How do we change patterns,self-defeating ones?
Member
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Real World
Posts: 729
Hey worm.
I think step one is just finding the patterns and asking the question.
I had a friend on here mention that awareness, acceptance and action were the path to dealing with them...
My look into it started a couple years ago when I started flipping over rocks and logs in my past to see what scurried out. Turns out that adult children of folks like my mom have some predictable and common challenges.
Some examples - framing: learned that in couples therapy with my ex. She was blunt (ok abusive) but my brain was used to that and did not recognize that for a long time. Me? I never make requests or demands and if I need to I tend to have a very long intro with seventeen bullet points to phrase it in such a way that it isn't critical. Criticize a parent with NPD and you don't do it again.
Ditto setting boundaries, avoiding conflict, manipulating, lying to avoid conflict when the lie is totally unnecessary. Feeling like I am responsible for how others feel or jumping every time they make a selfish demand. Wow, I sound like a basket case but it's not that bad. I'm learning to say no or enforce a boundary without justifying it or feeling guilty and understanding that EVERYONE has issues. Sanity is not the absence of unhealthy thoughts and behaviors, it's awareness and understanding of them followed by mitigation of them.
I joke with my therapist, he forgets its me sometimes and will pussyfoot around an observation by asking a tentative question like "so do you think that you might be drawn to people who might not be healthy choices and if so why?"
I responded with "dude, you've been doing this crap for 35 years and you can't see that I couldn't rescue mommy and carry guilt for that so I lock on to people who remind me of her in some way and try to save them? What the hell did they cover in your classes that was so important they left out mommy issues?".
He has fun with those talks and he asks me good questions. If it isn't blatantly obvious I'm a problem solver. I challenge assumptions and have to figure things out but I am good at pulling together 50 disparate pieces of data and then sorting it out and making the right inferences. My Meyers Briggs pegs me - I rely on intuition :-)
I rambled here on purpose to make a point - I spend a lot of time analyzing this stuff and learned to talk about it in a lighthearted way and joke about it because I don't think any of it makes me 'weird', I think everyone is a little weird and should figure it out if it is getting in their way. When we are under tremendous stress is when those traits come out.
...you see that in the alcoholic too. Under pressure, their survival instinct runs to their coping mechanism - booze. I run to my coping mechanism - restore peace. So under tremendous stress my wife's survival instinct turns to something that causes chaos, mine turns to something that has to eliminate chaos.
Lol - hence I spend a lot of time here when fecal matter impacts the air circulation device.
A suggestion you can act on: you know what crud is in your own closet, start googling - somebody probably wrote a book for people with the same crud. When you read it and it sounds like your auto-biography you stop feeling ashamed and start thinking "wow, it ain't just me!". There's a lot of courage in the realization that your issues have been defined by others who have already identified how to overcome the issues.
Good luck and laugh at yourself as you do it.
I think step one is just finding the patterns and asking the question.
I had a friend on here mention that awareness, acceptance and action were the path to dealing with them...
My look into it started a couple years ago when I started flipping over rocks and logs in my past to see what scurried out. Turns out that adult children of folks like my mom have some predictable and common challenges.
Some examples - framing: learned that in couples therapy with my ex. She was blunt (ok abusive) but my brain was used to that and did not recognize that for a long time. Me? I never make requests or demands and if I need to I tend to have a very long intro with seventeen bullet points to phrase it in such a way that it isn't critical. Criticize a parent with NPD and you don't do it again.
Ditto setting boundaries, avoiding conflict, manipulating, lying to avoid conflict when the lie is totally unnecessary. Feeling like I am responsible for how others feel or jumping every time they make a selfish demand. Wow, I sound like a basket case but it's not that bad. I'm learning to say no or enforce a boundary without justifying it or feeling guilty and understanding that EVERYONE has issues. Sanity is not the absence of unhealthy thoughts and behaviors, it's awareness and understanding of them followed by mitigation of them.
I joke with my therapist, he forgets its me sometimes and will pussyfoot around an observation by asking a tentative question like "so do you think that you might be drawn to people who might not be healthy choices and if so why?"
I responded with "dude, you've been doing this crap for 35 years and you can't see that I couldn't rescue mommy and carry guilt for that so I lock on to people who remind me of her in some way and try to save them? What the hell did they cover in your classes that was so important they left out mommy issues?".
