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who here does inconsistency bother? besides me!

another lightbulb onto the tail end of smilings list......

what triggers me is inconsistency. something my family was and is all about. my daughter, my H in the present. my parents in the previous.

this is a key part with ACOA. i bet its key with ACO abuse, also.

it sets my teeth on edge worse than a blackboard. my instinct is to defend myself and show the others how inconsistent they are. which ,,,,DOH..wont work. it simply alerts every danger signal i have. this i can begin to work on and recognize. woohoo!

anyone who can add something to this?

Inconsistency bugs the HECK out of me. The surface reason is that when someone behaves in a manner I see as inconsistent, I feel like I have no idea what to expect.

As an example, one of my coworkers is... strange. One day she will laugh and joke and (playfully) tease me, and the next you'd think I'd murdered every puppy she'd ever owned. Nothing I do seems to trigger this (nothing that I've been able to observe, anyway) and I am the only person she is this inconsistent with (again, as far as I can observe).

In a way, it's a great exercise at separation of stuff. Why am I one of her best friends one day and Satan's own spawn the next? I don't know. And I do still care; but I've come a long way since this started. I used to throw up before work sometimes because I was so afraid of what this woman's attitude towards me may or may not be. My attitude is getting closer to, "I don't care how she treats me, as long as she's not actively attacking me."

I must say, I'm the one at fault here. I'm the one who is inconsistent. One minute I'll love my H and the next minute he'll do something I don't like and I'll hate him. I know it's all my BPD at work, and I AM getting better, but it still happens from time-to-time. I know it's wrong. It just depends on my mood at the moment. I don't have answers for either of you - just to say that I'm on the other side of the fence sometimes. Something I'm working on.

Oh yeah, I hear you on this one Jody. It never ceased to amaze me how one day the rule would be X, and then the next day it changed to Y. The lack of consistency made me freeze up, too afraid to do anything, incase the "mood de jeure" had changed again. It made it impossible to get anything right, because what might have been ok one day, suddenly became a "no-no" the next.

One experience that has always stuck in my mind, and for the life of me, I've never been able to figure it out. I wonder if anybody else could? Each Sunday, I'd be sent on my way to SUnday School. I lived opposite a church. So, I'd walk to church, not even thinking that there would be rules on where and how I should walk (fool me!) Out of the blue one day, I arrived home, to be greeted by the wicked witch of the west, and was immediately beaten up, because "I walked over the grass on my way to and from church." WTF? There were no signs saying "please don't walk on the grass?" What harm did I do myself or anyone by walking over the grass? Walking on the grass is a major punishable offence? I sometimes went out to play on that grassy area, but I couldn't walk on it? Hey guess what? I refused to walk or play on grass after that experience, so you could imagine being taken to a park? I'd be freaking out because hell "I'd have to walk on the grass and I'll be beaten senseless for doing so." But, apparently this type of walking on the grass was fine. Mind-fucking and control, is how I would describe this.

I got over "my terror" about walking on grass. Obviously I walk wherever I choose to now, unless there is signage saying otherwise. I do think it is possible to handle inconsistency better, as an adult. Choose what you believe is the best for you and throw away the rest.

wow, im not alone! and you all understand!

yes, yes, and yes.

BG, im sorry, i wasnt meaning to hurt another by asking this or posting this...i only can speak for how much it kills me, and how hard it is to live again with this type behavior.

amanda, i dont think anyone could figure out their behavior. my dad told my mom one time he didnt like her food, and she threw the whole stove out. (what a lesson that was to me!) who knows why they behave this way? it hurts me to read your story tho, bless you. im sorry. hell, maybe walking on the grass is ok on tuesdays at 1 14 pm or something. course how would we ever learn that? next tuesday it would be at 2 12 pm.

this says it...""""It made it impossible to get anything right"""" and what does that teach you? it taught me who cares? then i will be wrong! i am anyways, who cares? jump on me, hell, you will anyways, right mom? it caused me to decide to be wild as a kid, and defensive and mean as a adult. not good.

this, i think, is why largely here, when someone tells me how wrong i am about x y or z, i pretty much can say, so? because it just wont work after years of being wrong for doing nothing, even tho they created something* to get us beat for.

more layers....and more.....

wow, joshua. that must be scary.

No Jody - you DID NOT make me feel bad. If anything, it makes me think and wonder why I do this. I was never that way with my son. I was very consistent with him. Wouldn't hurt him for the world. But let's just say I'm "moody." So with my H it can be one thing one day and another the next day. I go as my mood sees fit. So I don't regulate my moods. I'm trying to be better about it and recognize it when it happens. I dont' think I'm a particularly mean person - I just have these issues. I'm working on being Effective and using DBT skills to over come this stuff. When I used to get my period and had PMS, it was terrible! But I don't have that anymore so I can't blame it on that. Just something else for me to recognize and work on. I think some of it ties in with my OCD tendencies. Things have to be a certain way. Or else I go ballistic. Gotta get over that too. But no Jody - in no way do I feel hurt or bad. This is an eye-opener for me! Thanks!!!!

Ahh, my favorite story to tell about my mom...
This is back when B and I were living together. Thursday night, and I get a 'feeling" I should call my mom. "Hi mom, how're you doing?"
"Not bad. I was thinking about coming to visit this weekend"
At this point, I begin repeating the conversation out loud so that B can hear what's going on.
"Coming down this weekend? Sure. When do you think you'd get here?"
"Probably around noon on Saturday. I'll leave after breakfast."
"That sounds great. Will Dad be coming with you?"
"No, I think this time it'll just be me. We can do some shopping and things."
"Sounds really good, mom. You'll be here saturday around noon, and it'll just be the two of us this trip. Drive careful, I'll see you then!"

