Are we doing the easy thing at the expense of burning bridges and harming others?
WRITTEN BY: Dr. Maggie Augustyn, FAAIP, FICOI
Am I the only one who tends to think that adults are acting like children? We have become disproportionately combative. The us versus them mentality is pervasive in every aspect of our lives. And recently, it feels like it’s getting even worse. It’s me versus the world, everywhere, all the time; I can even feel it in myself. It seems that many people make decisions solely by evaluating the overall impact of that decision on themselves. They make decisions as if those choices didn’t have ripple effects on their friends, colleagues, neighbors, or community members.
Yes, we’ve arrived in a place where we have to protect our own peace and our own rights and our own opinions. However, at times, we do so at a greater expense of someone else’s peace and someone else’s rights. And it seems we just don’t care about the fallout.
IT’S ALL ABOUT ME…
Have you noticed that more and more posts these days are authored by anonymous members? Let’s consider the reasons… In the last many months, and maybe even a couple of years, authors of simple questions have been accosted on social media. Keyboard brawls have broken out over trivial matters, simple questions about day-to-day activities in the dental office. Adults—dentists with a higher calling, overly educated servants, and healers—bully one another over charging patients’ credit card fees or performing their own hygiene. You canvas some of these social media boards, and it’s unpleasant. There is one particular group that is politically spicy, and just about anything goes. And sure, adults need an outlet to say what they want, when they want. Now listen, I, myself, have a particularly crass and sarcastic sense of humor. If taken out of context or shared with people who do not know or understand my sarcasm, much of what I say would probably get me into a lot of trouble. Within this one particular social media group, posts are made where community leaders in organized dentistry are called rapists and worse. Not everyone can or wants to handle that. So, in an effort of self-protection, some leave or unfollow those groups. We unfollow, unfriend, or, worse yet, block the people who trigger us. And much of that makes sense. But what happens when the blocking occurs within the confines of a close relationship with someone and is one-sided, unresolved, and sometimes with no warning?
THE BLOCKER AND THE BLOCKED
There are many discussions about the protections for the person who blocks another, the blocker. This might be on social media, email, or phone. Much of it is dependent on the relationship. There is no question that if abuse is involved, a block is appropriate. During a block, it is said that the blocker chooses to exercise their right in an effort toward emotional regulation and self-preservation. Another reason for the block might be to create personal boundaries or get out of a comparison trap. However, what is often left out of the equation when the block and blocker are celebrated is the havoc the function plays on the blocked individual.
TO BLOCK
I have been the blocker and blocked. One person I blocked was my sister. I had my reasons, or at least that’s what I told myself back then. Truthfully, I did it because I wasn’t willing to have an uncomfortable conversation. And I received some bad advice from a trusted advisor. It not only broke her and me apart, it tore our entire family apart; the falling out crushed my parents. Looking back, my choice to block her lacked maturity, compassion, and love. Most importantly, it lacked consideration for how it would affect anyone—everyone—other than me. The other person I blocked was only on my cell phone (not email or social), and it was a dysfunctional relationship where he constantly pointed out my failures and his successes. At some point, our relationship started to play out as a one-sided conversation on how to live my life despite requests to end said advice. Wait… I do have a lengthy list of blocked contacts on Facebook, Instagram, and phone, and those appear to be bots… whose inappropriate fawning comments kept coming as if there was a faucet you could not turn off.
…AND TO BE BLOCKED
It’s hard to admit publicly that I’ve been blocked. Because when I disclose that, I worry that I begin to be viewed as defective, as unreasonable, as unlikable.
Yet, here we go.
Blocked by Person #1: Someone who had been my best friend several years ago blocked me on every communication channel possible. I cannot begin to explain the turmoil that it presents in life and the fallout it brings. It changes every relationship connecting you to the blocker. It feels like people have to take sides, and it feels like no one is taking yours. It changes and breaks how close you would, and still are willing to, get to other humans. As difficult as it is at the time, you come to find peace in it and move on. However, that peace does not come immediately.
