IN CATCH-22, Joseph Heller humorously illustrated the double bind in a military setting: Being crazy excused you from active duty, but if you turned yourself in for mental illness, you were considered too sane to be exempt. In any context a double bind is frustrating, but when someone you love or depend on imposes contradictory demands, you’re in a very personal no-win situation.
The double bind could begin with a statement like “If you will pretend to be who I want you to be, I will reward you.” Or it may be “If only you will pretend to stop being the person you are, I will reward you.” The catch-22 comes with a second statement that always accompanies the first: “Pretend that you are not pretending.”
To get out of a double bind requires first that you recognize you’re in it. Then you have to communicate this understanding to the person who set up the rules to this game, along with the message that you won’t play.
Control is an illusion.