boundaries

had to say "no" today and did it just like a rip of the band-aid. a friend of mine (Stage IV cancer, I've talked about him here) wanted to take a trip here to visit his mother, but couldn't afford a plane ticket and didn't want to drive by himself and his girlfriend isn't available.

I held out to see if it was possible, if we would have home health care at the house by now, but we don't, and my brother isn't available, and after dad's fall this weekend, there's no way I could leave him in mom's care for an entire day and a half, nor can I afford to pay out of pocket for a nurse. not to mention, the money it would have cost me to come get him and bring him down.

I had every valid reason to say "no", and he's apparently going to try the trip solo, but he managed to throw in a few sentences that seemed to be attempting to make me feel guilty for it, talking about how his girlfriend worries, and he only has a short list of people he could ask for this type of favor. but I didn't react to it, for once.

He knows I did him a favor like this once, but those were different times - my mother was able to take care of dad solo back then, as he wasn't as much of a fall risk, and she wasn't recovering from thoracic surgery. and that trip about killed me - because of my inexperience driving 27 foot truck, I damaged a local business's wall while pulling out and wound up shelling out $500 to reimburse the guy.

I would have totally done it, too, had things been different, but i can't imagine how stressed out I'd have been away from home had I done it.

so ...yeah, doing the uncomfortable things!

cool, i'm glad I finally have the ability to enforce these, but that doesn't mean it doesn't leave me feeling hit by a truck afterwards.

bump for the holidays! lol. no communication with my immediate fam and it's been good. how long has it been now? over a year? i genuinely can't remember and don't really want to!

anyway, i saw a fb post that made a good point about boundaries. they are declarations of what you will or won't do if someone does x, or continues to do x. i.e. if you email me on a weekend, i won't respond until monday. that way you have control over that action and you stick to it. that's the boundary.

going through this right now with a client -> former client --> client ... they're totally testing me and pushing and doing the thing where they are trying to make me feel guilty or bad for putting boundaries in place where I initially had fewer/none

I don't particularly think I was ever great with enforcing boundaries, but I was way better at it a decade ago.

Now, I get into stressed-out mode and tell everyone I need a quiet night to myself, instead I'm dealing with a hysterically crying friend talking to me about her breakup simply because I'm too fragile to take someone telling me that I'm cold.

I'm just apparently never allowed to deal with my own shit.

hope that don't take your whole night

geez, neanderthal, your post exemplifies why i'm leery of getting very deeply involved with most other humans. sorry you have to deal with this, but the alternatives often aren't much happier. where ample love is lacking things get thorny very quickly.

It turned out ok.

I'm just in "too much going on" mode with the holidays

Oh - this was the thread where my "stupidest post yet itt" unsurprisingly went straight over gyac's head.

one of my favorite songs of the year
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPd1cB2yy4o

xp almost a year ago and you’re still smarting over that? Couldn’t be me. The idea that there was more to that “joke” than meets the eye…nah.

Skirmishes continue to break out along the border.

so at the gay bar where i dj there is a resident queen, let's call her mia. she works at the bar on weekends but also comes in on my dj night (thursday) to hang out with her friends after she does a drag queen bingo gig. i was unguardedly friendly to mia at first, and then over a period of a few months realized that she is manipulative and controlling under a guise of being "nice" and "cute". last week things came to a bit of a head. she came up into the booth and made a demand to change what i was playing, then when i demurred she watched over my shoulder for two minutes and said "that was good" when i mixed into the next track (n.b. her "compliments" are disingenuous and part of her game.) i turned to her and said "i don't give a shit what you think" and then "i need some space up here, would you please leave?" later on she tried to engage me by dancing to some songs. she stayed to the end with a few of her hangers-on and was pretty much right at the exit when i finally left the bar at the end of my gig. i didn't say another word to her. one of her little friends laughed at the tension.

