Setting Boundaries — Where do we not belong?
A Post-election guide for white people on the left (and beyond)
December 6, 2020
In our last discussion, we talked about where do we belong, and how to cultivate belonging. It was a process of thinking about INCLUDING. And we approached it from three levels — who are our people, our inner circle, our family; who are our tribe; and finally who are our community and what is the culture of that community?
We want to be purposeful about pursuing meaningful relationships with our kin. We want to committed to participating in our tribe(s). As political scientist Timothy Snyder points out in his short book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, “one element of freedom is the choice of associates, and one defense of freedom is the activity of groups to sustain their members.” He goes on:
This is why we should engage in activities that are of interest to us, our friends, our families. These need not be expressly political: Václav Havel, the Czech dissident thinker, gave the example of brewing good beer.
Insofar as we take pride in these activities, and come to know others who do so as well, we are creating civil society. Sharing in an undertaking teaches us that we can trust people beyond a narrow circle of friends and families, and helps us to recognize authorities from whom we can learn. The capacity for trust and learning can make life seem less chaotic and mysterious, and democratic politics more plausible and attractive.
Which means, yes, you should throw yourself into your knitting circle, church, queer softball league, belly dancing troupe, or halau. You should make things, perform, and take pleasure. All of these cultivate humanizing politics and create stronger, more compassionate societies.
But this installment is specifically to talk about the other important work we must do to cultivate love and belonging — EXCLUDING, or setting boundaries. Many of us, especially those of us in particularly gendered bodies, or those who are already prone to empathy and compassion, tend to take on the problems and struggles of others as our own. We may struggle to say no when we are asked to do things. And we may feel the need to fight every fight on behalf of every cause.
This is unsustainable. And it is unhealthy for you and for those you think you are helping. That’s right. By not knowing how to set healthy boundaries, you are not only behaving codependently yourself, but you may well be enabling others’ codependence, underfunctioning, or even narcissism.
What is more, you may be expending all your emotional energy propping up these folx, leaving none at the end for you to do more meaningful work and relationship building in the world.
- So, we are going to start with the easy boundaries first: social media.
I am not here to shame you for your social media use, or to harp on your sleep hygiene. We are all isolated in this pandemic and we must fulfill our social needs in whatever ways are available to us.
But it is too easy to get sucked into toxic environments and arguments with toxic people as we engage social media. If you haven’t done so yet, it’s time to take a good hard look at your experience with people online. If you aren’t on social media or you’ve done all this already, skip ahead to number two.
First, look at the groups you participate in. Are they communities you’re invested in? Do they have a code of conduct and good moderators? Do you generally feel you gain something positive 9 times out of 10 when interacting with the group? If yes to all of these, then great! These folx are part of your tribe or community. Be purposeful about how you participate.
If the answer is no, then leave the group. Especially if you feel like your role in that group is to educate, argue, or defend. As Snyder puts it, “Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen.” Don’t spend your emotional energy arguing, feeding the trolls, or correcting.
There are two essential elements to what’s happening in interactions with strangers online. The first, and perhaps most important, is the disinhibition effect, which is what happens when we interact with one another online. When we are not faced with another’s human presence, it is easy to dehumanize them and think of them not as a person with thoughts and feelings like us, but just as a vague “enemy.” This means both that we are less kind and that others give themselves permission to be downright awful in ways they would likely never be to your face.
So, if there are real-life relationships that you want to maintain, but they have become strained over political arguments online — stop interacting online. At all. Because neither one of you are good at it.
More importantly, though, is the second major element, which is that a certain faction of people enjoy spending their time trolling regular folx and sucking up their energy in pointless arguments. Don’t feed the trolls. My therapist has a useful phrase I try to repeat to myself whenever I need to back away from getting embroiled in an argument with strangers online — “Not my circus, not my monkeys.”
Now, if it is your circus, that’s a different matter. There is also one other instance in which it may be valuable to push back — when doing so is for those who are listening from the edges, not to convince the person who is arguing. You’ll never convince anyone in an online argument. But you may signal to others that you don’t believe the hateful bile they are spewing, which may be just the affirmation that some silent bystanders need. But even so, you should never argue the facts. Simply state that you do not believe [insert bigoted opinion here] because [insert affirming statement here], and “that’s all I have to say about tha-at.”
Leave groups. Unfriend or unfollow. Block people.
Also, maybe unfollow very partisan political outlets. Certain platforms on the left are producing media just as sensationalized and plucked from context as those on the right. Stop doing that. You may choose to excise all news from your social media feed and to engage with current events through well-respected and vetted outlets only. I leave that to you. But for sure unfollow the outrage machines. They are literally capitalizing off of your emotions and leaving you too spent to do anything material.
