Passive Aggressive Abuse

Discussion in 'The Lounge' started by jazzabel, Mar 21, 2014.

  1. Lewdog

    Lewdog Come ova here and give me kisses! Supporter Contributor

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    I've known other cutters that got together too. I met a girl once that said her and her boyfriend were really into blood sex. Yeah it is pretty much what you imagine it is.

    Unfortunately there are just some groups of people that can't be cured. One group of that about 99% of therapist will agree on, are sexual offenders. Maybe, just maybe at some point in their life they might be able to hide their problem, but it will treatment will never help them to get rid of their thoughts. There have been some sexual offenders that have gone as long as 50 years between crimes, but it never went away.
     
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  2. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    I'm not going quite that far. I, personally, would never invest the effort into trying to cure a real hoarder, or invest the hope and heartbreak into hoping that they can be cured, but that doesn't mean that they can't be cured.

    I suppose I might bring in the term "dry drunk", which as I understand it refers to an alcoholic who is not drinking, but who has not done the work to disassemble the mental/emotional/psychological underpinnings of their alcoholism.

    A real hoarder, to recover, is going to have to do a similar job of disassembly--they're going to have to tear apart and rebuild their entire mental/emotional/psychological/interpersonal landscape. Until they accept the need to do that, and get deep into that very painful work, then even if the house somehow gets clean, they're going to be what I suppose I could call a "dry hoarder". They'll probably resume hoarding, and even if they don't, they will still interact with others, and with their own life, as a hoarder.
     
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  3. jazzabel

    jazzabel Agent Provocateur Contributor

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    Hoarding behaviour can be cured in some people, in others it can't. It's worth mentioning that chronic depression and psychosis, as well as dementia, can also give rise to hoarding, and you can judge how effective the treatment is (with medication) by the state of their house and self-care, amongst other things.

    People whose hoarding is a consequence of OCD (so fixated on unimportant details that they never actually manage to clean up or throw away the hoard) can be successfully treated, medication like Prozac often gives excellent results in alleviating the symptoms, and if hoarding tendencies return or increase, it's a sign of relapse. But like someone mentioned before, these types of hoarders usually have ample insight into their problem and actually want to change. I don't know what percentage of hoarders are like this, but they can be fairly easily recognised during mental state examination, and I'm sure they are the ones most likely to put help into good use.
     
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2014
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  4. Mckk

    Mckk Member Supporter Contributor

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    I have no idea what blood sex could possibly be, and am too terrified to google it... Have sex while you're bleeding...?

    So would you say sexual offenders are in the same sort of category as an alcoholic? Cus I remember reading a recovered alcoholic who was explaining how, even though she's completely clean and she *can* enjoy a glass of wine and only drink one, she never forgets that she is an alcoholic, and she doesn't say that she "was" one, but that she is, to acknowledge that that tendency is always there and she must never become lax. She also continues to go to support groups for alcoholism to learn, to keep herself on guard, as well as to encourage. Or something similar to depression - I also heard that once you've been depressed once, even the recovered individuals always have to guard themselves against it. I'm not sure what is the right term - because they are recovered and doing well, but at the same time they're never recovered.
     
  5. Lewdog

    Lewdog Come ova here and give me kisses! Supporter Contributor

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    It's pretty much a vogue thing to say in the world of psychology, one is never cured, but always working on recovery.
     
    Last edited: Mar 24, 2014
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  6. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    Alcoholism begins when it is triggered. The drug is rewarding and the addict keeps seeking the reward even if it is eventually not achieved. Chasing the elusive butterfly is a metaphor for trying to get that high that you initially experienced.

    Sexual offenders, if a trigger is involved, it would likely be something that happened much earlier on and it's a different process.
     
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  7. jazzabel

    jazzabel Agent Provocateur Contributor

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    @Mckk : Not all people who suffered with clinical depression have a recurrence. Typically for first episode, if there are stress factors present and no significant family history of mood disorders, after six months of being symptom free, we start decreasing medication to see if the treatment can be stopped. If not, the treatment continues for a year or 18 months, but at this point, if the patient recovered and are well off medication, it doesn't automatically mean they'll relapse. However, those who can't be weaned off meds after 18 months, or those with pas medical history of mood disorders, or family history of the same, are considered to have chronic depression and need to watch for relapses.

