Knowing When it’s Our Responsibility to Regulate vs Being Accommodated

ArchivesEmotional RegulationAccommodations

Jun 24

While our interactions do not have to be transactional, we can take note of how inconvenienced someone might be by an accommodation we are requesting, versus how difficult it will be for us to cope without it.

Remember that boundaries are about how you will respond if put in a situation you have said you are uncomfortable with. They are not about policing someone’s behavior that you don’t like. Healthy responses look like:

“It makes me uncomfortable when you raise your voice at me. I will have to go outside or take some time alone if you can’t communicate without doing it.”
“If I’m feeling dysregulated, I need to be given space and time to regulate myself. If you are trying to communicate something urgent to me, I will receive it better when I am regulated.”

Regulate then communicate. It is always better to come back after you have taken the time to self-soothe, ground yourself, and feel your emotions in the moment without the risk of reacting in a harmful way. And then come back when you have thought about how you might address anything that might need to be communicated to others.

If you are worried you might forget what you would say, make an audio recording in the moment, or write your thoughts down in a note app or on a piece of paper. You will likely find that you have a clearer and more compassionate view of how to address anything that might have affected you after listening back to it later.

Unfortunately some people view even the time needed to go self-regulate as an accommodation, and you may need to advocate for yourself to be given that space.

Compassion and Curiosity are key components to navigating this challenge. We must take the time to try to sympathize with the position others are in as well as ourselves. And if we do not understand something, we must try to ask clarifying questions that will help us arrive at an explanation that tries to assume the best intentions of people. It may be proven wrong in some examples, but, at least, this way we can come to that conclusion having done everything we could.