“Desperate Housewives...
Desperate Communication!"
By Kristin Denton, MagicRelationship.com
All communication is either an act of love or a cry for help.
Either our needs are being met and we’d like to celebrate
that with other people, or our needs are not being met and we would
like empathy from others.
This is one of the basic premises of Dr. Marshall Rosenberg’s
communication theory, Nonviolent Communication (cnvc.org). And
the characters in the hit TV series Desperate Housewives so beautifully
demonstrate this premise.
Take the episode from season 2, “No One is Alone.”
In past episodes, Susan has remarried Carl in order to use his health
insurance for a surgery she needs.
It’s presumably just for the papers, not for any real romantic
interest. Meanwhile, Carl and Eddie are becoming more serious. Nobody
has told Edie of Susan’s predicament and that they’ve
remarried.
I was never sure why they would have kept that a secret,
but truly, there ARE people who think that keeping secrets is the
only way to go. That happens when they run into too much pain by being honest earlier
in their lives.
This episode begins with the neighbors all gathering at Susan’s
burnt-down house to help her salvage as much as possible.
The insurance agent is there and tells Susan that they won’t
be able to give her the insurance money until they finish their
investigation because it’s believed it was arson.
Susan sees Edie across the street watching. Later she goes over
to Edie’s house and knocks on the door. Edie stands there,
eating popcorn, and through her munching tells Susan that she burnt
her house down.
Now... was that an act of love or a cry for help? What needs of
Edie were not being met that she felt compelled to give such a loud
cry for help? I’d take a wild guess that she’s feeling
sad, frustrated, and hopeless because she has a need for connection
and love with the man she loves.
The only way she knows to express her pain is through this act
of arson.
She never learned to tell people her feelings and needs, or to
even really be in touch with what her true feelings and needs actually
ARE. She only knows she’s in pain and that she’s got
to do something to get rid of the pain.
Most people are not consciously aware that empathy, being truly
understood by another human being, is enough to ease the pain. We
look to revenge and violence in order to demonstrate our pain to
the other person.
There’s another part of this episode that shows brilliantly
how people can choose a strategy to demonstrate their true feelings
and needs, instead of choosing verbal communication to get their
needs met. TV.com gives the following summary of the Bree and Danielle
part of the episode:
“While Bree is preparing for Susan and Julie to move in,
Danielle tells her that she's forgotten her birthday, which was
six weeks ago. Bree promises her a birthday party where she could
invite all her friends. Danielle also takes Andrew's room, telling
Bree she should give her whatever she wants since she forgot her
birthday.
Danielle finds out that Bree has been up all night making birthday
arrangements, but Danielle doesn't want the huge ‘17’ made of balloons, the fajita bar or the juggler saying that her
friends would make fun of her. She says a cake would be good enough.
Bree is disappointed but acts like it's alright and starts popping
all the balloons. Susan gets worried about Bree, as she's become
obsessive about the party and she never sleeps.”
Hmmmm... is Danielle’s behavior an act of love or a cry
for help? Danielle guilt-trips her mother into letting her have
the bedroom she wants and a big party. That’s probably a cry
for help. Danielle may be feeling sad and disappointed that her
mother forgets her birthday because she has a real need for connection,
support and self-esteem.
But if she’s unable to state her feelings and needs clearly,
as so few of us are able to do (after all, we’re never taught
to clearly state feelings and needs), then she tries another way
of getting her needs met.
She lets her mother know how much pain she’s in by SHOWING
her mother pain. She knows it will hurt her mother to let her have
Andrew’s bedroom, as Bree’s hoping Andrew may return
some day and because it keeps up appearances that Andrew may come
back some day. And she wants the party as a demonstration of her
mother’s appreciation for her. The party is merely a symbol
– a huge symbol – of her mother’s love and appreciation.
Bree, too, sees the party as a symbol for love and appreciation.
Danielle tries to keep the party as just a symbol – fun, light
and entertaining. But Bree begins to obsess, as though the party
were more than the symbol, as though the party were the love itself.
Bree is hooked on her strategy.
Marshall Rosenberg teaches that there are many ways for a human
to get their needs met – these are strategies. Psychological
pain results from becoming stuck on a strategy. We ignore all of
the other ways to show our daughter love and appreciation –
through hugs and kisses, a different gift, conversation, a lunch
together – and decide that this one strategy is the ONLY way
that her daughter will understand that she’s loved.
This obsessive attention to one strategy is what we would call
insanity. And Bree goes insane over this party. By the end, all
of the neighborhood teenagers are frightened and Danielle is in
her bedroom crying. The real tragedy is that it all happened over
Bree trying to show her love.