The Crack in My Psyche

#033 Triangles of Social Interaction (Karpman and TED)

Dearest Reader,

At times I sit and wait and wonder what read-worthy thing is going to fall from the ether into me for us—that is, me and you.

Sometimes the tiny ideas that land are building blocks of a larger something that comes later. At other times fully formed ideas are super clear.

Today’s idea comes from the super clear. The idea is that there’s a subtle awareness my body gives me in what I’m going to call, the first no. It’s a signal to prevent drama within social interactions that lead to the cracks in my psyche. But how alert was I ever to this signal? To prevent the drama across my life?

My unconscious response to a first no signal weeks ago has jolted me alert and into the awareness of the role I play on the stage. Only now do I understand how important, and how conscious I must be of such signals.

The First No

In a group tour I was recently part of, I could not stop sneezing. And I was upset that I’d failed to take a Zyrtec, and so there I was, between explanations and underneath trees’ leaves, blowing my nose into tissue, and gasping for air. My sneezing alerted another participant in the tour to me too. And I became hyper alert of their unnatural and calculated movements in reaction to my sneezes.

Instead of keeping my distance, as I believe my body’s signal offered, I became curious of the other. Watchful. Dialed in.

But curiosity is the bypassing behavior I enact that leads me into the cracks in my psyche.

Years ago my therapist said these exacting words when explaining to me that everyone’s got their own cracks and fissures and fracture points in their psyches. These are the places where we are quite weak or wounded and they are often caused by traumas (The big T trauma).

I’d not heard the phrasing before, “crack in your psyche”, and I wanted to resist her commentary about me. But I could not resist the truth in what she’d shared.

In the years since she first told me about these vulnerable places within myself, I’ve not been afforded the opportunity to discover where and how I happen to slide right into my fissures—find myself at the bottom of my psyche’s cavern, needing to scale its walls to escape the fall.

But I’ve been sitting with the question. How do I keep falling into the chasm?

How do you fall into yours?

The Karpman Drama Triangle

What this tour guest alerted me to was how easily it is for me to find myself taking up one of the roles within the Karpman Drama Triangle (6 minute Youtube Video explanation), and slip into unconscious game play.

Developed by Stephen Karpman, the Drama Triangle is the model for how we humans interact in unhealthy social dynamics.

There are three roles in the triangle:

1. Victim: someone feeling or acting like a victim, but they are not actually a victim. Think of them as a perpetual Eeyore type of character. The victim doesn’t understand they are enough.

2. Rescuer: The helper and classic enabler. The wounded mother, the woman who cares for everyone but herself. Often time with unconscious motives, the rescuer doesn’t believe the victim has the power to overcome their own challenges, and they often take up this role to avoid dealing with their own shortcomings. This is your Winnie the Pooh character. Or your wounded mother who cares for everyone but herself.

3. Perpetrator: Mean as hell. Likely on the extreme narcissistic end. Authoritative. Controlling. A belittler and blamer. Oppressive and angry. Unfortunately these types of characters are displayed in real time today on our news cycle.

Each of these roles chokes the other, depriving the person of their needs and wants. Each role can also shift into the other roles within the triangle, cycling the drama over and over both painfully and in perpetuity. It’s gnarly stuff.

Damsel (2024), the movie by Netflix adopted from the original fictional novel written by fellow Substack writer

Evelyn Skye

, is a wonderful metaphor and visual representation for one way in which we find ourselves hurled into—and our attempts out of—our psyche’s fracture points.

Damesel spoilers incoming.

The main character, Elodie, falls into the cracks of her psyche when she meets deception. A break in human trust due to an unresolved structure of power between the family she is to marry into, and the dragon at the base of the chasm. The deception bled over to affect not only her life, but many others before her.

Elodie climbing out of a deep cavern in Damsel by Netflix

The scene that yanks at my heart the most is of all the other Damsels—their names etched into the stone walls, who never made it out of the chasm alive. Their names represent those attempts, the efforts to get out.

And so this brings me back to this, first no. It’s the signal I finally felt in the moment. I’d slowed down enough in my life to notice, but in the past I’d often bypass any cloudiness or tension, and out of habit, rush into playing a familiar role in the drama.

Because I could ride this feeling, I could better direct the characters on the stage.

The Alternative Triangle

What healthy alternative exists if you’re not going to enter the drama triangle in your social interactions?

Two models randomly surface a little over a week ago, while writing a longer-form piece. I’m not entirely clear how they make their way to me, but I count the search results a miracle:

1. The Winner’s Triangle by Acey Choy(1990)

2. The Empowerment Dynamic (TED) by David Emerald (2009)

While The Winner’s triangle is equally illuminating, the TED model is a bit more active in its expression, so I’d like to share it with you. Here’s the shift it calls for:

1. Victim → Creator: Become outcome oriented instead of problem oriented.

2. Rescuer → Coach: Ask questions that help others make informed decisions. And start seeing others as capable of dealing with their own shortcomings.

3. Perpetrator → Challenger: The situation or person that forces you to clarify your needs.

With my background as a teacher you may already immediately intuit the habitual role I’ve played in the drama triangle. Often time the Rescuer role develops in early childhood when a child is parentified (child adultification). These children take on the roles of the adults.

This is me. Was my childhood. Taking up too much adult space in a child body. Lots of adults love parentified children. They praise you for abandoning your freedom and play.

I’ve been falling into the chasm this way… Trying to help everybody… And in my dealings of life I’ve been pulling back. Ejecting myself from the rescuer role.

And you know what?

It started out a little tough. It is still tough. But it is getting easier.

The Psycho-Spiritual Takeaway

Taking the cosmic view of this experience, I count this tour-stranger as a great teacher of the subtle arts. The lesson, to alert me to myself, is something I am truly grateful for.

So, I’ve spent the last few days crying. In grief for the younger versions of myself who couldn’t scale the wall and exit. For the long time I spent at the bottom of the chasm.

But I can see this fissure now and exit before it’s too late.

And this is a tremendous gift from a dear stranger.