metaphortunate | my way and the highway

Crossposts: http://metaphortunate.livejournal.com/34749.html

Entry tags:

family,
thoughts

my way and the highway

A friend of mine just wrote me for advice, citing that I am the expert regarding family members being disappointing letdowns.

I don't usually think of it that way, but…maybe I'm not just being a drama queen in that I am sad and/or stressed whenever I think of my family? Anyway, I suggested that she take a look through the Captain Awkward "families" tag. But she has two kids under four, so in case she didn't get half an hour to herself in front of the computer before Christmas, I summed up all of the good Captain's advice:

1) use your words to ask for what you want
2) but you can't change other people, so
3) if people insist on being jerks, you have to decide whether it's worth it to you to stick around.

And it's good advice. I've used it myself a lot. But it's very, very culturally specific advice. It's very America Right Now advice, where if you don't like the situation, fuck off somewhere else. There are a whole lot of situations you can be in where you cannot leave, where you have to deal with people. Sometimes people in those situations write in to the Captain, and she tells them to start organizing and planning so that they can leave as soon as possible.

And that's good advice. I've used it myself. There's a reason I live halfway around the country from my birth family. But…I can't help thinking that I'm at a stage in my life where I'd also like to hear advice about what you can do when you can't get away. Or if you don't want to get away: is there really nothing else you can do? I'm not saying that would be better advice; I'd just like to see more than one perspective on the matter.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

So this is specific to situations that are at least basically safe, but my relationship with my family got better when I started drawing a very very clear line between respect and validation.

If my family fails to treat me with respect, I either temporarily walk away or I make that uncomfortable for them or I adjust what I let them know and be involved in, in future.

And I've let them know, in words, that that is the deal, and gritted my teeth through the resultant OMG YOU CAN'T DO THAT CHANGE BACK NAOW PLZ, which was, um, rough. Sometimes very rough.

If they don't treat me with love, I disengage emotionally.

If they don't support me, I reduce the degree to which I'll put myself out there for them.

But as far as approval, validation, understanding, well.

Actually, I don't necessarily feel like I can always give THEM those things, either. They've all made choices I think are on the spectrum from slightly regrettable to sketchy as Hell. And if that's none of my business, which it mostly isn't... I'm not their validation vending machine, they aren't mine.

And when I realised that, it, I don't know, freed up a lot of space in my head.

Does that make any sense?

Yeah. I'm glad it seems like it has worked out for you!

Coming here from network, but:

But it's very, very culturally specific advice. It's very America Right Now advice

This is something I've noticed and often wondered about. Because, well, it pertains - and even pertains to situations where something is being done that is damaging and bad, and the "use your words" is not necessarily going to get you what you want (and if done without serious finesse can end up with things getting a lot worse), but is not so egregious that it balances off, say, cutting all contact with someone who raised you and is otherwise very important.

Of course, the problem with those situations is that it's very hard for someone to give any kind of one-size-fits-all advice, or advice at all without knowing the other players intimately.

But yeah. It's something I often wonder about.

Right - I 'd really like to see more exploration of the options between "burn down all the bridges, sow the ground with salt" and "eat all the shit people wanna hand out."

Or maybe off to the side, rather than between. Maybe all that advice is coming from a purely defensive place; maybe there's a place for a more offensive game (in the sense of ball games, not like being offensive.)

Yeah, I think there is a lot of between! People seem to do well with negotiating territories. Both physical ones and activities that are Your Thing. Then when in proximity to the Uncomfortable Ones, compartmentalize emotions or selves somehow so that you cling to the happiness you will have when doing Your Thing during Your Time which will be somehow fulfilling. I don't know if that is *good* for a person but it seems commonly useful.

Offensive strategies are extremely useful. So for example with one relative who would always ask me about myself but with an incredibly negative and stressful spin, sorta like "Well, you must be very panicky and stressed about X! And Y! and Z!" I would end-run or even pre-empt all that by asking them about their work, study, and other things that I knew THEY found stressful and might want to talk about, which seemed to relieve their mind and get where they wanted to get without poking at my anxieties.

