Latest / It’s All Your Fault: High Conflict People / Narcissistic Co-Parents, Borderline Spouses, and Intimidating Behaviors
Transcript
- Speaker 1 (00:05): Welcome to, it's All Your Fault On True Story fm, the one and only podcast dedicated to helping you identify and deal with the most challenging human interactions, those with someone who may have a high conflict personality. I'm Megan Hunter, and I'm here with my co-host, bill Eddie. Hi everybody. We are the co-founders of the High Conflict Institute in San Diego, California, where we focus on training, consulting, and educational programs and methods, all to do with high conflict. In today's episode, we are answering your questions. Thank you so much for sending them. We have a lot that, uh, have been building up and we haven't been answering them lately. So that's what we'll do in the next, uh, today's episode and in the next one or two. But first, a couple of notes. If you have a question about a high conflict situation, speaking of questions, send it to podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or on our website at pod high conflict institute.com/podcast, where you'll also find all the show notes and links. Please give us a rate review and tell your friends, colleagues, or family about us, especially if they're dealing with a high conflict situation. We are very Speaker 2 (01:17): Grateful. Speaker 1 (01:22): So, um, bill, we've re received many, many, many, many questions. And, you know, it's pretty common in high conflict situations or anytime you're dealing with a high conflict individual. Um, it's, it's just a world of opposites and if we handle the interactions in situations in the same way we do with everyone else, it, it frequently backfires as, as I think our listeners have, uh, caught on by now. But, um, so I, I guess that's maybe why a lot of people listen to us and we get these questions. So let's just dive right in. I've read your splitting book and Found, which is a, for our listeners that don't know, um, that's a book written by Bill Eddie and, uh, with Randy Kreger, um, for, uh, divorce. Um, I've read splitting and found it terrifying in its accuracy, but incredibly helpful and have also been following your podcast. Speaker 1 (02:17): Thank you. This kind of insight has been so valuable. I'm going through a high conflict custody case with someone who it would appear has some form of narcissistic high conflict personality. I was wondering if you could point me in a useful direction regarding how to help my toddler through this really terrible custody battle and beyond. He is suffering and it has been noticed by me and his preschool. The father manipulates him, tells him falsehoods and praise upon our child's emotions and fears tell, and tells him to keep information from me. He doesn't see where he ends, and our child as a separate person begins. The child has also been harmed physically while in his care. And while attorneys and child protective services and court are involved, it doesn't seem to really make a difference in the custody situation. The court seems taken by his plight. Speaker 1 (03:07): I feel helpless, terrified, baffled, and so, so worried about what this child is exposed to and what he will become. You spoke a little about how to raise a healthy human in your latest podcast, but I would so appreciate any and all resources you might be able to suggest, uh, for the child. But any advice for me on how to continue to navigate this would also be appreciated. . So I think this is explicitly, you know, it's just hits the nail on the head that these are confusing, terrifying situations for people where, and they just don't know what, what to do. So what would your thoughts be on this bill? Speaker 3 (03:41): Well, my, my thought, my first thought, well, actually, my first, first thought is, um, we're not giving therapy. We're not giving legal advice, um, all the things we're not doing. Um, so we're giving just general principles. But one of the general principles is if you are already involved with the court system, you've made efforts to point out behaviors, all of these things that you're going to be co-parenting, uh, with the other parent who has these difficulties. What seems to be so important is the way you do the parenting, that your time with the child teaches the child what we call the four big skills for life, which you can actually start teaching a toddler. Um, I, it's not in my resume, I don't, well, maybe it is that I used to run the, uh, childcare center for Seattle University when I lived in Seattle for three years. Speaker 3 (04:44): So we had kids starting at two, mostly toilet trained, but not entirely . Um, and they can start learning managed emotions because around two or three is when you really start learning. Your body starts learning self-control. You're, you're starting to be able to control, you know, your bladder and sphincter, uh, learn to brush your teeth, learn these real basic skills and learn to control your behavior starting, you know, around two to three. And so teaching managed emotions, you know, we manage our emotions here. Flexible thinking. Let's look at our choices here. What's our choices in our brain? That's what flexible thinking is. Moderate behavior. Hitting your mother with the block isn't moderate behavior. So really you're gonna need to well, you probably experienced that Speaker 1 (05:46): Might have Speaker 3 (05:47): , and, and we don't do that. We use the blocks for building, um, things like that and checking ourselves. That's the fourth, fourth big skill is, whoa, let's check ourselves. That's, we're, we're not doing what, what we are learning to do. We have to change what we're doing now