Chapter 12: (v.2) The Rejection Game

Later that night, Christos went out with his brother and his cousin and walked in the center of Alexandroupoli.

Christos still remained calm.

Young people walked in the central square, and the bars were full.

They sat in a bar, and his brother and cousin started a conversation. After a while, a friend came to their company.

Being able to converse better than other times, Christos felt good. But then, he looked at the central square.

Young girls near his age or even younger walked being escorted by their boyfriends.

Remembering the girl he saw in the beach, the one he could not get closer to, his calmness started to leave, realizing he was far from being psychologically okay. The emotions that followed his outburst surfaced again and he felt unable to have a relationship with the opposite sex.

"Everyone has a relationship," he thought desperately, "only I am unable to be in one!”

Time came to leave and they went to a grill shop to eat something. “No, I will not let it get the best of me!” Christos thought.

His despair suddenly turned into violence. The same violence he felt during his rage explosion, but with a reduced magnitude. Yet, he still was dangerous, feeling like he had transformed into a mass of razor sharp blades!

“What do you have to offer in this shop that you call it a grill?” he asked with a threatening tone the waiter who worked there.

The waiter didn’t appear to be afraid, but rather offended. Michalis and their cousin looked surprised.

Realizing his actions, Christos felt frightened. “I am sorry,” he said to them, “I am not feeling well, I must go!” Then he left the grill shop in a haste.

On the way returning home, he couldn’t stop looking at nearby passing girls, until finally, he saw a girl that looked very similar in appearance to an old acquaintance. A girl he met during the first semester of the masters course.

The violence inside almost tore him apart in two.

Upon returning home, he saw the clock on the wall saying, “11:20 p.m.” and walked towards the kitchen to drink water.

Footsteps were heard in the central corridor and his mother entered the kitchen. “You're back?” she asked with a tired tone.

Christos didn’t reply as he didn’t feel like talking. The violence and threat inside him still existed.

Iulia approached to drink water also, but something wasn’t right: a humongous winged cockroach sat on her right shoulder without her realizing it!

In a moment of calmness and joy, Christos would have said, “Don’t move!” and he would carefully shake the cockroach off Iulias’ shoulder with his palm.

However, at that particular moment, only anger and rage existed. “Look at your shoulder!” he said coldly.

Iulia looked her shoulder and then her body started to retract, as the instinct of survival took over to deal with the immediate threat.

Walking across her entire arm, from the shoulder to the arm, then the elbow and then the palm, the cockroach finally jumped to the floor and then left hastily from the back door.

Iulia appeared to be in panic and looked Christos in the eyes.

Replying with a wave of cold hatred, Christos stared at her silently, his eyes sending out death signals.

Still terrified from the event, Iulia went to sleep.

Christos also went to sleep. Normally he should have felt guilty for what he did to his mommy, because good boys don’t behave like that.

He heard Iulia crying from her room, a slow weeping sound full of sadness. And then he realized that he remained untouched by this.

***

Waking up with a heavy head, visions of what happened yesterday came to his mind.

“But what was I thinking yesterday?” Christos wondered remembering the conversation with the waiter last night and his coldness towards his mother.

“I guess I am still not well!” he thought. “And regarding communication. . .”

He actually didn’t speak much last night.

“Oh shoot!” he thought. “How am I going to find a girlfriend if I can’t even speak?”

The girls he saw passing near him last night came to his mind. Then he remembered the girl he met in the beginning of the masters course.

“Emilia,” he thought. “What could she be doing now?”

Then he also remembered that at the time they were going out together, he cut communication with her during the exam period, because for a mysterious reason, he began to hate her. After the exams, he called her and they went out. He asked her to make a relationship with him. But she refused.

And then, after the examinations, the only relationship he made was with his depression. The same depression that shifted to rage and then to his latest explosion.

A feeling of sadness surfaced, so intense he couldn’t control it. “Who could help?” Christos wondered but the answer was obvious, “The Teacher of course!”

He called him in order to make an appointment with him, since they didn’t plan their next meeting the previous day.

“How are you Christos?” sounded Teacher's voice cheerful.

“I am fine. . .“ Christos replied with a lack of color in his voice.

“Fine. . .” the Teacher imitated Christos’ tone. “What happened again?”

“I started to feel bad again. . .”

“Would you like to come by my home?”

“Yes!”

Christos took a taxi and went to Teacher's house. The Teacher gave him a warm welcome. They went to his office.

“So, are you going to tell me what happened?” asked the Teacher.

Christos narrated the events of last night.

“It is obvious that you are still very angry,” the Teacher said. “These are implied from what you say. And I believe, you are mostly angry with your mother!”

“What makes you say that?” Christos asked.

“Just a thought,” he replied. “But tell me, what was the event that made you lose your cool again?”

“I remembered the girl I saw the other day at the beach and I also saw all those girls that walked near me and felt unable to act. That made me lose my cool.”

Christos went on, “And then, I saw a girl that looked very similar with a girl I met last year, with whom I wanted to make a relationship but failed to do so.” He described the story to the Teacher in detail.

“Christos,” said the Teacher after Christos finished, “have I ever told you about the four stages of rejection?”

“No,” Christos replied.

The Teacher removed a document from a folder and gave it to Christos.

Christos read it loudly:

“Because I believe and fear that the others reject me, I do the following:

• I find people that are scornful from their upbringing who quickly reject me so I verify myself.

