Really? You’re Gonna Triangulate Me at a Time Like This?
“Triangulation is a manipulation tactic where one person will not communicate directly with another person, instead using a third person to relay communication to the second, thus forming a triangle.” -Wikipedia
You can find out quickly in a crisis, in my case the diagnosis of an horrific illness in my partner of 35 years, who, exactly, in your own life has the bandwidth to be there for you. The answer to that can be almost as shocking as the diagnosis itself.
When my husband fell the first time and hit his head, I told one of my brothers about it on the phone who raced to broadcast the news to our nonagenarian parents. It’s always been like that. He didn’t have bad intent necessarily, but he works on the point system even though he’s been maligned by the tribe all these years.
Bringing forth information regarding another takes any scrutiny off him maybe.
The curtain is quickly coming down and with it, hopefully, the dysfunctional communication patterns of that sad tribe spanning decades.
Instead of calling or writing me directly to inquire of my husband’s recovery from the fall, or to inquire of my shattered state for that matter, my mother called my sister to ask her to call me to inquire of the details.
No one in this triangle expressed helpful concern or encouragement to us directly. I only got static from their queeny chatter.
It’s not a helpful dynamic when you’re dog-paddling, trying to stay afloat. You see people who sometimes send you birthday or holiday greetings standing on the shore pointing at you and not throwing you a life raft.
Spare me the hypocrisy.
My first foray into the world of intuitives was in 1997 when I was pretty dang ill as I described in a prior post. One of my self-prescribed remedies was contacting Dr. Mona Lisa Schulz, a board-certified Brown U. neurologist and gifted medical intuitive.
She is able to scan one’s body at a distance, using her mind, and determine sources of illnesses in the body and make recommendations.
This is nothing new…medical intuitives. Because it is not a regulated industry, certainly there is room for charlatans, but I had read Dr. Mona Lisa’s published works, and I sensed, using my own intuition, that she was legit.
Communications were not so streamlined, back in the day, back in 1997. I had made the appointment with her through written correspondence and pre-paid by an obscure method called “a check.”
When I called her, she zeroed right in on my undiagnosable chronic immune problem without me saying a word. She made suggestions of vitamins and supplements which turned out to be helpful. Through her help, and good homeopathy and yoga, I recovered.
But one of the influences on my constitution she perceived was that I was being consistently “triangulated.” I had no earthly idea what she meant. She tried to explain it, around the edges. I had blinders on; I didn’t get it.
Through the subsequent decades I would reflect, “now, what? who? who is triangulating me and why?” The usual suspects would cross my mind: my mother-in-law? but that didn’t make sense as she encouraged me and supported me. Certain friends and colleagues crossed my mind time to time. I gave up trying to figure it out and settled on living my life with my husband, raising our daughter, best I could.
It was there in front of me, but I didn’t see it. “We don’t see what we don’t see” says Laura Day, often.
I found out decades later from relatives that my mother and brother and his wife, since I’ve been an adult, have been throwing shade on me from afar to my other relatives, and inquiring of my life through them.
Triangulating.
They’ve done that consistently to many others in their lives, so I’m nothing special in that regard. The brother who joined in the nasty merriment, slicing me like sushi from afar, embellished it all with conspiracy theories that I was a bleeding heart liberal.
I did not finally understand triangulation until dissecting narcissism became in vogue, coinciding with self-absorbed politicians appearing in global politics.
Suddenly blogs and podcasts and books were describing the disorder and its accoutrements, and lightbulbs started to come on for me.
Triangulation is a method of subverted control.
It can be the default communication style of many insecure souls.
And it’s usually toxic. Don’t do it. Don’t be part of a triangle. It’s hurtful, not helpful. And you’re here to be of service, right?
Like the rest of us?
“If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better. “— Anne Lamott
