Episode 217 -- May 12, 2022

How to Stop Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

In early recovery, we may have admitted our lack of control often. As we navigate relationships in sobriety, we see that we're actually in control of our actions now more than ever. This can feel strange at first. When things go wrong in our lives and our addiction is no longer at fault, it can be easy to play victim and blame everyone else instead. It's important to be aware of the parts we play in our relationship problems. Only then can we examine our reactions and reflect more clearly on the situation.

In their book Rein in Your Brain: From Impulsivity to Thoughtful Living in Recovery, Cynthia Moreno Tuohy and Victoria Costello offer brain training techniques for breaking the cycle of compulsive thoughts and behaviors. We can use the tools in this book to literally rein in our brains and transform the conflict in our relationships into opportunities for mutual respect and understanding.

In the following excerpt, the authors discuss "self-fulfilling prophecies"—how the pain we experience in relationships can lead us to repeat old patterns. We learn the growth that comes with acknowledging our own responsibility and fairly assessing the events that caused hurtful moments. We are not innocent bystanders in every problem; our projections and reactions can push our loved ones away. We can stop these patterns of blame where they start, and find ways to heal our wounds, and develop self-insight.

This excerpt has been edited for brevity.

Take Responsibility for Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

Self-fulfilling prophecies—what are they and how do they work? In moments of conflict with our significant others, we bring a lot of tendencies with us that we initially deny are there, and, more often than not, we refuse to examine them. And this is true for most people who are new to cooperative problem solving in relationships. When we're experiencing confusion or emotional pain, we really dislike looking at ourselves as the "problem." Someone or something else gets the blame for whatever is wrong.

Who Me, Worst Fears?

We all start out with "worst fears." Somewhere in the back (or front) of our minds is the fear of abandonment, being smothered, being taken advantage of, or growing bored in a close relationship. If any of these things actually begin to happen, we initially believe it's without any active participation of our own. It always seems to happen, somehow, to us. The nature of self-fulfilling prophecies is that, over time, as they happen to us again and again, we become convinced of our own mind-reading abilities and predictive powers.

Acknowledging our own responsibility in the creation of our own worst nightmares tends to come later in adulthood, if ever. Our role in shaping events with what we bring to the table is initially blocked from our view. Self-insight takes time to develop. It isn't there as we're growing up. In Twelve Step recovery, the most challenging step in the process is often taking a fearless inventory of ourselves because it involves developing a deeper understanding of how we shape our own destiny.

Here's an example of what we might tell ourselves: "I knew you were going to leave me! I knew it the first time you stayed here overnight and couldn't wait to leave the next morning. I knew the day would come when I'd never see you again. I figured you kept coming back just because it was convenient. You'd do a drive-by and dish out a little attention, then be on your merry way again. Get out of here! I know your type. I had you figured out the minute I first laid eyes on you!"

We can say all these things and still be unaware of how we are actively pushing the other person away—how we are creating the very outcome we dread. And it happens to us over and over again, never figuring out how we've added to the push.

This is the definition of a self-fulfilling prophecy!

Maturity Paves the Way for Healing Old Wounds

For the most part, seeing ourselves as an innocent bystander in our failed relationships is a measure of our own immaturity. In the same way that addiction led us to repeat old patterns, the pain we experience in relationships keeps reopening old wounds. When we don't acknowledge these unhealed wounds and we do something to reopen them (such as becoming emotionally vulnerable), they fester or break open again.

To protect ourselves, we become hyper-vigilant, just waiting for the next uncomfortable moment with a partner to reinforce our negative expectations. Then we believe the other person "forces" us to do what we do. We develop a knee-jerk response based on our negative expectations. We push back every time there is an imagined shove. We develop our reactiveness in an attempt to keep ourselves out of harm's way. We think the presence of pain means somebody screwed up. More often than not, however, we accidentally open the scars on our old wounds as we try to get closer to one another. No one is to blame.

It takes time and maturity to be able to identify and interrupt our participation in creating more of what we don't want. It would be unrealistic to expect angry or depressed adolescents to see clearly how their actions invite responses that drive the knife deeper into their tender psyches. Even as adults, we are so obsessed with the pain, we cannot see anything behind it. We have to work hard to assess fairly the way the events that led up to a hurtful moment unfolded, and what we did to contribute. It takes considerable effort—when the pressure of a conflict is bearing down on us—to not assassinate the other person's character or our own.

