How would this scenario make you feel?

[LovebirdsFlying]

Let's call her Alice. She is a middle-aged adult living on her own, or with family but she is home alone more often than not. Other than depression and anxiety, there is nothing wrong with her mentally. Let's say she has somewhere she needs to be tomorrow morning. She is already well aware that her sleeping patterns are unpredictable, so she sets an alarm to make sure she's up on time. Five minutes before the alarm would have gone off, Alice's telephone rings. It's Betty. "Hello. I'm just checking to make sure you're awake for your appointment. I didn't want you to miss it."

Alice did not ask Betty for the help.

It pretty much happens every time Alice has an appointment, no matter how many times she explains that she doesn't need the service, thank you, she has an alarm and knows how to set it. If Betty doesn't call, it will be Carol or Debbie or practically anybody else. Sometimes it may be more than one; Alice has just hung up with Betty when another "just checking" call comes in from Debbie. None of them have consulted each other in advance. "Oh, did Betty already call you? Well, I didn't know."

Even if Alice tells people in advance that she has set an alarm for X o'clock, someone will still call at five minutes before X, "just to make sure." Sometimes this hinders her more than helps, because now with the phone interrupting her, she doesn't even have time to get dressed and ready for her appointment. She can't simply not answer the phone. They'll assume she's still asleep, and keep calling!

If Alice objects to this treatment because they're sending signals that they don't think she can manage her own affairs, Betty and Carol and Debbie take offense. "You should count your blessings! How would you like it if you didn't have anybody in your life who cared enough to call?"

Clearly, then, Alice is expected to not only allow the intrusion, but be grateful for it.

How would you feel if you were Alice, which as you probably have guessed, I frequently am? How would you feel if you were Betty, Carol, or Debbie, and Alice objected to the unwanted help? Would you be offended?

 

[Autumnleaf]

You're lucky to have so many people who care.

I would get annoyed and get an answering machine and turn off the ringer.

 

[znr]

Alice should hire someone off fiverr to belch the alphabet and use it as her outgoing message.

One thing Alice should keep in mind, don't talk small talk to bored women. Better to be tongue tied and prevent unwanted chatter. I think this might be in proverbs somewhere..

 

[quietpraiyze]

I would feel a lot of different things. ​

There's a part of me that would appreciate that I had friends who listened to me and cared enough about me to not want me to miss my appointment. There are a lot of people who don't have that even on a basic level so that's no small thing.​

There would be another part of me that would feel annoyed because I didn't ask them for a wake-up call and I would be wondering what is it about me that they don't understand that. Am I giving them signals that I'm not capable or something?​

It's hard to say how her friends would feel because some people aren't good at compartmentalizing. While you may be talking about this one issue, some might take offense and generalize to the entire relationship. ​

If you're going to address it, I think it's how you say it. I think it's important to let them know how much you appreciate them but you've got this and it's good to know you've got back up if you need it but you don't. The other thing is to not tell them when you have an appointment. After all do they really need to know that info? I say be kind but be firm. If they insist then maybe your only alternative is to let their messages go to voice mail. When they ask why you didn't pick up tell them the truth. Let them know that you set your alarm and it's working fine. Had you answered their calls they would have slowed you down. So you let them go to voice mail while you got dressed so you wouldn't be late for your appointment. Thank them for their concern and move on. You can be honest without being hurtful. Reaffirm how much you appreciate their friendship but you don't need their help in this area but if there's a recipe or gardening tips or something like that you would be happy to have their input.​

 

[BFine]

I'm curious...

Who's telling all those people the time and date of her appointments?

 

[Inkachu]

How would you feel if you were Alice, which as you probably have guessed, I frequently am? How would you feel if you were Betty, Carol, or Debbie, and Alice objected to the unwanted help? Would you be offended?

I wouldn't be offended because the people calling are probably genuinely trying to be helpful.

I WOULD be annoyed and irritated. And I'd clearly tell each of them "I do not want you to call me to remind me of appointments. I will not answer the phone from this day forward. The phone ringer will be turned off and you can leave a message if you want to, but I will not answer. I would appreciate it if you would just not call at all."

And then I'd turn the phone ringer off when I went to bed and let the alarm wake me up as planned, and go about my day. No drama required.

 

[Quasicentennial]

Personally, I don't use an alarm as I rely on my body and mind clockwork to wake me up, for instance, going to the toilet to urinate, only because I make sure there is enough body fluid from drinking a cool refreshing drink or cup of hot cocoa before bedtime, not coffee because of it's caffeine bad reputation of waking you up and staying wide awake, making it annoying ly extremely hard to fall asleep.;'*';.

