Passive Aggressive

Is Passive Aggressive a personality disorder or what?
I read an article about PA and identify with it totally. I don't wanna be like this and just wondered of its a personality disorder or what kind of "category" it falls into.

Thanks for the assistance!

Yes, Personality Disorder NOS. It was listed in the DSM-III as such(Passive Aggressive Personality Disorder). Then in the DSM-IV it was relegated to an 'other conditions' category.

it is possible to re-build a personality, i know,,, it's not easy, usually, not quick, but it lasts a lifetime, it's a good investment of time and energy. here is the recipe i learned for change:

Decide: decide you are going to change, decide what you are going to change, decide to change as much as you can whenever you can.

Notice: notice when you are using the unwanted behavior. notice the effects it has on you and others. notice what thoughts or feelings came up just before the unwanted action.

Change: change to the desired behavior as much and as often as you can. make the effort, let nothing stand in your way. it's work, make the effort.

Praise Yourself: whenever you manage to change even a little, or when you notice something you had not been aware of before, or when you reinforce your commitment to try harder next time,,, give yourself a pat on the back, a kind work, some praise. the inner child craves approval, give it freely.

i hope you find success and new beginnings~

I think it is mostly just a really bad habit defense mechanism from being anxious; kind of like guerrilla warfare? If we perceive someone as being stronger than we are or feel like another has caused us a problem and we don't know how or are unwilling to confront them directly, we get them back when we think we are stronger or feel they are not able to retaliate, etc.

If you are in therapy, I would work on identifying and expressing your feelings when you feel them, rather than having so many "I should have. . . " experiences that then go awry :-) It can be a form of negative score keeping too.

My mother wouldn't let me have another cookie before dinner so I'm not going to eat my vegetables like she wants me to.

The problem with passive aggressive behavior is that it takes place in one's head and the other person doesn't necessarily understand what is going on, just like the person behaving in that way is not fully understanding the situation either; the kid that won't do what his mother wants isn't understanding that the mother doesn't want it for herself, she wants the child to grow up big, strong, and healthy

In a sense, the temper tantrums of a 2 year old are passive aggressive and if the parent lets the child have their way to end the tantrum, they teach the child that such behavior works, but the problem is it might only work with that parent and when the child gets to school or out in other situations with other people, the child will be at a double disadvantage because such behavior won't reward the same way and the child won't have learned better ways to deal with their anger, disappointment or frustration.

Passive aggressive behavior is engaged in primarily through a misunderstanding of the dynamics of what is going on. If you want to stop the behavior in yourself, I would first train myself to stop when I feel like paying someone back for something, when I'm angry and have an "I'll show you!" reaction. The "passive" of passive aggressive is because someone does not speak up at the time of the original perceived difficulty and work on it then with themselves. The aggressive behavior may be easier to see/stop than figuring out when one is being passive and teach one's self to focus on the scary or disappointing situation at that time.

Passive aggressive behavior can be relatively minor, common, such as sulking/not talking instead of working on a disagreement with a significant other and then bringing up that incident in an unrelated argument later as ammunition; or it can be quite complex, becoming a bad habit that occurs with most other people in most other situations, that one might want professional help to untangle.

Thank you Perna, a very thoughtful view....and to Gus for the specific guidelines for change.

At work, there is a pt. who is very PA, and has minor cognitive deficits that make it very difficult----she (in her 70's) literally does the "If you don't do X for me right now, I won't ("take my meds", "wait to get on the toilet..." "eat anything")---it is very sad, and sadder because most of the staff have no understanding of this except as being very annoying, and we have so many to care for it is a poor setting to work with her in----

I think one develops passive-aggressive reactions because one is not allowed originally to be active-aggressive! It is sort of a second-best way of handling difficulties, if the first-best is not allowed. As an adult one can learn to be "active-aggressive" in the privacy of one's own mind, if nowhere else, but this is a skill that is not easy to learn if one was not allowed as a child. You might encourage someone with this behavior by letting them know that you understand their thinking, or their wishes, even if they cannot safely carry them out often in actions.

"Assertive", pachyderm, not "aggressive". You don't ever want to growl at and bite others, even in one's own mind (as that makes it harder not to respond that way in action)

It is okay to say what you want and what you are going to try to do, set personal boundaries, etc.; it is not okay to do that as a child if it is "frowned upon by the establishment". That's where you end up learning to pretend to be passive but, one's desires must out! So, since you don't learn how to respond in the moment in a way that satisfies you and does not impinge on another, the pressure makes it come out somewhere else, a little too forcefully :-)

I still remember my, "I hope you're enjoying your bourbon and water!" said to my stepmother when she was ordering me around what chores to do while she was. . . enjoying her bourbon and water. Being a teen or 20-something, I missed the crucial point that she had prepared for the party and fixed the meal, etc. so it was my turn to help with the after meal cleanup. She did not ask for my help, demanded it and I did not say, "I would be glad to help but it would appreciate it if you asked me to rather than just assuming or ordering me to?" or anything, just let a slow boil start until I erupted and made a mess of the "actual" problem.

Oh I don't know...

One probably does not?

I lived with a PA H for 33 years under the same roof. I didn't realize what it was until a few years ago when the came on & I realized that was the hell I had been living in for so long.

I read something at the time however that they actually took the PA DX out of the DSM because everyone has some bit of PA behavior at some time in their lives.....which I definitely can see....it's just serious when almost every behavior is PA in the relationship.

MY stbxh (personality is exactly why I knew even before I married him I didn't want to & now 38 years later....I left 6 years ago....I left him for exactly the same reasons I didn't want to marry him in the first place.....serious personality issues) His major irritation was that he wouldn't discuss anything with anyone.....& he would graciously agree to do whatever they asked & turn around & NEVER do it. Everyone always sees him as mister nice guy because he's always so very aggreable.....then when he doesn't do the things he said he was going to do, he always has the best excuses for NOT doing them.....never can admit that he wasn't going to do them in the first place.

When we were taking classes together......he actually sabotaged me in one of the classes because I was putting more work into the final project than he wanted to. I had asked him to get the location of some information. Being on disability, they had some testing I could do to determine if they would help pay for me to get training(education) to help get me off of disability.....so it was going to help US financially. Needless to say....he didn't lift a finger to get any information while I was working hard on the testing.

My favorite example was with the IRS.....I had just left to purchase my farm in KY...but we hadn't discussed actually splitting up after those 33 years......the IRS sent a letter just at that time regarding some back tax problems with MY INHERITANCE money...a messup that he had made 2 years earlier. He never said anything to me about the letter & he never even called the IRS to find out what the problem was really about.

I confronted him about his passive aggressive behavior after I left him.....this was a really good site where I got a lot of really good information....it also validated me in why I had such a difficult time in the marriage & that IT wasn't ALL my fault
Eliminating Passive Aggressiveness | LIVESTRONG.COM