Boundaries are EVERYTHING! We don’t realize how important they are until they are crossed, usually multiple times. When a young child is raised in an unsafe environment there is no such thing as a boundary. Those boundaries are crossed constantly with abuse of every kind, therefore the child never learns free will, or how to say stop, no … or worse, never learns how to protect itself. They are a resource, not a person. My “story” began at 4 years of age.
When you grow up inside an abusive family (or childhood) you become hyper aware of the danger
from speaking out. You learn to silence your voice through fear, and repercussion. The twisted downside in adulthood... you have no sense of boundaries, and rather than protecting yourself, you protect others from their own shocking and inappropriate behavior.
It seems illogical that as an adult one wouldn’t have that awareness and be able to set clear, respectful boundaries - but this is the paradox of intellectual knowledge and unconscious behavior. Sometimes it can take a lifetime of 100’s of experiences to build that invisible fence that defines what is “yours” and what is “mine”. And often we will attract people who are great at crossing boundaries so we can learn the skill of setting them.
We can work a lifetime for something, only to see it disappear in a heartbeat, losing nearly everything, even your mind, until you find your voice to say, “enough”. I am speaking from personal, painful experience. I’m embarrassed that as an adult, I have allowed myself to be so gullible and exposed over and over throughout my lifetime. But hopefully - this time - I have learnt.
And so as I start again, a woman at “my age and stage in life” (as someone “eloquently” put it), I pray that from this day forward, the learning that was presented to me as a very young child, and the hundreds of times since, I will use my voice, and I will love myself enough to know when to say, NO.
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