Negaholism Takes Four Different Forms

Negaholism naturally groups into four categories. One category often spills over into the next; the negative attitudes and thoughts are usually demonstrated through words and actions.

Attitudinal Negaholics are successful people who drive themselves relentlessly. To the outsider they appear to have it all together, but inside they are tormented. They are the most subtle form of negaholic because their appearance is crisp, clean, orderly and aesthetically pleasing. They are usually on top of everything. The negaholics in this group are: The Perfectionist, The Never-Good-Enough Person, and The Slave Driver.

Behavioral Negaholics many be succeeding in spite of themselves, but they are most often missing the mark. They try so hard that you don’t want to fault them, but their self-sabotage is written all over them. Caught in the discrepancy between their ideas and their actions, they are unable to break out of the behavioral patterns even though they seem to try. This group consists of The Procrastinator, The Pattern Repeater, and The Never-Measure-Up Person. Behavioral negaholics act out the negativity in non-supportive ways such as too much smoking, overeating, excessive drinking, abuse of drugs, over-indulgence in gambling, exercise, TV, work, relationships, sex and religion.

Verbal Negaholics are hopeless, helpless, and unable to change. They make negative statements about themselves, others, situations, places, just about anything. Incredibly, they don’t have the slightest idea that they are being negative, they think that they are accurately reporting the facts the way they are. In this group are: The Bear trapper, The Constant Complainer, The Herald of Disaster, and, The Gloom and Doomer.

There are 14 different types of Negaholics.

The Perfectionist. The Perfectionist is a cross between good news and bad news. The Perfectionist has high, some might say unreasonable, standards.
The Perfectionist expects perfection and anything that falls short of it is unacceptable. He expects it from himself and from everyone around him. The good news is that you will always get outstanding products and services from this person. The bad news is that it is difficult if not impossible to please him, and if you don’t measure up, you get the ax. Imperfections are intolerable. The pressure to perform up to his standards is intense. Since there are few people who bill the bill of being perfect, the result is that he feels righteous, better than everyone else, and alone. He comes from “I can do it better myself.”

The obvious question is, “How is this person a negaholic?” If you take the psychological oil rig and drill down into the underpinnings of the perfectionist attitude, there is almost always a deep-seated fear of not being good enough, of being found out, of being inadequate. This is a slightly different twist from “It’s never good enough,” but at its core is a negaholic.

The Never-Good-Enough Person. Akin to the Perfectionist’s attitude but slightly different is the Never-Good-Enough Person. This type of negaholic constantly and consistently sets standards and goals which are unattainable. These unrealistic expectations create an internal dynamic that reinforces the fact that the person is a loser. This type of person is never satisfied. This person’s point of view is that, “It’s never good enough!” Working with this type of person is frustrating and demoralizing because they will rarely notice what is right.

The Slave Driver. The Slave Driver is from the same family as the Never-Good-Enough Person and the Perfectionist negaholic. Slave Driving can be either an attitude or a behavior. It spills over from though to action. Slave Drivers are usually workaholics as well. They are compelled to work, to work harder, to do one more thing. The Slave Driver has no time to play, only to work, work, work. He sits on you shoulder telling you that you must “write the paper.” You think to yourself, “I’d like to go to the movies” and the Slave Driver says “NO! Write the paper.” You think, “I’d like to spend some time with my daughter,” and the Slave Driver says “NO! Write the paper.” You think to yourself, “I’d like to go shopping,” and the Slave Driver says “I told you to write, don’t you listen, just go write!”

The Procrastinator. Your actions may take the form of procrastination. The manana syndrome seems innocent enough, but it may be the precise behavior which keeps you from meeting deadlines, doing what you say you will do, and reinforcing the fact that you are not up to the challenge. This type of person will put things off; and also have a tremendous resistance to write anything down. Since tasks rarely get written down, the tasks get forgotten thus leading to trouble with the boss. What this person does not forget, they put off until later. This person is in a constant state of distress. This type of person has a difficult time with time management.

The Pattern Repeater. Self sabotage may look like repeating old patterns over and over again. It may feel like being stuck in a rut and not knowing how to get out of it. It may look like stringing a psychological fish line in front of your path, and tripping every time you get really close to your goal.

The Never-Measure-Up Person. Some people always fall short of the mark. You, do doubt, have heard the expressions “always a bridesmaid, never a bride”; “always in second place.” Life is full of reasons, not results; the satisfaction of being, doing, and having exactly what you want is out of reach. This type of person is outgoing, friendly, and gregarious, but inside he firmly believes that he is never going to make it.

The Constant Critic. There usually is some sort of catalyst for this criticism, like ending a relationship with a loved one or losing a major deal, but often there appears to be no apparent reason for it at all. The criticism may sound like: “You are so fat!,” “You are so ugly!,” “You are so stupid!,” “You are so clumsy!” Constant criticism is a more advanced stage of negaholism.

The Comparing Contestant. Some people need other to bounce off. Comparing yourself to others can be a full-time job, since there are so many contestants.
“ Look at her thighs, they’re so much thinner than mine.” “He has a BMW, and I only have a Honda.” “Look at how great their report looks, mine looks so awful.” “He has a much better golf game that I could ever have.”

Comparing Contestants look at life with a yardstick, comparing themselves to everyone else as if they were involved in a perpetual contest in which they are under constant scrutiny. And guess who never measures up?

