'needing To Fuck Everything Up' Personality Disorder

[hummm_mabbe]

yep i imagine it is that...but sometimes that can be so difficult coz for example i can be with a guy i like and all will be fine and suddenly i will say really nasty thing and break everything...or even do a really nasty thing.or with my friends it is the same.and i break all the relations i have to people like that.i mean what can u do against that?

I dont know what you can do, because you do that for your own uniqur reasons. People can always provide suggestions which, at one time or another, may or may not work. But they do nothing to get to the underlying reason why all this stuff hangs together as it does for you. You can treat the symtpom and ignore the underlying cause. By doing this, its much more likely to come back than if you pick away the supporting foundations. When you behave that way towards guys, you will feel a certain sensation before, during and after. Your own, individual emotional make up is what drives your behaviours and feelings. The diagnosis "BPD" is only a set of externally identifiable symptoms that psychiatrists chose to lump together because statisitcally it seemed to them that those symtoms tended to appear together more often than not. Statistical significance is "anything greater than chance" - so even if 20% of people they saw displayed those symptoms together, when 'chance' was 14%, then that is 'significant'. That is essentially how DSM diagnoses work - hence "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual"

However, as you will see just by reading this forum, no two people diagnosed with BPD actually ARE identical. In fact, given that to be dx'd with BPD you only need to show 5 out of 9 sytmpoms from the list, its possible to find two people both with the same diagnosis that share only ONE common symptom. This is why there are so many calls to revise and even scrap the DSM - in reality there is such enormous variation that as a tool to help people get the treatment they need, the DSM is not helpful. Add to this the fact that almost all people diagnosed with one personality disorder can easily fit others, it soon becomes clear that the DSm diagnoses are only snapshots of what a very limited, and perhaps non-existent, cross section of people actually present.

This is because people are individuals and emotional problems do not divide up neatly into medical classification in the same way that biological illnesses like diabetes do. Psychological diagnoses are a system designed by psychiatrists - a construct. This means that just because you are 'diagnosed with BPD', there does not automatically appear a given set of instructions on how to become happy or 'not ill anymore'.

The route to feeling happy again will mirror the route that brought you to feeling unhappy in the first place. Your sudden urge to abuse boyfriends is an emotional impulse that is there for a good reason - part of one of your cycles, and will involve the emotional needs of either safety, acceptance, self-esteem, autonomy, self-expression and so on. Human beings are trade offs between those needs. For example, a girl may NEED to feel close and loved, yet feel that it is dangerous to have anyone truly know her, due to abuse or neglect in her childhood. She may not feel worthy of true love because she was froazen out by her family. She may begin to feel that warmth of closeness and then be reminded of how she was made to feel as a child, and instead of feeling close she may lash out to preserve her safety or autonomy. Still another girl, said to have narcissistic tendnecies, may actually want admiration and not intimacy, and then in fact devalue the guy when he shows he likes her. Narcissists have their own set of experiences that drive this behaviour, but even then no two 'narcissists' will do this the same way or to the same extent. Everyone is different, but their behaviour is based on some unique combination of the balance or imbalance of emotional needs. It is not a chemical imbalance but an emotional imbalance, IMO. On top of this the behaviours of the guy, the prevailing mood of the moment, even the amount to which the guys behaviour may remind of her of one or other parent can affect the response, and that response may be different from one day to another. This is the nature of human variation and no diagnosis can truly capture it - though it can lead us in general directions - the Motorways which lead us to the more important A and B roads.

Some people are more stuck than others. Fear can cause us to view the past with rose tinted spectacles and block out the reality of what we were denied by our pasts, and block out abuses with phrases such as "well I was stupid, I misbehaved - I deserved to be hit". Or "I was too sensitive - how could my parents have really listend to me? I always had too many problems". Self blame effectively saves us from ever having to look the terrifying prospect that our parents were not perfect in the face, and in so doing stops us ever looking at the real cycles we live out every day yet "cannot seem to understand where they come from".

