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COPING WITH PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR

COPING WITH PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR


Some interactions with your significant other can leave you feeling emotionally drained, dejected, and distressed. Those behaviors are not only confusing and hard to accept, but they have the capacity to damage your confidence and self-esteem. Vicious passive aggressive behavior can take its toll on you, slowly altering your personality, until you barely recognize your own actions. You feel depressed, you might cry or yell more often than before, and you feel out of control.

How do you identify passive aggressive behavior?

- Unexpected, unprovoked angry outbursts, disproportionate to the issue at hand
- Isolation or pouting without an obvious reason
- Dismissing your feelings off hand
- Ignoring or blocking you from communications with others
- Being sensitive and caring one minute; acting hostile and resentful the next

Even when we all do some passive aggressive behavior here and there, especially when we are resisting some other person ordering us around, but we don't want to challenge him, everyone knows what this behavior looks like.


What you need to look for is not the occasional response that blocks cooperation while saying that it is forthcoming, but look for the passive-aggressive behavior which is ingrained and the habitual way of dealing with the world, you included.

It can come across as a maddening mixture of evasiveness and contrition, agreeableness and resistance, connection and aloofness and in severe cases is often masked by more obvious mental illness, like depression.

The classic description of passive aggressive behavior includes a "stubborn malcontent, someone who passively resists fulfilling routine tasks, complains of being misunderstood and underappreciated, unreasonably scorns authority and voices exaggerated complaints of personal misfortune."

Sometimes you can even perceive him as doing a clever obstruction of all your plans to move ahead, progress and develop new experiences for both, so scared this person is of change and your role in any change happening to him/her. If you push a lot, then you will be served with aggressive outbursts, coming like "out of nowhere," but destined to protect his personality from any adult demand coming his way.



Do you need to know more? If you think passive aggressive behavior is the cause of your unhappy situation there are steps you can take to resolve it. Perhaps you need to get a copy of www.passiveaggresive.com, an ebook that will give you strategies to respond to Passive Aggressive tactics! If you are ready to break free of the chains of passive aggressive emotional bondage, if you are tired of feeling humiliated and alone, if you are ready to take control of your emotional well-being once and for all, then this e-book is for you.


www.passiveaggresive.com

HOW MANY WAYS DO I HAVE TO HIDE MY PA BEHAVIOR?

MY OWN PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE EXCUSES

In order to be able to continue doing a successful career as a PA person, one has to find good reasons to "normalize" and explain the insanity-producing behaviors....

When other persons very near you confront you with their pains caused by your behavior, it's good to be prepared with the logical, rational answers that will send them packing, back into their own confusion:

Do you need help coming up with those defensive phrases? here is a very useful list:

*People take advantage of my giving nature.
*I do "too much" for others.
*People are angry with me for no good reason.
*Some people want to use me and care nothing about me.
*I forget sometimes, doesn't everyone?
*I must do it my way or I lose all respect.
*I hate being told what to do or being pressured.
*I'll lose respect if I give in.
*I'll do this in my own time. I'm in no hurry--screw them.
*I hate deadlines. They can wait.
*Being angry isn't me--I won't give in.
*I'm not a conformist--I refuse to be another brick in the wall.
*I know I promised, but things came up.
*People try real hard to control and dominate me. Not.
*I'm nothing if I let others take advantage of me.
*It's easier to fib than to get in a possible argument. They always win anyway.
*Others put too many demands on me.
*No one dominates me.
*They have no right to be upset with me--I really tried.
*Do not lecture me.
*Authorities demand too much and interfere too much.
*I must be approved and accepted, but not controlled or dominated.
*Bosses, lovers, teachers are always trying to get over, get the most out of me. They can wait.


The list is courtesy of: http://www.emoclear.com/clusters/passiveaggressive.html

How do you know it is PA behavior?

Even when we all do some passive aggressive behavior here and there, especially when we are resisting some ordering around, but don't want to issue an open challenge, everyone knows what this behavior looks like. The friend who perpetually arrives late. The husband who sistematically "forgets" important dates for his wife. The co-worker who postpones to return your e-mail messages asking for some help. The very words: "Nothing. I'm just thinking."

