Difficult People

Quote:

Dealing with difficult people, you learn compassion and patience. ~Unknown

Suggestions from other authors:

7 Things to Remind Yourself When Interacting With Difficult People
8 Tips For Dealing With Difficult People - Forbes
Reducing Stress and Avoiding Conflict With Difficult People

Try to avoid confrontations:

You don’t always have to avoid difficult people or run away from them, you may just have to be more patient and try to bring out the good in them more often.

As a difficult person, these insights help me too.

I appreciate what you say about patience because when in the wrong mood I can be very difficult to communicate with. I've been working on being more patient with others because I tend to be overly-sensitive to what people say. I've learned to break down conversations and think about the reasons behind them. Then I respond in a more patient and kind manner.

The old adage "Once bitten twice shy" works well enough for me regarding those persons not primary to my life.

I believe it is most important to remember not to personalize another's attitude.

It always drove me crazy in AA when I didn't get along with a difficult person. They would tell me what I am seeing in them is something I don't like about myself. Oh yeah? Explain Hitler.

So how do we define "difficult people"?

Hostile? Argumentative? Confrontational? Bloviators?

When I'm in the mood, I enjoy playing with the minds of these people. However, it does require some time, a lot of conversation, and several glasses of scotch. Usually I'm not willing to invest the effort, and, like most people, simply ignore them.

I needed to hear that today, thank you.

T&T

You're welcome, Jenni.

I can deal with difficult people when I don't have to deal with them on a 24/7 basis.....there isn't enough patience in the world to deal with someone who makes your life difficult 24/7.....sometimes we have to make choices at that point....& leaving & not having contact is usually the best for both. I tolerated a difficult person for 33 years I was married to him....& it made me into a very difficult person rather than being able to influence them in a positive direction. Best thing I did was to leave. Help get myself changed back to the kind of person I had been & the kind of person I liked....he was incapable of change.

Sometimes you just have to 'cut your loses'

This is a useful thread for me, because by far the most difficult person I have to cope with is me.

roads

After reading the second link I feel more like crap about myself. I didn't know if my depression is getting to me and so I am having major difficulties seeing any positives....people are to treat me like something with nothing valid to say or think, and then some how 'shut me down' if I have an inability to go into 'problem solving' mode....but I suppose that is why I keep most of what bothers me to myself IRL, it just festers inside my brain but makes it easier for other people I guess. Glad I don't have a job.

I guess the first one makes sense, though....only concern with that is some of that it might almost encourage people to allow for abusive behavior. I mean sure if your family member is really stressed and they snap at you and say something mean they don't really mean that is one thing perhaps moving on is best....however if they constantly do this then one might want to consider if it is to the level of verbal harrassment/abuse, so while yes sometimes it is best to try and put yourself in others shoes and try and consider perhaps their behavior isn't about you and more to do with stuff they are dealing with...but there are people out there that do actively harrass/abuse others and its not just about them having a bad day.

Thanks Glok

as a difficult person these were also helpful, perhaps i can be more mindful about my approach

i just think they a moron. kekeke... easy.. hehehe

MAY BE TRIGGERING
I was the youngest of three in my family. My older sister (the oldest) always hated my older brother, hated him from the minute he came home as a baby. When I was reading this information and how it discusses "difficult people" and that often people are that way because they are somehow struggling or unhappy, I have had to try to figure that out for as long as I can remember. The truth is, even in present my sister still hates my older brother and will bathe in any reason that gives her permission to do so.

For myself, being the youngest and seeing the constant friction between the two of these siblings, I had to figure out how to be able to relate with the two of them and I was always the smallest and clearly recognized that I was overpowered because both of them were always bigger and smarter than me. They were both running around while I was trying to just figure out how to walk. People say we don't remember things like that, but I do, I remember so much of that time when they could, and I just could not.

When I was reading this information and "healthy advice", it surprised me how much of it was something I had understood from a very young age. People have problems, people have problems, try to be understanding and when things are toxic remove yourself, don't fight back and just be kind and understanding. Yup, I certainly knew that one.

