Debrief

I wonder why I manage to attract regularly people somewhere on the NPD spectrum, I guess it might some family heritage mixed with being on the empathic side of the equation. My love life is sufficiently sparse not to be effected much lately, my latest job left quite some wounds which need some processing.

More than three years ago, being homeless and jobless, I took the opportunity to start working for Damo, who ran and still runs "We, the dogbro company", or dogbro for short. Don't google it, I changed names for a variety of reason you can guess about. dogbro sells a fermented drink, praised as some sort universal remedy for all sort of ailments, especially when you listen Damo's sales talk.

I knew Damo and Dara, his girl friend at the time, from a few encounters before, mostly linked to Damo's engagement with a small political party wanting to save the planet. A real power couple, both of them outgoing, confident and quite charming initially. After working in the financial industry ages ago, I didn't want to engage anymore in any company I consider part of the problem, and dogbro ticked all the boxes for working on the solution.

The niche product offered an alternative to soft drinks, might have health benefits, it definitely tasted and felt good when I sampled it, the brewery used solar technology, bottles were reused, labels printed with vegan ink. Damo appeared to walk his talk to compete on the market with a useful product made in as sustainable ways as possible. Yeah, it meant I was working for the man again, not as independent as I want to be, but as least not for the forces of evil.

The arrangement offered cash in hand convenience, and a bed in his distribution warehouse in my favourite neighbourhood. Initially I agreed to pay by two hours of daily work for the crash pad, managed to negotiate it down to one soon, before I managed to find a sharehouse close by. Before I started with dogbro, I "planned" to go wherever fate would blow me, so it felt right to me to engage there.

Dara didn't like the idea that I lived in the warehouse, she was concerned that it would turn into a hippie hangout instead of a place of business. It looked like one anyway, while it was spacious it was cluttered with lots of things, the majority of which were not related to the business. While I lived there, I tried to keep it tidy, which was basically a mission impossible. Damo's attention span is extremely short, so he doesn't care where he drops whatever he carries into the space, forgets to put lids back onto jars he opens, to close taps and so on.

In other words, no matter how clean and organised the different spaces in the warehouse were, it took Damo usually less than an hour to transform it back into dysfunctional, cluttered spaces. A lot of time at work was spend to find items which have gone lost in the chaos. When Dara broke up with him, things turned worse, because know we shared the warehouse most nights. Party was his preferred remedy, more important than my desire and need for a good nights sleep.

The business wasn't really thriving too much, so I had enough time to start tending the garden in the front yard. The slow pace of plants growing offered a relief from random context switching when Damo's monkey mind went ape shit, which happened lots after the breakup with Dara. I ate out lots, mainly because the kitchen was most of the time in a terrible state, and due to the amount of people coming through the space everything in the fridge was considered 'communal'.

I realised that I made enough money to afford my own space in a share house, creating a retreat from the ever changing chaos at work. Many unhealthy patterns of interaction between Damo and me were already established in these early stages, but I felt strong and equanimous enough to take it not personal. Being Alexander Technique teacher should imply that I can master my reactions to stimuli, right?

Yes and no. We all assume to a certain degree that the people around us are similar to us, which would predict much less conflict than we generally experience. At some point, I read up a bit on the Myers-Briggs personality test and estimated that Damo and I probably differ in all four dimensions. While I don't think this personality test offers more than an indication, and none of us is doomed to get stuck in any of the 16 outcomes, these differences provided often a too high stimulus for me to keep calm.

"Judging" causes me the greatest troubles, or rather, being judged. It often goes together with the blame game, in my point of view an utter waste of time. However, a judgemental person usually understands any observation as judgement, which creates a large obstacle to "Talking about it" as conflict resolution. Our culture has developed a cult of judgement, based on violent communication. Finding solutions, while essential for long-term relationships, offers much less entertainment than the drama of emotionally laden conflict.

The blame game drained me, and started to reactivate old, bad habits of defence. Depending on my mood, I either reacted with cynicism, or confrontational. Sometimes I just laughed about it, but most of the time it ended in full confrontation, both of shouting at each other. Usually, a bit of time out managed to forget about the "cause" of confrontation. The fact that technically I got fired each time we had a clash like this, left me feeling quite insecure. I didn't notice at the time how much Damo enjoyed this kind of emotional exchange.