He has fun with those talks and he asks me good questions. If it isn't blatantly obvious I'm a problem solver. I challenge assumptions and have to figure things out but I am good at pulling together 50 disparate pieces of data and then sorting it out and making the right inferences. My Meyers Briggs pegs me - I rely on intuition :-)
I rambled here on purpose to make a point - I spend a lot of time analyzing this stuff and learned to talk about it in a lighthearted way and joke about it because I don't think any of it makes me 'weird', I think everyone is a little weird and should figure it out if it is getting in their way. When we are under tremendous stress is when those traits come out.
...you see that in the alcoholic too. Under pressure, their survival instinct runs to their coping mechanism - booze. I run to my coping mechanism - restore peace. So under tremendous stress my wife's survival instinct turns to something that causes chaos, mine turns to something that has to eliminate chaos.
Lol - hence I spend a lot of time here when fecal matter impacts the air circulation device.
A suggestion you can act on: you know what crud is in your own closet, start googling - somebody probably wrote a book for people with the same crud. When you read it and it sounds like your auto-biography you stop feeling ashamed and start thinking "wow, it ain't just me!". There's a lot of courage in the realization that your issues have been defined by others who have already identified how to overcome the issues.
Good luck and laugh at yourself as you do it.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Anchorage, Alaska
Posts: 4,719
Identify said self defeating patterns, then start doing something different.
For instance, I have been known to be blunt to the point of rudeness. Nowadays, I think before I speak, and find peace in saying much, much less.
For instance, I have been known to be blunt to the point of rudeness. Nowadays, I think before I speak, and find peace in saying much, much less.
Member
Join Date: May 2012
Posts: 1,295
for me, it is first to overcome some guilt I should never have had in the first place. We own what we did, we don't own what others do. That can go back to childhood. We have to update the database. Separate what is ours, where we need to improve and correct, and discard what was never ours in the first place.
I think self-esteem and guilt issues can be paralyzing. When we realize what old baggage we are carrying around, we see where we are ill too.
Then we can begin to set healthier boundaries. We learn to stick up for ourselves. We do it because we like ourselves and aren't carrying around guilt.
I imagine it is the same for the alcoholic. They're self-defeating too.
Healthy boundaries, living practices, and self-esteem...I could never say enough about them! They are so much more important than we realize when deep in the abyss. They are how we drag ourselves up and out of it...and they are what we use as skills and tools we learn to not repeat the past.
We all need skills. We don't often think of psychological issues as a lack of skills. Well that's exactly what they are. Once learned, those skills are like any other such as in the workplace--they advance our ability to create positive outcomes. We can look in the mirror and be proud of who we are--same as if we accomplished some terrific task at work.
Just be glad we didn't choose the skill of drinking, one of the worst coping mechanisms out there.
I think self-esteem and guilt issues can be paralyzing. When we realize what old baggage we are carrying around, we see where we are ill too.
Then we can begin to set healthier boundaries. We learn to stick up for ourselves. We do it because we like ourselves and aren't carrying around guilt.
I imagine it is the same for the alcoholic. They're self-defeating too.
Healthy boundaries, living practices, and self-esteem...I could never say enough about them! They are so much more important than we realize when deep in the abyss. They are how we drag ourselves up and out of it...and they are what we use as skills and tools we learn to not repeat the past.
We all need skills. We don't often think of psychological issues as a lack of skills. Well that's exactly what they are. Once learned, those skills are like any other such as in the workplace--they advance our ability to create positive outcomes. We can look in the mirror and be proud of who we are--same as if we accomplished some terrific task at work.
Just be glad we didn't choose the skill of drinking, one of the worst coping mechanisms out there.
Member
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: ny/nj
Posts: 182
Wish I knew! I'm doing the two steps forward, one back dance. Guess that's better than one forward, two back, LOL! I'm coming up on a year out of my dysfunctional relationship with my AXF, and I STILL find myself contacting him, and wishing reality was different.
Some days good, some not so good.
Trying to stay calm & carry on!
Some days good, some not so good.
Trying to stay calm & carry on!
Member
Join Date: May 2011
Location: Memphis, TN
Posts: 2,884
For me it has been the 3 A's. Awareness, acceptance, action.
It I'm not aware of the problem I can't do anything about it.
