Mirror Mirror on the Wall: Chapter 8 - On Sam Out of the Box
The Way out of the Box
I've worked with kids whose families perceive them as "bad," or somehow different than the rest of the children in the family. It tends to draw for really strong reactions from the kids. I've seen them withdraw, become sullen, resentful and feel misunderstood by everyone around them. I've seen them comply with the implicit expectation, go full out and run with the idea, as if they were saying something along the lines of, "You think I'm bad? Bring it on. We'll see just how bad I am." And I've seen them fight back. "Not me! I'm not what you think I am. You're the one with the problem!"
You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. Look, I know what it's like. I come from a family of surgeons and that wasn't me. So, you know, I traded in the money and prestige of being a doctor for all the glamour you see around you. The point is, there may be three or four big choices that shape someone's whole life, and you need to be the one that makes them, not anyone else. You seem like a great kid, Sam. Just live the life you want to live.
After School Special
Once Mr. Wyatt opened that door for him, Sam had to make a choice. Knowledge brings with it choice, which allows control, which brings power in its wake. Mr. Wyatt opened up an expanse of possibilities that learned helplessness had filtered out of Sam's perception.
Now that Sam knew there were options, he had to choose. He could choose to comply, align himself with his family's values and take on the role of being the object of "Keep Sam safe." He could choose to fight it outright, pushing back. Or he could attempt subterfuge, cordoning off parts of himself and his life that were not to see the light of the Winchester family day, hiding things and lying to protect just enough of his own thing to keep his self afloat.
Fight or Flight? - The Role of Anger
At first, Sam chose to fight. Instead of complying and accepting the family's perception of him and the role they wanted him to play, Sam rejected it and projected the perceptions outward. Instead of being the selfish, source of disappointment, bad-wrong-different, or inadequate one, he turned it around on its head and blamed John. "You don't know me. I'm not bad-wrong-different-inadequate! You're a selfish, obsessed bastard that can't see things straight." Unlike Dean, Sam refused to be sacrificed on the altar of the family's needs. He pushed back.
SAM: It’s just the way he treats us like we’re children.
DEAN: Oh, God.
SAM: He barks orders at us, Dean, he expects us to follow him without question. He keeps us on some crap need-to-know deal.
Dead Man's Blood
SAM: That’s exactly my point! Dean is dying and you have a plan! You know what? You care more about killing this demon than you do saving your own son!
DEAN: No, no, no, guys, don’t do this!
JOHN: Do not tell me how I feel. I am doing this for Dean.
SAM: How? How is revenge going to help him? You’re not thinking about anybody but yourself! It’s the same selfish obsession!
In My Time of Dying
Have you ever tried to take a different role in your family? Ever tried to change a pattern of interacting that drove you nuts? Ever refuse to take part in "No! Damn it, I'm am so not the twitter-head or black-sheep or pathetic or on-a-pedestal or martyr you think I am" ? Remember what happened?
Yep. Your family resisted and tried to pull you back into the way things have always been, didn't they? It's semi-affectionately called by some the "family dance." Here you are, doing this nice little waltz with your family. I say this, you say that, I do this, and you do that in responses. La, dee-dah, dee duhm. You step out of the pattern and you throw everybody off. The natural reaction is to try to pull you back into the dance pattern. It is possible to change family patterns of behaving with each other, but it does take time and perseverance. Usually, in families that are reasonably flexible, you have to somehow weather that initial knee-jerk reaction and it eventually gets easier. But, the more rigid the family, the stronger the reaction and the more resistant to any member's attempt to change.
Given how rigid the Winchester family was, Sam had quite a fight on his hands.
You were the one who said “Don’t come back”, Dad. You’re the one who closed that door, not me! You're just pissed 'cause you couldn't control me anymore!
Dead Man's Blood
Sam would have had to fight every inch of the way. As described in the sections on Dean, Dean acted as a homeostatic force in the family. So, not only did Sam and John go at it, but Dean acted to keep Sam within the lines demarcating acceptable behavior in their family, and sometimes quite forcibly.
But Sam had learned what giving in and complying meant for him, if not eventual self-destruction in the literal sense, then it would have been a loss of the self/soul - whatever you want to call those core parts of yourself that makes you who you are. He would have had to obliterate himself to the point that he was no longer a full person, but a function that served the needs of his family.
Dean did that. He became Daddy's Blunt Little Instrument. The sacrifices that he made were painful then and are painful now. Under normal circumstances it is NOT fair to ask that of someone. Under horrific situations, it may be necessary, but, man, is asking a lot, and it's not something you ask of a child who has little capacity to understand the implication and who is dependent upon the family for their basic survival. I can't help thinking that Sam saw the effects in Dean and learned some pretty pointed lessons.
