I came down last week with an allergic attack brought on I think by a combination of heavy lifting, not taking beer afterwards, and some unknown factor. A form of bronchitis that can last for a week. It’s inconvenient, especially just before an out-of-town trip whose purpose was precisely to energize before the school year starts. So, no gym this week.

It matters somewhat, not going to gym. Why? Because it’s part of how I solve my problems. I’m not here referring to “What will I take up in college?” or “Should I move to another country?”.

I’m referring to worries, anxieties, and guilts. Like, I was anxious about my Mazda last week and how it would be inconvenient to bring it to the shop now because I needed it for this and for that, and it’s expensive, and what, and then solved half the problem by writing a short paragraph about it.

“If you write the problem down clearly, then the matter is half solved.”

Kidlin’s Law

For a big chunk of what remains, my go-to approach is to pray and to lift heavy. Praying is to tell God how much we love and trust Him. Weightlifting is to tell the world how we f*****g don’t give a s**t how anything else turns out. And it works: 9 times out of 10 my personal problems become personal opportunities after a few powerlifts. The other 1% always resolves with time, patience and cheerfulness.

Write. Pray. Lift.

There’s this game, however, that doesn’t help. Stephen B. Karpman in his book A Game Free Life called it the drama triangle. It has the characteristics of a psychological game: roles, duplicitous communications and a payoff that’s negative. It’s a fascinating study in misery and manipulation.

The roles played out in the Karpman triangle are the Persecutor, the Rescuer, and the Victim. In a psychological game all players discount themselves and/or the others.

The Persecutor discounts others’ sense of Worth. The Rescuer discounts others’ ability to think for themselves and to act on their own resources. And the Victim discounts his own ability to think and to solve problems.

The Persecutor says “I told you so“. He’s the one with the conditionals, the judgments, and the analysis that explains what’s wrong with you and why IF you did what he told you, you would be a better person. He provides the proverbs.

The Rescuer provides the medicine. “You have a problem, HE is the solution“. Just open up to him and everything will be fine. Rescuers aren’t really interested in rescuing, but in finding sick satisfaction in knowing the Victim is really miserable.

The Victim is the one who needs rescuing (from the Rescuer) and judgment (from the Persecutor). He signals these needs through self pity and deprecation, to which the other two respond.

The three roles SWITCH. Say, two people are playing the game. It starts with one playing Victim and the other Rescuer. Somewhere in the dialogue the Victim becomes, say, the Rescuer (“No, it’s you who needs healing!”) or the Persecutor (“What qualifies you?”); the Rescuer also shifts a role.

The communication is duplicitous in the sense that they use words that of objective, rational adults, but at the back of their minds they are thinking of you as helpless or tyrannical. This is sometimes called the subtext. “What qualifies you?” sounds rational, but at the back of the Persecutor’s mind he’s really questioning your abilities, not asking for information. The real messages are hidden under some veneer of acceptability. Why? Because it is too risky to express honestly what one feels, and could cut the game and therefore the fun.

Which is ironic, because the results in a psychological game are negative outcomes or payoffs for all players. Within a few minutes or even days, a drama triangle concludes with each player getting something that validates a generally false belief about himself, others, or life. Persecutor’s payoff is “All men are idiots“, Rescuer’s is “All men are sick“, and Victim’s is “I’m sick, you’re all sick“. It’s not that we play these games to feel bad, but to validate why we feel bad.

Because a game is ultimately negative, it is best to cut it if recognized. One does this in a number of ways. Simply don’t respond to a move. Or, change the direction of negativity to positivity, e.g., “You need help“. “Yes, I think you’re right. Do you know the cellphone number of a doctor I can consult?”. Or, call it out: “I don’t know why you think I have the problems you say I have.”

Game’s over before ‘fore it even starts. Which really sucks, because those who want to play will not get the validation and attention they seek.

Let’s be clear: we all have problems. A friend of mine said that if we used the DSM-5 definitions many of us would have some mental disease or pre-mental disease at some level of virulence or another. I don’t believe there’s such a thing as mental disease, however: tell, what’s the organic lesion in bipolar disorder? I do think there are such things as BRAIN or NERVE or SPINAL cord lesions. Still, people get depressed and anxious. And everyone falls for a cognitive bias even hundreds of times a day. These aren’t diseases: they are cognitive and behavioral lapses.

But most “personal” problems, the ones we idiomatically refer to as “issues” that cause worry, guilt, or anxiety can be addressed with a change in thinking or behavior. Most are not solved by talking about them; even thinking about them often leads to overthinking about them. And if we’re not thinking about them, what do we do? Lift weights, play golf, run, make wooden toys, paint, whatever you love. I think that the rise in mental health issues over the last few years correlates with stricter laws on smoking.

A friend and I were talking about this recently. We both came from all-male elementary and high schools. Our experience was that when we had issues we resolved our differences through a fist fight, sports or, as we got older, direct confrontation while sharing an ashtray. Then it was business as usual. Another friend who was in on the conversation shared that the situation in all-female schools is different. There, girls settle their issues through psychological violence, then through secret Post-It allegations and now through cyberbullying. Best girl friends have been separated for life because of their drama.

Finally, what about problems like “Should I move to another country?”, or in the case of a friend “Should I join the Jesuits now or get my PhD first?”. These are complex problems that sports and smoking cannot resolve. Various approaches and techniques are available, including seeking the opinion of experts.

Nonetheless, even problems like these become easier and more fun to solve when we are calm. As someone I know once quipped, smoking may have actually saved millions of lives by calming the nerves of the guys who had their fingers on the nuclear button.

(Q.C., 230907)