Being tolerant is one thing; what you choose to tolerate is another.
I interviewed for a crisis intervention job when I was a counseling intern. It was a grueling, detailed clinical interview in which I felt I was doing well.
The lead counselor told me we would wrap up by discussing a scenario. He described the details of the crisis, including pertinent information such as known diagnoses, medications, and other factors. He then asked what I would do.
I paused to think, and gave what I thought was a safe, sensible answer.
He responded by yelling at me: “Wrong! Think of the medication the patient said he’s on! According to what I described, your omission could have dangerous, even fatal results. You’d be an intern who screwed everything up, risking the patient’s life, not to mention putting this agency in danger of a lawsuit! How could you say such a thing? How could you not know this?”
I was surprised at the volume and vitriol coming from him, but as a counselor I’ve always been as comfortable with what I don’t know as I am with what I know.
“Well, psychotropic medications are within the purview of psychiatrists, not counselors. I’d hope we have a staff psychiatrist to guide me in a situation like that. I know that ethically, all I can do is the best I know to do in the moment. Also, I hope that new hire training would make me better prepared for day one of the job than I am right now,” I said.
He was speaking at normal volume again when he responded.
“Wow. You are utterly unflappable. I really let you have it, and you don’t seem rattled in the least. That never happens. If things get tense and I yell at you on the scene, I can trust that you will hold it together. Impressive,” he said.
Then he added, “By the way, the yelling was part of the test. That’s intentional, to see if I can trigger a panic response.”
Interview over, I went home. The next day he called to offer me the job. He seemed nonplussed when I declined the offer. I explained that I didn’t want to be part of a workplace where it might be normal for a supervisor to yell at me when under pressure. He pointed out, again, that it had not rattled me, and that my temperament was ideal for the job. I politely declined again and hung up.
In the following weeks, he repeatedly emailed me to cajole me into working with him. I also received voicemails, one of which contained a promise for a higher starting wage.
Nope.
In PLACE meetings, we often discuss what reuniting might be like. The temptation to offer blanket apologies and acquiesce to everything is real, but most of the time parents verbalize that they’ve endured more than enough. That is, reuniting would likely look different from what the EAC conceives. The prior relationship system is gone, and some of us feel that what we tolerated effectively enabled bad behavior, and perhaps even contributed to the estrangement.
You could choose to tolerate everything you did before. You know this already. But remember that you don’t have to. Take some time, if you will, to consider the priority that you are, and what positive changes you can now make for your own wellbeing.
