Sometimes the problem is not that you are overreacting. It’s that you have been pulled into a conflict that was never yours in the first place.
And if you don’t see that clearly, you will keep doing what most people do in these situations: blaming your sensitivity, your anger, your overthinking, your inability to let things go.
When really, the issue started much earlier, and it had nothing to do with you. It started the moment the system placed you right in the middle.
If you missed last week’s email, here’s the important bit: A subscriber asked about a family dynamic that had her angry, mentally trapped, and replaying the same scene again and again. One person was behaving badly, another was refusing to deal with it properly, and she was the one ending up tense and unable to stop thinking about it.
Now, take this to your own particular conflict. Not only in families, but it could also be at work or in a group of friends.
Last week I explained that there are some people who get especially hooked by situations of unfairness. They happen to see an injustice more quickly than everybody else, then they get angry because it’s unfair, and before you know it, they get stuck, because they don’t actually have the authority to correct what is happening.
But there is another piece of the puzzle.
Because sometimes the issue is not only that you are sensitive to injustice. Sometimes the system itself drags you into a conflict that doesn’t belong to you.
Imagine a drama in a group of friends.
Imagine another one within your community.
That is where a particular phenomenon happens, called the triangle of displaced responsibility. Yes, it’s a very fancy psychological term. But the actual thing is very simple, you’ll see.
And once you can start spotting it right at the start, a lot of things start making sense.
So,
a triangle forms when two people have a direct conflict, but one of them avoids dealing with it, so the tension gets displaced onto a third person (AKA you).
So instead of the problem staying where it belongs (the people involved in the problem), it spreads.
In the subscriber’s case, the structure looked roughly like this:
Person A: the mother.
Person B: the sister.
Person C: the subscriber.
The real conflict is between A and B.
But… the mother sees that the sister is not helping, she notices the injustice, she feels irritated, probably overloaded too.
But, but,
instead of addressing it clearly and consistently with the person involved (assertiveness has left the room), she doesn’t really sustain that confrontation.
And when that happens, the conflict doesn’t magically disappear. It simply changes location.
This is the part most of us often miss.
We think the problem is the bad behaviour itself (sometimes it is). But in this kind of situation, the thing that really messes with your nervous system is not only the original problem, it’s actually the way the tension gets redistributed.
Because once the person who should address the issue doesn’t address it, the system starts making little adjustments.
The first is indirect communication. Meaning: comments, sighs, little digs, passive-aggressive remarks, frustration floating in the air, complaints without a real limit being set where the limit should be set.
You know the vibe if you ever had a group of female friends.
Nobody says the actual thing to the actual person, but everybody somehow has to breathe in the atmosphere of it.
The second move is the search for an emotional ally. This doesn’t usually happen in an obvious way, it’s not like they do it on purpose. But the person who is not dealing with the problem directly starts sharing the tension with someone else.
That someone else (a coworker, your other friend, the other classmate…) is someone who “seems” to get it, someone who can give a bit of perspective, someone responsible, someone who will understand without needing much explanation.
And if you are that person, congratulations, you have just been recruited into a conflict that is not yours.
That is the trap.
Now look at what happens to you in…
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