Nobody tells me what I’m going to do or where I will be going and when that happens
I am open to invitations or requests or suggestions where my involvement is desired or ostensibly necesary for somone else. But I will never respond to this as a statement of fact or in the form of a threat
If you are a giving person, you have to put a limit on how much you can give. Takers have no limit.
I have to remember to look out for myself because even though I’m trying to look out for a lot of people I care about, no one is looking out for me.
In my experience it’s not so much about putting a limit as it is about avoiding takers and finding other givers. But one has to be careful not to be used. :)
I find it’s important to allow yourself to be vulnerable to a moderate degree, to give people the chance to expose themselves as a giver or taker.
I feel like you might want to make sure you have all your bases covered and that you’re not setting yourself up for desperation/exploitation. Its so important with other people where this is suspected, to fail and fail quickly and and as harmlessly as possible.
Letting a taker take even once just teaches them they can take and move on to the next victim. People need to prove themselves as trustworthy before giving them anything. Offer them something relatively small like buying lunch. If they don’t hesitate to take it then they’re takers. Someone who won’t refuse at least twice has no qualms about taking for nothing. But I just don’t associate with people enough to allow them the chance to even try.
I feel like its still a useful exercise/practice to be able to reinforce one’s limits and contingencies on a regular basis with those they are circumstance-bound to be close to or work with so they are able to do that universally and at all times
Can you share an anecdote about a recent triggering situation wherw you identified this at play?
Family is the relationship, relatives are who you’re related to.
You can pick your family but you can’t pick your relatives.
You don’t have to associate with your relatives if you don’t want to. Family is a group of people who you’ll want to associate with.
I grew up being told constantly, “I’m family, you have to love me,” which definitely wasn’t good for my mental health until I realized the above statements. My relatives are typically terrible people, and the last time I saw most of them they openly wished for my death at Thanksgiving (because a different relative outed me as bi to the whole gathering) and I haven’t gone back to their gatherings since.
They’ll often (years after the event above) send me invitations weeks in advance to the gatherings and then either the day before or morning of send me a message saying, “Sorry, we didn’t mean to invite you. You aren’t welcome here.”
So I guess in a way the statement, “You have to love family,” is somewhat true but in the, “a prerequisite for someone being family is love,” not a being forced to love someone you’re related to.
And the barrier that you mentioned OP, is definitely a good one and one I didn’t even realize I whole heartedly was using for a long time.
The fundamental error in my opinion (we are all implicated in this to an extent cuz we don’t come out of the box necessarily “knowing” it) is this notion of anyone being entitled and unreservedly owed anyone else’s
- time
- attention
- resources
Like obviously if you make a committment to someone or there is an implied non-opt-outtable one that still has the color of your consent or legal liabillity for etc, thats different.
Simplest rule I do is
If I generally come away feeling worse and not respected after we interface, there won’t be another encounter to the greatest extent I am able to openly prevent (not just avoid or evade) that
Nobody tells me how to format my comments.
if someone tries to make me format my comments in a specific way, I’ll refuse to comply and sometimes go against that format
- just to spite them.
I enjoyed the humor, but the OP did set a boundary of [serious].
So I guess what we are learning here is that setting boundaries is always going to provoke some people to break those boundaries out of spite.
Your boundaries end where my right to shitpost begins
You’re a monster but honestly I respect it.
I appreciate your point, but you should really consider emphasizing the point of your comment using bold text. It would make it easier to read.
I have my own things and resources that are mine and guaranteed so nothing can be taken away or held over my head as leverage to do things contrary to my boundaries and/or authenticity
I setup my life to ensurethat I did whatever it took to secure my own housing, job, benefits, friends, hobbies, and ways of doing things and that nobody could externally hold those key elements or anything else I needed over my head and take anything away.