I hang up the phone, and B looks at me. He asks me what is the big deal - my mom's coming down on Saturday. I tell him to just wait.

We get home Friday after work, and not five minutes later i get a call. It's my mom.
"Hi, honey. Your Dad and I are down here at our usual hotel!"

THAT is my family. THAT is what I grew up with. The only thing you could count on was that you couldn't count on anything. I'm still sensitive to that sort of change, that sort of inconsistancy.

Ah Minx. Then you have my in-laws, who are so anal that they write everything down. When they travel they even stop at the same rest stop to go to the bathroom at a certain time - whether they have to go or not. My mother-in-law asked me if I had spoken to my brother-in-law. I said no, I called him and he wasn't home. So she said "do you have a certain time and day that you always call him?" I said no, I call him when I feel like it. I don't like to call at the same time all the time because what if I dont' feel like talking to him at that particular time?" They are extremely anal! They would never call me at 6:05 - it has to be 6:00 on the dot. They are the most consistent people I know and to tell you the truth, it gets on my nerves. They are never spontaneous and never do things on the spur of the moment. Everything has to be planned out to the second. I guess there has to be some kind of middle-ground. They are certainly at the other end of the spectrum.

I definitely prefer a consistand level of friendliness to someone who is inconsistant. Now I know that sometimes someone might have other priorities besides me and not have time for me, whereas another time they do. That's fine. The consistancy I like would be, if we do talk, however briefly, before they go do what they must, the greeting or such fitting with the usual level of friendship. Whatever that level is.

What I don't like is, like, real over the top friendly one day, acting like I don't matter the next. And the overly friendly bit especially can't be excused by them having a bad day or something, so in a way it's worse than the negative inconsistancy.

I guess some forms of inconsistancy are okay with me, some aren't. Variations in how much time someone has for me are understandable and don't usually bother me. But, well, I guess it's like the idea of inner circle or friends, outer circle, and, well, multiple circles. I like to know where I stand with the person. The inconsistancy that's frustrating is when I don't know where I stand. When it seems like what circle I'm in for them keeps changing.

That makes a lot of sense Ellen. You like to know where you stand with people. I have had friends like that, where I never knew where I stood. One day they're all friendly and the next they don't have time for me. To me, that is sending mixed messages and it's not fair to me. In that respect, consistency would be nice to have.

Well, I guess it depends upon the child. My bro had that very attitude that you had: "I'm going to fuck up anyway, so I might as well be as bad as I can be." Having constantly heard how "bad he was" he set out to prove my SM right. As the little sister and observer of how ineffective this way of acting was (he was beaten far worse), I went to the opposite extreme and strove for perfection - "I must try harder to prove that I am good, not bad. I must try to always follow the rules and get it right." The "yes, ma'am child." Look how I turned out - LOL. It wasn't effective either. When you grow up in a situation like that where there is no consistency and the rules constantly change, it's a lose-lose situation.

But I do have to ask Jody (and I'm asking myself similar questions). How effective is it today to continue to rebel, to prove them right? "You say I'm bad or wrong, I'll show you how bad/wrong I am." Is this bringing you any closer to "good mental health?" And for me, how effective is it for me to continue to strive for perfection and to prove that I'm ok, and their wrong about me? " Does this bring me any closer to "good mental health?" What's different about our situations today as adults? Is it the delivery style of the message that brings out the reaction for you/me?

BG, i dont mean that kind of consistency, to being anal about certain things. i mean, doing what one says they will do. keeping the same story over a long time. eating a fav food which will be a fav food next week, instead of hating it next week. that kind. if x doesnt bother someone today, then dont have it bother ya next wed or next month.

do ya see what i mean? as amanda used, if its ok to walk on the grass today, then dont make it wrong the next time. dont act like you like me today, and dislike me tomorrow. (add in any time length you want). mixed messages, is what my T called it. its a form of control over another. crazy making is another way to call it. i can deal with what i know. i cant deal with what i must guess at all the time.

amanda, hmmm. if i dont make much sense, please know i have had a longggggg day that was about hell. so lets see. yes, i agree it depends on the person/child and what their like. i agree there is no way to win, which is exactly what they want. if someone else won* (and it feels like a game, believe me), its all control. if they dont win, they lose the control. (whatever that means to them).

thinking with a adult mind, it probably isnt effective to be the rebel always. i am a rebel anyways, so it is part of me and who i am. but to do it unnecessarily isnt mature or healthy. (typing this wearing my billy jack shirt lol..really)

i must point this out tho, until i knew WHY i did what i did, i couldnt change it. inner child stuff. it is just me, how i work.

i have asked myself this, what about y and z brings out this inner child? it is the delivery style because i can take criticism off some and have no problem with it. and others, i have every hair on my head up. something in certain deliveries echoes what i was told before. reverberates. like a certain note breaks glass?

that i can work on, once i begin to see what it is. im already just doing the stop , think, ignore, stuff. but for a long term fix, i need to get deeper.

but this..."""prove that I'm ok, and their wrong about me? """ we have in common. any ideas? i know it doesnt work but the need /drive to do it is almost uncontrollable.