so this week, i knew she was going to make an appearance and announce herself to me in the booth as always. my plan was to say "hey, do you have a song request?" and after dealing with either answer move quickly to "ok then, need to get back to work." treat her as just another customer at the bar. that is exactly how it went down. i couldn't help but add a little spice to it by playing a song after that called "let a bitch know." nothing as ice cold and satisfying as setting an effective boundary! removes the personal heat of someone who likes to play head games by treating them like a stranger that you exchange civilities with. anyway she and her friends left a few songs later and the night was a good one, i could focus on other energy.

hahahaha awesome ... "let a bitch know" hahahaha good job!

trying this new thing where when I'm tempted to give someone an explanation they don't deserve, I put down the phone and come here.

typical bullshit where someone invited me to something late, I had other plans, and he got mad at disrespecting 'tradition', since we've spent many years watching it together (nevermind that it wasn't every year, AND each time he had formally invited me weeks in advance, I didn't just show up at his doorstep due to some 'tradition').

I got about five words into a message defending my choice and remembered I don't owe it to him and deleted it. I do think I probably have diagnosed OCD due to some of the obsessive spirals my brain has gone in where an unresolved issue can actually take away an entire day from me, unable to move past it (esp w/ COVID). but I'm teaching myself to be comfortable with discomfort.

Expanding your window of tolerance. Good on you! Also good job not explaining.

thank you!

have never exactly been GOOD at the boundary thing, but I used to be better at it and I don't know what happened other than my mental health cratered due to specific events in 2013-2014 and even after those things faded, never recovered. I outright stopped talking to my oldest friend for *four years* because of toxic behavior on his behalf. didn't buckle once, and he finally years later atoned for it, went above and beyond actually atoning for it and I let him back in, and he's been great since. I can't even imagine having the courage to just bounce on someone like that now. the pressure, the using other people to try and talk to me to 'give them another chance' would work on me in two minutes now.

but...baby steps.

I'm getting better at saying, "I am sorry, but actually I can't do this for you." or ... "I don't feel comfortable doing this." ... I used to be the person that said "No" all the time, and then I realized that I was denying myself opportunities out of fear, so I said "Yes" a lot ... and that turned into saying "Yes" to too many things, and now I am "curating my yeses" better and working towards being more honest with myself about what I want and can do for other people, as well as cultivating "the enthusiastic maybe"

that's a vibe I totally get - I was similar (at least in the saying 'no' part), but very easy to overcorrect.

I used to have a problem of overcommitting by rushing to say "yes", so my new strategy is to never say "yes" to an invite (unless it's a same-day invite) when initially asked, to always say "let me take a look and get back to you", because that gives me time to check my calendar and make sure I didn't forget something, but also to do an assessment of how busy said thing will make me and removes the impulsive part of the response from the equation.

yeah! my go-to re invites is, "Cool! I want to go! But I've gotta see if I can actually make it."

update from yesterday, he and I had a good heart to heart where we both listened to each other. i still didn't cave, I did acknowledge a few thngs that in hindsight I could have handled better, but I also stayed firm and brought up things he did that didn't sit right with me and he owned them and apologized.

which probably wouldn't have been possible if I'd just caved and took the blame all to myself yesterday so...progress :)

meanwhile I might end up doing something I have avoided doing because I don't think it's something I'm good at, which is teaching/training on work that I do. There is this whole convoluted set of circumstances that have made it so that if I were to do this, it could solve problems for several different people/groups. Also, it might be a good way to frame some of the collective process issues so that there are clearer boundaries, like, in this scenario, I would be the teacher, and they would be the students ... as opposed to a peer based relationship where sometimes people will complain that I "take up too much space" by talking too much, in a context where I am the person who knows things that they want to know?

I know Neando and LL, y'all teach and train people ... am I being stupid by thinking about this?

Not at all - I’m most comfortable where there are clear and formal role distinctions, whether I’m the teacher or the server.