 

[Goodbook]

If I were betty carol, debbie no, I wouldnt be offended if Alice said she was fine and her alarm was working. I would be relieved, because I wouldn't need to ring and check anymore.

If you have a mobile, its better to ask them to send a txt. I'm grateful when others remind me I have an appointment because I don't have the best memory in the world.

Yes, phone can be annoying, but how else can they reach you if you don't have a mobile? With txts, you can answer or not..you don't have to pick up. It just beeps.

 

[LovebirdsFlying]

I'm curious...

Who's telling all those people the time and date of her appointments?

In Alice's circle, if one person knows, they tell everyone else. They call it "looking out for each other," although Alice calls it invasive because she seems to get more "looking out for" than anyone else does. The thing is, Alice does have severe depression and anxiety. She takes medicine, she has to see a doctor regularly, and let's even say she's on a disability check. (I'm not, but I used to be.) All of this means, as far as Betty, Carol, and Debbie are concerned, that Alice is "handicapped" and needs the extra help even though she doesn't ask for it and doesn't want it.

If Alice doesn't live alone, then pretty much anyone in the household could have heard her setting the appointment. Maybe Betty lives with her and is calling from work, since Alice stays home. Or if Betty hasn't left yet, then instead of calling, she will knock on Alice's door five minutes before the alarm would have gone off, *even if Alice has told her she intends to set one and doesn't want the wake-up call.* When Alice is annoyed and shows Betty where she had the alarm set and would have gotten up on her own, Betty is defensive. "Well, I was just making sure you didn't forget to set it or something." Alice suggests maybe waiting until after X o'clock before waking Alice up, if Betty really has that much of her own anxiety about it, but then Betty "forgets" and does it again next time.

Any time Alice complains, then Betty, Carol, and Debbie all respond by going to the opposite extreme and never helping her at all. Let's say her alarm clock breaks and she's out of money for the month. Disability isn't very much. Well, darned if they're going to wake her up! And they're not going to get her a new alarm either. They'll just let her miss appointments until she finally asks for help, then they'll rub it in her face with, "Ohhhh, but I thought you could take care of yourself." In other words, they have two switches. Help her with everything even when she doesn't want it, or help her with nothing. Alice suspects they know how to balance it, but they let her flounder to punish her for having complained when they helped her too much. Alice also suspects that by doing this, their goal is to teach her she needs them, and let them do everything for her so they can feel like heroic caretakers.

Could that be possible?

Because as an Alice, the number one thing that irks me in the world is people assuming without giving me a chance that I'm going to mess up.

 

[Odetta]

In this further explanation of the scenario, if I were Betty, Carol or Debbie, I have a problem with being prideful. So, I would definitely be offended if you told me to back off no matter how nicely, because that does not allow me to puff up my own feelings of superiority in condescending to help my "poor friend". I'd be doubly offended if you went out and found a new friend who is not as obnoxious as me.

 

[LovebirdsFlying]

My favorite part of the scenario is where Alice is telling Betty, "Look, I'm setting the alarm for X o'clock. If you absolutely HAVE to check on me, or else you're going to have your own anxiety about it, at least wait until after X o'clock. Give me a chance to get myself up, before you decide I need help with it." And then Betty "forgets" and wakes her up at five minutes before X anyway.

I've known so many Bettys. I can predict the script.

It occurs to me as I'm writing all of this out (which is the purpose of writing it out, so these things will occur to me) that Betty herself probably has an untreated anxiety disorder. She is deathly afraid Alice doesn't need her, and so must set it up that Alice stays dependent, and recruits Carol and Debbie to help her do that. If Alice can take care of herself, what's Betty's purpose in life?

Of course, they're going to tell Alice she's the one being prideful, since she insists she doesn't need help when they all "know" she does.

 

[Odetta]

Ahh, yes, that would explain Betty.

 

[LovebirdsFlying]

By the way, in response to this:

I would get annoyed and get an answering machine and turn off the ringer.

My first reaction was to think, "And say what on the outgoing 'leave a message at the tone' speech? I suppose I'd really have to show restraint."

Then I saw this:

Alice should hire someone off fiverr to belch the alphabet and use it as her outgoing message.

 

[Knee V]

I would silence my phone and put it on airplane mode before going to sleep. If it was a land line I would turn off the ringer or unplug it from the wall before going to sleep. And then if my friends asked about it, I would tell them what I did and why I did it.

 

[LovebirdsFlying]

Here's another scenario that happens a lot. Alice asks for something, and Betty comes *just short* of accommodating it, while trying to make it appear she made every effort to please Alice. The result is off-target in some vital way, but Alice is made to feel like a heel if she isn't totally satisfied and thankful for the attempt.

