the way out

The number one reason that we don’t get our needs met, we don’t express them. We express judgments. If we do express needs, the number two reasons we don’t get our needs met, we don’t make clear requests.

~Marshall Rosenberg

Question:

You told me to tell my partner what I need but she knows full well what is going on in my life though even there she has had to be reminded over and over.  Her needs eclipse mine.  She overwhelms me with her needs so much that I sometimes feel compelled to lie to avoid setting her off yet again.  I need to be with someone I can be honest with and not feel scared that my honesty will cause a war.  I need to be in a partnership with someone who can accept that I have needs too and that that is okay.  I have told her this but she still ignores my needs.  I don’t think she cares about me.

Answer:

Lots of strong feelings, frustration, upset... it sounds very painful for you and I feel sorry for your suffering and confusion.  I see that you are trying to get your partner to recognize your needs, trying very hard indeed, but, in order for that to happen and for your needs to be met, by her or anyone, they have to be specified more concretely.  This means translating "I need to be in a partnership with someone who can accept that I have needs" into what you want here and now from her.  Think: behaviours, i.e. "I want you to DO x, y, z for me" even if you want her to do nothing at all, i.e. be quiet, listen and say nothing for a while.  This is the only way you’ll ever have a chance of getting the love you want one day.  Even a woman who loves you to the ends of the earth cannot read you mind.  You need to show her the way.

point of no return

I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:
How are you?
~ Rumi

I once met a person recovering from a cocaine addiction.  He’d come to a place where he said he just knew he had to stop.  He said that, if he had passed that point, he might never have been able to get his life back. 

I asked him why he thought that was.  Why would it have been so difficult to stop beyond that point?

He said that it was like drinking.  That your system could only absorb so much until you started to puke.  He wasn’t talking about the illegal substance; he was talking about the lies that were poisoning his life.  

He explained how it began with one small lie to his wife, saying he’d lent five hundred bucks to a friend when he’d actually blown it on a fix.  The next time he lied to her, he said, it was easier, and the time after that even easier than the time before.  It got to the point where he knew that his whole life was about to get sucked into a vortex of deceit and that, beyond that point, he’d have lost himself.

Lots of things are like that, I thought.  Lies, yelling, theft, abuse, murder.   Hurting others and losing yourself.  You cross the line once, twice...  But once you pass that point of no return, it’s too hard to take it in and, instead, it starts to take you in.  You either keep the blinders on and keep going.   Or take them off and puke.

Informing versus Consulting

Most people with boundary issues have two different problems: one with drawing their own boundaries, and another with recognizing when their boundaries are being drawn for them.  

My last blog post addressed the first problem and talked about the importance of showing your boundaries rather than just stating them.  This post is about the second problem (which is actually just the flip-side of the first): how to know when someone is crossing your boundaries when drawing their own!

I came across a good example today:

A mother told me she was in the car with her son heading home for supper after picking him up from classes.  She stopped at a family friend’s along the way to collect a parcel and asked her son to go in and get it for her.  When the son came back to the car, he gave his mom the parcel and announced, “Here’s your bag; I’m staying for supper”.  His mother told him that she had already planned the meal and that he should have asked her first.  He said “Mom, you’re crossing the line.  I’m not a kid anymore and I don’t need your permission”, and he left.  Mom was disappointed and hurt but didn’t want to be a nag so she just drove away… 

What is wrong with this scenario?  

Well, the kid is certainly old enough to make his own supper plans; there’s nothing wrong with that.  He’s not breaking any rules.  Mom is old enough to make alternate supper plans; she's done it tons of times before.   So what’s the big deal?  

The deal is that Mom was informed, not consulted, about a decision that involved her.   Her son not only planned his evening, he planned hers as well.  She didn’t cross any line, he did. 

Nobody wants to be told they have to ask permission to live (especially not teenagers!), and I am not advocating that.  But when someone doesn’t check in with you about plans that directly affect you, it is more than thoughtless.  It’s a violation of your boundaries.  

You cannot tell someone what to do, but- if it involves you- ask to be consulted, not informed. 

boundaries

"Show me this mind of yours" 

~Bodhidharma

 A lot of people have boundary issues in their relationships.  

Parents with boundary issues usually don’t know how to deal with their children when they ignore or break house rules.  Friends with boundary issues usually don’t know how to get away from investing more of their time and energy than they had wanted into their friendships.  Lovers with boundary issues usually end up over-functioning and turning their partners into co-dependent under-functioners, an imbalance that they end up regretting and then, often, complaining about but cannot seem to change.

The problem is one of an inability to defend our boundaries, an inability that often gets projected outward onto someone (our child, friend or partner) whom we accuse of having violated us when it is we who have set ourselves up for the violation.  In essence, we have violated ourselves. 

I hear a lot of people say “Yeah, well, I TOLD him the rules”, or, “I TOLD her what I wanted”, or “I TOLD him to leave me alone”.  We TELL people our boundaries but the problem is it doesn’t DO a damn thing!  That is because we haven’t SHOWN them what they are.

Showing our boundaries is the only effective way of defending them.   We do this by shaping a situation to suit our own needs and by refusing to be a part a situation that is not what we had in mind.

How?  Well, definitely not by talking about it.  You have to translate speech into action, or non-action, as the situation requires.

For example:

The mother who tells her son to get his homework done before supper has to stop feeding him supper before the homework is done.  The man who finds himself waiting for a friend who (for the umpteenth time) is over thirty minutes late, has to leave.  The lover who has asked her boyfriend not to flirt with other women has to disengage from the relationship until he changes his ways.   The goal is not to withhold privileges, but to create the kind of situation and relationship you want to be a part of.

Stop defining your boundary.  Claim it.

OCD

 

We dance around a ring and suppose

But the Secret sits in the middle and knows

~Robert Frost

Question:

I've managed to fix most of the bugs in my head by cutting into the loop of obsessive thinking.  So far, so good- I actually think I can go forward with this.  But coming off the cycle, I somehow face a different, new and astonishing problem.  It feels like my brain is looking for something to stimulate itself like something intellectualizing to focus on.  It feels as if my brain is bored and needs something!  So I currently feel like Renton in Trainspotting when he's trying to come off of heroin (ok maybe not that extreme but you get the picture).  In his words, my brain would need a hit! Is this common in recovering OCD patients or am I just too smart for my own sanity?

Answer:

I am so glad that you are making headway.   In terms of your feeling like you are coming off a drug, that is perfectly normal.  Obsessive thinking is like a vortex into which we leap whenever we feel anxious.  It is exactly like a drug that “fixes” anxiety, and its incessant loop an addiction.  There is no escape until you cut into it, as you are doing now.   

What you are experiencing is freed energy that used to be poured into the vortex of obsessive thoughts: maybe I should, what if I don't, what if, what if, what if...

What can you do with the energy that has been released from the broken loop of such thoughts?  Nothing.  Seriously!   Do nothing.  You have heard the expression "don't just do something, sit there"?  That applies here.  Just be with your anxiety and breathe.  The craving for a fix will pass.  As you experience this over and over, you will learn that you can survive without a hit, counteracting the thought that you must do something.  That is freedom.