boundaries

lol "missing stair" basically describes my boss

part of my job entails literally fixing missing stairs, while working with groups where there are metaphorical missing stairs ...

the project I've been working on for the past 8 months or so was initially blocked by a metaphorical missing stair ... who finally got removed from the building (partly stemming from an online interaction where I challenged this guy) ... anyway, turned out dude was a hoarder and had been doing his hoarding inside this building, which was totally against the code of conduct.

I’m the daughter of a mother who had narcissistic personality disorder and was a raging alcoholic. Many many people would have set boundaries but it was something I was totally unable to do for many reasons including that I loved her very much. I am a people pleaser and very conflict adverse so I’m awful at this. I really need to get better at this because it makes life so hard but I struggle with it so much. I’m an EA so that’s probably the worst position for me to have because I say yes to everything and get walked all over. Anyway, interesting thread. Will keep reading.

I also find the idea of someone not liking me or being mad at me intolerable. It’s a terrible combination of things which result in me never sticking up for myself ever. :/

I am a people pleaser and very conflict adverse so I’m awful at this.

do you feel like this is who you are because of the way your mom was, or do you feel like this is something innate to *you* regardless of your mom's problematic behavior?

ENBB I have that problem too. it is hard to stand up for yourself when your goal is not to be true to yourself but to preserve harmony with other people. and yet, one can know this and still not be able to avoid feeling this way (case in point...me).

it's kind of infuriating because I thought I had licked the problem. in my 20s, because I was unmedicated (and badly needed anxiety meds), and didn't have a lot of friends, I tended to be very paranoid about abandonment (for no discernable reason - nobody had 'abandoned' me before). then I got medicated and I was actually suddenly very good about boundaries, accepting people wouldn't like me at times, and not being afraid to be 'vulnerable'.

it's basically the reason I got promoted, I had a tough exterior, didn't mind being direct without being nasty, and people at work got annoyed at my demands and I didn't care, I didn't lose sleep at night.

one frustrating breakup and a 2 year period of extreme, overwhelming stress at work and I went back to my bad habits and haven't kicked them since. mostly because the stress never subsided. immediately after the 2 year period at work subsided, my dad dropped a bombshell on my brother and I that he wanted to move in with us and they were moving back to Florida, they got themselves in financial ruin, Pulse happened, Trump happened....like there's been no respite.

i also feel like gender expectations play a role in "people pleasing" tendencies? Like, I am conscious that I learned that behavior (the hard way) because it was how women were supposed to be, and a certain amount of it is engrained at this point. Obviously considering there are cis-men who are "people pleasers" ... it isn't entirely gendered.

xpost some of it possibly due to my dad, as I've mentioned before, I love him dearly (I mean lord knows I talk about him all the time), and he mellowed out in his 50s-60s which helped our relationship immensely, but it was testy in my youth and teens because he was a screamer as a kid, and his voice was so loud and booming he terrified us at times, sometimes flying off the handle for unfair/inconsistent reasons.

I still get anxiety hearing someone moving about in living room areas in strange houses because there were times I'd hear my dad poking around the living room and if he saw something he didn't like, he'd often barrel into the room and scream at us.

(he wasn't abusive, he didn't hit, but sometimes he just needed to be mindful that he was a big man with a big voice and we were 4 feet tall and timid).

so on days where I didn't make him mad and he didn't yell, I felt happy that I "pleased" him and avoided being yelled at.

I am a people pleaser and very conflict adverse so I’m awful at this.

do you feel like this is who you are because of the way your mom was, or do you feel like this is something innate to *you* regardless of your mom's problematic behavior?

― sarahell, Wednesday, January 5, 2022 3:31 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Good question. I have to think about it because I honestly don’t know. Probably a combination of both but definitely a lot of her influence. I wasn’t allowed to question anything she said ever and I constantly had to do things to keep the peace and not upset her etc.

"having to keep the peace", trying to avoid a fight/calamity early in life can definitely manifest itself later in life, for sure

Yeah - absolutely.

weirdly I just had an argument w/ teh same friend I had above and held my ground calmly and without budging. idk why it was so easy today, maybe i've just stopped giving a fuck this week.

