Dealing with AD person

[alvar]

Hi there,
new here. I found and joined the forum while searching information on AD, I have a person close to me that, most likely has what seems to me as dismissive-avoidant attachment ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_in_adults#Dismissive-avoidant_attachment) disorder. I say this based on her history and what I know of her:

Her parents divorced while she was very young. The father, a brilliant science guy is incapable to express feelings and, from what I've gathered distanced himself from his daughters. Later he departed to America (we're here over the Atlantic ) with a new wife. He was never there for her.

The mother took the task of caring for the 2 daughters almost alone as if she was making a sacrifice, and the girls got to hear oftentimes both from the mother and grandma how much of a burden they were. She never had any serious relationship with another man until the girls left and from what I can see she was incapable of giving any discipline the girls. Both of them broke ties with the mother as adults for long periods...

She has been independent from an early age and living alone since 16. She has ended all her relationships with partners on her own initiative. She often keeps friends at distance when they do something "outrageous".
From my observations the process goes like this: she meets someone new (socially she is a sunshine) and gets all excited about that person, spends a lot of time /invests herself into that relationship. With time small things start to arise until she explodes with a list long of complains - some serious, some petty, most arranged and brought to light in order to justify her anger and shutting down the relationship. With best friends this happens too, with long intervals when they don't contact at all.

I've seen many of those explosions and took the task to find reasons for the others behavior that do not collide with her views - it took me time to realize how to do this in order to not be seen as aligned with the other or against her.
She also used those "explosions" to keep her mum at distance, allowing her to come close when she needed for help (like money). I am also under the impression that she used those "explosions" to demand more from the mother and at the same time expel her from her life (for a period) without feeling much guilt. On those moments she can bring up memories from 20 or more years ago.

In the past, before I found out what she had I suggested that she should seek treatment for her problem but she dismisses it as being a small thing that won't affect her quality of life and she can live it. Most likely she is afraid of dealing with it. I doubt I'll ever talk her into seeking professional help. If you guys have any strategies they're more than welcome.

As someone relatively close to her I am often the target of her "explosions". Way too many times I've reacted in what is probably the worst possible way, reinforcing her fears and adding fuel to the fire. I am trying to act on this and this is the main reason I turned to you. She is smart and has a strong rhetoric (unlike me) and will be able to blame me for almost anything she wants whenever she feels the need. We don't contact that often but we are bond to stick around for the next years.

My question to this board is what is best strategy to act with someone like this person.

[ghost]

hey alvar,
welcome!
i think thumper had such good advice..
when you're on the receiving end of 'explosions' it must be hard to be objective and realize that they come from a real core of overwhelming feelings that she probably can not sort out alone.. none of us here are 'pros'.. just other folks with ad (i'm fearful/avoidant but 'dismissive' in that i have successfully pushed away everyone but my hubby & son and literally moved 1000 miles away from everyone/everything i knew!) but to me there were valid reasons.. it must be very difficult for your friend to interact with her mother, for example.. so when she needs money or something from her it undoubtedly wrecks havoc emotionally.. to have to 'be nice' to someone who did such early damage, she learned it was shameful to depend on her mom.. so she will feel shame at a toxic level having to depend on her as an adult, yet also still long to be able to.. conflict again when she knows inside that she is falsely 'being nice' to get money.. her self esteem will suffer..

sometimes we AD people really do require alot of space.. we use all we know to try to feel the security we didn't get handed to us like most 'normal' people who get to take it for granted.. it often means blasting people away when we are feeling pain.. think of a cornered animal..

i'm afraid even if your friend went to a professional it is no guarantee they would know what to do with her attachment disorder, it is still being figured out and not many specialize in AD treatment.. and when they do often it is just for children (RAD)..

my suggestion to you is that you set a boundary for yourself so that you are not getting hurt over and over, and let her know what you may have said in anger was just that, said in anger..
maybe mention there is such a thing as AD.. it's a whole wide spectrum of us out here, who know what it feels like to be in her position.. ?

hope we can help..
ghost

[alvar]

Hi guys. Thanks for all the replies so far, this is great!
I'll read through your answers (only had a chance to scan, so far) and add further information later on. Like mandy says I've got a really big prob to get her to even acknowledge such problem and I find myself angry at her bc she won't ever acknowledge or apologize for such behavior. She does change her behavior after the outbursts are over (or explosions, I really struggle to find the appropriate term here) being way more humble and accommodating of other pov's and I do see that as a form of apology but she'll always deny it.

