Well, y\u2019all. Welcome to my TED Talk Series. \ud83d\ude07
Today\u2019s topic: Psychology, empathy, boundaries, and the astonishing audacity of grown adults.
Now, for those who may not know, I double-majored in nursing and psychology. So human behavior isn\u2019t exactly a newfound interest of mine. I\u2019ve spent a fair amount of time studying both the human body and the human mind.
And let me tell you, both are fascinating. Although lately, one has been considerably more exhausting than the other.
So grab your coffee. Class is in session. \u2615<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Class dismissed. \u2615 \ud83d\udc9c<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Well, y\u2019all. Welcome to my TED Talk Series. \ud83d\ude07 Today\u2019s topic: Psychology, empathy, boundaries, and the astonishing audacity of grown adults. Now, for those who may not know, I double-majored in nursing and psychology. So human behavior isn\u2019t exactly a newfound interest of mine. I\u2019ve spent a fair amount of time studying both the human […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psych101.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/psych101.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/psych101.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psych101.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psych101.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/psych101.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11,"href":"https:\/\/psych101.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions\/11"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psych101.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psych101.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psych101.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psych101.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Lesson One: Narcissistic Traits and the Perpetual Victim<\/em><\/strong>
Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) can involve an excessive need for admiration, difficulty with empathy, and an intense sensitivity to perceived criticism or rejection.
Certain narcissistic traits can show up in some interesting ways:
Interpreting another person\u2019s reasonable boundaries as a personal attack.
Using guilt, emotional displays, or hurt feelings to pressure others into changing their decisions.
Redirecting attention from the person actually suffering to your own perceived mistreatment.
Expecting everyone else to manage your emotions, regardless of what they\u2019re already dealing with.
Presenting yourself as the victim when someone finally refuses to participate in the manipulation.
There\u2019s even a term for one particularly fascinating pattern: DARVO.
Deny. Attack. Reverse Victim and Offender.
Essentially, someone behaves badly, gets confronted, and suddenly they\u2019re the one who has been wronged.
Quite the magic trick.
One minute, someone is disregarding another person\u2019s wishes. The next, they\u2019re devastated that anyone would dare suggest they\u2019ve done something inappropriate.
Bless their heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lesson Two: Antisocial Traits and the Bully Who Finally Meets a Boundary<\/em>
<\/strong>
Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) involves a persistent pattern of disregarding or violating the rights of others, sometimes including deceitfulness, intimidation, manipulation, and lack of remorse.
Now, not every bully has a personality disorder. Some people have simply spent so many years intimidating others without consequences that they\u2019ve mistaken everyone\u2019s silence for their own authority.
Some behaviors worth examining:
Treating clearly communicated boundaries as optional.
Deliberately circumventing those boundaries to get what you want.
Using intimidation when you encounter resistance.
Believing your position in someone\u2019s life entitles you to disregard their wishes.
Attempting to rewrite events afterward to make your behavior seem reasonable.
Becoming indignant when someone finally calls you out.
Here\u2019s what I find particularly interesting:
People who are accustomed to intimidating others often seem genuinely astonished when they encounter someone who isn\u2019t intimidated (it\u2019s me \ud83d\ude18 I won\u2019t be bullied).
Imagine that.
Years of people keeping the peace can apparently create the illusion that the behavior itself is acceptable.
But sugar, the absence of accountability is not evidence of good character.
Sometimes it just means everyone else was too exhausted to argue with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lesson Three: Weaponized Empathy<\/em><\/strong>
Oh, this one is a personal favorite.
Empathy is the ability to understand and consider another person\u2019s feelings and experiences.
Weaponized empathy, on the other hand, is an informal term for situations where appeals to compassion are used to pressure, guilt, or manipulate someone into meeting another person\u2019s needs.
For example:
\u201cYou should understand how hurt I am.\u201d
\u201cYou should consider how this makes me feel.\u201d
\u201cYou should be more compassionate.\u201d
All potentially reasonable statements in the right context.
But when they\u2019re directed at someone who is protecting a critically ill person\u2019s explicitly stated wishes?
Well, honey, we\u2019ve got ourselves a problem.
Because somehow, the person who is suffering is expected to demonstrate endless understanding for the feelings of the people disregarding his needs.
Meanwhile, those same people seem remarkably uninterested in extending that understanding to him.
You cannot demand empathy for your feelings while refusing to demonstrate empathy for someone else\u2019s suffering.
That\u2019s not compassion.
That\u2019s emotional manipulation wearing a cardigan.
And while we\u2019re discussing empathy, let\u2019s clear up a few misconceptions.
Empathy is not demanding access to someone who has asked for privacy.
Empathy is not insisting that someone who is exhausted entertain you because you want to see them.
Empathy is not forcing your opinions, remedies, or preferred version of comfort onto someone who has already told you what he needs.
Empathy is not making a critically ill person worry about the well-being of his spouse because grown adults cannot manage their own behavior.
Sometimes empathy means staying home.
Sometimes it means accepting an answer you don\u2019t like.