No one can tell you how to stop what you do with guys until they understand you as a person and what your feelings of love, safety and acceptance are based on. Many people with personality disordered type symtpoms never received the genuine actions of love - eg the right to express who they really are, including the 'unwanted emotions' such as anger or sadness. The right to say how they are feeling, whether it upsets or angers mummie or daddie or not. The right to say "you have upset me" instead of hearing "go to your room, you know mummie is always right". These are all the subtle indicators of what you mean in the world and you carry them around with you for your life. No two people had the same upbringing or experiences, and that is why you cannot say "This person is BPD, so therefore will act like this and just apply x, y and z and you will be cured". The human emotional system is too complex to be reduced in the way that many people think it can be.

As a caveat I should say that this is my opinion based on my experience over the last 10 years and an awful lot of reading and trying many many different approaches. Its what seems right to me, but of course other folks will have different takes!

[mimi1227]

wow i think what u are saying is true.the thing is i have just been diagonised and starting to learn about all that.and i was hoping that now that i know it it will go away but am starting to realize that that s not the case as am feeling worth and worth.but when you talk about parents...that is my soft spot...my parents have never abused me...but i have always thought they are perfect and as soon as somebody says sth about them i can even become violent.i have always thought that all has been my mistake.but lately i have been realising a lot of things about my childhood...and that really hurts but i don't want to admit myself that my parents aren't perfect because i don't want to hurt them as i always have done.they have always tried to help me and be here for me.it's just that at the moment i dont understand anything and am feeling worth than have ever felt before.i which all that could just be easier.

what i do wonder is if all that will get better one day. :blink:

[hummm_mabbe]

wow i think what u are saying is true.the thing is i have just been diagonised and starting to learn about all that.and i was hoping that now that i know it it will go away but am starting to realize that that s not the case as am feeling worth and worth.but when you talk about parents...that is my soft spot...my parents have never abused me...but i have always thought they are perfect and as soon as somebody says sth about them i can even become violent.i have always thought that all has been my mistake.but lately i have been realising a lot of things about my childhood...and that really hurts but i don't want to admit myself that my parents aren't perfect because i don't want to hurt them as i always have done.they have always tried to help me and be here for me.it's just that at the moment i dont understand anything and am feeling worth than have ever felt before.i which all that could just be easier.

what i do wonder is if all that will get better one day.

Hi mimi

A diagnosis is only the very first step - I am sorry to tell you that. What it does give you however is a direction. It is common to feel worse before you feel better. I did, very much. Making slow realisations about our pasts is horrible - but with time we begin to see them as the path to feeling better.

I think that you are going about this in the right way. For me, I have been through the process you are just starting, and its easier for me to be seemingly negative about my parents. What I have been trying to do is get to "what was reality". When I started, I too was at the 'they did their best', and it was very upsetting and anger making to hear the opposite said.

As I began to look deeper, my view swung to the opposite - I became VERY angry, but at them. The pendulum went from one to the other. How did I manage to get myself to the 'shift'?

The fact is, human babies, children and adults need a set amount of emotional inputs in order to be psychologically healthy. After years of child psychological research, we now have a good idea of what kind of home environments can cause emotional problems later, and they are the ones that in some way lack these core emotional needs. The key point is this - parents tend to pass on emotional deficits that were given to them by their own parents, and this happens almost out of conscious awareness - its the same as the cycles and surrogates that I spoke about before. These are the 'emotional givens' that you and I are born into, and essentially they are cross-generational - simply because of how emotional needs are handed down - or not.

Here is a list of emotional needs that a child NEEDS - not "would be nice to have" or "probably will muddle through if he doesnt get them - these are NEEDS, just like food, water and a roof over your head. The same studies of children done over their lives from birth to adult indicate that a shortfall in these emotional areas, that are not otherwise made up for in some other way (eg by a later relationship) lead to chronic emotional problems, in particular the Personality Disorders:

1. Basic Safety

2. Connection to Others

3. Autonomy

4. Self-esteem

5. Self-expression

6. Realistic Limits

I wont go into depth of what each of these are. If you google "core emotional needs" or, perhaps better, go HERE and view the slideshows on how emotional problems develop (it is based on 'schema theory' whioch is widely accepted across many type of psyhcotherapy as an accurate method of assessing emotional problems). Note that the holy grail of most pop-psychology books - self-esteem - is only ONE of those needs.

There are some key things then to realise about parenting in relation to your own illness.