I refuse to rely on anybody in a way where that can be leveraged to compel me to act in ways inconsistent with what I need+want and allow that to play out repeatedly on a chronic basis and that ever allow for the possibillity where I lose access to that which I need at the caprices of another person or entity
I see your parents held things over your head too
Dont get me $tarted
A fairly pragmatic one:
People are not entitled to my attention 100% of the time. I am not obligated to respond to your message right away or pick up the phone for an unscheduled call.
This was a challenging one for my relationship with my wife, as she operates differently. We’ve worked hard to establish reasonable expectations.
Nice, yeah, I enjoy the hell out of asynchrous communication, particularly where its heavy stuff. Nobody should be time-pressured to make a response to things without having time to digest the words and arrive at a respectful, proper response.
Just in general, people should respond when they are ready to respond, but also, its a useful exercise to be able to shoot a text (regardless of content) and forget about it and just ask the person to being you up to speed if the context fades from you.
Also, if you have enjoyable conversations (persuant to my other boundary about not repeating experiences with negative people), people will often naturally want to engage with you but it cannot be forced and any pressure you apply will likely blow up in your face
I second this! When I was in an emotionally abusive relationship this was one of the worst things. I do not have it in me to be available to you 24/7, and I guarantee it will result in the degradation of the relationship. That relationship ended 6 years ago and I still get a trauma response when someone has unreasonable expectations for a response in a non time sensitive conversation.
Do not touch me
Looking back I might not have been subject to too much affection growing up so I have heavy boundaries when it comes to non family and non partners. I realize men are a lot more open and touchy feely in my neck of the woods but I don’t want any part of it. Bro culture is not for me.
No one gets to try to tell me how I should feel about something.
No one gets to try to shame/guilt me about what I believe.
No one gets to take my self-advocacy, as I am my only advocate.
Sure, I’ll bite.
Do not attempt to tell me “what I’m thinking”
I’m not going to pretend that my way of thinking is “unique” because I can’t speak for how others think, but I expect that same courtesy to apply to me as well. For example, whenever someone says “You seem to think…” it upsets me quite a bit. What I say out loud (or “write” I suppose) doesn’t include the context of how I got to that point.
I very much am happy for people to tell me when I’m wrong on something, because if I’m wrong I would like to know (more-so if they can actually prove it… just saying “You’re wrong” and not saying how leads to nothing, but that is a whole other rant). However, one thing that that no one can assert to know more than I do is how I think, what I’m thinking, or the methods that I used to arrive to something I’ve said/done. You can possibly predict it depending on how long you’ve known me for, but to try to claim you know exactly what, is very egregious in my eyes.
I have a pretty high tolerance before my temper is set off (or as I like to say “A very long fuse, but an even higher yield when that fuse runs out”), but there is a small list of exceptions to that - one being hypocrisy, and the other being this.
Gaslighting is deadly and I violently shut it down whenever I perceive or sense it. It is emotional rape, pure and simple, and the REDDEST of flags 🚩🥀
Its been interesting engaging with people I know now that everyone is aware we don’t mix factual and feelings-based conversations.
Much nicer when we know what’s debatable or negotiable and what is off-limits.
“Oh you misunderstood”.
No, I didn’t misunderstand, I disagree, those are two very different things.
Easy way to avoid this is ask someone to summarize or if you can summarize the objective main points respectfully and then it becomes a joint-fact-finding mission if its all truly good-faith.
Like,
if I’m hearing you correctly, it sounds like someone conflated their lack of clarity/understanding of ______ for you instead misunderstanding ________, which you can/will respectfully demonstrate is not the case because
- X
- Y
- Z
The summarizing is helpful tho because you might want to pin down the actual points of confusion or disagreement like lawyers do in a Joint Statement of Facts so you can know where the discrepancies lay.
That its surrounding misunderstanding is relatively simple to address because you can easily clarify that on the spot (in the factual realm) by summarizing the relevant facts or narratives and they can jump in any time to pin down where they think is a point of contention or that they want to expand on.
