Isolated Incident or a Pattern of Behaviors?
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- Manipulation to get our drugs
- Blaming others for our mistakes
- Distorting circumstances to get a better response from others
What Are The Possible Origins Of These Patterns?
When you take the time to look for the root of a pattern, the answers often make sense. Knowing how long, often, and when we use a pattern, helps us break them. Click To Tweet
These are only four possible origins for patterns of self-defeating behaviors. However, it’s a great start on finding which ones create problems for you. It’s always up to us to find our answers.
1. Childhood Roles
- Hero or Good Child: assume responsibility for the family
- Scapegoat or the Problem Child: Identified as the cause of all the family’s problems
- Caretaker: Sacrifices personal needs for the benefit of the family
- Clown: Tries to break the tensions in the family with jokes or comical behaviors
- Lost Child: the unseen, invisible child that is self-sufficient even when they do not have answers or age-appropriate skills
2. Irresponsibility

3. A Negative Outlook on Life

- Poor Attitude
- Angry outbursts
- Sulking
- Defying
- Being Argumentative
- Resisting
Would you want to spend time trying to help someone who deflected all of your suggestions? Would you want to offer advice on how to do something if the person argued about the benefits of the suggestion even before they tried it?
While we may understand their reluctance to follow directions and suggestions from strangers, the fact remains that they need help, and people who have made changes in their lives do have some concrete suggestions and experiences to offer.
4. Fears
For many people, it is overcoming their fears that can help them move forward. When you’re working with others, approach their issues from the perspective of how you often thought or felt like they did, and how you learned to accept help from strangers. Then they realize that you worked through something and might view it more positively. Newly recovering people often have fears about:
- Success and failure
- Appearing inadequate
- Feeling less than others
- Being incompetent
- Who they can trust
Review Your Patterns in Typical Life Situations
Most of the major life concerns fall into these ten categories. Do you sabotage these goals with self-defeating patterns?
- When you start noticing the patterns, decide if you like your usual results. If you do, then there is no reason to change the pattern.
- However, if you discover that you do not like the typical outcomes, begin to change the behaviors.
Reviewing Patterns for Different Outcomes
- Angry outbursts –not saying anything; running the risk of your emotions building up inside
- Sulking – falsely acting pleased with a life situation – until resentments set in
- Defying – agreeing and doing something – dishonest if you have legitimate reservations about the request
- Being Argumentative – not voicing your opinion – missing an opportunity for a civilized discussion of differences
- Resisting – Accepting without having any of your concerns addressed – leading to another type of resentment
As you can see, the opposite reaction will create other problems. In trying to find solutions for your self-defeating patterns, a more balanced approach is generally better.
Different and Balanced Behaviors
Writing, and recovery heals the heart
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