• I find people that are not totally scornful and who don’t reject me immediately. But I make their life a living hell to reject me and so they do. So, I verify myself.

• Sometimes I find people that are not at all scornful, but faithful as rocks. They cannot verify my belief, so I judge that they don’t concern me and I walk past them.

• Finally, when I become angry, I reject the others.

So, the rejection game is completed, and I am almost thrilled that I have verified myself.”  

“But do things really work that way?” asked Christos baffled. “I find it difficult to believe things are that simple!”

“And yet,” the Teacher said, “they are! The girl you describe, Emilia, was the fourth case. The girl clearly showed interest for you, but you, in order to verify your fear that says that the others reject you, rejected her yourself. When you regretted it, it was already too late.”

“So because I felt threatened I rejected her?”

“Exactly,” said the Teacher with certainty.

“But how is this possible?”

“The human mind, mostly during its first six years, records everything it observes from the father and mother into the subconscious. It also records the emotions it feels from its parents in a second 'computer.' When the child is nearly one year old, a third 'processor' is created to balance the first two.”

Christos listened carefully.

The Teacher continued, “All that is recorded in the subconscious creates a scenario with a central role, along with others that form what we call the unique private logic of every individual. The private logic for every individual is different. People always choose individuals, conditions, job etc. that verify their private logic; it has to be verified.”

Then the Teacher said, “If a person fears rejection, it will do one of the things mentioned in the document I gave you, because that way it will verify truth. If on the other hand that person doesn’t fear rejection and believes it is easy to find a mate, it will be easy for it to find one. It will choose a girl that is faithful as a rock and women who reject will be indifferent to it, as they won’t verify the image it has for itself.”

“Does the private logic stop forming after the first few years of a person's life?” Christos asked.

“Of course not!” said the Teacher. “I said that it is formed mostly during the first six years, because those years determine a person the most. However, an individual continues to change during primary school, high school and even after school! It changes even now that we are speaking!”

“Hmm,” Christos said. “Regarding the roles. . .”

“Yes, what about them?” asked the Teacher.

“Do they change? I mean, is it possible for a person to change their worldview?”

The Teacher smiled warmly. “What do you think we are doing here?”

Christos also smiled. He felt that there was still hope for him to change. Even so however, he still didn’t think he could actually succeed on that. “What can I do to change these roles?” he asked.

“You must recover from your subconscious as many memories as you can, decode them and then change the old with new ones!”

Taking a blank page from the drawer and giving it to Christos, the Teacher said, “Write down a memory that you consider it affected you negatively.”

Christos wrote down the memory with the plasticine soldiers (Ch. 11). In this memory, Christos made soldiers from plasticine and when he showed them to his father, Petros made fun with his creation, saying that their guns look like penises.

“Good,” said the Teacher. “What we’ll do now is called registration change. The human brain records information like a tape recorder. In order to make a new recording in the place of the old one, you must write the new one the old one.”

“So what should I do?”

“You will imagine that the events in the memory develop differently. A development that makes you feel calm, or even joyful.”

“For example,” the Teacher continued, “instead of feeling humiliated and concluding that you don’t deserve to be a creator, you could have thought: “my father has no taste.” Or something like that, you get the idea. . .”

Attempting to apply Teacher's instructions, Christos imagined the scene as it development, with his father saying the same thing and he himself thinking, “My father made a bad and immature joke.”

In the beginning he didn’t actually believe his own statement, but after reciting the words many times, he realized that there existed truth in it. His father indeed made an immature joke then. In fact, he designed the soldiers quite well. His father made himself look like a fool; how immature was he really, comparing his son's creations with penises! The stain of humiliation inside Christos subsided and a feeling of calmness took its place.

“I've done it,” he said to the Teacher.

“And how do you feel now?” asked the Teacher.

“Calm!” answered Christos. “This appears to a good exercise!” he added.

“Good!” the Teacher replied. “So, now find two more memories and change their registration!”

Christos thought about two previous memories he had recovered (Ch. 6). In the first one, when he attempted to repeat the vulgarities that were being said in the T.V., his father and brother forbid him from doing so. In the second, when he tried to express himself freely, his brother made him feel ashamed and as a consequence he lost his ability to speak spontaneously.

As a registry, he tried to change what his relatives said to him. In the first memory he imagined Michalis and Petros laughing with the vulgar talk and in the second, his brother instead of saying, “What is this bullshit he is talking about?” he simply laughed.

The Teacher checked Christos’ work.

“Be careful!” he said. “When we change registration, we don’t change what others do. It is we that act differently!”

“But why?” asked Christos puzzled.

“Our goal is not to change others,” said the Teacher. “Our goal is that we change internally! Then, even if others remain the same, the negative things they say don’t touch us!”

“Okay, I understand!” Christos stated and tried the exercise again.

For the first memory, he thought that the others had a problem with what he said, and not he. For the second one he did the same repeatedly, until the shame he felt disappeared, leaving only calmness in its place.

“You must do this for many memories,” said the Teacher. “I would recommend that you continue doing this at home!”

“Okay then!” said Christos. “I will get to work!”

He called a taxi to take him home.

“If there are any new developments Christos, don’t hesitate to call!” the Teacher said.

“Of course!” Christos replied whose mood became much better with the appointment.