This is a personal journal entry about some upsetting and difficult dynamics I've faced in the past few weeks, as part of trying to process it. I interviewed business/ professional mentors/ coaches in December and January, committed to building support for success for career goals. There were a lot of disappointing options who wanted to "change my mindset" instead of just focus on situational pattern changing in communication so I started seeing more positive results and feeling confident. Except this one woman who was a mature professional, who had been in rooms where the expectation to communicate at a higher level is expected. She was the level of competency I expected to be around. This was an important relationship I wanted to work, so when some issues came up, I committed to expressing boundaries, presenting calm feedback professionally about some areas where she made unhelpful comments. She was dismissive with my feedback, but there were some really shining moments working together. I felt like she really helped identify how to communicate clearly and professionally my goals in a variety of situations, and I got positive responses. Having this level of support, connecting with someone I felt like was an equal, with different life experience and professional skill development she could contribute for me to learn from, I started to feel hope, look ahead with feelings that I could aim him and succeed. Except there was this irritant in this behaviour pattern which repeated itself, and was exactly the feedback I set out at the beginning as needing improvement for the relationship to work. It involved in presenting this confrontational antagonistic position toward me when I tried to communicate decisions, positions, or observations about situations or people. The way it was communicated felt condescending, and the only repeated way I felt about it was why she didn't have confidence in my intuition and observations. I gave her feedback several times that these instances were unhelpful, and she was dismissive. She would justify and excuse her "intentions" as a "misunderstanding," and I explained it wasn't about a misunderstanding.
Things she said were "off," like making comments that were personal instead of objective. Sometimes it was my descriptions of relationships with people who I'd worked with before over a few years not presenting real opportunities or feeling like they were serious about business. One time it was about career and job options in certain industries and big companies having very narrowly defined specified positions that I wouldn't be qualified for, as opposed to broader positions of earlier stage companies, and she thought her job was to challenge me that I was afraid to apply for job I was qualified for, which was completely off base, but she wouldn't believe me until I had to go dig up the specific job and show her. Then she was like "oh that's not the right job for you." My feeling was why no just BELIEVE me instead of constantly undermining and confronting me in this antagonistic way. Who needs being undermined like that constantly? That's the opposite of setting new, confidence building patterns.
This all came to a head when I did my first interview for content for the non-fiction proposal. It was a friend I've known for a long time, and knew how I wanted to present his story in the narrative of the book, but he went off the deep end, down a rabbit hole. While I knew he had some extreme ideas, I was respectful and objective during the conversation, so when he crossed a line and started being confrontational and going from debate to conflict, I wasn't ok with it. Lines were blurred because of the long friendship, and I was upset about it. What I came to realize about this situation and others is that I work on learning new, better patterns about boundary setting. I didn't learn good patterns growing up, so I need people around me to support and show me how to do it well - I'm not good at it by any means. Instead, she made this personal. She told me I needed to be "resilient" which is a mental health word that is an inappropriate comment for someone on a mental health recovery journey. She made inappropriate comparisons with this long time friend who was contributing to my book and random strangers on the internet who will criticise my book when it's published. The thing is, she didn't need to make it personal at all if she had been focused on supporting and identifying how to set healthy boundaries in the situation. That was the cue for me.