I don’t think I’ve ever not apologized first to someone after an argument and usual I’m not remotely sorry - I just hate worrying that people are mad at me so much.

it's hard too cos eventually resentment at not supporting oneself can lead to overcompensating the other way.

I didn't have that problem til the pandemic. Now when people are mad at me I try to be a diplomat at first even if I'm not wrong because I just genuinely hate fighting, but if they needle me again after that I have a tendency to explode with a level of rage not exactly warranted by the infraction. and then I feel ugly and feel extremely guilty for injuring that person, because even though they WERE wrong, they probably didn't deserve that level of response.

(I'm not abusive but I tend to flood the person with all of the things they've done to infuriate me, like I'm George Costanza's dad)

imo it’s not just boundaries between you and other ppl that you need to build and maintain but also between you and certain things in the world. I see it playing out big time with the pandemic - ppl inundating themselves with news, research, other’s opinions. Like I get wanting to be informed but there needs to be a boundary between having the knowledge to keep yourself safe and seeking out so much knowledge that you’re not keeping yourself *mentally* safe.

My husband was coming to me every day to repeat all this terrible covid stuff he was reading online, working up his anxiety - and fucking with MY boundary around covid news. I asked him what exactly he was getting out of this info that he couldn’t get from just following one reliable source and checking in with that source once a week.

Xpost booming post

And my newest area of dev

that rings so true, I just did there reading COVID story after COVID story with no purpose

I do the same thing with hurricanes and election forecasts

Definitely have to put up a lot of boundaries on social media, and it’s always kind of creeping over them. Huge list of muted words on twitter, carefully selected and small group of fb friends. I’ve just started using insta and I’m going to have to set some boundaries / stick to some rules there too, it gets me in an overwhelmed scrolling daze too often.

it’s not just boundaries between you and other ppl that you need to build and maintain but also between you and certain things in the world

totally! I used to be like "let me find out as much as I can about x thing that will make me angry / anxious so that I will know" mostly in terms of professional or scene stuff, and now, I think it was because of some awesome hilarious post by estela on a breakup thread about how there are six million other people in the world who are not your ex, and most of them don't know you or your ex (I am not doing the post justice here), and I realized ... the vast majority of people do not care whether so-and-so got this grant and I didn't, or arts org I don't work for is getting accolades for having some show people think is cool. I can exist quite pleasantly not being reminded of how awesome people who aren't me are.

The age of the internet is this v fine balance between helpful and harmful. Like, being Very Online has taught me so much about race, feminism, politics, mental health stuff - all kinds of important shit I would’ve never learned about otherwise. But it also can absolutely bombard you with all the negative shit in the world. I’m very aware of how cops are killing Black ppl - do I need to watch every video of every murder? I knew trump was a dangerous fuckhead - did I need to read every one of his ridiculous tweets? You gotta be aware when you’ve reached the limit of useful knowledge and are just into a kind of morbid, obsessive curiosity.

But I’m also not prone to obsessing and I find it easy to compartmentalize. I know it can be much harder for some ppl.

As for people pleasing, i try to think: do I actually want this person to like me, or will they be a drain on my energy if I go along to get along? But I’m pretty introverted - I don’t like a lot of social interaction bc it’s tiring - do the PPs in this thread consider themselves leaning more towards introvert or extrovert? I’m curious if there’s a correlation there.

Extrovert for me

A big issue when trying to set boundaries for myself is that "acting outside yr comfort zone" is so often pushed as a positive thing - obv. at work, but also in my personal life: I think as an introvert I have kind of accepted the idea that it is still something I shd be getting over or growing out of, and putting myself out there will somehow improve me.

Something that really helped me w/r/t social media was running a record label’s Twitter account. We followed our artists, and a couple of accounts that provided relevant, reliable news about the music, and that was it. We had thousands of followers but didn’t follow any of them back; they were the audience.

I have close to 4000 Twitter followers myself, but am only following a couple of hundred people, and only interact with about a dozen people there, having actual conversations, sharing jokes, etc. The rest of those people are my audience. They care what I think/say (or they wouldn’t be following me), but I feel no obligation to reciprocate.

