I'm wondering, have you all run into coworkers who appear to be overextending the grace period after a personal loss or life struggle? How long should the team pick up the slack or continue to be understanding of subpar work?
You don't want to be heartless, but I do feel there should be a time limit. We all have our struggles and losses, they are part of life.
I feel as if our modern society, in general, doesn't have the healthy rituals that helped our ancestors cope with the far more frequent losses that they had to bear.
I lost my oldest son to leukemia at the age of 13. He died about three years after my youngest son was diagnosed with a brain tumor (who is alive and doing well). Between those, my father died, three of my grandparents died, I went through a divorce and a foreclosure of the home we had shared and lost a job unexpectedly and went through bankruptcy proceedings. I now refer to that time as the seven year sh** sandwich. I have since recovered financially, got myself through nursing school past the graduate level, bought a house in my name alone, remarried and have learned to live without my oldest son while carrying around a whole lot of traumatic memories that are honestly indescribable. I am okay by any sense of the definition, but I walk around profoundly emotionally wounded and pretty limited in my emotional capacity to help others shore up.
I speak openly about my own experiences and grief because it helps me define who I am now and because part of me still, frankly, can't believe my life has turned out this way. It helps ground me in reality. But "being there" for others is more than I am able to do most of the time. I have been diagnosed with PTSD. I am super painfully compassionate. I thrive as a nurse, where I have a defined job to do and a finite amount of time in which to do it in. But a friend of mine has a teenaged daughter who is actively suicidal. I can't do much for her with that. That load on top of what I shore up beneath carrying around as a matter of my own factual struggle to keep on keepin' on is just more than I can handle. I can't be the person she calls when she is falling apart over her daughter's continuing condition.
I accept I am damaged and I am open with friends about what I can and cannot do, can and cannot listen to. In order to maintain my at times fragile ability to move along in the world, I have to have pretty firm and specific boundaries and often those involve not trying to get pulled in to other people's problems, particularly those involving the health of youngesters, because though I empathize, it does me active psychological harm that can take literal days for me to get past. I make donations. I walk for good causes. And it sucks. I'd like to be better, but I don't have the emotional resources to be the go-to person...yet when you have been there, people automatically seem to think that means you will be super compassionate and understanding and have emotional resources to spare. I sure hope the fact that I don't doesn't make me selfish. Some things are just too much to ask and too close to home. If that makes me "selfish", I guess I am. It isn't that I think my problems are bigger than anyone else's. The fact that everyone has something they need understanding about has helped me not feel singled out by God for horrible stuff to happen. But I still have to be pretty careful about what I let into my inner emotional sanctum and its been 12 years now.
All this is just to say what you think other people ought to be capable of.....they often are just not and it has nothing to do with an inflated sense of self-importance. Labeling them as selfish is without generosity and that is unfortunate. It does nothing but isolate - both them from you and you from them. We all have things we have to go through. We are not all equally equipped for the journey and even if we start out that way, we don't all end up unscathed. Some of us are doing good just to find joy in life again.
Beautifully written and thank you for sharing. I agree with you and I hope we can all find compassion for others grief. And boundaries are a good thing. ❤️
My niece died suddenly from an asthma attack (age 40) and left a 6 year old behind. My boss wasn’t going to let me have leave and stated she “wouldn’t waste her leave on her niece’s funeral.” I told her I was sorry for her and submitted my retirement. Not sure what we’re coming to in this world. I would hope that if someone is unable to function in their grief that we would be compassionate and however possible encourage therapy.
jobellestarr
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Beautifully written and thank you for sharing. I agree with you and I hope we can all find compassion for others grief. And boundaries are a good thing. ❤️