Anticipation or Protection?

[gratitude28]

I have this thing I do... and I am betting many of you do or did too...

I assume I know how a person will react to something I plan to tell them. This is primarily at work/with parents. For example, if I plan to ask for a day off, I get nervous and know I have to wait to "read the right signals" before I approach with the request. I used to do this with my parents... asking for ANYTHING (going to the movies, using the phone) brought this anticipation and fear of asking.I would look for a good moment, but there wasn't always one, and often I would forgo whatever it was just not to have to deal with asking...

So... my question is... do I do this to myself or am I being prudent? Am I really reading signs, or am I creating these signs????? What do you think?

Thanks for your input, ideas and anything you can add!
Love, Beth

[Stormchild]

You know, we do become pretty good mind readers.

I know there's a school of thought that says it's awful to even imagine that it's possible to predict human behavior, but if we really were all great unsolved mysteries and nothing else, nobody would ever make any money in the stock market and there would be no advertisements, because it'd be impossible to design any that would work, if people were really so unpredictable.

There would also be no diagnoses possible in the mental health area, because we'd all be so totally different it'd be meaningless to try.

Some people are very predictable, others less so... I think that if you've been abused by your family or in the workplace you're going to try very hard to figure out what the 'rules' are, in order to avoid further abuse. Unfortunately, if you are selected to be a scapegoat, the 'rule' is that you get abused no matter what, because you're the target... but otherwise, as long as you aren't a scapegoat, it can be possible to figure out what 'sets off' an abusive boss or parent.

It may be impossible to avoid doing whatever it is that sets them off, though. Often, they even 'set it up' that way, so that they get to explode at someone on a regular basis. Anyone will do, as long as the explosion takes place. And often, one of the things that sets them off is for you to ask them for anything - that you really want, or need - if they see that you really want or need it.

Unfortunate, but true, in my experience anyway. Edit in: watch for the Karpman stuff. The Rescuer-Persecutor-Victim stuff. Sometimes you end up being 'cast' in one of those three roles when you have no intention of going there - like asking for a raise: if your boss reacts as if you are a Persecutor, then makes you into a Victim!

[gratitude28]

Hmmm.... I will look up Karpman then as I don't know anything about it. My boss is a pain, but it is petty, irritating stuff. I don't fear going to him... just don't want to and prefer to choose a good time to bring it up. I just thik if I were a lot less spineless and was able to state clearly and evenly what I needed in a situation, it would be great Got any spine-growing recipes in your repertoire?
((((storm))))))))

[debkor]

I was able to assume certain things/times how people would react to things I planned to tell them.

  If I had to tell a friend that her husband was cheating I could assume how they would react to that.
  That would have to be planned out. I would not just want to blurt it out. I would have to think of the
  best way of saying it with compassion soften the blow.
  This would make me very nervous and I would look for the right time, the right signal.

If I was planning going to the movies, out with friends as a kid, No I would not be nervous with my parents
or have to wait for the right time to tell them. I would of come right out and asked.

Now if I had to tell them something not so good.  Like I failed something and the teacher wanted to talk to them
 then yes I would be very nervous and wait till the right time, the right signal.

 If at work I wanted the day off and I had days coming to me. No I would not look for the right time or a signal
 I would just come right out and put in for the day.
 Now if I had no time left and I really needed the day off.  I would be nervous and wait for the right time to ask
 and look for signals.

Now if I needed a ride and I assumed that the person would say no way! I would not even ask.

So I guess it depends on the situation.  And yes I do assume reactions sometimes and get myself all nervous and dread asking it,  but I usually will.  Sometimes the answers are not what I assumed.
Love Deb

[gratitude28]

Yes!! Deb... that's just what I mean... How much am I assuming????

[debkor]

Gratitude,     

I think when we are around people often, day after day. We know how they respond to things. We get to study them. We get to know their personalities and we pretty much are right on the money with thier answers or what the  reactions will be.  Every now and then they surprise us and throw a curve ball and it's not what we thought it would be. So I would say you are pretty wise and know the outcome most of the times. 
I would say, you are reading the signs.  You know them. You have been around the people often but
every now and then(theres that curve ball they throw you) so we doubt ourselves as to what we are reading. No I don't think you are creating the signs. I think they just mix us up sometimes.
Love Deb

[Gaining Strength]

I think you could be doing both. 

As a child you were reading signs but that could develop into expecting the answer to be NO regardless of the question.  I liken it to developing coping skills as a child that then work against us.  I know that I got to a point when I expected "no" no matter who I asked or what I was asking.  That has been a difficult thing to undo.  So test it out.  Pick something small to try on someone you don't always No from and see what happens.  Who knows? - GS

[isittoolate]

hi Beth

I think it might be fear, or that it s something you shouldn't do?

I give you an example.

When I was 20, I had a period problem, went to a GYN and he discovered a tumour on my left ovary: said it had to be removed immediately. I asked if it could wait until after Xmas and New Years (as this was a year we were buying airline tickets for Mom and Dad to go to Quincy IL to visit eldest sister and husband.) Dr. said Ok but I had to go in January... . first available bed.

