How to attract a Narcissistic, Borderline, Psychotic, or Chemically addicted/dependent partner

Whenever a person tells me, "The only men who ever ask me out are alcoholic/narcissistic", I always ask them to tell me what their methods of interpersonal communication are. I am constantly shocked that they are surprised. To attract an undesirable mate, follow these easy steps:
1. Send a man/woman you are interested in all the signals that you are interested (making frequent, prolonged eye contact, light touches, asking personal questions) but when he/she walks up to you to start a conversation or ask you out, send him/her signals you aren't interested (turn your body away, ignore him/her, say, "no thanks", or "I'm actually taking a break from dating right now")

 2. After doing the above, if you do give him/her your number (because secretly, honestly, you are interested) and they call,text you, don't respond at all, or if you do, wait more than 24 hrs, and then only give one word responses.

3. Don't do what you tell him/her you are going to do.

 If someone is STILL trying to pursue you at this point, congratulations, he/she is Narcissistic, Borderline, Psychotic, or Chemically addicted/dependent....because seriously?! No healthy, quality person would want you or put up with that shit! It drives me crazy when people say they are turned on by "a challenge" and those people who put up with that or act this way are more desirable.....what, like a relationship with this "challenge" is going to last? My sweet sister and her sweet husband divorced after 10 years, and they were easy sweet people. Relationships are hard enough...don't be dumb too.

Reactive Attachment Disorder: there is hope

I have worked with adolescents in several different residential settings with reactive attachment disorder: its marked by a relationship style with caregivers of "I'll reject you before you can reject me". It is formed in the child's early years in multiple different ways, one of which is having the child's caregiver meet the child's needs inconsistently. So a child on this path has learned that he cannot rely on his parent for anything, because if he does, he may get disappointed, so he stops seeking his caregiver for emotional nurturance. Anyway, a few months ago a 4 yr old boy came into the shelter where I work with beginning signs of this disorder: he never sought physical contact, even when he was in pain, or sad. When his mother came to visit him there was no outward sign that he knew who she was, was glad to see her, or sad to leave her when the visit ended. I have had a particularly difficult opening my heart to this little boy, as he rejected every effort on my part to form a bond, and he rarely did what is asked of him.
Well starting  about 10 days ago, he started randomly saying, "I wanna sit in your lap" and when he gets hurt or his feelings are sad he has started coming to me for comfort. Yesterday, for the first time, I asked him if he would come sit on my lap, and as he did, I rested my chin on his head and thought there was hope for him after all, and perhaps for me as well.

Accountability

A VITAL key for me being able to accept reality was accepting accountability for the direction my life has gone. Louise Hay's You Can Heal Your Life is a must for anyone who feels like a victim, or at the mercy of the vicissitudes of life. She claims that anything "wrong" in our life (illness, accidents, misfortunes, disease, addiction etc.) is caused by us, by our own subconscious thought processes. When I first read this I got ANGRY. "Why in the world would I do (blank) to myself?" But read her whole book before you put it down, and if you are still angry, let me tell you why this book is the most empowering thing I've ever learned: if I am the cause of this (blank), then I can undo it! This my friends is the most empowering pep talk any self identified victim will ever hear. But quite frankly, if you like being a victim, in believing that you are so important that the very laws of nature and god are conspiring against you, then I doubt you'll want to stop this train of thought. Have a nice day:)

Acceptance

I like to say people from an Eastern spiritual paradigm have a huge head start on most of us that were indoctrinated in the Western spiritual paradigm (praying, having faith, hoping that it will come to pass, bargaining, weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and more praying, throw in some fasting, tithing, or hail maries and you get what you want) when it comes to acceptance. Acceptance is the key to finding peace in the present moment. How long did I live my life unhappy about the way it was going, about what had happened to me or what I had done or said? And frankly, even though I have accepted (lol) acceptance as my road to peace,  I still get angry some times about "stuff". But I am very quick to identify these negative mood states, identify the thought or belief that triggered them, and get back to Loving What Is.

