The way parents make you feel insane for wanting boundaries

Like you really have to explain to them that when you say “i don’t want you in my room”, that you mean that seriously, and that when you’re mad that you break that rule, that that anger is actually justified and not unreasonable, and when you explain to them that just because they’re your parents they don’t get to treat boundaries like suggestions, you would really really rather not hear a response that feels like boundaries are just an inconvenience to them.

Unfortunately, if you want your own space that belongs to you, you have to work and pay for one, instead of making someone else do that.

You're extremely lucky to have someone else still doing that, at your age.

I disagree and so does the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Children and adults both have a human right to privacy aswell as to not have their rights revoked over their financial status. And those rights don't disappear if an adult child doesn't live up the recent and western centric ideal of moving out when they are a legal adult.

Whether a minor or legal adult lives with the parents or guardian for any reason, they do have the right to create boundries, literal on paper rights.

I used to think that people where lucky and even weak for living with their parents after becomming legal adults. The reason for this was that my parents sucked. If CPS had done what they were legally required to, I would have been out of that shit by age 6. But society fucking hates kids, they don't even work or contribute to the economy and they can't vote, plus they are small and easy to abuse. And a lot of parents are so used to being in this position of total power over a person (who has often zero recourse even when there is blatant evidence they are victims of crimes) that they will not see their adult children as human, as long as they can help it.

This person is not "lucky" for having their literal human rights ignored by the people who decided to bring them into this world.

Financing someone is not a reason to ignore their rights.

Unless you communicate your needs and boundaries directly, you can't know for sure whether that person is deliberately disrespecting you or if they're genuinely oblivious. And there's usually a difference worth noting.

Y'all, I'm begging you not to be weird if someone turns you down or says no to pics/sexting/literally anything, even nonsexual things.

It's so uncomfortable when I'm like "no thanks :)" and then I have to spend 15 mins soothing you. Like it's okay if you didn't realize that was a boundry—now you know. It's okay if you misread signals—it happens. Just say "no problem, thanks for letting me know," and move tf on. Deal with that embarrassment in private. It's happened to everyone, and it sucks, I get it. Also, you need to deal with it without making it my continued concern.

Also, and I can't believe this needs to be stated, but when someone sets that boundry, you cannot keep dragging the conversation back to convincing them to say yes or even just to keep talking about it in the hopes they'll come around. If something makes someone uncomfortable or they don't feel like talking about it? DROP IT. You don't get to walk away thinking you're victim after they rightfully ghosted you because you proved you couldn't leave well enough alone.

when you refuse to or are unable to articulate your own boundaries or communicate when you're upset, you basically outsource that work onto the people around you. the people around you now have two options: to walk on eggshells during their interactions with you in case they accidentally break a boundary they don't know is there and be extra attentive of your reactions so they can try and figure out what not to say or do. or to interact with you like normal and knowingly run the risk of upsetting you and having no way of knowing for sure or resolving the issue. both of these options suck

there is a third option, of course: people can stop talking to you. they can break up with you. they can seek companionship from other people who won't make interaction an exhausting guessing game they can never win. if you don't want that to happen, "no" and "can we do something else instead" and "i don't like when you call me that" and similar phrases need to become well-used members of your vernacular

would you believe i've already been accused of misogyny for this post

Some people use the word boundaries in the vaguest way possible like they can say something that makes it sound like someone killed their family member and it turns out it’s actually just that their friend wanted to go to a restaurant they hate or something

"u need to respect boundaries" and its actually just these rules they made for how you need to behave or else

Unironically some people will do genuinely mean and horrible actions and then be like “respect my boundaries you know I can’t handle confrontation” when confronted with it this is literally the new im an empath

if you’re in my asks telling me that i’m defending sexual assault. if your only two settings are “none of my boundaries have ever been violated” and “sexual assault” then you are not a safe person. you are the person that post is about and for. you are the person i am begging to understand nuance. i’m thinking about like. i don’t like having my butt touched. sometimes in the heat of a moment an excited partner grabs my ass. that’s a violation of a boundary. but i’m not gonna fuckin break up with them for it. and this concept branches out. i tried bottoming a few times for partners. i thought id like it, i didn’t, and i felt kind of uncomfortable with the interaction later. those partners didn’t “assault” me, we tried something and it didn’t work. once or twice a partner has tapped out and i didn’t notice at first so they had to tap harder. this isn’t assault, they didn’t accuse me of abuse, we had a conversation and they understood it was a mistake. all of these are circumstances where a boundary has been broken or a line has been crossed, but not a situation of intentional harm, assault, or abuse.