I am a people pleaser to the core. I grew up in a house where the threat of violence - physical, mental, emotional - was constantly in the air, and I learned the safest way to proceed around that was to do what was necessary rather than what was best for me. I'll be the first to admit that I am hypersensitive to shifts in moods and atmosphere, and will naturally assume that if someone is in a bad mood then it is my fault, rather than them just simply being in a bad mood, and I will find myself reaching to change that bad mood instead of letting them sit with it. When we left that household, I was then expected to be primary caregiver for my younger brother, because my mother had "suffered enough" and "deserved a chance to be happy" and I was basically forced into it via a mix of emotional and financial blackmail. Add into that, being a camp gay man and learning how to self-police your own behaviours, actions, what you reveal about yourself for safety - I have spent massive chunks of my life being completely malleable in my identity in the name of self-protection. Being conflict-averse for many people isn't just about keeping the peace, it's the very real threat of the consequences if you don't.

The thing about people-pleasing is that so often you're trying to win the respect and approval of people who aren't ever going to give you it anyway. As I get older, I'm getting better at saying No to people, but it's not my natural response. I practice it a lot - saying the words out loud in the mirror before saying them to the person, so it sounds natural and confident coming from me. That's really helped me with asserting boundaries: thinking of what good behaviour looks like, then practicing it until it becomes more instinctive.

In my early 20s I spent a lot of time hanging out with people I had very little in common with, doing activities I had very little interest in, and not enjoying the things I wanted to do, certainly not with other people. My boundaries of what I would put up with, what I would go along with, what I would tolerate - it was so low, because I wanted to be liked and part of a social group. Now I'm older and I have more self-confidence/self-belief I am really quick to just Nope out of things, and if people resent me for that then that's fine because that's not someone I need in my life, and I'm certainly not going to insist on people doing things just to please me. It sounds really basic, but saying to my pals eg "I'm not into horror movies so I'm going to sit this one out" hasn't meant I've become excommunicated from the group, it just means they do something I'm not part of, but it took me so long to get to a point where I felt comfortable with that happening.

For boundaries to work, you have to enforce them, and I think that's often the hardest part. If you don't answer your phone to someone nine times, and then pick up on the tenth, you've not enforced a boundary - you've merely taught them that persistence works and you'll give in. I went no-contact with my mother roughly five years ago, and it's been hard. Not because I want to speak to her, but because I've had to do the practical and logistical work of boundary setting - blocked phone numbers and social media, email re-directs, shutting down any insinuation from extended family that I might want to engage with her. It doesn't work if there's a modicum of doubt over where the boundary lies.

The concept of "the missing stair" really has shaped the way I view a lot of stuff. About five or six years ago I took a promotion to a branch that had a terrible reputation, with the suggestion that I would be the right person to manage and motivate the team into a healthier place. I realised quickly that the team was made entirely of missing stairs - guys who were at best "sleazy", a woman who refused to carry out instructions for tasks she didn't enjoy doing that were nonetheless necessary, people who were turning up hungover regularly and being rewarded for it with easy non-customer-facing work. Every time I asked the question "why are we putting up with this?" I was told "that's just what they are like." I didn't have the power to get rid of these missing stairs, and I realised that as long as no change would be forthcoming in attitude or behaviour or team make-up, then whoever was in the role was doomed to fail, so I quickly retreated. Since then, in both work and my personal life, I've always asked the question about things that don't seem to work: "why are we putting up with this?" and if I can't get a good answer or make a change, I get myself out of it as quickly as possible.

boxedjoy your situation in the last paragraph is very familiar, definitely felt that same pain! from a direct report who refused to meet deadlines and who inexplicably was never disciplined despite doing it across 3 years and multiple project managers, and leaders of the department warning other project managers "she's somewhat of an issue". like....do something!

regarding doomscrolling...

it really does present as addiction in some ways, not to like 'drugs', but things like candy, that make you sick.

It starts positively - during any kind of emergency or emerging situation, you acquire knowledge that hasn't made it to the press yet, you are informed more regularly throughout the day, and you can even share a few cool pointers with your friends and seem knowledgeable.

Problem is, it's only like that sporadically. The more you dig, the harder it is to find new, novel information, easier to find harsh in-fighting amongst people as to what is really happening, so then you dive in further. And at that point, it can become easy to shut out the world around you - where hours pass and you barely notice, or people trying to get your attention and you can't focus on them.

and the more you do it, the easier it is to adopt a negative bias, where you are more likely to believe 'negative' information than positive. and due to the prescriptivism present across a lot of social media, you can feel pressured into thinking you're "irresponsible" for holding the wrong opinion, or become convinced that public knowledge on a subject is currently "wrong".

