this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
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Learn your boundaries or if you don't have any (or are unaware of them) find them, like yesterday! And get comfortable speaking to people directly when you need to express how you feel as long as you do so respectfully and in a way that is very clear.
When someone violates your emotional space or you do that to them, everybody loses because it is basically either low-key or high-key emotional rape that is occuring. Even worse, if boundary is violated and then one person attempts to gaslight and "persuade" you to feel differently, thats far worse. Its like when someone rapes another and when confronted, says "You wanted/asked for/deserved it" and forces the victim to revise their understanding and feelings about it to comport with the perpetrators purported attempt to establish their actions as warranted and rooted in objective reality.
Theft, rape, assault, murder, sexual abuse are all classic and extreme versions of this but it can be something as mundane as continually bringing up a distressing topic or memory with someone who has expressed their distress and request for the other not to do so.
Learn your and other's limits or there will be no end to the extent to which you will be exploited by the world and life abstractly
An important concept when determining your own and others limits is to learn to distinguish what you need and what you merely want and to realize that this varies from person to person. An introvert might really need that alone time while it might just be nice to have for you and an extravert might really need social contacts frequently while you can take it or leave it. A person with health issues might need the rest or a depressed person might need someone else to initiate to maintain a friendship.
Thats important because boundaries are a dance in terms of whether you can have a healthy relationship with another. If you have opposing boundaries like:
Person A: I find others' boundaries triggering so my boundary is nobody else can have boundaries but me
Person B: I want to respect A's boundaries the best I can but unfortunately I need to be able to set boundaries to keep me safe and ok and I am triggered when people can't accept reasonable boundaries
Prolly not gonna work. You must take care that your boundaries are in fact needs and not simply a preference like your fave saltine cracker because you need ti vigorously enforce needed boundaries and they will limit the people you are able to safely interface with and if you have too many triggers+boundaries nobody will want to be around you