Bipolar4LifeSupport

Conditional assumptions are based on a syllogism like this:
“If you loved me, you’d pick me up at the subway station after work (or do the dishes, or show more sexual interest, or get home earlier, or help me when I’m tired, or spell me with caring for the kids, or fix things in the house, or finish school so you could get a real job).”
Some other variations:
“If you were a real friend, you’d initiate more often (or just spend some time with me rather than always having something else to do, or take more interest in my problems).”
“If they valued my work here, they’d get me a nicer desk (or give me a raise, or give me a better secretary, or ask what happened when I was sick last week).”

It’s possible to love or care for someone and still not meet his or her needs. Disappointing others does not make one uncaring, and caring doesn’t obligate one to never disappoint. No matter how much someone loves you, that person is still responsible for taking care of his or her own basic needs. That person is still responsible for saying no, setting boundaries, and protecting his or her own limits. “If they cared, if they loved me,” is a setup to make you feel righteous and make the other person feel bad. Truthfully, it’s a strategy for manipulation. But the result is rarely what you might hope. In the long run, making others feel bad doesn’t reinforce them to do what you want, it makes them want to run away, to avoid you.

Exercise: List the times you have disappointed someone you loved or cared for. Remember the times you have had to make difficult choices, when you decided to take care of your own needs over someone else’s. As you think back, notice how little your choice had to do with how much you loved, but rather how much you needed, or how much you were afraid, or how much energy you had.

Coping statements:
1. “Disappointing someone doesn’t mean you don’t care.

2. 2. “Our biggest task, no matter how much we love, is to take care of ourselves.”
3. “His or her needs are as legitimate as mine, and we can negotiate.”

This one is based on the assumption that you really can have control over the behavior of others. While sometimes people do change if you ask them, the fallacy of change reflects the belief that you can make people different if you just apply sufficient pressure. This is ignorant of one basic fact of human behavior: people change only when they are reinforced to change and capable of change. In other words, people change when they want to, not when you want them to.

Expecting people to change leads to frustration and disillusion. If you can’t find a way to make them want to change, you have undertaken a quixotic mission—you are tilting at windmills.

Exercise: Think about and answer the following questions.
1. How many times have you made a major change and sustained it because someone pressured you to do so?
2. What percentage of the people you have known have made a major metamorphosis to satisfy the needs of someone else?
3. How often have you succeeded in changing someone by pressuring him or her with anger?

Coping statements:
1. “The amount of support, help, and nourishment I am now getting is all I can get, given the strategies I am using.”
2. “People only change when they are reinforced to change and capable of change.”
3. “People only change when they want to.”

This belief hinges on the application of legal and contractual rules to the vagaries of interpersonal relationships. The idea is that there is some absolute standard of correct and fair behavior which people should know and live up to. The conviction that relationships must be fair reduces the complex give-take of friendship or marriage to a set of entries in privately held books. Your books tell you whether you are in the red or the black, whether you are getting as much as you give, whether you are owed something for all the sacrifices you have made. The difficulty is that no two people agree on what fairness is and in personal relationships there is no court or arbiter to help. What is fair is totally subjective and depends entirely on what you expect, need, or hope for from the other person. The word “fair” turns out to be nothing more than a disguise for personal preferences and wants. What you want is fair, what the other person wants or does is unfair.

When you say “This is fair” what you’re really saying is my needs are more legitimate than yours. No one wants to hear this. People resist and defend against such assertions. The better approach is to throw out the concept of fairness altogether. Reframe each situation as one of competing needs or preferences. Each person’s need is of equal importance and value, and is equally legitimate.

Once fairness is thrown out, real negotiation can begin.

Exercise: If you are struggling with the issue of fairness try reframing the problem as competing, but equal needs. Then attempt to make a clear, unbiased description of the other person’s need. Don’t try to evaluate whether it is more or less significant than yours.

Coping statements:
1. “Our needs are equally important.”
2. “Each need is legitimate, we can negotiate as peers

you pay attention to your inner monologue with which you analyze and interpret your experience, you will notice that many times each day you are judging the behavior of others. These judgements are based on a set of rules about how people should and should not act. People who behave according to the rules are right, and those who break the rules are wrong. You assume that people know and accept your rules. When they violate your shoulds, their behavior seems like a deliberate break with what is correct, intelligent, reasonable, or moral.

So the first problem with shoulds is that the people with whom you feel angry rarely agree with you. Their perception of the situation leaves them blameless and justified. Their rules and beliefs always seem to exempt them from the judgments you think they deserve. The more you try to convince them of their wrongness and their failure, the more indignant and defensive they become.

The second problem with shoulds is that people never do what they should do. They only do what is reinforcing and rewarding for them to do. Shoulds are YOUR values and needs imposed on someone with different values and needs. 

When you demand that people behave according to YOUR rules, you are violating reality in two ways. First, in most cases others will not agree with your values and rules. Their unique history and needs shape their perception in a way that justifies their behavior. Since you can rarely get others to agree that they are wrong, applying your shoulds to their behavior is an exercise in futility. Second, since behavior is shaped by the formula of needs minus inhibitions, should have almost nothing to do with it. Judging behavior according to your own arbitrary standard of right and wrong really seems to miss the point. The real issue is how much does this person need to act this way and what inhibiting influences, if any, might stop him.

Exercise 1: Stand in their shoes. When you are angry at someone, answer these 4 questions.
1. What needs influence him or her to act this

What beliefs and values influence him or her to act this way?
3. What aspects of his or her history (hurts, losses, successes, failures, rewards) influence this behavior?
4. What limitations (fears, health problems, lack of skills) influence this behavior?

If you don’t have all the information make up something that seems likely. The purpose of this exercise is to explain the behavior you don’t like from the other person’s point of view.

Exercise 2: Accurate Empathy. Imagine a dialogue between yourself and the person with whom you feel angry. Start by accusing him or her of acting wrongly, of violating some basic rule of conduct. Really try to articulate your should. Now imagine yourself as the other person, trying to answer your attack. Do your best to really become this individual, to see the world from his or her point of view. After you’ve answered as the other person, go back to your original feeling of anger and expand on your accusations. Keep up the attack. Now go back again and answer as the other person, really explaining his or her viewpoint. Do this at least three times. Notice how your feelings begin to change as you acknowledge the other person’s unique experience.