Quick Tips to Deal with the Crazy Makers in Your Life.

Are you in a relationship with someone who drives you crazy? Are you in a relationship with someone who no matter how well you point out the facts of their irresponsibility or immaturity they find some way to justify and rationalize all they do? Do you leave conversations with these people feeling unheard, angry and exasperated? If so, you are in a relationship with a difficult person, one who I call an Adult-Child or a Crazy Maker.

Unfortunately it is very easy to get lured in by these people who seem relatively normal most of the time. These people, when we first meet them, are impossible to detect and we tend to take to them very quickly. They seem like such great people, but soon we just as quickly get taken advantage of. Because they are takers their favorite type of people to prey upon are those who have difficulty saying no. Makes sense considering takers love those people with self-doubt who will eventually give into their demands and say yes. If this sounds familiar, keep reading there is help up ahead.

To begin, what exactly is an adult-child? It is just as it sounds. These are regular people who look like adults on the outside, but they are no more mature than a two-year-old on the inside. Now, these people are tricky because they can hold jobs, seem adult at times, make money and somehow make it through life. These people could be our co-workers, our bosses, our friends, roommates our wives or husbands. In todays’ world, it could be even be our actual children who are of adult status but just won’t leave the nest no matter how hard we try to get them to leave. In whatever form they show up they will drive us crazy.

Ironically, most of these difficult people seem to have a large group of superficial friends and are quite popular. What we will also come to learn with time and observation is that many of their friends are also sucked into taking care of their needs. Unfortunately, in order to experience the truth of who these people are we have to essentially be in close contact with them on a daily basis. The most negative attributes of adult-children do not come out in superficial connections, it is only in more intimate relationships where needs can come into conflict that the real character comes out. This is because the closer we are to someone the more we have to negotiate to produce a mutually beneficial relationship. Note: adult-children are allergic to negotiation.

In deeper intimacy relationships needs are more likely to come into conflict. When an adult- child sees an any obstacle in front of their needs for instant gratification is when their worst, and most immature characteristics surface. We find that when difficult people do not get what they want when they want it that a storm of chaos will begin swirling usually in some form of them acting out in a tantrum. Typically their chaos storm is so exhausting for whoever is on the other side of it that they give in and the adult-child gets their way. It’s an unfortunate reward system where it is better to give in then to face a no-win battle of emotional acting out and verbal warfare where the only one who can come out victorious is the adult-child. Even more frustrating, they will act as if what they want is no big deal, regardless of the negative consequences it will have on those around them.

Let’s examine some of the most annoying habits of these people.

FIRST: The underlying issue in all of these people is gross emotional immaturity and control. Their emotional views are consumed by their desires for immature and unreachable goals. They want what they want when they want it and they don’t care much how others feel about it.

SECOND: Difficult people want everyone’s complete and sole attention and want relationships that give picture-perfect love but do not want relationships which expect them to give in return. In other words, it’s all about them.

THIRD: They prefer to put the least amount of effort into life and relationships, all the while expecting the largest result. This means rules will apply to you that they will not apply to themselves.

FOURTH: In their distorted minds they truly believe they would never do anything unacceptable. In the meantime they are driving others crazy and robbing people emotionally blind. In their minds they are just nice people and are not at all unfair. Isn’t it amazing the harm that such nice people can do! Among the most maddening things about them is it is impossible to get them to admit their real intentions behind their behavior . Instead, they see themselves as the innocent victims of the changeability of others. This means they are always right and someone else is always wrong.

FIFTH: They demonstrate a complete lack of reliability. For instance many of them are constantly late, disorganized, forgetful, and cannot manage their responsibilities. These characteristics are normal and ok for a young child or even a more immature teenager but not acceptable at all for an adult. As these adult-children age all that happens is their responsibilities increase. The more balls these people have in their air the greater the demand on them to focus, organize themselves and remain calm. Because they cannot do this they become blaming, manipulative and defensive. They learn to rationalize and justify all their circumstances in life.

SIXTH: When these people become overwhelmed with their responsibilities they begin to focus on everything but their responsibilities such as computer games, reading books , TV shows, sports , computer and they become oblivious to everything going on around them like paying bills, cleaning up after meals, doing chores, helping the kids to bed etc. This hyperfocus placed onto meaningless activities causes the adult-child to lose complete track of time and to neglect the things they were supposed to be doing. When this happens it is infuriating to the other adults and children in the house, and relationship problems are the result.

SEVENTH: Adult children want others to take responsibility for all things boring and/or difficult. Because adult children live for fun and excitement they have a tendency to procrastinate on anything having to do with responsibility. When they are confronted on these issues they will quickly and swiftly make us look like we are controlling or demanding leaving us filled with fury, self-doubt and frustration because they will tell us “they were just about to perform their responsibilities.” Yet, they never get done.

EIGTH: Chronic lateness, frequent and consistent forgetfulness and the gross underestimation of time it will take to complete tasks are constant annoyances created by adult-children, as is being frequently interrupted and being talked over. The immaturity does not allow them to have good self-control and they tend to blurt out rude or humiliating comments about others without thinking. Many of these frustrating people also have addictive tendencies, such as gambling, drugs, alcohol or TV. Anything to allow them tune-out the noise of responsibility.

NINTH: Crazy Makers tend to be underachievers in love and in career. Again their motto is to do the least amount of work for the greatest gain, and sadly they often use other people’s responsibility to get their needs met or goals achieved. They have no problem with the extortion of others to sooth their instantaneous needs. They rebel against structure such as managing their finances, corporate or relationships rules. They tend to have unpaid bills, lost paperwork, suffer from late charges and tend toward impulsive and selfish spending.

