Boundary issues

I have stumbled over a boundary issue several times this past week.
Person A with trauma wants to feel close to person B with trauma. The only way they know how to achieve closeness is emotional care-taking, like they have probably done it for abusive parents. So A takes on a false responsibility to manage Bs well-being. Sometimes without B even knowing this is happening. Sometimes with an open invitation to lean on them.
In every one of the 3 situations I encountered last week A was in a miserable position themselves and in need of help. Taking responsibility for someone else was obviously too much.
To me what it looked like was A begging B to emotionally abuse them because that is the only closeness they know.

We know that care-taking can help people to feel more powerful in general when they feel powerless about their own life. But this is a trap. It creates an abusive situation.
It shocks me deeply when we get approached that way by complete strangers. We have long-standing friendships on this forum and that is a different kind of exchange. I feel like trust was earned here.
One of the 'person A's we observed in the unhealthy pattern, without boundaries and trying to take responsibility for someone elses emotions, was a part of our system. The understanding of the dynamic is new to us.

We wanted to point it out, that it can happen and that it is happening on this forum, so you can reflect on it and check yourself and your interactions. I want everyone to be safe. And offering others that they can emotionally abuse us for their well-being when we barely make it through the day ourselves is not safe. Neither is allowing someone to take on the role of helper when there is no foundation of relationship and earned trust.
Please take care.

Well-said, L. Thank you.

MDs

Yep.

Several interpersonal (and equally, intrapersonal) dynamics can be in play, even all at the same time.

One dynamic is a kind of bargaining. Person A does something with an unstated expectation of reciprocity. That comes up a lot in emotionally immature romance, with the expectation that another person feel about you the way you feel about them. Related to this is the projection that the other person feels the way you do.

As a rule I do not fix other people. But there was one person I felt a great need to fix for a long time. Letting go of that need took a lot of work in therapy and self work over several years. While the need remained, I managed to gratify it only in ways that were limited and largely symbolic.

Prayer is good for this letting go process: whether the need is healthy or not, prayer is entirely between you and your higher power. No one else is touched by your need in any way.

thank you for sharing your wisdom Una, it is very much appreciated.

we talked to those we felt falsely responsible for today and a sober reality check helped. they are fine.

We were admin on an online game with a community of teenagers for 4 years, and pretty active about mental health, so a lot of teens came to talk to us, and we quickly figured out we needed to set rules about that :

- Never answer right now to an ask for emotional support : always check our energy level before + if online, don't answer to more than one person at the time ; if the condition aren't right, then make a short answer (not the same depending on the relationship we have with the person) and/or explain we're too tired right now, and we'll try to answer later.
This one is still a "learning in progress" ; if we are involved deeply in an activity linked to one of our specific interests, we often forget about our body and being tired, and can start to answer to someone even if it's not a good idea.

- If they ask for it past 8pm, unless it's really an emergency or someone really close, then we answer the next day.

- Never let anyone have only us to rely on, encourage the person to talk to other people, or a therapist - online, we like to create groups between people who talk to us in PM about the same subject (if they are okay with it), it works really well.

- It's not our job to fix others, the only one who can save someone is the person themselves, and we're not their therapist. All we can do is listen (if we're okay enough), and offer some advices (if they want them).
As we want to become a psychologist, and as we have a bachelor degree in psychology, this one was VITAL to learn : people around us easily see us as "the free psych", which is quite dangerous as we're still a student. And even if we were a graduated psychologist, that's not how it works. We had to explain this to my mom's boyfriend just three weeks ago, as he thought we were okay with talking with his 12yo daughter the way a psych would, because he thought something happened at school could have traumatized her. Not our job AT ALL !!!

- Our close friends don't owe us support every time we need it. It's our job to find someone available, or to deal with it by ourselves - we're adult now.
This one was hard to learn emotionally speaking.

Our friends know about all of this, and some of them have started to answer "I've read what you wrote and I empathize, but I will answer later because right now, I'm too tired" too. Sometimes they do answer later, sometimes they don't, and it's okay.
I love to see how this answer had become normal around us.

Thank you for an important and well written post .

I would like to remind all that we have Friend and Foe options in the post profiles if anyone feels uncomfortable in their interactions with others on the forum . It's OK to take a break or cease completely from communicating with someone , especially if you feel that the interaction is becoming unhealthy or unhelpful .

If anyone is feeling unsafe here , please contact a Mod and we will do our best to address the situation .

NSR

- This post carries a lot of wisdom. Thank you all. We will have a lot to think about, thanks to your different opinions.

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X

Great post, Dwelt. Thank you.

MDs

i relate a lot to this, thanks.