Читать книгу Positive Thinking: Everything you have always known about positive thinking but were afraid to put into practice - Vera Peiffer, Vera Peiffer - Страница 27

The Martyr (another mainly female trait of personality) will tell everyone how weak she is, when really, underneath it all, she is as strong as an ox. Martyrs have great stamina and determination and put all their energy into getting their own way and absolute attention from everyone around them because it is attention they feel they need, deserve and have a right to. They will dwell on how they unselfishly lent you a fiver three years ago and demand eternal gratitude for this generous act.

Although Martyrs seem to use others mainly as an audience, they are dependent on other people providing them with self-esteem. Attaining a sense of importance and self-respect through others is their main (unconscious or conscious) aim in life, and they make sure they get it. They are reasonably knowledgeable about illnesses and their symptoms and keep you posted at all times on their state of health, which, needless to say, is always poor or gives cause for worry.

Mothers sometimes employ this behaviour as emotional blackmail in order to prevent their only child from leaving the parental home for good or from going out in the evening and developing some sort of private life. The moment the daughter or son reaches for the door handle, up comes mother’s hand over her heart, and, with a crooked but brave little smile, she’ll wish her child a pleasant evening, but the message really is, ‘Do go out, by all means! It doesn’t matter if I have a heart attack while you’re out having fun’. If the child is a Mouse, he or she will be unable to ignore these signals and stay at home.

The true challenge occurs when two Martyrs meet. The conversation will become very intense and quickly develop into a verbal duel about who is sicker, who has had the most severe illness and the greatest number of operations (‘The surgeon couldn’t believe how anyone can survive with a gallstone that size!’). Both are mostly speaking at the same time and not really listening to what the other person is saying because they are too busy trying to remember details of their illnesses in order to triumph over their opponent.