Somehow cultivating a reputation for quirkiness has been useful. If you're already the odd one then what is another odd habit. Such as just being That Person Who Is On The Computer all the time, that's just how she is.

Further about getting to be in the category of people who just do that thing (whatever otherwise unacceptable thing that is.) I see people sometimes amazingly hemmed in by custom or expectation that makes, say, going out to take a walk, or leaving a family get together for any reason at all on a holiday, just unthinkable and if they did the consequences would be massive drama. I think those habits, customs, expectations, etc. can sometimes be shifted, and it's not drama-free or unpainful but the pain can be worth it as long as the OTHER people aren't going to throw you out or cut off the relationship. A big one here is staying in family members' house or them staying in your house on visits. For mine a huge barrier was having my own transportation which somehow they always controlled. So when I finally had the resources to, say, rent a car, I made it the rule to do so even though it made no sense to them and they would argue against it wildly. Then I had a certain peace of mind. And after ages of that I realized that some of my family's expectations of this sort were because they were bound by them in their own families. If they can't break out of, if everyone isn't in the same house, it is dreadful and something must be wrong... then they figure the same is true for other relationships (like ours with each other). Somehow over time this was painfully shifted to where collective truth definitely became, "Aren't we all so much more comfortable retreating to our own corners, how lucky we are able to."

Last time my mom came to visit, she stayed in a hotel, and that was GREAT.

Yeah, definitely positioning yourself as The One Who Is Like That is useful. And I like that pre-empting strategy!

I've been thinking about this (and, um, eaten by life!), and one of the things that occurred to me is that it's really important to me to figure out what relationships are worth. Which can sound very calculating, but knowing the exact worth in terms of sweat and tears means that I also then have the power to move around my decisions and so on.

It also means that when I'm handling someone's shit, the thought is "I have decided this relationship with this person is worth this shit", not "omg I cannot stop the shit." I don't have to put up with, say, the incidentally *ist crap that comes out of my aunt's mouth (all without malice, but as we all know, malice is not necessary for harm); I could, at any point, use my words (which would result in a HUGE gigantic kerfluffle and probably no improvement) and then enforce my boundaries.

On the other hand, she's a very dear person to me, she's handling a lot of really unfortunate stuff in our family about a minor member of said family who needs care, and I love her. I made a decision at some point that the level of crap I put up with from her is worth it for the relationship. And then I take self-care tactics like being able to rant at a friend over text with cries of "OMG WHAT SHE JUST SAID" and so on.

I think it's also important to figure out what it is that you actually want and can have, because all of those things will influence what the cost-benefit analysis of the relationship is. And there always IS the nuclear option (I've used it; there's a relative who used to be very important to me who won't get one word from me without a lengthy apology), but sometimes that option is like gnawing your own leg off to get out of the trap: maybe you've got to do it, but fuck it's gonna hurt.

Because, well, it pertains - and even pertains to situations where something is being done that is damaging and bad, and the "use your words" is not necessarily going to get you what you want (and if done without serious finesse can end up with things getting a lot worse), but is not so egregious that it balances off, say, cutting all contact with someone who raised you and is otherwise very important.

I like Captain Awful a whole lot, but it's sometimes clear to me that the commenters and maybe even CA have never been in a situation where "use your words" is just going to make things a lot worse, and then it becomes a kind of frying-pan-fire dilemma of, Do I just take this shit like I have been all my life, or do I risk setting off even bigger fireworks by not going along with it? Especially since there's that "change BACK" reaction where a lot of people, when faced with different behaviour, will do their almighty best to make you return to the status quo.

I tend to think of "use your words" as a kind of defensive tactic in and of itself, and so like most defensive tactic it has its good points and bad points. On the one hand, it can totally make things explode; on the other hand, it's that sort of step that means that you've taken away one layer of potential self-justification from your opponent: they can no longer claim any ignorance about what you wanted/didn't want/said was okay.

(It's also personally something I have to do before I'm "allowed" to be too pissed off at someone/whatever - if I haven't actually SAID that X, Y or Z was a problem, I'm out of line expecting someone to read my mind, the same way I'd consider them out of line if they expected me to read mine. Ergo, if it's not a big enough deal for me to use my words about, it's not a big enough deal for me to sulk about, so to speak.)

