WTF is wrong with me? Really. Boundaries again.
I Love Who I Am
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Midwest
Posts: 3,210
WTF is wrong with me? Really. Boundaries again.
Went to a fantastic meeting yesterday. Found my people.
A young woman was there that I prefer to not be attached to. Politically, socially, professionally, personally. She's a mess, a liar and very very sneaky.
Oh but she adores me. We're "sisters," cause we're both Native. Girls gotta stick together.
I tolerated her through out the meeting. Afterword myself and a 3 other women went out and she tagged along. We talked about the urgent need for a womens leadership group in our industry, state and nation wide, as we're only a handful of women that own businesses or consult. Working in a population that's all men is frustrating--patting themselves on the back while stabbing, jostling for recognition. Yelling like idiots. It's ridiculous. There are, seriously, about 4 men state wide that I can work with, the rest are too high maintenance. Need their ego stroked in order to function.
Anyway, back to this girl. I was nice to her, but she was obnoxious; interrupting others constantly, saying **** that didn't make sense. Weeping cause her life has been so hard.
I thought about it. She could use mentoring. But I don't have time. Bottom line is I need collegues right now, not another child. This also plays on my emotions culturally because I should be sticking with her, helping her, but she's too much of a mess.
So, I've decided that I don't want to be chummy with her politically socially professionally or personally. Now she wants to friend me on FB.
To be honest, I was nice to her yesterday, but I don't want to entangle with her.
I will see her at events. She may even hunt down my number and call me. I guess I should KEEP this boundary, as one wise woman told me during my last cry baby episode about boundaries, because deciding to have good boundaries is the first step. Holding them with grace is the tricky part. For me at least. I want to do this in a good way.
Guilt keeps kicking in. I say no thank you and assert my boundary with his ugly lies too. I counter fear of what others think of me with standing strong and being sure of what I want.
A young woman was there that I prefer to not be attached to. Politically, socially, professionally, personally. She's a mess, a liar and very very sneaky.
Oh but she adores me. We're "sisters," cause we're both Native. Girls gotta stick together.
I tolerated her through out the meeting. Afterword myself and a 3 other women went out and she tagged along. We talked about the urgent need for a womens leadership group in our industry, state and nation wide, as we're only a handful of women that own businesses or consult. Working in a population that's all men is frustrating--patting themselves on the back while stabbing, jostling for recognition. Yelling like idiots. It's ridiculous. There are, seriously, about 4 men state wide that I can work with, the rest are too high maintenance. Need their ego stroked in order to function.
Anyway, back to this girl. I was nice to her, but she was obnoxious; interrupting others constantly, saying **** that didn't make sense. Weeping cause her life has been so hard.
I thought about it. She could use mentoring. But I don't have time. Bottom line is I need collegues right now, not another child. This also plays on my emotions culturally because I should be sticking with her, helping her, but she's too much of a mess.
So, I've decided that I don't want to be chummy with her politically socially professionally or personally. Now she wants to friend me on FB.
To be honest, I was nice to her yesterday, but I don't want to entangle with her.
I will see her at events. She may even hunt down my number and call me. I guess I should KEEP this boundary, as one wise woman told me during my last cry baby episode about boundaries, because deciding to have good boundaries is the first step. Holding them with grace is the tricky part. For me at least. I want to do this in a good way.
Guilt keeps kicking in. I say no thank you and assert my boundary with his ugly lies too. I counter fear of what others think of me with standing strong and being sure of what I want.
Member
Join Date: May 2010
Location: central coast, ca
Posts: 1,652
What's a codie to do?...My first instinct is to tell you to run screaming from her, but that is not very classy:rotfxko i know you have to work with her, but I like to use the phrase "When I see trouble coming, I cross the street". Now us codies want to give trouble a makeover, take it home to mama, and then be shocked when we get sh** on! Sounds like trouble, consider crossing the street.
Awakening
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Beautiful Texas hillcountry
Posts: 1,272
Originally Posted by transformyself 
fear of what others think of me
Thanks and God bless us all,
Coyote
Awakening
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Beautiful Texas hillcountry
Posts: 1,272
Originally Posted by keepinon
What's a codie to do?...My first instinct is to tell you to run screaming from her, but that is not very classy:rotfxko i know you have to work with her, but I like to use the phrase "When I see trouble coming, I cross the street". Now us codies want to give trouble a makeover, take it home to mama, and then be shocked when we get sh** on! Sounds like trouble, consider crossing the street.
