DEEP DIVE: Crazymakers

20:23Amy Wilson:I always say I'm a sucker for the hard to please authority figure. Like Simon Cowell. That's my kryptonite. Yes, yes, yes. I am the only one who pleases the inconsistent praiser. That is my kryptonite. Yes. Most acting teachers are inconsistent praisers. This is every acting teacher you've ever met. Every male acting teacher I would say you've ever met, which is like, Amy, you are beauty itself and God's gift to acting. And then it's like, Amy, you know nothing about acting. It's like the addiction of that. It's so... I had a female acting teacher, actually, who was very stingy with her praise.

21:00And I finally did an acting exercise. Well, and this was like beginning acting, which is like stand there and breathe, you know, be a cow, whatever, like trying to not fail at the most simple exercises. And I forget what it was. I just remember the feeling of like, I nailed that. I did it so well. And she came up and she looked at me and said, this is just so easy for you, isn't it? It was like the most like un-praisey praise. Like I had done it well. And now she was mad at me that I'd done it well. It was too easy for me.

21:27Amy Wilson:Well, we talk about too, like we want the dental hygienist to be like, wow, you have the cleanest teeth I've ever seen. It's like, yes, gold star for me. I have the cleanest teeth. I sat the stillest during my blood draw. Like everything is like, you know, we're praise seekers, which can be fine, but it can be a problem if we run into someone who uses that as a tool. Another tactic is selective memory. Conveniently forget any problems you've had with them when they want something. Throw everything you've ever done wrong when you're in trouble. my crazy maker, I mean, not all crazy makers have to do all of these things, right?

22:03They're just like, they're just arrows in your quiver.

22:05Amy Wilson:No, no, no, absolutely. These are just arrows in the quiver, arrows. That's well said. Okay. They don't empathize. So empathy is a developed trait. So developmentally, we've talked plenty about it, that like kids develop empathy at a certain point. And I think that crazy makers lacking empathy is, it's a given that those that tends to go along with the narcissism and that genre. Okay, I was wondering, because we've talked so much about low power strategies of dominance with kids, like a kid who throws a tantrum, like that's a low power strategy of dominance. And it kind of a lot of these kind of reminded me of that.

22:47Amy Wilson:It's like people who are very desperate for control, like they don't trust in the like, normal strengths of a friendship. And so they kind of go for these strategies of closeness and dominance. Because they somehow don't trust like the bond. I remember when I was dating my now husband, he had been married before. And he said on a date, like, I just don't really understand what we need from each other, like what you need from me. And I said, that's good. That's a normal relationship. Like the lock and key thing of like, I can't survive without you. That's a very immature relationship, like a side by side relationship.

23:30Amy Wilson:You know, you and I have a friendship and a partnership, but like, I don't keep track of you. I don't know what you're doing most of the time. You know, I'm not, we're not enmeshed at all. So it involves quite a bit of trust that like, I don't lose sight of you and think like, oh my God, what if Amy's thinking about quitting the podcast? I have to like constantly like trick her into still doing the podcast. I just figure like, okay, we'll both keep doing the podcast until one of us doesn't want to do the podcast anymore. But that takes a level of like calm that I think people are lacking. You know, I was working before I was doing this podcast, I was working with a writer on some stuff, two writers, a writer that then was like, I'm going to bring my friend, we're all going to write this comedy together.

24:10Like, okay, I'll do this. I wanted something to collaborate on. And this had this gift from the universe hadn't occurred yet. But anyway, these I was working with two guys, one of whom had kids who were older than mine, and one of whom didn't have kids at all. And the it was the guy who didn't have kids at all. Like if we were going to meet at two o 'clock at a diner or whatever, he'd walk in at 245. And then be like, I have to leave by 3.30. Like he came late and left early to every meeting we had. He wasn't out to ruin my life, but he was definitely a crazy maker. And eventually I had to be like, I can't work with you guys anymore because I hired a babysitter to be here at two o 'clock.

24:46And you walked in 45 minutes late and you have to leave half an hour early. And then it's going to happen again next time. I was also paying the bill rather more often than some other people. And anyway, it wasn't like this guy like woke up in the morning like, I'm going to totally do everything I can to put this person at the end of their rope. But it just was somebody who I think wasn't mature enough to consider the group. And so we're in service of that.

