How to Ruin Everything for Everyone, Especially Yourself
Have you ever met people who constantly delay or put off doing things? Those who never say “no” directly, but simply don’t do what’s asked? Of course, it’s tempting to point the finger at someone else, but. this happens to all of us from time to time. For some, this behavior is rare; for others, it’s frequent. And for a few, passive behaviors become a way of life.
PDD-Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder-is not a pirate’s attempt to say “parliamentarian.” It’s an abbreviation for a condition where not doing things, procrastinating, turning small problems into impossible ones, and other highly irritating behaviors happen regularly.
To be clear: passive behaviors are common to everyone. But there are people for whom it’s almost impossible to act any other way. In these cases, we talk about Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder (PDD). For these people, passive behaviors are their “default setting”: in any stressful situation, they automatically retreat into passivity. It’s not a conscious choice among many options-it’s just how they react.
The goal of passive behaviors is not to achieve results. And there are many ways to do this. For example:
- Procrastination and Delaying
When asked to do something, the person says things like “let’s do it later,” “not now,” or “I’ll look into it,” and. nothing happens. The naive requester thinks the person is just busy and will get back to it later. But that never happens. Even the most patient person will eventually feel angry and hurt: their request was ignored, and they were essentially lied to. In everyday language, this is called “being set up.”
People with PDD, if they do anything at all, do it at the last minute-driving those around them crazy. You can never be sure if they’ll actually do what you asked. - Withdrawal
This form of passive behavior means being “absent” from the situation or conversation. The person either physically leaves the room or emotionally checks out-changes the subject, goes silent, or gets lost in their phone or computer. - “Playing Dumb”
Instead of doing what’s asked, the person asks a million questions: “How? Where do I go? What do I say? What if this or that happens?” The answers are usually obvious or easy to find with a little thought or a quick Google search. But the point isn’t to get answers-it’s to make it easier for the requester to just do it themselves, which is exactly what the passive-aggressive person is counting on. - Forgetting
These people “forget” important things others ask them to do more often than most. Freud once said that nothing is forgotten without a reason: we forget what’s traumatic or what we don’t really want to remember or do. (For example, how often do you hear about a man “forgetting” to bring his passport to the courthouse for a divorce? He’s not lying-he really forgets, because deep down, he’s not sure he wants the divorce. There’s a part of him that doesn’t want it at all.) - “I Want Something, But I Don’t Know What”
Remember the saying, “If you object, suggest an alternative”? People with PDD have never heard it. When someone offers options, they find flaws in every one. Nothing suits them, nothing is good enough. But when their exasperated companions finally ask what they actually want, they can’t say anything specific. They just reject without offering alternatives. - Lack of Specifics
- “What can I do to make you happy?”
- “Well, something nice, so I feel happy.”
- “Okay, but what exactly should I do?”
- “I don’t know, just do it!”
And then come the complaints that no one made them happy. How unfair, right?
- Too Easy? Make It Harder!
People with passive-aggressive traits turn any task into an impossibly difficult one. They complicate and tangle things so much that, in the time it takes, they could have finished the task ten times over. But they get stuck in trivial details, get lost in their thoughts, and end up doing nothing at all. If you point out a simple, obvious solution, they won’t take it-they’ll keep complicating things until everyone feels completely stuck. - Breaking Agreements
You can make an agreement with this person, and they’ll even nod in agreement, but at the last minute, they’ll either let you down, run out of time, or something will happen to ruin all your plans. These are people you can’t rely on. Deep down, they believe that any agreement is a form of pressure. And whenever they feel they “have to” do something, their autopilot kicks in: “I won’t let you make me do it!”
Interestingly, people with PDD resist everything-even if it’s in their own best interest. They fight for the sake of fighting and don’t realize that, in the heat of battle, they’re destroying their own resources, goals, and energy. - Never Direct
People with passive-aggressive traits have a hard time communicating directly. They try to do everything indirectly. For example, if they’re hungry, they won’t say so or get food themselves. Instead, they’ll wait until hunger makes them angry, then say something like, “Are we ever going to have dinner or what?!”
It’s as if their goal is to be dissatisfied and resentful, to hold a grudge and bring it up later-so that no one has a chance to fix what went wrong.
Of course, such people can be extremely frustrating. They’re hard to live and work with. But imagine how hard it is for them! All their energy goes into constant resistance and spinning their wheels. They can’t achieve results and are tormented by it. They feel like everyone else is to blame, that no one understands or wants to help. They feel a terrible, all-consuming loneliness and don’t understand why this is happening to them.
Where Do Passive-Aggressive Traits Come From?
It’s simple: at some point, parents forced the child to do things their way, and the child tried to defend their autonomy by resisting. Direct refusal led to punishment, so the child learned to refuse indirectly, passively. What started as an external struggle (with parents) eventually became an internal one-a habit of resisting and rebelling.
What Can You Do About It?
If you struggle with your own passive aggression, try to listen to your desires, voice them, and learn to say “no” out loud, not in roundabout ways. If you’re close to someone with PDD, encourage them to refuse directly. For people with PDD, this is very difficult.
It may seem like passive behaviors are found in lazy, weak, or unmotivated people. But that’s not true at all. Just imagine how much energy it takes to constantly resist! These people have plenty of energy-it’s just directed at fighting, not achieving results. Until they want to find and defeat their inner enemy, they won’t have the strength for success or accomplishments. Instead, it will always seem like there are external enemies they must fight at all costs.