Yes, my older brother had problems and all I saw was how everyone reacted to him in anger. He would not sit still, kept taking off and he did not even respect my boundaries, in fact neither of my siblings did. Then when I got old enough to ride the bus, my brother was only a year ahead of me because he had to stay back twice due to what is now called
attention deficit disorder. It was unbelievable to see what my older brother's world was like on the school bus. Now that I think about it, that was very traumatic to see, and to see every single days for many years. I honestly can't even articulate how traumatic that was to witness. I just could not understand "how or why" these other children could be so unbearably cruel. I remember trying so hard to see "any" kind of advantage of being that cruel. No matter how much I dug down inside me to the very depths of me, I had no desire to treat another that way and could not see any possible way it could make a person feel "happy" in any way. And as I watched that I could see that my brother did not know how to fight back, and the one thing I noticed about him is that "he had no one" to help him. I got picked on too because I was his sister, and often just finding a seat to sit down in was very stressful. In those days children were labeled as having cooties and once that label was set, other children did not want to even get near you.

It was not just the other children that were mean to my older brother either, once I got into the school I saw how the teachers were also very mean to him too. It got so I was "afraid" of the teachers too. Forget about the normal fears a child would have about going to school, what I saw was "real reasons to be totally afraid". If often think it is a wonder I had learned anything at all, or that my older brother had learned anything either. And the one thing I had always felt all through school was that I had missed something I was supposed to know "in the beginning of learning". I could never even articulate what it was that I felt was always "missing" either, but all I remember feeling is that whatever I did manage to learn was never "it" but only to get me by somehow. I felt like every time I went up a grade that it was only going to be harder without this missing piece. No, I could not articulate what it was, how could I really because "it was missing" and if "it is missing" then how would I really know? All I can say about it is "it was always a void in me".

When my older brother was only in first grade and I was in kindergarden, my parents took him to see a "psychiatrist". The school didn't know what to do with him and already he was running away from school as soon as he got the chance. I remember sitting in that waiting room, just like it was yesterday tbh. I remembered hoping to the depths of me that this man behind the door my brother disappeared into would know how to "help" my older brother. My older brother was not ugly at all either, he was actually a good looking little boy.

After that visit with that man behind the door, things got really bad. The advice given was "dicipline and no coddling at all". We had a little shed barn out back and I would see my brother and father disappear into it whenever my brother did anything bad. Then I would hear my brother screaming. So as little as I was, that is what the meaning of "discipline" meant to me. That did "not" fix my brother either, it only made him worse and he only ran away even "more". I will never forget seeing my mother pacing back and forth not knowing I could see her, she was crying and kept saying, "This is wrong, a mother is supposed to cuddle her child, a mother is supposed to love her child, this is just wrong". And she was weeping in despair. Now that I think back, that is when I began to learn about "empathy". Whenever my older brother was taken to that shed my mother wept in "pain". What I did not realize until many years later is that my older brother did not get to see how very much my mother hated what was happening to him. That a "professional" who was supposed to KNOW told my parents what to do and they did it but they DID NOT LIKE IT. And all this "dicipline" that came down on my older brother NEVER HELPED BUT ONLY MADE HIM WORSE.

By today's standards, the treatment my older brother got EVERYWHERE he went, at home, on the bus, and even in school would be considered CHILD ABUSE.

My brother had no one, and it got so I knew SOMEONE had to reach out to him and be his friend and try. So, whenever no one was paying attention, I would play with him, I always had to sneak it in because my older sister insisted I was not to play with him. I can still see her "mean/angry" face when she said that too. However, as I began to play with him I learned that he was not a bad child as long as I just let him decide what the game would be about.

My older brother had a quiet area to him where he "could" settle down and play nice. However, because he was always being punished he suffered from what I now know as "anxiety" and he would self sooth by sucking his thumb and he had to learn how to do that when no one could see him because "that was considered bad too". When the days were especially hard on him I could hear my older brother sucking his thumb "feverishly" all night long. The other problem he had was that he was always wetting his bed and "badly", so badly that my mother had to make his bed with shower curtains and also put shower curtains on the floor too. Again, she didn't know I was watching and I could see her weeping as she had to keep cleaning up his room.

