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I understand intellectually what boundaries are, where they are, and why they need to be enforced, and have experienced firsthand what happens when I don't enforce them, and folks freely step all over them.  OK got it, makes sense.

And then when I spend time with people all that knowledge goes out the window and I just share openly, oversharing in a lot of cases, to people who haven't earned my trust and are judgemental, invalidating, and love to tell me I'm wrong.  That hurts and I'm tired of it.  I'm thinking there are two ways to deal with it; one is keep on trying to focus on boundaries, defend myself when they're crossed, tell people what I need and want from them, work, work work.  The other way is to just keep on being who I am, a very open, honest person, notice what I'm getting, and remove the people who don't respect me for who I am from my life.  Number two seems a whole lot easier, but I've found it very difficult to find people who give me the validation, compassion and empathy I need without the judgement.  Keep on plugging is my only plan.

Input please.

Hi fromheeltoheal. I sympathize with this, since I am an open and honest person, too. However:


Do you think, perhaps, that you may have crossed their boundaries, and their judgement of you is a reaction to that?

Hmmm.  Good question Turkish.  I dunno, it's usually me talking about myself, and if that makes someone uncomfortable they may react to that, but hey, I want people in my life I can be safely vulnerable with, and maybe in one sense that's a way to find out, although I'm not sharing to test people, I'm sharing to share; I call it blurt mode, blurt out what is True, otherwise sometimes we get stuck on the weather and sports, superficial bullsht.  And I also realize that the more emotional folks are, myself included, the harder it is to stay grounded and talk about what's true, but that's where the juice is too. 

I was open and vulnerable with my borderline ex, which got me screwed, but instead of shriveling up in a little ball of bitterness and checking out from the world, I accept that mentally ill people are the minority, and I'm suddenly motivated to push for real relationships with healthy people, romantic or otherwise.

So how do you deal with it when someone is negatively judgmental?

I hear you about the sharing. My view is that no one can really hurt me, so I don't mind sharing (I tend to trust everybody... .to an extent, while my BPDx trusts no one, heck of a world-view). I've probably been sharing a little too much of my recent BPD experiences, though, with people I probably shouldn't.

As for your last question... .I take it in context. I have one long-term friend who is very cynical. I used to argue with him a lot until I realized that he wasn't going to change, and I didn't want to lose the friendship, since he was there for me in a big way a long time ago with my disordered mother (he's a childhood friend, basically). I realized that I was triggering the arguments. So now, I take what he says that I can use, and discard the angry or arrogant parts.

If someone isn't close to me, then who cares what they think? That's my view of it.

That's the gist of it right there.  I was susceptible to my borderline ex because I was very lonely and socially isolated when she showed up, and I'm pretty sure if I'd had a strong network of real friends I wouldn't have fallen for the crazy.  So having detached and moving forward, what I need to do is develop real friendships, and the way to do that is express vulnerability when appropriate, let those pesky boundaries down, get real with people, and when I do that, it does matter what they think, or at least I want it to, and if all of that is met with judgment, unsolicited advice, lack of concern for how I'm feeling, you know, that crap people pull, then it's out with them and on to the next, at least the way I've handled it so far.  I'm probably over sensitive in a lot of cases, but so what, I'd rather exclude the jerks and find the diamonds.  It's just hard right now, starting from scratch.

a good policy. i've overshared (apart from my closest friends) with a few work colleagues and the results were remarkable: one put me onto alanon, one shared her own history with her monster boyfriend, another shared about his equally victimized son, another promised to invite me to one of her soirees when i'm ready. i know i lucked out, but there was only one way to discover. otoh i didn't pick these people at random; otoh, they didn't owe me anything really, and they came through magnificently. i've become much less self-conscious about sharing, i've had to in order to develop a friend network to replace the one stolen by the stbxw with the blacking. if i overshare i find i'm not embarrassed, it's the only way to garner a reaction.


i've altered one pronoun to describe exactly my situation when we got involved.

Wow, maxen.  you are right.  needed to hear that.  Mine only mirrors the good mommy  because that's all I  and the children,  her   family and old friends who also have children  can expect from her now.