    Sex offenders are not like alcoholics at all, they are violent criminals who often commit crimes under the influence, because alcohol gives 'Dutch courage' but their libidinal and violent drives have different psychopathology. Alcoholism runs in families, there are addictive and dependant personality traits present, but also alcohol initially helps reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression (form of self-medication) and ends up compounding a problem. It's been estimated that a (forgot the number, but over 20%) proportion of alcoholics actually have primary anxiety disorders, but by the time they present to a doctor, it's impossible to separate the two.
     
    Last edited: Mar 24, 2014
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  8. MLM

    MLM Banned for trolling

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    I've noticed a lot of people confuse what passive-aggression is: hostility expressed by doing nothing or not doing something. Aggression expressed through indirect ways is just aggression expressed through indirect ways.
     
  9. Cogito

    Cogito Former Mod, Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Not quite. Passive aggression is seemingly innocent o clumsy actions which are nevertheless troublesome or harmful toward a specific target. Passive aggression is based on plausible deniability.

    Passive aggression is subtle, or sometimes not-so-subtle, sabotage. In many cases, it's not even a matter of hiding intent so much as defying the target to prove there was intent.

    My son used to be a sysadmin at a company whose owner never took vacations. Without fail, when my son was with family for a holiday, that owner would fiddle with the servers resulting in a crash, that would force my son to interrupt the holiday to fix the problem.

    Nothing that could be proven an aggressive act, but the owner clearly resented employees taking personal time, so he would "accidentally" create emergencies that interfered with employees' free time.
     
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  10. jazzabel

    jazzabel Agent Provocateur Contributor

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    @MLM : Cogito explained it really well. The motivation for passive aggression is resentment, rage, hate, all the negative emotions (and passive aggressive people have very intense negative emotions) and the passive aggressive act is effectively acting out. But while someone might shout, break a wall, create a scene, a passive aggressive will provoke you with a smile on their face, and once you lose it, will pretend to be completely innocent, while deep down will revel in the fact other people now think you are a problem. They are also likely to be playing a victim in order to get others emotionally involved against you. Passive aggression is also used defensively, when 'attack is the best defence' but again, it won't be done directly, and intention will be to repel.
     
  11. Andrae Smith

    Andrae Smith Bestselling Author|Editor|Writing Coach Contributor

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    Can a person be both passive aggressive and openly hostile? Not at the exact same time, but can/do passive aggressive people ever show open hostility. After reading, I feel like some of many of these traits describe someone close to me, but they are also openly aggressive at times. Said person may be suffering from something else with similar "symptoms"/indicators, though.

    Edit: Maybe they've adopted passive aggressive traits as a result of interactions with certain toxic peoples? (e.g. parents, family, past relationship)

    Edit again: Hmmm. Hadn't read down to the comments about OCD and OCPD... Not trying to do an amateur diagnosis; this is just interesting.
     
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2014
  12. MLM

    MLM Banned for trolling

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    I think people can only have one personality trait at a time. :p
     
  13. jazzabel

    jazzabel Agent Provocateur Contributor

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    Yes, passive aggressive people can and are openly aggressive, particularly when their behaviour gets exposed and they can't backtrack or regain the manipulative power they had. This in fact happens to them regularly. Personality traits, characteristics and disorders never exist in isolation, so it's common to see a passive aggressive individual who is also narcissistic and obsessive, or a paranoid person with avoidant and dependant traits, basically, the many personality traits mix and match to create unique individuals. Furthermore, passive-aggressive behaviour is a normal defence mechanism in older children and teenagers, it's only when it persists, in a pronounced form, into the adult years, that we call it a trait or a disorder. And you are right, toxic relationships within the family of origin are usually the reason why people develop passive aggressive traits in adulthood.

    The most verbally vile and aggressive patients I've ever had, who also looked extremely threatening when they'd lose it, were people within the forensic psychiatric system who had passive aggressive personality disorder. Also, borderline personality is the extreme expression of passive aggression, amongst other things, and it usually fluctuates between self-harm and aggressive and emotionally unstable behaviour towards others. All these are fascinating expressions of rage which stem from childhood, and everyone can relate to these 'tantrums' on some level, but it's the people who can't get away from that type of thinking and behaviour, who are consumed by their envies, and rages, hatreds, frustrations and who go around riling people up all the time, 'splitting' so they are excessively nice whilst talking nasty about someone else, never accepting responsibility for their actions, that have a problem.

