Procrastinators Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from chronic procrastination.
Link to article on dealing with rebellion
I visited a site called Squalor Survivors (creepy--I rate a level 2 out of 4) and read there about a tendency they call Demand Resistance, which has been referred to on this site simply as rebelliousness. Squalor Survivors describes the OCD-like aspects of demand resistance thoroughly, and offers this link as a way of dealing with it. This article describes using "microbursts"--spontaneous baby steps--to avoid dread and bypass the resistance.
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weblink about microbursts
The link in slider's post above to the article by Cheryl Miller is dead, but a working archive link is here: "Microbursts" by Cheryl Miller
Plus another article on demand resistance that's discussed below is here.
Related Quotes
Here are some quotes from a program that I practice that relate to the headings from the dealing with rebellion article.
Be specific about what you want
“A firm decision steadies us
many articles
I did a search on the term "demand resistance", and there is a lot written on it. I'm very grateful to know this term! I have this problem in a very big way.
Thank you again for this link!!
Brat
Have you heard of The Inner Brat? There are references to it on Flylady's page (www.flylady.net) and it's a light-hearted approach to managing demand-resistance (although not called that in it). I think it's one of Pam or Peggy Young's 'babies'.
Found the site...
www.thebratfactor.com
Bratland
Somehow this doesn't help me as much as the more academic articles on demand resistance and it's relationship to the obsessive personality (which I very much have).
I started this site because I recognized that there was a compulsive avoidance aspect to my procrastination - it wasn't just fear of success or fear of failure or inability to get myself organized. I think the root of my compulsive avoidance is this demand resistance, which is a recognized element of the obsessive personality (aka addictive personality). It's triggered by an overcontrolling parent, which I certainly had!!
inner brat and demand resistance
I just posted a reprintable article on demand resistance. I knew when I saw the concept of "rebellious procrastination" in Rita Emmett's book that this was my core problem, but she didn't say a lot about it. Mitch Meyerson's articles about this are very helpful to me. They describe the problem AND give a solution.
demand resistance!!!!
(I made the link in your message hot, for convenience.)
Thanks very much for the link! This describes me so closely it's eerie. Here's a link to the original article:
http://www.gmarketingcoach.com/ezine70904.htm
And here is the excerpt that talks about "demand resistance":
• Are you "demand-resistant"?
Therapists define demand-resistance as having a chronic negative response to obligations or expectations. This is often unconsious. The person who suffers will make daily lists of things to do, then grow angry and anxious when it's time to get moving. Unconsciously, he or she resents anything that smacks of being "told what to do."
In some cases, even returning a phone call, or asking a friend to dinner is resented because it's "expected". Pleasurable activities, such as working out at a health club, or taking a class in Italian cooking, become "shoulds" to be done perfectly or on a rigid schedule. Work is a burden, and creativity and energy is blocked.
If you suffer from demand-resistance, you constantly find that you set goals and sabotage them. You are always angry at yourself, continually resolving to set goals and stick to them.
The antidote is to keep asking yourself, "Is this what I really want?" Demand-resistance is often a childhood response to overly controlling or overly protective parents. As an adult, such a person always feels vulnerable to being overrun.
The more sure you are of yourself, the more you work on building a strong sense of who you are, the less you'll feel like resisting your goals just to prove a point.
Wow, that's definitely me.
Wow, that's definitely me. Thank you for that!
Pleasurable activities/Authority
'Pleasurable activities, such as working out at a health club, or taking a class in Italian cooking, become "shoulds" to be done perfectly or on a rigid schedule.'
I certainly procrastinate on pleasurable activities, which always puzzled me, and I couldn't find anything about it in the procrastination books I read which assumed that procrastinators always went for the most pleasurable things.
I'm not sure that my parents were overly controlling or overly protective (too much the other way, more like, but maybe that was a passive-aggressive form of control - don't know, I'll have to think about it).
I certainly agree on the strong sense of self being of importance here. This weekend I could feel my hackles rising and I became suddently resistant to someone who I felt had attacked my opinions (without enough information on her part, I felt too, which double rattled me as I have a very strong sense of justice - which also relates to the OCPD article that I read on Wikipedia as I was following up the demand-resistance idea). I quickly (for me) managed to (almost) re-establish my sense of self, as being someone who knew what she was talking about, and not having to cave in to someone else's 'authority' (this other person has no authority over me directly, but has some authority in the professional body of which we are both members - and which she was quick to point out to me). I'm standing my ground. (I seem to have gone from one topic to another here, but they're related in that I believe they have the same underlying cause).