The monster in me...

A few weeks ago, my neighbor tells me about someone at her work who has been sexually harassing her son,  22 and autistic, who is also working there.  She asked me what to do; I counseled her to report it.  More than really wanting advice, my neighbor wanted my comfort and consolation, wanting me to agree with her that the situation was all her fault. Only it wasn't; the fault lies with the abuser. As for the comfort, I do not want to hug anyone and have made that patently clear to her that that is about me and my need for a specific boundary.

My neighbor was terrified she was going to lose her job for making a report.  I advised her to 1) call the Indiana hotlines for sexual harassment and for whistleblowers and 2) to make a report with the police.  She did none of those things, but the abuser was eventually terminated and her job remains intact.

Again, I couldn't agree with her fears.  All I really had to offer her was the truth (about being fired ... if she was then she would have an open and shut case for wrongful termination ... and about it being all her fault, something she repeated many, many, many times as she texted and asked to come over for comfort).  I was all reason and rationale, offering consolation only in how overwhelming emotions can be.

Flash forward three weeks and I get this emergency text from her asking for help.  This time, again, I could neither offer her comfort nor commiseration.  Her adult son had met someone online and made arrangements to go to a furry convention in Pennsylvania.  He withdrew money from his savings, packed his bag, and walked out the door despite his mother yelling at him to stop.  If you don't know about the furry community, you probably don't want to, but it is not a dangerous community, to me.  Just a .... confused one.

My neighbor is sobbing rather hysterically and shouting that it is all her fault.  She kept moving toward me for a hug and I kept moving away, whilst slowly questioning her to get the pertinent facts. The key ones were that her son never mentioned his plans and that the only chance she had to counsel him on the lack of safety of getting into a car with a stranger to drive a couple of states away was right as he was leaving.  With someone with autism, a single conversation about a complex issue is not going to cut it.  She was trying to reason with him like he was not cognitively and socially challenged.  I calmly pointed that out and also refuted her claims of being able to prevent this because for a month her son planned in secret.  How could she be at fault for something she did not know anything about.

What I did not say to her was Why did it take you 22 years to think to teach your autistic son about stranger danger?  Was not the experience he had a few weeks ago at work a clear warning sign for you?  I kept my mouth shut along those lines.

Instead, I talked about emotions and how they are normal and natural and not something she could control when she was as overwhelmed as she was.  I talked about how it was not her fault.  And, before asking me for help, my neighbor had tracked down the phone number of the young man her son was with and the phone number of that young man's mother.  She also had the phone number of the hotel where they would be staying.  So I reminded her that, even in being overwhelmed, she had taken what positive steps she could in a difficult situation and all she really could do was wait five days for the trip to end.

With my neighbor continuing to wail about her son being murdered soon, I suggested the other serious, but unpleasant alternative.  She could call for a welfare check on her son and she could file for guardianship of him.  My neighbor immediately and vehemently rejected that idea, stating that he was an adult and could do what he wanted.  I wanted to ask, Why then are you raging against and wailing about his choices, putting all the blame on yourself?  But I all I did was, again, to offer her the options, wait for him to return or seek to have his independence curtailed by guardianship.  Given his cognitive and social abilities, I believe she would not have a problem gaining guardianship.

The point is that I believe that I could offer her the reasoned advice she said she was seeking, but I could not offer the comfort and consolation that she clearly wanted.  Heck, I was dancing away from her much of the time.

When someone is utterly overwhelmed with emotions, that scares me.  My first impulse is to disassociate.  So, with my neighbor, I was battling that process even as I was trying to remain present for her.  And I was battling my own fears.  You could also add that I was battling my own shame at not being able to be the comforter.

I have struggled with wondering, over the past five and a half years, why she has not worked to provide her son the social and work skills he clearly need.  Her preference is simply to provide everything for him, but even as she tries to be his social companion, she is not.  This is not the first time his having a secret life online has come to light.  It is just the most ... dangerous one.  Well, one time the FBI came here, but after a while, that was worked out.  This ... this could be truly innocent or prime grooming.  Only time will tell.