My parents tried everything to get him to "stop" sucking his thumb too. It was such a problem that his lips were very swollen and often blistering and bleeding. That made it worse for him on the bus because they all called him big lips. I had to learn how to be able to tell when all this ABUSE would get to him to where he would need to "rage". I think about how I learned about "rage" in the "now" and how back then what that really meant to me. I had to know because when he got so he was ready to "rage", I had to find a way to "run and hide". My mother was working and I don't even remember where my older sister was, but often I would get off that bus and it was just him and me. Some days it was ok and we could play, but other days it was not ok and I would run and hide for what seemed like forever until my mother got home from work.

I have talked about this before, but eventually my parents found a tutor and this tutor was a very "kind and patient" retired woman teacher. Finally, someone actually knew how to see the "good" in my older brother and I finally saw him begin to "change" and do better. He also got big, bigger then the other boys who had bullied him and he made sure they all learned their lessons, and yes, they all began to fear him.

My parents decided to send me to a private school instead of me going to school with my older brother. Finally, I did not have to do that bus ride with him. I honestly don't even know how I got into that private school and passed that test where I was accepted. I always, always felt that "missing piece" and that I was never going to be smart enough because of whatever it was. I did make friends, but, the one thing I never liked or would take part in is when my friends would make fun of each other or others or decide not to like someone and not allow them to be a part of the group.

You know when someone is "afraid" to do well? Can anyone relate to that? Well, for me, I had always thought if I did do well, it would be too much of a burden to keep up, that I might be expected to keep doing well and I honestly did not know if I could because of that "missing piece" that I always dealt with but did not know quite what it was.

Well, one time I decided that maybe I could try to do really well and see what happens. I decided to do that in my geometry class with this young popular teacher that the students all liked. It was in the last quarter and I was doing "fair" so I decided to take the book and from the very beginning of that book "teach myself" everything that was in that book and really "learn it". I don't know what possessed me to do that, I think it was my inner effort to figure out how to overcome that "missing piece". I also feel that I had finally had enough space away from my older brother that I was finally figuring out who "I" was on my own.

So, I sat with that book for hours and I worked very hard at learning what that book was about. Then it came time to take the big test that meant a lot in my overall grade. I figured if I did not do well, no one would know it except me and that it was just that I had to keep managing around the "missing piece". I found myself also actually "enjoying' that book too, instead of it seeming so ominous, it actually was not so bad, or so I thought.

So I took that test and finally the day came when I would know the outcome. The teacher stood in front of the class and talked about how most of the class had failed that test and she had to grade it on a curve she was angry with the class. She said to the class that they all should have passed the test with flying colors because "guess who got the highest grade, a 98? I figured I had failed like the others, but to my surprise this teacher who needed to point out the "dummy" that actually passed and did well while everyone pretty much failed was "If OE can get the highest grade then something is very wrong with the class". I still remember the look on her face and how she said that where it was clear to her that "my missing piece was REAL" and who am I kidding, I should not be "the one" who gets the highest grade. I also remember everyone turning around and looking at me like I REALLY DID SOMETHING BAD too.

Well, maybe I should have stood up and reemed this teacher out somehow, or reported her or waited until the class left and tell her how wrong and mean she was. But, I did not do that, instead I could not wait to get out and get to my car and get away from that entire "traumatic" experience.

I actually looked her up to see if I could locate her and finally write to her about how wrong she was that day too. She is in her early 60's now, I have not paid the fee to get her information to write her about what she did that was so wrong that day. Here I am in my 50's and thinking about this after all these years, years of how society has been slowly changing and becoming more aware of "what abuse means and why". However, what saddens me is how there are still a lot of people that behave like this woman did that day.

What I have also learned is that a lot of people "have that missing piece". I think that when someone has it often that person can get so they see if others might have it too and actually get quite good at seeing it in others and be understanding about it too.
However, sometimes people can get so they develop ways to protect that missing piece that can be "harmful" too. I know that one well and because I saw all the pain in my older brother and how he was already being punished for "his missing piece", I never talked about how that all presented me with my own missing piece. I had always felt that if I did talk about it then the response would continue to be "he is bad and always was bad". Do you think that would be "fair" to him? And my older sister "still hates him too", yet she bore a son with similar challenges and is pretty much a spitting image of my older brother. Yes, she did make a lot of efforts to do for her son what had not been done for my older brother. Yet, she still doesn't like my older brother.