to what we're learning to do, whatever it is. But let me get out of my, you know, preschool hat and back to adulthood here. It seems to be that your repetition, your openness, your flexibility, that children really do absorb that. And children also start to see that the way the other parent is, is not very comfortable. If the other parent's narcissistic, they're gonna be demeaning, belittling the child and then, uh, puffing up the child, oh, you're wonderful, you're brilliant. You're my son or daughter, you, you're the best. And then turning around and saying, you're really stupid. Speaker 3 (06:50): You know, why did you do that? And no, no child of mine's gonna cry, you know, tough it out. So that's the kinds of things that narcissists do as parents. So it sounds like you've got other people involved, which is the other thing. General principal is get some help, get some consultation, talk to local therapists, talk to legal professionals who may be able to help manage your case if you are in the court system. Um, answering what to do in court is a whole different question, but at this point it sounds like you're gonna be co-parenting and that that's the thing to do. Focus on your part and do it well, really well. Speaker 1 (07:36): Good. Yeah, and I was thinking about a book written by Dr. Benjamin Garber, um, the Healthy Parents ABCs. We'll put the link in the, in the show notes. And, um, and he's written another one called Caught in the Middle, which might be for, for Down the Road a bit, but uh, might be some good resources. And then Bill's written some other books too, and we'll, we'll throw those in there. So thank you for that question. Uh, next question from a listener. I've just discovered your institute and podcast of the past few days and am amazed to finally have words and concepts to explain my experience of someone in my family. Your examples have been eerily similar to what I've experienced, which I know, bill, we hear often, um, like during our consultations or trainings, people will, will say, oh, wow, I thought, you know, you must have been like in my home, hiding in a closet or something for the past two years, , because it's like, Speaker 3 (08:26): Wait, we honestly have not met every family Speaker 1 (08:30): I know in the world, in the world. Speaker 3 (08:33): It's, but these are patterns of behavior that are actually quite predictable, Speaker 1 (08:38): Super predictable. Um, yeah, it's, it's interesting. Uh, so this person's in a family business relationship, um, uh, and, uh, along with their this person's mother. Um, so the, the identified high conflict person sees themself as the boss and the one who gets things done. I am a lawyer by training and not very adversarial. Um, I have great difficulty convincing this family member that litigation is a bad idea and has cost us greatly in the past. We are also being dragged into all manner of oth other unnecessary conflicts due to blaming and hostile communications with many professionals we deal with. I've found family systems very, very useful in encouraging me to focus on my own reactivity and behavior and modifying that, but I really struggle to know how to handle situations where decision needs to be made quickly, and we have opposite approaches in mind. For instance, a decision about whether to hold someone else to account who I don't believe really did anything wrong. So I'd love wisdom on how to manage intimidating behavior when they're trying to intimidate you into following their instructions. Um, I've noticed you discouraged telling them, or even others, you experienced them as high conflict. Would you ever recommend quietly explaining the problem to someone else who is caught up in the situation? Speaker 3 (09:56): Well, a a few things, again, general principles. One is I always come back down to the cars method, which is connecting, analyzing options, uh, responding to misinformation and setting limits and looking at what you can change and what you can do rather than how to change the other person. Um, and, and so I just always fall back on that. My mind goes blank, say, oh my goodness, I have no idea what to do here. Oh wait, how could I connect with the person? Give them an ear statement, some empathy, attention and respect, even though they're being difficult and say, yeah, I can see, you know, you're upset about this, or, I know this is a hard time. Those kinds of things. Let's look at what we can do and try to get the attention focused onto to what your choices are away from arguments away from emotions. Speaker 3 (10:52): Okay, what are you suggesting? Or let's look at our options here. Responding to misinformation that often, uh, high conflict people, including high conflict bosses, um, are operating on assumptions that aren't accurate and saying, you may not realize it, but here's some, um, information that, that really applies to this situation. But last but not least, the setting limits on, on the high conflict person and, and mostly is saying what you can and can't do. So with a boss, uh, if your boss is overloading you with Tess to say, Hey, boss, well, don't say, Hey boss, say, you know, Joe or Mr. Smith or Ms. Smith, whoever it is, you've given me several tasks. I can only do like two of them. So give me some priorities here, uh, cuz I really wanna do a good job and I want us to shine and I want you to look good. So talking about, um, you know, setting limits what I can and can't do, uh, what I'm willing to discuss, what I'm not willing to discuss. Anyway, so those are, those are some general principles. Understanding family systems, get other people, talk to somebody who's neutral in this, either in the situation or outside of the