The One Thing You Can't Stand

We all have at least one. Sometimes a few. But it seems to follow us .. no matter where we go, which job we get or school we attend or plane we catch. It finds a way to get under our skin, into our lives, and keep us awake at night - the one thing that you can’t stand. 

Sometimes it’s in a coworker. Sometimes it’s in your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your partner, or the love interest who keeps coming back into your life no matter how many times you’ve tried to close the door. Sometimes it’s in your siblings. Sometimes it’s in strangers. Sometimes it’s celebrities, sometimes it’s a character on a TV show. 

You look at them and you react. You shout at the screen, you pound your fists on the dashboard, you take the opposite argument no matter what they say, whatever it is - you take the bait. Something about them, something about this thing - whatever it is - you can’t let it go. 

Sometimes you even know it's happening while it's happening. You think, "I do this every time," or "She's gonna get on my nerves again today," and they do - and you still go through it. It’s the kind of thing that you’ll say, “Okay, I’m done talking about this. I don’t care anymore.” And then in the next breath you’re giving just One More Reason why this thing is an unjustifiable phenomena of existence. It’s the kind of thing that makes you irritated all over again when everyone is gone and you don’t have anyone to echo your despair. 

And the worst part of all this? 

It’s not about them. 

It’s about you. 

Projection in its most intense form. 

Sometimes you can see it from the outside, too. Have you ever noticed someone, maybe a friend or a family member, who seems to always pick on the same person over and over again, for the same or similar things? Like your dad picking on your brother for playing video games so much. Seeing a marked difference of that over all of the things your dad and brother get into it about, video games seems to be the most contentious. Or your mom being intensely critical of your choice of clothes. Yes, they may be saving you from lifelong idleness or irresponsibility or fashion suicide, but most of us can feel the difference between being helpful and something a bit more complicated. 

Often the one thing we can’t stand is a reflection of something unresolved in ourselves - falling pretty much into two categories: a polar opposite or a mirror image. 

The Polar Opposite 

Meet one of my kiddos, Gavin. (fake name obvi) He is super hyper, he loves to run around and play soccer and basketball and ball wall. I used to do 10 min of exercise with him to get his day started because the activity would actually bring his heart rate down (yes, I took his heart rate with a cool app of course) so he wasn’t so hyper in class. And for all of his wild activity that can get him into trouble sometimes, he is the most honest kid I know. I can always count on him to tell me the truth, even when things were really bad. 

Enter in my other kiddo, Tiara. Same class. “Talker” is an understatement. She loves to chat with me endlessly, she loves to organize and reorganize my stuffed toys. Think she’s run out of things to say? Mention a name and she will remember that 4 years ago when she was in such and such grade she was friends with Mari and Lia and Hannah and this one time they went —— yeah. Forever. And because she is such a storyteller, the truth is a .. loose concept for her. I’ll have to prompt her multiple times before she amends her story to something less fantastical. 

And who were two fated souls, landing regularly together in the office, furious with each other? Yes, Gavin and Tiara are a match made in hell. His honesty dampens her storytelling spirit, her lies are the very bane of his existence and they will fight from the dawn of a school day all the way til the last bell rings. Why? Because in each other, they have found the one thing they can’t stand: their polar opposite. At the same time, they are drawn together like magnets - they feel this pull to keep testing their value against each other, hoping one day they will triumph over the other, like a super hero and their arch-nemesis. 

I have a strong belief that polar opposites can also become the best of friends, when they learn to value the balance that the other one offers to them.. and I suppose it does help when you see that you do share a larger, overarching goal or value. 

The only example I can really think of is Superman and Batman, because they have such opposing ways of problem solving (Superman: reliant on strength and public virtue, Batman: reliant on his mind and secrets) and backgrounds on how they came to be (alien from another planet left on a farm vs. rich city boy left to his fortune), and yet they also have some key experiences and values in common: being an orphan, feeling isolated and lost, hoping to make the world a better place and save others from tragedies like their own. 

It makes sense to me that Batman, in some threads of the comic series, tries to kill Superman because their differences seem to threaten the other’s existence (like my kiddos from the example before). But when they find common ground, they become each other’s only friend that they trust with their most vulnerable secrets. 

The Mirror

This one I see all the time in others and it drives me insane. So perhaps I’m having a meta reaction to seeing other people.. anyways we can get into that later. 

What is a mirror? Well, it’s classic projection. 

> A friend lies to you, you get super pissed. But you lied to your brother the day before... and you actually feel really guilty about lying to them but they haven’t found out and you haven’t given it much thought. 

> Your coworker doesn’t do his job, and you gripe all day about the fact that he’s not doing his job and how incompetent he must be - and at the same time you’re stressing about your upcoming presentation because you’re worried that your boss won’t approve your proposal. And that might mean that You’re incompetent too. 

> You have the worst fights with your mom. Frustratingly, you and she seem to have nearly identical faces. You're her "mini-me" and it only makes your fighting worse. She never seems to understand you and she's the one person who really should.

Those are just a handful of examples in a list of a billion that we could go on and on about at length - the main point being, you haven't addressed something in yourself - so you're seeing the flaws that remind you of it in everyone else. Your brain does not forget feelings. It forgets tons of substance: facts, opinions, events, dates, times - but feelings linger. Even when you can't recall it, the feeling still marks moments in your life when something was important. It really is sometimes like the useless "Remembrall" from Harry Potter. You feel angry or upset over something small in the immediate moment, when you're really actually upset about the conversation you had two days prior. Or something like, oh I don't know, 10 years ago. 20 maybe. Like I said, feelings don't just go away.

So what can you do about it?

Short and sweet: self-awareness.

The Oracle from the Matrix had it right - when you know yourself, you're much less likely to make a mistake in what's someone else's problem vs. yours. So how do you know yourself? This is going to sound like a trolling or overly simplistic answer.. but it is really to just pay attention to yourself living your own life. 

Pretend like you're watching a movie of yourself, observing what you do, what you say, how you feel. Notice what sets you off, what makes you smile, what gives you motivation. And you'll start to see the patterns of people who irritate you, things that upset you.. and what they might have in common. If you have a hard time observing yourself - ask people you trust. What do they see? What can they offer you? And if you get mad or defensive when they respond, GREAT! That's evidence piece #1 that they've hit something solid to work on.. it's what we therapy nerds call: "clinically significant". 

The better you know yourself, the better you can identify what you need.. instead of running into your arch-nemesis everywhere you go.. and then work on how to get it.