It’s not selfish to do what is best for you.

— Mark Sutton.

Welcome to my new blog. I am a woman, helper, and writer/artist/so many other things too. I have spent the past nearly 20 years in the mental health field trying to change the world and figure out myself along the way. I am hoping to bring some inspiration to this blog to help others facing similar struggles to my own. I invite you to learn about me and my life’s work through this site. I hope that it helps you in your own journey to be your best self.

Boundaries

This is my first post, and so I want to start by discussing boundaries. I am blessed to do the work that I do, because I learn as much from my clients as I teach. When I started this quest to help others, I was naive and idealistic. I was also a doormat. I wanted everyone to like me and desired to be a “good person” who always put others first. So I sacrificed myself in order to be the ideal person. In high school and college, I saw that my friendships were often one sided and I worked harder to be what I thought others wanted in a friend and expected little from others. There were rare exceptions, but many of my friendships followed this formula. And eventually, those friendships failed. Repeatedly, I would hit a breaking point and this would cause a rift in the friendship and an extended break from the friend. In a few cases, a friend would reach out after some time and would express regret over the circumstances of our separation from each other. Over and over, statements like “you are one of the good ones” and “I want to keep you in my life” were uttered.

I feel like I am bragging, but this blog is not about what I did right. It is about the journey to this place. A better, more aware, but far from perfect place. You see, I was not healthy or genuine when I was repeating these unhealthy patterns in my youth, and the return of friends did not indicate that things were ideal. At first, I naively thought that it was. At first, I would say silly things like “the good ones will come back”, and “this is just the process in my life”. Yes. I was that naive. But these breaks and cycles were unhealthy indications that something was wrong with what I was doing.

Eventually, I began saying things like, “90% of the world are takers and 10% are givers and the givers eventually become takers just to survive”. I was jaded and angry. I was disillusioned to say the least. My ideal world was imperfect (big surprise), and I felt that repairing it was impossible. Worse, I could not see my role in changing things for the better. By this point, I had devoted myself to helping others, but still had no idea how to help me.

I started a job in child welfare. It was not what I wanted to do, and not the kind of helping that I aspired to. But it was a steady paycheck and I needed a steady paycheck, so I stayed. And I stayed. And I stayed. My first boundary struggle came when I realized that I had to confront issues in this job. I mean, it kind of IS the job to confront issues. I was raised by a mother who was in sales. She taught me that the customer is always right, and that I should always avoid uncomfortable topics. So it flew in the face of my instinct to criticize other peoples’ parenting, especially because I was not a parent myself. Having no framework in my own life for this, I copied the techniques of those around me. I was ingenuine and basically acting for several years until I received advice from an unlikely source, a future nemesis and frenemy. She would later become the bane of my existence, but some of her advice was life changing. Her most important suggestions revolved around being real and honest, and treating others like I would want to be treated.

I thought I had always treated others the way I would want to be treated, but I realized quickly that I only extended this courtesy when I was in a situation that was familiar. In this unfamiliar world, I was so worried about doing my job that I had not realized that I was not treating others with the respect I would want. I did not have to confront as much as I needed to be honest. Honesty is the best policy, after all…isn’t it?

I’m not going to lie. Being honest with perfect strangers about their parenting was damn hard. It was easier to rely on the rules or copy someone else’s methods than to have a real conversation, mostly because I had never really done this in my real life. But what I learned as I clumsily began to voice my truth was that most people react better to honesty. I began to see that people wanted the real truth over a sugar coated reality. I began to say things like “I know this sounds harsh, but I would rather tell you the truth about what you can change and help you to fix it rather than wait until its too late and tell you then”. Most people reacted really well to this openness. Transparency became my best friend in what was otherwise a pretty awful job. And (not) surprisingly helped me to develop positive connections with my clients.

But my journey did not stop there. (Or here, let’s be honest). I fell into a beautiful job teaching parenting skills. I still did not have children, so I chose to be honest up front. I would tell people that I did not have kids, but that I saw them as the expert in their child and that I just came with information to help them. Regardless of whether I was a parent, I did not have their kids, anyway. The reception from clients was overwhelmingly positive. Very few people took issue with this and I was able to make strong collaborations with most of my clientele. Being me was surprisingly okay, even when my truth was not what people had expected.

