Making good choices and accepted other people's choices.

I have a good head on my shoulders. How do I know that?  It's because I survived my first job with my integrity and wellbeing intact. What was my first job? I sold tickets to porno movies for the mob.  I was 16 years old! 

Now, some may argue that working for the mob selling tickets to porno movies when you are underage is itself – a bad decision.  And you wouldn't be entirely wrong. But in my defense, when I took the job, I didn't know that would be the job. Do I make good decisions? Yes, because I obviously handled what turned out to be a crazy job - quite well.  

The theater was a revival movie house. We showed more than porno movies. Just - we also showed slightly more porno movies than is legally allowed before you have to register as a porno theater. We got raided by the cops. A lot. The pornos we showed was almost all art films and cult films. It also turned out the theater was a money laundering operation for a gay mobster but that's another story.  

What I remember the most was how hysterical it was when young men, going to an art film porno on a Sunday morning, suddenly have to purchase a ticket from an obviously underage girl. They universally stammer their way into explaining why the movie they are going to see – wasn’t something they were PLANNING on seeing even though, that's totally what they had planned. They would make an excuse like - my girlfriend is shopping (even though there were no stores near us) and they had time to kill. What movies are available? Oh - it's a porno?  Oh well - might as well see it. Men, just so you know, you don't have to explain to anyone why you are going to a porno movie. The people selling tickets - don't care.  

Despite being surrounded by the mob, prostitutes (both male and female) and people doing drugs, and being head hunted by famous strippers to learn the trade, and being hit on, a lot,  I got through that job – without trying drugs. Without getting raped. Without having sex, without working in a sex club, and without going on any dates with questionable people, though there were a couple I seriously considered, including a concert pianist or the guy who went on to become a famous Oscar winning movie director both of whom – I liked. Despite everything I was exposed to and multiple opportunities to make questionable life choices, I made good decisions for myself.  

As for how this relates to Humanism. If you want to know why I am so completely non-judgmental when I meet people, it’s because – I’ve MET people.  You are almost assuredly pretty boring compared to some of the people I’ve met.   And I do love boring but interesting people so don’t think of that as an insult. If you are boring - I mean that you aren't making choices that create unnecessary drama and hardship for yourself or the people around you. I've seen PLENTY of that. I prefer boring over unnecessary trauma.   

(Note: If you want to learn how to make better decisions to avoid unnecessary drama and trauma - I have a course called Living Made Simpler that explains how I use the Humanist philosophy to making difficult decisions in all aspects of my life - https://humanistlearning.com/livingmadesimpler1/) 

The main thing I learned though – is that everyone I met, every single person I met, including the ones I knew enough to say no to, were human beings worthy of being treated with dignity. 

The other lesson? The reason I was ok through all of that, was because every single person I met, was ok with me saying NO.  Even the kind of scary, almost assuredly mentally ill guy that would come by on occasion to hit on me  – accepted me saying no to him. 

So – when we talk about rape, understand something important. People who don’t accept "NO" - ARE The problem and they are the exception. Because I’ve hung out with strippers, had extensive conversations with prostitutes brought by their Johns to see violent porno movies and other people of equally – interesting backgrounds.  And at no point, was I ever made to feel like I wasn’t safe or didn’t have control over whether I was ok with things or not. I knew what my boundaries were and kept them and my boundaries were ALWAYS respected.  It was ok for me to say no to people involved with the mob. 

Consent is everything. People who ignore consent are uncommon – fortunately – but they are ABSOLUTELY terrifying and do a tremendous amount of damage to everyone else.  

Making good choices, only works to keep yourself safe, if the people around you – respect your choices.  This is what we should be teaching – as normal. This is what I learned was normal selling tickets to porno movies for the mob. It must be ok for people to say – no thank you. I’m not interested in doing drugs, having sex or working at a strip club or whatever else I said no to.  If you want to do those things – have fun. But I’m not interested.  That was ALWAYS ok which is why it was ok for me to work there. 

Most people - accept consent as foundational to everything. Those that don't - are dangerous.  And when I say, accept consent. As soon as I said no, no one cajoled me or tried to make me change my mind. Never. If I said I wasn't interested, the conversation stopped there. Always.  Anyone who tries to make you change your mind, isn't accepting your no which means, they are dangerous. 

On Creating Boundaries

Question: How do I create and maintain boundaries for myself:

Answer:

The hard part is a) figuring out where the boundary should be. b) figuring out how to enforce that boundary. c) doing so compassionately.

This is a lot like parenting actually. And it depends entirely on how exactly the behavior manifests.

