Latest / It’s All Your Fault: High Conflict People / Blamers Who Call CPS, Minimizing Contact with HCPS, and Quiet HCPs
Transcript
- Speaker 1 (00:05): Welcome to It's All Your Fault Untrue 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. Speaker 2 (00:22): Hi everybody. Speaker 1 (00:24): 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 this episode, we will continue answering the questions that you, our very valued listeners have sent in. There have been some really, really great questions, but first, a couple of notes. If you have a question about a high conflict situation, send it to us at podcast high conflict institute.com or through our website@highconflictinstitute.com slash podcast where you'll also find the show notes and links. We are very grateful for all of you listeners and, uh, just have really enjoyed getting your questions, hearing your comments, and getting your thoughts about real life in high conflict situations. So let's get going. Bill. Speaker 1 (01:23): Question number one is minimizing contact with someone with a high conflict personality ever acceptable. Are there any circumstances where it might actually be what you would recommend versus using an ear statement or some other communication technique? Um, and what is your take on long-term abuse of power and whether or not it's ever okay to draw a line and say, I'm just going to go minimal contact so I can maximize the energy I can spend with our kids. So I guess it's really, you know, people who are trying to use the, you know, ear statements and these communication techniques that will calm people. But is that necessary all the time or sometimes should we just not even have that kind of communication or any communication? Well, Speaker 2 (02:14): I think that it really is appropriate to minimize contact or occasionally go no contact. And depending on the case, I think as a culture and coming from the mental health field in particular, since I'm a licensed clinical social worker, we're always fighting the last war. So the last war was trying to get parents to communicate, trying to get parents to cooperate, to stop blaming each other and pointing fingers and all of that. And for the last 40 years, since about 1980, that's been the trend in family courts and family counseling. However, high conflict people are different and high conflict people appear to be increasing and high conflict people tend to be stuck. And so you may be able to influence them with some of your communication skills. Like we teach ear statements, empathy, attention and respect, and b responses, brief, informative, friendly and firm emails and all of that. Speaker 2 (03:25): But you, you're not gonna be able to reach everybody. And that's a hard lesson that we teach lawyers, judges, mediators, and sometimes therapists. And so I think it is, can be appropriate. And in this case, and, and a little more of the question mentions the idea that a court may be requiring someone to be in a therapeutic program with their ex. Of course we can't, you know, give legal advice or therapy here, but let me say, it's common that courts and counselors want to get high conflict people together to work out their issues. And frankly, if it's a high conflict person that may not be realistic and we need to start accepting that and allow people to put up some boundaries between them. And that's like the idea of parallel parenting in divorce custody cases is where the parents don't communicate hardly at all, maybe once a year with a parenting coordinator to develop a plan and a schedule and then go about their business raising their kids with whatever the percent of time is, 50, 50, 80, 20, whatever it is, rather than dealing with each other, which is kind of a dead end. So I don't know the situation in this particular questions case, but yes, there are times where it's appropriate to be minimal contact and that may be the healthiest thing for everybody in the family. Speaker 1 (05:07): Right? And, you know, we're talking about people who don't have a lot of bandwidth. , it's a spare when you're dealing, when the in high conflict situations and you can get worn down. So, you know, minimizing that contact is, is, uh, you know, it's definitely your decision, but I think it can be helpful, um, and useful for your own mental health and, you know, just keep your, keeping your own stress levels down and, and not inflaming things. And one thing I've seen also Bill, is going minimal contact for a period of time, and then the HCP kind of comes back into, uh, your life in a, as, you know, a kind, maybe apologetic way, whether it's genuine or not. Right? Um, and then it blows up again when you let the person in. So something else to be cautious about. Speaker 2 (05:55): Yeah, it's, it's, there's a concept that I learned from, uh, Randy k Crager from her book, uh, stop Walking on Eggshells, and that's the term Hoovering. And she talked about when people, when you're splitting up with somebody and, and they've been really difficult and maybe blamed you and even said they hate you and all of that, and you go, whew, finally we're separating. I'm gonna be away from all that intense negativity. And the person comes back and they're nice and wonderful and friendly, and they want you back again, and they come back into your life like you said, Megan, and then you commit