No, it's a great idea! frankly I still do love teaching people, even if the company I do it for frustrates me, and it does give you a different dynamic to work with that might help a more fluid communication and help wipe away some of the confusions or frustrations that exist with these people and groups.

as far as not being good at it, I think it just takes a lot of time to get there. I was a reallllllly bad trainer like, people that I trained back between 2006 - 2009 would laugh if I told them at the time that I'd pursue doing this full-time. it just took a lot of trial and error and feedback, and pre-practice before sessions.

but it sounds like an innovative way to problem solve on your team and I think it could definitely work!

thank you! I am trying to alleviate anxiety on my part by thinking of it like I'm playing a show. If students don't show up, or if things don't jibe, then at least I've shown up and done my set, and I can work on doing better next time ... and it isn't like this is for any sort of certification for anyone and the stakes are fairly low?

exactly. it being a performance helps a lot with the anxiety. I tapped into my theatre skills a lot and it helped me not take things personal.

i looked mighty dumb but there was one time I taught a class I had never taught before, and for 8 hours the day before I walked around the room saying the material so that instead of it sounding memorized, I was talking off of the top of my head and making it conversational, and it helped a lot the next day.

like, going back to LL's Girls Rock Camp presentation where she quoted me, I will play a bag of potato chips as an instrument.

Neando -- I definitely am realizing that a key to doing this well is preparation. One of my potential students is a clothing designer/seamstress as a creative hobby ... and I have been thinking about how accounting in Quickbooks Online is similar to making a garment.

Exactly!! You also have to accept that there will be nerves whether it’s a performance or a teaching role. Being prepared and having a plan helps a lot w that. I always try to remember that no one wants an anxious teacher (or an anxious drummer!!)

Also the similarities between volunteer coordination and teaching ... like, you kinda need to have ideas for tasks and how to do them prepared in advance, so you can ask, "who wants to do this?" And then they will inevitably ask, "What exactly do I have to do?" ... And then "ta da!" you have materials on hand to explain the task and hand it off to them.

xpost honestly infusing humor and being corny is how I deal with my nerves. like...I tell bad jokes on purpose in class, and if I make a mistake, I don't belabor it or draw attention to it, but some light self-deprecating humor is fun and relatable ("hmm I can't speak today!").

LL very much otm.

let us know how this works out if you do go that route. i think it's an awesome idea.

I mean, I've done volunteer coordination before but it has always been very concrete things like "paint a wall" or "take money at the door" or "sell beverages at the prices listed on this piece of paper" ... this is slightly more complex work

thanks y'all for yr support

oh and my best volunteer coordination task -- "all of this stuff over here is garbage, load it into this guy's truck and he is going to take it to the dump"

Gyac -

I'm responding to you on that alleged 'joke grievance' that you insist on bringing up on other threads (crossing boundaries in fact):

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.

What I am saying is not entirely a poor joke - what I am saying is that if you identify hard boundaries, and insist on actively them, I can see this getting very protracted, involved, bureaucratic - and unpleasant. I'm wondering it's actually worth it.

To be clear- I didn't hold a grudge on your post for a year or whatever. I simply found my post again when the thread was revived - and noted that you hadn't grasped what I said.

By the way, I wonder if the irony has occurred to you that you were 'hard policing' a boundaries thread with your comments.

may the conflict over this post not last as long as the referent

Has anyone got any good tips for dealing with persistent interruptions? I work in teaching, so of course interruption is woven into the fabric of the job. On a given day, outside of the usual madness of lessons, I might get visited by upwards of 10 kids who just want to check in, which is fine. But it's the stuff after school when I might have an hour/hour and a half to get prepared for the next day and it's just relentless - and complicated by the fact that it's not one person (to whom I could say, 'look, any chance?'), but multiple people, none of whom are really aware that I've just got rid of the last person. I guess I have an approachable demeanour, which is fine, but short of a sign on the door saying 'leave me alone' the only real tactic I have is to get grumpy. Today, I went and hid in another room and got so much done. HELP.

Can you do your wrap-up work from home or do you have to sit in the office til 4:30

I mean a sign is perfectly reasonable also imo. Come on in/knock/do not disturb/out. Seen those a million times in my life!

A set time for office hours on your door and otherwise not available? A sign up sheet?