But yeah, like all tactics, it's one I use either when it's going to work, or when I have to.

But…I can't help thinking that I'm at a stage in my life where I'd also like to hear advice about what you can do when you can't get away. Or if you don't want to get away: is there really nothing else you can do?

I imagine an earnest mass-produced nonprofit-collectively-written help book, Where There Is No Safeword. Or maybe How To Be Complicit.

I am finishing up reading Carol Gilligan's In A Different Voice. To way oversimplify: male-dominated discourse has often focused on rights and who has the power to stop whom from doing what, while women-dominated discourse has often focused on what we owe each other and our responsibility to reduce hurt. (Other people, please jump in and add nuance if I'm breaking things!) And I think both perspectives are necessary and useful, but when I can't leave a situation, "how do I reduce how much I'm hurting others?" is in my locus of control way more often than "what are my rights?"

Another useful distinction is that from the Hirschmann title: Exit, Voice, and Loyalty. When we can't Exit a bad situation (not even venting through escape valves) and we don't feel safe speaking up about our displeasure, the sanest thing to do is to turn patriotic about it, to self-medicate with Stockholm Syndrome. Always Look At The Bright Side Of Life.

Or turn Buddhist and detach. That helps too. Where there is no exit and no safeword and no Constitution, it's rather an elegant hack to just chop out the desires, thus eliminating the heartrending conflict between what ought to be and what is.

This sounds defeatist to me. What if my question is not "what are my rights?" or "how do I reduce how much I'm hurting others?" but "how do I reduce how much others are hurting me?" or "how do I get people to do what I want?" Captain Awkward provides a lot of advice about leaving, but not all conflicts are resolved by someone leaving. Sometimes people fight. Maybe what I want are strategies about how to stay and fight and win.

I'm not in favor of discarding my own desires. I figure if the world wants to deny me, I'm going to make it go to the trouble. I'm not going to save it the trouble by pre-emptively defeating myself.

For those strategies I think sticking to firm yet gentle declarative statements are helpful, like with toddlers. They can still melt down, yet you are still going to do whatever it is. Repetition is key. You can acknowledge the arguments. LIke, "I see that you are very concerned that your grandchild has proper nutrition... thank you. But you are not feeding beef jerky to my 3 month old. Excuse me but now it is TIME FOR NURSING. See you in half an hour. Yes, thanks. TIME FOR NURSING, byeeee" You know how in the Teletubbies this voice just comes out from nowhere and goes "Time for a nap!" It is like you take control of abstraction, kind of the superego of the situation. But then you have to actually stick to what you have declared is going to happen somehow. (And have the means set up to make it so; the car to leave in, or the door to lock, my own chocolate to eat, or whatever)

One of my problems has been that standard advice about setting boundaries is like handing a weapon over to the enemy. LIke if I say please don't talk about X, Y, or Z, then the person will just push that boundary harder, or refer constantly to the fact that they are "not supposed to talk about X Y and Z" thus invoking the whole thing and mocking it.

I could talk about this subject forEVAH.

I made a locked post about how whenever I try to limit conversations with my mother, she calls me controlling. What she doesn't notice is the 90% of conversations that I have with her and don't attempt to limit, even though I would rather not be having them either. But there is no nice way to point out "I don't enjoy talking to you in general" or "spending time with you is stressful", so I guess that I can live with her thinking that 1)I am controlling, and 2)I enjoy the time we spend together.

I have a similar situation, and I spent some time thinking about, well, do I actually WANT to be nice? I don't have to! It is a choice!

I made the decision that there is not a lot I can do for my mother, and one of the few things is to not tell her all about how I don't enjoy our time together. So I think of it as a gift I am giving her. And it helps me, knowing that it is something I am doing deliberately, for her, because I love her. But I don't have to.

That's pretty similar to my thinking, most of the time. It still stings, though, when I try to set some very basic limits in the form of "I can't talk now, I'm busy" and then get an earful about how controlling I am. So I guess I need to work on expecting that, and not taking it to heart.