Yet while "passive-aggressive" has become a common way of framing this covert non-cooperation, there are not a lot of ways of challenging it. Always the person doing it can, when pushed, accept the behavior but deny the resisting, sabotaging behavior! And you are left empty-handed, with only your gut feeling about being cheated in your objectives!

What you need to look for is not the occasional response that blocks cooperation while saying that it is forthcoming,but look for the passive-aggressive personality, which is ingrained and the habitual way of dealing with the world, you included. In milder forms it can come across as a maddening blend of evasiveness and contrition, agreeableness and impudence, and in severe cases is often masked by more obvious mental illness, like depression. (1)

The classic description of this personality captures a "stubborn malcontent, someone who passively resists fulfilling routine tasks, complains of being misunderstood and underappreciated, unreasonably scorns authority and voices exaggerated complaints of personal misfortune."

Does it sound like someone that you personally know? In a sudden flash or recognition, you think: this is exactly John's description!
well, there you are, now you have a name for this confusing attitude that leaves you reeling, lonely and dissapointed. It is as if, sometimes, you are dealing not with a grown up person, responsible and attentive, but with a helpless and passive child, providing you with inadequate responses to the mature cooperation necessary in a marriage. Sometimes you can even perceive him as doing a clever obstruction of all your plans to move ahead, progress and develop new experiences for both, so scared he is of change and your role in any change happening to him. If you push a lot, then you will be served with aggressive outbursts, coming like "out of nowhere," but destined to protect his personality from any adult demand coming his way.

Soon you will be perceived as part of his tormentors, the hideous grown ups who are not letting him be, and forcing him to do things he doesn't want to do...you will be the arbitrary authority enslaving him, and not perceived as a loving partner.

Do you need to know more? do you need to know if this personality can any time develop and reach maturity? Perhaps you need to get a copy of www.passiveaggresive.com, an ebook that will give you strategies to respond to PA tactics!




(1) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/16/health/psychology/16pass.html?_r=1&emc=eta1&oref=slogin

"I suffer from passive aggression"

Hi there, I suffer from passive aggression!

Well, I've just recently learned that I suffer from passive aggressive personality disorder. What a shock to the system, I tell ya. To suddenly find out that everything you've been doing your whole life has been a lie, 'cause you've been lying to yourself as much as you've been lying to others......is hard!

I have a partner, Deidre, who has her own share of emotional issues relating back to her childhood. I used to think that I was the strong one in our partnership, that I was her 'rock'.

But now I find out I've still got a huge amount of personal issues to deal with myself; issues which I didn't even know I had, and yet have been with me since childhood.

In my research on the internet to find out all I can about this disorder, I found that it's only a disorder when it negatively and adversely affects your life, career and relationships, as well as including a lot of depression.

Well, I didn't have a lot of depression, but I certainly had a lot of negative effects on my life, and in the life of others.....and it's time to deal with it.

So, what can I do? go to a therapist? walk around with a tag that says: "Hi, I'm PA. Can you help?" Blame my mother? None of the above?

It's difficult, because it implies that I need feedback from my partner, and she has to tell me which ones of my behaviors are PA....which I kind of know, because I guess that every time I do a PA move, we end up in a good fight.

And you know what? everytime we have a fight, it's good for me! because different reasons, I like when we fight: we are together; she is so upset that perhaps she will miss work only to fight with me! (that makes me important, she prefers me) and we will have lots of interactions...and if I manage to appear kinda sorry, she will forgive me and we will have wonderful makeup sex. All is sooo positive, that, coming to think about it, it's better not to change,

Right?

OUR VERY DEEP HUMAN NEEDS

In our development, the needs we need to solve to be able to grow up succesfully can be summarized in this list. So, perhaps you can think on how your own needs are NOW being provided for.

Defining the Six Human Needs

Need # 1 - Love & Connection

This is the need to experience bonding, sharing, feeling a part of, oneness, intimacy, at one with, etc. Someone has to love us! Edward Hallowell says that connection is as vitally important to us as Vitamin C.

Need # 2 - Significance

This is the need to experience a sense of being needed, feeling important, sense of meaning, sense of purpose, uniqueness, etc. We need to experience that what we do or share matters. Notice how this need contrasts with need # 1.

