who purposely puts up walls as a way to weed out the people who care, has got a little mental kink going on and operates from an ego-centrical view point. It's all just a rather defensive and manipulative way to approach life and people in one's life, don't you think?
But then again ... there may actually be people out there who are THAT insecure, in which case, purposely putting up walls makes no sense at all if what they ideally want is for people to be a part of their life.
Courage man, it's the only way!!!! And the rest ... is not a profound statement! :P