January31
post transfered from an older blog — I will add these from time to time
My counselor recommended the book, “Boundaries,” by Cloud and Townsend to me last week, and I picked up a copy at the library.
This is tying together many of the questions that I’ve had about my own life, and many of my mixed feelings about my parents. The lack of boundaries between me and my parents is fairly clear to me in many ways, and over the past several years, I’ve been trying to learn to develop them, both unconsciously (pulling away, saying “no”) and consciously (understanding what boundaries are and actively trying to create my own limits).
This also ties in to my feelings about money and my lack of confidence that I can take care of myself. There were several examples in the book of the adult child whom a parent has “bailed out” on several ocassions. With each example, I felt myself wince and slip a little lower in my chair — it sounds so familiar, except that I haven’t been the one going to them asking for help. Yet, at the same time, when the “help” has been offered, I’ve taken it. I keep feeling like the message I’ve been given is that I’m not good enough to make it alone, and that until I’m married (and have someone else capaple who will take care of me), that they feel that it’s their job.
Resenting that won’t get me very far. But at the same time, I’m really unsure of how to not feel this way. I’ve learned that “willpower” isn’t the way to go, just as the book has said it wouldn’t be. All that does is make me sink in my own esteem a little more when once again, I fail to set boundaries with MYSELF. So what is the answer? The short answer is, “don’t accept any more charity from them,” but it’s really not quite that simple. My own financial state is really just a symptom of something much deeper, something that has been going on for some time. I really wish that way back when…once upon a time, when I first had a credit card bill of $500 to pay off, that they would have just sat down and coached me on budgeting and counseling… Okay…again, this isn’t about what I wish they would or wouldn’t have done. What can *I* do that will change the situation?
Emotionally, I still find I have a very difficult time doing work for my father, and I’m not entirely sure how that fits in with this, except that I know it does. I end up disregarding the boundaries known as “deadlines,” and fail to set boundaries with Dad about when is acceptable for him to call me about work, and when is not. Somehow, when I say that I will “do work for him,” he seems to act as if he then owns my time. He called me on Thursday night, when I happened to be at Lani’s house preparing dinner. When I said where I was, he suggested that perhaps I shouldn’t be out “doing things” when I hadn’t finished a project for him.
Bullshit. If I’m putting in the hours that I have told him I will put in, he has no right to tell me what I should do with my time otherwise. Really, thinking about that, it kind of pisses me off. So, rules…I suppose that as little as I like “set schedules,” the answer to this (other than quitting work for him and moving on, again, leaving the issue there unaddressed) is to set office hours, when I will and will not be available to him for work. He can call me about work during those times and only those times. Of course, this means setting some limits for myself…which again, is what I seem to have a hard time doing.
I’m running out of steam here for now…but am also feeling very irritated that I will stay in Colorado Springs rather than move to Austin, as I’d hoped with a PhD program. It’s not about Colorado Springs this time, though, but about wanting some distance between me and my parents, specifically my dad. Funny how none of this is about Mom, other than when she acts as his mouthpiece (ie, calling to say, have you finished his project).
If I knew that there was a good position out there that I could take on, I think I would like to not work for Dad, at least not until I figure out all of the boundary issues there.
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