אויב עס אַרבעט, טאָן ניט אָנרירן עפּעס! ווי מיר אומבאוואוסטזיין העלפן זיך

There are a lot of programmers among my acquaintances. Probably, this is because in the world of them in general now there is darkness, darkness. Communicating with them, I got a little deeper into their special humor, folklore and magic. Yes, yes, magic. Because any programmer will tell you a lot of stories about how IT worked — it is not clear HOW and it is not clear WHY. And anyone who wanted to understand the reasons was severely punished by the code that failed once and for all (previously worked fine).

Personally, these codes, working or not working against all logic, are very reminiscent of our unconscious. It also hides the principles of work from us, giving out strange schemes of self-healing in return, which we do not pay attention to until they interfere with our lives.

In my student years, I was friends with an extraordinary girl. She was smart and naive at the same time. She joked a lot, loved to play: in associations, dominoes, lotto. Such a child in the body of an established woman. Pigtails and socks, a backpack in the form of a bear. She preferred childish, not feminine. Cosmetics store — «Children’s World».

One of the «caring» mutual acquaintances spoke of her in a very unpleasant way: they say that in our common company there was not a single man, not excluding married ones, who had not been in her bed. I’m not a hypocrite. We live in a free world, everyone does with his life as he wants. But these rumors surprised me: how do teddy bears and knee-high socks combine with such a sexual appetite?

I carefully discussed this topic with the girl. She was open to such conversations. She said that more, of course, they lie, there were much fewer «adventures» — and yet. Since then, I have become her confidant in love affairs and each time I listened to stories about how her relationship developed. Something was broken in her «protocol of love etiquette».

In those days, I easily handed out phones to interesting young people and then tracked the degree of their involvement: would they invite me on a date? Call? Write SMS? Or just want to be friends? Everything was the other way around for her: first sex, and then intrigue: will the phone take it? Will he ask what his name is? .. An amazing creature. For some reason, she wasn’t scared at all.

Her trace was lost in the next company, hike or trip. Even on Facebook (an extremist organization banned in Russia), I could not find it, find out how it changed, where it was moving. Her image appeared in my mind out of nowhere, at a lecture. I told students about the sexual attachment of victims to their rapists, about that form of sexuality, the only purpose of which is the search for recognition, love.

An old acquaintance popped into my mind as a perfect example of what I was talking about. Her parents divorced when she was quite young, each having children in new relationships. They were far more preoccupied with their lives than with their eldest daughter, whose features and behavior reminded them of a past, erroneous marriage.

She had to be independent, an adult. The key is around the neck, «eat something yourself.» Childhood as such did not happen — that is why, already in adulthood, she liked all these golfs and pigtails so much.

Active sexual behavior, readiness to rush into the arms of the first person you meet is a continuation of the sad story of childhood and a vivid example of how the unconscious of a person seeks to “repair” the injury without giving any signals “outside”. The lack of love in childhood was made up for by active sexuality in youth.

I remember how the girls whispered and let go of offensive words in her address. And I know for sure: she just desperately — more desperately than all of us — needed love. Sexual revolution, extrovert temperament and attractive appearance did their job. And after all, no one in her environment, not a single living soul asked her the question of why she behaves this way. Why does she need it?

Now, watching similar cases in practice, reading scientific articles and talking with students, I understand How long loneliness, sadness and pain that girl had inside. At that moment, contact with irrational grievances was impossible. The unconscious captured melancholy and fought it in the most favorable way — acceptable from the point of view of the unconscious itself, and the social norms adopted by us do not work on it.

If someone had taken care of this girl then, he would have been blown away by a flurry of accumulated melancholy. Several venereal diseases, hissing and gossip behind his back — from the point of view of the unconscious, all this was a small price to pay for containing the avalanche.

The psychologist works with these patterns (schemes) only if there is a request. But this happens infrequently. More often, such people get into therapy when the dam «broke», when the adaptive mechanism failed. And it is certainly more difficult to work in a situation of such a crisis.

But if you do prevention or “catch” the problem at an early stage, there is a chance to release a lot of energy that is better spent on joy and pleasure. Is not it?