The Illusion of Max Capacity

Recently I read a post about boundaries, the perennial zeitgeist of mental health conversations. The writer offered this template for those who feel overloaded to respond to requests for help: 

“Hey! I’m so glad you reached out. I’m actually at capacity / helping someone else who’s in crisis / dealing with some personal stuff right now, and I don’t think I can hold appropriate space for you. Could we connect [later date or time] instead / Do you have someone else you could reach out to?” 

Everything in me cringed as I read this text. I, like many people, struggle to be vulnerable. If I have drummed up the courage to ask a person for real help, it’s usually because I’m past my wit’s end or I’m in imminent, physical need - I’m in the middle of an acute loss experience and a core piece of myself has been jarred out of order. To receive a response like this while in such a vulnerable state would make me think twice about ever asking for help again from the person who sent it. 

I wondered at my gut reaction, thinking maybe it said more about my own problems/tendencies than about the boundary in question. Maybe, I thought, I’m too sensitive, or perhaps even too guarded. But within the context of my self-reflection, I realized there was more going on. 

On the surface, this kind of boundary-setting is extremely matter-of-fact and even looks like good self-care. What’s wrong with acknowledging you’re at capacity and cannot help another person? Perhaps nothing, at least in some cases. If a distant friend who has asked you for help over and over again reaches out for the hundredth time in the space of a month to complain about a bad day at work, maybe it’s time to send this text. In most cases, though, I think there’s a better way. 

Imagine, instead of the distant, stressed-out friend I noted above, your child/brother/best friend comes to you for emotional support. The timing could not be worse, your relationship is failing and you’ve just lost your job. You’ve got loss upon loss stacked against you and all you could possibly ask for in life is a tiny breather, a break from the sadness and reality of human suffering. But in the depths of their own crisis, this person who you love and cherish has asked you to listen to them for just a little while and offer your advice. What do you do? Do you send that text?

From the bottom of my heart, I hope you don’t. Here’s why. 

Boundaries are fantastic, necessary tools for self-care - until they become so central to our search for good mental health that they leave no space for human compassion. Emotional walls between people can keep bad things from happening, help us keep our sanity, and certainly guide us toward resiliency. But if we rely on them too much, we risk becoming a prickly fortress rather than the best version of ourselves.  

For many people, there is no more vulnerable and heartbroken time in their life than in the period following the death of an immediate family member or very close friend. It’s a time of heartbreak, a time when our walls come down and our bodies/emotions take the lead. We relinquish, willingly or no, our control over when the tears come or when memories float to the top. There is perhaps no time in our lives when it might seem as though we have less capacity to deal with someone else’s pain.

And yet, we gather at a funeral or over coffee or in homes with others who are also in pain and talk about that pain at length as a way of processing the loss. We tell stories, we cry together, we feel what needs to be felt, and we do what needs to be done to process the loss experience. When someone comes to us in that moment saying, “I hurt,” we can respond “I hurt too” and together experience healing each in our own way and according to our own loss. It’s empathy and compassion at work when we’re at our most vulnerable that helps us take steps toward an integrated life after loss.

Sometimes the thing putting us at capacity is not a tremendous loss. Maybe we’re not at our most vulnerable, maybe it’s just that life or emotions have temporarily overloaded us. It may feel as though there is not room for one other thing to go wrong with us or with anyone in our life. Sometimes it’s important to rest and recuperate; to turn off our phones or go on a mountain retreat. Sometimes we have to send that text or something like it and direct the person on to a place or person who can be the help that person needs. 

But many, many other times, we’re simply living under the illusion that capacity is what’s required to help someone.

Let me put this in a different way: You do not have to feel the feelings of the person in loss or crisis, take on tasks that require you to give nonexistent time, or even offer thought-out advice to be a real support and help for someone who comes to you in a crisis. Many times, in fact, I would say most of the time, all you have to do is offer a caring demeanor or a bit of specific, practical help. You don’t need to give more than five minutes of your time or commit to a specific time or response in order to make a person feel supported.  

Caring demeanor demonstrates compassion, and it doesn’t have to take anything from you that you don’t have. Before responding to a request for help when you’re in overload, take a deep breath. Take a mental walk outside your own circumstances and create some emotional distance. Remember, their story and feelings are their own; you do not have to feel them, bear them, or take them on in order to hear them and in turn help the other person feel heard. 

A caring demeanor over a text message can look like any one of the following templates:

“I’m so sorry to hear this happened to you. How are you feeling in the aftermath?”

“I wish I could be there to help with your emergency, but since i am in another location / currently ill / cannot take off of work, can I send you some cash to help with groceries / connect you with my babysitter who can take care of the kids / [insert other specific 5-minute-or-less practical way of helping]?”

“It sounds like you’re going through a really difficult thing. If you’re ready to share the story of what happened, I would love to hear it. I wish I could invite you for coffee or a zoom call, but my schedule is insane at the moment. Would you be ok recording a voice note / texting me / sending me an email about it? I will listen / read and respond at my very next opportunity.”

Each of these templates require a perspective shift. The illusion of capacity has some truth to it: if we believe we have nothing left to give, we don’t. But if we can bust past the false assumption that giving support requires that we give ourselves away, there’s something beautiful to be gained: human compassion, boundaries that look like gates instead of walls, and most importantly, a whole lot more healing available to us all.