Need # 3 - Certainty

This is the ability to produce, eliminate, or avoid stress; or create, increase, or intensify pleasure. It's also about security and survival. To know that the basic things are there for you, and there is no lack of them.

Need # 4 - Uncertainty / Variety

The need for surprise, difference, diversity, challenge, excitement, etc. Notice how this need contrasts with need # 3. We all need this excitement!

Need # 5 - Growth

This is the need to continuously fulfill potentials, to "be all that you can be." This need drives you to become the "most complete you" possible.

Need # 6 - Contribution

This is the need to help others to be fulfilled (to help others meet their six human needs in a constructive way). It's possible to meet any or all of these six needs by changing either your:
Perception (belief or appreciation of) . You do this by working on your basic beliefs: if they are negative self-percetions, then you need to change them.

Procedure (vehicles or approach to). You need to do things in a different way, to achieve needs satisfaction. Stopdenying that your needs are ignored, and do something!

In a relationship as challenging as one with a PA person, ignoring your needs is almost the automatic survival decision that we do. It is always the most damaging....we need to care for our needs in order to survive and care for others.

Are you being punished with isolation?

Is this a case of cold shoulder? Are you being punished with isolation?

The silent treatment is a form of social punishment. It consists of ignoring a particular individual, neither speaking to them not responding to their words.

Is equal to avoid deliberately; keep away from; an aloof refusal to speak to someone you know.

Maintenance of aloof silence toward another as an expression of one's anger or disapproval: a deliberate discourteous act (as an expression of anger or disapproval) can really hurt. If you are tempted to use this sanction against your partner, know that it can be lethal for the relationship.

Are you getting the cold shoulder, but you don't know why? Is someone who's normally eager to speak to you now keeping your conversations to the bare minimum? This can be hurtful, frustrating, and confusing. Here's how to confront the person who's ignoring you without making things worse.

Steps
Make sure you're not just being paranoid. Perhaps he or she is being quiet because someone in his family is ill, or she's having personal problems. In this case, you shouldn't take it personally - let them have their space. But, you need to worry if this person is:

• only acting quietly towards you and not towards others,
• and for an extended period of time,

Question your own behavior. When did they start giving you the silent treatment? What happened that day, or the days right before their behavior changed? Could you have done or said something that was insensitive? Did something change? Try to understand what could've set off the silence. Narrow it down to a few possibilities and try to think of how you can fix the situation, if the problem is real and it happened and you can see it.

Rehearse what you're going to say. It's easy to get nervous and/or defensive, or to come off the wrong way, if you aren't prepared. Close your eyes and imagine you're alone with this person and say out loud what you want to say.

Begin by apologizing if you did something to offend or hurt the person, even if you're not sure what it is. Say something like "Look, I'm sorry if I've done or said something stupid to you."
Tell them that you value their company or friendship. (E.g. "I've really enjoyed spending time/working with you.")

Let him or her know that if something's bothering them, you're all ears.

Offer to leave them alone. After all, a silent treatment indicates that he or she no longer wants to speak with you for whatever reason. If they won't share or discuss the reason, there's not much else you can do. Just have the person confirm openly that he or she wants you to stop talking to them. If they say yes, they want you to leave them alone, then leave them alone. If they say no, or not really, or I'm not sure, then say something like "Well, what's going on? Maybe we can figure something out together."

Speak to the person when you're alone and are unlikely to be interrupted. Then get to the point: "I care about you and the relationship, and keeping silent will not help us reconnect. Can you tell me what is wrong?"

A WORD OF CAUTION:

If there is no dialogue after your honest attempt at reconciliation, the capacity of your partner of hoarding anger and righteous indignation is scary. He wants to be right, not to re-connect. If this happens very often, then it will be for her a means of controlling you and transform you in a human wreck. If there is no negotiation, you need to have a careful look at the situation, and evaluate the impact of this moral pain in your health. Is this relationship worth this kind of stress? You got together because you wanted support, company and recognition; if you get punishment and isolation, what is the point? something is very wrong here, and you need to be self protective, so explore carefully the possibility of getting external help for this relationship.