How to Keep from Re-creating Your Worst Fears

With our unhealed wounds newly exposed in a relationship, we have a built-in distortion (an over-reaction or under-reaction during conflict) that needs to be calmly identified and examined. Self-reflection, or "checking in" on our over-reactions and underreactions, is essential to figuring out if these old wounds are still active, or if we have dealt with them sufficiently so we're not driven to travel the old brain pathways of duck and cover—fight or flight.

Because of the difficulty of making a mature, balanced assessment of who did what to whom, some people lock on to their old standby self-image—that is, the angry or depressed victim role they developed when they were younger. As a result, they never grow up. They remain hopelessly adolescent in their approach to intimate relationships. Their self-fulfilling prophecies continue to operate right under their noses without a glimmer of recognition.

If we believe that we aren't going to be able to handle things, and that life serves up lots of overwhelming events, it isn't long before we start feeling overwhelmed. If we think the world is out to get us and we react aggressively, then the people approaching us have their guard up. This "forces" us to acquire and use "lethal weapons" to protect ourselves from people whose reactiveness and defensiveness we had a hand in creating. We project meaning away from ourselves and see events happening to us. In that way, our own defensiveness can kick into gear and protect us from harm without the slightest self-examination. We are on automatic pilot, acting on a self-reinforcing loop of our own creation. The three knee-jerk reactions—blaming you, blaming me, or blaming both of us—are activated, and we punish our perpetrators severely.

There are many scripts that we believe about ourselves (often given to us by others) that have played out repeatedly in our lives. We tend to focus on the negative scripts and believe them more each time they reoccur. This reinforces the belief that we are chained to them for life! We believe that we have no power to change. We are not innocent bystanders in life unless we choose to be. It is your life, and once you begin to acknowledge the negative and unproductive scripts that play in your mind, the sooner you can change and heal. When we do not take the lead to change, we continue to suffer these feelings, and the pain breaks open the wounds we were trying to heal. If this happens over and over again, we become hyper-vigilant and are constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop in our relationships. When we hear something that is familiar to the script that is negative, we make an automatic knee-jerk reaction—that most often is an over-reaction. We no longer have control of our emotions; our limbic has control of those emotions that are caused by either our own scripts or someone else's that we have kept as our own.

Befriending the Cortex to Make Change Happen

The internal power that we have to change old scripts is great once we learn to use our cortex. Without it we are impulsive reactors. Instead, we can choose who we are and how we are by the way we think and behave. Taking a fearless inventory of the scripts by which we live, then deciding if these are the scripts we want to keep, is an essential first step. Others include confiding in someone you trust, flushing out the negative, and talking back to the limbic when it rears up with criticism and doubt.

Looking thoroughly at yourself as you currently are, and deciding which behavioral changes are essential to obtaining healthier and happier relationships, helps secure the pathways in your cortex into a new thought pattern—a pattern that will eventually become a habit.

Your cortex is the tool that will help you live in the we and not the me. Remind yourself that this is the way to change yourself and the responses of others around you. Remember that this change starts with you. You have the power to change yourself! You have the power to affect others! It is up to you how your new script is played out.

About the Author:
Cynthia Moreno Tuohy, BSW, NCAC II, is the executive director of NAADAC, the Association for Addiction Professionals. She previously served as the executive director of Danya Institute and the Central East Addiction Technology Transfer Center. Prior to this she was the program director for Volunteers of America— Western Washington, serving homeless populations and dealing with the co-occurrence of poverty and substance abuse issues. She has also written training components and manuals about working with adolescents, adults, and seniors; school intervention; involuntary commitment; community mobilization; intensive outpatient treatment and continuing care; the foundations of addiction practice; medication-assisted recovery; impaired driver programs; employee assistance programs; and gang intervention and treatment.

Victoria Costello is an Emmy Award-winning science journalist who has established a national platform through her publishing and advocacy work in mental health and wellness. In January 2012, she released her memoir, A Lethal Inheritance: A Mother Uncovers the Science behind Three Generations of Mental Illness.

© 2014 by Cynthia Moreno Tuohy
All rights reserved