patricia evans, controlling people, adams media, 2002:
[”In couple relationships, people who attempt to control their mate have created a Pretend Person whom they think is their mate. They relate to the Pretend Person that they mistake for their real mate. Let’s take a look at how a Pretender creates, sees, and interacts with the Pretend Person. If we understand what is going on when someone makes up the other in a personal relationship, we will not only be better able to protect ourselves from anyone’s attempt to control us, but also will better see what control is all about, even when it involves large groups.
The following drama, “The Teddy Illusion,” shows just how someone might begin to “make up” a Pretend Person, and what happens in relationships when they do. Teddy starts out as a pretend friend, an imaginary teddy bear, and later Teddy is the main character.
An imaginary teddy bear provides the best example of how a Pretender develops and anchors a Pretend Person in someone and shows how different a Pretend Person is from an authentic person. A teddy bear is inanimate, that is, quiet and totally compliant. This is just how the Pretender seems to expect the authentic person to be. Beginning in childhood, the Pretender unconsciously develops the Pretend Person like a child develops a pretend-friend teddy bear, and like a child who plugs every move and thought into his teddy bear making it “do” and “say” what he wants, the Pretender quite unconsciously tries to do that same thing. Only the Pretender is plugging the Pretend Person into an authentic person!
Teddy, like a real teddy bear, doesn’t leave, is as comforting as one could imagine, and could be male or female, child or adult, or could even be split into a number of imaginary people. In the Pretender’s early childhood, Teddy (Pretend Person) might begin as an imaginary, all-need-meeting parent and later be personified as a perfect mate.
In the following scenario, Teddy becomes a Pretend Person— an imaginary mate that the Pretender anchors in a real person, and sees instead of that person.
I want you to relax and imagine, if you will, that when very young you had an imaginary teddy bear. And you played with your imaginary teddy bear in the same way that children play with a real teddy bear.
Like playing house with dolls, imagine playing the roles of little Teddy and Teddy’s friend, just as a child plays. The child’s voice is high and even more childlike when talking with Teddy. “Hi, Teddy. Now you stay here. I’ll be right back. Okay?”
“Okay,” says Teddy in the same little voice.
With this picture in your mind, please visualize having your own imaginary teddy bear right with you and imagine talking for Teddy and responding for Teddy with the same little voice.
The more you are able to put yourself into the imaginary world of the child playing “let’s pretend”, the more effective this scenario will be in revealing how some people establish an extension that like a tentacle reaches from one person into another.
pixelskylines
ellievsbear
snowghoul
baratheonpilled
gummygunk
tangentwithtanner
