Composing a Life Story

[beckyzoole]

Thanks to supergee for the link to this great essay by Mary Catherine Bateson, Composing a Life Story.

Bateson discusses "the stories you make about your life, the stories you tell first to yourself and then to other people, the stories you use as a lens for interpreting experience as it comes along. What I want to say is that you can play with, compose,

Comments

[bbwoof]

I have declared my life to be a Drama-Free Zone.

I want to have the kind of life that no one wants to hear about. You know... the kind of life that is utterly boring to anyone not intimately involved with it.

People who have that kind of life know how to live.

[ithildae]

You can say that again, louder!

I can't say I am too successful at it yet, but, what a goal! (I guess having teenagers is the big problem....)

Instant: Crunch just came and asked me for a DVD that I keep in a box under my computer desk. I grabbed the box with my toes, swiveled the chair, raised the box, and said, "OOOK!" (Crunch was suitably amused.)

[lefthand]

That is basically true and it is a hard truth to deal with. The hardest part about it is that the drama dance is originally rewarded. When something goes wrong, your friends and intimates will frequently rally around you and give you support, affection and morale sex. For people who don't have a lot of social skills or interpersonal resources, this can be seductive. That can lead to a positive feedback loop of crisis and drama simply for the positive attention it brings.

The downsides:

• It sets up a self concept of adversity and powerlessness. We are what we do and if we are constantly in turmoil, that becomes our identity
• It stunts the growth of real coping skills because the individual never actually deals with the problem
• The drama constantly drains resources from your friends, ultimately either encouraging them to look elsewhere for companionship or by buying into the rescue me drama as a rescuer or another victim
• Most people age out of this by the mid-twenties simply because there is the rewards stop. A cute twenty-year old can have

[beckyzoole]

I don't think most people do age out of it. I think they simply age out of certain expressions of their personal drama.

I know people in their 40s and 50s who still live their lives based on things that happened in their childhoods. Heck, my Mom is in her 60s, and she is still a very angry woman who cannot see her parents as real people.

[mizdandylynn]

This was the exact conversation I had with two women at work just last week... amazing how it all comes around. Thanks for sharing this with me..