First make sure you are not, in fact, surrounded by a**holes...

When I first saw this meme a few months ago now, it made me roar with laughter. And before anyone rushes to correct me, I don't for a moment think Freud said anything of the sort, not his style. But as a discussion point, the text no doubt has value.

When I'd stopped laughing, I started to think about how true this is, and what an effect those around us can have - on our sense of self and wellbeing.  Whilst I'm not suggesting that people who cause damage always deliberately set out to do so, it can be just as harmful whether done intentionally or not.  Being knocked down by a car is going to be a painful experience whether it was accidental or deliberate.  Emotional injuries are much the same.

A relationship that had lasted for over 20 years ended for me in the last months of 2017 when, although I had suspected it was coming, I was told that I was no longer wanted. That my presence was no longer required. I offered to leave and my offer was immediately accepted. It was an incredibly sad and painful time, and I recognise now that in the years leading up to this point, I had expended huge amounts of energy trying to do everything in my power to prevent it from happening, having already been through one divorce.  I had jumped through so many hoops in an attempt to make myself indispensable. And despite my best efforts, I had been unable to change anything. I was still unwanted.  To make matters worse, it had been suggested on several occasions that I was in some way unstable.  If I whistled or sang in the house, I was 'too much'. If I cried at something sad, or when my feelings were hurt, I was told to 'grow up'. My 'mood swings' (heaven forbid anyone should cry and sing on the same day) were apparently indicative of a disorder and this was hinted at on more than one occasion.  I was going through the menopause, and so I blamed myself for that too. The combination of living with almost constant criticism, or being ignored, despite taking responsibility for every single household responsibility and chore began to take it's toll. I suffered with insomnia, breathlessness, acid reflux, severe migraines and sudden flare ups of IBS. So when the invitation came to leave, I took the cue and started the process of finding myself a new home. I figured it probably couldn't be a lot worse...

Why am I telling you this?  Well, it's an illustration of how easy it is to start taking responsibility inappropriately when things begin to go wrong.  It seems to me that there are two main tendencies when we look at this carefully -  some people take too much responsibility, some do not take enough.  Neither of these tendencies is helpful, but often they are learned behaviours based on previous experience.  But what on earth can we do about it? How do we go about determining where your responsibility ends and mine begins and vice versa?

As a counsellor, this is a theme that I return to time and time again with clients. We find we have no control whatsoever over other people's behaviour, what they say, do or think. But what is within our control is how we respond to it, and that is of great importance.  I am talking of course, about boundaries.  I am in no doubt that this is what saved me, along with the invaluable support of my supervisor, who continued to remind me who the real me was, and that I was not, in fact, mad, ill, disordered or anything other than deeply distressed.

Perhaps the best explanation of boundaries I have ever come across was written by Carolyn Spring for her PODS website (Positive Outcomes for Dissociative Survivors). It is well worth a read and a link to the full article can be found at the end of this blog.

"Through therapy, I began to explore the concept of boundaries. I had always assumed that a boundary was a rule, but I began to understand it instead as an edge, a marker, a distinguishing line, a perimeter. We can develop a rule based on the boundary, but the boundary itself is not the rule; it’s just the context for it. A boundary instead is like an invisible line that defines who we are and who we are not; where we start and where we end; what is ours and what is not; and what we’re responsible for and what we’re not."

Carolyn goes on to describe personal emotional boundaries using the metaphor of a property's boundaries.  As the owner of the property, you have certain rights and responsibilities, as do your neighbours.  You have no right to dictate where your neighbour plants that rose bush, and they have the right to ignore you if you do.  If we translate this into personal emotional boundaries, and start looking at interactions and relationships we are involved in, it probably won't take you long to find people who are trespassing, pushing into what is your space, and taking liberties they have no right to take.  In becoming aware of it, we are given the opportunity of doing something about it, although that may not be a comfortable experience. Enforcing a healthy boundary, particularly with someone who has taken liberties for a very long time, may well cause ructions, but will ultimately pay dividends in terms of peace and freedom to pursue life as you choose.  Carolyn describes the results

"I am free now to live in and enjoy my own garden. And I am free to do things—like writing—that was forbidden in the old system. I am free to deal with the weeds and the moss that have grown in the damp places in my garden. I no longer have to live in order to please others, and manage their emotions for them. I am not lobbing bricks into their garden; I’m just relocating to my own plot of land, and closing the gate to people who won’t respect my flowers. I’ve eventually realised that the guilt that they tried to put upon me for ‘upsetting’ them is not my guilt. Their feelings are in their garden and are their responsibility. I have nothing to feel guilty about."


Of course, when checking that you are not, in fact, surrounded by a**holes, we have to look wider than our own domestic arrangements and families, as people can behave badly in any number of roles.  Mental health professionals are no exception unfortunately. And if you find yourself subjected to any of the following, please use what you now know about boundaries and know that it is their stuff and not yours.  You can't force a change in their behaviour, but you can change it's impact on you and that is what counts. I have witnessed some particularly shameful behaviour on Twitter from certain professionals and it is nothing less than an abuse of power. If you spot any of the following, it will be someone being an a**hole. Their responsibility.  Here's my top 10:

1. Be honest. In all your interactions. Just be honest. If you don't know the answer to a question, say so instead of waffling. Most people can spot bullsh*t when they see it.  It isn't a good look. You'll look like an a**hole.
2. Listen.  If people are telling you how they feel, ie. frightened, lonely, angry, misunderstood, don't imagine that you know better. You don't. A**holes do this.
3. Don't imagine that people who don't have a medical degree don't know what they are talking about.  They may well have more common sense and life experience than you'll ever have. Feeling smug about being more highly educated will make you look like an a**hole.
4. Be transparent in your dealings, especially with conflict of interest situations. Yes, it is a problem that you are paid by companies that deal in highly dangerous drugs. Legislation must surely come to ensure transparency in such relationships.  Denying the need for this will make you come across as an a**hole.
5. Show a little empathy when you interact with the prescribed harm community on social media. Denying their often appalling lived experience with your vast medical knowledge will make you look like a classic a**hole.
6. Don't label people you have never met with a bullsh*t diagnosis, or assume that you know their political views.  They will laugh at you and you will look like an a**hole.
7. Don't make yourself sock puppet accounts on social media purely to abuse and discredit people who don't share your views. The number of times people have given themselves away by using the same terminology or style to carry on abusing is unbelievable. A surefire way of looking like an a**hole.
8. Be kind. Some of the people who have been through the system have had their lives ruined.  You might well feel defensive about it, but your feelings won't be anything like as bruised as theirs. Being an a**hole won't help you or them. Just be kind.
9. Don't mess with data to make your argument look more sound. Someone will catch you out, and then you'll really look like an a**hole.
10. If you see yourself in any of the above points, maybe a career in mental health is just not for you. Perhaps that should be part of the recruitment process in future.  A**holes need not apply. Some sort of a**hole detection questionnaire could surely be fashioned, in much the same way as the PHQ9 dictates who gets pills. Happy to write one if required.

So there it is.  Did I do the right thing to leave when I was no longer wanted? Well, all I can say is that I now sleep like a baby, the migraines have gone, I don't get out of breath easily, there is no sign of reflux, or IBS, and now the only time I cry is when something sad or moving touches me in a film or on the TV. Crying is now allowed even though I seldom do it.  I don't need anyone's permission. But if you want to know if we're really happy, perhaps you'd better ask the dog about our a**hole free zone. I think she would say we're doing ok.

https://information.pods-online.org.uk/boundaries/