situation. Often talking to somebody neutral really helps get perspective and may you may find some new ideas you hadn't even thought of. So I hope that kind of addresses it. It seemed like there was several parts to that question. Speaker 1 (12:32): The listener says that they themselves are not an adversarial person, so I can't imagine that they're much of a right fighter that says, I want to make sure this person knows that they're wrong or, you know, how out of line they're, they are. And I think we hear that, I know we hear that a lot from people as I, I just, I need to confront this individual with their behavior. And, um, and, you know, I, being in, uh, anyone in the, in a high conflict situation is going to want to explain what's happening or confront or address things. And it's just such a waste of time, , because as, as we, as you say in one of the four, forget about, it's just forget about trying to give them insight cuz they're not going to get it. You know, it's so, so obvious to those on the outside that, that this person is really, uh, either behaving badly or has things really backwards and it's, it, it is so tempting to just have that conversation, but it just doesn't go well. Um, so I guess the question Bill, I, I have for you is, is there ever a time that you would say, you know, yeah, it's okay to, to to, to explain the truth. Um, and, and , I I know you're smiling back there about this question. It's, uh, um, because many people say, look, why, why should I have to suffer? Why should I have to sacrifice? Why can't I just speak the truth? Why can't I say how I feel? Speaker 3 (13:58): I would say just picture yourself talking to a three-year-old. How far are you going to get and how calming is that gonna be to the other person? And how much are they gonna improve their behavior? A a lot of people don't know this, but in the 1970s, I was a kindergarten teacher, and I like to say now that most of what I learned about how to manage high conflict people, I learned teaching kindergarten. And what I learned is they can't cognitively do certain tasks. And so you need to redirect them, you need to calm them, you need to set limits on them, but you're not going to break through with insight. And that's, that's probably the hardest thing for people to get about high conflict people, they so badly want to make them see it from a reasonable point of view. And your point of view may be completely reasonable, but they can't see it. Speaker 3 (15:02): And this is why they have an enduring pattern of behavior. They have a personality disorder, it's an enduring pattern of behavior. It really doesn't change no matter who yells at them, whispers, puts it in writing, et cetera. So this is one of the hardest things to understand and accept, but we are skilled at this because we've beat our heads against the wall for years and years and years, and we've come to accept that we really can't give them insight. And that if we really wanna talk about logic, talk to somebody else who can have that conversation with Speaker 1 (15:41): You. If you have that conversation, if you go confront that person or explain your truth to them, um, or address their, they're lying or they're behavior in the way that you think will work using that logical approach, what it's going to do is backfire on you in such a bad way that you will have a lot of stress . And, um, it's so much easier. I've experienced this myself. If you just let it go and focus on the skills, focus on what to do in a high conflict situation like Bill said, using the cars method, and it, it, it's, it's a game changer. You, it's very empowering and you don't end up a big ball of stress. So, okay. Um, next question. I have been married to someone with borderline personality, or at least traits of such for 10 years. My question, I think married for 10 years. Speaker 1 (16:31): My question is, can someone develop b p D traits from living with someone with B p d or traits of such? I have noticed that when my spouse is in a good mood and is doing something nice, I am telling myself not to fall for her tricks and detach from the situation and from her. And also, how do I find a good counselor for myself that can help me recover from living with her? I have been getting blamed for everything that is wrong with our marriage, her work, the kids and everything else. And I feel less of a person Until recently, I really felt e everything she was telling me about myself is true. And I lo no longer have any self-esteem. I have given up on being a good husband to her because I am mentally and emotionally drained, but I do want to be a good father to our young boys. So, you know, I think we've probably had this question a thousand times and, and we know it's, it's a, a tough spot for people to be in. Um, and Bill, you wrote the book, splitting, Protecting Yourself, um, uh, uh, during a divorce with someone with borderline or narcissistic personality disorder. So what, what are your thoughts? Speaker 3 (17:42): Well, first of all, I don't want you to think about divorce to start off with Speaker 1 (17:46): Exactly. Speaker 3 (17:47): And, and actually I would refer you back to the book by Randy k Crager, stop Walking on Eggshells. She's the co-author on splitting. I mostly wrote splitting, um, but stop Walking on Eggshells. She has a co-author, but she mostly wrote Stop Walking on Eggshells. Lots of good advice in there. I think it's in the third edition by now, something like that. But let me touch on a few key points. First of all, you don't catch borderline personality disorder. It's not a contagious disorder. It's basically a personality development disorder, which starts at birth. Um, some people have genetic