No one can save you because you don't want to be saved. I mean, how can you care so little about yourself? What's wrong with you?
Dream a Little Dream of Me
Fight or Flight? - The Role of Pride
Pride and insecurity are the two sides of the same coin, just as are anger and fear. Dean expresses his fear through anger. Sam expresses his insecurity in pride. That "I am better than Dean/John/hunting" thing that Sam does is a rejection and projecting outward of Sam's insecurity about how Dean and John perceive him.
As hard as John and Dean worked to keep Sam on the family path, he'd have to have developed a pretty thick skin, some way of discounting what they'd say to him and justifying his position. One way of doing that is by devaluing the source and defining himself as being above it all.
Your son is dying, and you’re worried about the Colt?
In My Time of Dying
So how’d you pay for that stuff? You and Dad still running credit card scams?
Pilot
SAM: I am normal. I’m just telling the truth for the first time. I mean, why are we even here? Because you’re following Dad’s orders like a good little soldier? Cuz you always do what he says without question? Are you that desperate for his approval?
DEAN: This isn’t you talking, Sam.
SAM: That’s the difference between you and me. I have a mind of my own. I’m not pathetic like you.
Asylum
And so, instead of wholely identifying with John, Sam defined himself in opposition to John and his beliefs. Instead of "I am," he defined himself as "I am not." I am not a hunter. I am not incompetent or inadequate or bad or wrong or any of the other things you think. I am not evil. I am not the problem here, you are.
Can we not fight? You know, half the time we’re fighting, I don’t know what we’re fighting about. We’re just butting heads. Sammy, I, I’ve made some mistakes, but I’ve always done the best I could. I just don’t want to fight anymore, okay?
In My time of Dying
Although I've been referring to John and Dean as paragons of their family, it wouldn't do to forget that Sam is just as much part of this family system as they are. His thinking is limited by perceptions of what makes up "intimacy" and "family" that he grew up with. Sam engages in some pretty significant either/or thinking, himself. There are a lot of options in between swallowing his father's beliefs whole and rejecting them out of hand. Choosing one end of the spectrum is just as confining as choosing the opposite. Either extreme reduces the range of options of who to be and how to live.
That last battle John and Sam had before he left for Stanford was characterized by harsh words on both sides. Neither gave any ground or perceived any middle ground to which they could work. As long as Sam engaged in his either/or thinking and the Winchester family maintained its expectations in its usual rigid manner, neither could exist in the same place at the same time. And so Sam was expelled from the family.
DEAN: I remember that fight. In fact, I seem to recall a few choice phrases coming out of your mouth… He was afraid of what could happen to you if he wasn't around. But even when you two weren't talking, he used to swing by Stanford whenever he could. Keep an eye on you. Make sure you were safe.
SAM: What?
DEAN: Yeah.
SAM: Why didn't he tell me any of that?
DEAN: Well it's a two-way street, dude. You could have picked up the phone.
Bugs
So, Sam fought against the implications of being the object of "Keep Sam safe," rejecting his father's perceptions forcefully, projecting the blame onto his father and, by association, Dean, devaluing the source of the negative perceptions about him. He bolstered his own pride in attempt to compensate for the hits he took in attempt to bring him back in line.
That kind of pride, however, is also a very common defense mechanism to cover for insecurities. In Sam's case, it seems he still couldn't help internalizing some of the messages of self-doubt, that he was somehow unlovable, selfish, different, bad, incompetent, or something that would explain why John treated him the way he did. He carried it with him into future relationships.
You don't like being different. You hate the way that Dean looks at you sometimes, like you're some sort of sideshow freak.
No Rest for the Wicked.
Choosing Flight over Fight
There are many ways of leaving, of running away, of absenting yourself from relationships, and not all of them have to do with gaining physical distance.
One lesson that Sam learned from his early family life is that he has little hope of effecting change in close relationships. He tried complying wholeheartedly, giving everything over. He tried the opposite extreme, rejecting his family and trying to assert his needs. Neither worked. When he gave himself over to his family's needs, Sam lived a kind of half-life, and was headed straight down the path of self-destruction or a death of the self. When he asserted his needs, his family pushed back until life with them was a series of conflicts and eventual destruction of the relationship. He learned that relationships were defined by having to choosing either yourself or others, between one or the other, not about the negotiation of a balance of self and other's needs.
The lesson he learned was that people who you love don't accommodate those things about you that they don't like. Instead they either demand you get rid of them or the relationship is abandoned, no in between. Is it any wonder then that, after losing his family after trying to assert himself, Sam chose lying and hiding parts of himself instead.
JESS: Wait you’re taking off? Is this about your dad? Is he all right?