Here's something that needs to be said: sometimes when you are your lowest, you will meet people who will offer help and then take advantage of you.

Someone might take you in when you have no place to go, or they will stand up for you when you need them to, but afterwards you might notice some red flags.

🚩 Expecting gratitude in the form of sex, money, or your undivided attention 🚩 Bringing up how they saved you whenever you try to establish boundaries 🚩 Refusing to let you set boundaries because "they know best" 🚩 Treating you like a child, refusing to take you seriously, never apologizing (or apologizing in such a way you feel bad for upsetting them) 🚩 Reminding you that you have no other place to go, or that you could always "go back to them (your abusers)" if you mention being unhappy in their care 🚩 Encouraging you to reconcile with your abusers, or even going so far as to give your abusers your contact information or inviting them into your home so you can talk to them

No matter what someone did for you, you deserve to be treated with respect and you deserve to set boundaries without your safety or health being threatened.

If someone is raising these red flags, try to leave as quickly as you can. You are not safe with someone who may be using your vulnerability to control you.

Of course there are some people who truly mean well, who might try to coddle you or who don't understand how bad a situation was and try to help you "forgive" your abusers (usually along the lines of "but they're your parents!")

These kinds of people may not understand the extent of what you went through and may genuinely be trying to help, but they should respect your boundaries regardless.

And if you found yourself in a situation where you were taken advantage of, or where you mistook someone's manipulation for kindness, be kind to yourself.

Allow yourself the grace to heal from it. You're not stupid or incompetent for falling for their tricks. Next time you'll know better how to protect yourself - there are some cruel people out there who know how to target those need the most help.

It's not your fault and you didn't ask for it, nor is it a divine punishment. There are people out there who will love and support you without it being a trick, but it may take more than one try to find them.

Fuck it. In the vein of other posts for people who don't have experience with healthy relationships, some green flags [text ID: green flags written in green] for this sort of relationship:

🟢 A balanced or reciprocal approach to gratitude. This may take the form of simply accepting the gratitude you offer without comment or pressure, questioning why you offer gratitude for being treated with basic decency, or thanking you for allowing them to assist.

🟢 Actively making attempts to understand your boundaries. (Should I knock if you're behind a closed door? How do I know when you want to be left alone? Is it okay if I give you a hug? Are you comfortable talking about this?)

🟢 Respecting the boundaries you set—no "accidentally" forgetting you don't like that nickname for the fifth time this month.

🟢 Attempting to communicate in emotionally mature ways. Obviously, a lot of people who assist people from traumatic households are also survivors of trauma; it isn't an exact science. But emotional outbursts are followed by attempts to calm down and communicate clearly, and problems are addressed in an open and collaborative manner.

🟢 Uplifting your maturity and independence. Even if you're disabled and required assistance with your daily activities. This frequently looks like asking for your input and allowing you to assert your own capabilities, but your mileage may vary.

🟢 Being rational about where else you might be able to go, or making efforts to ensure you're comfortable during your stay. You shouldn't feel trapped by the people you're staying with.

🟢 Believing you when you discuss your experiences. (We have compulsions about telling the truth, but even when we're compelled to share that we can't conceptualize how someone's abuse is possible, we still communicate this. "I can't get my head around this happening for real, but I believe you." There are ways to make things work.)

🟢 Reminding you of why you left if you express doubt in your choices, and encouraging you to take the space you need from your abusers.

I hope all of you find places where you can feel safe and respected. No one is immune to manipulation, and that isn't a moral failing.

