Repeated Self-defeating Patterns RSDP

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Regularly Repeated Patterns of Self Defeating (RSDP) or Self-sabotaging behaviour

What sets them up and what keeps them going

There are a number of signs that point to a Repeated Self Defeating behaviour Pattern (RSDP) whether it is within you or in somebody you know.

This page is only a brief summary. For the complete article click Regularly Repeated Patterns of Self Defeating (RSDP) or Self-sabotaging behaviour main page

All addictive behaviour is repetitive and self-defeating.

Repeated Self Defeating behaviour Patterns have many characteristics that are similar to addictive behaviour. The link seems too clear to ignore.

Effective ways of reducing RSDP are similar to the most effective ways of treating addictive behaviour.

Signs that point to a Repeated Self Defeating behaviour Pattern (RSDP) or self sabotage

1. The normal ‘learn by your mistakes’ mechanism has been replaced by an automatic ‘repeat the same mistake’ system

This is the first and perhaps the most obvious sign. This doesn’t seem to be happening with RSDP. The ‘learn by your mistakes’ system has been shut down. The repeated behaviour pattern is more like an automatic response, a habit or an addiction. It is not the result of rational thinking or a conscious choice. The self-aware grown -up part has gone missing.

2. The self-defeating behaviour happens again and again

As a result, doing the same things, saying the same things, getting into the same situations, the same pattern is repeated over many years and usually gets worse.

3. A seriously similar and unsatisfactory outcome each time

With RSDP when the same pattern is repeated the negative result gets repeated too. Whatever the pattern, each time it ends in loss, pain, grief, shame, guilt, extreme fear, sadness or a sense of defeat or all of the above. The similarity in negative results from different self-defeating events tells you this is a “repeated pattern” not just an occasional run of bad luck.

4. Obvious risks or dangers seem to be Invisible or Blocked

The chances of a negative outcome that are obvious to other people are invisible to them. However afterwards when they are back facing the reality of another failure they may ask themselves “Why didn’t I stop it?”; “ Why did I sign that form?”; ”Why did I reject the offer of help’?"; “Why couldn’t I see that coming?”; “How could I not have noticed he was like that before I married him?”

5. Magical solutions that end up making things worse

Once trapped in an RSDP trance the victim loses their sense of reality and begins fantasising about ‘magical’ or ‘super-powerful’ ways to get themselves back to a happy life. This is a part of the ‘self-induced trance’ referred to above. Examples:

Fantasising about a major lottery win
Fantasising about the arrival of a new, attractive and helpful lover who will fix everything.
Plotting revenge involving illegal or criminal activity.
Paying a large amount of money (up front) to a smooth-talking financial or internet consultant who promises a “guaranteed” or a “can’t lose” deal, a web based marketing scheme or software that will “pay for itself ten times over”. Warning! These consultants can spot a person in an RSDP trance and use this to help win their trust.
Gambling with larger and larger amounts to cover losses.

Belief in these magical solutions are then reinforced by back to front thinking.

6. Back to front thinking and Denial of Reality

In a self induced RSDP trance, black often seems white and South looks like North. Even though they are heading in the wrong direction the RSDP victim is focused on the illusion of success. The person will often describe an imagined benefit, a ‘payoff’ as a very attractive outcome. Other people, friends or partners can see that the real result is either unlikely to happen or will result in more pain, a bigger loss or a new but worse problem. The RSDP victim will reject this.

7. Amplified feelings or over dramatic reaction to failure

When the RSDP ends in failure this is marked by highly emotional reactions or responses, including blaming other people, playing the tragic or crucified victim-martyr role (specially when there is an audience), heavy drinking or attempted suicide are examples. Where you might ordinarily expect a milder sense of anger, pain, grief, shame, guilt, fear, loss or sadness you get an unusually strong reaction. The emotion is is being amplified by the RSDP.

8. Feeling ‘helpless’; ‘hopeless’; ‘not good enough’; ‘disempowered’; ‘stuck’; ‘frozen’; then flipping into anger

Similar feelings include a temporary sense of panic, feeling blocked, trapped or paralysed. However after a while these feelings are replaced by a highly energised counter reaction with such as anger. Many RSDP patterns involve flipping between two very opposite energy states such as feeling disempowered one minute and and over revving the inner engine the next minute.

