Lion wants me to improve him by punishing him for his behavioral transgressions. He wants to eliminate interrupting, acting like a know-it-all, and being rude. I clarified by asking if he wants things to be black and white. In other words, it doesn’t matter how I’m feeling; if he interrupts, he gets punished. Yes. That’s what he wants. Obviously, if he’s trying to warn me about something dangerous, he can interrupt away. Otherwise, his buns will be meeting up with a paddle.
It sounds obvious, right? On, off. Yes, no. Black, white. Well… Here’s something he hasn’t counted on. I just realized it myself. I’m willing to stop talking if I think he’s going to interrupt me. If we’re going back and forth in a conversation and it seems like he’s trying to get his point across to the extent that I feel an interruption coming, I’ll clam up. I did it just now in the car ride home from his MRI. I didn’t think about it until a few minutes ago, but I must have thought he can’t interrupt if I don’t give him the chance. How’s that for shooting myself in the foot with a cannon? It completely defeats the rule. Leave it to me to figure out a way to sabotage things.
What do I do now? I’ll have to force myself not to do that. We all know how easy it was for me to punish him for interrupting in the first place. Yup. It’s going to be easy peasy to fix it. I have a stupid brain. There must be a way. We’ll have to put our heads together.
[Lion — Maybe just recognize when you clam up and count that as an interruption. You must have sensed something. Black and white, right?]