Thanks and God bless us all,
Coyote
Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 10
my therapist told me, guilt and feeling guilty are two things. when you are FEELING guilty, you should ask yourself--are you doing something wrong, mean, or illegal? if so, then you can be guilty. if not, then you are feeling guilty, and you (and only you) are imposing those bad feelings on yourself (and likely you should realize that you are doing something strong and healthy for yourself).
i don't know. that helps me when i am feeling "mean" or "not nice enough" to people.
i don't know. that helps me when i am feeling "mean" or "not nice enough" to people.
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Join Date: May 2006
Location: UK
Posts: 1,149
good for you, I struggle with not being nice to people, and feeling guilty for things that I am not guilty of - I like waiting's point, I think I might look at that.
mentoring might help her, but you are not the only one capable of doing it, and in all honesty, mentoring by someone who finds her this much hard work would probably not work out all that well for her either, other people, with different lives and who have perhaps had a similar past history to how she is reacting now but have worked their way out of it may well find her less irritating and therefore be able to work better with her - I'm slowly learning that taking on something that I truly resent doesn't do me or those I am helping any favours.
Haven't really mastered the enforcing boundaries with grace bit yet - like any skill, I hope to hone it with practice.
I'm sort of learning that I don't need to necessarily confront people with my boundary in order to enforce it, (I have a trendancy to want to be honest and fair by telling them that they are wasting their time, but I have problems dealing with confrontation with grace so I procrastinate and worry about it). I work with a lot of proffessionals who volunteer their time to us, and without that we cannot work, which means I have to keep them, even if I find their behaviour difficult on-side. My boss is very adept at the "boundaries with grace", being entirely polite and firm even with complete bullying personalities and I am trying to observe her techniques.
When she deals with people that she finds tricky at work but that we have to remain in contact with professionally (even in the smallest ways) there is a general "air" to her with these people: it's difficult to describe, but it is very similar to how I've seen the UK Queen when she's doing a tour of a factory or some other visit to the "commoners" she is polite but distant, she doesn't divulge any personal stuff, however minor, everything is the usual very light pleasantries, she doesn't answer any questions at all, but just looks slightly bemused (whilst looking completely pleasant) that you would ask, and then shuts down any attempt to engage professionally by saying that work is so hectic at the moment, or she has a list of objectives to fulfil for that event and is behind already, and suggesting that they put their ideas into a written proposal, email it to her office and she'll ask someone to look at it/see if she knows anyone who could help them with it and then carries on with what she was doing.
They rarely do write a proposal, but if they do, sometimes there are good ideas in there, and you can recommend them a contact who may be interested (but not have to work with them yourself) if there's nothing any good in there, she gets someone else to email back saying we've looked at it and it's not an area we can get into at the moment- good luck. with each step of this she is creating a distance between her and them personally but still maintaining a professional contact.
it is an art to do this leaving the person with a good feeling about you professionally, and without being smarmy, and it is very intersting to watch it in action! - she does get irritated by people, but one of the keys is that she lets the irritation go very quickly - she might raise an eyebrow/roll her eyes at me when she leaves them, but that is it: they and their behaviour rolls off of her instantly, and she gets on to the next thing.
I thought about it. She could use mentoring. But I don't have time. Bottom line is I need collegues right now, not another child. This also plays on my emotions culturally because I should be sticking with her, helping her, but she's too much of a mess.
Haven't really mastered the enforcing boundaries with grace bit yet - like any skill, I hope to hone it with practice.
I'm sort of learning that I don't need to necessarily confront people with my boundary in order to enforce it, (I have a trendancy to want to be honest and fair by telling them that they are wasting their time, but I have problems dealing with confrontation with grace so I procrastinate and worry about it). I work with a lot of proffessionals who volunteer their time to us, and without that we cannot work, which means I have to keep them, even if I find their behaviour difficult on-side. My boss is very adept at the "boundaries with grace", being entirely polite and firm even with complete bullying personalities and I am trying to observe her techniques.
When she deals with people that she finds tricky at work but that we have to remain in contact with professionally (even in the smallest ways) there is a general "air" to her with these people: it's difficult to describe, but it is very similar to how I've seen the UK Queen when she's doing a tour of a factory or some other visit to the "commoners" she is polite but distant, she doesn't divulge any personal stuff, however minor, everything is the usual very light pleasantries, she doesn't answer any questions at all, but just looks slightly bemused (whilst looking completely pleasant) that you would ask, and then shuts down any attempt to engage professionally by saying that work is so hectic at the moment, or she has a list of objectives to fulfil for that event and is behind already, and suggesting that they put their ideas into a written proposal, email it to her office and she'll ask someone to look at it/see if she knows anyone who could help them with it and then carries on with what she was doing.
