BOUNDARIES - Living our values

[needbpdhelp]

According to Nina Brown,[5] there are four types of psychological boundary defenses:

Soft - A person with soft boundaries merges with other people's boundaries. Someone with a soft boundary is easily manipulated.

Spongy - A person with spongy boundaries is like a combination of having soft and rigid boundaries. They permit less emotional contagion than soft boundaries but more than rigid. People with spongy boundaries are unsure of what to let in and what to keep out.

Rigid - A person with rigid boundaries is closed or walled off so nobody can get close to him/her either physically or emotionally. This is often the case if someone has been physically, emotionally, psychologically or sexually abused. Rigid boundaries can be selective which depend on time, place or circumstances and are usually based on a bad previous experience in a similar situation.

Flexible - This is the ideal. Similar to selective rigid boundaries but the person has more control. The person decides what to let in and what to keep out, is resistant to emotional contagion, manipulation and is difficult to exploit.

[argyle]

One part of "mindfulness" regarding value/ boundary defense is considering the harm that boundary defense does to other people.  

Another part is considering the harm that lack of that boundary does to other people.

For physical abuse, fairly inflexible boundaries are a good idea.  The same goes for verbal abuse.

I suspect that choosing a default behavior and a fallback based on whether your BPD is inward (self-abuse) or outward acting may make sense.
 
Inward:  validation, problem-solving -> boundaries
Outward: boundaries -> validation, problem-solving

I could be completely wrong, but...sometimes putting myself first seems to be the wrong thing to do. The problem I see is that - every time I leave - BPDw feels a lot of pain and is strongly discouraged from doing whatever she'd just done.  Since I usually leave when she's being obnoxious...that's usually okay.

But, if she's genuinely trying to communicate a real issue in an high conflict way - hearing her out seems to work better.* S'not that I'm obligated to do so, just that there's enough decrease in her suffering to more than counteract the increase in mine and, for now, the costs to me from significantly wider channels of communication outweigh the issues from tolerating occasional verbal abuse. Mind you, there's some enabling going on.  But, I dunno, I also enable a bit when I help a friend get out of his wheelchair and up the stairs.

Mind you, my long-term plan involves tolerating a lot less of that sort of behavior. I hope that this post is on topic - not really sure.

--Argyle

[oceanheart]

But, if she's genuinely trying to communicate a real issue in an high conflict way - hearing her out seems to work better.* S'not that I'm obligated to do so, just that there's enough decrease in her suffering to more than counteract the increase in mine and, for now, the costs to me from significantly wider channels of communication outweigh the issues from tolerating occasional verbal abuse. Mind you, there's some enabling going on.  But, I dunno, I also enable a bit when I help a friend get out of his wheelchair and up the stairs.

You are also "caretaking" her emotions, rather than taking care - meaning you are managing her emotions when this is her job to learn. I could not have come so far in my recovery if I had continue to "outsource" my emotions or hold other people responsible for making me feel better.

Also, enabling is doing for someone what they can do for themselves and is driven more by what you need to do for yourself than the other person. Do you feel the need to be seen as a "good, helping person"? Does it lower your anxiety when you help? I would argue this is a fundamentally selfish place to offer help from and that most sensitive pwBPD will recognize the self-servingness of this stance and will resent you for it. I am perhaps projecting in this part of my post, since this aptly describes my mother, so please excuse me if I'm reading into your behavior stuff that isn't there. My well-meaning basically good-hearted mom did more harm than good by enabling my dysfunctional behavior (she did it through excuses and only when I learned to stop making them for myself could I grow).

[JimNelson89]

Skip

I am so glad I found this.  I have many questions about boundaries.

First, boundaries seem cruel, like punishments.  I know they are supposed to be about protecting us from abuse.  However, for a boundary to work there must be consequences.  We all know that the person pwBPD in our lives will cross and likely trounce all over our boundaries.  That is when the consequence enters.  It is the consequence that feels like a punishment.  When that happens the pwBPD in your life may implement their own counter-consequences and pretty soon it looks like a game of tit-for-tat.

A common consequence is a timeout.  When that happens, my spouse follows me with more abusive words.  Then gives me the silent treatment or gets short with me often using sarcasm.  She says I am being abusive for giving her the silent treatment when actually, I am hurt because of her abusive projections.

My counselor says consequences should be the natural result of the offense.  Example:You lend your car to your friend, an alcoholic.  He gets into an accident while drunk.  Consequence: you never lend him your car again.

[cocobell]

This has been a very interesting thread to read. It was me trying to clearly state my boundaries on one occasion that (probably) led to the breakdown of the relationship.

