Important: If you care about the people in question and have longstanding relationships with them, try to get them to seek help.
>> Don't become a martyr. Before you attempt to deal with impossible people yourself, you may have to learn how to control your own emotions. If you are simply unable to avoid an impossible person due to work, family, or other reasons, it is especially important to find other interests, join a support group, and seek therapy or religious counseling if necessary.
>> Don't let them be the martyr that brings you down either. It is a real source of frustration to have a difficult person "play the martyr" around you to arouse your feelings of guilt and confusion. Beware this tactic and stand aside from them as they serve as their own martyr without you cementing their choice by fawning over them or conceding to their behavior.
>> Be aware that all of us exhibit some of these personality "disorders" to some degree. It's just a question of how you define "normal".
>> The following list is a capsule description of the ten major personality disorders which have been identified the American Psychiatric Association. It is not intended to teach you how to become a diagnostician, but merely how to become aware of how the traits of the various personality disorders clump together. (But just because a person may happen to have some of these traits, it doesn't necessarily mean that they have the personality disorder itself.)
-- People with schizoid personality disorders are the hermits among us. They don’t want or enjoy close relationships – even including being part of a family. They have little interest in sex, and take pleasure in few, if any, activities, and generally appear as emotionally cold and distant.
-- People with schizotypal personality disorders aren’t really crazy – they just look and act that way. They may belong to cults or other groups which in this society would be regarded by people around them as very, very strange indeed – or they may be a “cult of one,†without any apparent outside support for their odd or eccentric patterns of thought and behavior.
-- People with anti-social personality disorders lack the capacity for a conscience and thus have no sense of right and wrong except for how to get what they want. But they are not always to be found in prisons. They are often very charming people, and make great salespersons -- or politicians. Some of them can be very good at it, and they just might end up as elected officials or the CEOs of major corporations. Often times they are also exceptionally intelligent.
-- People with histrionic personality disorders, regardless of whether they happen to be male or female, are often referred to as “drama queens.†They live for attention, and will frequently go to great lengths in order to get it. They have to drive the right car, live in the right neighborhood, wear the right clothes, and send their kids to the right schools. If they become celebrities, their motto may become, “I don’t care what you print about me, just be sure you spell my name right.â€
-- People with obsessive-compulsive personality disorders handle their anxieties by getting so bogged down in detail that the essential point of the activity is lost. They may spend a great time each day repeating rituals such as washing their hands over and over, or endlessly cleaning their house, washing their car, or caring for their lawn, so that they don’t have time to be concerned about the big problems in life that they are simply too frightened to deal with. Note that this is NOT the same as the neurological disorder called OCD.
-- People with dependent personality disorders usually have very low self-esteem. They don’t like to take risks and strike out on their own. They don't care much how they are treated, and are willing to put up with a lot, as long as they are able to feel secure. Sometimes, for these people, the "devil they know" is better than the one they don't - in other words, they may realize they are in a bad relationship, but they feel safe because they understand that relationship. It's better and easier to stay there than face a possibly worse relationship, or no relationship at all.
-- People with borderline personality disorders generally have very weak sense of self and weak interpersonal boundaries, and often have very intense, passionate, and very short relationships, because they are “in love with love itself,†and not with any particular person. When the relationship begins to cool off, they are ready to move on.
They often cannot talk to someone of the opposite sex (or the same sex, if they’re so inclined), without acting and feeling like they are falling in love with that person. They are often recklessly impulsive, self-destructive, and emotionally unstable with frequent outbursts.
-- People with avoidant personality disorders are extremely shy, and most of what they do is motivated by the need to avoid situations in which they feel like there is a possibility that they might embarrass themselves.
-- People with paranoid personality disorders are primarily motivated by the need to ward off risks the most of us routinely accept because they are so unlikely to happen. They include the “conspiracy theorists,†who want to blame all the world’s ills on a small group of evil people who are scheming to control the rest of us. For example, if a person with a paranoid personality disorder happens to notice that the American Psychiatric Association keeps adding more and more diagnoses to their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual with each edition, they might think, "When everyone has a diagnosis, psychiatrists will rule the world!"
-- Passive-aggressive personality disorder was removed from the list in the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, but it is being included for the purposes of this discussion, because passive-aggressive behavior does exist regardless of whether or not there is enough evidence to make it a separate category of personality disorder. Passive-aggressive people express their hostilities indirectly by pushing other people’s buttons without appearing to do so -- like the dinner guest who exclaims innocently, "Wonderful meal, folks. I had no idea how delicious the cheaper cuts of meat could be!" or the sneaky "Don't worry about me, I'm fine," when you know perfectly well that if you say, "Okay," and go on with whatever you were doing, there are going to be problems to deal with later because he/she is most definitely not fine, and you should have known that.
>> If nothing else helps, resolve to treat your experiences with impossible people as valuable life lessons. Realize that after dealing with them for a while, getting along with everyone else will be easier. You are getting a free education about how to deal with the most difficult people. Although it is unpleasant now, the lessons you learn are going to be valuable later in life.
>> It may also help to call a spade a spade and realize that you are dealing with an emotional abuser. More helpful information can be found in literature on that topic.
>> Be kind and friendly even though they may act like a jerk to receive negative attention. If they are lonely but don't know how to get attention, then they will appreciate what you are doing and change. If they are just natural jerks who love to make others mad, then what you are doing will enrage them because they can't figure out how to make you mad, and eventually they will leave you alone. Love is crucial, even if it is insanely difficult to perform in various situations.
>> That being said, be careful about using kindness. You don't want to end up rewarding someone who is abusive towards you, or it will encourage more abuse. For example, they may yell at you to do something that is their job, and you decide to be kind and do it. Then this person now feels that they can get their way with you by bullying you.
>> Some impossible people will see your kindness as a willingness to do any favor they ask. When this happens, kindly and regretfully decline. Do not lie; it is better not to explain, but simply to decline, or if pressed hard, to be vague about your reasons. Lying, if discovered, will exacerbate your problems with this person (since, as stated above, they can simply pull out your lie years later as more "evidence" for "blame" on you).
>> Don't disagree with them; find ways to be agreeable even if they are wrong. When they tell you that you donated the money for attention or whatever else, you can say that they might be right. Agreeing with impossible people sidetracks their steam as they continually look for arguments. You could even smile a bit as you agree with them, thus maintaining your good humor and away from falling back into anger.
>> Note that the most healthy way to deal with an impossible person is to remove that person from your environment. Do not torture yourself by exposing yourself to a destructive person. Do not put up with it. You are worth more than that. Remember that you cannot "fix" this person.
>> When someone is abusing or slandering you, other people will start to show sympathy towards you. You don't need to do anything to make your opponent look bad; she/he just digs his/her grave with no help from you. If s/he is angering you, others are also likely to be annoyed.
>> Try to focus on the positive, even if you can't seem to think of anything. Something as simple as "God loves him/her" can keep you under control, even if you don't love them yourself.
>> Ignore them. How better to undermine someone who wants to rant and rave in order to seek attention than to not give them the attention they want? If they cannot get your attention they will move on to someone else who will give them the attention they crave. Don't let it be you.