25:08Amy Wilson:I definitely in looking at all this stuff, I thought, wow, that reminds me a lot of a lot of my relationships when I was young. And I do think that there's a certain insecurity at the base of these kind of relationships. My one of my closest friends to this day, he and I became friends in college and we would go to the movies. That was what we did together. And he would come meet me. And we were in New York City. Often it was cold or raining or whatever. And I would say, let's meet at 2.15 at corner of, you know, Lex and then we'll walk to the movie theater. And I would show up at 2.12 and he would show up at 2.35.

25:48Amy Wilson:And I said, you can't be late. It's very rude. It's very disrespectful. And he's like, oh, yeah, I'm just disorganized. Like, that's my thing. And then I started to stop waiting. I would just go to the movie by myself. And it was before cell phones. And sometimes he would come to the movie and be like, you're here. What happened? I said, I said, I meet you at the corner at 2.15. I waited until 2.20, 2.25. And I left. And he still talks about that. Like, you left. And it's like, yeah, because what's my other option to do this a thousand times? times and I do think that there's an interdependency to the crazy maker that is like on the one hand this person is showing up 45 minutes late on the other hand you're letting them you're not leaving and you're not saying I don't want to do this anymore you're you're doing the dance with the crazy maker and I think when you're younger this often feels very thrilling and my mother said this my mother was a therapist she's died now but she would talk about this and it it's one of those thinks it made such a strong impression on me.

26:45Amy Wilson:She would say about people, well, they fight because they don't trust closeness unless they're fighting. That like fighting is closer than not speaking. And fighting is closer than a peaceful relationship. Like you and I have a close relationship. But if we're in a fight, we're in a closer relationship. Like I'm saying other people, Amy's such a jerk. And you know, do you know what Amy did? And it's like, we are bound very tightly by fighting in a way that a kind of peaceful interaction, like, how's Amy? Oh, I think she's pretty good. I haven't talked to her in a little while, but I think she's great.

27:18Amy Wilson:We'll record next week. I'll see how she is then. It's like, I do think that there's an insecurity at the base of the crazy maker relationship that pulls people tight together. Yeah, there's like a dopamine fix. And if you're in the fight with the person, That's more interesting than, oh, I don't know, like not much to talk about. Let's just sit here in peaceable silence. If you're not somebody that feeds them. Yeah. And I, as a young person, I was very, very addicted to the relationship of I am the person who this person who doesn't like anybody likes. Like I found that to be the most exciting place to be, that I was the person who the person who doesn't like anybody likes.

28:04Amy Wilson:you know that like I was the singer that Simon Cowell said you're a really really good singer like that and in relationships you know I tended to date people who were difficult who didn't have a lot of right you didn't have other relationships because you would like you would unlock the secret didn't have functional relation I mean right nobody writes love songs that are like we got along pretty well after we met on eHarmony and then we got married and we don't fight that much and it's pretty good. Like, that's not a love song. Like the love song is like, I found you broken in a million pieces and I put you back together.

28:38Amy Wilson:And like, the problem is you're talking about a crazy maker at the end of the day. It's very 90s. You know, I was looking at the artist's way and what you had to say about crazy makers and like, why are these crazy makers in our lives? Like, I thought, well, like, our crazy makers are in our lives because they were related to them or because we work for them, right? Or because we live next door to one or whatever. Like sometimes they're just assigned to you. But there was a very 90s sort of thing. I think I've been thinking about this a lot recently. It's like, well, you have a crazy maker in your life because you secretly want a crazy maker in your life.

29:10Like you like, in Julia Cameron's case, she was like, you want to be blocked creatively. You think you don't, but you really do. You really want to be broken. And so you're making, you have this person in place to make sure you'll never succeed. And if you're going to get around that, you need to wonder why you like to have people who keep you from creating things. I think the answer might be a little bit more simple, which is just to say, I'm gonna leave because you're 10 minutes late.

29:33Amy Wilson:I think sometimes and not always, I definitely think that creativeness takes a huge amount of daring. And putting blocks in between yourself and success is something that people do because they're afraid to say, I am actually just putting myself out here because I think I'm talented and And I want other people to see that. It's a hard thing to say. And so I do understand. Right. Or like there was nothing in my way. There's nothing in my way. And I still didn't do it instead of I could have been a contender. Right. It's more being easier to say that. That being said, I think there's also plenty of times where you have a crazy maker in your life because it is someone who you are forced together with who is trying to make you crazy because they are fundamentally trying to undermine you because they don't like the position in your life.

