Blog Post 60: Handling Disorganization in Others
Often, Type C people neglect our own needs when people in our lives are disorganized, and we end up having to step in and save the day. The examples here are endless! Perhaps you have carefully laid out a schedule for the day, and then a procrastinating child needs last-minute assistance with homework, so you have to drop everything to help. Or, you have a spouse who forgets to write things down on the family calendar, activities get double-booked, and you feel you have to sacrifice the event you hoped to attend. You might have a co-worker who saves work until the last minute, you can’t do your piece of the project until her work is finished, and you end up missing deadlines as a result.
After the Type C person has swept in to fix everything, we might sit and steam about what happened and not say anything, or make excuses for others. What we don’t do is act assertively and take care of ourselves first. We step in and help or we acquiesce, which enables the bad behavior – and often we are taken advantage of. We feel anger (which we typically suppress) and resentment starts to build.
I (Anna) certainly struggle with this on the home front. It’s important for me to live in an organized, beautiful environment. My family members do not care about this to the degree I do, and this causes endless frustration when I try to get everyone on board with my organizational systems to no avail. And I’m the first one to drop everything if someone needs an urgent errand run, homework help, or technical assistance. Too many moms have become the IT help desk thanks to remote work and school through the pandemic!
Many moms including myself (Kore) get stuck helping get the family out of the house on time and making sure everyone else is ready. And then I am the last one ready. This makes me frustrated and angry, and makes the start of a trip or event fraught for the others. Type C traits that keep us stuck prevent us from changing the pattern. Why is it so hard to get myself ready, to think of myself first?
It can be extremely hard for the Type C’er if we feel disappointment and hurt that the people in our lives are not thoughtful about our needs, if we feel like they don’t care about our priorities and are fine with the way we sacrifice ourselves.
What can we do about this? One helpful tool here is to think about this from an empathic stance - why do the people in our lives behave this way? Often, they have come to rely on us to pick up the pieces or make things right; it relieves them of responsibility. But it may not be that they intentionally disregard our time and energy. Sometimes people simply lack strong executive functioning skills. Or they might be so caught up in their own worries that they forget about other responsibilities. And sadly, as the saying goes, sometimes people hurt the ones they love the most because they know we will always stick with them. It can be helpful to realize these limitations of others to reduce our own anger and resentment.
But a stronger tool we can use is to assertively say no. This might look like “I’m sorry I can’t attend your work event with you, I’ve already booked myself for something else which was on the family calendar,” or “I can help with your homework, but not until I finish XYZ,” or “It’s stressful for me to get started so late on our work together, could we meet and map out a timetable that works for both of us?” A key point here is a willingness to sit with the evil critic in our heads that makes us feel bad or says that we “should” help and not act on these feelings.
Finally, it’s important to realize that we can’t save everyone. Enabling people with poor organizational skills by jumping in and fixing things doesn’t really help them build these skills and certainly hurts us. We can offer guidance and assistance, but if things melt down, sometimes the chips have to fall where they may - sometimes people have to learn the hard way.