Boundary Setting...Understanding the Differences Between Inappropriate and Appropriate Boundaries

Step 5-A from the E-book, "Healing from Your Child Abuse Story Once and For All!"

Boundary setting is all about learning how to trust yourself and the world around you. However, when your world has been influenced by abuse, it may be a struggle to know the difference between inappropriate and appropriate boundaries.

Here are the differences:

Inappropriate boundaries:

• When boundary setting inappropriately, you are allowing others to disrespect your personal space or you’re the one who disrespects another’s personal space (e.g., disrespecting the need for privacy)
• You are allowing others to disrespect your emotional, mental, and physical well-being with their actions and words or you’re the one who disrespects the well-being of others (e.g., verbal, mental, emotional, and sexual abuse)
• You are pleasing others only out of guilt and shame (e.g., difficulty saying no, doing things you do not value) or manipulating others to feel guilty or shameful (e.g., saying things like.. “You must not care about me if you don’t answer your phone.”)
• You do not know your values, needs, or wants and you allow others to define this for you or you believe that you know what’s best for someone else. (e.g., being told that you need to go to school when that is not your intention, but you do it anyway to please someone else)
• You are practicing selfishness when you have inappropriate boundaries. In other words, the term “no” often means nothing to you. If you can aggressively push yourself on someone else (mentally, physically, sexually, or emotionally), even after he or she has told you no, you have crossed that other person’s boundaries. This shows that you have no respect for the other person and you’re only thinking about your own needs and feelings.

Appropriate boundaries:

• When boundary setting appropriately, you are asserting your needs, wants, and feelings to others without feeling guilty about it and you’re respecting what others have to say as well. (e.g., when you are feeling upset with how someone is treating you, you voice your feelings stating.. “I feel embarrassed when you yell at me in front of my family.” In the same light, you then listen to how that person is feeling and respect the fact that he/she feels ignored if they do not yell.)

• You know your value as a worthy, human being and you respect the value of others (e.g., Never using name calling to devalue someone else in order to make you look good. Knowing when you need personal time for yourself.)
• You are practicing self-control and self-respect.
• You are practicing the right for making your own choices.

Boundary setting is very important for living a life free from abuse. As long as you allow others to cross your boundaries, you’ll continually find people who take you up on the offer. However, as soon as you put the stop sign up, you’ll attract people who are respectful of your boundaries.

Overall, my hope is that you will begin practicing healthy, appropriate boundaries in order to improve your overall well-being. And don’t worry, it doesn’t matter if you’ve had the habit of letting people walk all over you your entire life, it’s never too late to change your behaviors. And I want to show you how you can do this!

Here are some boundary setting examples according to Rhonda Britten from the book "Fearless Loving".....

• "I don't like it when you call me names, ridicule or belittle me in private or public."
• "I don't like it when you lie to me, hit me or physically hurt me in any way."
• "I don't like it when you're unfaithful to me."
• "I don't like it when you spy on me."
• "I don't like it when you say things that make me doubt myself."
• "I don't like it when you use hurtful events against me to make me feel bad about myself."
• "I don't like it when you pressure me to cut ties with my family and/or friends."
• "I don't like it when you refuse to communicate with me."
• "I don't like it when you undermine me in front of my friends/family or at work."
• "I don't like it when you attempt to turn my children against me."
• "I don't like it when you intentionally hurt my children in any way."
• "I don't like it when you're being overly critical, assuming that I don't do anything right."
• "I don't like it when you force me to have sex with you when I don't want to."
• "I don't like it when you blame me for your faults and choices."
• "I don't like it when you intimidate or threaten me."
(From Fearless Loving, pg. 155)

Boundary Setting Tips:

Boundary Setting Tip #1: Regain trust for yourself, that is, get to know who you are:

The only way to begin practicing healthier boundaries is to believe that you deserve respect and value from yourself and from others.

If you continually find yourself feeling unworthy of respect, it will be very difficult to draw respect into your life. For instance, if you feel that you cannot tell others no, others will pick up on this and continually ask you to do things that you do not want to do because they’ll know that you will not tell them no. In other words, others will take advantage of you.

The same thing applies to abuse. When you allow your abuser to continually put you down with his or her words because you’re afraid of what they’ll do or say after you stand up for yourself, you’re allowing them to walk all over you as well!

When setting boundaries with others, it’s important to tell yourself that you are worthy of respect; otherwise, you’ll never get it! When your abuser calls you names, for instance, tell them.. “I don’t have to listen to this and I deserve a lot better,” then it’s very important to leave or ignore the person after you have shared your peace.

I can guarantee once you start standing up for yourself, you’ll shock your abuser and you may catch them at a loss of words. Or, on the other hand, you may give them a lot more abuse to verbalize… “Who do you think you are? You’re nothing! You’re not special!” If this happens, IGNORE it! Go to another room or another place in your mind and keep telling yourself.. “I deserve respect and I do not need the approval of my abuser to be happy with myself!”

If you are afraid to stand up for yourself vocally, do it in your head! Shut the abuse off and focus on the good!

Boundary Setting Tip #2: Know your limitations:

When setting boundaries, it’s important to know what your boundaries are in order to feel good about yourself. For instance, do you need to learn how to say no to others? Do you need to learn how to not feel guilty for standing up for yourself? Do you need to know what you’re uncomfortable with and comfortable with? For instance, do feel uncomfortable when others are too aggressive sexually or verbally?

Whatever the case, discover what your boundaries are and make it a priority to stay true to those boundaries. These boundaries will be tested, I can guarantee that, but one thing will be different, and that's the confidence you'll have in yourself.

Boundary setting is all about loving yourself and others. And this, by no means is a selfish act, but an essential tool for living a life free from abuse!

You have just read Step 5-A: Boundary Setting from the e-book "Healing from Your Child Abuse Story Once and For All." Below you'll find the continuation of Step 5..

Step 5-B: How to end an abusive relationship



Return from Boundary Setting to the Beginning of the Child Abuse E-book



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