2. Now we have to talk about toxic IRL relationships. This becomes a more difficult or nebulous thing for me to address, because we all experience toxic relationships from different quarters and it is really impossible to generalize while being inclusive. So, I’m going to point out some resources for helping you to evaluate whether there are toxic relationships in your life that you need to work to reprioritize, and then suggest some things that have helped me.
But I would encourage everyone to do some extended work on creating boundaries around toxic relationships in our lives. Some of these boundaries are hard to create because they aren’t as simple as “no contact” with a narcissist — either because we have to keep encountering the narcissist who is the parent of our kids or step kids, or because we don’t want to lose the whole relationship, just keep it from leaving emotional land mines in our daily lives.
Step 1: Identify Toxic Relationships — these are relationships that either need to go or to have firm boundaries. Ask yourself these questions and see if anyone from your intimate circle (the 5–15 people with whom you spend most of your time and/or energy):
- Does anyone in my life attempt to change my behavior in ways that are not about being respectful of their boundaries? (Does someone criticize you, or suggest eating plans, or give unsolicited advice?)
- Are there any relationships in your life that are not mutually beneficial? Perhaps relationships you maintain because you “go way back,” or they “need you”?
- Are there any relationships where the effort, planning, contacting, and sacrifice are one-sided?
- Are there any relationships where you are not comfortable expressing your needs and confident they will be respected once expressed?
- Are there any relationships that seem to be more stress, tension, compromise, or conflict than they are happy?
Any relationships you’ve identified with these questions need to be examined. In particular, if the relationship is abusive, or the person perpetuating it is a narcissist, the only way to set a boundary and keep it is to go “no contact.” If this is not an option — for whatever complicating reason — it is worth reading about strategies for managing a relationship with a narcissist — be it an ex, a co-worker, a parent, whomever.
If you must be in contact, be in as little contact as possible, stick only to business, never get drawn into an argument on the spot (always ask to get back to them when you’ve had time to think it over, and do so in writing). And otherwise be as interesting as a grey rock. (A narcissist is always looking for drama — it is their narcissistic supply. So if you supply the drama they’re looking for, they will keep coming back to get more.)
Step 2: Identify co-dependent relationships. These relationships may not be abusive, but they’re also not healthy for either party. Be on the lookout for relationships that create resentment, where you feel under appreciated or taken for granted. Relationships in which other people try to make their problems your problems.
Codependents and narcissists can sometimes look very similar, so being able to figure out who just has boundary issues and who is actively trying to manipulate and take advantage is not easy. The best way to figure it out is to set a boundary and see how they take it. If they are grumpy but adjust, you’re in a codependent, but probably not abusive relationship. If the boundary is treated as an affront to them personally and they up the ante, they’re probably narcissistic or otherwise abusive and you need to take stronger steps.
It’s time to take a look at these co-dependencies and ask yourself why do you absorb their problems as yours? Do you not trust them enough to handle their own things? Or do you simply have a need for control that overrides your ability to let them handle their own stuff. Or something else? Doing the work of co-dependence is not something that can be done in a day, or a week, or a workbook. It’s a long, ongoing, unlearning process by which you begin to be enough for and by yourself. You take responsibility for your own feelings and actions, and let others take responsibility for theirs.
This is not what those socialized as (even if misgendered as) girls and/or women are taught to do, though this can certainly apply to cis-men as well. They (we) are taught to subordinate their (our) own needs and desires, and to take care of everyone else to such an extent that we no longer recognize the difference between someone else’s needs and our own (it’s theirs, we just think it’s ours because the boundary has dissolved) and we lose track of ours altogether (because it’s buried under theirs-masquerading-as-ours). This is a lot of stuff. A LOT.
The point of this is not to say you must be 100% independent and healthy before you can do activist work. That’s not at all feasible or even desirable. BUT we must be conscious of our difficulties with boundaries (and working to have better ones) so that we do not take responsibility for struggles that do not belong to us. This is white saviorism. And when we don’t know that we could have this tendency, we may be hurt when our efforts are met with rejection or anger because they were harmful, but we meant well. Then we will center our white feelings in non-white spaces and the harms grow exponentially.
The moral of the story is — if we are not doing the work to be our best selves we will definitely cause harm, and when we do, we will not be able to listen, to process our feelings on our own, and learn from our mistakes. When we don’t have firm boundaries, we take on the fights and feelings of others, which drains our energy and enables toxic relationships to continue.
