How do you express boundaries?

It was a question asked this weekend. My response: badly. With strangers I can over deliver on my boundary explanations and scare people. With people I love I rarely manage to clearly express my boundaries. I hint and if they don’t get the hint I walk away from the relationship. My experience is that trying harder to express boundaries ends with me feeling very frustrated and I waste a lot of time. I don’t have a lot of time going spare so I don’t choose to waste much time these days.

It doesn’t help that I’m not usually aware of what the boundary is exactly nor how it was crossed. I just don’t know. I know that I’m angry. I know that I feel let down. I know that I feel like someone promised something they aren’t going to deliver on. I know that there is something I need that I’m not getting and I don’t know how to ask for it. Trying harder to ask rarely goes anywhere good. So I walk away.

I told my shrink today that I’m getting old enough to think that I don’t need to burn every bridge I cross. Maybe someone isn’t compatible with where I am today but I will be cool with them again in a few years. Maybe I will change what I need. Maybe they will change what they have to offer. Don’t know in advance.

I am having really big feelings today. Food stuff has been rough today. I’m having huge feelings in general. My body hurts. A friend said something she meant as a joke and it triggered me quite badly. If Fremont isn’t somewhere you want to drive to, fine. But if you tell me that you don’t love me enough to drive to Fremont I am going to have an emotional explosion. Nothing good will come of it. I’m probably not going to feel ok for days. I am going to feel angry, betrayed, unloved, and like I want to burn your fucking house down. (Clearly I am not going to do anything violent…) I don’t think that’s funny. It’s not a joke to me. And I don’t have nice, calm, rational, fun reactions to being told that. I’m going to be a basket case for days and there isn’t really any walking it back.

I went to Whole Foods and tried to find something for lunch. I ended up walking through the store aimlessly crying because every single thing I looked at I couldn’t eat.

Day 7 is shit.

I need to stop typing. My hands and arms hurt so much. But I feel so lonely and angry and unimportant. I want to hurt myself so much. So I type. Maybe this is the last form of self harm I have left.

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