Next I have to accept the problem, it's causes, my role in it, any baggage from my past.
Once I have accepted the problem I can then take steps to make it better.
To me this is a cyclical process. As I work through the problem I often become aware of causes and conditions then I couldn't recognize before. Each time through the loop brings more wisdom and I must be patient with myself and realize that I am in a never ending process to learn how to live my life more skillfully.
So far the results have been well worth the effort.
Your friend,
It I'm not aware of the problem I can't do anything about it.
Next I have to accept the problem, it's causes, my role in it, any baggage from my past.
Once I have accepted the problem I can then take steps to make it better.
To me this is a cyclical process. As I work through the problem I often become aware of causes and conditions then I couldn't recognize before. Each time through the loop brings more wisdom and I must be patient with myself and realize that I am in a never ending process to learn how to live my life more skillfully.
So far the results have been well worth the effort.
Your friend,
Member
Join Date: May 2012
Posts: 137
For me-
I am trying to turn left instead of right at the traffic lights- so that I don't go down that road with the hole in it!
Like Mike says- Awareness, Acceptance and Action- I have spent the last 50 years in denial- and not even knowing it. As an ACoA and having a recent RAH- my life has revolved around alcoholism since birth- I always accepted what life threw at me, but I was never Aware of what affect it had on me.
So now I am working on looking at myself, by stopping obsessing on everyone else- I am allowing myself to find me. It is not an easy process- there is a lot about myself I do not like-
but if it means that I turn left instead of right, that a good thing......... and perhaps if I work hard enough I might even be driving a new car too!! Wow that would be great, to see life through clearer eyes..
I am trying to turn left instead of right at the traffic lights- so that I don't go down that road with the hole in it!
Like Mike says- Awareness, Acceptance and Action- I have spent the last 50 years in denial- and not even knowing it. As an ACoA and having a recent RAH- my life has revolved around alcoholism since birth- I always accepted what life threw at me, but I was never Aware of what affect it had on me.
So now I am working on looking at myself, by stopping obsessing on everyone else- I am allowing myself to find me. It is not an easy process- there is a lot about myself I do not like-
but if it means that I turn left instead of right, that a good thing......... and perhaps if I work hard enough I might even be driving a new car too!! Wow that would be great, to see life through clearer eyes..
Member
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Real World
Posts: 729
Originally Posted by Tuffgirl 
Identify said self defeating patterns, then start doing something different.
For instance, I have been known to be blunt to the point of rudeness. Nowadays, I think before I speak, and find peace in saying much, much less.
For instance, I have been known to be blunt to the point of rudeness. Nowadays, I think before I speak, and find peace in saying much, much less.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Anchorage, Alaska
Posts: 4,719
LOL - back to therapy! Been down that road.
But seriously, take one thing you want to change. Work on it everyday. Keep it in the forefront of your mind. Want it. Act like it. Pretty soon, it becomes a habit, just like the one you are trying to change.
Another self-defeating pattern I have worked on a lot in the last two years...assuming other people's behaviors had to do with me somehow. So nowadays, I (try) to step back from a situation where I am having an emotional reaction, and give some thought to who owns this? I got shut down in a meeting last week. In front of a room full of strangers. It was downright rude on that ladies part. I chose, in a millisecond, to let her own that herself and not lower myself to responding to it. My journey through recovery has taught me that, and I am so glad I did. At the break of the meeting, several woman came up to me and commented on the others' total rudeness.
So, start small, journal or at least pay attention to when that pattern comes up to bite you in the butt, make a point at that moment to do something different.
But seriously, take one thing you want to change. Work on it everyday. Keep it in the forefront of your mind. Want it. Act like it. Pretty soon, it becomes a habit, just like the one you are trying to change.
Another self-defeating pattern I have worked on a lot in the last two years...assuming other people's behaviors had to do with me somehow. So nowadays, I (try) to step back from a situation where I am having an emotional reaction, and give some thought to who owns this? I got shut down in a meeting last week. In front of a room full of strangers. It was downright rude on that ladies part. I chose, in a millisecond, to let her own that herself and not lower myself to responding to it. My journey through recovery has taught me that, and I am so glad I did. At the break of the meeting, several woman came up to me and commented on the others' total rudeness.
So, start small, journal or at least pay attention to when that pattern comes up to bite you in the butt, make a point at that moment to do something different.
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