Difficult People: Harassing Neighbors

by: Dr. Mark Lauderdale
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/family/article_2741.shtml

“My neighbors are harassing me. How do you deal with difficult people like these?”

I’ve been asked this question SEVERAL times now, so I thought I’d write an article on the topic.

The word “harassment” is a very broad term. For different people it can mean anything from neighbors who are verbally abusive and deflating your tires to people who are just plain nosey.

It’s a little like saying, “My dog is misbehaving”. You wouldn’t start right away by working on your dog’s “misbehavior” in general. You’d want to focus on the SPECIFIC forms of misbehavior that are causing a problem, such as jumping up on people, or barking too much, etc…

So, the first thing to do is to identify the specific type of harassing behavior that is causing the problem.

For the sake of discussion let’s say that your neighbors are frequently rude or disrespectful to you and your family. They use a "hit and run” form of verbal abuse.

The next thing to do is… talk to them? (I can already hear you saying, “I tried that and it didn’t work!”) Let me clear about this… NO!

The next thing to do has NOTHING to do with talking to them.

In fact, jumping into action too quickly is often where people go wrong right off the bat. It’s almost guaranteed that you will DO or SAY the wrong things, which just make things WORSE.

No, the next thing to do is IMAGINE… more specifically, to visualize the way you’d like things to be with your neighbor instead of the way things are. In other words, set your goal and visualize it.

You might want to turn them into friends or you might want to have infrequent but respectful interactions. That’s ok. Just be very clear about your goal – as long as it’s constructive.

So, let’s say that you don’t want to move away from the neighborhood and that what you REALLY want is for your neighbors to talk in a respectful way to you and your family.

Now, since THIS is what you really want, you should make a conscious decision that everything you say or do from now on will move things toward this outcome… and furthermore, that everything THEY say or do ALSO becomes an opportunity for you to take things closer to that outcome.

After you’ve imagined what a positive outcome might look like, you should then eliminate your anger, frustration and stress about the situation and feel calm, strong and confident about creating a positive change.

You can’t produce a positive outcome if you’re sitting on negative, angry or hostile feelings.

To shift your emotional state into strength and confidence, you can use the Wellspring Method at http://www.shrinkinabox.com/difficult-people/creating-change.htm which I created to help you successfully deal with difficult people and situations like this.

Armed with a feeling of confidence and determination to produce a positive outcome with the difficult person, start imagining what would happen if you were to meet with your neighbor… play out ANY scenarios that come into your mind.

There is not just ONE RIGHT WAY. You know your situation far better than I do and how your particular neighbor is likely to respond.

You might start off by paying them a visit and saying, “I noticed that you seemed unhappy about something when we last spoke, so I thought I’d come over and find out what it is that’s bugging you…”

It’s quite possible that they may not believe you and you may just get another rude response. But, you can persist… “Clearly something was bothering you and I’d really like to know what it is so that we can address the problem.”

You want to persist and be genuinely concerned and curious, so that your neighbor actually starts to feel that you are interested in what their issue is. Persist until you REALLY understand why they are feeling the way they are… even if their concern is based on misinformation or an immature way of seeing things.

Once you understand what their concern is (no matter how rudely they expressed it), you can then start to think of a solution that could address that concern. Of course, if you are addressing their genuine concern, then they will also become more receptive to a friendlier relationship without the disrespectful language.

If there is really no underlying issue that is bothering them, or at least none that they will divulge to you, and they persist with rude language, you can take the approach of paying them a visit each and every time a rude episode occurs… each time approaching them with the same calm and genuine curiosity about what it is that is bugging them.

The more rude they are, the more concerned and curious you can be. Of course, you would need to be able to do this calmly and confidently because pushing your buttons and getting you to react is what they are TRYING to do!

If you continue with repeated discussions over an extended period of time, never retaliating or getting drawn into an argument and always pursuing the issues in great detail, the act of being disrespectful towards you will start to become a bit of a nuisance to your neighbor who will think twice about being rude next time.

He’ll know that hurling another negative comment your way is just going to result in yet another long drawn out discussion in which the things that are bugging him will be put under the microscope for examination.

There are only two outcomes… Either your neighbor will eventually reveal what is really bugging him or her, which you can then address through some kind of win-win solution, or, they will change their tune and avoid being rude in order to avoid another discussion with you.

Relationship and Sex Abuse: Warning Signs

http://www.saviodsilva.org/rrr/xs67.htm

The more of the following that are present in your relationship, the more likely that it will become, or is already, abusive:

1. Excessive alcohol or drug usage.

2. Isolation, decreased contact with friends or family members. For many years I have had a saying: "If it (the relationship) is going to go bad, it usually goes bad in isolation." Beware especially of the person who will not read books, attend workshops, or go to club meetings, and/or does not want you to do those things. Some people may need to avoid events because of privacy concerns; this is a different matter. They may know that such resources discuss safety, consensuality, negotiation, ethics, and limits -- and your hearing that would reveal their abusiveness.

3. Unemployment and/or severe money problems.

4. Strong feelings of jealousy or possessiveness. Unwarranted suspicions of flirting or arranging secret meetings.

5. A history of violent confrontations with friends, family members, co-workers, or others.

6. A family history of being battered or other violence. (Abuse is, to a large degree, learned behavior. They had to learn it somewhere.)

7. Dealing with relationship problems by issuing threats or ultimatums about what will happen if a perceived problem arises again. (Playful "punishments" that have been negotiated as part of the relationship would be an exception.)

8. Non-negotiated, hurtful verbal abuse taking place on an uncomfortably frequent basis -- especially if it's not balanced by a lot of affection and support. Examples may include sarcasm, pointed "interrogation" of motives or behavior, belittling in front of others, frequent “teasing,” or “playful” insults.

