Thursday, March 20, 2014

Boundaries: Don't bring me down

Do you ever have those days where it feels like you are being attacked from all angles or drained of your life's blood by other people and their problems? Yesterday was one of those days for me. Three phone calls later from various family and friends and I am feeling an overwhelming sense of sadness and frustration come over me. "Why am I feeling like this", I ask myself? "Where did this bitterness come from?" About this time I realize the culprit and what had caused me to have this unsettling feeling. My boundaries kick in and I immediately express my need to get off the phone.

Are you one of those people that everyone seems to want to spill their guts to? I am! I know why people like to confide in me and tell me their life's troubles. As much as I enjoy being the person that others can always talk to in a time of need, It can be very draining on one's psyche. This is where you have to put up boundaries in your life. This is when you have to say WHEN is enough. If you allow others to use you as a way to vent about all their problems, they will soon become your problems and they will expect answers and solutions to their problems. I feel like I am going though these events and dramas with these people and I will tell you, IT IS TOUGH! I feel like a way underpaid psychiatrist who now needs her own therapy.

Where do you go and what do you do when you are the dump site to everyone Else's problems and now you have had all you can take? It isn't fair to expect someone to take on all your problems when they already have their own. What is worse is when it isn't just one person but a group of people who unload on you. Now on top of whatever I may be dealing with in my life, I now have just been handed your problems too. What is one to do with all of these problems?

Some of you may know exactly what I am talking about while others have no idea. Chances are if you can't relate to what I am saying then you might be the one that does the unloading on others. Stop it! Stop putting your problems off on everyone else. There is a difference between venting a little here and there and then there is using someone as a punching bag to take out your frustration on when they have absolutely nothing to do with your problems. Just because someone is nice enough to listen to your problems and try to help you with them, does not give you the right to take advantage of their kindness.

I have to set strict boundaries in my life when it comes to the amount of my time I give people and how they use it. If I let every person in my life that vents to me let it out any time they wanted, I would be wreck and in therapy. Sometimes dealing with your own problems is enough, but to take on multiple other people's problems is too much. Sometimes I can't answer my phone and I won't call people back for days. I know that makes me come across as a bitch or reclusive and anti-social but that isn't the case at all. I have to have boundaries and I have to stick to them or people will take advantage of my kindness and willingness to listen and help as much as I can. Sometimes I have to straight up tell the person that I have to get off of the phone or be as direct as possible and say, "I just can't help you right now. My time is precious.

I don't usually turn people away. I usually sit on the phone for hours going back and forth with solutions and sympathy, but it gets old and I can't always be the one to take on everyone Else's problems. What makes it harder is when you have heard the same story, same problems a million times and you have given the same sound advice as you did the million times before and for some reason they never take it. It is okay to stop the therapy sessions at this point or to tell the person, "I will listen to what you have to say if you need to vent but I have nothing to say that I haven't said before."

It is okay to set boundaries in your life and let people know that you are not a therapist. (unless you are) but then they need to pay. I started telling people that I was going to start charging per half hour of my time. I mean this has gotten out of control when It gets to the point that I have three separate people all venting to me in one day. I felt completely drained by bedtime. These people felt it was okay to call and unload on me. It wasn't even just venting, but taking out their frustrations on me as if it was my fault. I knew they didn't mean it but it certainly took it's toll. I actually wanted to cry when I got off the phone. Now I know that none of these people knew what else I had gone through that day or that I had already played doctor a couple of times before them but that didn't change the effect it had on me. It didn't change the fact that I was exhausted by the end of the day and half the load of stress wasn't even my own.

I guess the reason I am writing this is to do a little venting of my own and to say to those that always seem to play the therapist that it is okay to say No and it is okay to have boundaries that protect your from being beaten up by other people's problems. And to those of you that always play the victim who needs to take out your problems on other people, you need to keep the feelings of others in mind. Remember that we all have our problems and if you want to talk about the same thing over and over and never take the advice that is given, then stop wasting other's time. Go see a professional and pay them to listen and give you advice that you will never take. Try asking about other people's day. Ask others how they are doing and try not to make every conversation about you and why your life is so horrible and how you are such a victim. Relationships have been ruined for less. I feel grateful most of the time that I am not going through what these other people go through but in a sense, I do go though it vicariously when you include me in your craziness and it really weighs me down.

Try to take responsibility for your situation and try, really try to take the advice of those with whom you seek council. Give people a break sometimes from your life of chaos and drama. Not everyone likes to live their life in drama. I do not like drama and I try to avoid it at all costs but sometimes people bring the drama to you and that is when you have to set boundaries in your life. Boundaries are healthy and for those that do not respect them, do not deserve your time anyway.

Thank you for letting me vent and I hope I didn't bring any of you down.


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