Today we’re talking about boundaries. We often have many connotations and big feelings around the idea of boundaries, needing to communicate these boundaries and what that might look like. Boundaries often seem potentially threatening and that creates a lot of fear and discomfort. Often, clients I speak to fear that just setting a boundary might cause a lot of conflict in the space of their relationship and so the idea is just incredibly threatening. It is so threatening in fact, that there is a shutting down and a fear response, almost a trauma response to the idea of needing to communicate boundaries. Today, I hope to neutralize and normalize the idea of boundaries. I want to highlight the fact that without boundaries, there is so much turmoil, conflict and disruption in the space of relationships. This comes about because we don't know where we begin and end and we don't understand what our rules of engagement are and how to communicate in a safe way.
Addiction recovery is a challenging and arduous journey, filled with obstacles that can derail even the most determined individuals. One of the most significant challenges that recovering addicts and family members of addicts face, is the need to set and maintain boundaries. Boundaries are crucial, as they help to establish healthy relationships, maintain self-respect and prevent relapse. They might seem daunting but they are crucial for creating long term successful relationships. I encourage you to enter this discussion on boundaries with an honesty with yourself around any discomfort that comes up, as well as the idea of being open to the possibility of setting those boundaries/borders/limits. There are a variety of boundaries which we will get into today.
What Are Boundaries?
Many people struggle with setting boundaries. There are certain signs that highlight if someone has a problem with boundaries. When I speak about co-dependency, I speak about people-pleasing as one of the characteristics. For a people-pleaser, whose whole sense of safety relies on everyone else being okay and comfortable, it can seem incredibly threatening to set a boundary because the other person might not like it. It feels counterintuitive for a people-pleaser to go about setting boundaries, because often the feeling is that they are protecting those around them from pain. When I speak to people who struggle with people-pleasing, there are questions that come up like, “Is it authentic? Are you being honest in the relationship? How are you building that relationship?”
When we speak about boundaries and we communicate our boundaries, we have an opportunity to be authentic in that space. So, without it, unfortunately we don't. It is all about learning that if I am a people-pleaser, I am terrified or a constant rescuer and thus, it feels counterintuitive to set boundaries because there is this idea that you are hurting the other person. Some people react to setting boundaries by saying, “Hey, I'm just not that person. I can't be mean, I'm not horrible.” These are some of the connotations that indicate that the person perceives setting boundaries as something mean or horrible and sees boundaries as potentially threatening.
So, as we speak about boundaries please reflect on the language, thoughts and ideas that come up for you. The more honest you're able to be with yourself, the greater the chance will be that you will be able to begin making positive changes. We begin to understand that we can do something differently and we don’t have to wait for the other person. When I speak about co-dependency, I speak about how there is a lot of waiting for the other person to change. Today, we are trying to understand that with boundaries, we can do something differently. We can change the way we communicate and behave which will communicate something very different to those around me.
Having said that, co-dependency and a dynamic of very poor communication and boundaries, is very common in families where there is addiction. As a result of this, we grow up, become adults and we don't really ever learn the tools and skills to even understand what boundaries are or what our boundaries might be. I plan to break down boundaries, in order to allow us to really understand what they are when we speak about them. How do we even know what our boundaries might be? How do I know myself deeply enough to determine my boundaries? How do I define my boundaries and communicate them more effectively to other people? Let’s have a look.
WHAT ARE INTERNAL BOUNDARIES?
At base level, boundaries can be divided into internal boundaries and external boundaries. There are many different types of boundaries that we may implement in different realms of our lives.
Internal boundaries include:
Behaviours and ideas that I have of myself
The way that I treat myself
The way that I behave towards myself
My morals and my values (these are often set around boundaries)
For example, in terms of behaviours, I treat myself really poorly. I have an incredibly judgmental attitude towards myself, I don't respect myself and I don't treat myself with a lot of care and kindness. This is going to be reflected by my internal boundaries which is then going to be reflected in my relationships with other people. If I have a poor boundary with myself and I don't care if I treat myself badly, I'm going to see that reflected in relationships with people around me. When somebody treats me badly, I don't really care, I don't really notice because it's very familiar. Internal boundaries and the way that I treat and value myself will also be a reflection of the household/family of origin that I come from. Perhaps I was treated poorly, I wasn't given an opportunity to set boundaries, maybe my boundaries were ignored, there were poor boundaries in the environment and so no one really felt safe. If I don’t have an awareness of my own boundaries, then I will let people treat me any way they want to, because I'm not holding myself or other people to any limits regarding what is and isn't acceptable behaviour.
What are External Boundaries?
External boundaries, we can picture basic practical boundaries, which could be a wall around a house or a bedroom door. When a door is closed, it signals ‘Please do not enter.’ When there is a wall around a house, we don't just jump over the wall, we ring the doorbell or knock on the door when we get to the house. These are practical, physical boundaries that we see around us. Other external boundaries would also be between individuals. A boundary would be the way in which we are expected to communicate in a certain environment. They would be in an office structure, where there would be certain rules of engagement or a code of conduct outlining how we're expected to behave. The same as in a school environment where there's basic rules and ideas of what is and is not acceptable.
Often, the boundaries regulate the behaviours and the behaviours reflect the specific boundaries outlined. This happens with rules/laws in a country which are very firm boundaries. If you break certain laws, then there will be certain consequences. I hope that today you can reflect on what your potential boundaries and consequences are. Just like a law is a boundary and breaking it leads to a consequence, breaking a specific boundary with oneself or others should lead to a specific consequence. Consequences don't have to be as extreme as potentially going to jail, it could be you get a fine or you get a warning. The same is true for relationships.
Where Do Our Boundaries Come From?