In this role, I also had the opportunity to teach my clients (mostly women) about boundaries. And as we I taught about the benefits of boundaries, I realized I had few. Like less than few. Never one to preach what I would not practice, I began to say no. I started with those closest to me. I started with my sister. She is wonderful and amazing, but she definitely knows how to get what she needs. She also realized that the easiest way is to ask a sister who never says no. So I started there. What happened was surprising. At first, she did not love it, but then she would respond beautifully, with empathy and understanding that I needed to do what was best for me. She still loved me! Of course she did. And as I tried this with others in my personal life, most people responded really well. And those that did not, were not my friends. I began practicing boundaries that I never had before.

And I taught others what I learned. We talked about how to hang up on someone who is yelling at you while without feeling bad. I mean, when did society decide that hanging up on someone who is being actively disrespectful is somehow bad? Just warn them first, I said. “If you can’t calm down, I am going to have to hang up. Call me back when you are calm.” Then hang up if they continue screaming. And, if they call back still yelling, hang up and wait until they leave a kind message on your voice mail to call back. They always do. Like Oprah says, we teach people how to treat us. Like I say, people use the tool that works. If you change how you respond, they will find another tool (method) that works. Never let anyone treat you badly, because they always will if you allow it.

Through this new role, I met one of my nearest, dearest friends. She is introverted and scattered, but perfect as she is. And she came into my life at the perfect time. Remember my friend and future nemesis? She became my supervisor with my support. She then immediately began throwing me right under the bus. To be fair, she threw all of her supervisees under that bus. Which is where this new friend came in. She was in the same boat with me. She cared about her clients and was open and honest as a way to connect and protect them. But she also taught me things about boundaries that I had not gotten to yet in my journey.

I was still very much a coward at this point in my journey. I was frightened of standing up in my place of work, because I was afraid of getting fired. So, when my nemesis bullied me, I allowed it. When I saw room for improvement in the profession, I kept it to myself because I didn’t want to be “that guy”. But my new friend, the introvert, stood up for herself. She stood up for her clients and colleagues as well. As things became worse and worse with my supervisor, she helped me to find a voice. And, for the first time in my life, I stood up. I fought with my supervisor when she attacked me, my colleagues, my new friend, and even my clients. I went to the administration. It didn’t help, but at least I can say that I tried.

Eventually, I was moved to a new supervisor and away from the harpy. By this point, having boundaries meant not allowing myself to be abused as I had been in the past. It meant voicing my needs and wants. I made sure that my supervisors knew what I needed. I also spoke for my colleagues at meetings with the division, the director, and the commissioner of the county. I spoke about the inherent problems with making people be on call 24/7 for years if not decades. I spoke about the concerns of overwhelm creating problems for the safety of clients. Again, it did not help.

The most recent chapter of my journey to develop boundaries began when I realized that I needed an exit strategy. I was over-skilled and under-educated for what I wanted to do. So, I started graduate school. I was busier than I had ever been in my life. And I was still working full time. So, aside from making boundaries with my family and friends, I had to also make boundaries with my clients and job. I had previously been on call 24/7. I truly thought that, if my clients could not reach me at any time, something bad would happen. At first, I was afraid that there would be regular crises during my 6 hours of classes each week. When nothing happened, I realized that I had been making my clients dependent on me rather than encouraging self-sufficiency. So I stopped answering the phone. I let calls go to voice mail when I was not on the clock. At first I did this just with clients. Then I added supervisors to the list. Eventually, I turned off the phones when I was not working. Finally, I realized that it had never been my job to properly staff my profession and that they could not possibly fire me for not picking up a phone at 4 am on a Sunday or any other off time. What was surprising was that the more I pushed back the boundaries of what I was willing to do, the more my clients succeeded on their own. They were fine. Complaints and objections came from the same people who had been keeping me on this crazy path to begin with, the administration, but my clients were resilient when given limits on when they could call me.

This year, I finally left that job. I have very strong boundaries now. One of them is that I will never work anyplace for any amount of money that treats its employees the way I was treated. No one needs that. Unfortunately, I spent 16.5 years there trying to create healthy limits before I finally left because I could not. Regardless, the lessons I learned about how to effectively practice setting boundaries were worth all the trials and tribulations. I now know that everything that happened in that job and in my career has happened so that I could have a better perspective. A perspective that few have so that I could share it with anyone willing to listen. I hope this helps. Even if it doesn’t, please know that I respect your right to make whatever limits you need to in order to be your ideal self.

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.