Boundaries

Creating boundaries are important when dealing with someone with a mental health issue.  It’s what allows you to be compassionate and supportive without getting hurt yourself.

I was asked about how to create boundaries with someone who has borderline personality disorder.  This individual loves her husband, but, his mental health problems create emotionally destructive challenges for her.

The first thing to do when trying to be supportive but needing to create boundaries is to better understand the condition. Just as knowing my son has loose ligaments in his body helps us adjust his physical activity so he can play without getting hurt, understanding what is happening with a mental health problem helps us create boundaries to protect ourselves so that we CAN be supportive. Knowing what a person can or cannot control in terms of their behavior helps us to step away without anger when they are behaving in a way that hurts us or causes harm so that we can protect ourselves as necessary.

According to psych central: people with borderline personality disorder have abandonment issues, unstable intense relationships where they idealize and then dehumanize their partner. They also tend to have unstable self-image problems (probably related to the abandonment issues) and self damaging impulsivity problems.  See: http://psychcentral.com/lib/characteristics-of-borderline-personality-disorder/ for a fuller description.

What my friend wanted to know was how she can deal with her partner’s clinginess and dangerous impulses. My advice to her was that the clinginess has to be dealt with first as that is the most damaging to the person dealing with someone like this. Being restricted from having friends and a life outside the relationship prevents the caregiver from taking care of themselves. The challenge is to find a way to help the spouse feel secure while also making sure you take care of yourself. Knowing that you being away create anxiety, perhaps she can create a check in schedule with the spouse when she is away. This changes the dynamic from – he is checking up on me and controlling me, to me helping him to feel secure since that is something he struggles with and can’t really control.

The challenge with creating the boundary is where to put it so that hopefully both partners will get their needs met. But the boundary has to be put where the person who needs to create a boundary needs it to be placed. You cannot ever totally satisfy someone who is insecure and anxious and you should not try to. Should you create reasonable accommodations? Yes. Allow them to control you? No.

The point of a boundary is to create space between the person suffering from mental health problems and the person supporting the person with mental health problems. It’s about responsibility. The person suffering from the mental health problems has a responsibility to get help with their mental health issue. They cannot and should not put all the responsibility for coping with their condition on their partners or other people. That’s the boundary.

The other thing I would do with someone with borderline personality disorder is that I would ensure that their dangerous impulse problems do not affect me. I've had several friends with this problem and you just have to say no to doing certain activities with them. I have come to view dangerous impulse problems as a suicidal. They are trying to kill themselves by accident. Recognize it as such and then take appropriate steps to ensure that you don't get killed in their attempts to kill themselves.

Finally, try to make sure they get the professional help they need and they stick to it.  This is not easy to do and there is only so much you can do. The person with the mental health problems has to take responsibility for managing their condition. You can’t force them to get help. All you can do is encourage them to get help. And if they don’t get that help and eventually succeed in harming themselves, that isn’t your fault. You can’t fix them and you aren’t responsible for fixing them.  All you can do is support them and know, sometimes that isn’t enough.

To help with this – I would also seek out mental health care for myself because supporting someone with a mental illness or mental health issue is mentally distressing and exhausting. A professional will help you learn how to create the boundaries for your specific situation. Which is why the advice is – go to get counseling even if your partner does not.  People’s whose job is to professional help people cope with mental health problems will give you way better advice than I can in a blog post. So if you find yourself in a difficult situation like this – get professional help!

How to say “no”

How to avoid temptation and distraction.

You have to stay focused. But how? There are so many things you could be doing. So many things you should be doing. And so many people asking you for help. How can you say “no” to avoid temptation and stay on task to be more successful?

I’m glad you asked.  BufferApp Blog posted an essay on “A Scientific Guide to Saying No.” (See: http://blog.bufferapp.com/a-scientific-guide-to-saying-no-how-to-avoid-temptation-and-distraction)   For those of you too lazy to click there, here is what the research shows.

It turns out that the language you use to say “no” has a huge impact on how you actually act.  The difference is whether you use empowering language vs. dis-empowering language.  There is also a moral component to this.

If you say – I can’t do x – you are disempowering yourself. It doesn’t feel good and you feel like you are cheating yourself out of something. Like ice cream.

If, on the other hand you say – I don’t do x – you have empowered yourself and added a moral dimension to your refusal.

It turns out that “I can’t” is experienced as a restriction of choice, which most people naturally rebel against and “I don’t” is experienced as a choice, and who doesn’t like choices.  For the record “just say no” works better than “I can’t,” but not by much – again – there is research behind this.

Your experiment for this week is to test out this change in language for yourself and see what happens. Report back and let me know!