@deaffyduck Yep, it's a rollercoaster, and everyone's is different.
The two things I have found are most helpful are:
- Learning to know, understand (through careful evaluation and reflection) and trust my own feelings, thoughts and perceptions. One of the big issues with disordered or difficult individuals is that they are in the habit of automatically messing with other people's thoughts and feelings (automatic in the sense above that they often don't really recognise that they're doing it).
If you are an empathetic person (most people who get caught up with these folks are!), by which I mean someone who literally feels other people's feelings in their own body, this can be immensely confusing. The mistake empathetic people often make is to blame themselves for the problems the other person is creating – which usually goes hand-in-hand with the fact that the other person also is blaming the empathetic person for the problem.
To give an example, the DP (difficult person) might say something confusing, vague or that could have a double-meaning. The empathetic person feels confused, and asks the DP what they mean. But the DP doesn't really know what they mean. This makes them feel agitated, so they respond in an agitated way. Like, "What do YOU mean, what do I mean? Isn't it perfectly clear? I mean [they repeat the exact thing they said before]."
Now the EP also feels a bit agitated because they've been spoken to rudely and they're no clearer on what the problem is. So they say, trying to stay calm, "Well, I don't understand. It seems like you're saying this, but you could also mean that." Now maybe the DP either sees that their problematic thinking is about to be unveiled, or because of their own lack of empathy or poor thinking skills, they simply can't see the EP's point of view. Soo they escalate the conflict and/or blame the EP. "That's ridiculous. I can't believe you think that. If you're really that stupid, I'm not going to waste my time explaining myself to you."
Now the EP is really upset. They see that the DP is upset, they feel those feelings even more strongly themselves, and they want this conflict to go away, so they turn to de-escalation and soothing by rationalising the conflict to themselves and accepting the blame. "Okay, okay, sorry. I guess I must be tired because I can't get my head around this. Can we talk about this later?" The DP, mollified, might say, "Okay fine, but I really don't see what there is to talk about. You should go away and think about whether you want this relationship to work." And the EP, who really DOES want to make the relationship work, often goes away and tells themselves they just have to be MORE understanding, MORE patient, etc. But deep down, they also usually have a small voice saying, "Um. This isn't right. You were in the right here. There's something wrong with that person." But they ignore the voice, saying it's mean or unfair, and carry on trying to fix a problem they didn't create in the first place, and actually don't have any control over. So learning to listen to that small voice without judging it as mean or unfair is the first step in learning to know, understand (through careful evaluation and reflection) and trust your own feelings, thoughts and perceptions.
- Truly accepting that people will do what they want to do, and you can't make anyone do something they don't actually want to, including by being very loving towards them. You might have heard the phrase, "You can't love someone out of their problems." It's very true.
If someone regularly treats you in an unloving way, no amount of kindness and forgiveness for the bad ways they've treated you is going to result in them changing, because why would it? They can behave just how they like, and what they get in return is continued kindness and tolerance.
It is only when they are confronted with the direct and unpleasant consequences of treating people badly –ie those people realise it is not good for their own mental and physical health and happiness to stay involved in a close relationship with this person, and leave or significantly distance themselves – that they are ever motivated to change.
That's why it is a healthy choice to love yourself enough to say, "Nope. This is not good enough. If you want me in your life, it's not enough to promise to treat me better, you actually have to treat me better in real life, consistently, and for a long time as a platonic friend or co-parent or family member (or whatever level of relationship you're prepared to maintain with them, if any) before I may be ready to consider returning to a closer partnership with you."
What you will often see, after telling them this, is sincere-seeming promises of something different, a short burst of better treatment (often MUCH better treatment, almost OTT better treatment), which falls off after a few weeks or months when you don't quickly and generously start letting them back into your life or pants or headspace or whatever it is they are after. (Yes, you do need to hold your boundaries and not make any steps of your own towards a closer relationship with them for six months as an absolute minimum).
The realisation after just a few weeks that it was mostly talk and little real change is often very disappointing and hard to accept. It is very tempting to tell yourself "This is hard for them and I need to make allowances" (in fact they will almost certainly tell you this exact thing too). Or to make it about yourself and ask "Why wasn't I enough for them?" If you have these feelings, maybe you do have areas of your self-esteem where you feel deficient and that working on yourself would help, but be clear with yourself that you're doing that for YOURSELF, not because you think you can earn this particular person's approval and love by changing yourself.
This is the time when it is MOST important to hold the line because it is when you are most likely to fall back into old patterns of doing for them what they really need to do for themselves if they want to have better, more healthy relationships.
It is also very challenging and sad to accept that sometimes people do want to do better, but they just don't have what it takes. Finding peace with that acceptance is your own work to do – learning to have the willingness to see things as they really are and act accordingly, rather than to remaining trapped in an unhappy but hopeful fantasy.