I feel as though she is the stimulus and I react. She is five years older than me and clearly initiated unhealthy interactions as children. I wish that she would practice extinction burst with me. I wish she would "essentially remove reinforcement in an attempt to stop the behavior." If she would stop her dysfunctional behavior/stimulus, I wouldn't react. Does that make sense?
What if she is doing the dysfunction to cause you to react?
And what if she ratchets up the dysfunction in the event you don’t react? And keeps going until you DO react?
That is extinction burst. She will keep ratcheting up in attempt to pull you back in line with her preferred dysfunctional relationship.
What happens if you simply DO NOT react?
I know this is easier said than done. In some relationships there is no safe way to manage this. That is why I will be NC with my mother for the rest of her life.
With less dangerous folks, they typically give up (their ratcheting up and baiting... .or at least it substantially diminishes) once they’ve gotten tired of trying to pull you in and realize you simply aren’t going to engage.
L2T