Difficult people, yes there are a lot of difficult people out there and it isn't "easy" to deal with them sometimes. And sometimes "being understanding" or trying to be nice doesn't always work or can bring on a challenge that can be unexpected too. Interesting that there is a book called the DSM that discribes all these different labels for so many different "missing pieces". Interesting that we all have this technology where we can "look up" these different labels too, I wish my parents had been able to have this technology available to them way back when instead of getting advised to "abuse" a child that clearly was struggling with "a missing piece" that he could not help.

OE

Thanks for what you wrote OE. Well, I have ADHD and life has been a struggle. I know what you mean by a missing piece. It is painful knowing I am different; the oddball; the black sheep. Well, maybe, that is who I am, and I can still love myself even though no one else does in real life.

I can see why your brother would grow up angry. I was an angry child. I also wet my bed, and was a nail biter. I hope your brother is no longer alone.

I hope you are well, dear. It must have been hard to relive all that.

((seekersinking)), you consider yourself missing something or the odd ball because of how others just didn't understand the way you were set up, it never meant you were "bad", it just meant you needed to learn differently and needed more patience and understanding.

I have noticed how families tend to label the child that struggles and shows aggrivation and anger from it and to treat that child as the "problem child" or as you discribe, the black sheep. Unfortunately, it doesn't take much to get "labeled" in a negative way when it comes to a society either. I spent so many years being labeled as that weird kid's little sister that I didn't have my own identity other than that, even the teachers labeled me that way. I stayed back because of how I was so stressed out that I could not settle down and learn. I grew up in a kind of war zone because of my older brother and all the different ways people would just blow up in frustration about him and how that made him react badly. My missing piece was being very confused about the "beginning" of learning where I got a chance to settle in and just learn from the beginning and just be OE. Instead I was always attached to my older brother and everywhere he was, I was and it was always chaos. For me, hypervigilance was "normal" and quite honestly, hyper vigilance was normal for him too and now that I know more about PTSD, I would have to say that my brother was constantly "fight/flight". If I am going to be honest about OE, well I would have to say me too, "flight/freeze/and figuring out fight". I did not have what I developed after watching my neighbor's dog destroy so much PTSD, but I can see how my hypocampus was probably already compromised and I was predesposed to developing PTSD.

I think back about how when I was little I really was so brave and how I learned to see the "bad or scary parts" of others, but to also get brave and venture closer to learn about the "good parts". Being the "smallest" in my family, I had no power so I had to figure out how to get along with all these entities in my home so I could just "thrive" somehow. In order to do that I had to learn how to "listen" and find out what these different entities wanted and what "pleased" them and even where their "tender" parts were. I had to learn how to pay attention to "their worlds" and each one did have their own private worlds within this family unit. When I was reading through this material presented about "difficult people", I was surprised at how I had learned much of what is discussed at a very early age. What I did not know, however, is what I was learning to do was not really "typical" and what typically happens is most people only play their own charectors and they don't really "see" the depths of others around them. For example, my father who was this diciplinarian? Well, that was just a role he played, there was so much more to him that when I did brave it and climb on his lap, I got to learn about "him" where my sister and brother were just "afraid" of him. I learned about all of them, the parts they played and yet the person aside from that part. I learned how "you cannot stop the dysfunctional part" all you can do is work around it somehow and also learn how to "listen" to what is behind that "dysfunctional" part.

I learned how to feel "sorry for" that part that was dysfunctional. However, it "hurts" more when you see people that way, especially way back when where people were not paying attention to "hurt parts" in people but instead just "labeling and stigmatizing", but I didn't understand those specific words back then the way I see them now. Wow, what bothers me deeply is how people really have no idea "how to listen". What bothers me is how we have all these "labels" and even now how "professionals" are so quick to just label and don't "really listen". Oh, that person is X so just give that person "X medication" and send him/her on her way. No, they label but don't even listen to what that "label" created that deeply challenges that person. And honestly, if there "is" a label, there is definitely a personal challenge that goes with that "label".

