Killing Me Softly - The Frog in the Pot Syndrome

It doesn't matter what gender you are; you may find that you have a lot in common with the leap frog. Even if you have enjoyed other healthy relationships, (this is usually not the case, there is a pattern to making bad choices in relationships) you might wake up one day to discover you have become the frog.

How does that work? In reality, if you place a frog in a pot of cold water and gently turn up the heat until it boils, it will sit right there in oblivion until it dies; really. If you place the same frog in a pot of water that is already boiling, it will instantly leap out. It recognized the danger.

It happens in life that way many times, in many ways. It can happen in a friendship when you discover that you have been used to elevate a person parading as a friend to a new height. Suddenly, you are displaced and boiled alive. Your position has no value once they achieve the goal they began with, even though you innocently misread the goal. When you have good strong boundaries, you are more likely to recognize that you are in a pot of water for some reason.

More frequently, it happens in relationships. A boundary is crossed, you look the other way and the next time, the envelope is pushed further. On and on it goes until the foundation of a relationship you thought was built of stone has crumbled like sand in the wind.

It continues until the situation becomes dangerous, the water has begun to boil, and others notice and intercept for you (don't count on this, you may sit in oblivion to the death) or until you die in the situation, either emotionally or worse, a life has been lost. Some relationships live this out over a period of decades. Gone are the hopes and dreams of companionship and love and shared goals; they have been replaced by the monsters of abuse.

These include controlling and manipulating behavior, disrespect from the person you once trusted most, a feeling of inadequacy and hopelessness and a host of other emotions that break a little piece of your soul away at each little event. These perpetrators are people of the lie. They smile, on occasion, and tell you how much they love you just before they use their hammer of hate to pound another inch of your flesh into the dirt.

Their compliments are back handed. For instance, "I bet you were really pretty in your day... " "I know you used to be all that... " This is to ensure that you understand that you may have been pretty or handsome or successful in the past, but now, you are nothing but lucky to have them and the host of abusive traits they bring to the preverbal table.

Some stay to rescue the person, continuing to search for the person they think they have lost. Some stay because they can't see the exit any longer. They no longer believe there is a way out, some stay because they have been there so long; they think they know how to survive the abuse. There is a multitude of reasons we find ourselves in this situation but at the base of each one of these excuses is the old friend called fear. You are firmly in his grasp, believing you have nothing at all to give in a new relationship, that all or most of those hateful things must be true because, after all that person says they love you, so why would they lie? Or, you convince yourself that they don't really mean it.

It becomes easy to insist that the person has never hit you, or physically abused you and so, must not be an abuser. You may want to rethink that idea. A fist or worse is a lot closer to the pot of boiling water; you may recognize the danger and jump from that far sooner than sitting in the pot of cold water while the heat is being turned up to destroy all the best parts of you. The abuser is emotionally disturbed whether or not you like to accept that about them. Healthy people with healthy boundaries will never spend their time berating or beating down another person regardless of the type of relationship. These are people who can't get up without dragging someone else down.

When I was growing up my mother insisted that our entire family be in church every time the doors were open. She led the choir, taught Sunday school and was on the church board. Our father was a fairly dashing man, an exciting guy with six children who had raced in Daytona, played the guitar and drove a Corvette the first year they were released. I thought he was the wittiest and most exciting guy in the world. But, he was likely not the best husband and father material for a woman and 6 children. He was also an alcoholic, an illness that took his life at the young age of 41.

In those days alcoholism was hidden from the public view. It was not discussed nor did they have treatment centers dedicated to rehabilitation. We were told our father was sick, and were not permitted to question that. As with every addiction; there are controlling, manipulating behaviors that work their way into the day to day relationships. When you begin the process of looking away at inappropriate behavior you begin to assist the person afflicted in setting the abuse pattern into motion. Added to this unhealthy pattern, the church we attended insisted that there was indeed good in everyone if we only dug deep enough. I thought we were charged with the responsibility of digging to find it in everyone.

I married young but continued this pattern of looking for good in people who may or not be far better than they presented to the world, but still, I was willing to dig for the best of them. To say the least, I attracted people that most would avoid because of who they chose to become, and collected a battery of friends and acquaintances that were abusive and on the take. I went to a therapist to discover what was going on. I told him that I must surely have the words 'assholes welcome' imprinted on my forehead because they all seemed to gravitate to me.

When he asked me why I continued to befriend these kinds of people, I told him I believed it was the right thing to do; I based this assumption on the things I had learned in church; to dig until you found the good in everyone. He summed it up pretty simply; "Whatever a person is showing you or telling you they are is exactly what they are going to become to you. Whether or not they are capable of being more is irrelevant, what they show you is all the good you are going to get." Or, in the words of Maya Angelou; "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time." That was excellent advice.

If you are willing to accept that you may have been mistaken when you thought this was the magical Prince or Princess (the soul mate) and love of your life and instead, accept that it was a mirage, a toad in disguise, it is far easier to put on your shoes and win with your feet; by hitting the ground running. In this instance, it is perfectly OK to run away from a problem. It may or may not save your life, but will surely save your dignity and self respect. Run like hell.

While most of us are familiar with the adage about the handwriting on the wall, I believe there are those who are even blinder than that; they see the handwriting on the wall, they read the words and they understand the meaning, but they refuse to believe it means them or to act on it.

These people show up on the doorsteps of their families, at the ER seeking treatment or in the morgue with a tragic story attached to their identity tag. No one can save you from yourself; your choices are commanding the content of the story of your life journey. You cannot run back to what you ran away from. Fill your legacy with all the goodness you can dream of. If you can dream it, and then believe the dream, it will be manifested by your sub consciousness mind. Get out of the way of your greatness and participate in your own success by weeding your garden of life and removing those who are there acting as weeds and thorns.

We begin this life with a journal of hopes and dreams and specific goals we wish to accomplish. As we walk through the journey's path we gather debris and junk recognized as wrong information, dysfunctional responses and simply bad choices.

The path returns to the one you planned when you exit the detour you have taken and return to your chosen path. Be fearless and responsible; but make the return to your path to find all the joy and goodness you planned when you embarked on this journey.