@AndrewS Posting this in the spirit of the TED talks thread, only this is not a TED talk, just a web page that would probably make a good companion to one of the talks you shared a while back.
This page is an overview about setting boundaries. It’s aimed at people who know someone with a personality disorder, but really it’s important to set boundaries with anyone, so a lot of the information is useful just for relating to people in general. There’s a lot of other stuff in the toolbox section; I don’t know how much of that is generally applicable though.
I know that if someone disrupts my boundaries, I have a hard time getting back in touch with people I want to, and often I let my own projects slide. Some of that is me needing to take a deep breath, though.
But at the same time, some people who disrupt my boundaries just right help me get going. So it’s tough to judge whether someone’s trying to just invade, or they’re trying to get me to try new things. It’s also tough to judge when other people need their boundaries respected or their boundaries aren’t as far as I thought, so more data is always better.
I’d say a keyword here is a constant “YOU NEED TO” whether literally or the general tone. Or the “I’d like to ask you to do this before I force you to.”
Of course sometimes asking for boundaries feels like invading others’ boundaries, and sometimes realizing you have more boundaries than other people makes you wonder if it’s ever appropriate to say, back off, or if you’re just seeing things your own way a bit too much. (You=me.)
So yes, I’m glad to see this, in the spirit of tedtalks or Just Learning Stuff.
Yes, or “You don’t get to decide how to set your own boundaries” or “Your boundaries aren’t important.” Politics aside, that’s a problematic thing to say, even just from a mental health standpoint.