Excerpt from, “Don’t Call Me Crazy! I’m Just in Love,” Pg. 51 “Everyone has their own space; space that you do not allow anyone to come into. If someone does something or says something that you do not like, you say NO. And since I had a hard time saying no, I allowed myself to get run over. I got ran over by my supervisor, by the other therapists, and by the clients. I realized that when you try to please everyone, you sacrifice your own needs. And if you come into harm, then you can’t blame anyone, but yourself,” Kris says.

This excerpt from my book is actually a true story. I received my BA degree in Psychology in 2001 and obtained employment in 2002 by a community mental health center. My only job was to provide resources for clients as a community facilitator. The programs goals were to counsel at least 15 students per month. We were short of this goal and our supervisor began questioning over and over, “how we can get more clients?” I had no idea. I was just a community facilitator. She would sit next to my desk and ask the same question. I would walk down the hall with her and she would ask the question again. I never asked for a job analysis at the beginning of my job. If I did so I could have kindly stated then, “this is not in my job description and I would love to help but I am not qualified to do so.” Since I had no idea how to keep someone from stepping over my boundaries this type of harassment continued. The next thing I knew I was in her office weekly an hour at a time being asked, pressured, and coerced into doing solution-focused therapy when I only had a BA degree. I didn’t know the laws of Psychology but felt this was illegal and unethical. The therapist would root her on saying, “anyone can do therapy.” The intent was to have both the therapist and I go out separately to see clients so that we can meet our goal for the month. After around 2 weeks of harassment I quit. From the severe stress of this job and my unknown mental illness, I was baker acted for the first time 6 months later and forced medication. This inability to form boundaries began at childhood, being molested by my brother and not knowing I could say no. He was only 8 or 10, and a child also and was only repeating what was done to him.  So, at a young age of 5 I knew he was not fully aware of his actions and forgiveness came easy for me but not for him. He later committed suicide. When we are children we are vulnerable. We don’t have a full concept of right and wrong. We emulate what was done to us without conscious thought. Everyone needs to establish boundaries to avoid being walked all over. And we must also learn how to respect others boundaries. If we don’t make an attempt to respect others boundaries then we will not feel secure in setting up our own. Some have a hard time saying no. We must learn what we will accept and are comfortable doing and let no one cross those boundaries.  Continue Reading