The first is that it doesnt matter who you are or who you became, or what you think of yourself now - as a child, you were entitled to have these needs met. Not PERFECTLY and 100% all the time, but generally enough that you are able to be happy. The chromic absence of these needs is just as damaging as any actual abuse. In the area of Connection to Others and Self-Expression, the absence of validation (wiki definition: In psychology and human communication, validation is the reciprocated communication of respect which communicates that the other's opinions are acknowledged, respected, heard, and (regardless whether or not the listener actually agrees with the content), they are being treated with genuine respect as a legitimate expression of their feelings, rather than marginalized or dismissed.) is key to Personality Disorders - that is, feeling your emotions are all ok, that you can express them good or bad. That your reality is acknowledged. You are treated as a human being, as opposed to "just a child" whose views, emotions and needs are sidelined.

The second is that as children, we NEED to believe that our parents are 'all good'. If we thought they were bad, that would be the most terrifying thing for a child. So we develop the view that anything our parents did was always for the best. This is a psychologcial survival mechanism that is built into us to HELP US WHEN WE ARE CHILDREN. The problem is that, if reality is that our parents WERE bad people (hypothetically speaking), we still carry around this model that they were all good, or that the bad thins they did to us WERE OUR OWN FAULT. After all - if out parents HAVE to be all good, if they do something bad it must be someones fault, right? Thats where the chronic self-blame comes in. We were too sensitive. We whinged. We were drama queens. We could never sit still. We were stupid. If only we could have just been more like our big sis then we wouldnt have had to have been scolded, or told what to do all the time. If only we had had more control over our emotions then daddy wuldnt have had to have got angry at us and punished us. In this way, we are able to blame ourselves, for the whole of our lives, for some of the most unpleasant acts that we experienced at the hands of our parents. To accept that we were not to blame means letting that part of you that is still a little girl see that her parents may have been bad sometimes. On top of that, we may have learned that if we dare to complain or blame someone else, that we are shamed, ridiculed, rejected or guilted. We may not realise that other people who have healthy emotional responses CAN AND DO criticise their parents, and that the parents can react calmly because they realise that conflict is part of relationships. Conflict is the way of resolving painful imbalances, for example of power, in relationships. If this avenue is blocked off by shame and guilt, then you are being invalidated.

The third is that part of you knows what it needed, and didnt get. That part tells you every day that this is the case with depression, anxiety and pain. When we are chronically denied what we know, deep down, we are entitled to, we get ANGRY. But that anger, along with your true emotions and feelings, may have been buried because we learned not to complain, We learned what happened if we were too emotional. So as far as mum and dad are concerned, we do not express that anger, though we may FEEL it when we speak to them. Instead the anger leaks out at other 'safe' people - perhaps boyfriends or friends - anyone BUT your parents. The anger is there whether we like it or not because some part of us KNOWS that we have been denied what others received.

The fourth is that anger acts as a block. Buried under the anger is the hurt, the frutration, and all those feelings you had buried for all that time. You cant express the anger at the people who put it there, you cannot get what deep down you needed from them. You stay in a cycle, constantly hoping that your parents will change, and treat you how you always wanted - if only you could just act the right way, or do the right thing, or be the right person - perfect. But they dont change. And those things you needed never come, though you try and try and try and try. You blame yourself for not being able to become what you 'should be' and instead curse yourself for all that you are.

In short, you're STUCK. And this is where you come to the crossroads in your parental dilemma. In order to get to the underlying issues, you must first go through anger. In order to do that, you must let the anger out at those who put it there - instead of the 'safe' substitutes. In order to do that you must learn that there were things you ere entitled to that you were owed, and that ANYONE who failed to get them would have felt just as angry as you now do. Then of course you recognise WHO it was that failed to provide those things. Once you get your anger out, it is replaced by sadness. Its replaced by a care for the little girl you were and how she really felt growing up, before all the armour and masks of acceptability went on top. When you feel that sadness FINALLY you feel your loss, and you realise that there trult was something missing. It is only at this stage that you actually feel sympathy for yourself and that you had a right to feel angry. But at the same time, you are now freed from the emotions that were pent up, stored and corked off inside you - but leaked out around others.