If you tell someone directly "that behavior makes me uncomfortable, please stop doing that to/around me" and the person keeps doing it and anyone tries to excuse it with "they're autistic, they can't help that they're bad at social clues", know that it's bullshit. Once you have verbally articulated a boundary directly to someone's face it is no longer a complex social clue, it's a direct request. And you don't get to ignore direct communication of boundaries because you're autistic.

Important addition: There absolutely are autistic people who genuinely can't understand verbal communication/follow requests/participate in most social settings. But these autistics are usually not the ones walking around crossing people's boundaries repeatedly just to then explain that unfortunately they can't help doing that because they're autistic. So what I'm saying is that IF someone's social skills are good enough for them to interact verbally with people in normal social settings without assistance, they should ALSO be able to respect a clearly communicated boundary

my favorite way to frame this has been in the context of boundaries.

a boundary is not about someone else's behavior. it's about mine. i find this to be particularly helpful when folks want to argue with me re: respecting me as a trans person vs. "free speech."

instead of saying things like, "You WILL call me by my name," for example, my boundaries sound like, "If you continue to deadname and/or misgender me, I will no longer give you access to me."

of course, some folks have inevitably argued with me anyway, usually by attempting to make me feel guilty for "punishing" them for what they perceive to be a "difference of opinion." my response is the same every time:

I remind them that they're correct. They do have the freedom to speak to me however they like. But freedom of speech does not = freedom from consequences. In this case, the consequence is that I will remove people from my life and/or cease communication with those who insist on denying my humanity. this is a no tolerance policy — because, wouldn't you know, I have the freedom to do that.

it's essentially the social equivalent of the Scientific Method: fuck around and find out.

my favorite way

to frame this has been in the

context of boundaries.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

Promises you must make to yourself (and keep) when it's time to detach with love

One of the most dangerous things in the world is not being able to say no to people because you don't want to upset them or dissapoint them. This will completely ruin your life in every way possible, at work, in your private life, your sex life and your friendships. It's a way of removing your own consent in your own decisions and go against your wishes, it is always a crime against yourself. Let yourself have a say. Upsetting people is better than traumatizing yourself.

"...it may be that you can't help snapping at people under certain conditions because of a nervous system response - it may genuinely be out of your control. But even when that's the case, other people have the right to realize they're not up to dealing with that happening to them all the time and taking steps to protect themselves, and that remains true." <- quoted separately from a much longer post by @findingfeather which, despite the efforts of some others in the thread, was not actually about this stuff

but YES.

So many people on this site and in the wider world seem to assume that acceptance is a binary. That it's a straight choice. Either you accept that a given behavior is founded in trauma, or mental illness, or disability, or whatever else, in which case you MUST stick around and allow the other party to apply said behavior to YOU, without complaint, lest you be ableist and probably some other kinds of -ist into the bargain. Or you find that untenable, in which case the behavior CANNOT be founded in trauma etc., and must be wholly controllable and most probably wholly voluntary, and the other party is fully culpable both for behaving that way in the first place, and for whatever effect the behavior has on you.

Which. Look. There is a third path. You are allowed to decide you can't put up with certain behaviors, and REMOVE YOURSELF FROM CONTACT WITH THAT PERSON. It doesn't even have to be absolute! It's perfectly possible to love and even to be friends with someone while enforcing boundaries like "I won't talk to you when you only want to talk about how horrible you are because it hurts my mental well-being and doesn't exactly help yours either" or "I won't stay over at your place because sometimes you lash out when you wake up from nightmares, and that scares me".

It honestly extends into neutral behaviours as well, and reactions to neutral behaviours. "I can't stay over at your place because you need to sleep with a door open and I need to sleep with a door closed and neither of us is able to bend on that one without being harmed."

"We don't work as a couple because even slightly raised voices make me panic, but being constantly on alert to make sure your voice doesn't accidentally get loud makes you an anxious wreck, and every attempt we've made to compromise just ends up with us both equally miserable, which is not good."