To be specific, Betty may announce, "I'm going to the store. Does anyone need anything?"

Alice requests a box of Grape-Nuts cereal.

Betty returns with a sack of grapefruit instead. "Oh... that's not what you asked for? I guess I got confused."

This doesn't just happen once or twice. It's a consistent pattern. Of course, if Alice shows any sign at all of being disappointed, she gets a stern lecture from Carol and/or Debbie. "Nobody's perfect, Alice. Haven't you ever made a mistake in your life? At least Betty tried."

What's the game here? It seems to me if it were actually gaslighting, Betty would be insisting that Alice had asked for grapefruit all along, and never said anything about Grape-Nuts cereal. It's Alice who is confused. Maybe she should call her doctor and have her dosage checked. In this case the goal is to make Alice feel like she's being unreasonable and overdemanding if she presses the issue. She strongly suspects Betty got it wrong on purpose, just so that Carol and Debbie *would* play the "nobody's perfect" card and go after Alice. But then, since they are trying to make Alice feel like she's the one who's off in the head while the rest of them are fine, is that still gaslighting?

Alice has spent a lot of years being gaslighted and is still sorting it out.

 

[LilLamb219]

I wouldn't tell anyone of my next appointment and then I'd be at complete peace

 

[LilLamb219]

Alice should write the request down on a piece of paper. If Betty messed up too many times, why even tell Betty a request? Just let Betty do her own shopping and Alice can take care of things at a later time.

Here's another scenario that happens a lot. Alice asks for something, and Betty comes *just short* of accommodating it, while trying to make it appear she made every effort to please Alice. The result is off-target in some vital way, but Alice is made to feel like a heel if she isn't totally satisfied and thankful for the attempt.

To be specific, Betty may announce, "I'm going to the store. Does anyone need anything?"

Alice requests a box of Grape-Nuts cereal.

Betty returns with a sack of grapefruit instead. "Oh... that's not what you asked for? I guess I got confused."

This doesn't just happen once or twice. It's a consistent pattern. Of course, if Alice shows any sign at all of being disappointed, she gets a stern lecture from Carol and/or Debbie. "Nobody's perfect, Alice. Haven't you ever made a mistake in your life? At least Betty tried."

What's the game here? It seems to me if it were actually gaslighting, Betty would be insisting that Alice had asked for grapefruit all along, and never said anything about Grape-Nuts cereal. It's Alice who is confused. Maybe she should call her doctor and have her dosage checked. In this case the goal is to make Alice feel like she's being unreasonable and overdemanding if she presses the issue. She strongly suspects Betty got it wrong on purpose, just so that Carol and Debbie *would* play the "nobody's perfect" card and go after Alice. But then, since they are trying to make Alice feel like she's the one who's off in the head while the rest of them are fine, is that still gaslighting?

Alice has spent a lot of years being gaslighted and is still sorting it out.

 

[LovebirdsFlying]

I've gotten good, practical advice here. The thing is, I don't think Betty's really "forgetting" or "messing up" accidentally. I believe it's being done on purpose. It seems to me the game is to goad Alice until she loses her temper, so Betty and everyone else can tell Alice how vicious her temper is, and keep her feeling bad about herself.

How can "Alice" deal with:

Alice: Please don't call me Allie. I hate that.
Betty: OK, dear, I'll try to remember.
***a short time passes***
Betty: Oh, by the way, Allie...
Alice: (annoyed) I keep asking you not to call me that!
Betty: (hurt tone) Well, I forgot. You don't have to bite my head off.
Carol: Give Betty a break, Allie. So she forgot. She's only human.
Debbie: You would do well to stop trying to control other people, Allie. You really don't have the right to tell Betty what to say.
Betty: That's true, Allie. You have such a temper.

Notice that they are ALL now calling Alice "Allie," despite how plain she made it that she doesn't want to be called that. Now, is this really Alice's temper? Or is she being goaded? Note, this scenario is the one thing that continues to happen and is not even recently in the past. If I don't totally cut off contact my mother, sooner or later she will call me by a nickname I hate, because she "forgets" or it's a "habit." Well, I don't buy that. I've been objecting to that nickname since I was five or six years old, and she just plain doesn't care how I feel about it. That's what I think.

 

[LilLamb219]

Since Alice is aware that they will continue to call her by a nickname she doesn't like, she needs to be even more in control of her temper to try to get that to stop. They obviously want to get a rise out of her so she shouldn't give in to them. She needs to keep up with the boundary of "Please don't call me by that name as I don't like it." and do so in a firm yet non-threatening tone.