There were people during the last hurricane that sort of impacted Central Florida who were outright telling people to ignore the National Hurricane Center's latest guidance, and referring people to amateur analysis, or worse, offering their own amateur analysis, leading people to panic and freak out, when of course, the hurricane wound up skirting us altogether and giving us at worst an extra day off during the week.

Likewise, there's lots of 'shame' language that can actually be controlling the more you doomscroll. People who hold contrary opinions to the more incendiary "experts" (i.e., the ones who tend to use their daily news-shares to build their brand as opposed to actually, y'know, help) are called "minimizers". "you're a COVID minimizer!", "you're downplaying the hurricane!", "you're overconfident in the polls and are going to hurt turnout with this messaging".

One prominent Twitter abuser, Dr Kim Prather, one of the many insane members of the #covidisairborne hashtag cult, accuses other Tweeters of putting "thousands of lives at risk" for other experts who offer advice contrary to hers. (pro-tip - if you find you MUST Twitter scroll for pandemic info, avoid her, Jose-Luis Jimenez, Denise Dewald, Anthony J Leonardi, and any other members of the #covidisairborne cult. COVID *is* airborne, but they are basically internet bullies who sic their followers on people they either disagree with or minimize their experience in their field and completely thrive on panic and histrionic language, which breeds more doomscrolling).

I've been getting clowned on here for my doomscrolling and it's not without merit, it's just - not the easiest thing to do when you're hunkered down all day. I avoided doomscrolling pre-pandemic because...I went out and lived life, I did things. I went to bars, concerts, theater productions, comedy shows, hung out with friends, filled the time up that I would do these harmful things with positive things. Much harder to do that now, so bad habits die hard.

I had managed to stop doomscrolling completely in October/November, but once Omicron whispers began, I started that very day and have only started to manage to start 'reducing' the habit in the last week. but haven't kicked it.

There is also the illusion of a moral imperative to doomscroll - this fallacious thinking that if you are NOT keeping up with the latest information, you are ill-informed and irresponsible or not taking it seriously. But being someone who has had his brain rot from weeks and weeks of doing this, there is absolutely no nobility in rotting your own brain to know approximately 0.33% more information than everybody else knows, information that might be complete bullshit unless you're an expert that can ascertain for themselves. There's no nobility in making yourself miserable.

Obviously that hasn't stopped me from DOING it, but at least in the last week I've been able to tell myself "wouldn't you rather do something else?".

I find 'boundaries' a very amorphous concept. It feels useful, but I'm not sure the meaning stays the same across different contexts (personal, work, family, online/social media) where the sense of 'self' can differ.

For boundaries to work, you have to enforce them...

Many relationships seem to have more complicated arrangements than the Northern Ireland protocol, and with a greater variety of 'no hard border' and 'backstop' solutions, and protracted negotiations and threats to trigger unilateral dissolution.

Congratulations, that’s the stupidest post yet itt

Thanks - I take my plaudits where I can find them!

I guess you’d have to.

I've been getting clowned on here for my doomscrolling and it's not without merit, it's just - not the easiest thing to do when you're hunkered down all day. I avoided doomscrolling pre-pandemic because...I went out and lived life, I did things. I went to bars, concerts, theater productions, comedy shows, hung out with friends, filled the time up that I would do these harmful things with positive things. Much harder to do that now, so bad habits die hard.

I keep a stack of books within arm's reach. Annoyed by Twitter? Dive into a collection of art criticism essays! I know it sounds like telling a kid, "Oh, you're hungry? You don't need cookies — we have carrot sticks and hummus!" But consciously finding something else to read, something that requires you to put your phone or laptop down to read it, really does work sometimes.