What is very, very "hard" for me is that because I got to know the person "behind" whatever the label, it was often very "hard" on me and actually "hurt" me too. What is hard for me is talking about how that hurt me deeply and not feel I am betraying the "hurt" of the other person I got to know behind the "label". It is not really about the victim feeling sorry for the abuser either, it's not "that simple" and it is not about enabling either, because I did not do that but instead I tried to figure out the "label" and how to help the person behind the "label". The truth is, I have had some "challenging" labels to deal with and figure out in my life. One of the "missing pieces" was the name of these labels and what it meant. Often what I had to deal with is not so much the challenges within the label but how that individual was treated so badly because of the label that created a lot of anger and frustration in them that unfortunately was taken out on me.

Honestly, when someone says, "well we never know what goes on in the minds of these people", that isn't always the case, not if you learn how to "listen" instead of just "labeling" and stigmatizing.

OE

Interesting thread

I was scapegoated as the "difficult" person in the family. However that was far from the truth

Eskie, I noticed you could relate too. Sigh....yes you were challenged for a long time in a relationship with a man who had a problem and never listened to you and continued to challenge you even after you finally just had to get away from him other wise you knew you would go crazy.

I noticed that like me your posts can be long, people don't get that and "why" that happens. Well, that is because the person went "unheard" for a long time through no fault of their own. You finally got "the missing piece" to why you struggled, I have too and "finally" it all makes sense, but it doesn't take away the affects of being in a situation with someone who doesn't "hear you" for so many years.

I was talking to my T about it today actually, and he said that it has been unfortunate that pretty much my entire life was having to deal with "challenged people" that were truly difficult people. My missing piece has a lot to do with my identity always being connected to the other person and their dysfunction. And, that I was always the "protector" , protecting the hurt parts of these people in my life too.

I have noticed that "you" have to this day been struggling to "just finally have your own identity too". Yes, you certainly have had quite the battle with that.


OE

OE, thank you for what you said at the end of your post about learning to listen instead of labeling. It struck a note with me.

You are welcome seekersinking, I find that a lot of people who are "difficult" are difficult because they don't get heard, and probably did not get heard when they were children either. I often feel that goes back to the generations that felt "children are to be seen and not heard".

I raised a daughter who has dyslexia and that meant she learned differently and remembered things differently. When she was very little and could turn in her crib and move around "a little" I always knew she was awake because she would be gibbering away to a big teddy beddy bear face on her head board of her crib that was soft and a really cute big bear face. I have pictures of her talking away to that face, not actual words, but her own attempt to utter words/language/converse. I thought, wow, that is a little person already, so very little, but already expressing herself. That crib ensamble was the best choice too, because it had that nice bear face to keep her company and she always talked to it. That bear was "quiet and listening" and no matter what she was gibbering, it always had a nice facial expression staring back at her.

When I think back on my own childhood, I can see how that "children are to be seen and not heard" infected so many things that really was "unhealthy" for children. Obey, do as you are told, learn as you are told to learn, talk when you are spoken to, if you get something "wrong" you are bad. Efforts in classrooms tend to come back with little red marks that say "you are doing wrong", instead of focusing on "look at all you did right".

It is said that children don't remember very much from their childhoods. That is not true. I have a business that exposed me to large numbers of children and families. I sure met all kinds of children that were growing up in all kinds of classes of people too. I observed a lot of parents and the different ways they interacted with their children. It is amazing what parents don't even think about when it comes to their children. It amazes me how I have watched children trying to "say something" and how different parents were "not" listening to them. Just recently I met this little girl that did not want to come near me and how her mother reacted to that. Near the end when the other children were finished with me, here was this little girl, still keeping her distance. All I did with her is give "her" the power to decide to come closer on "her" terms and that got her attention to make an effort to think about coming closer. I was able to pick up on the fact that she had shut me off because for some reason she felt that was the only way she could keep from being "pushed" further than she wanted. Giving her some time and permission to try but still have "her choice" is what she responded to and it also made her "light up" with a willing to explore too. Did she have a label of some kind? I do not know, but, the end result is she "did" engage in a way she "felt comfortable" and that is really "all" that matters IMHO. All "I" did was let her know I was willing to listen the way "she" wanted and when she realized that, she decided to explore a little and it was "fun".

I have talked about getting to meet a child psychologist and watching this person interact with a child. What I noticed is "corrections, corrections, listen, listen, corrections". Is that what this psychologist does? Figure out labels and set out to "correct, correct and have the troubled child "listen, listen, listen"? When I was asked to take over all I did is stop and ask the child what "she" liked and what would "she" like to be. Then she "paid attention" and I did not have to "correct", all I had to do is remind her what "she" wanted and "she listened and made the effort".