Once again, thanks so much.

[alvar]

Indeed thumper,
she has very good acting skills.

One thing she always resented was that during our crises I would block and would not produce much of a reaction (I have my own issues and am not much of an asserted person) and afterwards I would never take the initiative of building bridges. Instead it was always her reaching for a compromise.

The other week he had another argument, this time over the phone - I think the last time we've argued this strong had been in August and she gave me the usual stuff - just that her arguments seem more of nitpicking this time; in other words she wanted to push me away and didn't have much to blame me because her emotions were raw and, to be fair, I have been doing my work.
I was satisfied because of the poorness of her arguments and being able to reply and, for once, stooding my feet, but afterwards she called me and noted that "again is me taking the initiative to sort things out". I do see what you guys mean and how this is a huge thing.

So this week she was cold on Monday when we met for 5 minutes and brought me cold words and new demands (for this I wasn't prepared, somehow she always gets me unprepared), demands to which I could not give a satisfactory reply. On Friday she called again and he had a harsh argument for some 15 minutes - she brought up things like I had said long ago "you're just like your mum". This time I had done some thinking and was reasonably able to assert myself and not go personal on her. She later charged me that I was not looking at all for a solution rather deny all of her requests, when I called her back. And this is what I think made the difference: i called her back to sort things out and offer a solution she found satisfactory in the short term although far from what she wanted (and one that she had refused on Monday even though she'd probably swear to not hear it before.)

Yesterday, we met for 1½ hours to catch with some work left behind and he had an okay time, she even made a confidence about a common acquaintance that she "was not supposed to share". I think it was important that I went back to our discussion and said that she is not like her mum. I think this was particularly important to her because she also gave her on reasoning on the subject. Still, I continue to find myself at loss when negotiating with her and can see that once that she finds herself in a thigh spot (not necessarily from my end) she might come and ask for something else from me.

[alvar]

I think one of the things that worries me, or worried me most in a recent past, was seeing myself in the role of her mum.

Her mum was rejected from both girls and every time "she" allowed the mum to approach her, the mother would inevitably over do it (trying too hard to please) and step on her shoes. Like her I am also very insecure and only recently it stroke me that worrying about what she thinks of me (like most social phobics do...) was an invitation for her to disrespect me.

Like ghost says above, setting a boundary for myself is very important and I learned in August to not do anything that I might be uncomfortable with. (I had bought something small on her behalf, and when I need her permission to retrieve stuff for a client, in the midst of one of our fights, she demanded the small sum as a ransom - would otherwise be a fair, or even petty compensation but not in such circumstances. Even when things were back to normal she indirectly confirmed, out of her own initiative, that she did not own me anything.)

I have since decided that I am not doing any such favor to her, unless she is sick and needs groceries (twice since). The problem is that when she is nice, she is really nice, and I find it hard to say no. Say, if she was to ask me yesterday if, on my way, I could go by the shop and get her something I'd have a hard time saying no.

I guess that, just like children, I need to make clear what are the effects of her misbehavior as soon as I decide that her actions won't go without consequences. At the same time I need to make sure that it does not come across as vengeance. Though...

[alvar]

"you must be yourself, at all times, dont ever change yourself."

I absolutely agree with the first part of your sentence, but don't you believe that one can change for his/herself?

If you're saying that one should not change to accommodate the other I wholeheartedly agree with you.

In my case I want to change because I am not happy with myself. I am not happy to be passive, to procrastinate in front of the computer (not now), to do what I am told way too many times, to underachieve or to be a lousy person - that I am way too many times, but not as often as I used to be.

I quite like a sentence that goes like this "have the ability to change what I can change and accept what I can't"... I am not sure

Thumper, I'd appreciate to know where/how in my post do you read that i'd like to change for someone else. If you read it, them there is a chance that I might also think that way, even if at some unconscious level and I might learn a bit more about myself.

And thanks also for the nastiness reminder. Yeah, she can be and act nasty when she wants and should not be excused because of her problems. I am the kind of person that forgets these kind of things when I have a good interaction with someone.