SAM: Yeah, you know, just a little family drama.
JESS: But your brother said he was on some kind of a hunting trip.
SAM: Aw yeah, he’s just deer hunting up at the cabin and he’s probably got Jim, Jack, and Jose along with him. We’re just going to go bring him back…
JESS: It’s just, you won’t even talk about your family and now you’re taking off in the middle of the night to spend the weekend with them?
Pilot
You told her. You told her? The secret? Our big family rule number one, we do what we do, and we shut up about it. For a year and a half I do nothing but lie to Jessica, and you go out with this chick in Ohio a couple of times and you tell her everything?
Route 666
DEAN: Well, what exactly do you tell them? You know, where you been, what you been doing.
SAM: I tell them I'm on a road-trip with my big brother. I tell them I need some time off, after Jess.
DEAN: Oh, so you lie to them.
SAM: No, I just don't tell them everything.
DEAN: Yeah, that's called lying. Hey man, I get it, telling them to truth is far worse.
Skin
DEAN: I hate to say it, but that's exactly what I'm talking about. You lie to your friends because if they knew the real you they'd be freaked. It's just, it would be easier-
SAM: If I were like you.
DEAN: Hey, man, like it or not, we are not like other people.
Skin
This way, Sam could have both. If he created a wall between them, Sam could save parts of himself and keep the relationship going, unthreatened. He did this with Jess and his friends at Stanford. There were large parts of himself that he didn't share with them. Instead, he avoided, stonewalled and redirected their attention around the topics of family and the hunting world in which he had been raised.
Sam does this, too, early in his return to his relationship with Dean. One of the primary family values is to reject all things supernatural. Sam knows this, and knows that revealing his precognition of Jess' death and the feelings of responsibility and guilt associated with it, would threaten Dean's perception of him and thus the bond slowly rebuilding between them.
SAM: Why’d you let me fall asleep?
DEAN: Cause I’m an awesome brother. So what did you dream about?
SAM: Lollipops and candy canes.
DEAN: Yeah, sure.
Bloody Mary
DEAN: You know what, that’s it. This is about Jessica, isn’t it? You think that’s your dirty little secret that you killed her somehow? …
SAM: I could’ve warned her.
DEAN: About what? You didn’t know what was going to happen! And besides, all of this isn’t a secret, I mean I know all about it. It’s not going to work with Mary anyway.
SAM: No you don’t.
DEAN: I don’t what?
SAM: You don’t know all about it. I haven’t told you everything.
Bloody Mary
And so he hid his visions as long as he could, until the cost of keeping the secret from Dean was too much, until it threatened people's lives. Only then did he come out of the Supernatural Closet.
SAM: Uh, it’s just, uhm, look, just trust me on this, okay?
DEAN: Wait, whoa, whoa, trust you?
SAM: Yeah.
DEAN: Come on, man, that’s weak. You got to give me a little bit more than that.
SAM: I can’t really explain it is all.
DEAN: Well, tough. I’m not going anywhere until you do.
SAM: I have these nightmares.
DEAN: I’ve noticed.
SAM: And sometimes, they come true.
Home
Here We Go 'Round
So, here we have a young man in Sam, who, is frightened and alone, and because of the powerlessness of his position and the rigidity of his family, has never really found a way of negotiating a balance between both his needs and others' in relationships. Instead he tends to vacillate between giving himself over to the relationship - sacrificing himself fully in its service, fighting against the demands of the relationship and how he is perceived using anger and pride as his weapons, and carving out separate parts of himself that he hides away from the people he loves in order to preserve both who he is without it threatening the relationship.
Dean, you got to hold on. You can’t go, man, not now. We were just starting to be brothers again.
In My Time of Dying
Next to come, Chapter 9: On Sam - Captive on a Carousel of Time, in which we explore the implications for events in Sam's life and how he chooses to cope with them.
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Chapter 1: On the Siren's Call
Chapter 2: On John the Man
Chapter 3: On John the Father
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Chapter 4: On Dean The Motherless Child
Chapter 5: On Dean the Heart of the Family
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Chapter 6: On Sam Born of Love and Loss
Chapter 7: On Sam in the Box
Chapter 8: On Sam out of the Box
Chapter 9 : On Sam Captive on a Carousel of Time
Chapter 10: On Sam Power Can Be Taken, But Not Given
Chapter 11: On Sam From Here Forward
Chapter 12: On Sam Out of the Box Redux
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Chapter 13: On SamnDean Putting Away Childish Things
Chapter 14: On SamnDean Triangles are a Demon's Best Friend
Chapter 15: On SamnDean Stop the Carousel I Want to Get Off
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credit goes to
oxoniensis and marishna of summerskin for the screencaps