When someone says, "you never know what is going on in someone's mind", I think that is so sad. The truth is, you have to learn "how' to see that other persons "world" and you have to learn how to do that from when that person is a "child" because if a "child" is to be seen and not heard, that is clearly the beginning of "not knowing what is going on in someone's mind".

I raised a beautiful child, but this child did "not" learn the same way as many other children do. I am so grateful that her challenge was finally being studied and when I began to see that my child was not wanting to read and clearly said to the teacher, "I cannot do that", then walked away which made the teacher angry, I LISTENED, instead of just assuming my child was just being defiant or lazy. Who is the true "authority", some teacher or the parent? Well, a long time ago I learned "who" the authority really was when some psychiatrist directed my parents on how to treat my older brother. When I saw my mother pacing back and forth chanting, "this is not right, a mother is supposed to cuddle her child and love her child, not this constant punishing and hitting him", my mother was the one that was "right".

My older brother was diciplined and "corrected, corrected, and punished" everywhere he went. I watched my mother struggle so much and yet the message she kept getting was,"make him do it". Make him ride that bus, make him sit still in class, and punish him if he did not "take orders" and "punish him when he talked back too". That bus ride to school was HELL first thing every morning. Every day was HELL. I watched my older brother have to sit there and take it EVERY DAY, and no one was allowed to "cuddle him"?

Watching my mother stress so much and seeing how badly my older brother was treated was what compelled me to think about my mother's pain and try to be someone that would "listen" to my older brother. What I learned from that is that my older brother could listen, and he did like attention and to have someone pay attention to him and play with him, and, he actually "could" sit still and for quite a while too. The only time I was "afraid" of him is when he just could not take "the daily HELL" anymore and needed to vent his frustrations somehow. I was the "only one" that really knew "what went on in his mind" and I was just a little child. I was the "only one" that listened, the "only one" in his life that would "listen".

When that "child psychologist" watched me with the child she brought to me that day and kept telling me I was so gifted so emphatically, it did not make me feel "special" at all. After she left I was consumed with both sadness and anger tbh. I have PTSD so these emotions are much stronger and more debilitating than what would be considered "normal". I also thought about my own big challenge, how I just broke down because of all the loss I suffered, and how I reached out for help in confusion and how people, even professionals who were supposed to know, did not listen, but instead needed to affix labels and sadly the wrong labels too.

I did have a lot of challenges with my husband and his challenges really confused me and I really did try to listen and figure out "what was missing" somehow. He kept telling me "I" was the one with the problem and that "I" should get help. So, I did reach out for help. I went to a husband and wife treatment team where he was the psychiatrist and she was the psychologist. Every time I went to see "her" I talked alot about what I had learned about the people in my family, and what I had noticed about children and their parents and what was missing that I noticed from my exposure to them in my business. I was trying to see what was wrong with me that my husband had insisted I find out, so I pretty much just showed this woman psychologist what I knew and saw and why.

One day I went to see her and her husband called me in to see him. He said, my wife is not going to be practicing for a while. He said, my wife and I have been talking a lot about what she has been learning from you and we have decided that she is going to stop practicing for a while and stay home and be a "mother" instead. Then he said that he felt that I should seriously consider becoming a psychologist. After he said that he asked me if I would like him to write a prescription for "valium". Now perhaps one would think that would make me feel good about myself, well, it didn't because I still didn't find help in what to do about my husband. At that time it didn't click in me that it was not me that was the problem, it was him. These professionals never mentioned that, not even a little smidgeon other than, "try some valium". What is so ironic about that is that if I did decide to use the valium which we all know is addictive, that would not have helped my situation which was understanding "binge alcoholism and my husband's addiction problems" that he needed to have and also blamed "me" whenever I recognized there was a problem with this "behavior" that he kept exhibiting to me. While I am saying this it is important to consider this was around 25 years ago. So it isn't like it is today where there is a lot more access/resources to learning about this problem. However, one thing that stands out to me is "here is a drug to help you as you deal with problems", which in my case was "drug problems". If I had offed myself because things really did get bad at times and I was often so very alone with it, I could picture these two "professionals" saying, "She seemed so smart, guess one never knows what is going on in someone's mind".

