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Trying to create healthy relationships


shephardess

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I’ve spent many years changing the way I understand and relate to people but I am having a difficult time relating to people who are still stuck in unhealthy patterns. I readily admit that often I will fall back into the old dysfunctional ways of relating when I am around someone resistant to healthy communication. I’m open to hearing anyone’s positive experiences in dealing with this problem. 

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42 minutes ago, shephardess said:

I’ve spent many years changing the way I understand and relate to people but I am having a difficult time relating to people who are still stuck in unhealthy patterns. I readily admit that often I will fall back into the old dysfunctional ways of relating when I am around someone resistant to healthy communication. I’m open to hearing anyone’s positive experiences in dealing with this problem. 

One important thing to realise in life is that difficult people exist.

Some are rude, some are abrasive, some are bullying, some are bad tempered, some are angry, some are selfish, some dont care about others, some are exploitative, some will being you down just to spite you, etc.

The first journey of self discovery you have to make is to uncover why you need other people to treat you correctly? Why does it hurt so much when they dont? Why is it stressful? Why does it make you angry? Its because you have formed an attachment to the need for others to treat you correctly.

We can easily put ourselves into the state of mind where we couldn't care less about anything. Try it. When you do you will no doubt notice a resistance against this state of mind constantly arises inside you. This is because your minds natural inclination is to suck you into caring about things. When you care, you form an attachment, and this is what opens you up to being wounded.

Now for your second journey. Adopt the state of mind where you care about quite literally nothing and go seek out some difficult people to be around. Interact with them. Your aim is to keep yourself in your state of mind despite what they are doing to knock you out of it. At first it will be hard, but you will get better at the more you expose yourself to difficult people.

You can easily develop yourself to the point where difficult people no longer wound you with their actions and behaviours. But it takes time. Now the third step of your journey which is simply about you remaining professional around difficult people. Once you have learned not to attach to them this step is easy.

You have now learned how your mind forms attachment to things, how to remain detached in the presence of difficult people, and as a result you can behave professionally towards them. You have arrived at a place where forming relationships with difficult people is no longer annoying for you. So you have resolved your problem in a different way.

If alternatively you spend you life trying to change others you will get no where. And you will be back here asking the same questions yet again in the future.

 

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RabidMongoose ,What you wrote is very interesting but I wasn’t asking about how to change people or get them to treat me “correctly”. I agree that I need to change my reaction to their unchanged way of relating and that is exactly what I want to do. I am trying to keep my ways of behavior healthy regardless. I am already unattached to the way people behave toward me. 

  Perhaps I need to become unattached to my need to treat people “ correctly”? Something to think about. 

Has anyone here been successful at being around difficult people and not falling back into old patterns of behavior, especially with family members? That is what I would like to know. How did you do it. What helped you stay focused, etc. 

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8 minutes ago, shephardess said:

RabidMongoose ,What you wrote is very interesting but I wasn’t asking about how to change people or get them to treat me “correctly”. I agree that I need to change my reaction to their unchanged way of relating and that is exactly what I want to do. I am trying to keep my ways of behavior healthy regardless. I am already unattached to the way people behave toward me. 

  Perhaps I need to become unattached to my need to treat people “ correctly”? Something to think about. 

Has anyone here been successful at being around difficult people and not falling back into old patterns of behavior, especially with family members? That is what I would like to know. How did you do it. What helped you stay focused, etc. 

I have actually told you if you think about it.

Being around difficult people requires you to let go of the attachment where you need them to treat your correctly.

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4 hours ago, shephardess said:

I am having a difficult time relating to people who are still stuck in unhealthy patterns

I'm being a bit dense, can you perhaps give me an example, even made up is fine.

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3 minutes ago, the13bats said:

I'm being a bit dense, can you perhaps give me an example, even made up is fine.

Ditto to this.

I think i kind kf get what you're saying OP but an example would help. 

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@shephardess Don't listen to any of that nonsense from RabidMongoose. That's some of the worst advice someone could give.

RM is for some reason obsessed with this idea that you should treat other people like absolute s**t in an effort to be "whole." He's demonstrably wrong, and also a perfect example of the very unhealthy and toxic people your OP addresses.

The best advice I could give regarding the topic of the OP is to seek a mental health professional who can examine any unhealthy relationships you might have, and give the proper advice and tools you need to assist you.

