Have you ever known someone who seems to repeat themselves in regards to the same handful of topics whenever you are together? This is the individual who behaves as if whatever is being shared is "new" information that you haven't heard before. I call it being in the presence of a Feedback Looper. No matter what you feel you actively do to distract your feedback looper away from whatever it is he or she is fixated on talking about....it doesn't change a thing. Mr. or Ms. Feedback Looper keeps going and going until only they themselves decide to stop. Not that we aren't ourselves guilty of this looping syndrome when we have an unresolved or difficult issue in our own lives. However, most people do know and understand when enough is enough and they need to stop talking about "it" for now---or altogether. Today's post is about those who don't know when to stop because their own feedback loop is what feeds their insatiable need for.... (Keep on reading!)
Let me tell you about "Maryanne" as an introduction to this syndrome. I met her when I was in my 20s as she was a friend of a friend we used to socialize with on the odd Friday night. Maryanne was Eastern European and had heavy duty pressure from her parents to "find a nice man to marry and make babies with". Somehow Maryanne burned this edict into her brain because whenever we were together, she never (and I do mean NEVER!) shut up about "I need to find a boyfriend...I don't have a boyfriend...I have to find someone who'll go out with me" ad nauseum! As fate would have it, Maryanne eventually did find a boyfriend. Then when I saw her several months later, her feedback loop switched to "I wonder when he's going to propose to me....do you think it's too quick if we get engaged by Christmas....What will I do if he dumps me"...blah-de-blah-de-blah. After I heard that Maryanne and her boyfriend did get married...you got it. Her feedback loop became focused on "I don't know why he's always gone....he's never home....I'm not pregnant yet...I need to get pregnant before I'm 30.."
...and that's what one form of feedback looping can look like in real life. If you don't know if you have an issue with feedback looping, just take a long look at your social relationships. Who calls you to go out, go to lunch, come over, have a play date with the kids, etc? If you don't have any or many friends and don't do much by invitation without fully understanding "How did this happen to me?"...chances are there is something going on that you can't look at too deeply which MAY include a problem with feedback looping.
For so many feedback loopers, the motive driving their behavior is two fold. First, they want to discharge their own anxiety (which means decreasing it) by talking out loud about "it" (the cause(s) of their anxiety) to whatever pair of ears are closest by. This is somewhat understandable (though there are much more effective ways of discharging anxiety that's for sure!)...but not when it is tied to the other reason why feedback loopers can't or won't shut themselves down: they want ALL of anyone's attention. It's much like not being satisfied with being another pretty girl in a room full of pretty girls. The feedback looper wants to be THE prettiest girl not just today or this evening..but EVERY day and EVERY evening and believes that feedback looping is going to achieve this. Which it does not. If anything, it drives people away who have become sick and tired of hearing the same sh** different day from the feedback looper in their own lives.
Don't get me wrong. I have tremendous empathy for anyone who hasn't yet figured out how to solve, resolve, and/or dissolve their issues. Yet I find it extremely mystifying how any feedback looper believes that talking about "whatever" over and over again like a broken record is somehow an important part of the healing, positive change, and personal growth process. It is not.
Nothing changes if nothing changes. I've said this plenty (like a feedback loop!) to clients over the past several years. Talking something to death...or talking the same handful of topics to death...is NOT a way to make authentically difficult circumstances or situations "better"---let alone solve or resolve them. And although some situations and circumstances can never be truly solved or resolved (such as would be true with someone who is terminally ill, suffering from a chronic disease with no cure, etc.)...how does talking about it over and over again to your sister or best friend or boss help matters any? It just doesn't!
A professional psychotherapist is the answer here; not just the next available set of ears. Until next time...
Let me tell you about "Maryanne" as an introduction to this syndrome. I met her when I was in my 20s as she was a friend of a friend we used to socialize with on the odd Friday night. Maryanne was Eastern European and had heavy duty pressure from her parents to "find a nice man to marry and make babies with". Somehow Maryanne burned this edict into her brain because whenever we were together, she never (and I do mean NEVER!) shut up about "I need to find a boyfriend...I don't have a boyfriend...I have to find someone who'll go out with me" ad nauseum! As fate would have it, Maryanne eventually did find a boyfriend. Then when I saw her several months later, her feedback loop switched to "I wonder when he's going to propose to me....do you think it's too quick if we get engaged by Christmas....What will I do if he dumps me"...blah-de-blah-de-blah. After I heard that Maryanne and her boyfriend did get married...you got it. Her feedback loop became focused on "I don't know why he's always gone....he's never home....I'm not pregnant yet...I need to get pregnant before I'm 30.."
...and that's what one form of feedback looping can look like in real life. If you don't know if you have an issue with feedback looping, just take a long look at your social relationships. Who calls you to go out, go to lunch, come over, have a play date with the kids, etc? If you don't have any or many friends and don't do much by invitation without fully understanding "How did this happen to me?"...chances are there is something going on that you can't look at too deeply which MAY include a problem with feedback looping.
For so many feedback loopers, the motive driving their behavior is two fold. First, they want to discharge their own anxiety (which means decreasing it) by talking out loud about "it" (the cause(s) of their anxiety) to whatever pair of ears are closest by. This is somewhat understandable (though there are much more effective ways of discharging anxiety that's for sure!)...but not when it is tied to the other reason why feedback loopers can't or won't shut themselves down: they want ALL of anyone's attention. It's much like not being satisfied with being another pretty girl in a room full of pretty girls. The feedback looper wants to be THE prettiest girl not just today or this evening..but EVERY day and EVERY evening and believes that feedback looping is going to achieve this. Which it does not. If anything, it drives people away who have become sick and tired of hearing the same sh** different day from the feedback looper in their own lives.
Don't get me wrong. I have tremendous empathy for anyone who hasn't yet figured out how to solve, resolve, and/or dissolve their issues. Yet I find it extremely mystifying how any feedback looper believes that talking about "whatever" over and over again like a broken record is somehow an important part of the healing, positive change, and personal growth process. It is not.
Nothing changes if nothing changes. I've said this plenty (like a feedback loop!) to clients over the past several years. Talking something to death...or talking the same handful of topics to death...is NOT a way to make authentically difficult circumstances or situations "better"---let alone solve or resolve them. And although some situations and circumstances can never be truly solved or resolved (such as would be true with someone who is terminally ill, suffering from a chronic disease with no cure, etc.)...how does talking about it over and over again to your sister or best friend or boss help matters any? It just doesn't!
A professional psychotherapist is the answer here; not just the next available set of ears. Until next time...