One of hardest things about anxiety is that it isn’t just confined to you and your reactions, it affects what you do, especially all and every relationship you have. So if you have children, then your anxiety will show in how you treat them, how much patience you have, and ultimately how they should manage their own states as they get older.
And it’s not just with your children, depending on how your anxiety plays out, you may find yourself trying to placate, or please those around you for an easier life, and to stop the added stress of having to say no. In short your life becomes a series of trying to dodge other people’s disapproval.
The problem is, if you do this often enough and for long enough, people around you will forget that you have needs too and that a thank you, I appreciate you, will be non existent. And even if you do get the thanks and appreciation, after a while you will start to resent those who seem so demanding, ‘why can’t they just think of me for once’ you might murmur to yourself, and with no suitable answer coming back you will find yourself back into your old pattern of people pleasing for a pleasant life- for them that is, not you!
So the answer? Boundaries!!
Boundaries my dear friend will, at least on the surface to be the answer to your prayers. But here’s the rub, boundaries, that is, making sure that others do not encroach on yours, take too much, and become dependent upon you bolstering them up, or whatever else it is you do, takes more than just guts, it takes a willingness to be seen as the ‘villain of the piece’ because you will be.
I want you to image that for the last 5, 10, 15 or even 20 years you’ve put yourself out for others, put their needs ahead of your own, and never said no unless you genuinely couldn’t stretch yourself into smaller pieces for them, and just like those Handyman adverts, no job too small, you made yourself available 24/7 with no time off for good behaviour.
And then you suddenly stop.
You wake up one day with an epiphany and decide that things have to change and they do, and you no longer will walk your neighbours dog, you won’t cook an extra casserole for the old lady who lives at the end of the road, you’ll no longer go door to door collecting for your local charity, you’ll no longer take phone calls from your distraught sister who has yet another crisis with her boyfriend. In short all those things you could never say no to suddenly stop.
Can you imagine the uproar!
It would be like a mini Tsunami happened in your household and your street and the fallout would be bad.
This is the downside of setting boundaries.
So should you set boundaries if it can potentially have such a devastating effect on other people’s lives?
My short answer is YES
You see without boundaries YOUR life does not get better, it gets worse, and in the end you won’t be living your life, you will be existing only to please others and your life, like a plant flowering on fast motion photography, be over before you know it.
And maybe your eulogy will read…
HERE LIES MARY A GOOD WIFE AND MOTHER
SHE GAVE TOO MUCH AND SHE SAID IT DIDN’T MATTER
WE COULD SEE HER STRAINING UNDER THE WEIGHT
BUT SHE WANTED TO GIVE AND GIVE UNTIL IT WAS TOO LATE
THE DOCTOR SAID THAT IT WAS HER HEART
IT WAS SMASHED IN LOTS OF TINY LITTLE PARTS
HE’D NEVER SEEN ANYTHING QUITE LIKE IT BEFORE
BUT A COLLEAGUE SAID SHE DIED, BECAUSE SHE BROKE THE GIVERS LAW
WHEN YOU GIVE TOO MUCH
YOU WILL BREAK UNDER THE STRAIN
AND NO AMOUNT OF THANK YOU’S
IS EVER EQUAL TO THE PAIN
WE ALL MOURN HER PASSING
NEARLY EVERY SINGLE DAY
FOR NOW WITHOUT MARY
WHO WILL TAKE AWAY OUR STRAIN?
But though I totally believe in boundaries, if you have spent years doing what you really didn’t want to do, and now others depend on you, then take it slow, but set boundaries you must.
Why?
So that YOU can have a life that YOU love and like and when your day comes to pass, it will read…
HERE LIES MARY A GOOD WIFE AND MOTHER
SHE LIVED HER LIFE AND SHOWED US WHAT MATTERED
WE MISS HER SMILE AND HER ZEST FOR LIFE
WE’RE GLAD TO HAVE KNOWN HER
SHE WAS THE SECRET SAUCE FOR OUR HAPPY LIFE
A poet I may not be, but the message is clear to me, set boundaries and make your life matter to you and if you can’t, then contact me, I can help, I’m here for you.
Happy boundary setting
Elaine
