I wish I had had this board a few years ago, I used to really think that is was absolutely not okay for me to tell someone that I had already heard this "story" --- one of my old friends was obsesssed with telling the same stories of hard times over and over, and I lived with her for a year and it got to where I felt crazed hearing the same stories over and over, and had this vision of me hanging by my fingertips off a cliff while she went on and on about something sitting on a rock beside the cliff. I thought that I had to sit there and listen to her while I felt like I was dying inside and being bludgeoned by her voice and expectations of me. I had never heard of the term boundary till a year ago and it is only just now that I am starting to see that not only are boundaries something that I deserve but they are also something that is necassery for survival. I feel like when I have no boundaries and someone else is having a hard time, I feel compelled to help them and I didn't think that my own annoyance or feeling of being drained amounted to anything but me being a bad friend or sister or person. This is so dangerous because it seems to me that when I am so wide open like that I get infected with the other persons energy and often pick it up without realizing it and this is scary to say but I admit that looking back I don't think that I would have seen my own personal risk as a good enough reason for me to stand up for myself . When I would try to stand up for myself i would always get so flooded with guilt and who do you think you are voices. Nowadays I just am so depleted that I just don't have anything to give anymore I feel like I won't have anything to give until I find a way to ha ve some boundaries, deep down I don't think that it is safe to have anything because I know that I will just give it away compulsively, or that it will be attacked by my inner voices. Anyway these days I just don't want to be nice if I "HAVE TO BE NICE" and I just don't want to give anymore if it is because I was taught that I have to and that helping other people is good but helping yourself is selfish. I want to stop thinking that I will get enough better that I will then be ablke to help and give again because that is not the reason i need to get better,I am just still thinking that I need to be a "good daughter" , but right now Iam at my wits end aand so sick of feeling like I have to be good to other people before I even knoe how to be good to myself. It's sickening and compulsive ly scary. . I got this unsafe feeling because I would walk around the city and if someone asked me for money I would feel like water and I just sort of wooshed to them with the money or food without realizing I was doing it, or realizing that I didn't have it to give or that I didn't have to give my food away if I was hungry that is just as important as if someone else is hungry. I'm not that suprised, looking back, that I felt so scared all the time and stopped going outside . I want to get some boundaries. Thank you to everyone, this boundary business seems a lot more comprehensible now after reading what you guys say about these things.