again, and then you get all the negativity again. And they call it hoovering, like a vacuum sucking you back in when people separate, if they've really made a, a definite decision that they're moving on, be aware of that. Some people with high conflict personalities just feel so desperate that they'll do anything, including begging and pleading to be taken back. And if you take them back in that way, you kind of increase the intensity. And then if you really were saying goodbye or saying, you know, we need to be, have a co-parent relationship, not a close marriage anymore, it gets harder to do that rather than easier. So that's why we encourage people, talk to counselors, talk to lawyers, be clear about what you're doing, and then set your boundaries and don't keep bending them. So it's a tough, tough situation. Speaker 1 (07:39): Yeah. And one that is, uh, you know, beyond even the romantic or the ex romantic relationship, but really in any high conflict situation, a relationship, um, I've seen this and you know, someone feels badly for a little bit and then they, you know, Hoover back in. And by the way, for those of you from maybe the younger gen generations that don't know what Hoover is, , it's a brand of vacuum . Now it might be the shark or sharking, I'm not sure, uh, whatever the, the brands are. But anyway, it can, uh, uh, you know, the, the high conflict individual isn't magically changing their personality when they come back kind of hoovering. Um, and I think a lot of times we get, you know, lured into that and we want it may, we might want that peaceful relationship and think that's what we're going to get. Speaker 1 (08:32): But as soon as things don't go as expected, it's going to blow up again, bottom line. So let's move on to the second question. And this is the starts out great. We love this. I absolutely love your podcast and have listened to every episode multiple times. That makes us very happy. So thank you. My question is, I think there is a misconception that a high conflict person is someone who yells and argues. But I get the idea after listening to your content that this isn't necessarily the case. Can you discuss how high conflict people may present and not normally yell and scream or argue? And, you know, bill, in the beginning when I was training about this, after listening to your many, many hours of trainings, uh, when we started, way back when I realized that I was, you know, conveying that this is loud mm-hmm. , these are loud folks, and it's, it's just, it's so much more, it, it isn't all about yelling. There are those quiet HCPs, right? Speaker 2 (09:34): Absolutely. And what's interesting as a mediator, I often don't realize how difficult the quiet person may be, and the quiet person may say, I'm not gonna agree to anything and try something else and try something else and try something else. Hmm. Speaker 1 (09:54): Kind of dig their heels in. Speaker 2 (09:56): Yes. Yes. So the way we've been defining high conflict personality is four key characteristics. First is a preoccupation with blaming others. Second is, um, all or nothing thinking. Third is unmanaged emotions, but not everybody shows that. And I think that's what the, the listener's really talking about is there's people that stay calm and cool, but they're very difficult. And the fourth is extreme behavior and these calm and cool, but very difficult. People may engage in very extreme behavior and then put up their hands with innocence. Like, well, well, so I just was telling the truth on the internet about you something like, no, Speaker 1 (10:46): I wasn't yelling, I wasn't crying, I wasn't, Speaker 2 (10:48): I just used all caps, but I wasn't yelling. And I'm a very mild mannered person. Speaker 1 (10:55): Uh, right. And, and that extreme behavior bill might be manipulation. Yes. Right? Yes. I mean, yeah. So you might not get the yelling and the screaming and crying. Maybe you will at some point, but a lot of them you won't. Speaker 2 (11:10): Yeah. Now, so think of those four characteristics, but they don't always have the unmanaged emotions on the surface. And let me mention antisocial personality. So our high conflict personality theory is an umbrella that includes some people with personality disorders, borderline narcissistic, antisocial and histrionic, and paranoid antisocial personality disorder, if they're a high conflict person, may be very manipulative, very unreliable, lots of false statements, may be even physically abusive and yet never raised their voice. I've been in court against people with traits and they can be very calm appearing. And I see them, it's interesting, they're like holding their body rigid and I'm thinking maybe they're going to explode . And they're like, their arms are tight to their sides, like they're holding in all their rage or something like that. So yes, you can have a high conflict person that doesn't show it and doesn't yell and scream, but if they blame all or nothing thinking extreme behaviors, watch out. Speaker 1 (12:26): Yep. Yep. Uh, I think this, the terminology high conflict leads one to believe that it's, that it is loud and then learning those, uh, the unmanaged portion of the, of the four defining characteristics, um, leads us to believe that it's, it's loud, but yeah. So I hope that is helpful. Um, and answers your question. So let's go on to