THE PROJECTION – THE MIRROR ALWAYS CRACKS
(Or: Projection and Other Dirty Tricks You Learn From Your Parents)
The kid looks in the mirror and sees his father staring back.
Not the way his father looked—balding, bloated, worn down by bills and bourbon—but the way he was:
short-fused, goddamn selfish, the kind of man who’d drink the last beer and blame the dog.
The kid says he ain’t like him. That’s the first lie.
The second lie is thinking no one notices.
His name’s Jack. He’s 27. Works in IT or sales or some junk that drains your soul like a leaky faucet. He’s got one of those clock-punching gigs that eats your youth and gives you a tie.
He punches walls when he’s alone. Doesn’t know why. Calls it “pressure.”
Pressure, …
It’s his old man echoing through his bones.
It’s a ghost with the same jawline and the same goddamn temper.
And the funniest thing?
Jack hates men like that.
Can’t stand ’em.
He says they’re toxic, loud, always need to be right.
He doesn’t know he’s talking about himself.
That’s projection, sweetheart. We wrote about it.
In the first piece we dressed it up real nice: defense mechanisms, Freud, shadows, la-di-da.
In the second we said it poisons society—makes saints into monsters and neighbors into invaders.
In the third, we begged you to own your part in the drama. Like adults.
But Jack’s no adult. Not when it comes to that old man hiding in his fists.
Now meet Lisa. Jack’s sister.
She walks into a room and men turn to stone. She knows. She likes that.
Plays with her necklace when she talks.
Flashes just enough leg to win the battle and leave you thinking you started the war.
At work, she’s friendly. Too friendly.
With the boss.
With the intern.
With the married man in accounting who hasn’t had a good night’s sleep since she smiled at him that Tuesday morning in April.
She flirts like it’s currency, and baby, she’s always rich.
Then she goes home and claws at her husband for forgetting the trash.
Nag nag nag.
She says he’s inattentive.
Meanwhile, she waves to the neighbor in his tank top with a giggle that belongs in a bar, not a backyard.
Lisa’s mother was the same damn woman.
God, the same.
Hot as hell and twice as slippery.
Sultry and scornful.
Praise and punish.
Lisa hated her growing up. Said, “I’ll never be like that.”
And yet, here she is—every curve a prophecy, every sigh a repetition.
See, this is what they don’t tell you in school:
We don’t just inherit eye color and cholesterol.
We inherit ghosts.
We inherit rage, seduction, bitterness, avoidance.
We inherit how to fight, how to touch, how to lie.
And when those pieces of us come up for air, we call them “bad people,”
never realizing we’re pointing at our own goddamn reflection.
Jack says women are manipulative.
Lisa says men are aggressive.
They both think the problem is out there.
But out there is a mirror, baby.
And the mirror always cracks.
Projection isn’t just psychology.
It’s poetry.
It’s tragedy.
It’s a scream that starts in childhood and never finishes.
You don’t fix it by being nice.
You fix it by dragging the mirror into the light, broken frame and all,
and saying:
“That’s me. That ugly, angry, needy, grasping creature is me.”
You kiss the thing you hate.
You sit next to it.
You give it a drink and ask how long it’s been there.
And if you’re lucky,
if you don’t flinch,
you’ll find yourself staring at something terrifying and true:
Not your father.
Not your mother.
But you.
With all the rot and the gold still inside.
That’s when the real work begins.
And maybe—just maybe—
you stop punching walls.
And start punching through the lie.
Read a study on “projection” in psychology here: https://www.psychologyzine.com/the-mirror-within-part-1/