9. Furniture violence. This is a major red flag. If objects are being damaged during a blow-up, people may be damaged during the next one.


The cycle of violence
A basic truth of abusive relationships is that the abuse usually escalates in what authorities call “the cycle of violence.” Emotions reach the boiling point and abuse happens.

Following the abuse, the abuser often feels genuinely sorry and asks for forgiveness. This request is often accompanied by promises to change. Unfortunately, the abuser is not usually able to change without outside help.

Abusive incidents are often followed by a "honeymoon period" of relative happiness. Unfortunately, the stresses that led to the original abuse are usually still present, and tensions again slowly build. Before too long, abuse occurs again.

A major point is that abusive incidents usually become more severe, and the time between the incidents usually becomes shorter. Eventually major destruction, even the death of the abused and/or the abuser, will take place.

The cycle of violence must be broken as early as possible. The key to breaking the cycle is simple: Get outside help! A third party must become involved, and both parties must know that.

This third party should be someone with professional training in dealing with abuse, such as a physician, psychotherapist, or religious counselor. (Note: Some professionals are better than others at dealing with abuse, so finding effective help may involve contacting more than one person.)

Involving well-meaning friends or family members may make the situation much worse. For example, threats by the victim’s friends to the abuser about what will happen “if you ever do this again” are likely to do little except raise tensions, and perhap s even provoke a fatal confrontation.

The people involved must not fool themselves into thinking that a pattern of abusive behavior is something they can solve between themselves. In particular, victims and abusers must not kid themselves that “better behavior” on the victim’s part will p revent further abuse.

If more than one abusive incident has occurred, it’s time to get outside help. If even one incident occurs involving any physical injury, it’s time to call the police.

One positive note: Abuse is learned behavior much more than most people think it is. An abuser is not necessarily evil or weak, but they need to see that their abusive behavior is harming their relationships and driving people away. It helps to view the abuser as someone who needs to learn alternative ways of effectively dealing with frustration and anger.

Practicing Forgiveness

http://www.explorefaith.org/life_issues/why_forgive/practicing_forgiveness.php

Most of what I know about forgiveness I’ve learned from a close friend. Let’s call him “Bob.” I met Bob in seminary over twenty years ago and we’ve been involved in each other’s lives ever since. Bob and I were drawn together because we had similar religious backgrounds, and for a while our lives followed parallel paths. We were both married in 1985, both to women who were just out of college.

Bob’s wife, however, was not ready for the commitment of monogamy and began to have an affair within months of their wedding. Had Bob found out at the time, he might have been able to have their marriage annulled. But she did not disclose the affair until two years later, and then only because she had been caught in another act of infidelity.

So, two years into what he thought was a happy marriage, Bob learned that his wife had been repeatedly unfaithful. He was devastated, of course. But once the shock and hurt wore off, Bob found himself faced with a daunting question: How should he respond to the news of this betrayal? Should he divorce his wife? Since there were no children to cloud the picture, this was a real option. But what would God have him do? It was hard to see how God could blame him for moving to dissolve the marriage, since even the Bible allows divorce on the grounds of infidelity. But was the acceptable thing also the right thing?

What finally determined Bob’s path was his realization that forgiveness was at the core of what it meant to live as a Christian. If he wasn’t willing to forgive in this situation, what did forgiveness really mean?

After several months of marital alienation and the help of an expert counselor, Bob and his wife were able to reconcile. The counselor convinced Bob that the marriage would survive only if he were willing to forgive her, and so he did. As far as I know, he never mentioned the infidelity again, never disclosed it to family members, never held it over his wife.

In time Bob and his wife were blessed with children. He considered their marriage successful, their happiness accentuated by the storms they had weathered together. Then, just when Bob least expected it, the past came back to haunt him. After fourteen years, his wife announced abruptly that she no longer wanted to be married, no longer believed in marriage for that matter. She filed for divorce and moved out. Eventually, he learned the truth about her sudden change of heart: She had fallen in love and begun a relationship with someone else.

After three years of single-fatherhood, Bob remarried and is now happier than he ever dreamed of being. But in more reflective moments he questions his decision to forgive his ex-wife and try to repair a marriage that had been ruptured by infidelity. “What do you think?” Bob asked me recently. “Did I do the right thing back in ’87? If I’d divorced her, I would have saved myself a great deal of pain and embarrassment. More importantly, I would not have brought children into the world who must live with the legacy of betrayal and divorce.”

I wasn’t prepared for this. I had never heard Bob question the wisdom of that decision to forgive and move on, a decision that I admired more than he knew. I too had been through a painful divorce, had watched my children suffer through the chaos of a broken home. And, like Bob, I had since remarried, to a woman who has healed many of our family’s wounds.

“I won’t pretend to know the answer to your question,” I said. “But let me tell you what I’ve learned about forgiveness from watching you. And you tell me if I’ve got it right.

“First, you didn’t forgive the infidelity because you thought it would fix your marriage; you forgave because you felt called by God to do so. Second, forgiving once does not mean you won’t have to forgive again. You hoped that your decision to forgive would keep her from repeating that mistake, but there were no guarantees, and you knew that. Third, the fact that you remarried in a church tells me that you’re willing to forgive again if necessary. Is that right?”

Bob thought for a moment. “I just can’t imagine having to go through that again,” he said. “But that’s not the question,” I responded. “The question is would you be willing to demonstrate your belief in forgiveness? Would the call to forgiveness be any weaker next time than it was before?” He had to admit that it wouldn’t.

I’m still not sure Bob is convinced that he did the right thing. But either way his experience has taught me a lot about forgiveness—mainly that forgiveness begets more forgiveness; that it becomes a habit, a practice that enables us to live with the uncertainties of life without becoming jaded or resentful. In some ways, I envy Bob. He knows things about forgiveness that he doesn’t even know he knows.