You do not HAVE to express anger directly to your parents. Exploring feelings about them with a therapist does not have to involve them - though it is interesting to see just how powerful the guilt can be even in their absence. As you begin to talk about them, and how you really felt, you may find that other emotions come out - emotions you did not realise were there. Things begin to change within you. At this stage you may feel VERY VERY angry towards your parents, but you still dont have to tell them. But what it is important is that you are ALLOWED TO FEEL THE EMOTIONS THAT ARE TRULY THERE, unadultered and unaffected by the feeling that you 'shouldnt' be expressing them. Those emotions, whether you think they are there or not right now, are the ones that sit behind all those unexplainable actions, the sudden depressions, fears and paranoia.

Getting angry at your parents will not kill them. (If they threaten to kill themselves if you talk about it, then that is emotional blackmail and is simply evidence to sugegst that is the same way you were treated as a child). They can take it. Many people who go through this process do not even tell their parents - the whole process goes on in the therapy room - but most importantly, the liberation happens inside YOUR MIND.

before you start the journey, there is another barrier to be overcome. A natural self-defence mechanism called DISSOIACTION. This is when the body disconnects emotions and feelings from a moment, or from memories. We can think about things that 'should' upset us, and feel nothing when we remember them. Often they are memories that really SHOULD upset us. That is a clue that we have dissociated from them. The problem is that this can lead us to be conmvinced that we have dealt with the problem and that it doesnt need to be explored any further. The clue that it DOES need to be explored is the fear and even anger that comes up if someone should mention talking about it - and the resisitnce to exploring it that exists.

I have been going through this process for months, I started the same - didnt want to look at my parents. I still do get angry when someone else says things about them - thats natural. But at the same time they owed me certain emotional gifts that they failed to provide. My dad has finally admitted that, and my mum, well she is still stuck in her little world where it was all my fault and I was too sensitive. The thing is, now I know what she SHOULD have done, i can see much more clearly what she DIDNT do - and still refuses to do, or even acknowledge now. Her unwillingess to talk about it is the very proof that there was something to be talked about, and that there is something for her to be guilty of. As time goes on, that view is corroborated by my Dad, my sister and the things that come up in therapy. I was not severaly abused, or thrown around. I do not recall overt sexual abuse. But more and more I do see the signs of neglect and emotional abuse - but until I knew what I was MEANT to have got - the core emotional needs - to me it was just 'normality'. I had no benchmark. Once I did I could see how I was negelected, and then the anger became easier. The battle of guilt, fear and suppression was hard fought, but now Im at the end of it I can see that I was entitled to feel that way - corroborated by my dads admissions, my sisters feelings and the things that come up in therapy.

Your parents may have just been acting out of their own pasts. Can we say they are to blame? If you did not change yourself, and 'accidentally' passed on the same emotional deficits to YOUR children, would you be to blame? If we shy away from ever placing blame, we instead continue to create more people with emotional problems. Parents may try their very hardest and say "I will never make my kids feel like I did". But their whole model of how an adult treats its child is buried away in the subconscious, a series of feelings, sensations a nd clips from a barely remembered past (especially if there are dissociated feelings involved). With the best will in the world, the human animal will pass on elelemts of what it learned - unless it changes and understands what was missing. Breaking the chain means placing blame where it belongs instead of handing on the baton. Having the courage to do that means liberating youro wn kids form the same problems you had. To bury and ignore them is to damn them to the same future. If this seems outrageous to you, then ask yourself the question. If we have already established that it was 'not your parents fault' that they acted how they did because they were treated badly by their own parents, do you really think they CHOSE to pass on the same emotional deficits to you? Or did it 'just happen'? Im sure they wanted nothing more than to not see you feel the way they may have, saying "my kids will never feel this way". But somehow, you did feel that way. Somehow they did pass it on and there's reservoir of anger in you that seems to have no source. What makes you sure that the same will not happen, when you have your own children, even though you too will want and promise that "you will never make them feel that way"? Handing back the baton now is painful and you are essentially being the first courageous one in generations of your family to do so. But you are also the first one to truly ensure that it will not be handed on.

Its hard, but ultimately it leads to freedom.

