After I wrote yesterday's blog about communication difficulties in families beset by mental illness, I realized that they did not have exclusive rights to this problem. The rest of us have many thoughts during the day, only a few of which we share with others. Then we expect them to understand the context of what we are saying as if they were privy to the rest of our thoughts. We expect them to be mindreaders and we become annoyed when they don't know what we are talking about. I think one mistake many of us make is to start talking without knowing the other person's state of mind, receptivity to what we have to say or understanding the context of our thoughts. I remember once a description of our lives as imagining ourselves being the main character in a play while others in our lives have supporting roles. What we forget is that others have the same fantasy and we are seen as supporting characters in their drama.
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