On some level it can be resolved that simply but there’s likely something more fundamentally at issue that is not directly visible or comprehensible if the analysis remains fixated on facts/figures/narratives. I feel like if there’s a nice way engage on why whatever is important to them or how it reflects them in their estimation, you can sometimes get them to take your hand and lead you to the treasure.
I got something similar-ish… low tolerance towards assumptions about things that one cannot reliably know. It includes assuming what I’m thinking, but also more objective matters.
You’re wrong tho
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He’s completely correct so the onus is on you to retract or clarify what youmre doing here. This is pretty obnoxious even if you’re joking. Other threads dude, unless you want a problem.
I’m game either way, lets go, lets start making some better-taste choices here
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You seem to think I’m trolling.
If I generally come away feeling worse and not respected after we interface, there almost certainly won’t be another encounter to the greatest extent I am able to openly and assertively prevent (not passive-agressively avoid or evade) further interaction.
I am not afraid to do justice to both of us and to have justice openly seen to be done, regardless of the implications for either of us.
I think I need the boundary you stated in the post. I really struggle when it feels like I’m not in control of my time/energy. When someone else takes away my self agency. I hate that feeing and makes me resentful towards whatever external factor is causing it.
I know the reason why this is a sensitive issue for me, and no longer am in those circumstances. But it comes up in other contexts, and I don’t know how a boundary would work there. Eg, work requiring me to “sacrifice” personal time. I get paid for the hours I work, but it deeply bothers me to have to give up my morning routine so I that I start work early to meet someone else’s deadline. It’s not unreasonable to have to occasionally work a little more, so setting a hard boundary isn’t appropriate, but where is the line for my personal comfort? Same with personal relationships, it’s not unreasonable to give in sometimes, but where to draw the line?
What does your employment agreement/contract/job description outline as the minimums (think of them as your shared hard boundaries with the employer).
If you do
A. B. C.
You get
X. Y. Z.
Anything outside of that is discretionary on both sides so I’d say those are more wants-territory. Not that they aren’t important, but that’s where negotiation comes into play.
I know this is super reductive but its sort of inescapable, isn’t it? Like if they really need you to do extra all the time, that needs to be taken into consideration, allowing it to be enumerated (specifically outlined and limited) and formalized (enforcable)…
If its making you unwell in any way or in any aspect of your being, you probably need to address it to make sure your positive (I need this resource) and negative (I need to not have this issue) needs are honored.
We haven’t really touched on the personal needs yet but I think the professional/business side might serve as a lever to help you get what you need at work and to the greatest extent its legally enforcable and you can use that template (transposed of course) for the personal side. There’s likely overlap and those might be helpful to identify and use as a case study + self-experiment
My most enforced boundary is likely “if I clearly told you «no», do not insist”. Insisting further won’t just piss me off, but also decrease the likelihood that you’ll get what you’re asking for.
With youtube, it’s “Don’t force TF2 and other nazi shit into my feed” Needless to say they push that boundary alot.
Team Fortress 2 is nazi shit?
Yeah the alt right operated there during Trumps presidency and there’s a ton of outright neo-nazi communities. You’d be bullshitting if you said you didn’t run into at least one of their propagandists while you were in a public server.
I haven’t played in (quite) a while. I think I can summarize with “uuuuurgh”
Yeah I was considering checking it out because I heard there was a new update and before I even got to that step I was like “nah it got worse” which sucks because I used to really enjoy playing that game back when it was mostly people just screwing around and having fun. Maybe it was always that bad because I was a stupid kid (and now I am a stupid adult) but either way it’s absolutely radioactive there today.
You can do whatever you want.
So too can they.
The balance point lies somewhere in the middle.
Yeah. I came to say I don’t think in terms of boundries. I have them but I generally don’t know where they are till the lines crossed. One thing that is a pet peeve of mine though are individuals who probe for the lines. Someone strays into the gray zone to often and they are gone.