    I'm really glad you find it interesting, I love psychiatry and never get bored of it, so if you want to know more about any disorder, just google it, you'll find lots of interesting info. It helps with character creation as well :)
     
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2014
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  14. Andrae Smith

    Andrae Smith Bestselling Author|Editor|Writing Coach Contributor

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    @jazzabel thanks for the well-written explanation. I feel like I just read an excerpt from science journal. Maybe you should write more often about psychiatry and other areas of medicine. Just a thought. ;)

    I will have to look this up more in my spare time. In the meantime, I'll be following this thread, getting me one o' them edumacations.

    I'm sure this understanding of people really helps you write your characters. Maybe I'll delve into psychology in future classes.
     
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  15. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    @Cogito -
    That is SO true. The most able practitioners of this type of aggression always retreat behind: that's not what I said, that's not what I meant, how could you even THINK that....huff huff huff or sob sob sob.

    The best way to deal with this, is just to carry on. You don't have to 'prove' anything at all. You know the truth, and can act accordingly. You've said your piece, they KNOW you know. Let them pretend to be offended, hurt, whatever. It's part of their game. You win if you don't let their outrage affect you.

    It's kind of like dealing with blackmail. The tactics only work if you allow yourself to be manipulated. Refuse to feel guilty or back down, and they have no way back. They'll need to up their aggression in order to beat you, and that means they'll need to leave the safety of their hiding place and reveal their true intent. And it becomes another scenario altogether.
     
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2014
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  16. jazzabel

    jazzabel Agent Provocateur Contributor

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    Aw, thanks @Andrae Smith psychiatry's been my vocation for a long time, not just a job, so it's very easy to get me to talk about it. These days, I find it effortless to just answer questions or briefly introduce a topic when I feel like it, without the added complication of having to write comprehensively, or on schedule, which would feel too much like work. :)
     
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  17. Cogito

    Cogito Former Mod, Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Absolutely. My (long divorced) mother had a boyfriend when I was in high school, a beefy, former Army sergeant who was accustomed to throwing his weight around. I had dared to disagree with him in a discussion among the three of us; I don't remember what the topic was. A couple hours later, he"happened" to run into me down in the back yard. He told me, "Don't ever talk to me like that again." He was holding a rifle, pointed down, but angled ever so slightly toward me. Was he openly hostile? Absolutely. Was he threatening me with the gun? Not overtly, but yes. That was a form of passive aggression also, where he could say he never threatened me with the gun. He just had it with him, which was not unusual. But for me, alone with him, the threat was chillingly clear.

    This was not the only incident with him, oh no indeed! I could never had gotten better training in the range of human aggression for any tuition fee than from that asshole.
     
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  18. Andrae Smith

    Andrae Smith Bestselling Author|Editor|Writing Coach Contributor

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    Wow... that kinda puts things in perspective. I'm sorry you went through that ad other incidents. I'm glad that they've helped you become wiser--or at least much more experienced. :oops:
     
  19. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Wow. That's a pretty horrific story. I'm sorry you had to live with that. I hope karma caught him, in the end...
     
  20. jazzabel

    jazzabel Agent Provocateur Contributor

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    Sorry to hear that @Cogito. I'm glad your mum got rid of him. Excellent example though.
     
  21. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    Somehow I don't think all passive aggressive manipulative people and/or saboteurs (we probably all know one or more) are necessarily angry and full of rage. Sometimes people just develop a particular personality trait that avoids direct confrontation and/or that is manipulative.

    From the Mayo Clinic:

    I suppose if one sees the very dysfunctional end of the spectrum it can seem like there is always rage there. But the grandmother who tells the family, 'don't worry about me, I don't mind being alone' when she does isn't necessarily full of rage because she feels neglected.
     
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  22. jazzabel

    jazzabel Agent Provocateur Contributor

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    @Andrae Smith : Another interesting concept regarding aggression in this context is narcissistic rage. Almost everyone has witnessed this - someone explodes at a perceived personal injury, such as criticism or not giving them the response they want, which also upsets them on a deeper level by challenging their self-esteem. So they shout, twist their faces in ugly grimaces whilst they do it, and make groundless accusations, or put words in your mouth so they can bash you. This rage has only one motivation - revenge. A psychologist called Heinz Kohut did a lot of work in this area, and he talked about narcissists perceiving their anger as a noble cause, a need to right a wrong and undo the damage that was done by the injurious comment or a remark. They are so motivated by this threat, that their rage continues way after the threat is gone. So they hold grudges and pursue their 'attacker' out of sense of victimisation, and need to rebuild their self esteem.

