Child and adolescents
Personal boundaries
What are personal boundaries
Personal boundaries are the boundaries we set to protect ourselves from manipulation, exploitation or abuse by others.
Setting personal boundaries means keeping yourself safe, taking responsibility for who you are, and being in control of your life.
Borders are like the cell wall, skin, or immune system of the body.
Boundaries are flexible, not rigid or hard
What may happen if we can't be assertive?
I can't be myself
When I am who I am, I can express my thoughts, feelings and needs easily and know my values and goals in life.
When my boundaries are breached, I lose my true self over time, and I couldn't know who I am or what I want, and it may cause feeling of inner emptiness, and I may then try to fill this emptiness with anything like overeating, unhealthy relationships or drug abuse.
Seeking to please others
People, who do not know how to say no, are afraid of rejection, or abandonment.
They may have feelings of worthlessness or low self-esteem.
They are preoccupied with what people think about or feel.
They seek approval from others.
They stay in unhealthy relationships in which they are the one who give without taking anything.
They neglect their own needs.
They have an excessive sense of responsibility.
This causes tiredness, exhaustion and psychological burnout.
It makes them vulnerable to exploitation
Absorbing the feelings of others
In the presence of unhealthy boundaries, we find ourselves as a “sponge” that absorbs the feelings of others. It is as if you are living in a polluted atmosphere breathing in all the toxins.
You find yourself taking responsibilities not yours, and getting involved in problems, not yours. It is healthy for each person to take responsibility for himself and his problems.
You can offer support and empathy, but others are responsible for solving their problems eventually
Unhealthy intimacy and dependent relationships
There are people who think that closeness and intimacy in relationships means that I must be like an open book to my partner, to dissolve in the other and to identify with him, but this is a wrong concept of intimacy. A relationship without boundaries means that each one tries to penetrate the psychological boundaries of the other, and the independent personality of the two partners dissolves. Then, one day I will find myself as a distorted copy.
In dependent relationships, each person “uses” the other, literally unconsciously, to obtain gratification and a sense of value, as if there are no other sources than this relationship, so all kinds of exploitation and psychological abuse appear
Boundaries types
In order to review your relationships and are they healthy, or not, you can ask yourself these questions:
- Do I really want to stay in a relationship or i don't?
- Is this relationship a need and is it pleasurable? Or it is kind of addiction and pathological attachment?
- Dose this relationship represent a connection? or restriction?
- Am I here to prove that we are exactly alike? Or i respect that there are differences between us?
- Is this relationship tug-of-war or mutual giving?
- Are there clear boundaries? Or cohesion and interconnection?
- Is this relationship deep (commitment, sharing, responsibility)? Or superficial?
- Dose this relationship provide growth and development? Or regression?
- Do I have another life? or I depend on my partner to feel happy?
- Do we resolve conflicts right away, or we accumulate them