[hummm_mabbe]

Just to add

Something that comes up repeatedly with BPD is that there is a 'biological vulnerability' involved. Even schema therapy presumes this - however, there is till no actual evidence to show that this is the case, and neither psychiatrists nor neurologists have located any 'seat' of vulnerability in the brains of BPD sufferers. Much like a lot of badly reported science nowadays however, this has become an accepted truth, based not on scientifically proven fact, but simply on having heard it again and again.

What they HAVE observed is that, in people who are CURRENTLY suffering from the illness, that smaller areas of their brain 'light up' during certain tasks then usual. This is reported as "reduced brain area volume", though in fact all thats being observed is that less neurons in that area light up. This is flawed science for two basic reasons:

1) If you look at the mind of a pianist and then the mind of a non-pianist, you will note that a larger area of the mind dealing with the hands lights up in th painist than the non-pianist. However we do not say that the non pianist has 'reduced piano playing brain volume' - it is simply that the neuronal connections - FORMED BY THE DEVELOPMENT OF A TAUGHT AND LEARNED SKILL - have not been made in the non pianist - so we see a smaller area light up. If BPD sufferes never learned how to handle emotions because of a lack of key emotional inputs, it stands to reason that the areas of the brain assciated with those skills will light up less than in those who HAVE got those skills. This viewpoint is rarely reported however. Draw your own conclsions of the politics of Big Pharmaceutcial companies and the Psychiatrists they rely on for their profits ....

2) It fails to ask the 'chicken or the egg' question. Psychiatrists (a very different breed from psychologists) believe from the outset that all mental illneses are biological and have nothing to do with upbringing or emotional environment. So when they see the 'reduced brain areas' they take this as proof of the theory. The bad science comes in when you ask the question - "was the illness the result of the reduced brain volume, or was the reduced brain volume the result of the illness?". It is much like looking at someone with a cold. We know that the virus enters the body, takes root and causes symptoms, and if we look at that persons blood we see that it contains the virus. The state of their blood and the presnece of white blood cells - the bodies response - is the sign that a pathogen is present. We do not say that the white cells caused the cold - they are just a physical part of the bodies reaction. If it were the case that our emotional environment can affect our mood, then it is entirely possible that this will result in physical changes in the brain. I beleive we are looking at the neurochmical RESPONSE to the emotional input - and so do many psychological researchers and people whose incomes do not rely on the profits and research grants of multinational drug companies.

To understand how the emotional environment creates the biological mind, you may like to read a book called Why Love Matters by Sue Gerhardt . Gerhardt is a clinical psychologist who works to help mothers with depression and personality disorders look after their babies, and to overcome the problems they experience. It is a fantastic insight into how affection shapes the brain (based on a reservoir of verifiable research) and how when things go wrong, personality disorders and depression are the result. It may help you to understand more of why you are as you are and remove much of the guilt and shame.

[Hayz]

omg i thought it was just me!!!!!

[mimi1227]

thank you so much for all that explanations.it one of the first time that somebody explains me things in a way that they really make sense.i am following therapy and with my therapist we are starting to look into my past but most of the time i change the subject and start talking about other stuff.i should try to talk more about it with him but i guess that needs time.it is true that my dad has a very similar personality than me but in less strong reactions and more controlled.but he has had a bad childhood.and strangely enough a couple of weeks ago when i was drunk i was telling my friend how angry i am with my parents for so many reasons but the next day i just denied it and now i try just not to think about it.but thanx it helps me to read what u wrote.

[hummm_mabbe]

thank you so much for all that explanations.it one of the first time that somebody explains me things in a way that they really make sense.i am following therapy and with my therapist we are starting to look into my past but most of the time i change the subject and start talking about other stuff.i should try to talk more about it with him but i guess that needs time.it is true that my dad has a very similar personality than me but in less strong reactions and more controlled.but he has had a bad childhood.and strangely enough a couple of weeks ago when i was drunk i was telling my friend how angry i am with my parents for so many reasons but the next day i just denied it and now i try just not to think about it.but thanx it helps me to read what u wrote.

