Boundaries Don't Make Me a Bitch

I’ve spent most my whole life walking on egg shells, anxious around conflict, striving to do the right thing, confused when people I love don’t see the world the way I see it.

I know im not the only one.

I’m trying to get it right, not be right, but get it right.

Boundary placing has always made me feel like I’m a bitch & that’s because I was born into a culture where privacy wasn’t encouraged & toxic positivity was the air we breathed.

Since becoming a divorcee, I have been made to feel even smaller & less than in a number of ways. Misunderstood. Whether by DMs or comments or friends or family members or a coparent.

I know I’m not the only one.

I’ve been doing deep digging into childhood wounds —we all have them— & bursting open boxes of my belief system that harm me, that I’ve used to harm others.

I am still terrible at boundaries; betraying myself & telling myself a story of what is “fine” in order to “keep the peace” is still my natural inclination. But whose peace are we actually keeping?

I know im not the only one.

It’s ugly. This process of growing & healing.

It’s ripping open poorly healed wounds & rebreaking poorly healed bones so they can all heal correctly, but scars remain..as they do.

But every time I choose to speak up for myself, every time I choose to speak up for my kids & what I believe firmly is best for their over all wellbeing… every time I choose to place a boundary and then hold to it… there’s this sense that I’m a bitch.

But I’m not.

Boundaries don’t make me a bitch.

Boundaries is an act of honoring myself.

I don’t believe in one way liberation. If im honoring me, then im honoring you.

Not only does lacking boundaries betray ME, but it enables whoever You are. Thats not love.

Enabling others to use, abuse, & walk all over us is not love.

I sure as hell don’t want my kids thinking it’s acceptable.

I have a long way to go & this is part of the journey.

I know I’m not the only one.

🖤

- Natalie