tendencies towards that early childhood has a big impact on that and the culture or environment the person grows up in. So you're not catching it, uh, from your wife if in fact your wife has that. But you may start imitating some of the behavior because you think that that's what you have to do. And that's why we developed like ear statements and B responses so that you can still respond calmly and logically and rationally not get emotionally hooked and go get down in the mud with their emotional outbursts and such. If they have a borderline personality disorder, they really don't have good control over this unless they're getting treatment. And there is treatment for borderline personality disorder. That's the good news is the D B T I think is one of the favorites now it's dialectical behavior therapy. It's available in all most cities around the country Speaker 1 (19:37): And around the world. And Speaker 3 (19:38): Around the world. Speaker 1 (19:39): Yeah. Yeah. Our listeners are from everywhere and it's available a lot of times online. There's, there's some forms of D B T I think that are available do telehealth online programs. Speaker 3 (19:50): Yeah. And there's self-help workbooks, et cetera. But getting someone to go isn't easy and you should talk to a counselor yourself about those options. And it's really sounds like you're in a situation where having your own counselor would be really helpful to help you cope with the stress, but also to help you understand how borderline personality works and how you can kind of avoid the worst parts while not losing yourself and losing your self-esteem is not that unusual in these situations. And if you're staying in the situation, it's real important to get other people in your life who can be supportive reinforcing may it help you feel good about yourself. Because unfortunately people with borderline personality disorder often feel terrible about themselves, but they, they spread that, and the people around them slowly feel worse and worse and worse. And, and that's like an abusive situation. And sometimes it's physically abusive, men or women, uh, may do that. So these are all issues, but especially trying to find a counselor, and we can't give you a specific counselor, but you can look, see people that are on lists. There may be professional lists in your community, marriage counselors, individual counselors, clinical social workers, marriage, family therapists, uh, psychologists ask around in your community and you should be able to find somebody that can help cuz a lot of counselors are getting more and more familiar with this. Speaker 1 (21:33): Yeah, and I also wanted to mention, um, you know, there are support groups that may not be specifically for, you know, your situation, but, uh, you know, many people find that just going to any type of support group, whether it's for, you know, Al-Anon as a family member of, uh, someone with a substance problem or a, um, a grief support group, do, it doesn't matter what really kind of support group it is, it's just kind of getting somewhere where you sort of have some support and you feel like you can get your head right. And, um, so I've, I've had, uh, a lot of people come back and say, wow, I, I've even started going to AA and I'm not, I don't have a substance problem, but it's just really helped to get structure and support. Um, also it's, it's, it's helpful to remind yourself that even while this your wife is, you know, angry or, you know, whatever the behaviors are that are coming at you, um, it's, it's helpful to think of her as a person in pain that even though the, the stuff that's coming out of her feels really ugly to you, there's a lot of pain in there. Speaker 1 (22:34): So if, uh, it's really important to set limits and to use empathy, attention, and respect so that you're, you're addressing sort of some of that pain and, uh, while still taking care of yourself. One last thought is that my little publishing company, unhooked Books, is fortunate to have published a book called Borderline Personality Disorder Wellness Planner for Families written by Amanda Smith. You can find it on Amazon in any country, um, or on unhooked books.com or on Amanda Smith's website, which is, uh, elusive to me right now. But you can google her Amanda Smith, uh, dialectical Behavior Therapy or Borderline Personality Disorder and you'll find it. But anyway, it's a, it's a, a, it's a wellness planner where you'll, uh, once a week have one or two pages of reading that will help you understand your, your spouse better, that person in your life better, and, um, and give you some relief about why you're feeling angst or why your self-esteem has taken a hit. And then it has some checklists that you can kind of do to take care of yourself because these are hard relationships really, really hard. This is a very helpful book and, um, we'll put that link in our show notes as well Speaker 1 (23:56): That will wrap up this listener question episode. And we will want you, uh, you know, and we invite you to come back next week and listen again as we answer more of your questions. And, uh, I'm sure they'll be just as fascinating as these. Uh, so send your, uh, questions if you have any two podcasts@highconflictinstitute.com or submit them to high conflict institute.com/podcast and, uh, just keep on learning and, uh, taking care of yourself while we all try to find the missing piece. It's All Your Fault is a production of True Story FM Engineering by Andy Nelson. Music, by Wolf Samuels, John Coggins, and zip Moran. Find the show, show notes and transcripts@truestory.fm or high conflict institute.com/podcast. If your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.