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cjlasky7Hi. My name is cjl, and I'm a classic passive-aggressive personality.
I wonder how many of you out there realized that about me? For the most part, our social interactions have been relatively stress free: a movie, dinner, some amiable chatting afterwards. On social media or message boards, I gravitate towards calm, well reasoned discussions--and I avoid shippers and trolls like the plague. "Sensible," you say. But that sensible approach masks something deeper and not so sensible.
Let's break it down:
1. Conflict Avoidance
When assessing a passive-aggressive personality from the outside, you might think that the main goal of this behavior is to be liked. But that's not quite it. While I certainly don't want anybody to hate me, I think I can live if somebody out there thinks I'm an asshole. (And I certainly CAN be an asshole.)
What drives me to distraction is the possibility of conflict. I shudder at the possibility of confrontation or being trapped in an situation where I don't have a great deal of control. Serious arguments with friends or loved ones induce an almost existential nausea, a draining of life force that literally weighs down my limbs. Over the years, I've had to hire professionals to do substantial work on my house; I've had to push myself to contact these people to get the work done. (The possibility of the project ending in disaster is always on the back of my mind.)
2. "If I Ignore It, Maybe It'll Go Away"
The classic cry of the passive-aggressive personality. What might surprise you is how often this works. A great many conflicts can be resolved if you just take a step back, take a deep breath and let the problem resolve itself. Many conflicts stem from overreaction to a relatively harmless set of circumstances, and the passive-aggressive approach is just the ticket to defuse the situation.
Of course, it doesn't work all the time, and that's a real problem. Sometimes, letting a situation fester just makes it ten times worse.
One of the big downsides of a passive-aggressive personality is that, when it comes to that point of confrontation, I can't react appropriately because I try to avoid it whenever possible. My anger response can be completely disproportionate to the situation. (Yes, a real David Bruce Banner deal....)
3. Beware of Sabotage
This is serious. One thing I have to be very, very careful about is indulging in subconscious sabotage. I realize that if I do ignore my own feelings about a project and commit to somebody else's vision, I have to honor that commitment. There is always the temptation to slack off, half-ass it, and stew in resentment. It's the ugliest part of passive-aggressiveness, and I have to check myself constantly to avoid that trap. I'm ashamed to say I haven't always succeeded.
4. Enabling and Weaponization
It's fascinating when a passive-aggressive personality connects with the proverbial bull in a China shop. The two complement each other: the p-a restrains the bull's overaggressiveness and the bull takes on the burden of confrontation. In effect, the two of them enable each other's tendencies and weaponizes those tendencies to mutual advantage.
The problem with this symbiosis is that it traps each individual in their role. Ideally, the bull must learn restraint and the passive-aggressive must learn to approach confrontation in a healthy constructive manner.
I haven't progressed as much as I would like on that front. I've gotten better over the years, but I still struggle. This shit goes deep.
I wonder how many of you out there realized that about me? For the most part, our social interactions have been relatively stress free: a movie, dinner, some amiable chatting afterwards. On social media or message boards, I gravitate towards calm, well reasoned discussions--and I avoid shippers and trolls like the plague. "Sensible," you say. But that sensible approach masks something deeper and not so sensible.
Let's break it down:
1. Conflict Avoidance
When assessing a passive-aggressive personality from the outside, you might think that the main goal of this behavior is to be liked. But that's not quite it. While I certainly don't want anybody to hate me, I think I can live if somebody out there thinks I'm an asshole. (And I certainly CAN be an asshole.)
What drives me to distraction is the possibility of conflict. I shudder at the possibility of confrontation or being trapped in an situation where I don't have a great deal of control. Serious arguments with friends or loved ones induce an almost existential nausea, a draining of life force that literally weighs down my limbs. Over the years, I've had to hire professionals to do substantial work on my house; I've had to push myself to contact these people to get the work done. (The possibility of the project ending in disaster is always on the back of my mind.)
2. "If I Ignore It, Maybe It'll Go Away"
The classic cry of the passive-aggressive personality. What might surprise you is how often this works. A great many conflicts can be resolved if you just take a step back, take a deep breath and let the problem resolve itself. Many conflicts stem from overreaction to a relatively harmless set of circumstances, and the passive-aggressive approach is just the ticket to defuse the situation.
Of course, it doesn't work all the time, and that's a real problem. Sometimes, letting a situation fester just makes it ten times worse.
One of the big downsides of a passive-aggressive personality is that, when it comes to that point of confrontation, I can't react appropriately because I try to avoid it whenever possible. My anger response can be completely disproportionate to the situation. (Yes, a real David Bruce Banner deal....)