Copyright ©2004 Stephen Haynes

Forgiveness: What it Is and What it Isn't

http://www.explorefaith.org/life_issues/why_forgive/what_forgiveness_is_isnt.php

Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Ralston were the grandes dames of my childhood church. Everything about them told you so. Their attire was much richer than everybody else’s. Mrs. Williams wore beautiful suits in jewel colors, fantastic hats made of feathers and flowers, and pristine, long white gloves with beautiful shirring and tiny pearl buttons up the side of them. She wore a fur, also: the kind to which the minks’ heads were still attached. We children were fascinated by it: the tiny feet, the tail, the little glaring, amber eyes. Mrs. Ralston also had a mink, though it was of much less zoological interest: a simple stole worn around the shoulders of her exquisite suits, every bit as beautifully made and brightly colored as Mrs. Williams’s. As a rule, Mrs. Ralston’s hats were higher than Mrs. Williams’s, who favored wider brims to balance her taller figure.

Mrs. Ralston sat near the front on what was known in those days as the “epistle side,” the right side of the nave as one faced the altar. Mrs. Williams sat in the back row of that side, and was the first of any of us to arrive, since her husband, Stuart, as small and meek and resigned a man as his wife was large and formidable, was the usher and needed to be at his station early to pass out the service leaflets. There they would be when worshipers walked in, Mrs. Williams greeting each arrival like a queen and Stuart fussing over his pile of leaflets. She greeted them all, that is, except one: when Mrs. Ralston made her own queenly entrance, not a word was exchanged, not a word or a glance.

It has been so for decades. I used to pester my mother and grandmother about why the two ladies didn’t speak, but they answered vaguely, and I knew it was a secret. At the church suppers—turkey in the fall and fried chicken in the spring—Mrs. Williams ruled the kitchen with martial authority, her merest glance securing compliance even from immense men brandishing potato mashers. Her steaming plates poured forth from the kitchen; the exquisite smell summoned the countryside for acres around the church. Mrs Ralston ruled the dining room.

That is where we girls worked: serving the diners, taking pie orders from among the breathtaking array on the pie table—peach, apple, pumpkin, coconut custard, blueberry, lemon meringue, chocolate, butterscotch, pecan, banana cream. And we would trot to the biscuit table, where Mrs. Thompson mixed feathery biscuits and baked them in a small covered oven right on the spot, so they were steaming and fresh when we laid them in baskets on the tables. And we would fetch glasses of sweet iced tea, sweet being the only kind they made. The older ladies would stand beside empty seats and hold up two and three and four fingers to signify the presence of vacancies, and Mrs. Ralston reigned over it all.

It was an economy that could only have worked in a tiny country church like that one, I suppose: two parish leaders who never communicated with each other. It had been like this for so long that everyone had long since learned how to manage the little cold war, and nobody gave it much thought.

Nobody but the rector. He was new to the parish, his first cure, and full of a true goodness that would last the entire forty years he served that little church and a smaller one ten miles north. It was a terrible thing to him that these two ladies should have carried on a grudge for all those years, and a terrible thing that the church had let them. He made inquiries as to the origins of the estrangement, and got nowhere: small towns do not yield up their secrets quickly. This, too, was annoying. But there was one more thing he could try.

He knew from his study of the Prayer Book that there was a provision in it allowing the minister to refuse communion to those in his parish betwixt whom he perceiveth malice and hatred to reign; not suffering them to be partakers of the Lord’s Table, until he know them to be reconciled.
(From "General Rubrics for Holy Communion," The Book of Common Prayer, ©1928, p. 85)

And so he spoke to each of the ladies privately. They would not be admitted to Communion the next Sunday unless they spoke to each other.

Everyone was in church the following week. Even my mother and grandmother (who usually arrived just in the knick of time) got there early, and they had told me that I must always be above gossip in the parish. Mrs. Williams, of course, was already seated. One of the minks caught my eye with a malicious amber gleam, and I quickly looked away. Stuart fretted over his leaflets with more than the usual melancholy.

Enter Mrs. Ralston. Her process down the aisle was as always, stopping here and there to accept somebody’s hand. And then she turned and spoke.

"Good morning, Mrs. Williams."

"Good morning, Mrs. Ralston."

And then she sat down in her pew. The rector, half hidden in the sacristy doorway, heard the exchange. And the silence after it. He thought a moment and then signaled the organist to begin the processional.

It was not all he had hoped. Still, they had spoken.

It was not until twenty years later that my mother finally told me why Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Ralston never spoke. They had grown up together in that little town, two girls about the same age. They had gone to the same school and the same church. In her teens, Mrs. Ralston had become pregnant out of wedlock. In a plan that may seem strange and even cruel to us now but was not uncommon then, she and her mother remained at home in seclusion until the baby was born, whereupon her mother presented the child to the world as her own and they resumed their lives as if nothing had happened. The little girl reached adulthood never knowing that the woman she thought to be her sister was really her mother. These facts were known by almost everyone. But by silent common consent, they were never discussed.

Somewhere along the line, though, Mrs. Williams had made a snide remark to someone about Mrs. Ralston’s secret, and Mrs. Ralston had heard about it. I think of the shame of the young girl in her embarrassing situation, of her strange loss of what the world considers honor, of her daily proximity to her child without a mother’s place in that child’s history. Even after she married Mr. Ralston, she never had another child. How cruel a thing it must have been to hear that a friend had gossiped maliciously about her. I believe that, except for the exchange in the church aisle that Sunday morning, they never spoke again in this life.

That’s a long time to carry a grudge.

But here it is: I have to forgive others if I wish, myself, to feel forgiven and free. Those two ladies in the little old church lived long and productive lives, and were good to many people. Those turkey dinners! Those chicken dinners! But there was a piece missing out of each of them that cannot have done either of them any good. They could not find a way to forgive. More than anything else, this fact stops people cold in the project of finding reconciliation, with God and with other human beings.

