Wasn’t being a teenager just the worst?
So sometimes, when we run out of things like open, empathetic curiousity about other people, we find ourselves knee deep in The Drama Triangle.
At each corner of the triangle we have a Victim, a Persecutor and a Rescuer. And we are all of them. And the person we’re engaging with is also all of them. Or at the very least, we’re trying to convince them they are. Frequently, we slide in and out of each of these roles in the same conversation. And the ‘I’m only trying to help you’ game is a traditional staple of the Drama Triangle.
So we have Lars. Lars is the clear Victim of this episode, genuinely manipulated and hurt by Sadie’s games (and the slapping, don’t forget that). But we know he has a long history of Perpetration. Sadie’s anger and confusion towards him has its basis in a long, emotionally intense history between them where Lars switches it up between abusing her goodwill and her romantic feelings and then turning around and positioning himself as the Victim of their working relationship which interrupts his otherwise carefree life of macking on the Cool Kids.
Sadie is the currently identified Perpetrator of not only this confrontation, but of the whole week of misery. But Sadie is also the Victim of Lars, who behaves very very badly towards her. Her slide into playing the Rescuer happened because she is desperate to escape that Victim-Perpetrator dynamic. She thought she could help Lars relax, get in touch with his true emotions and change him. She thought that was what Lars needed because she’s painting him as a helpless Victim who has no control over his circumstances and behaviour. This whole episode was her manipulative attempt to frame herself as Lars’ Rescuer, the person he could rely on and trust, and she came so very close to earning his genuine affection and companionship. That’s one hell of a drug, and it’s not surprising that she copes with rejection by escaping the sad by embracing the mad, switching from Secret Perpetrator to plain ol’ regular Perpetrator by hitting and scolding Lars.
And then Steven. Who doesn’t need to be part of this, but keeps inserting himself into this relationship. He wants to be their Rescuer - whisking them away to paradise so they can develop their feelings (and their customer service skills). But unintentionally, he is also a Persecutor, frequently enabling the games between Sadie and Lars and making them more difficult to resolve. And also a Victim, who doesn’t know how to escape this dynamic.
Thank god we get over all that once we hit our twenties, eh?