Journal writing has also been useful for me cos it forces me to get to the bottom of the reason I’m doing it

i just got a new book too from a friend who was worried about me (not a book ABOUT anything mental health wise, lol, it's a Sopranos book), so there's an idea.

creativity is another thing I sometimes try, to write spoken word or play my guitar, but lately my hand has been cramping worse than ever when I play instruments. not the usual 'hand cramp' yo uget when you haven't played in a while, one time I felt the pain for a half hour after.

hope the 'ritis isn't hitting my hands too, got a lil in my feet

Theres boundaries between doomscrolling (which like wanking isnt anyone else's business) and immediately bringing anything you find, in longwind form, across multiple posts, to every possible thread you can think to post it on (which like wanking in a shared space, isnt cool even if two or three of the dozen others there are telling you its cool carry on)

y'know you can always unbookmark the thread, dude

rather than staying in it to constantly police the type of content that goes into it

Real boundaries are the opposite of amorphous. They’re hard lines you explicitly decide on and they’re about respect for yourself, respect for others. Obviously you don’t have the exact same boundaries for everyone - eg it’s ok for my sister to FaceTime me whenever she wants without texting first but it’s not ok for my boss to ever FaceTime me.

yeah and for boundaries to work you have to actually enforce them, because the types of people who actually are the reason we have boundaries are the type that will hear you say "I can't/won't do THIS" and will ask you to do exactly that thing anyway.

and once they see you cross the boundary once, they know they're in like Flynn forever.

That was a particular post relevant to a post you made like in the last ten minutes about literally the thing you do that you know is an issue my man, if you're here to admit it and own it and then just carry on for pages and pages doing it immediately anyway then why even pretend.

And i dont have the covid threads bookmarked but id point out that if that behaviour was an issue then this is another thread id need to drop if that were the case.

That’s one of the major pros of having boundaries - helps you see who’s worth having in your life and who’s worth getting rid of. Someone who continuously pushes on a clearly stated boundary is someone who doesn’t respect you, doesn’t view you as real person but rather as a tool or a side character in their life.

Everyone in my immediate family knows my older brother is a dick - I was singled out by him to a certain degree bc of our relationship but he was a fuckhead in general. I told my mum I was done with him and I guess it’s no surprise she didn’t realize what a grudge holder I am bc she’s never really known anything about me. I think she thought it would blow over. After a couple years she started gaslighting me (it’s just the way he is, it’s not that big a deal, no one else is acting the way you are etc). Which honestly just automatically reinforced my boundary. Then about 6-7yrs ago while I was back for a visit she organized an extended family get together for me and revealed literally at the last minute that she’d invited my brother and I was instructed to “be nice”. Of course I refused to acknowledge him when he arrived so Mum started kicking me and muttering at me so I said Hi and that was it looool. There was prob 15 ppl around and the vibe was awkward as fuck. Anyway afterwards my mum understood that if she tried to ever pull that shit again she’d be next in line for the chop, so she promised she wouldn’t.

Boundaries are about power, too. Like, tbh I get a lil rush when I cut someone off. If you’ve been powerless most of your life and it’s a giddy feeling to take control over of a relationship that’s trying to disempower you in some way and end it on your terms.

If you’ve been powerless most of your life and it’s a giddy feeling to take control over of a relationship that’s trying to disempower you in some way and end it on your terms.

totally!

your mum and your brother sound like real fuckheads justine! i really appreciate your posts itt about family relationships and boundaries, they are very clear about this concept and help me think clearly about what i'm doing and why.

also boxedjoy with a massively otm post. practicing scripts out loud is so key and something i don't do as much as i need to because it really is hard work.

It sounds really basic, but saying to my pals eg "I'm not into horror movies so I'm going to sit this one out" hasn't meant I've become excommunicated from the group, it just means they do something I'm not part of, but it took me so long to get to a point where I felt comfortable with that happening.

this is super otm. I was a misfit and weirdo for so long, and had really shitty self-esteem in terms of thinking that no one would want to be my friend, that I just went along with whatever, and would be friends with anyone who was nice to me lol.

estranged and no-contact family is, like, really hard ime, the grief and anger is always lurking around a corner. and those relationships are so crucial to our makeup that it can feel like some kind of major surgery (even tho the surgery is tumor removal!). it's probably not the best resource out there but others dealing with it, especially queer people, might be interested in the podcast that d4nny l4very does as an advice columnist, titled "big mood little mood". certainly not always on the topic of family estrangement, but they are very honest and eloquent about it when it comes up. it has really helped me deal with my own situation to seek out the company / experiences / general being of others who are going through similar things.