Purpose The idea of remaining in a negative environment to “tough it out” greatly hampers growth. This can apply to school, work, and college.
How do you know when to leave an environment?
- Do people refuse to acknowledge any problems with the systems they set up?
- Specifically, do authority figures refuse to even try to change anything about their way of doing things?
- Do you feel like you’re getting insulted/made fun of constantly?
- Are you afraid to bring up any criticisms due to the threat of punishment?
- Do you get any of your thoughts about the system or an authority figure’s actions taken seriously?
- Are people trying to understand where you’re coming from?
- Are you getting additional responsibilities constantly placed on you?
- Are the metrics you’re being judged on reasonable? What are these metrics based on?
- Is the threat of punishment used to enforce rules rather than a proper explanation?
- Do you feel any negative emotions when you sit in this environment?
- Are there any ways to hold an authority figure accountable?
- Are other people blindly following authority figures?
- Is there a lot of groupthink going on?
- Are people not trying to question some of the things they believe?
- Is there pressure to do everything correctly?
- Do you get severely punished for any mistake that is made?
- Is there any accountability for the actions of the authority figure or anyone who’s causing problems?
- What are the attitudes of the people around you?
- Do you feel like you can differentiate yourself from others through your work?
- Are they too busy for themselves?
- If they don’t have time to take care of themselves, they’re likely not going to have time for you.
How to notice when people are not listening to you/not trying to work with you
- Are they disproportionately moody in a given situation?
- Does this lead to you feeling uncomfortable?
- Are they speaking to you or at you?
- Are all your questions/reasons ignored?
- Do they try to help you at all or tell you what to do?
- It’s common for someone to throw a bunch of questions at you and expect you to find the answers to all of them.
- Oftentimes, these people put their responsibilities onto you and expect you to figure everything out.
- Are they using one-off studies/statistics to tell you what to do/not do?
- It’s extremely common for people to use something being healthy as a reason to tell you to do something.
- Oftentimes these people haven’t even read any study that they’re supposedly citing.
- You’ll hear a lot of societal/cultural things repeated towards you.
- A common claim was “Don’t sit too close to the screen.”
- Are they extremely angry when you can’t answer a question that they have?
- Are they asking very specific questions that aren’t getting you any closer to solving any problems in your head?
- Do the conversations with the person/group end up going the same way?
- Indicator that the person is trying to show their way of doing things onto you.
- Whatever they’re pushing seems to be a higher priority in their mind than your idea of what to do.
- Are they trying to change their behaviors or are you the only one expected to change yours?
- Common to enforce blind compliance.
- How many double standards are present?
- Are they allowed to yell at you while you’re expected to listen quietly?
- Are they unable to explain why you should do something?
- It’s common to use the threat of punishment as a reason to do something.
- Do they try to take advantage of your kindness?
- Are they asking you to help other people unconditionally?
- Do they ever get anyone else to help you?
- It’s almost like they’re trying to show off themselves and just telling you congratulations to make you happy.
- Do you get credit for anything that you accomplished or yelled at for the one thing that you didn’t do correctly?
- Are the expectations unreasonable?
- Are you getting yelled at after answering 10 questions and missing the answer to the 11th question?
- Are they insulting you regularly?
- Are they capable of figuring out any problems by themselves?
- It’s common for these types of people to be unable to figure out anything new.
- Do they prioritize achievement over you?
- Are they using your grades as a measurement of your value?
- Are they increasing the expectations for you while making excuses for why they can’t do something?
- Are there any conversations occurring?
- The interactions can often turn into shouting matches.
- What direction do the conversations go?
- Is anything getting done during the conversation?
- Are they always trying to argue with you on what the correct path is?
- Are they only doing the bare minimum to help you?
- Are you effectively expected to raise yourself?
- Does their advice help you?
- Do they listen to any of your needs?
- Do you feel obligated to answer their questions due to their attitude?
- These types of people commonly start to raise their voices and increase the severity of their emotions as the conversations go on.
- Are they spending their time trying to find information to support their point?
- Do they selectively ignore information that disproves anything that they’re saying or makes them look wrong about something?
- Are they heavily focused on enforcing their culture and beliefs onto you?
- Do they ever apologize for anything that they’ve done?
- Do you feel like they’re ruining your life the more you’re around them?
- Are they asking a lot of “what if something goes wrong” types of questions?
- These people fixate on what can go wrong and will always bring up any instance of one thing going wrong.
- Since one event went wrong, they effectively want you to never take a risk like that again.
- Do they think that they know better than you?
- Do you find yourself thinking “They have no business giving me this type of advice”?
- A lot of anger that you feel can get increased if they are incapable of doing what they expect you to do.
- Do they ever compliment you/lighten up the pressure?
- Are you ever taken more seriously after you’ve shown that you can accomplish a lot?
- Are they stacking more expectations on you?
- Do they expect you to do everything on time according to their schedule?
- Are they asking you to rush things to get them out of the way?
Solutions
- Set aside time to process emotions
- Make sure you can create separate forms to handle these situations.
- Create a support network of people you can trust
- You’ll need a robust support system to manage situations where you’re deciding to leave a system.
- It’s impossible to negotiate anything if you have nothing to negotiate with.
- Be careful of expecting them to help you eventually
- This expectation forces you to lose a lot of control since you’re focused on what they can do for you.
- The concept of help is much more complicated than it initially seems.
- Help is not always a good thing because people have different ideas of what helping means.
- In their minds, yelling at you is considered helping since they’re trying to keep you from doing anything they consider bad.
- When you ask for help from these people, you create situations where you’re getting disappointed.
- Be careful treating these people with respect
- Be cautious assuming that they have a massive amount of power over you.
- Sometimes your brain will create power dynamics based on the way that someone is seen by others.
- Do not let these types of people control the entire conversation
- The conversation will head into the same direction every time if these people are in control.
- It can be a good habit to sometimes stop the conversation by not answering their questions or responding to their yelling.
- This greatly depends on how they act if you disobey them.
What can your support network include?
The order of who’s important in this section greatly varies based on the ability of each of these groups of people.
- Teachers
- Even having one teacher that you can talk to is greatly beneficial to your mental well-being.
- Counselors/nurses/school psychologists/coaches/school resource officers
- This includes any other faculty outside of your core classroom teachers.
- If you find that the core classroom teachers are bothering people, you might be able to find someone outside of your courses that you can talk to.
- Friends
- It can be extremely beneficial to your well-being to have a good friend group to talk with.
- Clubs/school activities
- You can see people that you don’t normally see in these situations, which boosts your ability to connect with people.
- Family
- Try to see if there are any family members that are helpful to talk to.
- Neighbors
- See if there’s anyone around your neighborhood that’s willing to help you out.
- Third-party spaces
- Use Google to see if there are any third-party spaces where you can meet people.
- Tell them your situation, and they might be able to help you in some way.
- Professional help
- Therapists, psychologists, counselors, etc.
- Online chat rooms/social media/video games
- It can be possible to get emotional support online that can greatly help you out.
- Beware of scammers since they like to prey upon anyone who’s emotionally disturbed.