They rarely do write a proposal, but if they do, sometimes there are good ideas in there, and you can recommend them a contact who may be interested (but not have to work with them yourself) if there's nothing any good in there, she gets someone else to email back saying we've looked at it and it's not an area we can get into at the moment- good luck. with each step of this she is creating a distance between her and them personally but still maintaining a professional contact.
it is an art to do this leaving the person with a good feeling about you professionally, and without being smarmy, and it is very intersting to watch it in action! - she does get irritated by people, but one of the keys is that she lets the irritation go very quickly - she might raise an eyebrow/roll her eyes at me when she leaves them, but that is it: they and their behaviour rolls off of her instantly, and she gets on to the next thing.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: England
Posts: 137
Being professionally friendly is one thing, but when a person starts to enroach in your personal life is quite another.
I have ways of dealing with people I cant cope with in RL, I am distantly polite. I had somebody who wanted to join my FB who I really didnt want to and just said. "I dont use facebook for general socialising I just have it so that very close friends and family can keep in touch, there is just a group of people that have all know each other for years and we have an agreement to keep all our FB contacts the same, I hope you understand"
The person in question did get hold of my telephone number and when she phoned the first few times, I gave her 2 minutes and then said sry hun, I am running late, nice to talk to you. After that I put the answer phone on an never returned the calls. After a while she got the message.
This may all sound harsh, but I could not cope with her, did not want to cope with her and could not cope with anything that threw me, which she certainly did.
Look after No.1 and right now No.1 is you, sure I felt guilty a little, but everyone on this forum has problems in some way or the other and we are doing our damndest to solve them we do not need and in fact cannot have uneccessary stress. DW if you dont befriend her she will soon latch onto someone else.
Sry to to a bit hard thinking about it but sometime we do need to remove from our lives the things that we cant cope with for our own preservation. It is enough to cope with our own problems without taking on other peoples if we are not comfortable in doing so.
I have ways of dealing with people I cant cope with in RL, I am distantly polite. I had somebody who wanted to join my FB who I really didnt want to and just said. "I dont use facebook for general socialising I just have it so that very close friends and family can keep in touch, there is just a group of people that have all know each other for years and we have an agreement to keep all our FB contacts the same, I hope you understand"
The person in question did get hold of my telephone number and when she phoned the first few times, I gave her 2 minutes and then said sry hun, I am running late, nice to talk to you. After that I put the answer phone on an never returned the calls. After a while she got the message.
This may all sound harsh, but I could not cope with her, did not want to cope with her and could not cope with anything that threw me, which she certainly did.
Look after No.1 and right now No.1 is you, sure I felt guilty a little, but everyone on this forum has problems in some way or the other and we are doing our damndest to solve them we do not need and in fact cannot have uneccessary stress. DW if you dont befriend her she will soon latch onto someone else.
Sry to to a bit hard thinking about it but sometime we do need to remove from our lives the things that we cant cope with for our own preservation. It is enough to cope with our own problems without taking on other peoples if we are not comfortable in doing so.
I Love Who I Am
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Midwest
Posts: 3,210
Jen that's brilliant. I don't know if I made myself clear or not, i was practically falling asleep while writing this last night, but I"m not interested in placating or engaging with her, I just want her to shut the eff up and get away from me, but I also know I need to make nice so I don't look like a raging lunatic.
That's when the guilt hits but that's personal, experienced in private (and here with you) and not projected socially. I am pissed about it too. My guilt can eff off too, I don't need that crap!
For me the problem is doing this with grace, as Jen illustrated. Keepin on has it right too, except I don't want to run screaming, I want to tell her to get away from me, tell her off but that's not the way to handle it either!
Polite distance will be the key. My business partner has helped me a great deal with this as well. She taught me how to dress properly (No fishnet! Think Jewish Librarian!) and that has been immensely beneficial, all though to be fair the fishnet was worn with a conservative, calf-length black dress and boots.) And teaches me how to schooze and not be a raging jerk. It's very helpful. You can teach an old dog new tricks.
I really like the two ladies from the UK giving me advice! If my sisters English husband weren't an abusive jerk that she recently left, I'd be calling him for a bit of advice as well. You guys have good manners down.