30:20Amy Wilson:And I think this is why one crazy maker that a lot of people think of is someone like a mother-in-law. Right. Because that spot, this is not my mother-in-law. This is not Amy's mother-in-law. We are both lucky to have fantastic mother-in-laws. But in general, I think that spot is a spot where like that used to be her job. Now it's your job. And so you both are kind of sometimes trying to undermine each other to prove that you are the person who really belongs in that job. And therefore, your mother-in-law becomes crazy maker to you. Like, oh, I guess if you want to do it that way, that's fine.

30:57Amy Wilson:I guess if that's the way you want to do it. Pause, pause, pause. That's certainly not the way we used to do it. That's certainly not the right way to do it. That crazy maker behavior comes from trying to block you. Similarly, your actor boss is saying to you, well, your audition is not as important as my audition, because of course, they're secretly fearful that you're going to get a job and leave. Like there's a reason my mother would always say nobody does anything for no reason. Right. People do things because they work. Right. People are in relationships with other people because it's familiar to them.

31:38Amy Wilson:It doesn't mean it's good, but it is serving them in some very fundamental way. And the crazy maker is having selective memory and giving inconsistent praise for a very specific reason, which is that they want to hold you close and they don't know how otherwise, or they want to defend their spot from you. Right. That makes a lot of sense. All right. We're going to be back with our favorite solutions to crazy makers after this. Amy, you know from talking to me on this podcast that my kids used to have daily fights about whose turn it was to scoop the cat litter. But now we have a whisker litter robot, which does the scooping for you.

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34:51Amy Wilson:And now, translating your mother-in-law from the What Fresh Health podcast. She says the kids were angels after babysitting. She means, my goodness, I don't know why you always complain about how hard it is to raise kids. I fed them a huge bowl of ice cream every time they cried and bought them$100 worth of new toys. And we had such an easy day. She says, did I just call you Diane? My bad. He used to date a girl named Diane. She means, I like Diane. I always dreamed it would work out for him and Diane. You? Not as great as Diane. She says, I totally respect your rules. We will abide by your guidelines at all times.

35:32She means, this eight-page document you have handed me about how to care for a baby is bonkers and also vaguely insulting. I will pretend to read it carefully in order to appease you, but then I'll just do exactly what I did with the six children I successfully raised to adulthood. But thanks for the suggestions.

35:47Amy Wilson:She says, I love that you play with your kids and don't let yourself get bogged down with all the little details. She means, your house is an appalling mess and your cooking is an embarrassment. She says, don't you look nice today? She means, I see you've taken off your sweatpants and at least attempted to do something with your hair. How nice for us all. She says, I cherished every single day with my babies. I enjoyed every single second of their amazing childhoods. She means, it's been 30 years since I had a baby in the house and I have completely blocked out the reality of what that experience actually involved.

36:25This has been Translating Your Mother-in-Law. From the What Fresh Hell podcast. Amy, let's talk about strategies for dealing with crazy makers. Okay, because they're tricky. Like what you think might work doesn't always work.

36:41Amy Wilson:Yeah, I mean, I'll start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. I mean, I think that crazy makers draw you into a world that they define. And so recognizing that is very important. that if I say to you, like, oh, Amy, but everyone will be heartbroken if you don't bring the thing, the party will be ruined if you don't bring the elaborate dessert. Creamed onions. Right. The cream white onions. This is a reference to my grandmother once said to my mother years and years and years ago, it's not Thanksgiving if there's not cream white onions. And so my mother, in the Thanksgiving preparations, took a great deal of time out and made cream white onions, which are very annoying to make.

37:29Amy Wilson:And then my dad passed them to my grandmother who said, Oh, I don't like them. Thanks. So you're in that situation. Right? Like letting the spoiler is that letting the crazy maker define the situation is where it starts to go off the rails. When you say to somebody like, well, Amy, the party will be ruined if you don't bring your eight layer casserole dip. Maybe, maybe not like that's letting that person define. But the answer is not like, why? I don't think anybody likes that dip. The answer is like, oh, I just don't make it as well as you do or something like that. Like, is there a way to get out of it that's still?

38:03I think either one.

38:04Amy Wilson:I think there are many strategies, but I think the big picture is recognizing the moment where things are being defined by somebody as factual in a way that may or may not be true. Right. Like I have to bring the postcards downstairs right now in the next 45 minutes because Daphne's devastated, which, yeah. Like that. Or everyone's Christmas will be ruined if you don't come. My Christmas won't be ruined. My Christmas is going to be better if I don't come. So it's not true that everyone's Christmas. And also, who are you speaking for? Do those people, like we take these things at total face value as facts.