Again, I gave her feedback that these patterns from her were unhelpful. Again she was dismissive and excused her "intentions," and at this point I started to feel like why can't she listen to me when I give her feedback? I told her it wasn't a misunderstanding - I was already struggling with my reactivity to the first situation, and now this relationship that had felt positive was also upsetting me by not being heard. I tried to express my mental health needs request, and she made it about her. Nothing about any of it was about her hearing my needs and responding to them. That made me feel like she wouldn't listen to me unless I communicated them perfectly, which made it even worse for me. Plus, then she just felt condescending, not someone who saw me as an equal. She said she understood where she stood and said I provided context for her, then proceeded to justify and excuse her behaviour by saying she was "pandering" to me which is completely judgemental. That's when I pressed pause and said no this is not ok with me and I need to figure this out. The whole reason I expressed my boundaries as being important at the beginning was to avoid being put under strain where I was spinning out, but I spun out for three days feeling like shit that she was treating me this way, wondering why I needed to repeat this feedback six times, three of which telling her not listening to my feedback was a problem for me - and still not being heard. It took me THREE DAYS for the lightbulb to go off that the reason she was reactive when I talked about situations with other people where I needed some boundaries was the same reason she excused and justified her behaviour when I gave her feedback. She doesn't understand boundaries! That helped lift a weight off of me and I felt a lot lighter not spinning in circles wondering why I wasn't being heard. It did not, however, provide a solution whether the situation could be resolved given her inability or lack of proficiency in understanding boundaries. At least I didn't feel crazy anymore. However, I did feel very hurt. Plus the particular way she was judgemental and constantly undermining me and antagonistic toward me was definitely not ok with me. There was a reason I had a problem with that from the beginning. Some of you know I have had a lot of stalking in my adult life - three stalkers cumulative time being followed daily 5-6 years of my adult life. Far too much for five lifetimes. The first one was a 30 year old manager at my first major job after my degree. The problem was the two closest women in my life - my mother and one of my best friends - both dismissed and undermined me. They told me I was the one who was obsessed with him. They told me I was supposed to ignore him, when I was harassed constantly multiple times per day. They told me maybe he was a nice guy and I should give him a chance, when he was being completely creepy. This is the problem with women. They make it about you when you have a situation that's not safe and you need boundaries. Women say you're vain. Why would I think men are attracted to me and stalk me - I'm not a supermodel. I DON'T KNOW! Why don't you go tell them that! Go ask them! Hey, stop stalking her, she's not a supermodel. What are you thinking? Because people undermined me, instead of believing me, instead of saying "that guy sounds like he's being creepy, let's think of ways you can address the situation. What's the appropriate way to escalate it, let people know you're not ok? Who can't you talk to about it? What's an appropriate way to address the situation?" They gaslighted me. The situation doesn't exist. It's in your head. Stop being so full of yourself and arrogant. I feel like that's who this woman would be to me if I came to her with a business situation that made me uncomfortable like this and needed help to set boundaries to feel safe. That situation with that manager went on for years. Eventually an immature admin assist joined and started a love triangle, and I was doubly harassed because she was jealous of the harassment and attention he was showing me that I did not want.
She makes every observation where the answer is simple: support me in setting new patterns about communicating healthy boundaries well. About something personal, some flaw in me she's "pandering" to because she needs to be judgemental. I just kept thinking "Confident people don't need to be passive aggressive." "Confident people don't need to judge other people to feel better about themselves." I've spent a few days trying to process that, because I am disappointed that she ruined something so positive and good with this behaviour. Which I knew from the start would derail the relationship and she ignored my efforts to care that that didn't happen. That is probably a sign of immaturity, I guess. She responded to me today, and I haven't read it yet. The whole reason she was reactive to my observations about other people were that I knew the patterns and could expect how they would behave. With the friend from the interview, I could tell he was not self-aware, and built up this protectionism, so I didn't expect him to respond to me in a healthy way. In fact he did not. He deflected, projected my statements onto me, was upset that I was communicating that I didn't like these expectations he had for me to cross these lines and be confrontational. He kept reacting to the point where he even tried to insult the goal of the book project. The implication was I was supposed to meet his expectations of his confrontational messages and if I didn't it meant the goals of my book weren't serious! I was thinking that's the part that made her so upset, that I wasn't surprised and could anticipate how someone would respond to me, even though I was still disappointed. I thought how do I expect this woman to respond to me now? I guess realistically I shouldn't expect ownership from her. I should probably expect more excuse making and justification and making more personal statements about me. What would help, what would resolve the situation would be acknowledgement. Recognizing how upset I was because of her behavior and recognizing that. However, my note to her after our first conversation was that she seemed like becoming more empathetic would help her coaching skills grow. Meaning that level of empathy is probably not something I should expect her to have at this moment, and I shouldn't be surprised by more of the same responses from her. Which means it's time to take what I can that I learned from her and move on, because I don't see how to recover a situation where she can't see and acknowledge the consequences of her behaviour. Yet she's the one projecting that I need to be more resilient? Talking to a writing friend, she mentioned something about conversations about codependent patterns, about being committed to breaking them by showing up in different ways. I tried to show up in a way that was committed not to repeat codependent patterns, but we are still there anyway. I wish I was better at not having codependent patterns to begin with, and I ask myself in this situation, should I be able to respond to her better. Maybe there are people who are better at it who would be, but I don't have those patterns practiced and learned, and I am not good enough at it to know what I am supposed to do. I tried to ask her to avoid the patterns to get here to begin with. I need people in my life who can support and show me how to set those patterns, instead of repeat how not to. I am committed to breaking codependent patterns, and not repeating those patterns in this situation, even if that means walking away. I wish I didn't have to repeat the pattern of walking away because that's one I'm too good at. However, these are red flags, and she is not addressing them, and that's ok that I don't want to participate in it, at least.
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