Okay so this morning at an online meeting, the topic was boundaries and self-care. I ended up saying much more than I thought.
I was basically raised to have no boundaries, or at least that is what I learned from people. From various places I learned that I should show unconditional love to EVERYONE. To me, that meant having no boundaries.. I didn't even know what boundaries were. I didn't know they were a 'thing'.. and I certainly would have believed that they were a mistake.
So I just gave myself completely to others, without even trying to figure out if I liked them, or what how it was affecting me. I was a complete pushover, and as you might imagine, people had no problem exploiting this. Almost all of my relations with other people were wrecks, from a very young age. Basically throughout my whole childhood, when I was trying to establish an identity, I constantly relied on other people to tell me who I should be.
I remember at times I would start to have boundaries, would start to set them, and then people would smash them down and keep controlling me. And I would let them, because I thought that was what Love was about. I eventually got so scared of having 'self care' (which I had been taught was wrong,) that I hid everything I liked within my mind, were nobody could touch it. I felt everything had to be a secret if you wanted to 'keep' it... Even now, I try and hide everything about myself from the world.
I have a great deal of shame over all this. I'm just starting to realize that I can have boundaries, I can have interests of my own; and that people won't necessarily try and smash me for it, or try and bring them down with guilt trips. I can be my own person.
But one thing that I have learned recently, is that I've set boundaries within myself for all the negative self-talk in my life. When bad self-talk starts in, I just say "Let go and let God." in my mind. Sometimes aloud if I'm alone.. It acts as a shield to bash those words back from me. So that is my own boundary. The one I set within me, for myself to follow.
I was basically raised to have no boundaries, or at least that is what I learned from people. From various places I learned that I should show unconditional love to EVERYONE. To me, that meant having no boundaries.. I didn't even know what boundaries were. I didn't know they were a 'thing'.. and I certainly would have believed that they were a mistake.
So I just gave myself completely to others, without even trying to figure out if I liked them, or what how it was affecting me. I was a complete pushover, and as you might imagine, people had no problem exploiting this. Almost all of my relations with other people were wrecks, from a very young age. Basically throughout my whole childhood, when I was trying to establish an identity, I constantly relied on other people to tell me who I should be.
I remember at times I would start to have boundaries, would start to set them, and then people would smash them down and keep controlling me. And I would let them, because I thought that was what Love was about. I eventually got so scared of having 'self care' (which I had been taught was wrong,) that I hid everything I liked within my mind, were nobody could touch it. I felt everything had to be a secret if you wanted to 'keep' it... Even now, I try and hide everything about myself from the world.
I have a great deal of shame over all this. I'm just starting to realize that I can have boundaries, I can have interests of my own; and that people won't necessarily try and smash me for it, or try and bring them down with guilt trips. I can be my own person.
But one thing that I have learned recently, is that I've set boundaries within myself for all the negative self-talk in my life. When bad self-talk starts in, I just say "Let go and let God." in my mind. Sometimes aloud if I'm alone.. It acts as a shield to bash those words back from me. So that is my own boundary. The one I set within me, for myself to follow.