[alvar]

Yes, it does make sense.
The example from your friend is scary

The hard part is to figure what I can change and what I can not. I have always looked for excuses and justifications for my behavior and got it so ingrained in me that I find it hard to see who am I in reality. And what if I am just this weak and fearful person that I have been for the last 25 years - apparently I was quite talkative and almost fearless as a very young child.

I mean, I can't really be this wuss person that looks at a girl in a bar and gets looked back many times and does not act because he doesn't really know how to start conversation with her and is afraid - this happened last friday. I've read on social phobia, interaction, even tried to understand how women's mind see things in this kind of situations (and other kind of social interactions) but I can't get past my own irrational and in cases like this, clearly overblown fears.

I can live with being an introvert, analytical, calm and circumspect kind of person (but maybe I still have problems accepting that) but I really cannot accept that I am like this: fearful to beyond what is reasonable, sometimes totally paralyzed by my own fears and expectations, a person unable to accomplish much.

I am again at it and as soon as I tell myself that I need to work on something (like working on my mental attitude and challenging my fears) I start compiling a long list of things that I need to act on too: my body language, my voice, learning and understanding conversation, and so on, and so on...
Or I look for more information that I need to read before I can act on. The usual procrastination thing... how do you guys get past this and start acting on something?

[alvar]

Does it look like I've been away, thumper?

You're right, I always try too hard to move on and expect too much from myself. When that does not work (by chance, action or as was the case inaction) I put myself down; that is perhaps the worst offense. Instead of learning to cope with it I too often let it dictate how I will feel and act for the rest of the day/event.

In front of me I have a book that I found today and bought 12 years ago at a book fair some thousand of kms away from here. It's titled "the fear of others" and back than I had just been told about my phobia by a psychologist from the navy.

12 years on I've accomplished many things that I am very proud, failed at many too, and allowed myself to defeate myself by preventing me from trying. And yet I still allow myself to get drawn in thinking that nothing has changed or that I haven't gotten very far.

I'll start all over with the book and I'll try to keep your advice in mind. Thanks once again.

[alvar]

One thing Ive noticed is that when things go well I find myself to be way better than I really am (or am able to stood) and put a lot of pressure and expectations on myself. I am now slowly trying to allow for me to not meet my goals or even fail at my tasks. Felt a lot better this week and even got to achieve a few goals, so let's see if my expectations don't play tricks on me for the next days.



Going back to the subject of this thread, what can I expect from her now that I am passing the message that the power she held over me is starting to erode and that her abusive behavior is not tolerated? Eg., I don't bother much anymore of what she might think of me; I say NO more often and am getting more comfortable saying it, when she asks for something that requires going out of my way; I am not making concessions when she acts angrily.

I know she wants some things from me (that might even be fair, but that my current life conditions don't allow) and when we discussed them a couple of weeks she settled for an intermediate solution. A couple days she charged again, so we are bound to have to deal with it for a long time, unless I give in.

The good news is that after the f2f altercation for 10 minutes I went away and called her back within 10 minutes, it probably has some meaning since she always complained it had to be her to start sorting out things.
Still I have a hard time keeping my ground, I give away a lot of weaponry for her arguments with stupid remarks and I am not even able to rebut properly her shaky arguments.

But moving on, things seem to be improving.

[ghost]

alvar,
hi again..

i remembered this technique i read about in a book about borderline personality called 'i hate you, don't leave me' from years ago.. it's called the SET technique - making it easy to remember.. and i think it helps with communicating with anyone with attachment issues, not just bpd..

sounds like you're already setting a healthier boundary for yourself, that's great! maybe this will help even more, i hope?
it's just a specific way to respond in difficult situations to the person that addresses their unspoken needs for first: support, second: empathy and third: truth.. it really helps when you are setting a boundary but want to not sound like you are cutting the person off.. it is designed to make sure the person first knows they are heard, cared for and then told a truth/reality..

here's a link i found about it:
bpd.about.com/od/forfriendsandfamily/a/SET.htm

it sounds simplistic, but it is a great tool..

ghost

[alvar]

Cheers ghost for that link and info, it really looks like a tool I can use.