By Elayne Savage, PhD
Sometimes out of the blue I have a visceral reaction to something that reminds me of the crazy-making days of growing up.
Talking to the Safeway Stores Claims Manager has been one of those times. It was an absolutely surreal experience. The denials, deflections, and evasions just kept coming at me.
He wasn't at all interested in discussing how my back injuries were exacerbated. He focused on insisting that because I was facing forward in my car in the parking lot, I didn't actually see the associate ram shopping carts into the back of my car.
An alternate reality
In other words, he was asking, if I didn't actually see it, how do I know it really happened? He kept repeating phrases like 'maybe nothing happened.' Then later in the conversation he denied he ever said that to me.
I kept coming back at him with the truth. I insisted that of course it happened – even though there was no obvious damage to my car. The jolt was so substantial I thought another car had backed into me. Imagine my surprise to learn it was only stacked carts that the associate was moving. The associate took responsibility for his actions.
Can you imagine how surreal it was to hear the Claims Manager repeatedly insist Safeway is not legally liable because I didn't actually see the carts roll into the back of my car!
Trying to communicate with him was disconcerting and frustrating – an alternate reality.
A Crazy-making conversation – Chock-full of denials, deflections and evasions
The Claims Manager repeatedly twisted reality by discounting my experience, and deflecting my comments. He kept referring to "one cart' when, in fact there had been several stacked together.
This crazy-making conversation full of denials, deflections and evasions was eerily familiar. In my family communication was garbled and surreal, much like Theatre of the Absurd. Everyone talked gibberish, expecting you to comprehend the meaning.
It was never OK to ask for clarification.
If you asked a question you most likely would not receive a straight answer. The subject was changed and the issue was skirted. You were expected to pretend you understood the meaning of a statement. Expected to play guessing games with each other because being specific was simply not okay.
I came to understand the sanctity of these family rules several years ago. I was having lunch with my uncle and young daughter who was then about six or seven. I asked him to clarify something. He glared at me then angrily turned to my daughter: "What's wrong with your mother, doesn't she understand English?"
As you might guess, up to that time it had taken me years to collect the courage to break the family rule: "It is not OK to ask questions." My uncle's response to my rule breaking was to taunt me in front of my daughter.
There were other family rules and admonishments as well: "you are imaging it," or "no, you don't really think that," or "that really didn't happen," or "I didn't say that."
No wonder I was getting so upset with the Claims Manager. When he repeatedly discounted my experience, it reminded me of the good ole crazy-making days of growing up.
'Mystification': "You can fool some of the people . . ."
A class I once took in graduate school had us reading Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing's observations of schizophrenic communication styles in highly dysfunctional families.
As soon as I read his article on mystification, I recognized it. "OMG! This is my family!" I had never before seen our communication style described so aptly. And phrases and warnings I had not thought about for years came flooding back.
Laing calls this communication style 'mystification' . . . an attempt to "befuddle, cloud, obscure, mask" what is really going on. This is also referred to as 'gaslighting.'
Connected to mystification is obfuscation – the willful concealment of meaning in communication, making it ambiguous, confusing and hard to interpret.
Safeway's denial of liability letter to me was full of obfuscating language. When I asked the claims person and her manager to explain some sentences, they both tried to make me feel like there was something wrong with me that I didn't understand their words. Kind of like what my uncle did so many years ago when he made fun of me in front of my daughter.
Interestingly, Laing's article begins with: "You can fool some of the people some of the time… "
I don't like being fooled. I don't like being lied to. And I especially don't like being told I'm imagining things.
This kind of behavior brings back uncomfortable childhood memories of manipulation and exploitation. It reminds me how rejecting it feels when perceptions and feelings are invalidated.
Feelings become superimposed
I work with psychotherapy and workplace clients to navigate these kinds of issues. I can point out how, in these kinds of rejecting situations, the feelings of the young child can become superimposed on the functioning of the adult.
As you can see, I too, sometimes overreact to certain triggers, I watched myself getting upset as the Safeway Claims Manager's dismissiveness got to me. I was losing my patience with his crazy-making communication style.
Hmmmm. Now that I'm thinking about it, I wonder if in fact it is really inadequate communication. For a moment there I found myself wondering why it feels so much like harassment.
I understand the Claims Manager's job is to discourage me from pursuing a claim. Safeway Stores, Inc. can definitely be proud of the superb job he does as the gatekeeper of B___S___. But doesn't come across as very classy, do they?
An apology from management would have been nice.
© Elayne Savage, PhD
And what about you . . .
Does 'mystification' seem familiar to you? Would you say your family's communication style tended to befuddle, cloud, obscure or mask meaning? How did you handle it?
As an adult have you ever been triggered by a replay of these kinds of early family communication rules?
If you have a story to share, I'd love to hear it.
Until next month,
Elayne
Elayne Savage is the author of ground-breaking relationship books published in 9 languages.
You can order books and CDs directly from my website:
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