And sometimes it means recognizing that your desire to feel helpful is not more important than someone else\u2019s right to decide what help they actually want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lesson Four: The Difference Between Experience and Expertise
<\/em><\/strong>
Now, since we\u2019re discussing boundaries, let\u2019s address another fascinating phenomenon: unsolicited medical advice.
I am always happy to learn something new. Medicine is constantly evolving, and no healthcare professional knows everything.
But there\u2019s an important distinction between having personal experience with healthcare and having professional education and training in healthcare.
Being a patient can provide valuable insight into what it\u2019s like to receive care.
It does not automatically provide the clinical education necessary to direct someone else\u2019s care.
For those keeping score at home, a few hospital admissions do not constitute a nursing degree, medical degree, or clinical residency.
I know. Shocking.
And while I genuinely appreciate that people have opinions, I am perfectly comfortable declining medical advice that isn\u2019t appropriate for the person I\u2019m caring for.
Particularly when that advice is accompanied by an expectation that I should defer to someone\u2019s personal experience over clinical judgment.
Bless your heart, but a hospital bracelet is not a professional credential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lesson Five: Genuine Altruism vs. Self-Serving Helping
<\/em><\/strong>
Now this is where things get particularly interesting.
Altruism refers to helping behavior motivated by concern for another person\u2019s well-being, without requiring a personal reward.
But not all helping behavior is purely altruistic. Sometimes people help because it makes them feel important, needed, appreciated, or morally superior.
And sometimes, the distinction becomes remarkably clear when the person they\u2019re trying to help says, \u201cNo, thank you.\u201d
Let\u2019s examine.
Genuine helping sounds like:
\u201cWhat do you need?\u201d
\u201cWould this be helpful?\u201d
\u201cI understand. Please let me know if that changes.\u201d
Self-serving helping can sound like:
\u201cBut I just want to help!\u201d
\u201cI can\u2019t believe you won\u2019t let me!\u201d
\u201cAfter everything I\u2019ve done, this is how you treat me?\u201d
\u201cYou\u2019re keeping me from doing something nice!\u201d
See the difference?
In the first scenario, the recipient\u2019s needs determine what help looks like.
In the second, the helper\u2019s feelings determine what the recipient is expected to accept.
And here\u2019s the fascinating part:
If your offer of help becomes a source of conflict the moment someone declines it, perhaps helping them wasn\u2019t your only priority.
Because genuine compassion does not require gratitude, recognition, access, or control.
It certainly doesn\u2019t require a sick person to endure something they don\u2019t want just so someone else can feel good about having provided it.
There\u2019s also a concept called prosocial motivation\u2014the desire to benefit others. But people can have mixed motives, and wanting to help doesn\u2019t automatically mean the help is appropriate or welcome.
You can sincerely believe you\u2019re doing something kind and still cause harm by refusing to respect the recipient\u2019s wishes.
And if someone has clearly explained what they need, repeatedly, and you continue insisting on doing something else?
Well, sugar.
At some point, your good intentions stop being a particularly convincing defense.
The measure of helpfulness is not how badly you wanted to help. It\u2019s whether your actions actually served the person who needed it.
And here\u2019s a little bonus question for today\u2019s class:
If you genuinely want to help someone, why would you insist on doing the one thing they\u2019ve specifically asked you not to do?
Take your time. It\u2019s an open-book exam. \ud83d\ude18
Lesson Six: Accountability Is Not Persecution
Being held accountable for your behavior is not abuse.
Being told no is not mistreatment.
Having your actions described accurately is not an attack on your character.
And being confronted about intimidation does not magically make you the victim.
If someone accurately describes your behavior and you don\u2019t like how it sounds, perhaps the problem isn\u2019t the description.
If your conduct becomes so concerning that hospital nursing staff independently involve security and administration?
Well, darlin\u2019.
At that point, I think we\u2019ve moved beyond a simple difference of opinion.
And perhaps the appropriate response isn\u2019t to explain why everyone else is unreasonable.
Perhaps it\u2019s to examine what you did that prompted that level of concern.
Final Exam: What Does Love Actually Look Like?
Love respects.
Love listens.
Love protects.
Love does not demand that someone who is already suffering sacrifice what little peace they have left to accommodate your feelings.
Love doesn\u2019t require an audience, an exception to the rules, or special access.
And love certainly doesn\u2019t make someone who is fighting for his life responsible for managing the emotions of people who claim to care about him.
A person\u2019s right to peace, dignity, and autonomy does not disappear simply because they\u2019re too sick or exhausted to defend those rights themselves.
And the person protecting those rights is not the villain simply because she\u2019s unwilling to let others disregard them.
One final thought:<\/em><\/strong>
If being told \u201cno\u201d makes you feel unloved, that\u2019s a feeling you need to work through.
It is not a problem the person who told you no is obligated to solve.
And if someone setting a boundary makes you feel attacked, perhaps you should spend less time examining their tone and more time examining why you believe the boundary shouldn\u2019t apply to you.
Anyway, thank you for attending my TED Talk.
I hope everyone has a beautiful, blessed day filled with healthy boundaries, personal growth, and a little self-awareness.
Some of y\u2019all might need to go for extra credit to bring that grade up. \ud83d\ude07\ud83d\udc9c<\/p>\n\n\n\n