9. Flipping between two extremely opposite responses

In this kind of repetitive pattern two strongly polarised (opposite view) inner selves fight over the “best” way to deal with a problem. The greater the polarity the more energy that each inner self will put into trying to take charge. When the apparently weaker one suddenly takes over from the apparently stronger one it is called a ‘flip’.

10. Repeatedly experiencing seriously negative energy from different people under different circumstances - the darker side or RSDP

There is a far more serious form of RSDP where the kinds of problems I have been talking about (above) start to look relatively mild in comparison. It’s hard to accept that we could be setting up other people to undertake cruel, vicious, illegal or criminal attacks on us.

Yet, if this same kind of negative energy keeps recurring again and again over a long period perhaps it is time to acknowledge that something we are doing must in some way be helping to recreate this. It cannot be just bad luck, or just external forces. There has to be something inside us as well that encourages or invites people to treat us this way.

This is such a serious issue that I feel it is wiser talk about it on a separate page The Darker side of RSDP.

The cause behind repetitive Patterns - It is really a kind of Self Induced Trance state or even an Addiction?

You may wonder why someone keeps repeating the same pattern. One of the that most helpful ways to understand an RSDP pattern is to recognise that the person has actually put themselves into a kind of self induced trance. The source of this repetitive trance state can usually be traced back to something very difficult that they couldn't deal with which happened regularly in the person's childhood. The pattern is automatic neither conscious nor self-aware.

By the way repeating ordinary self-induced patterns are normal. Everybody has them, everybody gets themselves in and out of them several times every day. So don’t worry about the “repeated pattern” bit.

What can you do for a start ?

The person is unaware that they are in a self-induced trance. When they are in the trance they can’t see it.

But when they can see the trance they are not stuck in it

When they can see and name the trance it’s not in them

That is the first step. It’s a matter of growing their self awareness. Click on the link “What you can do about it” at the foot of this page to find out how to get to this stage.

Some very different causes can trigger Repeated Self Defeating Patterns

It may require some professional guidance using self-awareness processes like voice dialogue to discover which one is the most likely cause of RSDP in each case. People won’t get it by trying to think it through logically or analytically because neither the cause nor the reaction is logical. People can’t think logically while they are in a trance anyway!

If you feel that I can help identify the cause you can talk to me on the phone and I will try to help. I can also offer assistance for people who want to get themselves off their RSDP roller coaster.

See link at the foot of this page on how to Contact John Bligh Nutting

A. Controlling influence setting up the RSDP is a Negative core belief

This is such a common source of RSDP reactions that I have a separate website just to deal with this source alone. See link at the foot of this page to www.core-beliefs-balance.com

Most of the typical RSDP are described as "F" reactions including fight and flight, but also many others particularly fold and freeze. See link at the foot of this page to “F” Reaction patterns

B. The RSDP is a hot-wired reaction to a "disowned" inner self in another person.

Whatever we have disowned from our own personality we will find ourselves either strongly attracted or more often strongly repelled by that same characteristic in someone else. Often the first sign is a heightened energy level around that person or something they are doing or saying. The stronger your over-reaction the greater the chance that it will be self-defeating for you.

See links to the following pages. Disowning Explained and Primary and Disowned Selves and the Law of Energetic Balance at the foot of this page.

C. Getting enmeshed in a repetitive negative bonding pattern.

One of the things you notice about people with RSDP problems is that their partner often has a complimentary RSDP. Each pattern helps keep them (and their partner) both more firmly stuck in their repetitive patterns. These dual RSDP bonds are called Negative Bonding patterns.

For more information see the links at the foot of this page to Negative bonding patterns

See also www.healing-relationships.growingaware.com

D. An Inner Child is fearful of change, danger, loss or being blamed for doing something wrong

Some inner children scare more easily than others but all inner children can be traumatised by fear or extreme emotional pain whether this is connected to current events or past memories. The reaction will be to go into some kind of RSDP pattern but this may vary from very violent to frozen. A frozen reaction is still RSDP in fact it may use more energy than a obvious reaction. For more information see links at the foot of this page to Cannons, Crucifixes or Concrete.

Note: Inner children who are feeling fear are very poor shots. That may explain why they so often end up shooting themselves in the foot.

