I have recently become more familiar with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and how much I can relate to it. It was like looking into a mirror of my childhood traumas and repeated cycles of mistakes- abuse of partners both emotional and physical, poor credit history by impulsive spending, losing myself in relationships of all kinds because I did not want to be abandoned, drunken nights I can’t remember, sexual promiscuity and the like. The more I learn about it the more I can connect it to my world both past and present. This article will detail what observations I have gathered from working in a call center (team-oriented) environment and what effects it has had on me.
I came back to a job I left for higher pay elsewhere about a month ago. I think I needed a place where I felt like I belonged, that’s why I returned. Upon returning, I noticed I was not the same person I had been before. I called in just a few days ago and did not feel as bad about it as I was having a rough mental health day. In the past, I would have felt guilty for wanting to take care of myself at someone else’s expense. That drive for self-preservation was absent and was replaced by the drive to be recognized for my achievements, for how well I handle myself, how hard I work, and for producing results. Recognition was in great abundance so long as you performed well. Being the perfectionist I am, I performed well to gain status as well as to please my upper management, which I saw as a pseudo-family.
Funny thing about personal accountability, it’s not taught in a team setting. There is no you. You lose yourself to the greater good of the team. Sick? Throwing up or can’t talk because of a cold? You must still come in because your team is counting on you and if you don’t come in your teammates will have to cover the hours you are missing- it’s the power of one. We are taught one person can have such a huge impact on the call volume. You will cause your teammates to work harder, the customers will wait longer, the clients will be unhappy because of this and “oh, no!” if this happens too often, we could lose the contract and not have a job anymore. No stress intended. For one with BPD or for those who have a hard time controlling reactions and emotions towards things, you give yourself up, your own health, your identity, to make sure you don’t let your manager or your team down. You think it’s the right thing to do because it’s hard for you not to feel so much and run at 100 mph or not run at all.
Because call centers are team oriented and performance-based there is a lot of pressure to “be good all the time”. That one call where you acted outside of your work-persona may get pulled. If you fail a call that not only impacts your rank but also the rank of the team. It then becomes your individual responsibility to be responsible for the entire team. To compound matters, if on the off chance you get that failed score, (as we are scored on a monthly basis) it becomes a black and white frame of mind; “Now that I have that failed score there is nothing I can do to meet goal this month”. It’s all or nothing.
However, it gives us a role to fill. We become part of a team with a shared goal. This sounds healthy and it can be. How do we separate those blurred lines of self and team? How does one, especially with BPD, know when to take care of self over team? This answer was super fuzzy for me the last couple of years. I literally gave all the spoons I had (spoon theory see more here https://www.healthline.com/health/spoon-theory-chronic-illness-explained-like-never-before) when I was working toward this common goal. Work became my life and my family. Gaining more acceptance, approval, recognition and status was my goal. It left me defeated, emotionally unsatisfied, and burnt-out. Especially when I concluded, I am expendable. All the hard work, the hours of working through panic attacks to meet deadlines, to coach agents that were not as engaged, to feel that no matter what I did or could do I would not be good enough to be a manager, were so that I could say I was stable and find a sense of self. I gave up my true identity for one artificially created for me.
In sum, I feel the atmosphere of teamwork has lead to increased stressors, more black and white thinking, feelings of inadequacy, and trouble separating personal identity from that of the team with an added consequence of exacerbated mental health issues.
The Transformation of a Lifetime 