We ALL are that way. :-D
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The way I’m trying out currently about it is (done in order to have the foundation covered)
-
Establish needs (I still need a more formalized way of doing this besides just granularly asking about a directly relevant aspect)
-
Can these needs be met by the other? This has to apply both ways
- yes: good, proceed carefully
- no: reciprocally communicate and understand that and part ways
-
What are our relevant wants or wishes, like defined and transparent? No tricks or goalpost-moving (evolution is ok but tricker because then the wants-terms are changing and other redefinitions need to be pondered in turn)
-
Can we both have our wants met at this time
- yes: great, continue conversation and involvement but check in on the wobblers
- no: only relevant if needs are able to be met, then negotiation will have to happen. Wants can be endlessly categorized or placed in many variable schemas (i use that word non-technically) so a good-faith dialogue on how to negotiate things out has to occur.
To me, the key is always good-faith. Even if I disagree with stuff, as long as we both know its serious and there’s not room for games here, and there’s ways of sussing that out. Easiest is to ask for something simple or a small concession that is important to you and if they can’t manage you having the audacity to request something of them, its a tell that they’re not ready or fundamentally incompatible.
Either way, nothing of value will be lost, harsh as it sounds. Cancers are your flesh and blood too but you owe them zero duty of care or consideration beyond excision and removal from your life
To me, the key is always good-faith.
Abso-frigging-lutely. Even the dumbest person, or maybe someone with a bad memory, but who is trying can eventually be trained, or else constrained, whereas a malicious actor can do everything “right”, until they get what they wanted all along and then cause the highest magnitude of harm.
I like how you are approaching it intentionally, which demonstrates awareness and intent to make things better for yourself, and also others as you plan ahead for what is most important.
Truthfully, I am extremely sensitive to the words and agendas of people operating in bad faith and I don’t mean that in any way that is facile or overly-subjective. I don’t mean garden variety sarcasm/irony/jokes/etc. Its less an accomplishment or result of active effort on my part so much as its a reflexive , gut-level antipathy and violent skepticism towards. I have a zero-tolerance policy towards it
I mean the folks that clearly troll, constantly play devil’s advocate or a contrary position where I’ve respectfully requested they make clear and justify, or straight up pull bullshit out their ass in any proximity to me. Or pile on in before they ever stop to define and cite specifically that which they take issue with, too, or engage in other rhetoric that I can’t necessarily put a name to but I can reasonably intuit is setting off my bullshit-o-meter.
Then this might help: remember that even as you try to set boundaries between yourself and others, you can set boundaries within yourself as well. e.g., you could watch a movie depicting a fictional narrative of a not-good-faith event, and decide to at least attempt to not be triggered, or at least quite as much. You cannot control the world, but you control your response to it, and you deserve to be happy:-). Though you need to find the route to get to it - even in spite of others attempting to ruin it for everyone around them, to become as unhappy as they are.:-(
I guess you already said this, sorta, in that when people act that way, you respond to increase your happiness by getting away from that source of toxicity. But I mean something deeper, which you may also already be doing, in terms of setting the boundaries within yourself, to not feel unhappiness about their actions.
I’m in a better place where I can have curiosity and take a closer dispassionate look at problematic things but I am very clear about their place in my IRL life and reducing my susceptabillity to it online and calling it out online where I see it being done and being allowed to stand unduly.
Kinda cool cuz it lays out the triggery areas pretty explicitly so I can name it and add to my awareness of the difficult stuff. I’m doing other work so its all content and fodder for that, even if it seems I’m not handling it productively at the time :)
Edit: I take a more “working with” the feelings to understand the geneolgy of them and where they fit into everything else and situations in which they arise.
Its fascinating and it feels really good to think about the feelings in a more inquisitive approachcm, if I can handle the objective actions and words that otherwise arise in the darkness
Like, if something takes away my joy (I feel), my first concern is removing myself from harms way or further intensity. Then, I want to look at why I might feel that and trace it back or name it as best I can and reevaluate my attitude towards repeating the experience and whoever is on the other side of it. Boundaries are involved throughout the process but I don’t view the expression of the boundaries and everyone having a learning experience at the expense of guranteeing your own safety first.