He could be very critical of me, sometimes to the point of ranting at me and getting angry, it was upsetting and unpleasant at times and it led me to wonder what it was he even liked about me. I would never say to other people the stuff he would often say to me. (I can enjoy banter, teasing etc but there are limits.) It got to the point where, when I was due to meet him one time I was feeling very anxious about what would happen and how he would be. So I wrote him a message cancelling the meet up, and explaining my anxieties and feelings about his criticism/anger.

This really backfired and I can see that I picked a bad time to do it, and probably a bad method too.

My message was very calm and gave positives, e.g. how much I liked him, reassured him that I still wanted to see him etc, but also said that I didn't find the criticism pleasant. I don't think the positive things got heard at all.

He accused me of thinking he was a horrible person, that I made him feel worthless, and so on. He threatened that he never wanted to see me again. It felt like I had really badly hurt him. I was shocked and got very worried that he would do something bad to himself.

I had to essentially work on him a lot to get him to want to see me again. But then he started saying he couldn't 'be himself' with me, because of what I'd said. Despite me saying numerous times that I wanted him to be himself, just could he please think about the way he spoke to me sometimes, etc. He started saying he thought the relationship had been ruined and spoiled. That I don't understand him and never had.

Anyway he ended up finally rejecting me and citing this as one of the reasons. It's made me blame myself and added to the pain and depression that I feel from the rejection. I have trouble clearly stating boundaries as I don't want to lose people, so I don't always do it in the best way, but reactions like his don't make it any easier.

CB

[picturelady]

Wow.  I needed this today.  Thanks to all!

I was finally able to set boundaries and leave my emotionally abusive marriage...was able to set boundaries with my young adult children about their behavior in my house (although this is an ongoing thing to keep enforcing those boundaries.)  I thought I had made so much progress regarding setting boundaries to deal with my old, codependent tendencies.  

But now I am in a new romantic relationship and struggling with boundaries in a new and different way.  Letting someone in much closer - poses new problems (or maybe I should say new opportunities for personal growth.)  I realized that I am struggling with fears of abandonment and accompanying anxiety myself!  (I was not like this prior to my 25 year marriage to an uBPDh.  I should add that when any of my young adult kids or ex starts to escalate - when my kids do this in my house and won't respect my boundaries, openly defying me and I must insist that they leave, my anxiety goes off the charts - almost like PTSD.  Not sure why this triggers me so badly except that there has been so much trauma in our family.)

Also, sometimes I don't feel a boundary has been violated until after the fact - often the next day.  I feel I have a delayed sense regarding that and I'm not sure why.  Can anyone speak to this?  Both the delayed realization when I allow someone to cross my boundaries, as well as how to set healthier boundaries in a much closer relationship?  (The person I am in a relationship with is kind, loving, sensitive, caring, committed to me, etc. - no BPD fears there.)
Many thanks!
Picturelady

[an0ught]

It is important to distinguish communicating our boundaries which is often helpful and valid. Letting others know where our toes are helps them to avoid stepping on them. It also lets them better understand when we take a step back - we protect our toes and we are not getting into a position to draw a gun.

Defending boundaries is then a lot more about our behavior and us sticking to our values. Like in: I will take steps backward and even leave stuff behind if an out of control elephant is getting closer than 6 feet and wants to dance with me. I do value my toes!

Letting someone getting closer requires trust. Trust builds over time. It is a process where you ceed some control and can observe tho others behavior. Relinquishing control in a controlled manner requires a less b&w approach to friend or foe or how close we let others get to us. It requires to think about what we allow now (e.g. being kissed) and how we protect the next boundary (hand key to safe and btw. the money is uncounted in there).

[picturelady]

Letting someone getting closer requires trust. Trust builds over time. It is a process where you ceed some control and can observe tho others behavior. Relinquishing control in a controlled manner requires a less b&w approach to friend or foe or how close we let others get to us. It requires to think about what we allow now (e.g. being kissed) and how we protect the next boundary (hand key to safe and btw. the money is uncounted in there).

Great - thank you so much!  You hit the nail on the head regarding trust!   

PictureLady

[ennie]

I have been really aware lately of how much of what is hard for me about dealing with my husband's BPDex and the way she impacts the kids and our family is about a core value difference, and the way that I find myself not acting in concert with my values---if feels like being in a family with her is a profound influence away from my values. 

I have a core value in viewing life as being okay just as is, and people as okay just as is.  That there is not good and bad, just cause and effect.  BPDex is very consistent in her naming things as bad and wrong, and her labeling of people as better or worse.  She is obsessed with whether she is a "good person," and is constantly wanting to know if people love her more than others.  This black and white thinking is very oppressive for me, particularly when it comes with consequences--calls to CPS for no reason, threats of various kinds, constant anger. 