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I’m sorry, I think I shouldn’t have started this topic. it is very difficult for me to explain things. I think it’s about energy. The energy of a group dynamic. How to hold on to your own energy is what I’m trying to figure out. It’s like trying to play a folk song at a rock concert. I don’t know why but I thought someone might get what I was saying without an example. I apologize for being unable to explain it better. Thanks for trying to understand. 

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14 minutes ago, shephardess said:

It’s like trying to play a folk song at a rock concert.

Um, then the answer might not be one you like, some things you can't do or make happen,

Lets see if this is any food for thought, my high school buddy becamr an alcoholic, and as decades passed it got really bad, into his 40s he lived with his parents so he could basically be a drunk, he saw himself as cute like the orginal Arthur but he wasnt, he was an obnoxious, abusive, mess, I was in the nightclub music biz substance abusers were no strangers to me.

I had my own health issues and after too long of him being nasty to me at night when he would call then thinking its okay because he didnt remember it I cut ties, ( he did this to all his few friends ) It wasn't worth my health, 

He was into his mid late 40s and getting really bad, he wanted as he out it for some 18yo model to worship him and that wasnt gonna happen, About 3 years after i blew him off he had a brain bleeder at the dive bar he lived at and after a pretty horrible few weeks in a coma he passed away, i went to see him a few times,

Of course a few people were harsh to me for cutting my friendship with him, but i am not going to have a friend who is just self centered, ego driven loser who is nasty and abusive to me for stupid stuff like i didn't want to go get drunk every night with him, then he would play arrogant victim.

It was very sad, he never married and the girl he did like played him, she was the main one who thought i should have stayed friends with him no matter how he treated me,

I miss the guy but not what he became, so you might think if these relationships you desire to be healthy really can be, sadly some things and some people are a lost cause.

In my case my health problems are nervious, ptsd, drdp, type mental bs, so a buddy like him was far too toxic.

 

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59 minutes ago, shephardess said:

I’m sorry, I think I shouldn’t have started this topic. it is very difficult for me to explain things. I think it’s about energy. The energy of a group dynamic. How to hold on to your own energy is what I’m trying to figure out. It’s like trying to play a folk song at a rock concert. I don’t know why but I thought someone might get what I was saying without an example. I apologize for being unable to explain it better. Thanks for trying to understand. 

The truth is simply that your OP is just a really broad general topic that can only be solved by narrowing down on some sort of specifics. That's why I recommended seeing a therapist about it, since they could help you to dissect whatever specific unhealthy habits behavior patterns in any relationships you have, and give you advice on what specifically you could do in each situation to help address it. I wish you luck with finding the help that you need. :tu:

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1 hour ago, shephardess said:

I’m sorry, I think I shouldn’t have started this topic. it is very difficult for me to explain things. I think it’s about energy. The energy of a group dynamic. How to hold on to your own energy is what I’m trying to figure out. It’s like trying to play a folk song at a rock concert. I don’t know why but I thought someone might get what I was saying without an example. I apologize for being unable to explain it better. Thanks for trying to understand. 

Would it be a correct reframing of your question if I said negative people are like vampires. They are draining on your energy levels and mental wellbeing. So you would like to know how to block their impact on you?

If so every negative emotion you experience in your mind exists for a reason. Each one is a normal biological response to a specific external stimuli. Its part of your survival mechanisms and is designed to protect you from harm. What happens when you encounter a vampire is a three stage response:

1. Your brain recognises a threat to your emotional or physical wellbeing. It fires a signal down your spinal column to your adrenal glands on top of your kidneys telling them to release adrenaline.

2. The adrenaline takes a couple of minutes to fully circulate around your body. As it circulates your negative emotions start such as stress, anxiety, anger, sadness, etc.

3. Your negative emotional state disrupts your normal breathing and disrupts your normal posture. If you look at your body during this you will realise you arent breathing normally or maintaining a proper posture. 2+3 continue the adrenaline release.

You reverse it by forcing yourself to breath normally and forcing yourself to adopt a normal posture. At the same time experience your negative emotion but stop yourself thinking about it. By that I mean stop yourself thinking about what caused your negative emotion, how to stop it, how to avoid it in the future, how to seek revenge, etc. Simply let the negative emotion exist on its own.

That turns off the release of adrenaline into your blood system but it doesnt immediately turn off your negative emotion. For that you have to wait until the adrenaline circulating around your body is used up. It takes a few minutes and until you get used to doing the reversal steps its difficult. You have to force yourself to do them.

