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General Resisting change... no logic just stubbornness?

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So sometimes there have to be changes.... whatever it is, whether it’s getting more firewood or painting the bathroom... and these proposed changes are met with an almighty stubborn resistance... and no logic that makes sense in typical logical terms...

Does this sound familiar??
How do you approach a topic that is met with such resistance? Do you just ignore things and quietly make the change? Or put the person through debating about it and still get nowhere? Or some much smarter response?
 
Pick your battles. Pick your battles. Debating a symptomatic sufferer is gonna be like punching yourself in the face.

Personally I just take care of minor stuff on my own. If he's being particularly argumentative I don't even ask his opinion. If we need more firewood, I go get it. If the bathroom needs painted, I'll paint it. If he doesn't like the way I'm doing it, he can get off his ass and do it himself. If not, he can shut his cakehole.

In a perfect world partners have equal say and split chores evenly. It doesn't always go that way when your partner is ill. Sometimes you just have to roll with it and make stuff work the best you can.
 
Exactly this. My vet has no problem with getting and shopping firewood. I do not think he thinks of this as change but he has a big problem with painting rooms in a colour they did not have before, rearranging the furniture, buying new furniture. Stuff like that. Why? I am not sure but I think it is because our home feels like a safe haven for him and he learned that change can be very bad. I try to compromise. Sometimes I go along with it and things stay as they are and sometimes I change things, but I take him by the hand so to speak. I tell him “You know. I decided to paint X room in colour Y (nothing to far from the original colour) and to rearrange the furniture a bit. I plan to do it like this and like that (explain exactly what I am planning to do). Do you like it? Do you have any advice?“... so that it becomes clear for him that I am gonna do it but that he has a say too. We painted a number of rooms and he always joined in and helped me. In two cases he did not want to use a new colour at all and that was okay for me. We just renewed the old.
I think I must make sure it feels still good and safe for him but also push him a little bit out of his comfort zone.
Does he suffer from “fear of the outside world“, for example fear of crowds or stuff like this. In this case it is important for them to have a safe space.... I know, I know, the safe space is supposed to be a place in your head but it can also be a real place. My guy has a number of feel good places, our house, a place by a nearby lake, a certain place in the garden. When he is not feeling good and goes awol I often find him at a certain place in the garden. I would never change this place. Do not get me wrong, he never verbalized that and I know he has a dislike of the typical ptsd terminology (which includes safe spaces, he thinks that is for sissys) but I am pretty sure this is his safe place. He just talks of his “favourite spot in the garden“. We do not officially have to label it that way, do we? ;) ;)
 
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Hey, I'm a sufferer so don't know if I'm welcome to post here, but...

There's actually a neuroscience explanation for that. I also have some strategies, based on this explanation, that work with my own totally irrational and completely annoying stubbornness. I'm sure it doesn't make the behaviour any less annoying, but I'll write it out in case anyone's interested.

There are structural changes in the brain with PTSD. So, a trauma brain is different and works differently to a typical brain. (I can elaborate if anyone's interested - stuff that's visible on MRI and EEG, so "hard" science rather than psychological theory.)

In trauma, our brains become hyper-attuned to any change in our surroundings. Any change, however slight, activates our "lizard brain", which is responsible for our physiological reactions like fight, flight or freeze.
Our hippocampus, the bit that does the "where-when" in space and time is smaller than yours, so often comes online slowly, or in patches.

Often, our sensory processing areas are larger and more busy than in a typical brain. These route a "change" in stimuli directly to our overactive lizard brains.

In trauma-time, this is an adaptive response. The quicker we notice anything that could be dangerous, and the quicker we react, the safer our hides are from mortal danger.

When trauma-time ends, our brains are still running like this. Any change, our brain notices, and new = danger. This is maladaptive.

I'm doing neurofeedback at the moment, where you use an EEG machine that reads your brainwaves. Even during session, I'll get my brain calm and I'll be doing really well at the game - then my brain notices it's feeling too good, or ways that are unusual, and my lizard brain comes back with a vengeance.

This process is totally subconscious. I often don't even realise why I'm on edge in a room if something is in a different spot to last time.

The solution for this, to me, is to notice that the change sets me off, and then reassure my brain through grounding exercises, or re-safing myself, and making the change anyway.

(Unless the costs of the change outweigh the benefits. Cleaning up, painting a wall, rearranging the yard or furniture, I deal with it. Put my chair with the back to the door, though, and I'll move it so that I can see.)

Thanks for putting up with us. If I'm not welcome to post I apologize.
 
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