That's when the guilt hits but that's personal, experienced in private (and here with you) and not projected socially. I am pissed about it too. My guilt can eff off too, I don't need that crap!
For me the problem is doing this with grace, as Jen illustrated. Keepin on has it right too, except I don't want to run screaming, I want to tell her to get away from me, tell her off but that's not the way to handle it either!
Polite distance will be the key. My business partner has helped me a great deal with this as well. She taught me how to dress properly (No fishnet! Think Jewish Librarian!) and that has been immensely beneficial, all though to be fair the fishnet was worn with a conservative, calf-length black dress and boots.) And teaches me how to schooze and not be a raging jerk. It's very helpful. You can teach an old dog new tricks.
I really like the two ladies from the UK giving me advice! If my sisters English husband weren't an abusive jerk that she recently left, I'd be calling him for a bit of advice as well. You guys have good manners down.
I Love Who I Am
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Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Midwest
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Suzie I know!
My partner and I work in a male dominated business, we're always the only women at the table. Fishnet, low cut blouses, all are no-no's, if we're to be taken seriously, and even then it's a struggle.
She even wants me to take out my nosering sometimes, but I don't do that unless I"m testifying.
My partner and I work in a male dominated business, we're always the only women at the table. Fishnet, low cut blouses, all are no-no's, if we're to be taken seriously, and even then it's a struggle.
She even wants me to take out my nosering sometimes, but I don't do that unless I"m testifying.
I Love Who I Am
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Join Date: Sep 2009
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Well apparently the nut jobs are coming out of the woodwork. Good news- I can see them coming and have developed a duck and cover response. So much wonderful advice was here, I appreciate it!
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Originally Posted by transformyself
Well apparently the nut jobs are coming out of the woodwork. Good news- I can see them coming and have developed a duck and cover response. So much wonderful advice was here, I appreciate it!
If I'd tried to explain the finer points of boundaries to him, he would have taken it as interest. If I'd told him what time it was, he would have taken it as interest. I know that sounds snotty, but my gut instinct is that any interaction other than No would have prolonged the situation.
Yeah, I felt a little guilty, but I also felt that it was the kinder than blowing him off or having dinner with him just to be nice. I don't have a lot of free time, I've gotten pickier about who I spend it with, and that's a relief.
Duck! Cover! RUN!
I Love Who I Am
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Thanks BG, for me it's women who want something from me. I own a newspaper, speak at events, in the media and on panels, and am getting used to the reality that most of the folks I meet are NOT my friends. They're friendly, they sure are, but they see me as someone that can help them get what they want.
Recently, I've been approached by women who are scary sorts. They attract trouble. Not interested. There was one on Saturday, now another today.
I preach solidarity for women in my industry, which makes this even trickier, but I've been telling these trouble makers to go create their own network. One that benefits them. So I'm encouraging, yet maintain my distance. It's hard to create boundaries immediatley, but it's worth it, and way less difficult than moving the boundary to a safe place when it's been too close for awhile. I just had to do that with some neighbors, and boy are the PISSED at me.
Recently, I've been approached by women who are scary sorts. They attract trouble. Not interested. There was one on Saturday, now another today.
I preach solidarity for women in my industry, which makes this even trickier, but I've been telling these trouble makers to go create their own network. One that benefits them. So I'm encouraging, yet maintain my distance. It's hard to create boundaries immediatley, but it's worth it, and way less difficult than moving the boundary to a safe place when it's been too close for awhile. I just had to do that with some neighbors, and boy are the PISSED at me.
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Join Date: Aug 2002
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TM,
Thanks for sharing this. It's a great example for newer people on how to begin to set and maintain boundaries. For me, living with an abusive and controlling man was difficult, to say the least. As I first learned about recovery, choices, boundaries etc, I found it was easier to start out setting boundaries with others in my life - others besides close family members. It was a process, and it was a good place to start! First with casual acquaintances, then with people who I thought were friends but really weren't... you get the picture.
Again, thanks for sharing this. Your posts and the responses have been good stuff!
Cats
Thanks for sharing this. It's a great example for newer people on how to begin to set and maintain boundaries. For me, living with an abusive and controlling man was difficult, to say the least. As I first learned about recovery, choices, boundaries etc, I found it was easier to start out setting boundaries with others in my life - others besides close family members. It was a process, and it was a good place to start! First with casual acquaintances, then with people who I thought were friends but really weren't... you get the picture.
Again, thanks for sharing this. Your posts and the responses have been good stuff!
Cats
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