E. Controlling influence setting up the RSDP is an Inner Patriarch (in women) or an Inner Matriarch (in men)

These two are the hidden forces that drive up to 50% of RSDP patterns particularly those that involve regular destructive fighting between partners. This is such a big problem that I have made a separate website to help you deal with these two toxic inner characters and their endless bouts of destructive fighting. For full information and explanations about the Inner Matriarch and Patriarch see the link at the foot of this page to www.growingaware.net. I have added some additional notes on these characters at the foot of this page.

These two inner selves can be extremely powerful and play a major role setting up self-induced trances and RSDP. In particular they hold almost the opposite view to the usual protector selves about the inner child and un-parented vulnerability. Part of their nature is to encourage back to front thinking.

The Inner Patriarch at work

As Dr Sidra Stone explains in her book “The Shadow King”, an Inner Patriarch when it is active in a woman will tell her things like "It's a man's world really." or "Nobody will ever love you if fight too hard for what you want in life."

F. The emotional age factor

Behind all these issues is a factor which affects every one of us myself included. All of our patterns, good and bad are related to our emotional age. Our emotional age has nothing to do with our calendar age. An individual aged 80 can have an emotional age of 14 years. Think about some of the people you know. Watching their behaviour what do you think their emotional age might be?

Emotional age is just a reflection of how much a person’s inner child is still in control of their life compared with how much their grown up self-aware side is ‘driving the bus’.

G. Addictive cycles

RSDP certainly has many characteristics that are similar to addictive behaviour. And all addictive behaviour is repetitive and self-defeating. The connection is obvious. Effective ways of reducing RSDP are similar to the most effective ways of treating an addiction. See the link to “What you can do about it” at the foot of this page.

H. Replaying old childhood ‘tapes or DVDs’

Some repeated behaviour patterns include a sense of familiarity, a kind of replay of an old negative childhood experience. It almost seems as though the unpleasant experience is on a DVD ready to be replayed again and again. The locality or setting may not be familiar but the words and actions and emotions can all echo the original event and trigger memories of the original negative outcome that went with it.

I. The influence of a “carried” emotion or a “carried” self.

Whenever you carry an emotion such as guilt, fear or shame when an emotion really belongs to someone else such as a parent it is a heavy load to carry. One of the best ways of identifying a carried emotion is the amplified level of reaction. Often when you are triggered into a feeling the reaction is 5 to 10 times more than you’d expect. So if you are feeling a bit of shame it gets added to your carried shame and you have what’s called a shame attack, If you feel mild fear it gets added to your carried fear and you have a panic attack, while carried anger turns mild annoyance into a rage attack. Whatever it is you will find yourself unable to stop repeating the process over and over. The result will be self defeating each time. The link at the foot of this page will take you to a page where you can read more about carried selves.

J. Reliving trauma related past events (PTSD)

Many PTSD reactions are seriously self-defeating. However the causes in these cases are so different that I would prefer not to link PTSD too closely with what I am saying here about RSDP.

Post-traumatic stress (PTSD) induced reactions are often referred to as "flashbacks". They are in some ways similar to but much more serious than replaying old childhood tales or DVDs. These flashbacks typically involve actual reliving of the trauma and very high emotional reactions.

A psychotherapy process called EMDR is particularly effective in reducing the intensity of this kind of RSDP reaction. (Suggestion ... Google “EMDR”)

NOTE

As I mentioned above, your partner may also have his or her own repetitive patterns of self-destructive behaviour as well. And sometimes these interlock with yours!

See What you can do about RSDP now

See The darker side of RSDP

RSDP Stories and Case Studies

For help with RSDP Contact John Bligh Nutting

OTHER PAGES - CLICK EACH UNDERLINED LINK TO TAKE YOU TO THESE PAGES.

See polarised selves and polarised thinking and flipping .

See Disowning Explained and Primary and Disowned Selves and the Law of Energetic Balance

See “F” Reaction patterns

See Cannons, Crucifixes or Concrete

For more information on Negative Bonding patterns see Negative bonding patterns

and www.healing-relationships.growingaware.com

For more information on Negative Core Beliefs see www.core-beliefs-balance.com

For more information on the Inner Matriarch and Inner Patriarch see the Inner Patriarch and Inner Matriarch website (www.growingaware.net)

For more information on carried emotions see Carried selves on this site and then perhaps the Inner Patriarch and Inner Matriarch website (www.growingaware.net)