I'm wondering what sort of mental tricks people use in order to deal with difficult people.
I admit my mental tricks don't always sound all that nice, but they stay in my head and I don't use them against people.
Right now I'm dealing with a boundary crossing person. Kind of the story of my life. I repeatedly have these issues and it oftentimes doesn't end well. :-/ (Wanting to hurt myself, the nearest object within reach, hurt myself with the nearest object within reach, or just get in my car and drive as far as I can.)
And usually what happens when people force themselves into my life is that I freak out. I panic.
But really, this does nothing to help the situation as these people have no concept of healthy boundaries.
I set, enforce, re-enforce boundaries. Sometimes I slip up-----we all do. But in the end, what matters most is my mental state, and not having meltdowns when boundaries are crossed. Being able to keep thing stable in my mind is the most important thing.
My current mind trick is to just envision boundary crossers as Cartman from Southpark. That scene where he's ranting "I do what I want!!!" just cracks me up because he's kind of sad-----and the guys just kind of disregard him in general. If I think of it like this, it reframed things for me so that I am able to see that the shortcomings are in them, not me. I no longer feel weak because frankly I'm cracking up and thinking "oh god, that's just sad!"
I'd like to have more mental tools in my kit. Whatever they may be, from real life, pop culture, etc. I just need simple tools that I can use to pull my mind out of that "I need to run to the far ends of the earth" mentality.
Thanks.
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I have thought about this problem a lot. My search and
research into the answer is what gave me a toolbox of things. I like to collect
coping skills.
My first real good answer came from a book "Adult Children
of the Self-Absorbed". It was, finally, a book that gave practical advice
for dealing with difficult people aka energy vampires, aka personality
disorders, etc. One example was never sit across from them so they can't
stare at you or have your direct attention. Another was to keep it short and
drop a compliment just before you 'gotta go' so that the compliment sort of
disorients them for a few seconds (they have to bask in their ego boost
feeling), as you pivot to leave.
My next real quest came more in the form of finding healing
techniques to just get rid of that horrible fear and pressure and obsessive
thoughts, etc. about them and my fear and avoidance of them, which would cause
me emotional flashbacks and a buildup of stress, emotional outbursts,
nightmares, unexplained issues being triggered, etc.
The first healing tool I found that really worked was EMDR.
Within a year I then found energy tapping techniques such as EFT and
others. From that point on I focused on healing my own inner self, avoided them
as much as possible and practiced more limits, sticking up for myself, etc.
which was hard but at least I could run home and do some Tapping on it and feel
better, thus saving me days of ruminating and depression or re- traumatizing
shame and isolation. These techniques expanded into other good ones like
somatic mindfulness and qi gong and many others that involve mind-body-energy.
EFT saved my life by giving me the emotional healing I desperately needed
for decades.
Another huge tool in my toolbox was my own education into
personality disorders and personality types. I studied my personality
type for a long time and that really helped me self manage my depression. (I'm
the depressed-artist archetype personality type, or the Type 4 on the Enneagram
personality wheel. Anyway, that helped me not take things so personally
from other strong personality types. I'm an introvert and I have to honor
my need for quiet time and I need time around positive people to be able to
handle exposure to negative people. I also had to see feelings aren't facts,
and quite believing what someone else said was really true about me.
The positive people support mostly, for me, came from Al Anon
where they teach you self-care and are very supportive. But there is a lot of
support in mental health recovery these days.
Lastly, I'll say that my collection of NLP techniques is what
has helped me create the deepest shifts in self beliefs that has made the
greatest impact on my life. Really changed myself image and deserving beliefs
and shame and patterns I was stuck in. NLP not only healed me but changed my
behavior.
I mean, I grew up on welfare in south Chicago by a teenage mom
who later would be schizophrenic and later homeless for 13 years. I ran away at
14 and was in the group home system. I went to community college and survived.
My relationships were one dysfunctional guy after another which only got worse
over time. I was always poor, always running from some guy, always struggling.
I was a single mom and I got jobs and kept going. Recovery meetings kept me
going.
But then I hit my bottom with relationships after the third failed relationship in 15 years and thank God I had the Tapping to finally start
tapping on my relationship issues and got serious about trying to clean them up
so I could finally settle down with a nice guy. I was getting too old for the
drama and my son was almost grown. A psychology degree didn't save me from my
relationships with users, losers and abusers.
I developed my own Tapping on Codependency and Dating program
and 9 months later I met my Soulmate. We're still together 8 years later. I now
have my dream job and he has his and we live a resort lifestyle that we never
thought we could. What does that mean? For ME it's a dream job, I'm a mental
health counselor. That was my dream all along. Resort living is a nice
complex with a pool and lots of trees. Which is not where I come from. My Soulmate
is my best friend and I found him by:
1. clearing up my toxic relationship patterns I found in my
relationship history chart
2. writing a list of what I really wanted in a partner
3. writing a list of all the red flags to avoid in people I meet
or date
4. learning to say "no" and then just Tap on the fear
that comes up, so you don't care so much what they think about you for saying
"no". That's their problem. Learning to rate every date compared to
your lists in 1&2
5. increasing self-care and wellness by developing a daily
routine that grows over time to do pleasant activities and hang with
like-minded people that are cool and enjoying your interests in life
and so on.
He and I practice our 10 NLP Energy & Ninja techniques to
help us get over arguments and stop our programmed patterns and love each other
more plus help each other see ourselves success in society more. Which means we
use it to program our mind to see ourselves in jobs we like or whatever. We use
it to heal our inner critic that says we don't deserve it or not good enough,
etc. After we heal it, we always futurize what we'd rather have instead and see
ourselves doing it on. There's an NLP process called "Timeline" that
helps you do this.
Some NLP techniques are like mindfulness or even energy work,
but instead of trying to let go of thoughts you attend to your problem in a way
that automatically heals it. It's sort of a miracle how fast and east it works
without you even noticing it until afterwards you are completely changed about
it without feeling like anything's missing. You feel clear, you can't make
yourself upset about it anymore, and that's the time to then think about what
you want instead now.
After neglecting yourself for so many years, you have to
actively activate yourself care and wellness by thinking on what you really
want, create an easy list and do them whether you feel like doing them or not.
It's the experience of the doing self nurturing activities that changes the
brain pattern also.. Its hard to get there with emotional upsets in the way
and negative beliefs keeping you back. So heal first, then decide your next
step moving forward toward what you really want. Avoid negative people, connect
with positive people or people in recovery who can validate you more. Create a
Wellness & Recovery Plan you can live with.
I love being a mental health counselor and living with my best
friend and love of my life. I love being free of abusive people in my life
these 8 years, after a lifetime of abuse.
I love teaching people EFT and
I love coaching people with NLP and I love giving away my book "EFT for
Codependency" on my recovery tapping blog and sharing my story of hope to
others who are struggling with C-PTSD and connecting with people who are not
toxic by clearing up their Toxic Relationship Patterns using all of
the tools I listed above.
In case you're wondering I have been doing EFT
Tapping since 2002 and NLP these last 8 years. I weaned myself off
therapy and meds, healed my depression for the most part and keep wellness on
my mind daily. I continue to heal things as they come up and work on my
meaningful projects. It didn't change overnight, but I FELT BETTER overnight
and that's what motivates me to keep using these tools on a regular.
My hope is to help you also increase your healing, wellness and recovery by letting you know these tools exist and they work.
JP
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JP Bailey, M.A.
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