Crazy-makers cause people to feel disoriented confused upset and uncomfortable. Recognizing crazy-making communication helps us to protect ourselves when it’s used on us and to avoid using it ourselves. Below is the continuation of our list of popular yet deadly “crazy-makers” — communication strategies that alienate family members by destroying trust.

1. Building up hopes and then dashing them without a satisfactory reason. Mom tells the kids that she’ll take them to an amusement park on Sunday. The kids are excited. When Sunday comes along they start begging her to go. “I’ve changed my mind — it’s not a good day for such a trip” Mom says. The children ask her why. Mom gets irritated: “I told you it’s not a good day for it and that should be enough. Now go play!” Making no sense in a communication initiates a severe breakdown of trust.
2. Sticking to exact words rather than their generally accepted meaning. Wife is very upset that Husband stopped in for thirty minutes to visit his ailing mother on the way home from work. Husband defends his behavior exclaiming “But you yourself told me to check in on her on the way home from work!” Wife retorts “Yes I said check in on her. I didn’t say to stay there for half an hour!” If a family member feels they need to have a lawyer on twenty-four-hour call in order to protect themselves from your letter-of-the-law style of communication your style is crazy-making.
3. Acting as if the other person said something they didn’t say (aka putting words in their mouth). Wife to husband: “Did you see my keys? I thought I left them right here on the counter.” Husband to wife: “No I didn’t see them.” Wife: “That’s funny — they were here a minute ago.” Husband to wife: “Are you calling me a liar?!” Attributing hurtful words to another person is unfair and confusing. It puts the speaker in a position of having to defend behavior they didn’t engage in.
4. Accusing another person of sinister motives. At the Shabbos table Father is expounding a point of halachah. Son happened to hear things a little differently from his rebbi and asks “Is it possible that there’s another answer?” Father slams the table and shouts “You just want to provoke me!” Unless the son has a reputation for being provocative the father’s accusation is more than hurtful. Being so disconnected from factual reality it becomes crazy-making. Similarly Wife says to Husband “You suddenly have all this work to do because you don’t want to spend time with me.” Again unless there is evidence that the husband is trying to avoid the wife the attribution of bad motives is crazy-making.
5. Blaming another person for one’s own bad behavior or mistakes. “You made me drop the cup. You shouldn’t be talking to me when I’m making coffee.” “You caused me to slam the door. You just don’t know when to stop.” Although other people can provoke us or trigger us or distract us we are ultimately responsible for coping with all of these things in a productive way. For instance if we’re prone to drop things when someone is talking to us we can stop what we’re doing while they’re talking and listen to them continuing our activity only when the conversation ends. Other people don’t “make” us behave badly or carelessly.
6. Consistently ignoring the wishes of a family member. If a family member wants something unreasonable it may be necessary to ignore his or her wishes. For instance if a wife wants a husband to have twelve hours of sleep each night he doesn’t have to comply with her wish (especially if he gets by just fine on seven hours). They may need some marriage counseling to take up the issue though if she continues to insist on it. However when a family member expresses a normal wish consistently ignoring it is not only unkind it gives troubling message as well. For instance if a husband asks a wife to include bananas on the shopping list because he enjoys them and they can afford to purchase them and she consistently “forgets” or just plain doesn’t buy them claiming the whole time that it is an “accident” (week after week month after month) she is using a crazy-making tactic.

Crazy-making behavior is very difficult to correct without third-party assistance. It is almost impossible to get someone to acknowledge and correct their crazy-making communication. Although small doses of crazy-making communication may be tolerable larger doses are destructive. When this kind of communication is so pervasive that family relationships are suffering or so intense that one’s own mental health is affected it is time to access professional help.