Game #21: A Letting Bee

One of the stranger games of psychos is their weird use of language. Their syntax and basic Tower of Babble bullshit. They are often able to say a whole lot-of nothing. Ambiguity is their best friend. They can talk circles around you, you can have a ten minute long conversation with them, and get NO sense of their feelings, thoughts or any affirmative answer on much of anything.

One way they do this is to distract you by throwing in ideas and thoughts that take you totally off your own points. They railroad conversations. One of the ways they may accomplish this, is with the “let” game.

The let game is real simple when you break it down: You aren’t letting them do something, or you ARE letting them do something.

For people so hell bent on power and control, it’s pretty astonishing the amount they “let” you think they have relinquished to you.

For example: When my psycho and I were back in touch after a long hiatus and a horrible ending, he went on to gush “I will be nothing but honest and open with you. Let me this time!”

Now, this threw me completely off guard. What did he just imply here? That somehow, I did something in the past, that made him incapable of being open and honest with me. That it was my fault, that he wasn’t honest and open with me. I wasn’t “letting him” be. Of course, this lead me to wrack my brain, to wonder just what the hell he was talking about. How was I not “letting” him be an open, honest person? What did I do to make him feel that I wasn’t “letting” or if you will, “allowing” that?

He also said at a later time, “You let me be a jerk to you, and I didn’t like that.” I cringed at this. Essentially, in these two simple sentences, he just implied that the entire time that he was abusive and shitty to me was evidently, my fault, since I wasn’t letting him be open and honest, and I then was letting him be a jerk.

Crazymaking, no? So, the “game” here is pretty simple: He seems to have no control over his own behavior, choices, actions, and treatment of you, because it is all directly correlated to what YOU are letting or not "letting". See, if you just “let” him do the right things, then he would. If you didn’t “let” him be a jerk, then he wouldn’t of been.

Which begs the question, how does one “let” someone be a jerk? To let or not let them be whatever? Because if I got angry or “fought” back, hence, NOT “letting” him be a jerk, well then it was twisted around yet again to where I was blamed for all the things he was doing that was “jerky.” So even when I attempted to not “let” him be a jerk, he was a jerk.

Most certainly, there was nothing I was doing as I scanned my mind with some mental TiVO like way, rewinding, pausing and re-playing our interaction, that wasn’t “letting” him be open and honest with me. Frankly, he was hardly ever “open and honest” with me, but it wasn’t for a lack of me “letting” him. In fact, I was often “begging” for him to be just those things. Yet, the problem is-since they are so highly contradictory, you end up not knowing what they are saying that is “honest” vs. what is bullshit. You end up not being able to discern fact from fiction-which is why you begin to analyze them.

Point is-they can very effectively stop you in your tracks with just a simple loaded sentence. Something about the whole “letting” me thing is a huge trap-that is easy to fall into. They have put the responsibility of who they are into OUR hands, and again, if only we were different somehow, so would they be.

Funny thing is, they don’t go on to explain how it is, or what it is that you did or didn’t do, that didn’t “let” them do whatever. If you ask “Well how did I LET you?” you get the ambiguity-”I dunno, you just didn’t! You jumped to too many conclusions, you just didn’t let it be." Let it be? Let what be? Jumped to WHAT conclusions? That you're crazy?? Ok, well that one I did. Like I was jumping on a trampoline, jumping to conclusion.

I heard a lot about “letting.” He would say “I’m sorry I didn’t let you in.” I’m sorry I let you see the person I revert to when I’m unhappy.” It was typically me not letting, or sometimes, he’d say that he wasn’t letting himself do something right to me. One thing he was very adept at doing-was ‘letting’ me down.

And there you go. You are now so much inside your own head, trying to dissect and make sense of this twisted logic, that you are effectively distracted from the bigger picture-and they are more or less, off the hook. Off the hook, because they’ve handed YOU all the cards in that their behavior is directly bound with what you are letting happen. Not only does this drive you crazy, but has you damaged as you then feel that the entire relationship going south, and his abusive treatment of you, is in fact, YOUR fault.

Frankly, the only “letting” that should be done here, is letting them the hell GO. Let them be abusive somewhere else. Let them think what they want, because they are ridiculous, and let them be-be somewhere else.