When Healthy Boundaries Aren't An Option

[Sunset]

This has been one of my ongoing issues, and one that it seems like no therapist ever has any idea of how to deal with. How do you cope in situations where healthy boundaries simply aren't an option on the table? I know long-term you try to get out of the situation, but in the short term how do you handle such a situation and still remain sane?

So, an example. My previous landlord was often quite inappropriate, yelling and screaming, insisting on new rules that weren't in the lease, that sort of thing. This meant I was having someone in my apartment who was yelling and screaming frequently. I had talked to legal aid, but what I found out was basically there wasn't a lot I could do. A court case would take longer than the 6 months left on the lease and would leave me vulnerable to retaliation in the meantime. By state law I had to admit him to the property, and with how he behaved towards my cat I did not feel safe not being in the place while he was there.

The whole situation was a set of major boundary violations. The trouble is there was nothing I could do. He had a lot of power to make my life miserable and I had very little power to stop it. I could say where the boundaries are but the only person likely to be hurt by enforcing boundaries was me.

I've had similar situations happen before. I mentioned one at my undergrad, where the school psychiatrist had an unhealthy and rather creepy interest. I tried everything I safely could, but the reality was standing up to him, I was in a situation where I was the only one who would pay. I'd get kicked out of school (subsequently losing my acceptance to a good graduate program) and he's go right on being the hero for keeping a dangerous student off of campus.

I've brought this up with therapists before and they've all avoided the question and just given me a bunch of the same stuff I know on setting healthy boundaries. That's not the problem. The problem is I've found, realistically, that I suffer from them. In most cases the problem people aren't really people I chose to be in my life, but people who were in a position to force themselves in whether I wanted them there or not. Where setting healthy boundaries might mean not eating or not having a roof over your head or something similar.

 

[RussH]

As far as your landlord; document the times he comes in and acts out toward you, and making demands regarding rules not in the lease agreement, then you might be in a position to break the lease agreement without penalty, and start looking for a new place.

 

[Friday]

In my experience there is no way to have it not affect you at all... However...

Don't keep secrets.

Whether it's a jerk of a boss, a skeevy colleague, a family member that needs to pound sand, etc.? As long as I'm bitching about them, then I haven't normalized or justified their behavior. I am aware, and wary, and ticked off. I don't have to blather on about them 24/7, but as long as I'm still talking about them? As long as if a friend asks how the creepy boss is I can laugh or groan and list off 23 "Dude. That's wrong. That's so wrong." things or not even list but talk about the situation? Then their behavior is still unacceptable. They stay in their gross little box over there... Way... Way... Over... --> there. Instead of getting tendrils oozing into the way that I think/act/feel.

It's not 100%. But it's as close as I've managed.

Also, it keeps me honest. Because in most of life, I have choices. Everyone gets tired of hearing the same complaints over and over. Most people have patience right up until the moment when we can actually affect change. So, say my school program ends? And I take a job there instead of seeking employment on the moon rather than put up with Skeevy McGetawayfromme? Not kosher. I need to alter my situation the moment it becomes feasible to. Which is also part of those boundaries.

Some people grow on you. And need to be scraped off.

 

[Sunset]

Can we please not talk about the situations themselves too much? I don't want to have to list everything I tried or looked into in every bad situation or have to justify that there weren't good options. It comes across as really victim-blaming rather than helpful.

 

[Justmehere]

I understand you probably feel exhausted about taking about what you could have tried and what you did try.

People are offering suggestions to help. It's good to tell people you don't want to talk about the specific examples you gave. I also think it's good to recognize that it's natural to speak of the situations when the poster posts about them. It's also good to recognize that no one is actually blaming you at all in any way. (Victim blaming looks very different.)

You did have options to leave both situations, but at HUGE costs to you. You also had choices to stay, also at big costs to you. That's inherent in being hurt by others. There are people in the world who are massive jerks. No amount of boundary setting erases the all pain they cause or eliminates all the damage they do. Boundaries are not about being able to eliminate the pain and costs of what jerks do. Healthy boundaries commonly increase pain and costs we have to endure in the short run. But I'm guessing you don't really want to talk about the purpose of boundary setting...

You are asking a good question about how to cope with the pain of hurtful things people do.

Some of what you do is what is already being suggested to you:
- Document and keep good records incase you do choose to take action. Or incase the plan to say nothing backfires and they come to you. It's a way to protect yourself. It's good to take other steps to protect yourself when possible. (There are more ways to do that other than just setting boundaries.)
- Talk about it. Reach out for support to safer people around you. Sharing about it can help people emotionally.

I would also add:
- Spend as much time as you can away from the situations. Spend time in places where you are safer.
- Learn about grounding, mindfulness, other coping skills to endure the pain as easily as possible.
- Grieve. Yeah, grieve even these losses. It is a loss to not have a safe calm landlord and to not have a safe environment at your school.
- build up a support network. Everyone needs one anyhow. It makes tough situations easier to endure when we know we have support elsewhere.
- build stronger internal boundaries. (Not internal walls - that's different.)

