![\"Sigmund_Freud_Bobble_Head_Wackelkopf\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/358\/2015\/06\/Sigmund_Freud_Bobble_Head_Wackelkopf.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nYesterday,\u00a0I wanted to talk about the concept of \u201cenabling,\u201d and how we use the term to give ourselves permission to behave badly. But I ended up talking more about\u00a0our duty toward transsexuals,<\/a> and frankly, I bit off more than I can chew!<\/p>\n What I really meant to write about is pop psychology, and how its vocabulary leeches into our psyches and turns us into terrible Christians.\u00a0We may not be in therapy ourselves, but we\u2019ve read an article, or talked to someone whose niece is in therapy, or watched Dr. Phil, or seen a sitcom where one of the characters has watched Dr. Phil, and we latch onto these catchy phrases and take them into our bosoms and call them our own.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not a bad thing that people are comfortable talking about psychological problems in public. It can be very helpful to realize that we\u2019re not the only ones who struggle, and it\u2019s a relief to discover that our secret weirdness has a name. But the problem comes when we gather up these little bits of information and try to sculpt them into something grand and important \u2014 and when we use them as an excuse to be selfish, inflexible, lazy, or rude.<\/p>\n A\u00a0young Catholic woman once\u00a0told me, \u201cOh, I have a medical reason not to fast on Good Friday. I get light headed.\u201d Mind you, she didn\u2019t have some dangerous condition that would\u00a0make her pass out while driving on the freeway. She just meant that, when she didn\u2019t eat, she felt hungry. She had persuaded herself that she had a right to\u00a0optimal comfort at all times, and that modern medicine backed her up, and excused her from self-discipline.<\/p>\n We do the same with our psyches: we persuade ourselves that we are entitled never to feel frustrated, uncomfortable, or put out \u2014 and looky here! There\u2019s an official-sounding word that gives us permission not to fight against our inclinations. Not only does this abuse of terms let us off the hook, it trivializes the struggle\u00a0of people who truly suffer from serious psychological conditions, as I explained in my post about triggers.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Some people suffer from genuine anxiety disorders; some of us just get worried sometimes. I can be an \u201cintrovert\u201d and still force\u00a0myself introduce myself to a stranger at a party. I\u2019m not \u201caddicted\u201d to Facebook;\u00a0I just have an extremely strong habit that is hard to break. Some people carry the cross of being bi-polar, but I\u2019m don\u2019t; I just need to work harder\u00a0to control my emotions so I don\u2019t make everyone miserable.<\/p>\n What other examples are there of modern people pathologizing everyday life?<\/p>\n Enabling<\/strong>. As I said in my other post,<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0Enabling is when you offer a shot of whiskey to\u00a0someone who\u2019s struggling to stop drinking, because hey, it\u2019s his\u00a0choice. Enabling is when you bail your no-good, DUI, vandal, rapist son out of jail because it might frighten him\u00a0to spend a night in the tank with actual criminals. Enabling is when you lie to your buddy\u2019s wife to cover up for his infidelity. Enabling is cleaning up the mess, sheltering a sinner from the consequences of his behavior, making it easy for someone to avoid facing the truth of what his life has become.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not \u201cenabling\u201d to treat someone with respect. It\u2019s not \u201cenabling\u201d to treat someone as an equal. It\u2019s not \u201cenabling\u201d to say, \u201cNah, I guess I don\u2019t need to swat you down.\u201d \u00a0It\u2019s not our place to treat everyone we meet as if they are in some way our patient, our spiritual underling, our disappointing ward.<\/span><\/p>\n And yet, lately, everyone with a keyboard\u00a0and the ability to skim Wikipedia deems himself enough of a expert to dish out therapeutic protocols to everyone who crosses his path.\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The concept of \u201cenabling,\u201d and the idea that we must avoid it at all costs, has permeated American culture. It\u2019s so popular because it allows us to feel self-righteous about being selfish. I\u2019d like to give you want you want, but it would be bad for you. So I refuse to help. You\u2019re welcome! <\/em>\u00a0Why should my tax money go to giving an adequate meal to a kid who turns up without his lunch money again? We\u2019ve given them three warnings; continuing to feed this child will just enable irresponsible parenting.