Make no mistake, interacting with difficult people can take its toll on most of us and if any of your family members, friends or colleagues have what I’ll call high-conflict personalities you’ll know exactly what I mean!

There are lots of reasons why some people have these sort of personalities – some are deep-seated personality characteristics, maybe from trauma in their earlier lives, but there can be many other reasons and also an element of people recognising early on that being in a mood, flying into a temper or sulking gets them what they want.
There are lots of reasons why some people have these sort of personalities – some are deep-seated personality characteristics, maybe from trauma in their earlier lives, but there can be many other reasons and also an element of people recognising early on that being in a mood, flying into a temper or sulking gets them what they want.
As with so many issues, there are three different ways of dealing with this – either you carry on putting up with unreasonable behaviour (along the lines of “if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got”), leave the situation which isn’t always easy, particularly if family is involved, or the option I prefer – dealing with the situation in a different way. Or, in a nutshell – same, leave, change.
If you’ve decided to carry on carrying on, fair enough and, let’s face it, a lot of us feel we have limited choices regarding leaving whether it’s in your workplace where you’re dealing with a difficult colleague or manager or in your family where you don’t want to ‘leave’ as it’s too drastic and you don’t want to lose contact with people you love.
So, first of all you have to work out what changes you want to make and then assess how emotionally mature the person you find difficult is – do they have the necessary characteristics to take responsibility for their actions? Are they emotionally mature? You have to take this into account before attempting any changes which will have to come from you – other people don’t necessarily want to change, but think about it like a game of dominoes where one domino has a slight push and it will activate a chain reaction and cause a shift in other peoples’ related behaviours.
So, how to make changes that will ultimately make a difference – by ‘ultimately’ I’m saying that this won’t happen overnight. Most people are resistant to change and will say things like “What’s wrong with you? You’ve always been okay with this before”.
The first thing is to put down boundaries – if someone’s taking advantage of you and have done so for a long time, they’ll almost certainly be surprised and annoyed if you choose not to do something that you’ve previously gone along with. You could start with putting a time limit on phone calls, not responding to text messages immediately and not replying to e.mails that add a lot of emotional pressure.
Stay calm if the other person starts to get agitated – they will want to tell their story so, if there’s time, let them do that (and trust me, their story will be more important than yours! I speak from personal experience….) and then respond with brief responses if they become hostile. Try not to be emotionally threatening – it won’t help; instead, try to show them some empathy where you can.
However, it’s important not to agree or volunteer for anything in order to fix it. That’s not your job. If you have to distance yourself slightly, do so.
After that, if your sister-in-law asks you to look after her children for the umpteenth time, and for whatever reason, you’re finding it too much, think of a way that you can gently tell her that you can’t do it. (Maybe along the lines of “I’d like to be able to help, but I’m already doing something that day”). If she’s frosty or angry with you, so be it. You have to think about your own health and wellbeing as well as hers.
If the person you’re in conflict with is someone at work and you discover that they’ve given others misinformation or they’re angry when they speak to you, try to provide a firm but balanced, informative response using whatever method of communication that they used, whether this was verbal or by e.mail. Provide accurate up-to-date information and try to remain at arms’ length. Again, as with family members or friends, limit the time spent in discussions.
Although mindfulness and staying in the ‘here and now’ is hugely helpful, at times of conflict it’s also useful to focus on the future and how much better that might look if you can make small changes.
There will be some loss involved because there always is with change. Be prepared for that and let yourself grieve for the relationship(s) that you’d hoped to have.
None of this will be easy, but in some ways it’s an insurance for your future – a time when you don’t succumb to things you don’t want or like and where you can make boundaries and re-discover your own self-worth.
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