As you say, talking about it will come at your own pace, as will making sense of it. Most importantly, the inner changes to the way you feel, although it may seem now that they cannot happen, they can also come gradually too. You might like to say to your therapist openly that it makes you very uncomfortable to talk about your parents - I often find that somethin oddly paradoxical happens. If I tell my therapist something that isbothering me about her, or if I am angry at her, or she is making me uncomfortable, it actually makes that feeling go away. It like the moment I say something like "this makes me feel bad to talk about", and that is acknowledged, I actually feel more comfortable. Eventually getting to a stage where you can be completely honest about all feelings - good, bad and including ones directed at the therapist her/himself are especially important. When I started therapy this time out, I made myself a promise that I would not hold back ANYTHING, because I had hidden too much for too long. Honesty has been the best course of action for me (even wi9th the painfully embarrassing stuff and times when I have been raging at my therapist).

Im glad that you have a therapist who wants to talk about this stuff too. What type of therapy are you having?

Coming here to offload helps a ton as well

Ross

[hummm_mabbe]

omg i thought it was just me!!!!!

Nooooo tis me too!

My case in point for this week - things have started to really 'click' in therapy lately. So what do I do? Start a 'debate' with my therapist about how much psychiatrists (not psychotherapists) suck. She was really sweet and said "well there are some good ones, its just the bad ones give the others a bad rep!". So of course I reply with a full page email on why I think psychiatry is the greatest evil since Margaret Thatcher.

Why cant I just go "oh hey things are going well YAY" ?

Right, seeing as this thread seems to be going well, Im off to headbutt a sharp metal corner.

:wacko:

[joysmelody]

Two things come to mind here - one is the necessity - an actual force of nature - to repeat the original trauma at the core of the personality where one recreates the initial emotion of *being bad* *feeling worthless* *empty* *never good enough* *failure* - by inducing the exact dosage of hormonal/physiological responses in the mind and body, and 2 not allowing for the possibility (and probability that eludes most of us) that in fact these experiences are not just ruled by us and our choices but by a Higher Law, put into place, action and space for teaching us the lessons we need to be learning about ourselves and others - in most cases it is the very thing we fear the most.

At first glance it's a 2-tiered problem - or challenge - but it is 3 leveled most likely. The 3rd is the outcome and where the energy is placed. If the cycle of negative thinking/reacting/doing is perpetuated this results in self-defeatism and the dosages mentioned above - the same old feelings of not being worthy - but here is where there is potential for change - even after 1 and 2 are done and experienced in all their excruciating goriness - the outcome can still be changed by making a decision that the next time you will have a slightly different reaction to whatever comes your way. It's that introduction of awareness that begins to change the cogs of automation into wheels of cognition. Just a simple statement like - *OK - I fcked up this time. The next time this comes up, I'm going to just breathe before I speak, or say a prayer before I react - or what have you.* That little space is called possibility - and that is infinite - and that is the way to healing.

j

[hummm_mabbe]

Two things come to mind here - one is the necessity - an actual force of nature - to repeat the original trauma at the core of the personality where one recreates the initial emotion of *being bad* *feeling worthless* *empty* *never good enough* *failure* - by inducing the exact dosage of hormonal/physiological responses in the mind and body, and 2 not allowing for the possibility (and probability that eludes most of us) that in fact these experiences are not just ruled by us and our choices but by a Higher Law, put into place, action and space for teaching us the lessons we need to be learning about ourselves and others - in most cases it is the very thing we fear the most.

At first glance it's a 2-tiered problem - or challenge - but it is 3 leveled most likely. The 3rd is the outcome and where the energy is placed. If the cycle of negative thinking/reacting/doing is perpetuated this results in self-defeatism and the dosages mentioned above - the same old feelings of not being worthy - but here is where there is potential for change - even after 1 and 2 are done and experienced in all their excruciating goriness - the outcome can still be changed by making a decision that the next time you will have a slightly different reaction to whatever comes your way. It's that introduction of awareness that begins to change the cogs of automation into wheels of cognition. Just a simple statement like - *OK - I fcked up this time. The next time this comes up, I'm going to just breathe before I speak, or say a prayer before I react - or what have you.* That little space is called possibility - and that is infinite - and that is the way to healing.

j

Thank you

[hummm_mabbe]

Wasnt quite sure where to put this, but thought it would be a good thing to post.