The weird thing is that I have been asking my neighbor if she would go out and have a meal with me for years.  She always either outright declines or asks for a rain check that is never redeemed.  When I found out she was on vacation all this week, I asked again if she would like to go out to eat with me.  So lonely am I, I am asking someone who regularly takes her anger out on me for months at a time to socialize.  SIGH.  When she told me she didn't have time this week—this week in which she already said she was doing nothing but relax—it struck me that she was never going to do anything social with me.  She will occasionally go to the store with me to help with shopping.  But other than asking me to cut her hair or to have a drink (from my stock) on my front porch (a truly relaxing space), my neighbor only really engages with me when she has a problem and wants my advice ... always predicated by, "You've had counseling so I know you'll know what to do."

I am not her friend.
Clearly.
But neither am I a counselor.

I feel such pressure about that, knowing so much of her struggles with her son (and work) and bouts of depression.  I think I feel as much pressure about her desire for counsel as I do about her desire for physical comfort when she is distraught.  I believe it is healthy for me to try and keep the boundary of helping to calm her down and then encouraging her to seek help from a counselor.  I also believe it is healthy for me to try to keep the boundary of no physical comfort.  But the latter boundary, in these situations, makes me feel the monster.

Wouldn't a real human being just give her distraught neighbor a hug?

Last night, when this all happened, I was cheering myself up with cooking, and so I did not want any company.  However, after I left her to go back inside and finish my new recipe, I texted her an offer to come over if she did not want to be alone.  Thankfully, she declined.  This morning, I texted her wishes for peace as she awaits her son's return ... mostly to remind her that I was thinking of her and praying for her.  I mean, that is what I would want ... to know that I was being remembered in my struggle.

However, what I really wanted to do was pack up and go away and hide somewhere until her son returns and she is no longer battling her guilt and fear.   Instead, I sent the text and then mostly hide in the house, puttering a bit at the raised bed, in case she wanted to come out and talk at the fence again (her usual M.O.).

I do not know how to not see myself as a monster.  Recently a friend was struggling and I felt so very honored because she talked to me.  Her tears and overwhelming emotions triggered me, but it was ever so much easier to remain present for her and offer her the simple words I had.  Of course, maybe that was because she was many states away and therefore wasn't wanting me to hug her???  Her bringing up a struggle is not something she does much.  Our relationship is rather one-sided in that regard ... it is all about my struggles.  So, being able to support and encourage her and then pray for her specifically was ... special to me.

But I still battled disassociation.
And I still felt the monster.
So cold-hearted am I.

I don't even have to ask what a counselor would say.  I already have had two tell me that my neighbor should not be coming to me for counsel and my trying to direct her to professional help is appropriate given her situation.  Still, often, in counseling, I would want to scream, BUT THAT ISN'T THE WAY THE REAL WORLD WORKS!

Like ... setting boundaries with my last boss.  My first real success at setting boundaries.  Only that is why, in large part, I lost my job.  She had the ammunition because of my failing cognition, but her trigger was that I stopped doing all her personal stuff that was so inappropriate that, to this day, I feel deep, deep, deep shame at all that I did.  Some things I've never told another soul.  Things I do not think I could bear to admit that I let her bully me into doing.

What I did was was healthy and right and, oh, was I ever punished!  Often, that is my outcome.  It seems that when I try to strike for a healthy balance in an interaction that is making me feel pressured and uncomfortable, I end up being punished in some way.

I think I would like to add, though it might seem ... petty ... that my neighbor has received such praise over her latest hair cut that she's been mad at me because I cut it.  That might make no sense, but it it how her mind works.  I am thankful I've learned not to take that on when it happens, but it seems a bit unfair to have her mad at me and then have her needing me.

Ah, but there's the rub.
There's my sin.
I'm tired of being needed by people who often are unkind to me.

Gosh, I wish I could read a book ... no, wait ... I wish I could read an encyclopedia about what it means to turn the other cheek (and give clothing and such ... you know, those verses).  In counseling, I heard ... break off interactions with those folk.  In this case, to avoid my neighbor as much as possible.  But, to me, I cannot reconcile that with the biblical charge to turn the other cheek.

With my boss, turning my cheek led to abuse.
That's happened many times before.
Here, turning my cheek leads to unkindness.

Am I the monster because I don't really want to be turning my cheek either?  No hugs and no slaps.  SIGH.