It sounds to them as if they are being asked to do something they know they cannot do: somehow come up with a great rush of warm, friendly feelings toward someone who has hurt them terribly. It sounds as if any forgiveness God might have for them will be hostage to the improbable completion of this task; as if the one who has hurt them must somehow be allowed to get away with it—his crime erased and forgotten; as if they must somehow learn to adopt an oh-what-the-heck-that’s-okay attitude toward people who have injured them grievously. But that’s not what forgiveness is.

Sins aren’t okay. By definition, they’re not okay; if they were okay; they wouldn’t be sins, would they? There would be no need for forgiveness. What we would be talking about if sins were okay would be acquittal, not forgiveness. Acquittal means the guy didn’t do it. He walks. He’s innocent. But when we forgive, that’s not the judgment we’re making. We’re not exonerating. We’re just electing to move on.Forgiveness turns out to be much more about you than about the one who has hurt you.

In a curious way—curious and offensive to many people, I might add—the distinction between the victim of a wrong and its perpetrator is not as central to the problem of forgiveness as it always seems. This thought runs so counter to the way almost all of us feel that it sounds like nonsense, especially to the victim of a grave injury.

Wait a minute!…you’re saying that there’s no difference between me and the one who betrayed my trust so completely that I don’t think I can ever trust again?

Whether I committed the sin or someone else committed it against me is not as important to my eventual freedom as is ejecting it from its inappropriate place in the spotlight on my spiritual landscape. Whoever did it—if it is obsessing me—I am the one who must act to change things. As fascinated as we cannot help but be with the question, “Who started it?” the more urgent and more useful question is, “Who can end it?” The first is a question about the past, and we cannot change the past. But the second is about the present and the future, and these are things we can affect by our own agency.

Please don’t be so disgusted by the last paragraph that you stop reading. I have not said there is no such thing as right or wrong. Of course there is. Certainly there are such things as aggression, as dishonesty, as faithlessness. There are also degrees of injury: failing to RSVP and burglary are not of equal gravity. From the viewpoint of my soul’s health, though, my inability to move on from a wrong that has been done me may be much more troublesome, over a much longer stretch of time, than the original wrong ever was.Whether I did it or had it done to me, I am the only one who can offer it to God to be removed from its hurtful place in my heart. In that sense, and in that sense alone, sins against me can function in my heart as if they were my own.

You have known someone, I’m sure, who nourished a grudge for decades. Perhaps you have even been someone who nourished a grudge for decades—in utter estrangement from someone with whom you once were close. Often, it is a former spouse who occupies that Siberia. I’ve known many divorced people who, ten or fifteen years after the breakup, describe it at almost every social gathering with as fresh a hurt and anger as if it had happened the previous week. Over and over they review their own innocence and the perfidy of the former husband or wife for anyone who will still listen. Their tragedy has become liturgical: it has chronology and cause—credal and immutable—that must not be altered. It has only one allowable meaning.

And who knows? Maybe she is right, the wounded innocent. The fault may be completely and utterly his, and she may have been totally without blame in the breakup of their marriage. This would be rare, but it is conceivable. She may be innocent. But she is far from free. She is probably much more imprisoned by the sin of her ex than he has ever been. He may have sinned grievously against her twenty years ago, but it is she who carries the heavy baggage of his sin with her still, she who still nurses the ongoing bitterness of an ancient betrayal. It’s hard work, carrying someone else’s load like that.

How can she ever get free?

I’m pretty sure she won’t get free by putting forth an enormous effort of will to forgive. If this could have been done through an exercise of her will, it probably would have been. Her will is crippled, at present, by many things—her anger, her hurt, her embarrassment.

We might as well be honest here and admit that forgiveness does not come naturally to us. We are not forgiving by nature. We are vengeful. We tend to hang onto things, not let go of them. By ourselves, we are not good at this.

But we are not by ourselves.

The life of faith is not about becoming a better and better person through a superhuman effort of will. It is about connecting with the power of a loving God. Is forgiveness beyond you? Of course it is: it’s beyond all of us. But it is not beyond the one who looked down upon his tormentors from the cross and understood them. And because that one lives in us, we can lay hold of this loving power and move beyond terrible things, if we must. With the power that comes from our loving creator through a loving redeemer, we can do things we otherwise could not do.

We begin to forgive by deciding, not by feeling. It is a theological decision, not one guided by the human limitations we must ordinarily take into consideration when we decide about many other things, like which school to attend or which car to buy. We make the decision to forgive knowing that we lack the power to carry it out, and so we make it asking for that power to be given to us as God wills. Our feelings don’t lead us to forgiveness; they usually lead us in the opposite direction.

We begin by deciding to allow God to enter into our process of dealing with our feelings and their continuing grip on us. God understands our feelings and their great power over us very well. God knows us. In making this beginning, we have nothing to fear: God is gentle with us and knows full well that our feelings of terrible anger mark the moment in our history when something terrible happened to us. God is not in the business of explaining it all away or insisting that we do that. God does not brainwash us or demand that we brainwash ourselves.

Part of deciding to forgive may involve bringing your inability to do so to confession. How might you do this? "The Office of Compline" on page 127 of The Book of Common Prayer contains one prayer of confession; it’s the only one of the Daily Offices in which the confession is not optional, on the sensible theory that the end of the day is a good time to take inventory, and that, in doing so, most of us will be able to unearth at least one thing in the course of the day just past that we wish we hadn’t done. So maybe you could start there, for a night or two, and see what happens.

Or maybe this is a matter better suited to a sacramental confession. Maybe you need the accountability of having another person in the room to help you make yourself accountable to God. This can be a frightening prospect: I’m supposed to expose this to another human being? What if he gives me a lecture about turning the other cheek and sends me on my way with a pat on the head? What if he thinks I’m selfish and mean-spirited? What if he tells me I have no right to feel as I do?