38:42Amy Wilson:It will be ruined if you are not there is a statement that is just someone else's truth. It is not the truth. Okay. Take an observer's point of view. This is from Psychology Today. Something about detaching and seeing a crazy maker from an observer point of view that helps you not get engaged in the mess. This is sort of what we're talking about is saying, is this statement that the crazy maker is making true? If you don't do this, everything we've done up to this point will be for nothing. Amy, if you quit the podcast today, everything we've done on the podcast will have been for nothing. That's a very strong and a very upsetting statement, but it's not the truth.

39:22I'm thinking like it's time to leave for the airport. It's time for the crazy maker to leave for the airport and they can't find their passport and they're turning the house upside down and they might miss their flight. But where I can, I think sometimes lose a bit of boundaries is, but I'm not missing the flight. Like they might miss their flight and that would be bad for this other person, but you can see it from an observational point of view. It isn't the last plane to ever fly. And it isn't you. I can get enmeshed and feel like them finding them their passport so they can make the flight is as important to me as it is to the crazy maker.

39:52Amy Wilson:For sure. And I think that letting other people define the world is where we go terribly wrong. I know somebody who was married to a troubled person for a very long time. And this person made their own choices. and the person they were married to ended up living a life that said that person ruined my life and their own choices and their own, you know, bad decisions were never addressed. It was that this other person had ruined their life. And I think for people who are generally decent people, we were talking about this in something else that like, that hurts your feelings because that person is trying to hurt your feelings, not because you're a weak person.

40:38Amy Wilson:And, you know, if somebody says to you, like, Amy, you're a bad mom, I don't care who says that to you, it's going to hurt your feelings. It's a hurtful thing to say. It hurts your feelings because that's the point of it. And I think it makes you crazy because that's the point of it. And it pulls you in because it's very loaded. It's not because you're foolish and naive and susceptible and manipulatable, it works because it's designed to work. But the way out is not, I will eventually convince this person that I still am a good daughter, even if I don't come for Christmas this year. Not your job.

41:14Right. You don't have to finish. That won't happen because that's what's going to keep you coming back for more. Another option, keep a healthy distance.

41:21Amy Wilson:This can be really good with quicksand that you keep falling in again and again and again is to say, I need to see this person less. Because listen, people who are good at making you crazy are good at it, and they enjoy it. And so I do think at some point distance is the only option, is to say, I'm going to interact less. Because we're talking about strategies, taking it from an observer's point of view, it's easier to do if you only have to do it twice a year. It's harder to do if you're doing it eight days a week. It's just when you're the person who, this is a person chipping away at your truths and your knowledge.

42:06Amy Wilson:And so once a year, I can step back and say, I'm going to listen to somebody say, I've ruined everything by not being here more often, but I'm not going to come more often. I'm just going to have to, I can put my armor on once a year and get through this. But if it's every single day, it's going to break me down in a way that's not healthy for me. Yeah. And then the other two suggestions, which I think are decent, but they're kind of like, yeah, and also like learn to fly, maintain a healthy sense of self worth and cultivate internal validation. Yes, but easier said than done. Like, yeah, do yoga first, I guess.

42:43Yeah. Yeah.

42:45Amy Wilson:And I think that some of this is age, like I am really not as, I was very susceptible to crazy makers as a young person. If someone said to me, it's your fault that I'm unhappy, I'd be like, okay, wife, I have to get off. I have to stop everything. This person is unhappy because I've made them unhappy. Everything has to stop until I've fixed that because that's unacceptable. And I do think I'm much better at saying, you know, try not to get into like, I'm sorry you feel that way because it's some of the phrases are kind of tells. But I do think that taking what I find to work the best with crazy makers is taking everything at exactly face value because it kind of robs the power of the manipulation.

43:32Amy Wilson:So, but Christmas will be ruined if we're not there. Oh, that is going to be really, really hard. And I'm sorry. Anyway, we'll be there next Christmas, but Christmas, I'm sorry that Christmas will be ruined for you all. That is hard and sad, but we'll be there next time. But not like, no, we can fix it. No, we can this. No, it won't be ruined. Right, right, right. I'm sorry that for you, that is going to be your experience of the holiday. I'm sorry that the party is going to be ruined if I don't bring my dip. But, you know, I'll come. We'll try to make the best of it. But Yeah, that's too bad.