    The problem with being a narcissist is that you have no awareness of being one, and even less so when you are 'raging'. People use the word 'narcissistic' in regular speech often, but true narcissism, if acknowledged by a narcissist, can totally shatter them. The theory goes that narcissism is a compensatory mechanism some children develop in response to not being loved and cared for. So the excessive self-love, which carries on into adulthood, holds their fragile ego together, but it being fragile, it's threatened by a lot of things, even very minor ones. So in this concoction of passive aggressive traits or personality disorder, perfectionism or pseudo-perfectionism (perfectionism exercised for the sake of controlling others, such as some hoarders we discussed before), we can add the narcissistic rage which is also a common component.
     
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2014
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  23. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Yeah, I agree with this. I'm no psychologist, but I've always thought of passive-aggressive behaviour not so much as an expression of rage, but as a tool certain people use to get what they want.

    I suppose suppressed rage comes into the more extreme cases, but I think it's often either just habit, or a way for individuals to 'ask' for what they want without having to confront anybody. They're often the kind of people who don't like taking risks, or just want it all to 'go away.'

    If I agree to clean my room, but then don't ever get around to it, 'she' will just give up and clean it herself—and I won't have to.

    This puts the onus on the other person, to MAKE somebody do what they don't want to do. And depending on what the other person is like, they just might not be able to find a way. So they end up doing the work themselves, letting the passive-aggressor off the hook.

    Of course that doesn't cover the people who are passive-aggressive 'stirrers.' People who like to feel powerful by surreptitiously stirring the pot and watching others get upset. That's a different kettle of fish, and probably does involve rage at a very deep level.
     
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2014
  24. Andrae Smith

    Andrae Smith Bestselling Author|Editor|Writing Coach Contributor

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    I'm going to be honest with you... The person close to me to whom I referred earlier is my mom. She's been having a lot of issues lately (none of which are really new, but they're really showing now), and a lot of what you've said applies to her... not just in this post, but in others. Again, I'm not trying to diagnose her like I know something, but this is more fascinating because it helps me conceptualize things that she might be dealing with. She's had a pretty dark past being openly rejected and unloved, picked on, and more--and all because she was an accident at a time when my family was broke, judgmental, and rather immature... later she ended up in more than one toxic relationship (the first of which that I know of fortunately produced me and my oldest sister, and the last of which spanned many years and produced my "youngest" sister).

    Without putting her business out there, she's had a hard past and she's having a lot of trouble reconciling it and dealing with it. Her self-esteem is always at stake and she is always so demanding and defensive... I worry for her. She was receiving professional help, but for some reason wouldn't take her medicine. I realize that it's more complex than looking at behavior and causes and saying "oh yeah she's got this," and that's what I'm not trying to do. But like I said, this gives me a better idea what she's going through. I mean, she's fairly normal giving the circumstances surrounding her... by normal I mean professionals could probably help her.

    It would seem my interest is far more invested than I wanted to admit, but at this point, I'm just trying to understand people...the mind is incredibly complex...
     
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  25. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I've been thinking about this issue a lot. Ignoring the more serious cases, such as @Cogito's example and @Andrae Smith's mother, I just remembered something about passive-aggressive people I've known in my life.

    Have you ever noticed, in a social situation, how they dominate the room? Everybody else seems to hold back, waiting for this person to react to what's happening. Conversation changes or stops when they enter the room. It's almost as if all the 'normal' people instinctively recognise that this person holds the power—either to derail the conversation, nullify what's been said, throw a wet blanket over plans ...in other words, poop the party. And when they don't do these things, but appear to go along with the programme in a jolly fashion, how everybody relaxes and starts to have fun? Which, of course, can be a BIG mistake ...as these people can turn on a dime.

    Strange too, how a certain segment of 'the group' will fall all over themselves trying to 'please' this person. And so their court builds.

    It's pretty funny to watch, once you twig what's happening. But in certain circles, your insight will NOT make you popular.

    These folks are adept at treading the tightrope. They will definitely resort to fake hurt and fake outrage if you call them out. And there will invariably be people who don't see through the tactics, and will side with them.

    I avoid these people like the plague. It's a lose/lose situation getting involved with them.

    These people make GREAT story characters, by the way!
     
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