Why Do I Relapse into the Pattern Right Before I Break It?
The Pattern
You are on the edge of the breakthrough. You can feel it. The change is right there. And then you do the old thing one more time, sometimes worse than you have ever done it, and you collapse back into the pattern with a force that surprises even you. The relapse is not a failure of will. It is the system, sensing the imminence of its own dissolution, pulling you back with everything it has.
Origins & Context
The transtheoretical model of change, developed by James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente, includes relapse as a normal stage of the change process, not as an exception to it. Their research found that most lasting change includes one or more cycles of returning to the old behavior, sometimes intensely, right before the new behavior becomes durable.
Family systems theorists, including Murray Bowen, describe the same dynamic in relational terms. The system increases its pressure on the differentiating member just before the differentiation completes. The pressure can come from outside, from family or partner, or from inside, from the parts of the self that organized around the old pattern. The pull intensifies because the pattern is fighting for its life.
The pattern fights hardest just before it goes quiet. The worst week is sometimes the surest sign that the change is coming.— Nikita Datar
How It Shows Up
You have not had contact with the person in months. You are about to cross the threshold into stable peace. You text them. You text them more than you have ever texted them. You reopen the wound at full volume and cannot understand why you did it. The why is not a failure of character. It is the system in extremity, making one last loud attempt to keep you in the shape it knew.
It shows up across all kinds of patterns. The eating, the spending, the drinking, the staying, the leaving, the silence. The week before the change consolidates is often the worst week of the entire process. The worst week is not a sign that the change is not coming. The worst week is sometimes the surest sign that it is.
Named in the Literature As
The pattern is named in the literature through the Transtheoretical Model of Change (Prochaska and DiClemente), where relapse is built into the model as a normal stage. It is also named through family systems work as the System's Last Stand (Murray Bowen and successors), the increased pressure that accompanies imminent differentiation. Contemporary therapists describe it through the language of nervous system extinction bursts, where the old pattern fights hardest just before it goes quiet.
Related entries in this library include Healing Is Direction Not Destination, Performing Healing versus Actual Healing, and Choosing Yourself Is Direction Not Event.
Nikita's Note
I have watched myself do this so many times I now expect it. The week before a real shift, something old gets very loud. I used to interpret the loud as evidence that I had failed. I interpret it now as evidence that I am close.
The practice is staying with myself through the loud week without taking the loud as a verdict. The loud is a system in extremity. It is not who I am. It is who I was, fighting to stay. I let her fight. I do not punish her. I also do not turn around. The shift, every time, has been on the other side of the loud, not before it.
From the work
The pattern fights hardest just before it goes quiet. The worst week is sometimes the surest sign that the change is coming.From You Are the Love You Seek by Nikita DatarAbout this book
Related Concepts
More in The Pattern Atlas
See all in The Pattern Atlas →I wrote about this in You Are the Love You Seek — available on Amazon.