Well, for heaven’s sake, choose your confessor with care. Don’t go to someone you already know to be a grown-up hall monitor, or to someone who routinely ignores other people’s feelings and concerns. Go to someone with whom you have a good rapport and whose probity is beyond question.

Your confession of being unable to forgive is only that: it is not a reopening of the case against the one who has injured you to determine, yet again, his guilt or innocence. It is only an honest admission that your experience of that hurt has taken over more of your life than is healthy. It is not nearly as much about the original injury as it is about how your life has been since then. It is not so much about a stubborn refusal to forgive as about a lamentable inability to do so, an inability even to begin. It’s not so much about your willful “I won’t!” as it is about your sorrowful “I can’t; can you help me?” There are rocks we can’t lift. There are lots of them. We shouldn’t try to lift them ourselves. We should ask for the help we need. Confessing our weakness opens us to this help.

When we ask God for help in our weakness, we get help. Ordinarily it is not immediate, a melting away of decades of hostility in an instant. Often—usually—it doesn’t look much like our expectation or our plan. But in the act of asking, we have received.

Now it can begin to make sense to talk about a “theological decision” to forgive. Now we remember that our feelings often lag behind our decisions. Now we understand that the decision to forgive is not certified by the sudden blossoming of good feelings. The theological decision to forgive does not need certification as real; if you have said it to God, it has already begun to happen. In deciding to forgive, in some sense, you have done so. And this is true even if you’re just as mad as you ever were. You may still be mad, but you are not alone. You have asked God into the mix of your feelings and your decision, and now you have a power much greater than your own at work in you, sorting things out. Right here, right now, the process of easing your burden has begun.

So “forgive and forget” is nothing but an alliterative illusion. Forgiveness does not erase history or exonerate. History has happened, and nobody can revise its content or many of its consequences. And feelings are not the barometer of forgiveness in its early stages, although with the passage of time they heal powerfully in a person who has turned to God for help in living a forgiving and forgiven life.

Poor Mrs. Williams. Poor Mrs. Ralston. Gone to their graves years ago, now, those frozen dead places still locked in their hearts. No doubt they are friends again. But it could have happened while they still lived here. The dead places could have filled with light and life and love in this life.

From Yes! We'll Gather at the River by Barbara Cawthorne Crafton. Copyright© 2001 Barbara Cawthorne Crafton. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, New York.

SHOW ME THE MONEY

Gary Smalley
http://www.christianitytoday.com/mp/2004/fall/16.64.html

It was an innocent mistake. Norma and I had been settled for several years in Branson, Missouri, but still had bank accounts in Phoenix, where we used to live. I thought it would be good to combine everything into one bank, so I closed the accounts in Phoenix and invested the money in a fund I had at our local bank.

A couple years later, I was meeting with our accountant, who asked me about a bank account in Phoenix. "I closed that a few years ago," I told him.

"Then why is there still activity?" he asked. He told me about a number of deposits and the amount of money there.

I thought that was strange, so I called Norma and asked her about it. She explained that it was a special savings account she'd set up. Each month she put some of her paycheck in the account, which she uses for our children and grandchildren. Suddenly I realized that she didn't know I'd "closed out" the accounts. I'd forgotten to tell her—and she'd kept making deposits.

I told my accountant, who then wanted to know what had happened to the money I'd withdrawn.

"I reinvested it," I explained.

My accountant, a wise man, said, "Gary, I think we should go together and explain this to Norma."

So we drove to my house and told Norma the situation. She frowned for a moment, then said, "I wondered why that account was so low. Now I know who stole it!"

"No, no, I just reinvested it!" I tried to explain. Then she laughed and kidded us some more about it. I breathed a sigh of relief; she didn't seem mad. Everything was okay!

But everything wasn't okay. Periodically she'd say something like, "I'm never going to trust you again with my personal funds," or "I can't believe you stole my money." She said it lightheartedly, and it took awhile before I realized something was bothering her. So one day when Norma referred jokingly to my taking her money, I asked her why she kept mentioning the incident.

Norma explained: "Gary, you don't understand that you stole my money, and you haven't given it back."

"I haven't stolen it," I protested. "I simply reinvested it. It's your money. If you want it, take it."

"No, you don't get it. I don't know what account that money is in, so I don't have access to it. It's not even in my name."

I really didn't understand why she was so upset, why it was such a big deal, but I decided to fix things. "What do I need to do to repair this situation?" I asked.

"Go to the bank and get a cashier's check for the amount you withdrew—plus interest. Then give me the check."

"Okay, I'll do it." And I did.

I kept racking my brain to figure out why this was such a big deal to Norma. Finally I asked a few other women about it. They all understood exactly what Norma was saying—and they all agreed with her! Even though it didn't seem like a big deal to me, I needed to make things right because it was important to Norma.

Left to fester, this situation could have divided us. In fact, in many marriages these simple misunderstandings can have catastrophic consequences, depending on how couples choose to process them.

It has to do with how we understand and respond to our mate's needs. While these needs may be verbalized, often they're unspoken expectations. Fortunately, my accountant helped me begin communicating with Norma. After cluing in to her "hints," and being willing to understand her real need, I was able to make things right with her and for our relationship. More important than the money or the process was my responsibility to listen to Norma and value her need!

Gary Smalley, Ph.D, is founder and ceo of the Smalley Relationship Center (www.smalleyonline.com) and author of The DNA of Relationships (Tyndale).

Copyright © 2004 by the author or Christianity Today International/Marriage Partnership magazine. Click here for reprint information on Marriage Partnership.