This is something that is difficult to maintain composure on since it's reoccurred too many times. But the key is think of something else instead of letting it stew in the mind. Alice says what she has to say and then focuses on something else (maybe even something preset in her mind for such a time as this).

Another thing is when they call her Alice, maybe she should thank them for calling her that at some point and bring up the fact that she finds it insulting to be called by that other name that she doesn't want? This way, she's in a better mood to begin with and she catches them off guard?

I've gotten good, practical advice here. The thing is, I don't think Betty's really "forgetting" or "messing up" accidentally. I believe it's being done on purpose. It seems to me the game is to goad Alice until she loses her temper, so Betty and everyone else can tell Alice how vicious her temper is, and keep her feeling bad about herself.

How can "Alice" deal with:

Alice: Please don't call me Allie. I hate that.
Betty: OK, dear, I'll try to remember.
***a short time passes***
Betty: Oh, by the way, Allie...
Alice: (annoyed) I keep asking you not to call me that!
Betty: (hurt tone) Well, I forgot. You don't have to bite my head off.
Carol: Give Betty a break, Allie. So she forgot. She's only human.
Debbie: You would do well to stop trying to control other people, Allie. You really don't have the right to tell Betty what to say.
Betty: That's true, Allie. You have such a temper.

Notice that they are ALL now calling Alice "Allie," despite how plain she made it that she doesn't want to be called that. Now, is this really Alice's temper? Or is she being goaded? Note, this scenario is the one thing that continues to happen and is not even recently in the past. If I don't totally cut off contact my mother, sooner or later she will call me by a nickname I hate, because she "forgets" or it's a "habit." Well, I don't buy that. I've been objecting to that nickname since I was five or six years old, and she just plain doesn't care how I feel about it. That's what I think.

 

[BFine]

In Alice's circle, if one person knows, they tell everyone else. They call it "looking out for each other," although Alice calls it invasive because she seems to get more "looking out for" than anyone else does. The thing is, Alice does have severe depression and anxiety. She takes medicine, she has to see a doctor regularly, and let's even say she's on a disability check. (I'm not, but I used to be.) All of this means, as far as Betty, Carol, and Debbie are concerned, that Alice is "handicapped" and needs the extra help even though she doesn't ask for it and doesn't want it.

If Alice doesn't live alone, then pretty much anyone in the household could have heard her setting the appointment. Maybe Betty lives with her and is calling from work, since Alice stays home. Or if Betty hasn't left yet, then instead of calling, she will knock on Alice's door five minutes before the alarm would have gone off, *even if Alice has told her she intends to set one and doesn't want the wake-up call.* When Alice is annoyed and shows Betty where she had the alarm set and would have gotten up on her own, Betty is defensive. "Well, I was just making sure you didn't forget to set it or something." Alice suggests maybe waiting until after X o'clock before waking Alice up, if Betty really has that much of her own anxiety about it, but then Betty "forgets" and does it again next time.

Any time Alice complains, then Betty, Carol, and Debbie all respond by going to the opposite extreme and never helping her at all. Let's say her alarm clock breaks and she's out of money for the month. Disability isn't very much. Well, darned if they're going to wake her up! And they're not going to get her a new alarm either. They'll just let her miss appointments until she finally asks for help, then they'll rub it in her face with, "Ohhhh, but I thought you could take care of yourself." In other words, they have two switches. Help her with everything even when she doesn't want it, or help her with nothing. Alice suspects they know how to balance it, but they let her flounder to punish her for having complained when they helped her too much. Alice also suspects that by doing this, their goal is to teach her she needs them, and let them do everything for her so they can feel like heroic caretakers.

Could that be possible?

Because as an Alice, the number one thing that irks me in the world is people assuming without giving me a chance that I'm going to mess up.

* "Alice"may need to mind who she tells about her appointments/business and should probably screen her phone calls and or put in place needed boundaries to deflect overzealous friends or family members....
As I had to do this with "well-meaning" friends and relatives who tried so hard
for many many years to get me down to the level they had assigned to me so they could manipulate and "control".
Few people want to be "micro-managed"... however, it seems to "fly" on many
TV shows that I have seen over the years.

Being micro-managed is a reason many people that I know(self included)
move as far as they can from their "well-meaning" loved ones... my relatives/loved ones are in the USA and I live in Canada with my husband... when I go back home to visit, I do that for like once or twice a year-- when I'm there, the same type of "treatment" starts back up and inwardly I'm longing for my home in Canada...sad but true.