9 Jul 2009
Lack of Boundaries
Codependency can often be about not knowing where you end and others begin – physically, emotionally, intellectually or spiritually. You don’t know what you really stand for. Go to a party or social gathering and people will ask you who you are, what do you say? Are you someones partner, a middle-class professional career, a fraud, a celebrity, a nobody, a carer, a rescuer, a FAKE?
John Bradshaw writes extensively about Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families and is the name to look for on Amazon.
Here is a list of dysfunctional traits that stand to be corrected.
Then you will see why people in therapy say it’s the best investment they have made and why people brought up in a home of emotional supression, family secrets, rows and confrontation refuse to blow the lid off.
But then if you don’t, something else will in later life, the memory will return to double you up in pain to stumble.
Abandonment issues * Delusion and Denial * Family Secrets * Isolation even in a crowd * Constant Worry * Control Freakery * 24 hour Guard Duty / Hypervigilant * Internalized Shame * Lack of Boundaries * Grandiose behaviour * Reactive & Reenacting * Numbed Out * Fixated Personality * Out of Touch with body & feelings * Faulty Communication * Withdrawn and under involved * Never Satisfied * Compulsive Addictive * Intimacy Problems * Over involved fixer * Abuse Victim * Lack of coping skills * Confused Identity * Depression avoider via Activity * Judgemental Perfectionism * No trust * Loss of your own Reality * Inveterate Dreamer * Spiritual Bankruptcy – lacking non-religious faith of any kind * Equifinality
EQUIFINALITY ? - No matter where you begin, you end up in the same place.
Functional they may be but mobile phones are the current tool to practice lack of boundaries. In a dysfunctional family respect is vague, faded and obscured. In a train carriage or a restaurant table boundaries are broken left right and centre, becoming a curse of modern life that we bare because we think we can’t live without them. We put up with it in much the same way we put up with family dysfunction. We become exhausted with asking, people not listening, not respecting etc that we numb out ( see list above ). When a child is abused in the home the body remembers. Every time you feel shock, you hold your breath. Next time you have sex check whether your breath is held. Every family memory you carry into adulthood including verbal abuse, put downs . . (ANTONY make us a brew. . . ).
These are just a few examples of lack of boundaries. Today’s task is to consider your own.
To help you do this flick through these links until you find something that resonates. Then use it as a starting board to write down where dysfunctional boundaries have occurred in your life, they may be your own, your co-workers friends or family. Once you realize where a boundary has been crossed, take steps to correct this. Therapy is an advantage in learning to do this but often a simple explanation to someone, eyeball to eyeball, with a balanced tone to the voice can correct an action seldom to repeat.
Please, show me where the queue is, I belong here…
Geoffrey
July 10th, 2009 at 10:53 ampermalink
I’ve followed your blog for sometime now and every so often when I’m most in need of direction I find something which shows me the way. Thank you
Lonestar
July 10th, 2009 at 11:15 pmpermalink
Thanks Lonestar for this feedback – my experience has shown that what we most need is staring at us, the skill is opening eyes. That said it’s good to hear that you have taken direction from my words, for me it is just a discipline of writing twice a week which I enjoy.
theswarmite
July 10th, 2009 at 11:37 pmpermalink
Geoffrey . . the BACK of the queue please . . it’s a long one. LOL.
theswarmite
July 10th, 2009 at 11:38 pmpermalink
Hi, many thanks for the codependency blog.Thanks also for the links which I found really helpful. My need to ‘fix’ things in my family (I am a recovering addict, my two eldest do not yet work a program), has to come from a place of love and forgiveness, rather than fear – most particularly for myself.
As my daughter leaves my home tomorrow, ( she has been out of jail on a tag for a few weeks) I will miss her, and my eldest son comes to fetch her, I am sad and grateful that we have a gift of desperation with her behaviour, since I realise my powerlessness over her (and my son), I am grateful for the time clean we have been able to spend together especially, this has never happened before in either of our lives. Now I have to let go and trust. Keep the focus on me. My attitudes, my own ability to detach with love, from my own inner conflicts and those of my family members.
In Al-anon, we say; we did not cause it; we cant control it; we cannot cure it.
Just for today:- I try a little, Trust a little and get out of God’s way much love & gratitude, We do recover x
Jackie
July 11th, 2009 at 10:04 ampermalink
Thanks so much for sharing this recovery story Jackie – I am sure many will take courage into their own lives from it. We do indeed recover when we stand back and let god do for us which we cannot do for ourselves. This then offers us more time to fix ourselves instead of others. x
theswarmite
July 11th, 2009 at 12:30 pmpermalink