Creating a Drama Free Zone
Everywhere I turn, I hear about relational drama. It’s either “I don’t do drama,” “too much drama for me” or “she’s a drama queen.” Not only have I heard it used in melodramatic tones. I’ve walked into the trap.
For all of its’ negative connotations, RD (relational drama) is an energy source, a thruster for take offs and a fuel for many a gossip circle.
I have entertained a mix of reactions toward this type of drama, from bothered to bewildered – enhanced by the lack of an agreed upon understanding.
Like a Sherlock without the luxury of a Watson, I have probed many people for their understanding of RD and all I manage to extract are illustrations rather than definitions. People can tell when its’ going on, but few are able to understand the source or the purpose.
Often described as heavy, burdensome, draining, lacking rationale and filled with tragedy, heaves and sighs, RD makes the movie “Imitation of Life” pale in comparison.
There is, however, a strain that runs throughout every illustration Dramacool And it has to do with power, or the lack thereof.
RD seems to always unfolds it’s napkin at the table of insecurity and low self-possession. When people are at a loss, either of self-discipline, self-control, self-direction, those at the table, or anywhere nearby, are called like firemen to not only put out their desperate internal fires of self-deprecation, but to give of their own water supply.
Not just manifesting insecurity, it seeks to find a source from which to drink, a well that will quench the thirst for safety. RD is steeped in a default fear of a meaningless existence.
RD arises out of one’s insecurity with self, limits of self and acceptance of self. When my life lacks meaning and purpose, I then have to find a way to buffer myself – a way to compensate for my deficiencies. And what better way to prop myself up than to bring another person down? What better way to make myself feel better than to make someone else feel worse? What better way to deflect my faults than through the insidious escalation of another’s?
Such might be a rational behavior if the object of one’s gratification needs were not a human being who is being asked to give of his or her life force in order to sustain the insatiable quest.
The antithesis to charity and compassion, RD breeds contempt, resentment, bitterness and guilt. It feeds on escalation of emotion but finds only a partial satisfaction from the other.
Like a vampire seeking a constant supply of blood, so too does RD.
Simply reflect on bullying in school by kids who believe security is found by taking it from another, schemes by financial wizards who use other people’s money to garnish their wages, marriages that “tit for tat” with “you did this” responded by “you did that,” friends who play a game of put downs instead of pull ups, battering husbands whose greatest source of self-regulation is through physical abuse, drug addicts who blame the world for their problems and always have a circumstance with which to explain their fallen nature.