Are YOU an Echoist? Another label for people to get attached to.

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In Greek Mythology, Echo was a Nymph that was cursed by the goddess Hera because she was jealous of the relationship she had with her husband, Zeus. Nymph was forced to only speak the last words spoken to her, so when she met Narcissus and fell in love with him, she was unable to tell him how she felt as she watched him fall in love with himself.

Fitting, since we all know what a Narcissist is. In fact, Narcissism derives it's name from the ancient Greek man that fell in love with himself. 

A narcissist, for those that don't know, is someone that is highly self interested to the point that they will do anything, and I mean anything to keep the perfect image of themselves -- to the point of self destruction.

I was reading yesterday that psychologists have coined the name echoist for those that continually find themselves in relationships with Narcissists. These people are at the opposite end of the spectrum to narcissism; whilst narcissists talk about themselves, and only want the focus of anything to be on themselves, echoists are people that shy away from the limelight, don't like any form of recognition, and through incredibly low self esteem like to feed into other people's visions and ideas, whilst having none of their own. You'll probably know them more discussed openly as "people pleasers" -- that's the more common term.

If you're an echoist then you're more likely to find yourself in a relationship with a narcissist because that is the yang to their yin; people pleasers complete the circles of narcissists, and whilst one is completely self interested -- the other feeds into that self interest by shifting all of the focus only onto them.

Now that's out the way there's a discussion I want to be having.

Echoist. It seems we're always trying to label people; more so now than ever before. I'm not too sure if I like it.

When I ran my groups in the community I didn't allow people to use their tags, or, what I should say is that I put a negative stigma in using their labels. I made them feel it wasn't appropriate to be discussing such personal details about themselves in our groups (whilst they could totally do it outside of the group if they made any friends). Initially, that sounds horrible, right? But I had intention with that. People were there to get to know each other and form a connection within the community. When you announce your label then you immediately get put into a box; whether you like it or not you are pre-judged. No matter what anyone says the mind is a judgemental beast no matter how non-judgemental you are.

If I tell you that I've been resident in one of the most secure psychiatric facilities in Scotland -- you make a judgement. You don't want to, but you do. Even worse when I don't give you an explanation as to why I was there, or what it is for -- and experiment shall we say. I'll filter in the reason somewhere to keep you reading. 

Isn't it so much better when you take me at face value? That you take me for what I'm writing about rather than knowing some of the labels I have? You form a more realistic impression of me in the now.

This is how I ran my groups. I much rather people got to know each other at face value rather than throwing in their labels. We are not our labels. We just aren't. Our labels are a part of us, but they shouldn't be what defines us. And I know this because of some of the people that I've worked with in the past, and how I experienced having my own label. When we give a name for our behaviour then we tend to move towards the pigeon-hole it creates for us. When I was diagnosed with schizophrenia I found myself making excuses as to why schizophrenia was making me act in that way, rather than I had schizophrenia because this was the way I acted. Do you see the difference there?

It allows us to make excuses. And I don't like it. I've never liked it. 

"I am this way because I am an echoist." it gives us an excuse to stop working on ourselves; it permits us the answers that we seek and an excuse to not delve into any deeper understanding of ourselves. 

The doctors said I would be a schizophrenic for the rest of my life; but they only said that because they knew that my circumstances were so stacked up against me that they never expected me to pull through. It was easier to give me a reason to survive, than a reason to die in the gutter, frustrated.

If I was given the label of echoist; I absolutely know that I would have just stopped there. I would have been like, "Oh yeah, this is why my life is like that -- sucks to be me" I would have stopped trying. I would have stopped searching. Luckily for me I stumbled across Dr. Glovers book -- no more mr nice guy in my eternal search for why I always ended up in bad situations; and without labelling all the weird and wonderful psychological ticks that comes with being a "nice guy" the book explains in detail where I had went wrong, and how to change it.

This was the dawn of a new beginning for me. This was a lease of a new life. I was able to put things like my stay in one of the most secure psychiatric wards in Scotland for hitting a male nurse because the voices told me to, behind me! 

It taught me responsibility and accountability.

Labels suck.



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