Hello,
As my name suggests I appear to have been given the role within my family and friendship group of emotional punch bag. I assume it's because I am in a therapeutic role as my job so people assume I'm fair game. People assume they can offload, rant, show anger, upset to me and il keep taking it. They are right to be honest as I have done so for years.
I take the brunt of people's emotions and difficulties at work often experiencing threats and violence, but I can compartmentalise this because it's my job. I can also normally take it from my friends and family without any negative consequences but recently I have noticed myself becoming so burnt out.
My dh is the only one who does not expect this of me and does his best to shield me from it but he can't always do that.
The worst offenders are my own daughters. They do not scream and rant and rave at dh but as soon as I am home or he leaves, the constant crying and screaming starts. These are my children so I'm happy to support them and take this on as part of parenting but they seem to be in constant bad moods unless I'm doing something directly for them and when anything in their life goes wrong it becomes my fault, even down to blaming me for things that happened when I wasn't there. For example eldest is having a hard time with her music teacher and had a particularly bad lesson today. She has been in a foul mood since I picked her up and has proceeded to lose it at me over the slightest irritation. I tried to come up with solutions and listen to her about her struggles but she seems intent on finding someone to blame and that's always me. Any suggestion is met with some sort of excuse and that I just don't understand or care about her.
My other daughter is feeling under the weather and apparently that means she can moan, winge and cry at me all evening.
Consequences for such behaviour are useless as they get more emotionally demanding and it only adds to the issue because they then feel hard done to.
If it was just occasionally then I could probably shrug it off but it's crept up to being a daily occurrence as they are getting older.
The worst part is that it's not just work and my own dc. It's my mum. I had a rubbish childhood because she was neglectful and selfish yet I have spent my entire life soaking up her misery, tears and problems. Recently my brother decided to confront our mother about our childhood and discuss how neglected we were and how emotionally unstable our mother was. Instead of reflecting on that or apologising my mother decided to drive straight to my house, interrupt a meeting I was in and cry and wail about how hard it was for her. I have had to sit and listen to her relationship problems, her work issues, how awful my father is and quite frankly issues of her own making that she never seems to understand are her fault. I can't remember a time she ever asked how I was or showed an interest in my life. She ignores me until she is upset then drives over to cry and wail on my shoulder.
I get messages from friends and voice notes about all their problems and sit and listen to them cry about how hard they have it.
I was invited to a friends house for coffee recently and ended up supporting her all afternoon while she ranted and cried about her son and her family problems. I ended up helping her with some stuff in her house and I haven't heard from her since.
I was in the local pharmacy and bumped into a friend. She proceeded to go off about her ex for a long time. I had to go as I was on my way to work and over the following days have received multiple calls and messages about her ex and how awful it is. Not once has she asked if I'm ok or wondered why I was picking up medication. It's not her issue to care about why I was in the pharmacy and I wouldn't dream off offloading on her, but it does wear you down after a while.
My sisters and sil do it too.
I could honestly go on and on with examples of this throughout my life.
I know it's my fault because I'm crap at maintaining any boundaries or speaking up in my personal life. I'm ok at work of course but that's my professional life and I'm not emotionally invested. I know I'm soft by nature and struggling to say enough is enough. I don't want to watch people suffer or let people down.
The thing is I spend all day at work with people who shout, scream, cry, become violent and threatening and then I come home to the same. My only respite from constant stress, anger and screaming is during the night when everyone is asleep. Il often get up between 2 and 4am just to enjoy some peace.
It's starting to really take a toll n my own mental health and I just feel stuck.