The attention the sick systems post is getting is, ah, rather overwhelming. I'm so, so happy that y'all have found it useful in what clarifying what happened to you. I'm sad and astonished that so many people had the same experiences. When I wrote it I was thinking of a few extreme situations I've found myself in or watched friends flounder through, so I considered sick systems rare and deeply pathological. What y'all are saying, both here and in conversations around the net, is that almost everyone has gotten stuck in a sick system at some point in their lives, and that they're an inground part of life in some slices of the world.
Something is wrong.
This is where I'm supposed to follow up with What to Do to Fix the World, but the answer is: nothing. You can't fix a sick system from within unless you have power, and you can't fix a sick system from outside, period. You can't compel people to leave. You can convince them to leave, but the moment that convinces them is individual, like enlightenment striking a monk because his master made a joke about a spade. And when a stuck person chooses to leave, it will be long, long, long after they should have gotten out.
So instead I offer you a list:
Qualities That Keep You in a Sick System
Loyalty
Patience
A strong work ethic
Optimism
Self-sacrifice
A need to be useful to others
Forgiveness
Farsightedness
Trust
Hope
You don't need to lose these qualities to get out. But if you're stuck and trying to figure out what's keeping you in, remember that people rarely get stuck because of their vices. They're usually caught by their virtues.
Something is wrong.
This is where I'm supposed to follow up with What to Do to Fix the World, but the answer is: nothing. You can't fix a sick system from within unless you have power, and you can't fix a sick system from outside, period. You can't compel people to leave. You can convince them to leave, but the moment that convinces them is individual, like enlightenment striking a monk because his master made a joke about a spade. And when a stuck person chooses to leave, it will be long, long, long after they should have gotten out.
So instead I offer you a list:
Qualities That Keep You in a Sick System
Loyalty
Patience
A strong work ethic
Optimism
Self-sacrifice
A need to be useful to others
Forgiveness
Farsightedness
Trust
Hope
You don't need to lose these qualities to get out. But if you're stuck and trying to figure out what's keeping you in, remember that people rarely get stuck because of their vices. They're usually caught by their virtues.
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Comments
Knew that kind of thing never did anybody any good.
Well that explains a lot. *sigh*
I wish they'd escape. But if they had escape in them, they'd be long gone.
Disappointing and pissing off toxic people isn't a flaw, it's a necessity. As is occasionally ending the world. It's good to remind ourselves that there's the world we build up out of other people, and then there's the real world, and these two things are not the same.
And I agree with issendai that this "sick system syndrome" isn't rare, although it should be. It is far more common than it ought to be.
And the insight that it's your virtues that'll kill ya in one of these systems is incredibly sad but true.
People used to ask me why I stayed in such bad conditions for so long, and I never had an answer, so I'd joke that it was temporary insanity... These two posts at least help me understand it a bit better.
I think you've touched a nerve. Touched it, shoot, I think you've dug the thing up and exposed it to the light of day.
Good writing, good insights, and I'm going to have to go back soon and read your "clutter" postings too.
You're right, the best way to fight it is to not be there. And that's the hardest part, because it's natural to want to do something about the situation, and there's nothing to do.
Terrifying thought. The need to be needed can turn you into a great teacher, a great therapist, an amazing activist, the kind of person who changes lives. Or it can turn you into an enabler, and you can spend your life destroying yourself, the person you're enabling, and everyone who doesn't have a choice but to depend on you. And like you said, every (inevitable) failure can train you to try harder the next time. Abusive patterns are amazingly, horrifyingly well designed to self-perpetuate.
What we need is training in healthy selfishness. But of course, the people ho need it most would be the last people to sign up.
I've left several sick systems, and found that for the people left behind, I could speak to them, or leave clues, but they often stayed enmeshed for a while longer.
Be patient, though and you can get a chance to help them out.
6 years after I broke away from mom, Sis came to me crying from a mom visit. I gave her practical advice like: don't let her control your transportation - pay for a rental vehicle. Spring for dinner at a fancy restaurant - she's politer in front of strangers, and even more so in an upscale place. Create a forced limit to the event, make plans to see a supportive friend afterwards, so you have a firm reason to leave and go where you can recover.
Escaping from the sick job... my mentor did it gracefully, my departure was less so, but I've got a great new job, but we left a woman behind. So after an evening of good food and drink, we considered the problem of how to free her. Job loyalty and lack of diverse experience are an issue, as well as pressing family problems that keep her tired. Mentor recently turned down a job that would be great for our left behind friend, so we plan to start talking about the minutiae of daily life in the new job, to get her comfortable in the idea.
The plan may take a few months to implement, but that's kind of the speed the heart's emotions run at anyway.
P.S. We did try to find a way for her to get away for a week, which can be just long enough to clear her head of the craziness, and realized that family obligations blocked such an escape. Still thinking about options though.
I have to tell myself that it was necessary, and the guilt is still there, as if I could have done anything else but extricate myself.