As touched on in the other post, it is genuinely an area that is always going to be in-flux, going to be contextual, and require actual, you know, engaged thought and balance - but yeah when it comes down to it, in these areas it is important to hold in one's head the fact that it's entirely possible for a behaviour/action/whatever to be genuinely involuntary/uncontrolled and thus not morally culpable . . . .and untenable for any individual given person to tolerate.

That makes it all much messier and more complicated than having hard fast binary rules, but it also is the only way not to wreck a LOT of collateral damage and also do a lot of shit that is genuinely kind of ethically horrifying, so there we are.

Being Kind doesn’t mean becoming a complete pushover. You can be kind and have very clear boundaries about what is and isn’t acceptable to you.

I saw someone saying earlier that feeling safe and being safe are different and that we are entitled to being safe, but not to feeling safe, and the example they brought up was like terfs making trans women existing in bathrooms out to be this huge danger to cis women when all stats and research shows that trans women are not and have never been any type of danger to cis women which is what i mean by not all boundaries are valid and I think it’s important to be aware of your reasoning for setting a boundary outside of something just making you feel uncomfortable

So many radical ppl have had “boundaries” around my sex work because the existence of sex work near them made them feel unsafe. Whether it was around living with me or around covid. It’s always so interesting how these boundaries intended to keep them safe made me less safe. Sometimes boundaries alienate. Sometimes the focus on personal safety undermines community safety. Sometimes it’s more useful to ask yourself “how do I make my friend more safe so we can be safer together” than it is “how do I put up walls to protect myself.”

I’m also thinking about how boundaries are used to enforce transmisogyny in queer spaces about what @marxism-transgenderism has been talking about. How it’s made about “talking over ppl” or “taking up too much space” or “scaring ppl with your loudness” and how that also intersects with also being fat or black in these spaces and how certain bodies are marked as scary and unsafe and must be contained within social boundaries.

Standing up for yourself and protecting your boundaries, does not make you mean. You are taking care of yourself and defending yourself, as you should be. Would you call a friend mean for doing the same? Probably not. You are not a doormat. And it may feel strange to do, but that does not mean it is bad, it probably means that you are doing something you are not used to, and that takes practice. You deserve to have your own back too. 🌸

Abuse is about control.

An abuser doesn’t always need shouting or physical intimidation like throwing things or grabbing in order to control someone. Abuse can be present without those behaviours.

An abuser can talk calmly and even use a friendly tone of voice or a progressive Consent Culture vocabulary and still be abusive, because the abuse lies in infringing on someone’s autonomy.

If a peer relationship feels abusive but you’re doubting if it’s Really Abuse, look at whether each person is making choices about their own bodies, schedules, activities, and external relationships.

A boundary is about your own body and life, not someone else’s - it’s “I don’t want to do X thing with you” and not “I don’t want you to do Y thing at all even if it does not involve me.” Someone making choices that override your autonomy, even “for your own good”, is not allowing you to have boundaries.

If you don’t want to be in a relationship with someone because they do Y thing that doesn’t involve you, that’s your choice. You can simply end the relationship, or you can say, “Is Y important to you? Because it makes me uncomfortable,” and have an honest conversation about conflicting needs/preferences to see if a relationship is possible.

But there’s a problem when one person says to their peer, “Stop Y thing that doesn’t involve me, or I will do something to punish you,” or even “You’re not allowed to do Y anymore, I don’t like it.” You don’t get to make choices for other people.

brb gonna go on a spiral thinking abt this all weekend (bc i think its insanely true)

no bc these people literally treat others as two-dimensional figures in their self-centered universe, affording them no agency, no recognition of their inner lives and emotions. it is always things like "this isn't beneficial to me" "i am caring for my inner child" "i am focusing on myself during this particular time in my life" "i owe nothing to other people" "my boundaries" "my feelings" me me me......there is no mention of other people's boundaries and emotions, because to them other people are npcs that are either useful to their "personal journey" or easily disposable nuiances that they can get rid of with a stock phrase plucked from a leaflet at a therapist's office