question number three. And this one is, is pretty interesting. Um, they all are, but my blamer has called the police on me three times I've been arrested, gone to jail, and thankfully had the charges dismissed and expunged. My blamer has called Child Protective Services on me four times. When there are outstanding child protective service investigations, which take months to resolve, my blamer uses it as a reason to withhold our child. My blamer is clearly an alienator. How do you stop this behavior? How do you stop an H C P from calling state authorities on you? Speaker 1 (13:28): No prosecutor will charge her with filing a false report. I'm already suing in civil court for damages, but this outcome will take years to conclude. And she's still making threats to call the police signed by a dad in distress. And I, you know, we've heard this many, many, many times. Um, I, we've had phone calls on Monday mornings, uh, with pleas of help that I ended up in jail over the weekend and I didn't really do anything, but I've been dealing with it. It's the other person that was doing this. So, uh, what do you do, bill? Speaker 2 (14:02): Well, this is, Speaker 1 (14:03): This is tricky. . Yeah, Speaker 2 (14:05): This is, this is a tough one. So my first response is, is what we do is try to educate professionals so they really know that there are people like this, people that do these kinds of behaviors, that there are blamers in the world who don't take responsibility and use the legal systems, the police systems, the court systems to really harass and abuse other individuals. And that this does exist. It's so frustrating to wake up the world. It's like, I want to turn a light switch on, everybody say, see, see what's going on. With that said, we also have to be cautious because when somebody says somebody else is acting badly, we also have to consider the possibility that the other person is acting badly. Maybe there's a, a reason, a good reason that Child Protective Services was called, or that there's other, uh, legal action, et cetera. Speaker 2 (15:14): So we don't know the situation, but our general approach, our general information, general tips, and this and that are for everyone to be aware of. But in this kind of case, sadly, I've had cases like this where they should not be calling Child Protective Services. They should not be calling the police. They should not be withholding a child. And so I have a lot of empathy for someone going through this. And it's just so hard because there's no quick fix until somebody in the picture understands what's going on. I like to say you need to get a grownup into your case in the decision making process, whether it's a judge or a psychological evaluator or CPS investigators, many of them figure these cases out. It just takes them a while. Um, but you wanna get a grownup, Speaker 1 (16:18): , you wanna get a grownup. And you know, sadly, even if you have an investigator who understands this and figures it out, you, you know, that doesn't prevent another case being opened, another complaint being made. And I've seen, as I'm sure you have too many cases that are, are tied up in investigation after investigation, after investigation. Um, so it, it, it can be very disheartening. Speaker 2 (16:45): But I, I have one more thought I wanna add is the legal system very slowly is starting to respond to some of this. So for example, in civil cases, there's the, um, vexatious litigant laws that say if somebody brings a meritless lawsuit seven times, then after that and they lose. So it's clear they're meritless that after that they have to get a judge's permission to file another lawsuit. And there's some states with laws like that, California's got a law like that, at least the last time I looked. Also, in rare occasions, they're setting limits on lawyers who are driving meritless cases and have sanctioned lawyers. Cuz usually if they're sanctions, it's against a party, but they're sanctioned lawyers and there's starting to be some cases like that. So what society has to learn and is starting to learn is there's people you really have to set limits on. We can't count on everybody, uh, managing themselves. And that's part of what we're trying to educate people about. Speaker 1 (17:58): Uh, exactly. Well, thank you Bill, and thank you again listeners for those great questions. I, I know that if you have these questions, there are many others that probably have very similar or almost identical questions. So we hope it's been helpful. Speaker 1 (18:19): We will be doing another episode next week answering more of your questions because so many have come in and they're just really great. So join us for that. And, uh, in the meantime, if you do have questions, send them to podcast high conflict institute.com or submit them to high conflict institute.com/podcast. And if you would tell your friends, family, and colleagues about us, we'd be very grateful. And if you could leave a review for us, that'd be great too. Until next week, keep learning, keep practicing these skills, be kind to yourself, be kind to others while we're all striving to find the missing piece. It's All Your Fault is A Protection 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 for high conflict institute.com/podcast. If your podcast app Laos ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.