Boundaries, an important part of my healing journey.

September 2, 2015 by Healing From Complex Trauma & PTSD/CPTSD 1 Comment

Boundaries from unhealthy people, has been a much needed learning curve for me. You don’t learn healthy boundaries when raised in a highly dysfunctional, abusive home. Especially where both parents are abusive and had no healthy boundaries themselves.

It becomes ‘normal’ ‘familiar’ to be around toxic/unhealthy people and not have enough self respect and self worth to keep a healthy distance. It’s how people can get hurt/traumatised repeatedly and not understand why. Toxic people also sense soft boundaries and that causes further trauma occurring.

I’ve worked hard on my self worth, self respect, self care and boundaries. When they are tested, I see the improvement. I don’t allow toxic in my life anymore. I also don’t allow the toxic of others, to rent room in my head anymore. I don’t rise to the bait. I don’t allow the issues of others, to become about me. I leave it where it originated.

Testing situations can arise and in the past and even a few years ago, I would have ‘taken the bait’. Now I do not. It is a much needed act of self care, self compassion, self worth and self growth. Self control, impulse control having all increased. This also reduces emotions rising, when I can easily see these issues, are not about me.

In fact every person who has harmed me, had their own severe issues, that were never anything to do with me. If it wasn’t me they hurt, it would have been someone else.

I can now choose how to react, how to decide upon future contact. Depending on the issues, person, depends on the decision. If severe issues, highly toxic people, no contact is something I do not have any guilt about any more.

It’s not easy to change behaviours so deeply entrenched due to complex trauma in childhood and such severe abuse, neglect and trauma spread out over decades, caused by such significant people.

But, it is possible and there is hope. With a lot of hard work. It takes time. And that’s okay.

This last quote, resonates with where I needed to focus,

as to why I had poor soft, unhealthy boundaries.