ROMEO'S BLEEDING: Counter-Control

You can run, but you can’t hide.
—Joe Louis

by Roger Melton, M.A., L.M.F.T., CEAP (Retired)

The Key to Counter-Control
If you possess a strong sense of responsibility, Controllers will use it against you. Understanding how to prevent a Controller from manipulating your conscience is key in learning how to "counter - control." Moral integrity is one of the finest assets a person can possess, but it can attract a Controller the way a "hot target" attracts a cruise missile. When dealing with a Controller, conscientiousness can be your Achilles’ Heel.

Integrity and conscientiousness remind Controllers of their most profound character flaw. They hate being reminded of what they do not have. They hate those qualities in others because Controllers cannot possess them. That is one reason that they are attracted to integrity. But their attraction is rooted in a desire to dominate or destroy. They must manipulate, rule or emotionally and psychologically annihilate anyone whose soundness of character reminds them of their own profoundly egotistical, selfish and empty natures.

All effective counter-control is rooted in understanding how a Controller manipulates someone’s conscience and uses it against him or her. But the great trick to discovering how to effect practical counter-control is in knowing how to overcome a Controller’s amorally motivated drive to control, without turning into a Controller yourself.

On Dangerous Ground
Blame is a dangerous thing. And it is a necessity when trying to recognize any source of harm, because harm cannot be prevented until its origin can be identified. Blame’s necessity lies in the fact that it seeks to discover who is responsible when something goes wrong in the world and then put a name to the accused. Naming the accused is the first step toward righting a wrong by defining its source. But blaming alone can become a disastrously false step.

The danger in blame is that it can also be a way of avoiding a solution to harm, because it is easy to accuse. When we are frightened or angry in the face of a great wrong, it is that good thing in each of us—justice—which cries out for satisfaction. It is right to want to stop a wrong. It is one of the best instinctual qualities in sane human beings, but it is a quality that can quickly turn upon itself and become the very evil it seeks to defeat.

Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel tells a wonderfully haunting story of how he almost became what he hated. He spent part of his adolescence growing up in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. One night, he was telling an old rabbi about his greatest desire.

He was relating a series of extremely violent fantasies to the rabbi, which were elaborately detailed images of exactly what tortures he would inflict upon their Gestapo guards---if he "ever had the chance." The tortures were all those that he had seen inflicted upon his fellow inmates.

He went on talking to the rabbi for quite a long time and, the longer he talked, the more his voice filled with cold-blooded rage and hate toward the Gestapo. Finally, he was so emotionally choked with hatred that he simply could not speak.

There was a long silence.

Then the rabbi steadily looked the young boy in the eye and simply said, "Oh. I see. You’ve become them."

Wiesel describes this as a major turning point in his life regarding his understanding of hate. Hatred, itself, can transform one into that which is hated. It is a realization vital to remember whenever someone who has been under a Controller’s "spell" decides to break that spell. Once counter-control springs into action, it must be tempered with restraint, because a desire for revenge can turn you into the very thing you most scorn.

Counter-Control
Before implementing direct counter-control, you first must be able to identify the type of Controller that you face.

Once you have identified the type of Controller confronting you, the following techniques can be employed:

• Mirroring and Restraint
• Vanishing and Camouflage
• Escape and Evasion

Mirroring & Restraint
Mirroring involves a method of telling someone what he or she wants to hear, and it is a technique most effectively employed with pure Narcissists. However, it may require you to say things that bring you to the queasy edge of emotional nausea.

Narcissists usually initiate verbal assaults when their egos are challenged. Remember that they are driven to "look good" all of the time. Anyone who tarnishes their idealized self-image must be belittled, degraded or demeaned. So, deflecting attack involves discovering how they need their self-image polished then either polishing it (which is where the risk of nausea begins) or simply "restraining" the urge to speak at all.

Polishing does not have to involve honeyed praise or ingenuous compliments. It can simply be an agreeable nod of the head and a smile whenever a narcissistic boss or parent rants about their "superior qualities." Just keep in mind that pointing out their flaws will not only draw fire, but can begin a relentlessly punishing campaign against designed to "prove you wrong" or bring your career to a sudden halt.

Simple restraint may seem like an easier strategy to employ, but when dealing with Controller arrogance, it is rarely simple. The malicious disdain of many Narcissists can test the patience of Job himself. It is very difficult to tolerate witnessing the harm narcissistic Controllers verbally and emotionally inflict on others, particularly if it’s another family member, fellow employee or friend.

The primary problem in exercising either mirroring or restraint with a Controller, is that it requires subtlety and finesse. Although you may have to remain present, as in a job with good pay, benefits and retirement plan, the trick is to avoid comment unless it is absolutely necessary. Vanishing and Camouflage are techniques for accomplishing that goal.

Vanishing and Camouflage
Viet Cong guerillas against American forces during the Vietnam War, Muslim rebels against Soviet forces in Afghanistan and American revolutionaries who overthrew British Redcoats in 1776 all shared one thing in common: the art of camouflage. Each of these small forces overcame much larger opponents because the "little guys" were hard to find. But while this is a necessary strategy, in terms of dealing with Controllers in everyday life, it has its limitations.

If you are stuck in a situation with one or more Controllers, as at work, learning the art of camouflage is essential. But work is not real war, except when violence suddenly appears in the workplace. You are not going to "conquer" the boss in most corporate environments, especially since unions have greatly diminished in power. Ironically, though, one of the most famous war novels of all time describes a character that was a master at using camouflage to survive the most dangerous corporate environment of all.

In 1961, a former Army Air Corps bombardier published a novel that could have been a fictionalized version of his experiences in World War II. The main character of the story was a bombardier called Yossarian, and the book was named Catch-22. But, as the author Joseph Heller once remarked when someone told him it was a great war-novel, "It's not about war. It's about how to survive working in a corporation." And that's why it provides an excellent example for learning how to deal with Controllers in a Controller-dominated workplace. An added benefit is that it is a wildly funny book. 8-million people have read it. But few have viewed it as a fictionalized textbook on counter-control.

If you decide to read it, it is particularly instructive if you compare the way the primary character, Yossarian, and Captain Or handle the same situation: staying alive. Yossarian deals with those who are against him, like his control-obsessed commanding officers, Colonel Cathcart and Major Major, by constantly butting heads with them; by always trying to convince his "controllers" that they are wrong about why they keep increasing the number of missions everyone has to fly.

Captain Or, on the other hand, never disagrees with anyone that has control over his fate. But, he ingeniously manages to beat them at their own game, and he repeatedly practices how he will succeed at doing it right in front of them. A principal part of Or's method is in how he camouflages his real intentions, which ultimately leads to his freedom from fear and the mad corporate world of war.

Yossarian spends the entire book trying to convince everyone that the predicament, which holds all of them prisoner (that it's crazy to want to go up in a plane and let people shoot at you), is absurd. You don't have to fly, if you're crazy. But, since you have to be sane to know it's crazy to let people shoot at you, then you can't get out of having to do it: Catch-22.

A key to Yossarian's dilemma, and to anyone else's who feels trapped in any kind of a "crazy" situation or relationship, is realizing that survival depends upon knowing how to not become a target. The art of not becoming a target-- vanishing -- is the art of camouflage. The last thing to do when trying not to draw attention to oneself is wave a red flag in front of a controlling bull. If a Controller is the bull, trying to convince him of why he should not be victimizing you is the red flag. Put the flag down. Camouflage is the art of learning how not to draw attention. Read Catch-22 and study Captain Or. Meditate on how to apply his methods the next time you feel stuck in dealing with a Controller.

Escape and Evasion
Or's success in dealing with the lethal forces pitted against him depended upon having more than survival as a goal. He wanted to remove himself from harm's way -- and from having to deal with controlling, narcissistic leaders -- and end up in a very nice place. Captain Or knew that evasion and, ultimately, escape are the only strategies that offer a path to complete freedom from control. But they are often difficult to employ. A persistent application of mirroring, restraint, vanishing and camouflage can require nerves of steel and a lead-lined stomach, but they are endurable if you can discover where you want to be beyond a particular zone of someone else's control.

Look inside yourself and find an image of that place beyond the zone. And keep it simple. When dealing with any Controller, a desire for freedom from control is always a simple place to start. Captain Or achieved his objective of finding freedom by simply being clear to himself about where he did not want to be, which automatically made it obvious exactly how to achieve his goal and where he could find it. Keeping the goal clearly and concretely defined in his mind at all times kept his efforts steadily focused upon achieving that goal.

In the end, my years of experience in counseling those who have survived Controller manipulations ultimately terminates against the same realization. The only effective way to deal with a Controller is to avoid him or leave him. Mirroring, restraint and camouflage can help you deal with them, if you must, but life feels infinitely better when they are out of your life -- or you, out of theirs.

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