Ladder me if you dare

The boy introduced me to The laddering technique over the weekend. Its a form of psychology developed in the 1960's that systematically establishes your core set of constructs on how you view the world. The boy works in advertising and has a background in design so this is exactly the sort of probing research him and his colleagues delight in. He had told me that he had spent the day with his boss seeing just how far you can ladder one another. The way I saw it was that you choose a partner then steadily ask them a series of questions aimed at stripping back all the dialog to reveal their inner most insecurities, aspirations and self imposed limitations. The boy assured me that is was just a simple and particularly helpful method at eliciting goals and underlying values. I did believe him but I was imagining how it would all play out if the technique was performed on me. If I allowed the boy to do this to me he would realize that I have collection of borderline mood disorders and a constant need for pain relief. There would be no way that I would play this game with him only three months into the relationship.  


This got me thinking how in recent years I have become painfully aware that their are more people than I ever imagined performing their own DIY psychology on you everyday. Even amongst my friends I have been surprised to discover the intricate mind games they play on one another in order to get what they want. Those of you reading this thinking how naive I am are the very same people who do this very thing. All you others who are thinking that I'm paranoid are more like me. I had spent so many years taking people at face value and playing fairly because I always thought that it was the right thing to do and that cheats always get caught out in the end. How naive of me to carry this belief all the way through my twenties because if I had known a few years ago what I know now I could have saved myself a whole bunch of heartache. I had no idea people would spend months cultivating a desired result by manipulating the people in their immediate circle of trusted friends. Sometimes for simple things like getting a friend to enjoy something they normally don't because you do and you need them to like it too in order to have your own way. This seems fairly harmless due to the fact that its an attempt to get another person to enjoy something; but then you get people using these same techniques with the aim at convincing you to lose trust in people and develop a dislike for them in order to have things the way they want them. I have had a few friends who have been experts at this but none as good as M. M was a good friend of mine, very good looking, intelligent, quite charming and incredibly insecure. His special power was to get you to believe almost anything by playing on your uncertainties. Even though I have finally weaken his grip on my life he still has full control of the way some of my friends perceive things. 


M was a good friend for many years due to his ability to know how far he could push you in order to get what he wanted. He had been a key player in many of my life changing events using me like a puppet during difficult times. Even to this day I believe he has little control over his actions due to the years of self conditioning he had imposed upon himself, driven by his social paranoia. This has made him go about his life trusting no body and to compensate he used his intelligence to be two steps in front of everyone else so to avoid feeling as though anybody could gain advantage over him. At present he has a small number of my good friends, (who he had never made any secret to me of hating), his close friends. His behavior is a reaction to me removing him from my immediate circle of trusted friends. He has managed to plant seeds of distrust in friends that I had considered to be very respectful of me to reveal a side of them where they no longer feel comfortable around me. I have not let this cause me any harm though due to the fact that I know this sort of technique can not be sustained for long. Im not perfect but I'm constant and its this consistency that will lead him to get bored and move on to someone new. All I have to do to get though it is to be myself, which is easy. He has to be someone different everyday and thats the sort of shit thats going to eat your soul.


Im a little more aware these days and would be able to tell in a instant if someone was to 'ladder me'. An innocent mind makes for a demons toy and therefore you should always be aware of what it is people truly want. This way you can protect yourself from emotional harm and recognise sanctuary when you see it. I'm getting better at this and I would want to as well seeing as the person I will end up spending the rest of my life with would have to be a truly exceptional human being.