Blocked by Person #2: Someone from the speaking community has me blocked. He’s the sweetheart of the community, loved by everyone, tagged as one who listens generously and runs to help. He coaches others to find purpose and meaning in life. Yet, he barely looks at me at events and coldly passes me in hallways. It’s painful to stand an elevator ride with him, just the two of us. He has had a total of maybe 5 or 10 conversations with me in real life, yet he’s blocked me. Whatever he thinks he knows about me from 3rd parties is enough for him not to want any of my presence near him.
Blocked by Person #3: And last, hardest to admit, my past confidant and close paid advisor of four years. She is someone who was instrumental in my self-development, someone who had become one of my very best friends, someone who knew all of my darkest moments and insecurities. She blocked me, too.
THE PAIN IS REAL
As I mentioned, we celebrate the sense of peace one might experience when the blocker reacts. Yet, rarely do we discuss the damage caused to the blocked. The individual who is blocked often experiences rejection. A 2003 study in Science showed that rejection lights up the same parts of our brain as physical pain.1
How much time do you spend trying to convince yourself and others that social media isn’t real? That the relationships and “people” with whom you interact aren’t three-dimensional. But the feelings and emotions you encounter as a result of those very exchanges, the chemistry that is altered in your brain as a result—I can assure you—is very real. And so are its consequences.
The block can also create confusion and bring about anger. Cognitive dissonance is not uncommon. Cognitive dissonance is a mental discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes. For example, in one moment, you are friends, and in the next, you are not. Very often, being blocked leads to rumination, constantly revisiting what happened and why it happened. Often, it is surrounded by confusion, for there is no warning. And most damaging, especially for children of trauma or victims of PTSD, is a reminder of abandonment.
The abandonment and pain of rejection don’t just present themselves the moment you’re blocked; they continue to follow you. And it follows because there is no resolution. There is no answer and no resolution. There is no opportunity to ask questions. You’re blocked! Left on an island to concoct any answer, any lie you can about what you did wrong. Each time the celebrated speaker’s name is mentioned, you wonder what was so ugly about you that he chose to reject you. You wallow in that ugliness. Each time you see a friend from the community you left, that your past best friend is still very much a part of, you remember the warmth that used to live there and immediately stop yourself from feeling it because it hurts to reminisce. And the past advisor—the one who knew of your abandonment and rejection issues, the one who was hired to serve and uplift you—that’s the wound that is hardest to heal. That’s the rejection that injures the deepest.
A RESPONSIBILITY OF FAILED RELATIONSHIPS
In full disclosure, every one of the instances of my being blocked shoulders a responsibility that I must carry. In each one of those instances, whatever brought the relationship to break or fall apart, I fully admit that I bore a part of it. Generally speaking, a relationship that is hot and heavy in vulnerability, shared emotions, and exchange of our deepest and rarely spoken secrets does not just fall apart with one person’s doing. Two parties are involved. This especially applies to my past best friend and past advisor. Even if I mention the speaker, who barely knows me, he must have received information (correct or not) from a third party who was disillusioned with me enough to warrant the speaker’s block. There was my doing in that, somewhere.
As a relationship heads for turbulent waters, both parties feel the oncoming discomfort and often pull away. We do it to avoid the distress, thinking that the avoidance and distance will just magically make things better. But mostly, we avoid the array of emotions because we are afraid of the confrontation. Yes, it’s hard to tell someone how they might have “upset” us. But that isn’t what is holding us back. What paralyzes us is that once we voice our offense, we will hear back how we have misbehaved ourselves. And then we have to face our own demons, our own misconduct. We then might have to look at ourselves once again in the mirror as unlovable and unworthy. That is too much to bear, and we avoid the confrontation altogether.
And thus, each time my close confidant and I faced these turbulent waters, I withdrew rather than address the issue. I withdrew with a prayer that a silence and a pause would fix things. And it didn’t. Instead, my retraction and rest created turmoil within the opposing party, leading to my blocking.
