A 33-year-old woman who goes by the pseudonym, “Aella,” is one of the Internet’s most popular sex researchers.
Aella’s X bio describes her as an occasional escort, and an organizer of sex parties. Atlantic magazine reported that 700,000 followers have taken her online sex surveys. Her current escort rate is $4,000 an hour.
Where did her sex-on-display tastes get shaped?
Aella grew up in Idaho, the oldest of three daughters of strict Evangelical parents. Her father, a minister, held fanatical views that prompted hate mail from other Christians. Aella memorized 800 bible verses as a homeschooled teenager. But after a fallout with her “very controlling” father, she moved out at age 17 and landed a factory job.
Not long after that, she quit and began posing nude, as an adult, for webcams.
“Growing up, I didn’t have the authority to think on my own, “she said.
If you are a student of Bowen Family Systems Theory, as I am, you learn to view reversals like this as expressions of the emotional pendulum. As one extreme stimulates another, a predictable formula emerges. In Aella’s case it may sound like this:
“To increase rebellion in a child, ratchet up your efforts to control them.”
Notice that emotionally over-reacting to extreme behavior might be more destructive than the original behavior.
If it swings far enough in one direction, the emotional pendulum almost always produces a reactive reversal. Here’s how it works:
First, there’s an extreme situation:
A child is raised in poverty.
A government wastes too much money.
A parent becomes a workaholic.
Or neglectful.
Or overly permissive.
Then there’s an over-reaction to the extreme situation. The emotional pendulum rockets back to the other side as a reactive reversal. For example:
Raised in Poverty, an Adult Child Become Obsessed with Obtaining Wealth or Material Things
After experiencing financial hardship, a person might make money too important, hyper-focusing on wealth accumulation and over-consumption, to the detriment of relationships.
Responding to Legitimate Waste, a Government Cuts and Slashes Irresponsibly
Financial negligence and corruption are met with an extreme response: a too-heavy hand that cuts jobs indiscriminately, and slashes programs without wisely sifting and weighing.
Children of Workaholics Become Minimalists or “Leisureholics”
A child raised by parents who were constantly working and absent might be more likely to adopt anti-materialist philosophies or a bare bones lifestyle.
Children of Neglectful Parents Become Overprotective while Children of Overly-Permissive Parents Exert More Strictness
Having grown up with emotionally or physically neglectful parents, an adult child overcompensates by excessively worrying about and over-protecting their own children.
On the flip side, children with lenient parents might bring strictness and tighter control to their own parenting.
In situations like these, we often run in the opposite direction, thinking we’re choosing when we’re merely reacting. We don’t like to be told what to do. We dig in rather than consider our options. We defy – or comply - before thinking.
Takeaway Lessons
What does it take to avoid over-reacting to an extreme situation? How do we jump off the emotional pendulum?
Here are some considerations:
1. Recognize that extreme beliefs and behaviors flow from heightened anxiety. When you can become more aware of what triggers your anxiety, your response options increase.
2. Understand the difference between a reaction and a decision. Avoid making matters worse by responding automatically.
3. When encountering an extreme belief or behavior in others, slow down your response time. An emotionally-driven reversal is usually quick and absent-minded.
4. Consider a middle position on the emotional pendulum instead of one of the extremes. For a pendulum, the middle position is one of stillness.
Calming yourself down might equip you to better assess and defuse the situation, making it easier to figure out how you want to respond.
And if you can resist trying to force others to change, you can probably soften the rigidity that animates a reactive reversal in others.
Remember: an overreaction to extreme behavior often turns out to be more extreme than the behavior we’re repulsed by.