When it comes to your biology there is no way to stop the negative impact a vampire has on your emotions. All you can do is turn off the impact quickly. When you are used to doing this you can reduce the length of time most negative emotions stay around for down to a couple of minutes.

I hope that makes it easier for you even though its not the complete solution you seem to be after.

Edited by RabidMongoose
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Actually RabidMongoose, that is exactly the answer I was seeking and also to some questions I was only thinking about. I have read similar explanations in the past but somehow I didn’t quite get it. Bravo

Edited by shephardess
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1 hour ago, shephardess said:

I’m sorry, I think I shouldn’t have started this topic. it is very difficult for me to explain things. I think it’s about energy. The energy of a group dynamic. How to hold on to your own energy is what I’m trying to figure out. It’s like trying to play a folk song at a rock concert. I don’t know why but I thought someone might get what I was saying without an example. I apologize for being unable to explain it better. Thanks for trying to understand. 

You don't have to share an example if you don't want to.

I'm pretty sure everyone here was asking in good faith.

I always like asking because I like to get max information before giving advice. 

In therapy we recognize that families and groups all have patterns.

 

It's called family systems theory, if you get bored and want a deeper understanding of family Dynamics feel free to look it up.

https://www.genopro.com/genogram/family-systems-theory/

Families develop patterns to maintain homeostasis. 

Useful questions are what role does you family put you in and why? What purpose does that role serve to maintain homeostasis.

A change in one part of the system creates change in the whole system. As people adapt to new roles to maintain homeostasis. 

So basically any small thing you can do to break the pattern will have a big effect on changing your role.

 

I know my response isn't answering your immediate questions or concerns but it think this could be useful stuff for you to think about down the road. 

 

 

Edited by spartan max2
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10 minutes ago, shephardess said:

Actually RapidMongoose, that is exactly the answer I was seeking and also to some questions I was only thinking about. I have read similar explanations in the past but somehow I didn’t quite get it. Bravo

If it helps the specific part of your brain for firing that signal down to your kidneys, and for adding all the analytical thoughts to your negative emotion (trying to figure out what causes it, how to fix it, how to avoid it in the future, how to take revenge, etc) is the limbic system. The limbic system has two parts of interest - the hippocampus and the amygdala.

Overtime being in a high stress environment shrinks a person hippocampus and grows their amygdala. The result is they feel negative emotions more strongly and struggle to stop applying analytical thoughts to them. The result is they dig themselves into negative emotion hell holes.

Whether that applies to your or not, you can grow your hippocampus and shrink you amygdala. That means the intensity of your negative emotions will reduce and you will find it easier to stop analysing them. A good way of altering your limbic system in this way is to either learn a new language or engage in a sport which requires good coordination of your body. Alternatively you can start having a cold shower every morning (even in the middle of winter).

All three blunt a persons intensity of negative emotions and make it easier to break free from analysing them. That will help you too.

Edited by RabidMongoose
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5 minutes ago, RabidMongoose said:

 

Overtime being in a high stress environment shrinks a person hippocampus and grows their amygdala. The result is they feel negative emotions more strongly and struggle to stop applying analytical thoughts to them. The result is they dig themselves into negative emotion hell holes.

Ah yes! Well put. I have been there many times. My own private hell. 

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On 10/27/2019 at 9:53 PM, spartan max2 said:

I know my response isn't answering your immediate questions or concerns but it think this could be useful stuff for you to think about down the road. 

Yes your answer is helping to immediately answer my concerns. Thank you and thanks for the link. I will definitely look at it. 

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8 hours ago, shephardess said:

I understand and relate to people but I am having a difficult time relating to people who are still stuck in unhealthy patterns.

Whatever you do, don't go into the Politics section here then. :P 

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On 10/28/2019 at 12:09 AM, Gwynbleidd said:

Whatever you do, don't go into the Politics section here then. :P 

Or the Spirituality vs Skepticism section. :D

On a serious note....

I think it's very easy to recognize an emotional vampire.... I even posted a topic about them in here! 

Their energy is negative, and you will feel very tired after you encountered them.

So, It's very important to learn to protect yourself against them!

It's actually crucial for your survival. :yes:

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5 hours ago, LightAngel said:

Or the Spirituality vs Skepticism section. :D

On a serious note....