TENTH: Crazy Makers easily gain access to control. This is because their desires are not mutually beneficial or relationship oriented, rather they are guided by their desires for the moment. This means they apply no forethought or concern for how their desires will affect the lives, schedules or commitments of those around them. They live according to a strong sense of entitlement which does not promote anything but the immediate gratification of their needs. In their small and forlorn worlds they never make mistakes and are never wrong. They somehow distort that their motives are always pure and are adept at marketing themselves as helpless victims if they do not get their way or if they get confronted on their self-centered behavior .These difficult people will take absolutely zero responsibility for their behavior especially when it leads to unpleasant consequences for someone else. They don’t wait, they tantrum, and make a lot of noise with very little substance but often get their way just so we get them to stop their maddening behavior.

Sadly, because they lack insight into understanding who and how they are, these people are not going to change. If we are in love with one of these people, it will be important for us to really understand that without insight there will never be any change. They are perfectly ok with selfishness because they don’t think there is any other form of incentive. Because they are so frustrating we need strategies to deal with them. To follow are some quick tips to help aid us in dealing with these annoying people.

Quick tips to deal with crazy making people:

I see these people as teachers. You may be inclined to ask why I would say that, if they are so immature what can we learn from people like this? It comes in one very simple answer. Boundaries. Adult children are bullies, of a sort, in that they push and push to get their way and will push people into giving in to come out victorious. There is no confronting them because they have no insight into how they are, so to deal effectively with these people we have to grow.

Quick Tip: These annoying people are not going to change, so that means that we have to change our responses to them. Yes, the responsibility is once again on us and not them. However, with responsibility we have choice and options.

Quick tip: We have to think new thoughts and take new and unfamiliar actions. This often brings up fear, but facing fear is the exact kind of challenge which promotes personal growth . To deal with these people we have to face fears of conflict and the noise of their tantrums.

Quick tip: Learn to say no without explanation. If an annoying person can get us engaged in explaining ourselves, they have won because they dominate in verbal warfare. Simply state “no” and then disengage. If they tantrum, remember it is just noise. It will calm down if we stay disengaged. This is often new behavior because we want to say no and to have the comfort that the other person understands through our explanation why we are saying no and can identify with our reasoning. We can expect that comfort with a reasonable person, not an adult child.

Quick tip: Be factual not emotional. When we allow them to get us emotional it is like giving a drug addict their drug of choice.

Quick tip: Just because they look like adults we have to remind ourselves not to see them as normal people who have insight and can see the views of a situation from another perception. We have to use our insight to understand that they will never understand our perception so there is no point in wasting our breath.

Quick Tip: We can use them to learn how to be consistent and stick to our word. When we say no, we have to let our no’s do the work. We cannot let them convince us or bully us out of our boundary. If this is happening, cut communication and let the NO do the work.

Quick Tip: When dealing with these people we have to keep our talks and explanations to a bare minimum. The more we say to these people the more ammunition they have to twist and use against us, as they are experts at rewriting history. Remember we will never win in verbal warfare against an adult-child. They will always get us to say more than we want to. Any attempt to explain ourselves and they will find a way to make us look much worse than they.

Quick Tip: Because they are so annoying it is easy to let them get us upset. We need to learn to self-control in situations that are maddening. Learning this is a great gift. Self-control is all about being adult and remaining an adult. Sometimes adult children can get us to veer sharply away from whom we naturally are and before we know it we are acting as immaturely as they are all in an effort to defend ourselves.

Quick Tip: Silence and/or sticking only to facts is often the best way to get a positive result for with these types of people. If we give them any room for battle they will win, silence takes this away from them. It takes strength, courage and emotional restraint to stay silent with someone like this. We have to let our actions speak our words.
In essence these annoying people never grow up and have no capacity for empathy or the ability to think of another person’s feelings. To them people are in their lives for one reason and one reason only, and that is to supply their needs. They are takers. For this reason people in relationships with them often get fed up with the need to constantly remind them to tidy up, listen more closely, or to get organized. This causes those on the outside of them to feel hurt, angry and resentful over the complete irresponsibility and insensitivity they demonstrate. To add to the damage, others can point this out to them and even show them this article and they will read it and think the article is talking about the other person and not them. It’s aggravating.

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to deal with difficult people. However, we can see them as our greatest teachers. Boundaries are very difficult to set and to maintain. What these types of people do is push boundaries, so if we are in a relationship with them our lesson is to learn to set boundaries and keep them. Once we learn this, we will be free. Boundaries are scary to set because they are often associated with conflict and for nice people, conflict in nearly unbearable.

Difficult people can pull us so far off our own course that we can feel lost in their psychodrama. Once we say no we will be out of that cyclone and back to standing in a clear perception of who we are and we will be able to see that these types of people have never found and will never find a functional way to make their lives work, and this is the main reason they use other people. It is only through the use and abuse of others that they get anything adult accomplished in their lives. On their own they cannot do it.

To heal then we need look at this situation as something that has shown up perfectly for us to strengthen our boundary-setting muscles. No one can run us over without our involvement or permission. Learning to say no isn’t easy. It just takes practice. Their life, however, is their responsibility and all that needs to happen is we need to get back to letting our lives be our responsibility. It’s exhausting trying to manage the lives of ourselves and another adult. It is time to take our power back. Learn to say no, to say very little and to stick to the contingencies we set. We need to get back to focusing on our lives and filling them up with love, joy, exuberance and energy. We only have one life, so we need to find our way back to that.

Little Life Message: Say No when you need to say NO! It’s an act of self-love.

Sherrie Campbell Ph.D.Copyright 8/7/12