While I value supporting people to be who they are, I also come from a culture that is ready to judge people, ready to create black and white categories.  I judge people, blame people, and judge and blame myself, even when I work on not doing this.  Over my life, I have learned that I am happier and act more consistent with my values when I have a core of people around me who also share my values.  I find BPDex to be very powerful in our lives because of her influence on the kids, who live with us half of the time, and because of her power in forming our schedule and basic choices.  In sum, we have to interact with her in some way, and we interact with her second-hand through the kids.  I find it really hard to hear blame and projection and rage on a regular basis and not be more of that myself.  Because of my values, it is very hard on me when I experience myself as blaming.  Not that I think I am a bad person, just that I see that I am hurting others. 

I think that BPDex uses blame and rage and projection because she was profoundly disempowered and abused as a child.  Raging and blaming and being emotionally out of control does give some power in a short term way.  The problem is that what it empowers is not always what we most desire.  If I want to feel love and belonging, but am feeling threatened and hurt, raging might make someone stop threatening me and afraid to hurt me, but it will not be likely to result in them loving me.  I think it is natural to engage in black/white thinking when we are scared, and I think that BPD ex sort of got stuck in that mode because things were so rarely safe, or so unpredictably safe, during her childhood.  But LIKE BPDex, when I experience being threatened by her or the kids, I am scared and I have slowly felt more like rejecting her, making her wrong.  This is less of an intellectual thing, more a visceral reaction.  I just want her to go away and stop harming me. 

I do a lot of work to keep myself open, to be okay with what is.  But the reality is that this last few years has been one of the most painful and frightening times in my life.  I have not had a lot of trauma in my life, so this feels huge even if it is mild compared to the experience of some. 

But I think the thing that is most challenging is my building intolerance, which often grows out of me feeling depleted and exhausted, and being graceless in setting boundaries, or having a great deal of pressure on my to shift my boundaries. 

[Auspicious]

But I think the thing that is most challenging is my building intolerance, which often grows out of me feeling depleted and exhausted, and being graceless in setting boundaries, or having a great deal of pressure on my to shift my boundaries.  

 

I think I can relate to this somewhat ... I can't quite believe how many "I never envisioned being in this sort of situation" moments have come from relating to my wife!

Thing is ... it's a lot easier to "gracefully" handle an out of control kitten, than it is to handle an out of control elephant.   Sometimes life just throws stuff at us that needs to be just handled - and "gracefully" isn't always one of the choices  

In short, I've had to learn not to worry about whether I exhibit courtly manners, when I'm being mugged 

(no, not comparing pwBPD to muggers, just saying the situation sometimes calls for blunt measures)

[ennie]

I do not feel bad about not employing courtly manners...I am just making that point that it is inconsistent with my values, so it is particularly hard.  My life has been spent earnestly attempting to give people a voice who make it hard for others to do this.  I volunteer with homeless people, have worked with mentally ill people, serve as a mediator in very difficult situations.  I do not need muggers not to be muggers. 

The way I have been able to do this without becoming entangled in others' drama is to have really good boundaries.  I say no.  I had a "client" (really, an acquaintance who relied on me for support when he was feeling like he wanted to do violent things, but wanted to stop himself).  He knew he could call me at work, but never at home, and he could never visit me in person when he was feeling violent.  He observed this boundary carefully, and I felt very safe because he was so respectful of that boundary.  I believe that through talking to me, he was able to choose not to do violence to himself or others on 2 or 3 occasions.  He eventually moved away.

Having this kind of influence in others' lives, I believe, comes from being able to respect who someone is, even if I hugely disagree with their values and practices.  I am not empowering what I do not agree with--I am empowering the relationship so that I have a chance to influence them in the direction that we both value.  For me, being able to be at peace with what is, including how my fellow people are, while still calling forth the most loving parts of who we are is one of my greatest values.  I value my influence on people like the violent person mentioned above as some of my greatest accomplishments, more important than my legislative or legal successes as an attorney, more important than publications or academic accomplishments. 

When BPDex attacked me and told me she would kill me, I told her I loved her, and she was okay with me, and she immediately stopped and hugged me, and a potentially very dangerous situation was diffused.  But she cannot hold on to any of those kinds of experiences.  She just feels terribly ashamed at her behavior, and turns that into blame of everyone around her. 