The bravest people in the world

The bravest people in the world (again, this is just my current opinion, open to changing) are those that have accepted the idea that they will cease to exist after death. Rather, I should amend this by saying that the bravest people in the world are those that have accepted that they are not going to exist after death and still live their lives as contributing members to society. I love reading Irv Yalom's published works and seeing how he is completely at peace with non existence and still serves his fellow man. So peaceful atheists are in this category. Another group that is in this category are believers and followers of A Course in Miracles. I must say that I spent a good deal of time with a Course study group and found that some of them, obviously not all, used the whole "this is just a dream that I'm going to wake up from whereupon I will cease to exist and join with the all encompassing love" as an excuse to not work through their baggage, or practice self improvement. But those who live it as it is intended are the bravest in the world. I was only 1/3 of the way through The Disappearance of the Universe before I put it down like it was radioactive. I myself have gone to the edge of my perception of reality, looked upon the gaping maw that is the end of my "self" and decided I wasn't brave enough to accept that as truth. I still find peace and contentment in the idea that "I" will exist after death. Kudos to those of you who have embraced non existence and are at peace and contributing members to society. :)

Another must read: Loving What Is by Byron Katie

This is a must read if you are like I used to be, and live your life with regret, shame, guilt, or pain, and are always "shoulding" your self to death. "This shouldn't be happening" "That shouldn't have happened" "I should be doing this". Her approach is called "the work", and it teaches how to identify feeling states, and to recognize the underlying thought that is causing that feeling state. Yes, if you are familiar with cognitive behavioral therapy and the thought, emotion, action triangle you will have a head start on "the work". Her website www.thework.com offers free printable worksheets that you can use to do "the work" on your baggage.

WARNING: this way of life is directly in contrast with that of "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. Meaning that since you are no longer concerned with how others think or feel about you therefore you no longer observe social niceties and go out of your way to make people like you. This can lead to relationship problems that may lead you to decide that you need to modify your own personal application of her "work" to your life.

Another must read: The Power of Now

This book, The Power of Now, by Eckart Tolle, unlike The Seat of the Soul and Sacred Contracts is useless in helping you form your believes about life after death or life before birth, but it is perhaps the most vital piece of information anyone will need to endure moments of unhappiness. Tolle claims that by living in the present moment, you can overcome all things and find peace and contentment. I've lost track of how many people I've talked to who said, "This book saved my life when..." As a mentor of mine says, "if you want to experience guilt, depression, or anger, live in the past; if you want to experience fear and anxiety live in the future; if you want to experience peace and contentment, live in the present".

 I must make a disclaimer before I offer my current opinion about whether Tolle is right in his claim that ALL things can be overcome through present mindedness: this is just an opinion, one that I have formed from my current experiences of living life according to his teachings for the last two years. Furthermore, following Tolle's teachings, I try my hardest not to identify with my opinions; that way, I can change them easily when they no longer suit my current world view/experiences. Here is my opinion:

There are some subconscious forces that, unless dealt with, prevent you from progressing in life. These unconscious forces arise from the past, and must be dealt with, in the present, but the past must be healed. Now as I said, you deal with it in the now, through hypotherapy or what have you, but it is a past force, the pain body as Tolle calls it, that must be dealt with. Simply breathing or asking yourself "I wonder what my next thought will be" may not prevent yourself from acting out the self destructive behaviors that get you fired, or arrested, or broken hearted, particularly if you have the Saboteur as one of your archetypes (see Sacred Contracts by Caroline Myss). Now I am open to the idea that I didn't live in the present perfectly, all the time, 24/7 for the last two years and that's why I experienced my Saboteur, but that's a pretty stupid argument, frankly. It's like saying, "Well if you had enough faith you would have been healed of your cancer. You weren't healed because you didn't have enough faith, obviously"

Again, I could be wrong; frankly it's not worth arguing about.