You can’t control other people. It’s a basic fact about humans.
In my psychotherapy work, it’s a common symptom of mental disorders: to be controlling of others and their actions.
People often neglect, deny, or ignore it. Or, just honestly unaware of what it is.
The personal fallout is inevitable: unnecessary suffering. Ongoing misery.
Martha is so emotionally hurt.
Her daughter, 25, has been ghosting her since she left home and landed a job 3 years ago.
She chases. She pleads and grovels. She attempts to control situations.
She tries to always reach out to her alienating daughter only to be met with silence.
Clinically depressed is how Martha self-diagnosed herself. She feels so empty and rejected.
During our Skype session, I asked her this key question, among others:
“Do you need the love and respect of your daughter to be happy?”
I spent a bit much of time with Martha to process that.
Along the way she realizes how much she’s trying to control her daughter to fill up her unmet needs. Her inner void.
How much she has been relying on her (whom she can’t control) for her happiness.
You can’t control other people. Don’t cheat your self.
Writer Christine Field writes on “healthy detachment:”
“ … when we live detached, we are not placing a wall between us and others. Instead we are examining our own expectations and dependencies … Your adult children don’t exist solely to fill the void of your unmet needs … meeting your own needs by loving yourself sufficiently will bring more peace and satisfaction.”
In “healthy detachment,” you are not threatened when others reject or displease you.
Your reactions are not based on expectations or being dependent on them. You’re not focused on “what’s in it for me.”
The Blanchard Institute offers more good insights on healthy detachment as a way to avoid controlling people:
“ … healthy detachment essentially means letting go emotionally of the person or situation without ignoring them or avoiding them. Feeling bad or upset about a situation will do little to change the person or situation in question. This doesn’t mean that you have to love anyone in your family less—essentially, detachment is radical acceptance of the idea that you can never truly control another person or their actions.”
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