3. Beware of Sabotage
This is serious. One thing I have to be very, very careful about is indulging in subconscious sabotage. I realize that if I do ignore my own feelings about a project and commit to somebody else's vision, I have to honor that commitment. There is always the temptation to slack off, half-ass it, and stew in resentment. It's the ugliest part of passive-aggressiveness, and I have to check myself constantly to avoid that trap. I'm ashamed to say I haven't always succeeded.
4. Enabling and Weaponization
It's fascinating when a passive-aggressive personality connects with the proverbial bull in a China shop. The two complement each other: the p-a restrains the bull's overaggressiveness and the bull takes on the burden of confrontation. In effect, the two of them enable each other's tendencies and weaponizes those tendencies to mutual advantage.
The problem with this symbiosis is that it traps each individual in their role. Ideally, the bull must learn restraint and the passive-aggressive must learn to approach confrontation in a healthy constructive manner.
I haven't progressed as much as I would like on that front. I've gotten better over the years, but I still struggle. This shit goes deep.
no subject
Date: 2021-12-07 06:40 am (UTC)On the positive side, having at least some understanding of one's personality means that one can always work on minimizing it's crappy aspects and building up-- or at least mostly retaining the positive parts. I've always been extremely grateful that I seem to know myself fairly well, both good and bad, and for the most part I can get the bad to piss off.
My subconscious is the major bad part I have to watch out for, especially as I'm aging, since I find that I am far more short-tempered in the last year or so than ever before in my life. Just the other week, for example, I became angry at a plastic food container from the supermarket deli when I simply couldn't get the lid back on after struggling with it for nearly a minute. (I clean and reuse as many of these as possible). I was trying to do so so I could put it away and the damn lid just would not snap back in place.
So in a split-second burst of rage, I smashed it with my fist, and I mean I let it have it. Then I dropped it on the floor, and stomped on it not once, but several times.
Mere seconds after that, my rational brain is like, "What the hell did you do that for?" and I felt guilty, not for busting up the poor thing, but for losing my temper in the first place.
I also think things about the neighbor behind me with the neurotic dog that barks at anything that moves or any sound or-- pretty much anything it wants to. It has a loud, sharp back and despite my 68 years still have quite sensitive hearing and hate noise of nearly any variety. Since I have no desire to spend time in jail or even just pay a big honkin' fine, I tell my subconscious to shut up and that I am not going to take a metal pipe and... (graphic violence to noisy dog deleted).
After all, the dog is someone's pet, and they probably love the critter, says my rational brain, which is of course correct.
I would like to give thanks for my work over the years, where I had to interface on a daily basis with the general public, and apparently did so rather well. I knew a number of people over the years who could not have done so, even though they were generally decent, intelligent people. It just wasn't in their personality to do so. Many of them were, looking back, passive/aggressive in many of the ways that you detailed.
Anyway, the mere fact that you could detail your own characteristics as you just did in your post is a good sign. You know as well as I do that a fair portion of the general population does not have a clue as to how their minds work, and so... why should they do anything different?
Steady on, my friend.
China gets broken
And it will never be the same
Boats on the ocean
Find their way back again
I am weaving
Like a drunkard
Like a balloon up in the air
I am needing a puncture and someone
To point me somewhere
I'm gonna keep my head on straight
I just hope it's not too late
Open up the gate I go straight on, steady on
Steady on!
It's like ten miles of a two-lane
On a South Dakota wheat plain
In the middle of a hard rain
A slow boat or a fast train
I am gonna keep my head on straight
I'm gonna keep my head on straight
Steady on!
-- Shawn Colvin
no subject
Date: 2021-12-07 02:39 pm (UTC)I know there are times when I want to cryogenically wait out the next decade or so. Wake me when we're sane again.
(But that's more conflict avoidance.)
no subject
Date: 2021-12-07 11:47 pm (UTC)Actually most of the people I know are - Wales certainly is, she drives me crazy.
But, as you state to ATPO_OMN, and he states to you? This is an impossible period of drastic change that we're going through right now? I think however you manage to cope with it - is okay?
Also, I'm the exact opposite of you - but even I put off home improvements. There's a reason I rent and don't own. And I will procrastinate calling the Super to fix something - as long as I can get away with. I've water damage in my apartment that requires fixing - that I've alerted them too, but am not pressing because I don't want to deal with them coming in and doing it, nor am I convinced it won't happen again. (There's no mold thankfully. But it does need to be fixed.)
Home improvements and contractors are painful to deal with. I avoid it like the plague. Procrastination is not restricted to passive-aggressive personality types.
Nor is conflict avoidance - I despise conflict. It makes me physically ill as well.
So some of this - is universal, not sure how reassuring that is? But at any rate, people who aren't passive aggressive have these issues too, they just struggle with them slightly differently is all.