I feel a bit like a cad, because I manipulate conversation rather than explicitly name boundaries. One of my strongest conversational strategies is to listen (over the phone works best, but in person too) with no expression of interest. I make clear that I'm listening, but let the topic absolutely die. My interlocutor will eventually falter and wrap up the call, or pause long enough that I can change the topic.

(This is a contentious topic at work, because I have a boss who says inappropriate things in meetings, and my (new) immediate supervisor stays engaged with him while I'm sitting there like a stone trying to make him realize his faux pas without saying so outright. I finally told her, Look, I can't be in those meetings if you're going to Yes him when he's like that; either work with me on shutting him down, or let me leave.)

Limiting contact without saying that's what you're doing works as well. I show up late to gatherings; I leave early; I find an absorbing task in the kitchen that keeps me out of the flow of conversation. I have a (Jewish) friend who rescued me from Christmas once! She whisked me away for Indian food and a movie at noon, so I could make an appearance in morning and evening without staying the whole day.

I've been told, by people with whom I'm employing these strategies, that I'm intimidating. I think that's a code word for not acquiescing; the theme among us is struggling to negotiate from a position of recognition that reasonable people may disagree. But in situations where open confrontation won't make a difference (family) or would get me fired (work), classical and operant conditioning tactics are the tactics I have to take care of myself. So I use them.

I feel a bit like a cad, because I manipulate conversation rather than explicitly name boundaries. One of my strongest conversational strategies is to listen (over the phone works best, but in person too) with no expression of interest. I make clear that I'm listening, but let the topic absolutely die. My interlocutor will eventually falter and wrap up the call, or pause long enough that I can change the topic.

Yeah, this is basically my approach too, a lot of the time....I don't think it's "caddish," altho sometimes people call it passive-aggressive. Maybe it can be thought of as putting into practice a lot of the "use your words" ideas -- in my family, if I try to bring stuff into the open or call people on behaviour, no matter how politely or compassionately, there's an explosion of "How COULD you say that" and "that is so UNFAIR" and then it turns into a big How Mean You Are drama fest, which is worse for me than the original bad behaviour. But trying to control the bad behaviour covertly rather than overtly, or at least limit its effects on me, can work better. Letting topics die, showing up to make a token appearance, keeping my own end of the conversation on a brisk and breezy and somewhat superficial level, and so on. One relative sent me a giant inappropriate email about what she saw as another relative's abuse of painkillers, and wanted me to say something without revealing that the urging came from her, &c &c, and I just totally ignored it. I'm sure there were many other family emails exchanged about what a terrible person I was and how I Just Didn't Care and was a self-centered bitch and so on, but at least I didn't get dragged into the emotional drama.

In my experience seven or maybe eight times out of ten the other person is depending on a response -- even just nonverbal feedback. A lot of attempted bomb-lobbing will fizzle out if it makes no discernible impact. -- This works for me, because I'm a conciliatory-type person and really hate conflict, and I'm not sure it would work for someone who wants to "stay and fight and win". It's more like "The only way to win is not to play," but without cutting them off.

I think the feeling like a cad is a big part of the issue: like, with my mother, I could stay and fight, but I don't want to be the person that I would have to be in order to win that fight. There are fights I could win, but I would have to be a huge jerk. And because I don't want to be a huge jerk, I prefer to leave.

But I am now thinking about, well, maybe sometimes it's worth it to be a huge jerk. In which case, you have to think about which of your ethical guidelines you're willing to let go of, and why. And how you could get the best effect in return.

I have also noticed that a lot of this advice comes out of assuming that the person with the problem has no power in the situation. Which is often true! Otherwise they would have fixed the situation, and would not need advice! However, I'm thinking about ways in which one could get power. Like you working on getting your immediate supervisor on your side. I think that's really smart.

I'm pretty lucky with immediate supervisors, which is to say, we actually talk about what best practices are, how to handle things professionally when the people around you (above you) do not hold themselves to that same standard. She hadn't realized till I told her that I was classically conditioning him, and that her actions were undermining my conditioning.

(She is still an optimist, and thinks she can incentivize him to change his behavior consciously; I don't think he's that conscious an actor -- or anyway, a leopard does not change his spots that much -- and prefer covert training approaches.)

