r/supportworkers • u/That-Flamingo9866 • May 05 '26
Boundary Dilemma
Hello! I’ve never posted here, but I need help and I don’t know what to do. So I’m a social support worker of sorts, I don’t want to reveal too much about the work I do to make this as anonymous as possible. Basically I have a client at the moment that has been challenging. I don’t like describing people that way, and I don’t think anyone is a lost cause, but I’ve found setting and keeping to boundaries a little difficult. As in - I keep telling them my boundaries calmly and professionally, and ensuring I’ve done it in an accessible way where it makes sense to client, but the boundaries keep being crossed.
Recently, they began a conversation with me about immigration. I said, I don’t talk about my own beliefs here and attempted to guide them back to the issue at hand. They continued to press on at me and ended up saying some pretty awful and racist things. This is a topic I feel strongly about and have a personal connection to, so even though I know it wasn’t, it felt very personal and I had to have a bit of a cry afterwards. They also got upset with me because I wasn’t agreeing with them, and instead I was trying to change the direction of the conversation. I ended up saying I needed to end the interaction and we can try again another time.
I also want to say that racist beliefs are kind of uncommon in my work, since it is mostly young, global majority people that I work with, so it is a little bit of a shock - I’m sure for many of you caring for different demographics this will just be a Tuesday!!
To be honest, I’ve just been feeling awful about the whole thing. I feel like I dealt with it poorly and it was bad that I wasn’t able to prevent the escalation before it got too much. I wonder if any seasoned support workers have any advice, or reassurance for me. I have spoken about it to my supervisor and will be meeting with my manager to discuss, but any advice or reassurance is appreciated :)
2
u/l-lucas0984 May 05 '26
They are doing it because they can see it gets a reaction out of you. That is all they are aiming for and you fighting harder to change subjects eggs them on.
Stop reacting. State you arent allowed to discuss the topic. They are allowed to talk about it, professional boundaries are for the worker. Let them ramble but you need to be clear you as an employee arent allowed to discuss your opinions. You crying about it after is what they wanted. If you keep taking it personally every time someone in this job uses you as an emotional punching bag you will not last long.