I think it's very easy to recognize an emotional vampire.... I even posted a topic about them in here! 

Their energy is negative, and you will feel very tired after you encountered them.

So, It's very important to learn to protect yourself against them!

It's actually crucial for your survival. :yes:

That's why those of us who love you...LOVE you!  :wub:

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On 10/27/2019 at 3:33 PM, shephardess said:

 I’m open 

First, you need to have a healthy relationship with yourself!

That will solve a lot of your problems! :) 

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15 minutes ago, joc said:

That's why those of us who love you...LOVE you!  :wub:

 

tenor.gif

 

:rofl: ;)

 

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In Sufism the elimination of all thought collapses reality back into oneness (thats God).

Now where is the incentive to do that? Well, life contains suffering. Be it difficult relationships, divorces, losing your job, losing a leg, etc. When life goes wrong and we are suffering we often learn to stop thinking about whatever it is. Hence, we have eliminated one aspect of our need to think.

1001 reincarnations later (with each ones suffering) and you have learned to overcome all need to think and have therefore reunified with God.

Focusing back on difficult people one of the most destructive practices we engage in is the seeking of revenge. Its not the act of revenge that causes us suffering because of act of getting revenge makes us feel good when its deserved. Its the planning and fantasising of revenge that makes us suffering.

This is because we keep our mind focused on and revisiting whatever the difficult person has done to us. We plot and plan and fantasise about our revenge. But because we keep revisiting and because there is a period of time before we can get our revenge, we actually drive our stress, anger, and anxiety up.

Revenge (if people must seek it to feel better) should always be done off the cuff, in the spear of the moment, in real-time. We should stop all thoughts about it related around planning, plotting, and fantasising of getting revenge, in our minds.

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On 10/27/2019 at 9:33 AM, shephardess said:

I’ve spent many years changing the way I understand and relate to people but I am having a difficult time relating to people who are still stuck in unhealthy patterns. I readily admit that often I will fall back into the old dysfunctional ways of relating when I am around someone resistant to healthy communication. I’m open to hearing anyone’s positive experiences in dealing with this problem. 

I have gone through this and still do with some family  members.  I can tell you from my experience that if you feel like saying No, there is no reason not to.  Say No and walk away, do  not give any excuse or reason.  You do not owe anyone any reason or excuse.  That, is powerful enough to get people to at the very least, quit demanding unreasonable things from you.

Another thing I found that works is stating that you will not answer or listen to anything about a certain topic (maybe why you are doing something or not doing something or why you should give someone something that you worked for, etc).  You state the topic, why it is not to be brought up and the consequences of it being brought up (usually "I will not say a word, I will just get up and walk out the door", or "you will be asked to leave my house").

It is hard to break certain patterns so you have to identify them and then make a plan and stick to it.  No relenting, no guilt, no regret.

 

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On 10/27/2019 at 2:37 PM, the13bats said:

Um, then the answer might not be one you like, some things you can't do or make happen,

Lets see if this is any food for thought, my high school buddy becamr an alcoholic, and as decades passed it got really bad, into his 40s he lived with his parents so he could basically be a drunk, he saw himself as cute like the orginal Arthur but he wasnt, he was an obnoxious, abusive, mess, I was in the nightclub music biz substance abusers were no strangers to me.

I had my own health issues and after too long of him being nasty to me at night when he would call then thinking its okay because he didnt remember it I cut ties, ( he did this to all his few friends ) It wasn't worth my health, 

He was into his mid late 40s and getting really bad, he wanted as he out it for some 18yo model to worship him and that wasnt gonna happen, About 3 years after i blew him off he had a brain bleeder at the dive bar he lived at and after a pretty horrible few weeks in a coma he passed away, i went to see him a few times,

Of course a few people were harsh to me for cutting my friendship with him, but i am not going to have a friend who is just self centered, ego driven loser who is nasty and abusive to me for stupid stuff like i didn't want to go get drunk every night with him, then he would play arrogant victim.

It was very sad, he never married and the girl he did like played him, she was the main one who thought i should have stayed friends with him no matter how he treated me,

I miss the guy but not what he became, so you might think if these relationships you desire to be healthy really can be, sadly some things and some people are a lost cause.

In my case my health problems are nervious, ptsd, drdp, type mental bs, so a buddy like him was far too toxic.

 

You did him the only favor you could.  Being his friend required too much of you and too little of him so you had no choice. 

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