What To Document To Protect Your Sanity

When we deal with high-conflict and disordered coparents, it is vitally important to document certain things and collect data.  In this episode, I discuss the importance of tracking data to establish patterns for the purpose of not only clarifying those patterns, but to be able to use those patterns as permission to forgive yourself and believe in your own sanity.

Transcript

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This is unapologetic parenting podcast dedicated to candidly and unapologetically discussing parenting, divorce and co parenting. We take on the topics most people don't want to talk about and offer support and solutions to help you be a better parent, co parent and human being. Now without further ado, let's get right to it. Welcome back to unapologetic parenting. This is your host, Carl Knickerbocker. And in this episode, we're talking about what and how much to document and that is very broad question. And what I want to focus in on, at least initially on that topic is what to record what to hang on to what to document in terms of pattern recognition. And so one of the most important things that we can do when we think we're dealing with a narcissistic, ex and narcissistic co parent, a borderline cluster be one of these special people, is to look for patterns. I guarantee you when you're dealing with any of these special people, when you start tracking the data, when you start documenting and making data points, on their behaviors, the things they do the things they say, the condition that the kids show up in things like that, you will start noticing patterns over time. And so one of the things that you can check in with yourself first is say alright, I'm not sure exactly what I need to start documenting. But what are things that feel like they happen routinely? What are the things that feel like I'm just constantly having to deal with this are constantly seeing this or constantly having this fight, or this repetitive thing, that repetitive, that repetitive thing. And then zero in on? What are the actual facts, the actual words, the actual manifestations or behaviors that are associated with those patterns that you are intuiting at the beginning point, and then start collecting data on those. And so first, for collecting data. One of the best things, most priceless things in the whole entire face of the world that you can do when dealing with a narcissistic co parent narcissistic ex is to force everything into writing. So there is no need, there should be no need for conversations with these people, or phone conversations in person conversations, any opportunity for them to just say all sorts of things without any kind of accountability, or giving them space or opportunity to just fabricate all sorts of things. Just don't do it. Don't go down that path. As much as you can get things redirected into written form, and preferably into the written form of one of the CO parenting apps, that is gold. And the apps, I believe are preferable to texting because they're tamper proof. Nobody's going to be you know, accidentally deleting any of this stuff, they can't go back and change it like emails, they can't, there's all sorts of things they just can't falsify or fabricate. And so putting everything only into written form only on one of those platforms, helps you start collecting data. And so one of the things that you can do with that is have I use graph paper, I just have a thing for graph paper because I'm a nerd. But it's one of my, one of my secret pleasures is graph paper. And so you can have your graph paper and start labeling the types of behaviors in different colors or frequency just however you want to do it and start making notes on you know, Okay, this one was belittling This was false. This is a false accusation. This is a factual lie. This is a gaslighting attempt, or this was just word salad where they were just screwing all sorts of different words up, and you can start getting into the types of things that they put into their notes. And you might have one for foul language. And so up here they go. They're spouting those same old insults again, or they're making these same old accusations again, and you can start just charting out, you know, out there saying X, Y, and Z, there's that false accusation again, there's that false accusation again, oh, there is the first one yet again. And you can start noticing these different language patterns will start to emerge from just parsing out what you see in their notes to you. You can also start charting out things like how the kids show up. So do they show up exhausted all the time? Do they show up with stories about you know, late night festivities and sugar parties and everything else having their own little mini yes days every single time before Where they get dropped off to you start charting that out, do the kids come back and seem Solon and then disclose all sorts of lies that they've been told about you start charting that out, start charting out things that you actually factually observe in the kids or from the kids, you know, God forbid, you have a situation where you notice them showing up with no bruises, or they show up wearing clothes with holes in them, if they show up, and they're just starving because they haven't eaten, you know, certain keep all sorts of track of those data points. And you'll start to notice the things that again, that are repetitive, you can also a lot of times look to with the schools. And so that was one thing that came up very, very routinely, in my reality is that the schools would have all sorts of data collected on their own, that they would share with the parents to be able to say, here are the behavioral notes. And so I have some of my kids behavioral binders that show Well, on the days when they are with dad, they are getting smiley faces and doing well, on the days when they are not, they are getting frowny faces and having discipline problems and showing up in a whole different way. And so you're able to track data that way, you can also see about lining up whatever data you collect. As far as you know, outlandish behavior, insults being belligerent child behavior, child neglect, anything like that, that's happening, line it up with historical events that you know, and so say, you know, what, this is the anniversary of that, or this is this holiday, or this is around the time where, you know, from experience, I know, they typically go into a depressive phase, or they typically would go into a manic phase where they would this or they would that. And you can start seeing then how the behavior overlays these patterns that you probably know from experiencing this person in the past. And so once the patterns start emerging, then you can kind of back off and say, All right, I'm not crazy. This is an actual factual pattern here. I've tracked this out over three months or six months. And I have my data points. And I see how things ebb and flow, I see how the same things keep coming up over and over again. And it's you know, this person is essentially a broken record that just keeps skipping and repeating these same nasty things over and over again. And when you get to the point of noticing those patterns, then you can just put it on maintenance from there. And so there might be additional things that come up, and you can enter those data points into your graph, or put them in your journal just so you can see it. And just so you can know it. You don't have to go and collect every single thing, but just enough to keep reaffirming to yourself that those patterns are continuing. One of the greatest benefits of that is once you see those patterns, well one you know that you're not crazy. Because when you were with that person, they would probably try to Gaslight you out of any kind of belief that those patterns existed and say, No, that's all you You're the crazy one, because I don't do anything like that. And they would deny those behaviors. Well, now you can see that you were not crazy. As you're going through those experiences, you can now see how their behavior would ebb and flow. And when you see that there are these patterns in their behavior, it allows you to take a step away from it and say, This isn't me, I am not creating this. This is this other person's, whatever disorder acting out in their manic and depressive and hi and lo and whatever else cycles, who knows if it's the moon or you know, whatever, Mercury and retro, whatever, whatever is causing them to go through these ups and downs, it's their disorder. And you can then give yourself permission to say, you know what, I see what I'm dealing with. This is cyclical, this is predictable, this is pervasive. This is you know, this entrenched personality disorder thing going on. It's not of my creation. I'm not crazy, because there it is, and I can easily see it on paper. And then you can make very solid plans as far as what boundaries would be effective for dealing with that flavor of crazy whatever flavor of crazy it is, it shows up on your paper. So when it comes to documentation, how much what to document when we talk about pattern recognition and getting yourself into the best space possible. charting out those behaviors that you find are associated with the most conflict, the most problem, the most negative impact on the children those sorts of things, to the extent or to the point where you can start noticing the past in them, you can just start noticing the frequency, the the ways that they cluster around certain events or certain times fear around exchanges, just whatever have you around other stressful moments. If there's something where the kids are going to have to be out in public and the other parent you might be present as well, maybe that makes them start acting up before, during or after just whatever have you, you'll start noticing but those patterns are. And then again, once you have those patterns in place, and you start being able to see them and name them, then you can put it on more of a maintenance schedule. Keep some data points moving forward, just so you can, you know, stay ahead of the game. And then you can start giving yourself that more and more and more space to be able to back away, disengage and say, Hey, none of this craziness is my monkey. None of this craziness is my circus. That's their own little weird show over there, and I want to go do something better.