In my workplace, there are two avenues to power: friendship with the existing power structure, or the ability to do work in a way that involves end-running around that structure. Finding the people who can do a thing right, the first time, systematically, is finding your way into the shadow power structure. We all know who we are, and share around, in a way that partially compensates for the fuckups of the official power structure. One of the reasons I'm still here is that I have a lot of unofficial power in my position, that has accrued over time. My rank is pretty low, but among my colleagues (not among the officials) I feel highly esteemed, because I've proved myself. I don't think the officials will improve their habits, or recognize this shadow power structure any time soon, but there's always hope that some of them will retire.

It doesn't seem to me cadlike to manipulate conversation, but that's partly because I do it, too, as a survival strategy. Like, manipulation is better than dropping bombs into conversation, IMO.

I wouldn't say that it's categorically better; it's a different strategy, with different costs and different strengths. I think there are different situations where each might be most effective, and of course it depends on who's using them, too.

Thanks for the check (and balance): I should've clarified "better by my lights, for me." It's certainly true that some individuals are deft with conversational bomb deployment.

Repetition is absolutely key.

Man, you are reminding me of how happy I am that in my worst situations, leaving was absolutely the simplest and best option. :)

Yeah, once you set boundaries, you have to defend them. Which is no fun!

I can reduce how much other people are hurting me through all sorts of strategies. I can't compel people to do what I want. I can ask, but that's it. And realizing that -- and reducing expectations accordingly -- can indeed be a big key to dealing with certain people.

I have a lot of blah-blah about this regarding my awful (and now dead) grandparents but every time I write it down I feel like I'm babbling so I'm putting this here as a placeholder instead.

The "very America Right Now advice" description seems spot on, to me, and it's not advice I feel I can take.

Your three steps are kind of what I do, but I do stick around--emotionally disengaged yet still there. It'd be "lucky" for me to be able to do that, except that emotional scar tissue is the buffer, and that scar tissue is hard won; I totally recognize that lots of people don't end up with functional scar tissue that way (and for my part I try not to be so far distant that I turn into a sociopath...). For one relative in particular, the person has two living blood relatives, of whom I'm one, so I try for the mindset of respecting the person's good points and good actions, however infrequent or small, as I would for some other person with whom I didn't have the same baggage...and letting go of the rest. Leaving would be easier on me but somehow inhumane. And, well, the person is not young.

I'm working on the emotional disengagement, and most of the time managing it, or at least holding it in until I get home and can vent at friends.

For me the tricky bit of this is emotionally re-engaging and re-integrating and not like, disassociating too much...

[ETA: where by "too much" I might mean, unable to remember bad interactions and learn from them]

Edited 2012-11-04 05:44 (UTC)

Right--forgetting and blocking out is a problem for me, too, sometimes even if I write/type a little account for my future self. For neutral stuff, writing it down equals remembering it and I generally don't need to reread, but not for volatile things. I guess that's how memory is supposed to work versus trauma and potential trauma, though.

For mostly cultural reasons, I haven't cut my parents out of my life (although I'm sure I'd be happier on a day-to-day basis if I did :-/) I've found that the medium chill techniques allow me to maintain some semblance of sanity around toxic family while still keeping the relationships and appeasing most of my parents' need to feel connected and in touch.

kalmn asked something like this some time ago and I wanted to try and answer, but time got away from me.

First, I love you for making it clear that not everyone can leave. I also really appreciate all the comments above.

Everyone with a day job knows something about this. There's always someone in the office that you absolutely DO NOT WANT to be around, but you have to work with. Even in an open and mobile job market, they are often not worth leaving your job for, so you learn some combination of avoiding them, being with them and avoiding the hard stuff, putting up with the hard stuff, and telling them off. That combination varies from relationship to relationship, but I think it's important to remember all four pieces.

commodorified is getting at something similar, I think.

I really also like making boundaries: if you get on my case about [my weight], I'm going to remind you that I asked you not to do that. If you do it twenty times in an evening, I'm going to remind you twenty times. Maybe you'll get bored.

Some people behave best when treated with the kind of respect we use with children. Lots of positive reinforcement for behavior that doesn't make me sick to my stomach, plus a kind of patient eye-rolling when engaging in behavior that does.