All this is stuff I am learning myself. It's tough and it's not fair we have to do this or that life is so damn broken. Sometimes we have to endure crappy situations for awhile.

 

[Ms.Chrysalis]

It seems many of us have no shortage of people sensing we have trouble of being assertive or fear saying "no" or "please don't do that" without bad things happening next.

I think, in theory, boundaries are about protecting ourselves from others' behavior, rather than changing someone else's behavior - because sometimes we're just not in a powerful enough position to be even be heard, much less respected.

So then the question is, what boundaries can you set in order to protect yourself from your landlord's behavior affecting you adversely, that may not result in a change in the way HE acts, but will make you feel more at peace?

At one point, while trying to hold onto a job because I was going under financially anyway, while dealing with a creepy boss for far too long (that ignored my asking him to stop or his behavior was inappropriate), I just began to walk away and find something else to keep me busy, or if I couldn't, hum an old hymn my grandmother used to sing for comfort.

Yeah, probably weird and voluntary "detachment" or "dissociation", yes, but there's a reason our minds do that anyway, voluntary or not - to protect us from harmful stimuli - at least you can end the voluntary kind yourself once the stimulus has left the building :)

Perhaps a calendar, too, counting down the days and celebrating surviving another day of this nonsense until you're in a better place :)

 

[Sunset]

Even little things sometimes. It would mean a lot to me to be able to ride the bus to work in peace. And a good portion of the time that doesn't happen, because some guy has decided he absolutely has to have your attention and will keep trying until he gets it. Major boundary violation, yet I have to accept it as part of life.

 

[Friday]

This probably won't be a good solution for you... But it might get a smile about having the option! My friends brother, since he was a kid riding greyhound on custody trips (and now on his way to/from work) just wanted to be left alone. So he fills an IV bag halfway up with apple juice, hangs it from his belt, and threads the tube through his fly. Poof. Instant leper. No one will sit next to him, and almost no one will talk to him. Turns an invisable disability into a visable one. Of course, the trade off is constant stares, but he ignores those. He did try dark glasses an and carrying a folded stick a few times (their cousin is blind, and to be fair, I was there at the pub when he warned him it wouldn't work. People only leave you alone when you need help), but people kept shouting at him. I won $20 on that bet.

 

[maryiscontrary]

Yeah, good suggestion Friday! Do what you can to creep and gross out your landlord. Dishevel your hair, and get a crazy dennis hopper psycho look. Get all crazy skull with him. See how he likes being creeped out.

 

[Sunset]

Yeah, good suggestion Friday! Do what you can to creep and gross out your landlord. Dishevel your hair, and get a crazy dennis hopper psycho look. Get all crazy skull with him. See how he likes being creeped out.

Unfortunately in that particular case, part of the problem was that he had ridiculous cleaning standards to begin with. So if he came by and there was a spot of cat fur on the carpet, the carpet was "stained" (even after I picked up said stain) and he'd give me 24h to vacuum all the cat fur up and remove everything including furniture so he could see, or else he'd try to bill me for replacing the carpet. If I stood up to him, he'd go telling my roommates that they were going to have to pay because of me - he never targeted them, it was ok for guys to be messy. Plus the whole screaming and coming by frequently mess. And of course I'd called a lawyer and been told that it was his free speech, as long as he didn't attempt to throw me out or directly and clearly threaten me there was nothing I could do.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I don't believe a landlord can have UNLIMITED access to the house/apartment. Would it be OK for him to come into the house every day a 2am? How about 3x a day during every meal? No, there are limits to this. He can NOT come in whenever he wants! Yes, he owns the place, but you have a right to privacy. Every landlord I have had (in 3 different states) has notified us IN ADVANCE if they were going to be in the apartment/house.

As for that lawyer, I believe he is wrong. Did you tell the lawyer that your landlord is coming into the house at all times and harassing you? Just because he's a lawyer doesn't mean he knows jack shit. Every class had somebody graduate a the bottom!

 

[Sunset]

The guy was good. He wasn't coming in without notice - but when he was in he'd bother my cat in a way that made me afraid to not be there. I didn't want my girl alone, partly because of his temper and partly because the way the guy acted he was going to get bit/scratched for cornering her. And I didn't want to deal with him being able to label her a dangerous animal.

He was quite careful. He would take very misleading pictures, making it look like things were damaged that weren't, passing off fur as stains and spilled eyeshadow as mold. And then those pictures justified his continued interference, so if I complained he would point to those pictures and say he was just trying to prevent his property from being damaged. Things would also happen very conveniently, like the wifi would "break" immediately after an argument.