Locating Myself in the Socio-Political Context Through Transactional Analysis

Chapter 1

To locate myself within a socio-political context and evaluate my life journey through the Transactional Analysis lens, my intention here is to trace my learning, insights, growth, and challenges through a few significant experiences that have shaped my life. Rather than seeing these as singular incidents, I am looking at how these moments - across different stages and circumstances - contributed to the formation of my script, my way of being, both as an individual and within the systems I was part of.

I grew up in a very conservative Christian family in a very low economic environment. When I look back now, one of the strongest memories I carry from my childhood is not hatred - it was invisibility.

People didn't actively dislike me ... it often felt like they simply did not see me.

Unless there was something to do.

Washing vessels. Cooking. Cleaning. Helping around the house.

I remember this very distinctly - my name would be called ... but almost always from the kitchen.

That became my way of existing in the world.

And somewhere, very quietly, I began to understand something: usefulness got me attention ... service got me acknowledgement.

Today, when I reflect through a Transactional Analysis lens, I realise - this was my early experience of strokes.

I realised that the strokes available to me were conditional. I was not seen for who I was, but for what I could do.

And without even realising it, I began to connect love, visibility, and worth with helping people.

Another turning point came when I was around ten. My parents converted from Catholicism to Protestant Christianity. At the time, I was studying in a very traditional Catholic school.

So now, along with poverty, came a new label.

"Converted Christian."

I still remember the way it was said not loudly, but enough for me to feel it.

I remember standing on the sidelines during school activities ... watching others participate, knowing I wasn't really part of it.

I remember conversations lowering when I walked in ... and the slow distancing that followed, not just in school but even within extended family.

At that time, I didn't have the language for it.

But today, I can name it. I realised that this was exclusion - not just personal, but shaped by social and religious systems.

And that exclusion did not just stay outside me ... it slowly began to shape how I saw myself.

There is one memory that has stayed with me very vividly.

At a cousin's birthday, I was doing what I always did - helping in the kitchen, serving, cleaning. Plate after plate went out. Guests were being served.

After everyone had been served, there was one piece of cake left on the plate.

I remember picking it up - almost instinctively.

And just as I did that, two more guests walked in.

In that moment, my aunt turned to me and said, "Why did you take it? What was the hurry?"

I froze.

I remember the feeling - not just of being questioned, but of being seen at the wrong moment.

I turned to my mother, almost looking for support.

And her response stayed with me for years.

"Jesus never thought about himself first. We must think of others before ourselves."

That day, I didn't understand theology. But I internalised something much deeper:

Thinking of myself first is selfish. My needs come last.

Today, I realise - this was an injunction.

I realised that this was the "Don't be important" injunction. And alongside it, the "Please Others" driver was quietly taking root.

I didn't question it ... I became it.

Around the same time, another experience left a deep imprint on me.

My cousin sister, just two years older than me, was battling stage-three cancer.

I remember the house during those days - people coming in and out, prayers being said, hope being spoken loudly ... fear sitting quietly underneath.

Pastors would come home to pray. And one day, one of them declared that she had been healed.

I remember the shift in the room - relief, belief, surrender.

And then came the instruction: stop the medication.

Because continuing it meant a lack of faith.

The medication was stopped. The cancer returned. We lost her.

As a child, I didn't have the language to question what I was witnessing.

But I remember the confusion ... something inside me knew this didn't feel right.

Today, I can see it differently.

I realised that this was not just a family decision - this was the intersection of belief, authority, fear, and socio-political systems.

I realised how power can override personal judgment. How systems can make decisions through people.

That was my first silent exposure to how deeply systems shape lives.

For a long time, I didn't question any of this. Poverty ... religion ... exclusion ... all of it became normal.

And then life moved me into survival. I had to stop school around grade eight or nine because we couldn't afford it.

At fifteen, I started working as an emcee to support myself. And ironically, the voice that had no space in my childhood became the voice that opened doors for me.

But even here, the pattern did not change - it simply evolved.

As I began to earn - for myself and my family - I was judged.