<\/a>\u00a0This mindset allows us to bypass a panhandler, deny mercy to someone who screwed up (even though we\u00a0know darn well that\u00a0we\u2019ve screwed up ourselves), and say no to just about anyone who needs our help, because if you look hard enough, you can discover some way that it\u2019s their fault. And poo<\/em>f\u00a0go the corporal works of mercy<\/a>.<\/p>\n What are some other examples?<\/p>\n Setting boundaries.<\/strong> Sometimes setting boundaries makes life livable. Sometimes you really have to lay down the law and tell your mother-in-law, No, you may not make a key\u00a0to our apartment so you can rearrange my cupboards while I\u2019m having surgery, and no, you may not show my kid movies I\u2019ve forbidden, and you may not feed her peanut butter to help her get over her allergies. It\u2019s okay to say, \u201cI\u2019m sorry, I\u2019m too busy to help you right now.\u201d Some people need to learn how to stand up to outrageously pushy people, and some people need to learn how to say \u201cno\u201d without\u00a0letting everyone down and being a worthless person.<\/p>\n However, it\u2019s not \u201csetting boundaries\u201d when we simply refuse to do our part, or refuse to take our eyes off our own needs and desires and preferences. Yet I\u2019ve heard it used this way: \u201cI\u2019m setting boundaries\u00a0with my husband!\u00a0From now on, I do my laundry, I cook my meals, I clean up my \u00a0messes, I buy my food, I fetch my own coffee, I do what I want on the weekend, and I have my bank account . . . but him?\u00a0He\u2019s on his own.\u201d Setting boundaries is to allow us to live our lives, not to thoroughly insulate us from other people. The ledger of the demands we make on other people, and the demands they make on us, will not always turn out even at the end of the day! Setting up partitions between us and other people is not a way of life; it\u2019s for emergency situations, when we or another person are way out of line.<\/p>\n Toxic people<\/strong>. We can waste a lot of time trying to have healthy, pleasant, fruitful interactions with people who simply aren\u2019t interested in any of that. Every time you spend time with a toxic person, you end up feeling like you\u2019re the crazy one, because they can\u2019t seem to function without rage, drama, bitterness, recriminations, emotional manipulations, accusations, treachery, and lies.\u00a0\u00a0So it\u2019s a good idea to realize: This is just a toxic person, and unless there\u2019s some miracle, I\u2019m probably never going to have a normal relationship with him. It\u2019s probably best for both of us if I just limit how much time I spend with him, or at least have very low expectations of our relationship. I can\u2019t control who he is, but I can control how I will respond to him.<\/p>\n But we\u00a0can\u2019t just slap a \u201ctoxic\u201d label on everyone who challenges us. Maybe he\u2019s behaving badly because he\u2019s suffering, and you should try to be extra kind. Maybe you\u2019re the one who\u2019s being unreasonable! Maybe he\u2019s just kind of difficult, but you can just avoid bringing up certain topics of conversation, and you\u2019ll have a peaceful relationship that way. It\u2019s actually pretty rare to come across someone who is beyond hope, socially; so if we have a long list of \u201ctoxic people\u201d whom we simply refuse to deal with, we might want to look in the mirror.<\/p>\n What else? What psychological terms have you seen abused? And . . . heh heh\u00a0. . . are you kind of anal about it?<\/p>\n ** Freud Bobblehead image via Wikimedia Commons:\u00a0By Gizlog (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday,\u00a0I wanted to talk about the concept of \u201cenabling,\u201d and how we use the term to give ourselves permission to behave badly. But I ended up talking more about\u00a0our duty toward transsexuals, and frankly, I bit off more than I can chew! What I really meant to write about is pop psychology, and how its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1533,"featured_media":16441,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1135,1136,763,1137,483,1107],"class_list":["post-16437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anxiety","tag-enabling","tag-mental-illness","tag-psychobabble","tag-therapy","tag-triggers"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
\n**<\/p>\n