I have been reading "The Games People Play" by Eric Berne. Its been around for some years, and whilst I'm not usually a fan of Transactional Analysis, he comes up with what might just be some useful 'shortcuts' to beginning to understand the cycles that a person might be living out, and indeed, keeping them stuck.

The most enlightening one in the book for me was the game called "The Alcoholic". It does not litrally apply to only people who are alcoholics - it might just as well be applied to those with addictions, (in fact another name for the game is "The Addict") be they substance or emotional addictions. I suddenly realised that my mum plays the role of "Alcoholic", but her drug of choice is sympathy. However, in the game, the "payoff" is not the drug itself, but the social AFTER effects. In this case - once in hangover, the alcoholic berates themself or is is perscuted, and self punsishes and asks for forgiveness either directly or indirectly for being so bad and awful. It is gaining that forgiveness that is the payoff - not the act of consuming the addiction (although this act does in itself have its own immediate payoffs, this is not the aim of the game.)

The game needs 5 people to play it - The 'alcoholic', the patsy, the persecutor, the rescuer and the connection. The same person can sometimes play multiple roles or even switch roles. This seems like my mums cycle:

1) Her 'drug' is sympathy. She seeks it by showing how pathetic or bad she is or by broadcasting her latest disaster, of which there is a never ending supply - either real or fabricated / overblown.

2) "The patsy" feels bad for her and gives her sympathy. The patsy provides no criticism and does not try to stop her or suggest mroe useful ways of behaving. With my mum she has an endless list of friends willing to do this.

3) "The persecutor" provides the anger, and tells the 'alcoholic' how stupid or bad they are being. The role of castigator is fundamental to the later need for forgiveness and a refusal to criticise the alcoholic will be met with depseration and confusion and a renewed attempt to find castigation elsewhere. With my mum, this was my Dad.

4) The rescuer tries to get the 'alcoholic' to stop, providing the alcohilc with a sense of being cared for. They will carry on and on trying to save them, despite becoming more and more exasperated. However, the alcoholic will NOT stop, because this is not what s/he is after ultimately. This was me.

5) "The connection" will be a professional - in the case of an actual alcoholic, this will be a barman. In this case, the barman will partly act as a patsy, not trying to stop them, but eventually he will say "youve had enough to drink". He knows when to stop supplying but will nonetheless resume at a later date. In my mums case this would have been her doctor, or perhaps my sister, who knew when mum was going to far with her game. When the connection says no, the alcoholic may well become angry or descend into a pit of self-pity

6) After the addictive binge goes too far, and those involved in the game get tired of it - temporarily filling the role of Persecutor out of sheer exasperation - and have to deal with the hangover (or get to the point where they are sick of providing sympathy), then the addict will go into self-berating mode, saying how awful she is, begging and perhaps even implying that she should be punished and so on. This is designed to achieve the PAYOFF - FORGIVENESS. On top of this comes more sympathy (with perhaps a little guilt for 'being nasty' to her), and the game begins again.

The game will continue for as long as there are people willing to fulfil the roles, as the 'alcoholic' will find healthier alternatives - such as mature behaviour or genuine intimacy - either too boring or too frightening. As long as they want their cycle, and as long as there are patsies to provide the sympathy, she will carry on behaving that way. If someone calls them on their game and refuses to act as a rescuer, then others (usually rescuers themselves) will see that person as harsh and nasty - after all, everyone can see the poor woman is in pain - she needs sympathy, how could you be so cruel? They go into the rescuer role, keeping the process going, unaware that even though they are trying to be helpful they are actually keeping her stuck.

Choosing not to play the game and simply ending your input is the only way to deal with it, because as long as the 'alcoholic' can find a supply, s/he will continue to act that way. There simply is no motivating factor to stop them or make them change. In real alcoholics, liver damage might be that thing, but in the sympathy addict, it will go on forever until the person realises that they are completely missing genuine intimacy and neglecting all those around them in the name of getting their 'fix'

This is just ONE of my mums cycles and only a small part of why she has been so damaging to me, but its how she gets HER surrogate out of life. I think that is why the only option left for me to avoid being hurt and made to feel like Im going crazy is to stop talking to her. Since I have, I have felt many millions of times better.

The book may help folks here idneitfy some of their own games