Don't Try to Reason with Unreasonable People

Quote:

I often wonder what the world would be like, if we all simply did what truly moved us, what we felt calling to us – no matter how 'ridiculous' or 'impractical'. Imagine how much less depression, anger, frustration and hopelessness there might be – in your own life, and the world around you." - Susan Biali

Dr. Biali begins by asking:

Are there people in your life that you try so hard to get along with, but you somehow always leave the interaction feeling disheartened, sad, angry, or demeaned? Are there people you dread running into or spending time with because there's just something about them that strips you of your power, either provoking you into acting "crazy" (when you normally are quite a sane, nice-to-be-around person) or somehow always managing to make you give up something that's important to your well-being? http://www.susanbiali.com/your-best-...le-people.html

And:

The art of understanding and handling the unreasonable person is probably the biggest lesson I've learned in the last few years, provoked by some interpersonal and professional crises I experienced that I had originally thought were my fault. I was very fortunate to find an amazing relationship coach who has a background in psychology and unique expertise in personality disorders. She helped me to see that I was usually dealing with disordered individuals, and that I was making classic mistakes in trying to make the relationships work.

As I'm a medical doctor with some training in psychiatry, understanding that I was dealing with individuals with a bona fide personality disorder was a huge "a-ha" moment. The thing is, there might be a clear list of characteristics describing someone with borderline, antisocial or narcissistic PD in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). But when you're dealing with one of these people, it often won't become (diagnosably) apparent until you spend a lot of time with them. And even then, if you're really emotionally ensnarled you might not be able to spot it on your own.

Interacting with them might just make you feel really bad about yourself, or they may say and do things that don't sit quite right with you. Often, they have such an otherwise charming way about them that they find a way to make you laugh afterwards, or do something nice that makes you confused about "which one" is the real person. Most people will choose to focus on the good stuff and downplay the pathological, often at their peril.

The remainder of the article identifies the "unreasonable" people and provides suggestions for dealing with them. I have dealt and have been one too often. Mind food to chew on for sure.

Oh, yes, thank you Elan, I was actually discussing this with my T today. There are a few different ways to think about this. Some of these situations can happen to us when we are growing up. A parent can have and issue than can effect us, or in my case an older brother and sister which disrupted me from developing certain comforts with myself in certain social situations. It actually answers some deep questions in my own life experience, trying to understand WHY certain people would do certain things, behave certain ways.
Some behaviors were not thoughts or things I ever considered myself so I was very confused.

There is a book called "The Drama of the Gifted Child" that my therapist suggests to read. The book is simple and easy to understand. Unfortunately we cannot help who give birth to us and parents us, or who our siblings are/behave/interact as well.

I can relate to quite a few if not all of the situations on the list. Wish I had this advice growing up. I DID feel like I somehow failed when I could not seem to comunicate with certain people. Ugh, I don't know how I survived my siblings to be honest, they both hated each other and I was in the middle of nowhere.
I got the part about trying to avoid them as much as possible, but being the youngest, that sure was a challenge.

Open Eyes

I am a reasonable person, I think. I have to define reasonable. I guess that means someone who is able to admit they are wrong about something, and accept the reason for their wrongness. I've realized I'm wrong about things before. I lived in a self-centered fantasy world, it seems anyway. I was trying to meet my emotional needs by personally "finding" the answer. I realized I had some personal biases that were paralyzing my growth toward happiness in life. I saw dirty and unorganized people as not desirable to be around, and it was OK to shun them, even if they were calm and non threatening. I saw women as nurturers and threatened by them when they had authority over my actions. I thought escaping reality was an OK solution to my emotional problems. I overcame my biases. I worked hard and suffered. I said what was on my mind, rather than lie to please others and deceive them. I learned to be a friend, without chems. I allowed myself to be the fool.

I hope I'm not an unreasonable person, in your eyes. I don't appear to be in mine.

in my family most of them are the unreasonable ones and I am not the only one saying that my older sister was brought up by my father who was not the best role model in the world and my younger sister was brought up by my older sister so they both have the traits of my father so needless to say me who was brought up by my mother ( to make a long story short when I was 15 i moved out of my dad's house and into my mothers because of my step mother) we all do not get along even though at times we do see each other because of our children and the fact we are family so we do try to get along.
but after a few hours in each others company and we tend to get on each others nerves as they push my buttons and tell me just what I am to do and how to do it etc etc