I do not need BPDex to be different.  I think she is doing the best she can.  But I am not able to FEEL okay with her.  I am tired of her baloney.  Tired of all the anger and rage and upset and appearance of conflict that is just fabricated.  But because she is constantly on the attack, disengaging means that others will believe her crazy stories, and harm can come to DH, the kids, or myself, or family members.  CPS gets called; motions are made in court.  Her crazy stories have the potential to have real consequences. 

I feel like I have learned to be enormously forgiving of myself in ways I did not start out being.  The things I am most ashamed of are when I get angry of the kids.  I do not feel ashamed at being angry at BPDex, an have handled my anger at her in ways I feel are entirely appropriate.  I used to have a hard time feeling okay about my mistakes, but I have learned to just accept my mistakes, apologize, and try to do better.  I have also learned with the kids that my "appropriate" anger, when I own it and apologize for the impact on the kids, is not even necessarily hurtful to them.  And, all parents do some harm.  We do our best.  We have "do-overs" in our home---so as not to get stuck in the conflict.  So I have learned to be forgiving of the unavoidable errors I make. 

But the feeling of a values conflict does not have to do with whether I am behaving myself with the kids' mom. I am.  I have no shame there.  But I have a deep conflict.  Mainly, the conflict stems from the fact that when I am really depleted and when our family is under attack, I do not have the strength to work towards my demanding principles.  I want to, but I can't.  It is time to retreat, but there is no place to retreat unless I am not in this family.  That is really hard.  By becoming aware of this conflict in values, I can make a bigger container to hold this, and slowly allow that awareness to shape my action.  The awareness is:  I am a person who strongly values tolerance of difficult people (truthfully, and perhaps unfortunately, I value tolerance of difficult people slightly more than I value tolerance of kind people) and who strives to develop this tolerance in myself.  I am also in a situation where the amount of tolerance I need is more than I have developed at this time.  It is like I have been training for 6k runs and all of a sudden, at mile 10, I realize I am in a marathon.  What to do?  What I like about this workshop is the idea that having values leads naturally to having boundaries, that boundaries are not some set of rules we make by thinking.  They are what naturally arises out of our native commitment to what we love.  So rather than figuring out how to control what seems scary, when it is not really able to be controlled (it is an elephant, not a kitten), it is time to feel what seems like what I want to do.  Retreat is what I want.  But how?  That is the questions. 

[GreenMango]

Coping with difficult family members can be exhausting at times.  Communicating my values and their boundaries and being consistent in upholding them for myself has paid off long term.  Once I got past the "tantrums" and was consistent I saw a drop in the stresses of managing the relationship.  

At first it was difficult and a little scary, because honestly growing up with a mentally ill parent can be pretty boundary-less, and it wasn't something I was going to learn from them.

My first values was to respect otters right to choose. My boundary was being able to say "No" without justifying, arguing, defending or explaining.  No I wouldn't be going, No I don't want to, No that's not convenient, No I won't do that for you, etc.  This didn't go over well at first, but with time it became less threatening to my relationship with my parents.  My "no" meant "no"... which conveniently lead to my "yes" meaning "yes".

-GM

[stadtmiller]

In my experience boundaries are crossed as a means of control.  Control and manipulation have no place in a healthy relationship.  Period.  Knowing when to walk away when your values have been trampled on is a very important part of having love and respect for yourself.  And in the end, the only person you are responsible for is yourself.  So be good to yourself!  You are worth it.

Thanks for this. It's true. I just walked away from an abusive situation because I recognized I could never accept it due to the value I hold for myself. I tried and tried to accept it, thinking if I did, I could help this person and him me. But then I realized I just could not sacrifice myself for someone else.

[truly amazed]

Hi Skip,

Many thanks for this thread.

As one who left the BPD relationship with boundaries smashed and to be honest the doormat it was and is a topic i have worked on the last 18 months.

In many ways so many of the posts in this thread touch upon aspects of my life with a BPD mother and being told I am selfish or whatever when I didn't do the correct thing was just part of the journey. I had as one poster described spongy boundaries but it was limited to just some relationships I had in life. In other aspects they were flexible and normal and healthy. bringing those lagging boundaries back to every aspect of my life has been a challenge and almost like an exercise to enforce them.

Many things in life i would just let slide, boundaries were broken and I just went its not worth it. Someone pushed in front of me in a line I just went ok, whatever. Someone was rude I jsut went ok fine. Not about looking for fights or anything like this, if someone pushes in front of me in line now I will tell them there is a line and would they mind getting to the end of it. Sometimes they actually bite back and so too do I. Strange to grow a backbone and not accept rubbish even in little things. This goes far further thanks to the BPD journey and many things I will no longer tolerate at all.

Great thread and thanks