The Trappings of Borderline Personality Disorder

http://www.borderlinepersonality.ca/bordertrappingsofbpd.htm

Borderline Personality Disorder has many trappings that accompany it. There are the nine diagnostic criteria through which professionals make this diagnosis. The first major trap of this disorder lies in its very definition. The outlined nine Borderline Traits, as they are called, are all elements of personality found in the general population at large. I referred to this as a trap because what many people (including many professionals who treat BPD) often seem to fail to recognize is that it is not the traits themselves that throw an individual's personality into borderline disorder but the intensity of those traits. This fine line, while distinguishing BPD, also does the "healing" borderline client disservice. The trap here is found in the reality that the traits the borderline seeks to heal from are actually not pathological in and of themselves.

Learning to bring those traits into the grey "big picture" between the black and the white in a way that makes them much less intense would then seem to be the definition of what it is to heal from BPD. Yes and no. Yes because if you exhibit a trait only to the degree that is considered "normal" or "average" then you have acquired mental health in that area of your personality. No, because, essentially, no one has indeed outlined any "healing stages" for borderlines. So, you can end up like me. I no longer fit the number of traits necessary for the diagnosis. I do not exhibit more than two specific traits (and those even less so now) to any degree beyond relative average. Am I "healed"? No one knows for sure. Some would say yes, while others would say no.

The second trap has all to do with nature versus nurture in the causation of BPD. Why? Well, because if its more nurture than one would assume that can be changed, and healed. The argument with regard to what is "healed" strongly is steeped in the theories that BPD indeed has a biological base. If this is the case then how can one define healing? Can one? Or would the term "management" be more applicable. This line of thought implies that BPD is then not "curable."

The third trap within this disorder is the label itself. Upon hearing the diagnosis of BPD many people, and even many therapists, want to run the other way. BPD has not been adequately defined enough in order to allow for the kind of understanding that is necessary from those without the disorder to approach it without underlying prejudice and misinformation.

Borderline behavior in and of itself is the fourth I've identified. Much of the behavior exhibited by borderlines is triggered and dissociative in nature. Therefore, to outsiders it looks "crazy" or "bizarre" as it unfolds in your here and now reality. Truth is for the borderline often what they are experiencing from their past. The past can easily be triggered by present-day events. When this past plays out in a "here and now" context, the two do not jive. To the observer nothing makes sense. To the borderline the "big picture" or "larger reality" is lost to the past experience intermingled with fragmented experiencing of the "here and now." Your reality makes no more sense to the borderline than theirs does to you. Bridging this gap can take place with very specific oriented communication and hard work on the part of both people.

Most people who are diagnosed with BPD are female. This does not mean males do not have BPD, it is just not as readily diagnosed in males. Most who are diagnosed with BPD have been sexually abused. Most sexual abuse survivors have a similar set of experienced symptoms. Often these are solely attributed to BPD. The trap here is the application of this vague and general label seemingly designed to catch those who do not fit other diagnostic criteria. How then can adequate treatment be developed when really adequate diagnostic criteria is lacking?

The trappings of BPD are far-reaching and carry with them long-lasting consequences. Some borderlines are lost to suicide. Some are lost to a litany of self-abuse that carries the person even further into mental illness. Many remain lost to their authentic core identity. The reality of the Borderline Personality puzzle is often blurred due to the patient and or the professional, getting caught-up in, or waylaid by, the complex symptoms of Borderline behavior itself and the search for cause rather than meaning.

To ensure you do not stay trapped within the pitfalls of BPD it is best to do everything you can to self-educate yourself. Therapy can be helpful. What was most helpful for me in unwinding much of the distorted and illogical thinking of BPD was cognitive therapy. The other single most effective (though not painless for sure) way of working out of this maze of madness is by living as much of your life as you can. Therapy is not life, but life can be good therapy. Being involved with people even it hurts or feels impossible is so vital because if you feel alienated or you isolate yourself, you will not have the opportunity to have mirrored back to you how you come across and who it is others see and experience when they know you. This is necessary in order to facilitate progress in your own congruence and overall affect management.

Though a maze of formidable traps, Borderline Personality Disorder can be unwound and the door to "the big picture" opened if you can sit with your feelings, your pain and your grief long enough to know that on the other side of that there is and will be joy.

Healing from Borderline Personality Disorder entails freeing yourself from the many traps that it lays at your feet. Know that it takes time. Be patient. Work hard and learn that you are not a monster, that your pain and or your emotions are not some monster outside of you that can annihilate you. The monster is the trap we fall into when we believe that we are "less than" or "no good" because...because we were abused and or neglected as children and that damage has profoundly wounded us. You need to know that this was not your fault. That you can learn to provide your own sense of self, safety and direction in life. You can unwind the damage and fill that ever empty hole in your soul with a healed and healthy love of self and of others.

The first step is to realize that YOU need YOU. The second step is to work at stopping the self-injurious behaviors which only perpetuate your abuse, self-hate and shame. The third step is to be there for yourself and to stop abandoning yourself. You do not need someone else to take care of you. You can learn how to take care of yourself.

Lift your feet up one at a time, taking a step at a time, in a journey the process of which is to free yourself from the trappings of the past which are within you now in the form of your personality disorder. HOPE.

© Ms. A.J. Mahari - April 4, 1999

WELCOME TO THE WILDERNESS

By Marian Jordan
September 3, 2008
http://www.christianitytoday.com/singles/newsletter/2008/mind1001.html

One date. Just one itsy-bitsy date (and I'm not referring to the fruit). You know that thing when the guy picks up the girl and takes her out to dinner; that's the kind of date I'm talking about. That's all I wanted—or, rather, thought I needed.
So, I prayed. For a date that is. Not intense, on-my-face type of prayer, but we (God and I) did discuss my need/want of a date on a somewhat regular basis.

