Dealing with difficult people...............

What is a difficult person?

What makes a person ''difficult''?

Is a difficult person someone who purposely sets out to be

contrary, unhelpful, and obstructive?

Someone who is bad at relating and communicating

with others?

Someone who talks but never listens, tells others

what to do but never accepts advice?

Someone who is quick to blame and criticize others but

slow to accept responsibility for their own behaviour?

Someone who is really hard to get along with?

Hmm, I wonder if not most of us at one time or another

perhaps fall into one or two of the above definitions.

Perhaps the potential for being a ''difficult person''

can be found in most humans?

To quote the Joker from Batman: ''All it takes is

one bad day to drive the sanest man(person) to lunacy.''

As the check-out girl scanned my items through I noticed

that she looked really worn out. Perhaps even sad.

Tentatively I asked her if she was okay.

-No, not really, I'm having one of those days, she answered.

I knew what she meant. 

 My kneejerk instinct was to say something comforting, something

''uplifting''. But I didn't. Instead I looked into her eyes, 

smiled and said ''I hear that''. 

She smiled back. For a split second we had an 

honest, human to human connection.

Communication, as far as I can ascertain, is a

fundamental basis for human interaction.

We do so verbally, as in intonation, pitch, volume,

 and choice of words. (Spoken or written)

Non verbally as in body language.

Those in the know suggest that although it can be

tricky to reason with difficult people there are

things we can do to better deal with difficult people.

We need to really listen because we all want to

feel heard. For progress to take place the other

person needs to feel acknowledged.

We need to stay calm.

We need to choose the words we use carefully.

A word can mean one thing to us and a totally

different thing to someone else.

We need to stay away from judging.

We don't know what the other person may be

going through. He/she may be experiencing

something really difficult.

We need to stay away from arguing or talking

on top of the other.

We need to stay true to our limits and boundaries.

 

I tried to find out if being a ''difficult'' person perhaps

is a conscious choice made at some point in time,

 but no matter how I swapped the words

around, I could not find a definitive answer. 

I mean, there was a time when the word ''difficult'' was used

for what we today call ''mental health issues''.

For example, he/she is a difficult child > may today be: he/she

is on the autism spectrum/ADHD/Aspergic AD/Oppositional

Defiant Disorder ODD/Conduct Disorder CD, etc. etc.

Not too mention how many different Mental Health Issues

that perhaps could be included under the heading of difficult adults.

Though I haven't found a definitive answer to if

people choose to be difficult, I have found that

it's seldom a good idea to try to change a person 

we consider to be difficult.

A far better and helpful method is to try and understand

where he/she is coming from and a good first step

is to listen.

''The beginning of a deeper understanding usually

begins with listening.''

(Citizen Z)