To be very specific, I have one friend with OCD and anxiety. Another friend with anger issues and really bad procrastination issues that resulted in counselling (heard they visited the IMH before poly too) Another friend has ADHD and dyslexia. Another friend may seem normal at first, but relationships can be a bit shaky due to how irritable they can be sometimes. Another friend is really reliable but if there’s one thing she lacks in general, it’s taking initiative (let’s call her A, also believe it or not she’s assigned as the leader for a project too, me being the assistant leader) Then there’s me, who perhaps the personality and wellbeing has been shaped too much by a troubled household.
As friends, we work well. But when it comes to actual groupwork, things start to collapse. People’s procrastination leads to not meeting deadlines soon. Wrong perception of ideas ends with us being behind the class. Boundaries can be crossed too, even if the other said “no”.
I’m particularly closer with A because we were both relied on by the group cause of responsibility and knowing how to work things out. But we both share a similar burden. A has compared our roles to some everyday morning objects. I was the alarm clock that could wake the others up, and A is like the plush toy that soften the true severity of our workload. A has pointed out how one friend could take social cues from the other, therefore deeming it acceptable to cross a boundary (unfortunately it’s only A’s boundaries so far that’s being crossed, which is being bitten by the friends with OCD/Anciety and the ADHD/Dyslexia)
I don’t really know what to do. I come across as really blunt because of my upbringing as well as a sec sch life where people can be choosy, stingy, and rude. I’ve left sec sch, and I genuinely wish to be with my friends in poly bc I never had actual real friends in sec sch
Hi @undying_sun. That’s a lot to carry, and it sounds like you genuinely care about this group which is probably why it weighs on you so much.
The dynamic you’re describing is actually quite common when a group of people with different challenges come together, but that doesn’t make it easier to navigate, especially when you and A are essentially holding things together while also managing your own stuff.
A’s analogy is pretty insightful. An alarm clock and a plush toy one creates urgency, one absorbs it. The problem is that neither of those roles is sustainable long-term without some cost to the people playing them. You and A are essentially doing emotional and organisational labour that the group hasn’t formally acknowledged or distributed.
On the groupwork side, I think the core issue is that the group is functioning on informal goodwill rather than any real structure. When everyone’s challenges are invisible or unspoken, the most responsible people end up compensating silently. A few things that might help without requiring a big confrontation, things like clearer deadlines set earlier than the real ones, breaking tasks into smaller pieces so procrastination has less room to snowball and being explicit about who owns what.
But I want to ask you something, because you mentioned your upbringing shaped your personality and wellbeing. How are you doing in all of this?
@Patootie a lot of my upbring has revolved around my mother, who is strict, narcissistic, rejects the importance of mental health and puts it down entirely (she’s a good person in general, but she is not a good mother nor wife to my father at times) A lot of traits I may have gotten from my mom, both good and bad. One of my biggest fears is ending up like her in the future.
thanks for caring about my own well-being. It does feel like I have a lot to shoulder, especially since I have other commitments and interests to focus on too. I do almost as if I was the one holding my entire group together, because I had reached out to teachers before for me and my friends’ sake. It was also because of me reaching out to a teacher that I was the first to be made aware of how far behind my group was and I eventually had to contact A first about the dire situation of it. My only concerns have always been getting my friends to be on task and reduce emotional conflict (the two friends with OCD/Anxiety and ADHD/Dyslexia are the most prone to outbursts, whether verbal or non verbal)
All in all, it just feels overwhelming and stressful for me due to the amount of work that needs to be done, and it makes me feel like I was carrying a lot of the group’s work alongside A