There's a weird grey area in teaching (in UK schools, anyway) where you're free to go at 3.30 and no one will judge you but 'oh, you're the kind of person who goes at 3.30 are you?' is absolutely a thing. Eh. Plus, I've set myself a boundary, that I stay at work and get finished up so that I don't let it bleed into my home life, because will it ever if I let it.

And the sign is fine, but certain people - senior management, lolbantz colleagues - would totally ignore it: the former, fine, that's expected; the latter would make it a point to come in and talk to me about the sign and I'm back to being grumpy. ARGH.

Interruptions by colleagues rather than pupils, right?

I actually think about this gif all the time
https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2018-11/28/13/asset/buzzfeed-prod-web-02/anigif_sub-buzz-11354-1543428630-7.gif

Not just cos it’s amazing (though it is) but as a slightly unusual example of enforcing personal boundaries in a way most people are going to have trouble responding to. The interviewer asks Mariah about JLo, who Mariah hates; Mariah just breezes straight through with “I don’t know her.” What are you going to say to that? Can you prove it? Are you going to call out someone saying something so brazen? No, most people won’t want to get drawn into awkwardness. The conversation moves on.

Anyway in this situation you can probably take a leaf from Mariah’s book - less is more. It might take a while and it depends on what the interruptions are.

You can gesture at whatever you’re working on and smile sweetly (if you can do this, I personally can’t) and say “really sorry, can I come back to you, I’ve just got to finish…”. The trailing sentence is important! Don’t specify! There are two reasons: 1) it may not be any of their business and 2) you want to cut the conversation short and not give them an opening to ask about what you’re working on. It’s really important to be nice but firm about it.

It’s probably not useful for you but in my circumstances if I have time to volunteer to help people at other times then I’ll do so, purely so when I say no, they know that you are the kind of person who will help, crucially, if you have time.

Headphones are usually a good “don’t bother me” signal but you will ofc run into people who cheerfully ignore this. Might not be appropriate in your workplace either.

Oh yeah and importance of saying along the lines of “I’ll come back to you” factors into Mariah example. You may have zero intention of doing so, especially if it’s a trivial interruption, but it softens the excuse and it actually works with your reason: if you don’t come back to them on their timetable, you can simply point to the thing you’re working on (sorry, you know how it is!) & eventually they may get the message. Either way it’s good to get practice at saying no.

That all makes a lot of sense, gyac. And I'm here for a Mariah solution. I like the 'playing the long game' vibe of it. I do that 'turn back to my computer and just get on with it' thing but, it's either all teachers or I work with a particularly thick-skinned subset of teachers, my colleagues have a remarkable facility for just carrying on rabbiting at me.

I'm second in the department, so it is sometimes work-related, which is obviously fine; but mostly I think it's either a) someone avoiding making a decision and fixing it through me or b) plain boredom/distractedness.

If you’ve ever been on the tube at night & had someone fall asleep on you, I liken the kind of people who cheerfully ignore these signals to people slightly impaired from drink. They probably don’t mean any harm but they don’t know what they’re doing and you don’t want them in your way, right? So the gentlest nudge to move them on. That’s why it’s important you say “Sorry can I come back to you…” cos it makes it impossible for them to ignore the other signals you’re sending out.

and, if you let it slide enough times without pushback, eventually it can become a much more angry "leave me alone" that comes out of you out of nowhere as the frustration builds up and isn't processed.

i was pleasantly surprised the first few times I said "I actually am a bit tied up at the moment" gently how well it was received. sure, every now and then someone gets cranky about it but wasn't very often.

Amen gyac.

I've got a sense of being much better at putting boundaries in place as I get older. I've stopped commenting on a bunch of different WhatsApp groups, and have stopped going to a bunch of things I used to out of duty, and I honestly don't miss any of it but I do get a twinge of worry sometimes, and am conscious of becoming an 'only on my terms' guy and isolating myself. I don't know. Does that ring true with anyone else?

You make it sound eminently achievable, Neanderthal, which is totally what I need to hear!

I do that 'turn back to my computer and just get on with it' thing but

genuine pro tip, stop turning away from your computer when you dont eant to be disturbed

its something i was told a few years ago, working in an open office, and it's a genuine game changer