I could have noticed earlier if I connected the dots. In the breakup phase with Dara, their interactions had a similar toxic dynamic. She told me at some point that she basically tried to educate him similar to a dog, with positive and negative reinforcement. That was reflected in the way they talked to each other. Obviously, she gave up at some point, despite a few bouts of break up sex. As last resort, she threatened him with an intervention order.

Damo's promiscuity and unwillingness to remain faithful proved the primary reason for the break up. Despite him admitting to have broken more than one promise to keep his dick out of other women, he presented himself as a victim towards other people he shared this "misfortune" with. At this time, I still considered him as friend, and suggested taking a bit more responsibility for this failed relationship. As a consequence, he avoided talking about her to me.

I simply accepted that he was in a bad mood due to this, which helped ignoring a bit when ever he lashed out verbally against me. The "blame Winston" pattern got established for as good as everything not right in the warehouse. While I had initially offered to provide my expert skills, I got tasked with menial jobs, including cleaning up after him. I didn't mind it too much, being paid meant I could pay the bills.

Things got worse when Willie, an old friend of Damo, appeared. He got introduced as "loose unit", and indeed, he had even more talent than Damo to create chaos around him, without being as charming or generous as Damo usually was when he met new faces. Willie commented as "permaculture expert" about the state of front yard, before chucking his cigarette butt into it. Like Beavis and Butthead, the two of them focussed exclusively on having a good time, unlike them they added lots of alcohol and drug use in the mix.

I got the impression that Damo wanted Willie around to look reasonable, and have another person for his blame game. The average tension level at work increased, just like the off times I was given. I just scraped by financially at the time, used smoking as expensive stress relief which increased the financial pressure. Damo seemed to be able to draw in an unlimited supply of unpaid helpers, attracted by the idea to work for a planet saving business, and random women he had sex with, and did lots of cleaning work in return.

All of that made my life more complicated. I enjoyed the people coming through, but less the fact that I had introduce new people to the same procedures on a regular basis. Also, lots of reorganisation of the spaces happened on "working bees" in my absence, usually meaning that I couldn't find what I needed for my job anymore. The social aspect, however, established the "I don't pay you for sitting around" pattern. I no longer got paid for the hours I spend there, but interactions with customers or new helpers were simply subtracted as unproductive leisure time.

Damo expected a 24/7 availability, and often rang me late at night to organise pick ups, or because he lost his keys and needed me to open the door for him. This impacted me a lot in having a social life, and getting sufficient rest to keep my mood and motivation up. Occasionally I got some booze or weed, which I basically couldn't afford, and drowned my grief, concerns and worry with these unhealthy means.

The business took a dive for some months, and with no silver lining in sight Willie left for a while. He went through several boom and bust cycles since I met him, always returning with the next splendid business idea he hasn't got the stamina to materialise properly. Just like Damo, he likes to get people to work for free for him, or for favours which usually work in favour for him. Unlike Damo, he's got little skills and no real income from his various ventures. He's got full support from Damo, though, who allows him to use his space, take his drugs and drink his booze.

While I'm not too certain, I presume it was Willie who spread the idea of me being a "negative" person. While I was the primary target for the blame game, I simply pointed out who was responsible for things I got blamed for. Any form of constructive criticism got labelled as "being negative". Instead of preventing things from systematically going wrong by changing the way they were approached, my "negative attitude" became the one and only problem in need of fixing.

This made it more and more difficult for me to see every day as a new opportunity to participate in what I initially perceived as a business involved doing something good. I managed to claim some of the routine tasks, which kept me sufficiently busy without becoming too involved in the drama which happened regularly. Days without seeing Damo allowed me to minimise emotional damage, but I felt the need to drink a lot, sometimes starting already around lunch.

I find it still difficult to remember some of those drama days without the emotional maelstrom that went with them. I want to be able to forgive myself for my inertness not to have moved on earlier, and those who treated me as emotional punching ball, without forgetting what happened. Suppressing my discomfort with alcohol and weed didn't work, it turned into a band aid preventing wounds from bleeding, but also from healing.

My opportunities to generate income are severely limited due to my own choices some years ago. I coast along on the tiny safety net I set up for myself, which also means that luxuries like alcohol, tobacco and weed are off limits. Sobering up for some weeks now makes me aware how toxic in many dimensions my way of life as part of dogbro had become. I wish the story would end here, but I have a hunch that the last chapter has been written yet.