Boundaries are important and necessary. They are also something I struggle deeply with as a result of my cptsd and related childhood trauma and upbringing. I was raised by people who treated relationships as purely transactional. Nothing, not even love and affection, was freely given. Everything came with expectations and Freya help you if you failed to meet those expectations. This set me up with a lot of trouble in my adult life when it comes to forming relationships with other people because, among all the issues with transactional relationship expectations, it also gave me a deep mistrust of others.
I'm quite used to being hurt or taken advantage of. It comes with the territory of cptsd and it's only very recently that I've begun to feel like I can ask for what I need and not brace myself for an angry reaction - and even so, that's still only sometimes. There are so many times when I've talked to a friend about something they've done that's upset or hurt me where I'm in tears because I am absolutely terrified of their reaction. I expect them to lash out at me, to end our friendship, to call me a monster because I'm hurting. Even if they don't react that way, even if they are kind and understanding and apologetic, I still have pumped up adrenaline levels for preparing for a fight that didn't happen, and it's a bitch to deal with. I think that's why I just stay quiet and deal with being mistreated a lot of the time. It's just way easier to cope with the familiarity of mistreatment than go through the process of preparing myself for a fight or the end of a friendship because I tried to speak up about how I felt. It takes so much out of me to have those conversations, even if they end amicably and things get resolved.
Setting boundaries when you have cptsd is probably one of the most difficult things to do. It's painful and accompanied by so much fear and shame and guilt, and it can take a really long time to adjust and accept that boundaries are a good thing. I'm still making those adjustments, but I think my biggest step in setting boundaries was cutting my mother out of my life. It happened slowly at first, and then all at once last December (holy shit, it's been a year??) when I finally could take no more. After years and years of putting up with getting triggered by her and having her toxic influence affect my parenting of my own children, I told her I didn't want her in my life anymore, and I expected her to stop contacting me. She doesn't respect the boundaries I've set, but I've blocked all methods of communication so her impact is as minimal as it can get and I've gotta say, I've felt so much lighter in the last year without her presence looming over me.
That's not to say that this change came easily, though. It was anything but easy. I had a panic attack in the midst of talking to her and telling her to get out of my life. She sends parcels with overbearing letters to my kids and gifts around their birthdays and holidays and I've come to call them my Boxes of Shame and Guilt. She writes letters about how much she misses my kids and it honestly makes me feel like a monster. I'm very lucky to have people in my corner reminding me that I'm doing the right thing and protecting them, but even so, it's still difficult to be riddled with guilt and shame and these horrible feelings all because I'm trying to protect my mental well being.
I don't just have issues with setting boundaries, I also have issues with acknowledging them and respecting them. That's not an easy thing to admit, to myself or to other people, but it is something I'm trying really hard to work through and get better at. I also have a tendency to get possessive about the people I'm comfortable with. I want to be their favourite person. I want to be the person they tell everything to. I want to be the centre of their mother fucking universe, and I get very pouty and insecure when I'm not. I know that isn't fair, which is why I work really hard at trying to manage these feelings myself instead of unloading them on my friends. But even with all that effort, I have such a hard time with maintaining relationships and knowing what a healthy relationship with another human is supposed to look and feel like.
There are so many questions I have about this. Is it me, or is it them? Am I being unreasonable, or am I being mistreated again? Is this a violation of my friend's boundaries? What if they don't really care and are just trying to be polite? How do I know if I crossed the line? What if I cross a line that I can't walk back? Am I being too pushy? Is this okay? Am I enough? Am I too much?
It's enough to make my head spin, and it does. Constantly.
I don't expect people to be there for me all the time - though I hope they will be if I'm totally honest - and I understand they have lives and needs and problems of their own, but it can be so difficult to accept these truths when you're at war with your own brain. When the slightest change in a friends' behaviour feels like the end of everything, and it feels like it must be my fault; when I've grown so accustomed to being mistreated that I don't even realize it's happening. Abused kids grow up to speak a language other people don't understand, and I'm constantly missing the translation of social cues and other forms of communication because I'm so used to certain patterns and I'm looking for behaviours that aren't there.
Figuring out my interpersonal relationships will likely be a lifelong struggle for me, and this is something I've just come to accept. I was raised by people who treated relationships like one big scoreboard, forever tracking how much or how little is owed between us, and I don't want to live my life that way. I don't want people to do things with me or for me under some twisted sense of obligation because I helped them out once. It makes me deeply uncomfortable just how many people seem to think that this is healthy behaviour because it was not a healthy way to grow up.
On the other side of this argument though, the attitude that we owe others nothing and that we shouldn't expect anything from anyone is nearly as alarming. I owe my friends everything. The friends I have now are people I consider to be my family, and I would drop everything to be there for them in any way that I could, even if I'm not guaranteed to ever be shown that same consideration. It could be my codependent nature showing through, but I'd like to believe that this is how family and close relationships are supposed to be. People who love and care for each other, helping each other out not out of obligation, but out of affection. This might seem like a no-brainer for some but to me, it's an entirely new concept that I still revel at. People helping me and not holding that help over my head for the rest of my days. People supporting me out of affection and respect, not manipulation. These aren't things I ever thought I would experience, and it's a real process learning to accept them and be comfortable with them because it means accepting that what I'm familiar with wasn't okay, wasn't safe, wasn't family.
The road to accepting love and support has proved to be a long one. I don't have any advice with dealing with these problems, as I'm still struggling to navigate them myself. However, I'm finding that the more honest I am, the better things usually are all around. Easier said than done, but it's been a worthwhile effort.
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