The only way I would lose from that situation would be for me to explain away all that in such a fashion that fundamentally invalidates the way I felt in reaction. I don’t subscribe to the CBT approach that your feelings are faulty and you need to think better in order to be ok again. I feel like a lot of it is gaslighting even though it is possible for people to also have logical or procedural biases in their thinking that also causes additional distress unduly
Eventually you will also come to the question often expressed in the popular phrase: is it better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all? i.e., even as you retreat from hostile forces, what are you advancing towards, that is worthwhile? I am not very knowledgeable about this - most of my own advances irl have failed, though I do not really regret any of them, as each decision was made only with the knowledge that I had at the time, even if I have learned & changed & grown since.
The reason I bring it up is to help illuminate how boundaries need to be set even upon the very setting of boundaries (how meta!:-P). In the limit (I mean in the mathematical sense), the ultimate safety is achieved by walling off everyone and everything so that it cannot affect you in any way - I have heard that concept expressed as an analogy where someone builds a castle, and thereafter basically suffocates inside, walled off entirely from the world, both the bad but also the good from it.
At some point you (& me, and each of us, possibly uniquely for each situation even) will need to find the appropriate balance point b/t avoiding toxic people, vs. allowing contact with imperfect humans. If we cannot forgive them, at some level we cannot forgive the faults within ourselves, and that would be the ultimate tragedy - if we could not even stand to be around our very own selves! That said, it is an advanced concept, b/c for instance it does not mean that we should re-establish contact, or to not break away contact, from a toxic person. If anything rather, it is the ultimate severing of their “hold” over us, where we know that we will be okay regardless of what they do, even if we remain in contact with them (which would need to be decided on a case-by-case basis ofc, b/c the more contact we have with them, the more they influence us even if we fight tooth & nail against that).
Doesn’t that sound nice, in theory? Sigh… I have literally no idea what it means though, in practice:-P. We, like them, are all just bumbling around in the dark, trying in our own way to do the best we know how. The difference is that at least you are making the attempt to illuminate the situation - and that will make a HUGE difference in the outcome!
-
Gaslighting is deadly and I vigorously/instantly shut it down whenever I perceive or sense it. It is emotional rape, pure and simple, and the REDDEST of flags 🚩🥀
Its been interesting engaging with people I know now that everyone is aware we don’t mix factual and feelings-based conversations.
Much nicer when we know what’s debatable or negotiable and what is off-limits.
I do not let customers curse at me on the phone. I’m not a prude, fucking curse words don’t offend me, but I shouldn’t have to listen to it when someone is complaining or ranting. I speak to customers about difficult situations and have to give them answers they don’t always want to hear, and I offer to share all of the knowledge I have and I offer all of the empathy I have. If they are pissed, I empathize and remember they are a real person with real feelings. If they are sad, I tell them I’m sorry that they in this position. But if they use a curse word, I politely tell them if they are going to curse I’m going to end the call. Doesn’t matter how mild or offensive the word is…it’s not about the word.
Lately, when they start towards personal attacks even without cursing I pivot the conversation in a similar manner. “Well, I don’t know how you have a job if you just sit there and ______ all day.” When you get to that point it’s become evident they don’t want help or explaining or even your sympathy, sometimes they just want to feel better by being hurtful to you personally. If we’ve already discussed all of the facts, I’ll simply say well this is no longer a productive conversation and state the action I’ll be taking after ending the call (sending a letter or whatever) and move toward ending it.
I try to be very patient if they are having feelings and frustrations that are valid. Very patient. But I’m not a punching bag. I don’t get paid for that. Goodbye.
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Take your time
is amazing when delivered sincerely and in a genuine sense of creating space and latitude, on both sides (customer and representative), I’ve found
