I’ve had my challenges during my months at common cathedral. Boundaries, as I’ve mentioned, have caused some growing pains, as has facing the fact that I must make mistakes in order to learn. Last week I felt a sort of charged frustration when I encountered someone in crisis and I felt unable to help them because of my role as intern. My instincts told me that I could effectively jump in to crisis intervention mode. The rules of my internship told me otherwise. Logically I understood why—I don’t have the proper training, for one, and I’d be crossing some boundaries established to protect community members, interns, staff, and the common art program. It also may set a precedent that I can’t keep up with—for this individual and for other community members. Still, I felt helpless and angry.
Tag Archives: limits
Boundary Setting
Given the stigma of mental illness, discussing therapy in public has often been considered to be “inappropriate.” Many people are still ashamed or uncomfortable to admit they go to therapy or struggle with mental illness. For this reason, I try to normalize therapy, mental illness, and treatment by talking of such things in my everyday conversations. With that in mind, last week my therapist pointed out to me that I focus more on my perceived failings rather than my successes, as if my having made a mistake or something in general having gone wrong immediately overrides any strides I’ve made. We’d been discussing setting healthy boundaries, something I sometimes struggle with. After an initial boundary-setting success, a different boundary line was crossed, and I suddenly felt incapable and incompetent—how could I be so foolish to think I’d accomplished something? Yet, as my supervisors and therapist pointed out, just because there are “setbacks” or times when healthy boundaries must be reestablished, my success is still a success; the foundation I laid for my boundary-setting skills is still there.