fridaybaker
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This is just a little example highlighting my thoughts above. When my longtime childhood friend and I were about 19, she suddenly starting stealing. This was utterly out of character for her. I was stunned. I had no idea how to handle it. She would go into stores and steal clothing, jewelry, make-up, what-have-you.
She didn’t have a lot in life, but even at my young age I knew that that wasn’t the reason, but that there was something else inside her, emotionally, driving this shocking behavior. (I really can’t quite express what a stunning thing this was to me. I could have understood it more at 12 or 13, but at 19 we were adults. It was so beyond the realm of appropriate behavior. I was just reeling.)
I had no idea what to do about it, and I didn’t feel like there was anyone I could talk to about it, so I just kept my own counsel and hoped it would work itself out. I really thought that it would. No real idea why, but I just thought it would. And it did. She eventually returned to her “old self”.
You see, my friend had some very difficult things she was dealing with in life, including having to “parent” two alcoholic parents. No, she didn’t kill anyone, but life can be so very hard at that age, and we often simply aren’t equipped to deal with it. At some level, I understood this concept of “displacement”. Acting out, in an aggressive way, not at those in immediate proximity to one’s life, but at those outside of it. Substitutes.
I can easily see a scenario involving a young man that started on Yakota Air Force Base, and ended in Setagaya; close enough to get to easily, but far enough away from his “life”. A place, and a vulnerable group of people, wherein to vent the rage inside. Just like my friend didn’t steal from me (part of her “life”). She focused her displaced emotions outside of her daily life and on what were essentially nameless, faceless strangers. Not murdering them, but stealing from them.
She didn’t have a lot in life, but even at my young age I knew that that wasn’t the reason, but that there was something else inside her, emotionally, driving this shocking behavior. (I really can’t quite express what a stunning thing this was to me. I could have understood it more at 12 or 13, but at 19 we were adults. It was so beyond the realm of appropriate behavior. I was just reeling.)
I had no idea what to do about it, and I didn’t feel like there was anyone I could talk to about it, so I just kept my own counsel and hoped it would work itself out. I really thought that it would. No real idea why, but I just thought it would. And it did. She eventually returned to her “old self”.
You see, my friend had some very difficult things she was dealing with in life, including having to “parent” two alcoholic parents. No, she didn’t kill anyone, but life can be so very hard at that age, and we often simply aren’t equipped to deal with it. At some level, I understood this concept of “displacement”. Acting out, in an aggressive way, not at those in immediate proximity to one’s life, but at those outside of it. Substitutes.
I can easily see a scenario involving a young man that started on Yakota Air Force Base, and ended in Setagaya; close enough to get to easily, but far enough away from his “life”. A place, and a vulnerable group of people, wherein to vent the rage inside. Just like my friend didn’t steal from me (part of her “life”). She focused her displaced emotions outside of her daily life and on what were essentially nameless, faceless strangers. Not murdering them, but stealing from them.
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