"How can a young girl make this much money?" "Good girls don't stay out late." "Girls with character don't work at night."

I remember coming back home late after events ... carrying both money and questions I didn't have answers to.

Once again, I found myself negotiating identity, shame, and control.

But this time, I wasn't just responding to the world - I was surviving it.

There was no space to be weak. Holding everything together became necessary. Keeping people comfortable reduced conflict. Saying what others needed to hear kept things stable.

Looking back now, I can see this very clearly:

I realised that my "Be Strong" driver had taken charge. I realised that my "Please Others" driver was being reinforced in real time.

What had begun as adaptation in childhood had now become my way of functioning in the world.

Because being good ... being helpful ... being needed ... had always given me strokes.

So I adapted more. Gave more. Adjusted more.

And over time, this stopped being something I did ... it became who I was.

I realised that I was earning strokes through performance, through adjustment, through holding everything together.

And somewhere within me, a belief had formed: "If I fall apart, there will be no one to hold me." And that my stability came from keeping everyone around me okay.

Years later, when I began my psychotherapy training, something shifted.

For the first time, I started seeing my life not just as experiences ... but as patterns.

And that's when I could see how deeply my script had formed.

I realised that my identity had become closely tied to being a caregiver.

Helping others wasn't just kindness - it was how I experienced worth. Being needed gave me purpose. It gave me a voice.

And I saw this play out in one of the most important decisions of my life.

When I met my partner, he was very clear - he did not want to get married. I remember that conversation.

It wasn't dramatic. It was quiet. Honest.

He said he did not want to be a burden.

But I insisted.

I chose that life - fully aware of what it could bring.

At that time, I experienced it as love. As commitment. As strength.

But today, I can see something more.

I realised that this decision did not feel overwhelming to me ... because my life had already prepared me for it.

Holding pain. Carrying responsibility. Being the strong one. Adjusting. Staying. Giving. This was familiar.

And that's when something became very clear.

I realised that my "Be Strong" driver was not just helping me cope - it was leading my choices.

I realised that my "Please Others" driver was not just shaping behaviour - it was shaping relationships.

And for the first time, I could see this as script behavior. Caregiving was not just something I did. It had become my way of being ... and a way of building my identity.

The biggest shift came during my residential psychotherapy training.

That was the first time I was introduced to socio-political mental health.

Initially, I resisted it. I believed people make their own choices. Society had no influence on an individual's life. But that understanding began to shift.

For the first time, I could see how class, religion, patriarchy, poverty, and social systems had shaped so many of my choices - without my awareness.

And once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it.

Today, I hold this understanding differently.

I realize that we are not just individuals making choices - we are individuals shaped by systems.

And through this lens, I also hold another truth:

We are often both the oppressed and the oppressor.

The same systems that silenced me can also live through me in ways I may not notice.

So today, my journey is not just about healing.

It is about awareness.

Awareness of where I was silenced. Awareness of where I may silence others. Awareness of the strokes I seek. Awareness of the drivers I operate from. Awareness of the injunctions I carry. Awareness of the systems I survived ... and the systems I may still sustain.

And perhaps my biggest learning is this: Life stops feeling like a personal story when you begin to see it in context.

It becomes a story of systems, survival, identity, and consciousness.

Client Introduction

The client was a male professional in his late twenties working in a startup technology company. The population of the company mainly consisted of young professionals between the late twenties and early thirties. The work environment was fast-paced and performance-driven, with heavy reliance on multitasking, communication speed, and accountability.

The client was recently married and was trying to balance increasing professional responsibilities along with transitions in his personal life. The organizational culture demanded employees remain fast, responsive, adaptable, and constantly available. In such a context, sustainable functioning depended heavily on time structuring, prioritization, and healthy interpersonal boundaries.

However, the client appeared to struggle significantly with emotional and practical boundaries, which gradually affected both workplace functioning and personal relationships. The demands of the startup ecosystem further intensified already existing patterns of over-accommodation, self-doubt, emotional over-responsibility, and exhaustion.