44:07Amy Wilson:I like that. You just kind of take everything at face value and you don't get sucked into the madness. Julia Cameron says here, because you were talking about like, what does this mean to cultivate your inner self? She says you can slowly expand, soothe and mend yourself. Again, I'm not sure it starts with like, I'm so broken and that's why I have a crazy maker. Like sometimes your boss is a crazy maker, but it's a slow expansion, right? It's a slow, like, I'm going to take up space. When your boss tells you this has to be done in 15 minutes, it takes 20. And then you tell them they can have it by the end of the day.

44:40And then you tell them you're not going to get to it till next week. It's a slow process of setting boundaries and pushing them out a little bit at a time.

44:47Amy Wilson:And it is a dance that involves two partners. That's the thing. I mean, it's a jack in the box and you wind it up and it pops. And so you do have a locus of control within it, which is not popping anymore for the crazy maker. And I think that it can, certain people can still make you crazy and you can go on the drive home and be like, well, that, oh, I just was fuming the whole time that that person was trying to blame me for everything that went wrong, even though I had nothing to do with it or whatever. But in this situation, if you stop reacting, the behavior will stop or they'll find somebody else.

45:31Right. It'll probably get more intense first and then eventually it would move to somebody else.

45:35Amy Wilson:Absolutely. And I wanted to highlight this term. Do you know the term gray rocking? No, I hadn't heard this before. It's a very, they talk about it a lot when dealing with like borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, that again, going no contact is more engaged in a way than gray rocking. They're trying to find this middle ground where it's like, we're not speaking. That is an engagement. Like not speaking is another form of engagement because it implies that there's going to be an end to it. We're in a fight. And that gray rocking is a strategy. This is from psychcentral.com.

46:15Amy Wilson:It's a strategy for protecting yourself from abusive or toxic friends, partners, co-workers, or family members. This method theorizes that when dealing with an emotionally abusive or narcissistic person, withholding your reactions can put a stop to their behaviors. If you show no emotion, they won't get the thrill of enjoyment out of their harmful behavior. This is, it's important to underscore, sometimes not safe to do, not safe to do in an abusive situation because the person might double their efforts. But as I say, they'll redouble their efforts. This makes it sound like if you don't give them any, it sounds like a tantruming toddler.

46:51Now, some people are much more manipulative and much more used to getting what they want than that. And doing this once won't solve your problems. But doing this once might make you feel a little bit better because you're not taking on their emotional state.

47:02Amy Wilson:And I do think with the person who's like, how's it going? Oh, my God, I need to talk to you. Everybody's died. I have this. And oh, my God, it is a drama and a crisis. And you're like, that does sound difficult. I can do lunch in two weeks, but I'm busy right now. And just trying to be available unavailable. Basically, this is the equivalent of blank facing a toddler in tantrum. That like your tantrum upsets me is why the tantrum works and it keeps going on. And that your chaos draws me in. That to the degree that you do not get drawn in, there's a million other people who will. So if you can kind of gray rock and blank face it, they are going to find the people who when they call are like, let me drop everything.

47:47Amy Wilson:Yes, my baby's crying, but I don't care. You've got a crisis and I have to run towards it with gasoline and matches. Right. That this theory is saying like, slow your roll and calm down. I will finish with Julia Cameron, the inventor of the term crazy maker. It is unlikely that you can change your crazy maker, but you can come to understand why this connection to the person is so strong for you. You can pull away, pull back into your own power and own your right to make decisions for yourself. Any intense relationship works like a mobile. You cannot move one piece without affecting the others.

48:23Amy Wilson:So while the situation may feel dire and you may feel powerless, you do hold the potential to alter it. Right. And I would say to alter yourself, not to alter the crazy maker. That's not your job to make them change their ways. You can change your ways. Yeah. You can stop dancing. You can stop playing your role on the mobile. Okay. Mobile, mobile. How do you say that? I don't know. I'm a crazy maker. Next week, mobile or mobile. Do you know that we are on YouTube and you can see the whole version of this episode and all of our episodes? I'll just be going to youtube.com, typing in what fresh hell podcast.

48:55Go check us out. Oh, and follow us. And you subscribe on YouTube, which is free. It doesn't cost anything. But that means it'll show you our stuff. And it'll help YouTube know what kind of people like this kind of content, and hopefully get it in front of some new people. Yeah, and see us in the real life person while we're chat, chat, chatting away.

49:13Amy Wilson:Hope that's not too weird. With that people go gray rock your crazy makers and have a good week. So long.

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