Walking away or 'No Contact' is a valid strategy in response to PDs (people on Personality Disordered spectrum). Many experts will recommend this as a core strategy if not a foundational means for healing and recovery. I see it more as a temporary short-term strategy at best, it doesn't work long term because it's only a matter of time before another PD comes into our lives, and many people have family obligations which makes it impractical for total 'No Contact'....
I have been reflecting on exactly how to share about better methods for dealing with PDs. There is actually a pretty good amount of information out on the internet, and a wide variety of 'so-called' experts. But for me, I could never just blanket cookie-cutter follow their suggestions or methods. Often I have found that there is a tendency to over-complicate matters, or they focus too much on one small detail that they miss the bigger picture of integration, healing and recovery.
So, let's explore a very common tactic of PDs:
Distortion campaigns using FOG (Fear, Obligation & Guilt)
“The whole secret lies in confusing the enemy, so that he cannot fathom our real intent.” -- Sun Tzu, The Art of War
One of the primary ways of brainwashing is the active use of Fear, Obligation & Guilt to expose psychological weaknesses of the target. As long as we have unresolved emotional baggage and have lost touch with our own needs and desires. We will be susceptible to these emotionally manipulative attacks. PDs are experts at finding, exposing and taking advantage of our emotional triggers. Trying to cover up our emotional wounds and triggers is ultimately a big waste of time and effort. It would be a better use of time to try to use this as an opportunity to better get to know ourselves and heal some of our emotional wounds. As we become more healthy, we naturally develop more confidence and as a by product we feel more empowered to take a stand against future distortion campaigns from PDs.
How to deal with
Fear & Anxiety -->
Exposure & Education. Nothing beats learning that comes from raw exposure, without exposure, there's always a level of underlying fear. Exposure gives us the intimate knowledge and hands on experience to specifically know just how real and dangerous the threat is. Once we have this knowledge, we can finally decide to accept it as a part of our life, or choose to continue running from it. Education is learning to use logical thinking, objective perspective, and mental discernment. Education helps us differentiate between truth & reality vs. distortion & delusions.
How to deal with
Obligation & Imposed Responsibility -->
Get to know your own needs and wants. Develop a relationship with anger, learn how to identify your own boundaries, and eventually learn how defend your boundaries by taking a stand. Put yourself first & save yourself first. Learn how to say 'No'.
How to deal with
Guilt & Shame -->
Get comfortable with sadness & vulnerability. Grieve and honor the losses in your life. Let go of attachment to false hopes. Stop habitually 'shoulding' on yourself. Recognize your limitations, and learn to expand your limits. Embrace your humanity & develop courage to share it with the world. Seek community & connection. Avoid hiding in secrecy, privacy and isolation.
An acronym reminder when responding to FOG attacks:
“Ponder and deliberate before you make a move.” -- Sun Tzu, The Art of War
STOPP
- Stop, Pause, Step Back, Study, Strategize
- Take a breath, Think
- Observe, stay Open
- Pull Back - Put in some Perspective, Prepare
- Practice what works
The old adages are true: The Truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.
What if everything you believed about yourself was a lie? If you accepted this, then the only thing you’d have to change is everything. There’s a lot of shame, fear, and pain in the space between what we know and what we accept. Truth is…most people don’t have the guts to change everything. I work with the most courageous people in the world.
The very best form of strength is resilience. It’s hard to imagine that people can survive so much but we did. We are not victims. We are survivors. Victims don’t get back up and therefore they don’t get better. We got back up but we fight other people’s battles and we fight ourselves and God help you if you try to stop us. We’re terrified to stop. We’re killing ourselves to maintain the illusion that we are not powerlessness because we associate being powerless with being helpless. We were then. We’re not now.
We see ourselves as broken. In truth we are simply disconnected. Our emotions are buried deep and convoluted. Our minds go 100 mph to avoid all that we seek to forget. Our bodies are used to abuse and so we abuse them. We struggle to have Faith in ourselves and in a Higher Power. We see ourselves as unworthy of love. We withhold forgiveness from ourselves.
There’s a disconnect between the adult we are and the child we’ve never forgiven. That child like part of us takes over when we’re triggered. Until we choose to protect the child and help her/him to heal, we will continue to punish ourselves for not being good enough.
Truth – we have always been loveable and acceptable – we simply were not made to believe this. We are good people who have done bad things. We cannot forget and the only way out of it is through it. We readily see the truth about who others are while we maintain distorted images of ourselves. This is why we need each other. Kindred spirits have a way of finding each other. The hard part is to receive us. Please know that we need you…every bit as much as you need us. Look for us in self help, in group therapy, and amongst the folks who seem to cross your path by pure “coincidence.”
- Jim LaPierre
source: Dead Link Removed
As for recognizing PD's weaknesses and our strengths:
The perceived strengths of PDs is also their greatest weaknesses. They have 2 common core strengths: Fast reaction & Extreme aggression
Weaknesses of
fast reaction: poor impulse control, impatience, tendency to over-react and embarrass themselves in front of others, short fuse, helpless to their hyper-sensitivities & addictions, super short term perspective means blindness to big picture or context.
Weaknesses of
extreme aggression: poor memory, weak mental and emotional reflective skills, difficulty with logic, hard time accurately recognizing reality, difficulty in gray areas of life, tendency to isolate and alienate others, hard to work with others. Lack of remorse & conscience means they can never understand self or others, and therefore can't genuinely trust or predict anyone.
Contrasting traits of people on empathy spectrum: Response Control & Empathy
Strengths of
response control: patience, ability to adapt & grow, control personal behavior, limit impulses, learn from mistakes, learn from other's experience, creativity, strategy, can develop capacity to better predict the future and be predictable to others.
Strengths of
empathy: Emotional sensitivity to feeling other's emotions & own emotions. Access to deep knowledge, information and strength within emotions. Capacity to communicate and understand deeply with self and others. Good memory and capacity to understand context and big picture. Better able to work with others, support other's emotional needs. Capacity to join with others so that individual weaknesses become group strengths. Capacity to heal, grow and transform from emotional suffering. Capacity for self-awareness and conscious living.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” -- Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Empathy allows us an infinite knowledge base and shared real life experience resource that PDs simply are blind to, and response control allows us to see the bigger picture, think multiple moves ahead so we can simply create traps that PDs will repeatedly fall into because they can't help but focus on imminent threats or rewards.