That's a start.

Yeah, the job context was definitely one I was thinking of, though in my case abstractly. I have no good friends at work, but all but one of my co-workers are currently fine people to work with, and even That One Guy (there's always one!) is manageable with a little bit of effort. I'm lucky there.

I think that four-piece combination is a good approach!

I left my family for the most part more than 10 years ago, even though I still live in the same city, and all but one of my relatives lives within 15 miles of me. I'm the "cut your losses and walk away" kind, usually. The exception in my family of origin is my sister, who has her own issues including repeatedly returning to an abusive relationship. I refuse to be around her partner, and a couple of times my sister lied to me about whether her partner would be present at a social engagement, so I don't go to her social engagements any longer. But I talk to her on the phone, and rarely we have lunch or something.

I just...did it alone, a lot of the time. I don't recommend it; I've been very lonely, and often needed help that I couldn't find. It has limited my life. But for me that was better than being with people who poke me in my vulnerabilities and then get mad at me for professing to be hurt by their behavior, and blame me for causing a family fracas when I say I won't tolerate being treated that way, and call me a liar when I tell the truth about things that happened when they weren't even there to know about.

Much sympathy. :/ Sometimes all the choices kind of suck.

But it's very, very culturally specific advice. It's very America Right Now advice, where if you don't like the situation, fuck off somewhere else.

Yes, thanks for articulating this. It's very America Right Now, very independence-oriented as opposed to interdependence-oriented, and it assumes we are all these isolated particles free to bounce around the country on our own. Which we are, and it is sort of a problem. And yes, it can be liberating to know you can just Give Up Now And Stop Trying If It Won't Work, but that's not always the best or the only way.

(I live 350 miles from my parents, refuse to visit home for more than a week at a time, and am happy with how the relationships evolved once we knew we had no control over each other's lives. On the other hand, I'm currently housing/supporting my two little sisters, and no matter what social or judgment errors they make, if I don't do that, I don't know who will...)

Your sisters are lucky to have you, then.

And, y'know, I live in America Right Now! I grew up here, that attitude makes sense to me, again, I'm not saying it's bad advice! I just have been thinking lately about how it's not the only advice.

Yep. I'd like to see a... hmm... harm reduction? approach. Like, leave if you're being harmed, but if you're just very uncomfortable, what can you do to reduce that discomfort? What can you do to expand your toolbox so that difficult people don't make you crazy to your core? Etc.

Heh. I do think the Captain gets more nuanced in comments and in individual letters, particularly for people are underage and in situations like "I love my spouse, but zir in-laws are terrible." So then it's more "use your words once if it is safe to do so," but after people have demonstrably shown they will not listen, move on to the more passive-aggressive techniques. Like

veejane, I usually do the very little to no emotional response in conversations I am not interested in having (esp. when my parents are asking about my personal life), though sometimes I've also found it helpful to just say "I'd rather not talk about that" and keep repeating it.

It's been a bit of a mix for me? I basically used to do all the non-word approaches before, and have done some more up-front boundary setting that actually has worked with my parents. But I had to do a lot of stuff before I could go there, from being financially independent to having my own relationship with my sister to being very far away physically and etc. So... YMMV. I think it is always a process of how much you are willing to do and how much you are willing to put up with, and I think everyone's answer is different and changes and that that is okay.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

my way and the highway

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

On places one cannot leave: a rambling

Re: On places one cannot leave: a rambling

Re: On places one cannot leave: a rambling

Re: On places one cannot leave: a rambling

Re: On places one cannot leave: a rambling

Re: On places one cannot leave: a rambling

Re: On places one cannot leave: a rambling

Re: On places one cannot leave: a rambling

Re: On places one cannot leave: a rambling

Re: On places one cannot leave: a rambling

Re: On places one cannot leave: a rambling

Re: On places one cannot leave: a rambling

Re: On places one cannot leave: a rambling

Re: On places one cannot leave: a rambling

Re: On places one cannot leave: a rambling

Re: On places one cannot leave: a rambling

Re: On places one cannot leave: a rambling

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject