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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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Will you uncover your blind spots? Or will you ignore red flags again?

By David McElroy · July 4, 2018

Human beings tend to make the same mistakes — over and over again — but we can be incredibly slow to recognize what we’re doing to ourselves.

I used to ignore red flags in relationships, at least until it was too late for me to deal with them gracefully. As a result, I made the same sort of mistakes again and again — and I was too blind to realize what I was doing for a very long time.

It’s very rare for me to fall in love. I can count the instances of long-lasting romantic love in my life on one hand — and probably have fingers left over. But when I recognize what I want, it’s easy for me to become blind to a woman’s faults. It’s easy for me to make excuses for her. It’s easy for me to assume her tremendous strengths will eventually overcome the scary weaknesses that lie hidden inside her.

As a result, I’ve put a few women on pedestals — only to find that real flesh-and-blood human beings don’t belong on pedestals — because they’ve disappointed me with weaknesses which I didn’t anticipate. I ignored red flags — because I was oblivious to my blind spots.

About 10 years ago, my blind spots led me to confuse myself. After I backed out of marrying a woman and ended the relationship, I later changed my mind after it was too late. I had no idea why I’d behaved in such a contradictory way, so I spent the next year in therapy with a very good psychologist.

I learned that I’m afraid I’m going to be abandoned by a woman I love. I learned to understand that in the context of the loss of my mother early in my childhood. And I learned that I was pushing away love instead of accepting it.

I learned that I was terrified of receiving the thing which I needed most.

From that experience — and from a year of counseling — I learned two important lessons which I’ll mention here.

First, I learned that the sort of woman I will fall in love with is horribly flawed. Every single time. That’s because I fall in love only with a very specific type of amazing woman whose brilliant qualities can make it seem difficult to notice her flaws. It’s easy to become awed with love and adoration for someone and ignore the very ugly parts underneath.

I learned to see the ugly parts from the beginning — and to decide what can change and what can’t. I met a woman a few years ago who filled a lot of the positive things which I need, but I wasn’t blind to her red flags. I realized she had characteristics that would be fatal flaws in a relationship with me, so I never pursued her. Everything I saw afterward confirmed that I’d been right.

Second, I learned not to run away when the right woman offers me what I need. There has been a part of me in the past which feared I didn’t deserve the sort of woman I want, which had something to do with running away when she wanted me. I determined not to give up on someone unless I’d given her every opportunity — and not to run away when she offered me a chance which scared me.

We all need counseling, for one reason or another.

In our society, we tend to see counseling as something we do to fix an immediate problem or a flaw. In reality, counseling — with the right therapist, which is hard to find — can help you to make a good life something far greater than you dreamed of.

If you were in a serious romantic relationship with someone and that person were unwilling to do counseling with you — just to look at potential problems and make sure the two of you are on the same page — that person is probably afraid of himself or herself. Every relationship I’ve ever been in would’ve been better with counseling. I wish I had known this in the past.

Do you keep making the same mistakes? Have you chosen romantic partners who can’t possibly give you what you need? Are you playing out unconscious patterns from childhood? Are you acting out expectations, either of what you fear you deserve or what someone else thinks is right for you?

We all have our blind spots. We’re far better off if we learn what they are and learn how to compensate, because our blind spots are forcing us to ignore the red flags in life which are bringing us back again and again to the same mistakes.

Most people never have the courage to learn the truth about themselves and make changes. Most keep thinking that if they’ll become a little more successful or make a little more money, they will finally feel loved and appreciated and understood.

That’s because they’re lying to themselves. It’s easier — in the short run — than getting honest with yourself and making a change. In the long run, though, it’s going to cost you everything. It’s going to leave you empty and unhappy when you finally have to slow down and feel the things you hide from yourself.

Do you want to see your blind spots and make a change or would you prefer to just keep repeating the same old pattern?

If you like what your decisions have given you in life, keep doing what you’re doing. But if you’re like most of us — full of regret about wrong decisions and missed opportunities — maybe it’s time for some serious change.

I made some scary emotional changes 10 years ago — and it’s made all the difference in the world.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: blind spots, counseling, love, psychology, red flags, relationships

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For “throwback Thursday, let me introduce you to For “throwback Thursday, let me introduce you to Sam. In 2009, I took in a young feral cat who I named for the early American revolutionary Samuel Adams. He was one of the most confident — downright arrogant, in fact — cats I’ve ever been around. He had an amazing personality and I immediately loved him. He was no more than 8 or 9 months old when he suddenly died for reasons that my vet couldn’t explain. Even though I had him only a short time, he was one of my all-time favorites. #tbt #cats #tabby #feral #birmingham #alabama
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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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