What to tell the boss? I was afraid?--it was personal---? I was in denail????? It was next year??????

I was the only one who could do my job and Dr. said I'd be off work for EIGHT weeks.

How inconsiderate of me to wait until the last minute. It had to be fear.

I went to work one morning and a call came from the hospital for me to check in the next day by 2:00 pm. The boss wasn't even in to work yet. He came in after lunch, then I told him-----(like maybe now it was real??????)but could hardly walk with the pain of the incision.

I think about this often and wonder what I was REALLY thinking!! WHAT was going on in my head!!!!?????? WHAT was wrong with me?????


Izzy

[Overcomer]

Beth:  This is exactly what I deal with.  From my perspective, I have stopped telling my mom things because she will alter the course of my decision.  So I have figured out that if I do things and make all the plans, and then tell her, she cannot hijack it.  It was quite a step to tell her I was looking for other jobs................but I didn't think it fair to get a job and then pull the rug out from under her.  But in the past?  Originally I would have told her my plans and she would have put the kabosh on it.  In the nearer past I just wouldn't tell her so I wouldn't risk her interfering..............I guess you call it growth on my part.  But I still am very anxious about it and usually do it in an email and then a follow up conversation.  I have realized that the email takes the initial sting out of stuff.

[Stormchild]

Hmmm.... I will look up Karpman then as I don't know anything about it. My boss is a pain, but it is petty, irritating stuff. I don't fear going to him... just don't want to and prefer to choose a good time to bring it up. I just thik if I were a lot less spineless and was able to state clearly and evenly what I needed in a situation, it would be great Got any spine-growing recipes in your repertoire?
((((storm))))))))

Hi Beth

Thinking about you and your boss, and other situations too...

I don't know that I would call you spineless at all, at all. You held a family together for how long, while your husband was in Iraq? You and your dearest love are of different ethnicities and complexions. You've dealt with a narcissistic FOO, you're in recovery from alcohol abuse - and dealing constructively with people in that recovery group who aren't dealing constructively with you - I see a lot of evidence of backbone, lady.

One of the tricky things is that backbone sometimes doesn't LOOK like backbone.

Here is a link to what I personally consider the most amazing thread on this entire board over the last two years.

http://www.voicelessness.com/disc3//index.php?topic=3717.0

It's not the world's happiest thread by a longshot. It begins in sadness and ends in unresolved discord. What is amazing about it, though, is what does NOT happen in it, and why.

What does not happen is a brawl, a donnybrook, a major knockdown dragout altercation.

One keeps trying to happen, but every time an invitation is profferred, the recipient declines.

Some decline by vanishing.

Some decline after making efforts to defuse the emotional tension, which do not succeed.

But all decline.

It is the most amazing collective assertion of emotional health that I have ever seen in my life.

Now: to the uninitiated, this LOOKS like a collective wimp-out, mass cowardice, a bunch of people heading for the hills.

What it is, is a bunch of people individually disengaging, in whatever way they know how, from a no-win situation. Without rancor, or spite, or malice, or vindictiveness, or ill will.

There are times when the bravest thing you can do is recognize that a situation is hopeless, at least for the moment, through no fault of your own; and walk away.

You will not be praised and lauded for walking away. People do not recognize the self-discipline required to practice disengagement as a strength. We are praised and lauded for hanging in to the bitter end... but nobody ever seems to realize that all that gets you is a bitter ending.

This thread doesn't have a happy ending, and we are a culture that only understands happy endings and sad ones. Unresolved ones... endings that aren't really endings yet, but are certainly breaks in the story... we have a hard time dealing with those.

But I look at it now, and I see amazing courage, and I feel a great deal of hope for every person who participated in it.

EVERY person.

[pennyplant]

Stormy, I was just reading that thread the other day.  I distinctly remember how I felt when I put my two posts on it.  It felt like I had grown since coming here.  I put a lot of thought into what I said and it felt brave, especially compared to how I had felt previously in a similar situation months before.

You're right--it is amazing.

Pennyplant

[Stormchild]

And it was loving, too, in the sense that the actions were loving. There was self-control, self-restraint, awareness of vulnerabilities. And huge amounts of moral courage.

It didn't feel like conventional sunshine-and-roses love, but I think adult loving behavior often doesn't. It's often a thrash, and a drain, and we wish we'd had happier choices available to us.

A lot of reality was being faced here. Bravely. And people were treating themselves as worthy of love and respect.

It's awesome.

((((((((((Pennyplant))))))))))

[pennyplant]

Yes, yes.  Loving and real.  The best way to be.

PP

[gratitude28]

GS,
Yes, yes!!!!! I think I just went ahead and assumed the answer would always be no (I remember being shocked when I went through with asking on some things and got a positive answer).

Izzy,
It also took me a LONG time to realize I was being selfish sometimes by not being upfront about things. I was afraid my employersw would "be mad at me." This is the first time I have dealt well with leaving a job. I have been working on a turnover folder for a year so that all will clear and easy for the transition to the new employee. I have done many things like your example, Izzy, in the name of being "loyal." (And always to my great detriment).

Penny, storm, kell, jac... thank you.

Love, Beth