Difficult people, and all the ways to deal with them, I did that, but I also learned that a lot of "difficult people" are people that were just not able to be "heard" and just developed unhealthy ways to find a way to get "people to listen". It is sad too because people can be very interesting when you just spend some time and "listen" to them. Labels can be "helpful" but all they really mean is something about that person that is a challenge, but it is only a cue on how to listen a little differently and have more patience. I raised a child with "dyslexia" and what that really meant was that I needed to "listen" to her a little differently and also talk to her teachers so they all understood that about her too. When she told that teacher who wanted her to read that morning message he had written every day she said she"could not do that", she was right, she could not do that. He got mad and wanted me to "dicipline" her for that, HE WAS WRONG.

Well, I have PTSD now and the root to that PTSD really goes all the way back to how "people do not know how to listen". I think about my own history and how "if" people did actually "know how to listen" I would not be struggling like I am now. When I read through that information it triggered me because that is exactly what I tried to do with my neighbor, and none of it worked and as a result it cost me big time and thrust me into the reality of "how very much people don't know how to listen". Then there is this saying I hear and say myself constantly, "It is not your fault". However, the only time that has any true value at all is "when someone actually listens". Even with this thing called "freedom of speech", that still doesn't change anything when people "don't know how to listen".

My husband has been sober now for 25 years. He chairs an AA meeting every week and one of the things each individual has to learn is what it means to "respect sharing". Each person has to learn to "let someone else speak" and "do not interrupt them" while they are talking. This is an important part of "healing". My husband is in charge of making sure this rule is followed, and I have noticed how this rule has "empowered my husband". However, my husband also struggles with "compulsive ADHD", and his challenge is actually learning how not to "talk over, interrupt, cut off" others when others are trying to talk. I am beginning to see that my husband tends to "need" this the most though because of "his" need to be heard.

My husband has been practicing this for many years, however, as soon as he comes home and is around me that rule doesn't stand. I try to talk and he consistently, "interrupts me, talks over me, takes over the conversation with what "he" thinks it is about" and the conversation then becomes "all about him" and as he had done long ago when he was "active" the answer is still that "I" am the one who is failing somehow. Now that I have PTSD, I don't do well with this challenge, I often get angry and frustrated and I get so I then begin to experience this thing that happens with PTSD where my brain begins to experience rapid thoughts like I have this mouse wheel spinning in my brain. When that happens, he just gets even worse at "taking over, cutting me off and talking over me".

One time when I went to see my therapist, suddenly I realized how my therapist was the only one I could turn to who could "stay calm and listen to me and not interrupt me". Suddenly I thought that was the epidemy of how after all these years, I finally found someone who actually "knew how to listen" and instead of me having to be "that person" all the time, I got to finally see what it is like to have someone else that "knew the significance of "listening". And for the first time in my life someone actually was able to tell me "what this challenge I had all these years with my husband meant". ((Eskie)) I think you can relate to this one. The information discussed in this literature did not work with this problem, Eskie, you can relate to this too I am sure.

If you have a label, I think it is important to think about how that label can interrupt with your ability to listen, but also your ability to be heard too. IMHO, a label doesn't have to mean you are a bad person, typically what it means is you have a challenge and people did not listen to you and you may have developed into "a difficult person" at times. And unfortunately that is where the stigmatizing sets in and that can start early on sadly.

When I said "my missing piece", my guess is a lot of people could identify with that in their own way. The information provided can be useful, I don't mean to imply it can't. But as you use it make sure it isn't just put into practice as a tool to use for "not listening". Learning "how to listen" is an important thing to learn too. This site would not be so busy if people learned how to listen better, but to also learn that if someone is "not" listening, move on until you find someone who "can". A title doesn't necessarily mean someone knows how to "listen" either, I have learned that many times over in my life.

One of the consistently sad things I see a lot in these forums is when someone presents a "need" or a "challenge" and afterwards says "I am sorry". Pretty sad when someone feels "sorry" when they need someone to listen, like it is so wrong of them to ask. That is from long ago, I have seen it a lot sadly.

OE