Now, all of this, of course, is my own interpretation of the events, which has not been in any way confirmed… because we never had the conversation (my withdrawal), and I’d been blocked.
As an update, many, many months following being blocked by my bestie and hired advisor, each contacted me offering an apology. Because that contact occurred after much self-reflection and healing, I held no ill will toward either one of them. By that time, I had forgiven them, and maybe they’d forgiven me, too; I had moved on. But it wasn’t without tremendous emotional cost; it wasn’t without a sense of abandonment; it wasn’t without shame, without pain, without tears. What was hard, once again, was the fact that each one of them reached out at a time convenient for them. Despite the amnesty and healing I’d done up to that point, the messages unearthed a returned sense of cognitive dissonance, my sense of confusion.
DON’T BLOCK. TALK.
The lesson I have come to learn as one who has blocked and been blocked is that none of those actions are without fallout. In this self-serving culture that we live in now, as you block, there is no doubt in my mind that you, too, will be blocked. Being blocked has taught me to use the tactic with extreme caution. Maybe not every relationship is worth saving,2 but every person is worth having a conversation with. And maybe you think they aren’t deserving of it, so have the adult conversation because that’s the person you are. Have the conversation because it’s the right thing to do. Have the conversation because you know the emotional destruction the blocking will do. Unfollow rather than block. Attempt to bring the relationship to a closure, to a resolution. Blocking solves nothing. However the relationship fell apart, whatever unsolved baggage was present… it will show up in your next relationship. I guarantee it.
As the person who was blocked in my relationship with my past bestie, I should have learned to have that difficult conversation. When my relationship with my advisor was headed for difficulty, I should have known better. Well, I knew what was happening. I knew we had reached a point of hardship. But my fear took over. I made a decision as a result of that fear. I sat in the paralysis of what I was going to hear back as I expressed her transgressions toward me. I sat in it so long that she blocked me. All of this to show that when you don’t solve these issues… they follow you from relationship to relationship.
THE HARD THING AND THE REAL THING
We look to blocking as a measure of self-protection. But in this measure of self-protection, you might not just injure others—you might just rob yourself of an opportunity to evolve and grow. You rob yourself of an opportunity to be loved. When you block others, especially if those relationships are longstanding, there is a lost opportunity to move past the mud and challenge the misunderstanding or disagreement. And yes, sometimes those disagreements and discords lie deeper than we might want to admit. Moving past those, however, will lead to a deeper friendship, a connection of love that we all need to thrive.
Moving past those difficult conversations allows you to let go of the anchors of anger, frustration, and resentment and to coexist with compassion. It allows you an opportunity to love yourself more. Human relationships and connections are more complex than I could ever explain in the span of one or 100 articles. I want to encourage you to be present for the messy part of it. Be present in this worth, as these connections become fragile, frail, uncommon, and are going into extinction. As you overcome the turbulent waters of these relationships that are failing, your friendships will be richer and deeper. And a block will never allow you to get there. It will feel like a block might trap others on the outside—the truth is, the block will trap you, by yourself, on the inside. And is that really worth it?
REFERENCES
- [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14551436/
- [2] The exception here, always being abuse and preserving mental stability.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Maggie Augustyn, FAAIP, FICOI, is a Dawson-trained practicing general dentist, owner of Happy Tooth, author, and inspirational keynote speaker. Featured on 4 dental magazine covers and recognized by Dentistry Today as one of the top 250 leaders, she inspires others through her writing, helping them find healing and connection. Dr. Augustyn serves as the national spokesperson for the Academy of General Dentistry and as a faculty member for the Productive Dentist Academy. She contributes monthly to her “Mindful Moments” column for Dentistry Today and AGD Impact and writes for other publications as well. With unwavering compassion and a dedication to excellence, Dr. Augustyn addresses audiences ranging from a few dozen to thousands, guiding them toward fulfillment and meaningful impact. To contact her, email drmaggie@myhappytooth.com.
FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: Ankastudio22/Shutterstock.com.
