Boundaries...

Why do I feel like an asshole when I set them?  It really doesn’t matter who it is, I feel badly for setting boundaries and that is just how it is.  I hate that I feel like I have no rights, or better stated, my rights when compared to others are less important.

Or at least more susceptible to movement.  I move or alter what I need in order to accommodate others because I always, and I do mean always, feel like what I need or want is less important than what you need or want.

So I have historically moved my own boundaries because I didn’t want the blow back, or the fight, or to be thought less of or because I was afraid you would leave.  Ouch, that hurts to admit. But it is true.

Someone put out on Instagram the other day the five traits of someone who is susceptible to narcissistic abuse and fuck I had them all:

Crave validation

Low self esteem

Highly empathetic and compassionate

People pleasing tendencies

Lack healthy boundaries

And as much as I do not want this to be true...it is.  That is the bad news, the good news is that I can change.  It isn’t easy or a great deal of fun but I can change how I relate to all of this and others.

And I can start with setting and maintaining healthy boundaries for me.  This does not mean that they are going to welcome boundaries or agree that these are healthy boundaries for me.  These are just the limits that I need to set for myself, in order for me to feel ok about me.

I always thought boundaries were mean.  Or they were isolating or they were limiting.  And I guess in some ways, from some perspectives they are.  However, sometimes I do not have to be nice.  Sometimes I do need space away from others in order to take care of myself.  Sometimes I need limits.  

These limits I set for me, are often going to irritate and piss off others, not by their intent, I am not setting them to do that, that is the by product and that is largely a you thing.

I can see that I ended up where I did because of my own refusal to set and maintain healthy boundaries for myself.  And while I can see that the low self esteem, needing external validation, being very empathetic and wanting to please people all the time led to my own failure to hold healthy boundaries for myself, I don’t have to start at the top to change the result.  I can just set the healthy boundary now and work my way up to the issues that caused all of this in the first place.

Let me explain:

I never set appropriate boundaries because I wanted you to like me, I felt your pain as my pain and somehow your pain was always more important, I didn’t feel good about who I was because I kept engaging with people who were all too happy to point out my flaws as if I didn’t already see them.  So my self esteem issues, my need for other validation and my empathy and people pleasing all led me to a place where there were no healthy boundaries to be set because that would result in me violating all the ways I related to others in relationship.

But I don’t have to magically develop great self esteem, stop people pleasing, lose my empathy or change where my validation came from, I could just set the boundary and work my way up.  Do you see what I mean?

In setting the boundary I am creating a me pleasing environment that you may or may not like, I am taking care of me, not without consideration of your needs and wants and desires but in contrast to my own and then refusing to allow myself to be made small in that comparison. My needs, wants and desires are just as important and totally, 100% my responsibility.  And by setting and maintaining that boundary, I am improving my self esteem.  I am changing the external validation for the internal.  I am pleasing me and not allowing my empathy and compassion to be used against me.  I am engaging honestly with you in a way that is good for me, and has integrity with you.  You don’t have to like it, or understand it or agree to it...you are no longer the focal point of the whole deal, I am.

So taking the time to find out what I need, and want, what I think is best, because most of the time, I do know what is best, for me, I have just outsourced that decision a great deal of the time to you, thinking that you would take care of me in ways like I take care of you, and then I would always be pissed and hurt and angry that you failed to measure up again.  I see now that it was my failure all along.  It was me that set me up, you were just the tool with which I did it.

Last night someone asked me to allow something that I do not think is a good idea for a multitude of reasons.  And I felt a great deal of pressure to acquiesce.  Then I felt a great deal of pressure from someone else to make a decision contrary to what the other person requested I do.  I felt like I always do caught in the middle of two competing people’s needs and demands.  And as usual, I felt lost in all of it.

But as I was falling asleep last night I had a thought and it went like this:

What do you feel is the right thing here?

Why do you feel that way?

What does your heart, head and gut say?

And as usual those three fuckers agree upon nothing.  My head said fuck the request and the person who made it, my heart said that I should honor the request and acquiesce.  My gut said that while the request was wrapped up in a whole bunch of reasons and reasonable expectations, there was absolutely nothing about the request that felt good to me, or likely to yield a good result for anyone involved.

And as usual, my gut was fucking right!   As soon as I saw the set up, the place where I have faltered a million fucking times with this person, I saw the path forward was to do something different.  I do not believe this person to be able to make good decisions, healthy decisions. And because I have refused to accept that truth, I have suffered and so have a lot of other people.  And I have the power to stop that from happening one more time.

I know my decision will be unpopular.  I know my decision will cause grief and pain and hardship and several people to think poorly of me.  But me, making this decision, setting this boundary is the only way I can hold a good opinion of myself.  So that is what I am going to do.

And just like that my self esteem improves, my compassionate nature is aligned with my spiritual principles, I am not people pleasing, and I am validating myself because likely no one else is going to in this whole scenario.  And just because I set this boundary, all of that good shit was able to happen.

So I can rewrite the script, change the ending and thereby change the whole entire fucking story.  I get to do that.  It is my life after all.  And no one but me and God have to be simpatico on the details.  You can think I am a bitch, mean, ruthless or whatever.  But all that is, is your opinion.  And you do not know how much thought, feeling and consideration I put into this whole fucking deal.  And I owe you no explanation or reason, I just owe a response.  That is all.   Whether you like it or not is not my business or concern.

And while it feels foreign.  It also feels right, for me. And that is the only person I am responsible to and for.

It is amazing that if I start with the boundary, I improve all of the other things that led me to a place where I didn’t have the wherewithal to set that boundary in the past.  By setting the boundary, for me, I gain immediate self esteem, let go of the need for external validation, let go of the need to people please and use my compassion rightly for all concerned.  I get to feel good about me and how I am behaving in the world. And that is really its own reward.

Again, still.