A Dating Desert
I truly believed that producing a date wasn't a huge task for the Creator of all life. Surely, I surmised, this wasn't a big deal for God. Or so my line of reasoning believed, and I had the theology to back it up. If God is really the all-powerful Creator of the universe, then it would seem that conjuring up one eligible male prospect wouldn't be all that difficult.
After all, God did speak the world into existence, right?
He does own everything, right?
He does sustain the universe by His awesome power, right?
So how hard could it be for Him to produce one eligible member of the opposite sex? Not too difficult, I would assume. It's not like I'm asking for world peace … just dinner.
Yet for nine whole months I didn't even meet one guy that I would have coffee with, much less a full meal. This was a dating desert with no oasis in sight.
So, why did I need a date, you ask? Pride.
I'm not ashamed to admit it. Plain, simple, run-of-the-mill, rhymes-with-tide kind of pride. I guess you could say I wanted to save some face. I, too, wanted to walk away from my last relationship and act like nothing ever happened. It wasn't fair. I, too, wanted someone else to numb the ache … to fill the void. I so badly wanted to escape the pain of a breakup with the ease of meeting someone new. I really thought a new guy was the solution to my problem.
But I didn't get to escape the pain so easily. I was alone and facing yet another wedding season, class reunion, baby showers, and summer of family picnics—solo. Like I said, it didn't seem fair; I wanted to have someone as my "plus one" for these can't-go-alone events.
But I didn't.
Since the breakup (or what my friends now refer to as "the incident"), my ex-boyfriend successfully met, dated, got engaged to, and married someone else in the span of the eight short months since we said good-bye. (It is truly mind-blowing the speed at which some people are able to move on.) Yet, there I was, still trying to eat normal food again while he was picking out a groom's cake. What's up with that?
I'll be honest. Perhaps I viewed moving on like a competition. And if that's the case, then he was winning gold in the Olympics, and I was auditioning for the middle school track-and-field team. It just didn't seem fair.
As you can see, my pride desperately needed a date.
But it didn't get one … . No escape hatch.

The Breakup
Here's the thing: I thought my ex was "the one." I thought I was in love. Cupid hit me square between the eyes before I had time to duck. It seemed like this relationship dropped in my life out of nowhere, and after some initial resistance on my part, I finally let go, taking a free fall into my worst fear—being close enough to someone that he could actually hurt me. And guess what, he did.
Bad.
It wasn't his fault, really. Clearly, God had different paths for us. I know this to be true today, and I rejoice. In retrospect, I can say with full conviction that although we were part of one another's journeys only for a season, it was for a grand purpose. But back then, in the midst of long walks and laughing till our sides ached, my silly heart didn't get that memo. My heart didn't know it wasn't for keeps … so my heart went for it. It plunged.
I'm the type of girl who throws herself 125 percent into something. Lukewarm is not in my vocabulary. Full throttle. Hold nothing back. Give it all. And I did. I gave my heart.
I'm not ashamed to admit that I loved. I never want to be the girl with a calloused heart who can let go at the drop of a hat. I'm not wired that way. I'm not sure any of us are really. Hardness of heart and ease of separation are the by-products of a broken world where love doesn't last. Love was meant to last. We are supposed to hurt and crumble when our hearts are broken. It seems to me, if we get jaded and stop hurting, we are somehow less human. If my heart didn't break, it means I didn't love. And I did love. So when the relationship ended, I was whacked by the pendulum of emotions that flooded my way. I've never experienced a physical pain that compares to the emotional pain I felt.
I remember thinking, Is there an elephant sitting on my chest? Am I having a heart attack? So, this is why they call it "heartbreak."
Brutal.
Raw.
I was hemorrhaging with the type of gut-wrenching pain that sears every fiber of your being.