For Comparing Contestants, life is a contest and the person who has the most desirable “stuff,” the most attractive friends, and the happiest life wins the contest. I’m still not sure who is keeping score, or where the game board is, but I do know that there are a lot of players. The game is about impression people, having prestige, and making everything seem effortless. Your objective is to impress other with something about you. The game is to look beautiful, to have unlimited wealth, and to be so busy that you need to schedule dinner six months in advance. You go to the latest restaurants, but you critiques are riddled with superlatives: “It was THE best.” “It was THE worst.”

The Retroactive Fault-Finder. Do you find yourself living by clutching and looking into the rearview mirror? You can look in the rearview mirror to see what has just passed and then dwell on it, blow it out of proportion, and focus on what mistakes were made and how there are irretrievable.

Retroactive Fault-Finders are steering their lives through rearview mirrors. They are always looking over their shoulders for previous events they can use as ammunition against themselves or others. They use a lot of “shoulds” in their conversations. “I shouldn’t have said that,” “I should have sent her a birthday card,” “I should have called him,” “I should have studied harder for the exam,” and so on.
Life for this type of negaholic is full of regret, remorse, and self-recrimination. “If only” is a perpetual phase that torments them with the fact that there was a better way to do it, and they didn’t do it that way!

The Premature Invalidator. Premature Invalidators can be protective in nature, keeping you from trying new things so you wont be disappointed. On the other hand, they can be poised and ready to pounce on your every mistake.
Have you ever jumped all over yourself before you did anything wrong? Sometimes we make real bloopers, which deserve a little ranting and raving. But I’m talking about totally unjustified attacks. Based upon your past performance and negative mind, you jump to conclusions and indict yourself before you review the facts and the evidence. It’s as if you have been convicted before you’ve ever been tried. It sounds like, “There you go again. I can’t believe that you…You always…You never…” It could happen almost anywhere or anytime, but the reality is that this particular negattack is totally unjustified and unfair.

It may happen in the car when you are driving. You may think that you might have taken the wrong turn, but you are not sure. Before all the date is in, you wage a full-scale attack on yourself even though you are just trying to get yourself where you’re going. Or you’ve gone out to get the mail and an important call comes in that you have been waiting for. Your internal voice launches into a scathing “How could you?” tirade, and there you are, feeling like an innocent victim pounced upon without warning. A few minutes later you find out that the person who called had no time to talk and just wanted to leave some information. You feel chagrined by the brutal way you have treated yourself. The damage has already been done. You feel beaten, abuse and scarred.

The Beartrapper. The Beartrapper is the person who reaches our for help, support, aid, assistance or advise, and yet refuses it, explaining that whatever you are proposing wont work, has already been tried, didn’t work in the first place, or the situation is more complicated than you can imagine. This is a lose/lose dynamic. Nothing will work. Things are truly hopeless, and the “helper” just doesn’t understand. These people are also called “help-rejecting complainers.” This syndrome is called “beartrapping” because the person soliciting help opens up a trap into which the helper with the best intentions inserts his foot. The trap is then closed on the foot, and the “bear” or helper feels traped, annoyed, and angry.

The Constant Complainer. These people are unaware of their condition and will naturally shy away. They have no idea why they have no friends. People shy away because this person is a negatt. If you come up with a new filing system, this person will say, “It won’t work.” If you suggest that an employee should work with a new supervisor, they will say, “She won’t do it.” After a while it becomes apparent that this person has a blind spot to anything positive. It is difficult if not impossible for them to hear their own attitudes. They don’t know they are being negative. Their attitudes and beliefs are imbedded so deeply within their reality structure that they look at life through this negaholic filter system. They are unaware that a system exists, and believe that “life’s just like that!”

The Herald of Disaster. “Oh NO, we’re going to have an earthquake and we’re all going to die!” “I won’t be able to pay the rent, I’ll be evicted, and end up a bag lady on the street, homeless.” Did that thought ever cross your mind? Research shows that one of the biggest fears which people secretly harbor is the fear of being one of the homeless. Try this on for size: “I know he’s going to leave. Just like all the rest. I’ll be abandoned and alone. That’s my lot in life; I’m just meant to be old and alone, that’s my plight.” You are a walking disaster film. You don’t expect the worst, you anticipate disasters, tragedies, and calamities. Fear is your middle name, and you live in a stage of imagining the worst that can happen.

The Gloom and Doomer. A first cousin of the Herald of Disaster is the Gloom and Doomer. The difference between the two is that Heralds of Disaster are more panicky and focus on specific events. Their tone is different, urgent, frantic, and borderline hysterical. All their statements end in exclamation points. The Gloom and Doomers have a hopeless tone to them. They are more resigned to things not working out and they don’t get excited or upset about anything. In fact their reactions are dead. “It can’t be done, if it hasn’t’ been done before it isn’t going to be done now, and you aren’t going to do any different, so don’t even try.” These are the people who continuously told the Wright brothers to give up, to forget it, who said, “If man were meant to fly, God would have given him wings.” If you have a new invention, don’t tell one of them, because they will only throw dirt on your sparks.

If you fit one of these categories and want help in overcoming negativity please contact Dr. Cherie Carter-Scott, Negaholic Specialist, at info@themms.com