At the most basic level, boundaries exist to protect us. We would maybe put a fence around our property or wear clothes and shoes as a barrier, in order to protect ourselves in an environment. Our boundaries also help define who we are. Everybody will have different boundaries. Very often there will be a lot of overlap but we're unique and boundaries also very much define who we are as individuals, as an organisation, as a community and as a family. Boundaries speak both to the culture that defines how we want to be perceived in our communities and to our sense of defending and protecting ourselves. We ensure that we get what we need to protect ourselves. Communicating a boundary like, “I really don't like that,” or “Please don't speak to me that way,” is a way of defending or protecting ourselves from another person.
How Do We Determine Our Boundaries?
What is really important is that when we don't know what our boundaries are, we cannot communicate them. I often support my clients in understanding that one of the quickest and easiest ways to know what our boundary is, is to reverse engineer that. So, if I know that I didn't like it when someone behaved in a particular way, that's a clue that I don't like that behaviour. For example, I know that I felt bad when somebody shouted at me. Oh, well! There's a clue that a boundary would be, “Please don't shout at me,” “Don't shout at me,” or “If you shout, I will leave the room.”
What we need to understand is that we can take past and current life experiences and think about opportunities, moments where, “I didn't like that,” or “it made me really feel disrespected when my friend arrived late,” or “I felt very uncared for when someone never returned my call.” “Wow, I really value showing people that I care for them by phoning in and reaching out,” or “Time is something that I very much respect and there's a boundary that I really value.” So, we can reverse engineer it. There might be situations where we see people that we really admire and respect, who seem to have very clear boundaries. We can think about those individuals as role models.
We may ask:
What is it about those people that that we admire?
What kind of boundaries do they have?
Is that something that is potentially helpful to me, as an individual, in my environment?
Can learn from the way they communicate their boundaries?
Could I get into a conversation with someone who has good boundaries about what that means and how they come to understand their boundaries?
How Do Our Boundaries Change?
Sometimes, as we're growing, learning and changing about ourselves, we will have boundaries that are fixed. For example, morals and values. I will never believe it is okay to be abusive. That is a boundary that will probably, for the rest of my life, be in place. There are other boundaries that I have, which may be less important in different ages and stages of my life, these boundaries may need to shift and become less fixed. For example, going to bed at a certain time. In order for me to function in a much better way, I need to get X hours of sleep. When I was younger, it wasn’t really a factor but now I admire the boundary of going home early and getting sufficient sleep. So, some boundaries will grow, change and be flexible and others will be more rigid and fixed throughout my life.
When it comes to the boundaries that are fixed, it is very important that we have clear and specific strategies outlining how we are going to hold ourselves and other people accountable to those boundaries. We need to learn how to set healthy boundaries and hold people accountable to those boundaries. When it comes to something like addictive behaviours, a very good example of this would be, “In my mind, I have a very firm boundary that I will not drive drunk,” or “I will not get in the car with somebody who had been drinking.” However, once I have been drinking or once someone else has been drinking it becomes, “Oh it’s not such a big deal, it’s just down the road,” or “No, I'm sober enough to drive,” and suddenly, I do get in the car and drive while I've been drinking or get in the car with someone else who has been drinking. It might be very easy to set the boundary when we are sober and not so easy to hold that kind of boundary when we’ve been using substances such as alcohol or drugs.
Those are very challenging situations and then guilt, regret and remorse kicks in. I could perceive myself to be someone that will never lie, I'm not a liar. However, through addictive behaviours and using, I've started to lie. I hide my using, I am very secretive, I avoid people. There's a lot of shame, guilt and regret, which is an indication of the fact that I have crossed a very important boundary. So, it's important to check in with your morals and values. Where am I at with that? Honestly. Am I behaving in a way that crosses my internal boundaries? People might not even know that I'm being dishonest or acting recklessly but I know. It is crucial to approach yourself with that level of honesty and with a real understanding of the progressive nature of addiction. Where you wouldn't do it on the first day of having a drink or using, but potentially as addiction unfolds many weeks or months later, it definitely is something that you would possibly do in the future. It is important to bear in mind that there are certain boundaries that we say are fixed, but our behaviour fails to reflect that. This is all about being in integrity, where what I say and what I do are the same.
Often my clients who are addicts and who are new to recovery or even in active addiction, struggle to trust themselves because they know that what they say and what they do, are very different. Loss of control often also demonstrates addiction. Someone will say, “Well, I'm only going to have one or two drinks tonight,” but by the end of the night, they have blacked out from what they have done and potentially used other substances. Here, I begin to understand that I cannot keep myself safe and that when I say I'm not going to do that again, it's not necessarily true. I am starting to realize and learn that there's loss of control when I use and that's terrifying. So, feeling out of integrity also creates a lot of anxiety and a lot of very uncomfortable feelings, which potentially results in the need to medicate away those feelings. I self-medicate by drinking, using or surrounding myself with friends and very quickly and skilfully, because of denial and defence mechanisms (LINK TO DEFENCE MECHANISMS HERE), I'm able to minimize that, make it not a big deal and push it aside. So again, we come to the idea of boundaries and with boundaries, the understanding is that the more I know myself, the clearer I can be with my own boundaries.
There is so much more to unpack about boundaries. If the information in this article resonates with you, please read part 2 (LINK TO PART 2 OF THE BLOG) which looks more at boundaries in relationships, ways of determining one’s boundaries, ways of communicating those boundaries and just how important boundaries are in all relationships, especially the relationship with oneself. If you think someone could benefit from this information, please share it. If you feel as though you struggle with boundaries, please reach out for help. Counselling can dramatically help people reach an understanding about what their boundaries are and helps individuals navigate the process of setting and maintaining boundaries to create and sustain healthy relationships.
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