The Grieving Process
The funny/sad thing is they don't let you take sick leave for heartbreak. They really should, you know. I think I will petition Congress for this. Seriously, if people can take off work for the sundry things that we see medical doctors for, we should at least get a few "grieving days." I didn't get my grief time. No, I had to step back into my life, put on my game face, and choke back the emotions—all the while realizing how pathetically true country music lyrics can be at times.
But I did grieve—all five stages.
Allow me to explain. Psychologists suggest there are five stages to the grieving process. And they are:
1. Denial. (I really liked this stage. The phrase "reality bites" takes on a whole new meaning when you leave the denial stage.)
2. Anger. (I'm very thankful that God's grace cleanses even our sinful thoughts!)
3. Bargaining. (I did do quite a bit of shopping, but I don't think that is what is meant by this stage. Bargaining is when a person tries to play "let's make a deal" with God. If you will do this for me, then I will do this for you.)
4. Depression. (Sorry, I can't be funny here.)
5. And finally, Acceptance—sweet Acceptance.
Walking through this multilevel season of grief, filled with its doubts and fears, was for me a journey … a harsh wilderness trek through some rough woods and rugged terrain. Often, I felt completely lost in this wilderness. The underbrush of emotions and the steep cliffs of fear surrounded me at every turn. Confused, wounded, scared—and yes, at times, so very lonely.
And then, there were the questions:
How did I get here?
When will I get through a day without crying?
God, is this really part of the plan?
Along the way, there were times I was severely tempted to throw away my camping gear and build a permanent settlement. Denial is a cozy place to live … maybe I'll stay here, I mused. Or better yet, anger sure feels good. Perhaps I'll forward my mail. Then there's depression. At least a girl can catch up on her sleep in Depressionville. But I didn't stay for long at any of these campsites … although each sure seemed alluring at times. I pressed on through the wilderness, sensing something or Someone was beckoning me forward … deeper through the thick darkness … toward a glimmer, a spark, a distant Light.
Meanwhile, as I trudged through my own personal wilderness, I had to continue my normal life back in the city. You know, real-world stuff like going to work and attempting to be productive; pulling it together long enough to pretend to be social at dinner parties; smiling my way through other people's weddings; staring blankly at my professors as I tried to concentrate in graduate school; and numbly attending to the everyday tasks of grocery shopping, bill paying, and the dread of every single female—car maintenance. I had stuff to do. So, I had to get out of bed and get on with life.
On those occasions when I did venture back into the real world, amidst the whole and happy people, I heard every relationship cliché under the sun from well-meaning friends, family, and the occasional stranger who could see my pain from a mile away. Great truths like:
"God has someone better for you." (Oh, really? And you know this because … ?)
"This will all be used for good one day, you'll see."
"Sometimes 'good' is the enemy of God's 'best.'"
"Mr. Right is just right around the corner." (Aw, shucks.)
"Your heart will not break this badly the next time." (PS: not the greatest words of comfort.)
And my all-time favorite (drumroll please): "At least you don't look as old as you really are."
It amazed me how often well-intentioned people made me cry.
You're probably thinking, It's just a breakup. Get over it … move on. I did move on. Sure, I had to go through the grief process of losing my best friend and figuring out who my new "first call" would be. That was the easy part of the wilderness. Honestly, my grief over time wasn't about missing the guy or about not having a boyfriend; it was about something profoundly deeper—I was grieving the death of hope. Sure, it was a misplaced hope, but I will address that problem in another chapter. Until then, understand this: my grief was over the loss of someone and something all at the same time. I mourned, deeply mourned, the death of a desire: the desire to be married.
You see, I'd hoped he was "the one." I'd hoped that my dating days had come to an end. I'd hoped that finally I would be the one picking out china and planning a guest list. But when the relationship ended, I was right back where I started two years before, but this time the dance floor wasn't nearly as crowded. Most—slash that—90 percent of my friends were now married and either planning babies or buying car seat number two. I guess you could say I thought it was my turn. But when my relationship ended, not only did I feel hurt and alone; I also felt like the title of best-selling book series Left Behind.
The main problem was that I, like most girls I know, let my heart follow my mind. I painted this perfect little picture in my head of what I thought our life together would be like: our home, our friends, our kids, our vacations, our ministry, and, of course, our wedding. I was so busy planning "our future" that I lost track of the issues in "our present." Looking back, I realize I placed the hope of my future security and happiness in this image I conjured up in my mind. And then, one arduous summer night, we came to the conclusion that our futures weren't entwined and different paths lay before us.
Poof … it was all gone.
So what was I supposed to do now with all my plans? How did I go forward into a future without him that I'd already mapped out in my mind with him? This wasn't the plan. This certainly wasn't my plan. And somewhere in my heart arose anger at the One I knew full and well had a hand in all of this: God Almighty.
Do you remember the second stage of grief? Yep, that's right, it's called anger. And my anger was unleashed at the most unlikely person—the God whom I loved deeply and served with all my heart. You see, I knew it was God who said no. My faith was strong enough to understand that the "perfect will of the Lord cannot be thwarted" (Job 42:2 paraphrase). I knew God was the One who closed the door. We both did. Yet, I was so confused; I truly thought I was following God's plan. So if I was following God's will, then why did I feel like an eighteenwheeler had driven over my heart?
My life quickly moved from a breakup to a battlefield. The fight was on, and this fight was for my faith. An internal Enemy worked overtime in my thought life. The questions were the worst part. I'd lie my head on my pillow at night, desperately trying to fall asleep, and then they would come. The primary question targeted at my heart was sinister: If God is so good, then why do you hurt so bad? This question was followed by other tauntings:
How can you trust a God who would purposefully inflict such pain in your life?
How could He—that God you love so much—have allowed this to happen?
I thought Jesus loved you and had a wonderful plan for your life. Does this wonderful plan include public humiliation, rejection, heartbreak, and possibly lifelong singleness?
It seems your God has blessings for everyone but you. You are such a fool. That trust of yours is pathetic. You would be happier if you would just bail on following that Jesus.

Common Ground
Welcome to my most recent wilderness season.
What about yours? Where has life led you that is difficult, disappointing, or defeating? What journey are you traveling that is sending you into meltdown mode?
We all have our tale of heartbreak. Whether it's a breakup, miscarriage, personal failure, illness, financial crisis, infertility, divorce, death, abandonment … not one person reading this is immune to a wilderness season. Each woman's wilderness just bears a different name.
I know this much to be true because while I trekked through Brokenheart Bend, I had friends facing some fierce terrain of their own. Down the street a close friend dealt with the heartbreak of multiple miscarriages as she time and again hoped for a child, only to have her hope dashed within weeks of conception. Across town, another girlfriend struggled to put her life back together after watching her precious mother lose a battle with cancer.
The list goes on. While I waited for my heart to heal, another close friend waited and waited for a job offer during a long season of unemployment, only to find closed doors at every turn. And then, I can't count the number of single girls I know who are waiting for God to provide husbands, or women of all ages who are waiting for healing from an illness.
Life can be brutally hard sometimes.
I don't want to spoil the book, but I not only survived my wilderness, I came out on the other side with one incredible story to tell. It's a great adventure … a wild frontier with some spectacular views. Along the way I learned some pretty amazing lessons. Lessons that I'd like to call "Wilderness Skills." Skills, because I'm pretty sure this isn't my last trek into the wild, and should I return, I've learned some things this go-around that I'll be certain to put into practice the next time I find myself lost in the outback.
Whether you find yourself facing loneliness or rejection, temptation or despair, I know this one thing for sure: the wilderness season you are facing will either make you or break you.
Hold on, my friend. Don't give up. You are not alone. Jesus also walked through the wilderness, and He has given us His Word as our map and Himself as our guide. I wish so desperately that I could hold your hand and teach you these skills myself. Try as I may, my words fail to give you my heart. I know your pain. I understand the brokenness. I've lived this thing … and the truths found in these chapters aren't mere theories … they are life.