Pssssst ... C'mere, I wanna share this with you.
Drug Addiction Has No Mercy
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Milwaukie Oregon
Posts: 875
Pssssst ... C'mere, I wanna share this with you.
Many adults abused as children lack the ability to set appropriate boundaries because “not having boundaries” served them as a defense mechanism in childhood. If you try to do anything to resist, you just get hurt all the more, right? So setting aside any resistance means less hurt.
Sadly, defenses that served you well as a child to ensure survival can, when carried into adulthood, actually cripple you.
With persistence and courage, however, any psychological defense can be overcome.
Your first step will be to overcome the pernicious belief that you are worthless. Like any abused child you developed this belief to tolerate your lack of resistance to abuse. If you can convince yourself that you’re worthless, then you can more easily justify not resisting anything that degrades your value.
A good metaphor to help you understand your own personal value comes from aviation. If you have ever flown on a commercial airliner, you have heard the safety talks at the beginning of the flight. One talk concerns the oxygen masks, which will drop down from the overhead compartment in the event of a sudden decompression at altitude. In that talk, you are warned to put on your own mask before trying to assist someone else.
Do you know why? Well, at high altitudes there is very little oxygen in the air, and the brain can survive for only a few seconds without supplemental oxygen. So, in the time it takes to help someone else who is confused and struggling, you could both pass out and die. But if you put on your own mask immediately, you will have the oxygen you need to survive and think clearly, so you can be of real help to others.
Your second step will be to understand that healthy boundaries derive from love, not fear.
You will often see so-called “nice” persons who always appear to sacrifice themselves for others. They give the impression that capitulating to others promotes peace and that boundaries are selfish—but many of these persons are motivated by an unconscious need to keep the “peace” because of a fear of getting hurt. Such persons usually come from dysfunctional families, and they themselves may have played the unconscious “family role” of peacekeeper.
On the other hand, you can also find persons who, knowing full well that they are being hurt, will sometimes set aside their boundaries as an act of charity for others. For example, if people push past you to get on a bus, you might decide to say nothing, knowing that people who would push past you to get on a bus will also react with hostility if you say anything to them about their rude behavior. In this case you can tolerate their rude behavior with forbearance and pray that they might someday learn to act with charity to others. Yet these same persons who can willingly set aside their boundaries can just as well defend them. For example, if someone at work uses foul language, you can say that you do not like to hear such talk; if the talk persists, you can get up and walk away.
So remember that acting out of fear only leads to a wasted life because it unconsciously supports rudeness. Acting from love, however, can bring genuine good into the world, through personal example. But only with healthy boundaries can you act from love. Why?
Well, consider that boundaries have a fundamental place in life itself. Look around you, and you will see that every living creature has its own territory in which it lives and that it defends against intrusion. Boundaries are so fundamental that even criminals who thrive on violating the integrity of others have their own internal code of ethics, their own “boundaries.”
So, considering that boundaries have a core purpose in civilization, an individual’s lack of personal, psychological boundaries isn’t really a true lack—at least, it’s not a lack in the philosophical sense of something “missing.” Instead, this apparent lack is really a refusal to defend one’s own boundaries. And it’s a refusal based on hatred. That’s right. Hatred: a hatred of the self that results from having been abused as a child. Unable to make sense of senseless abuse, a child, using the full effort of imperfect childhood logic, arrives at the only “logical” conclusion: “It must be my fault. I’m just a worthless person. I deserve condemnation.” And there you have it: self-hatred engendered by abuse.
To re-establish healthy boundaries, then, an adult who was abused as a child can stop refusing to defend boundaries simply by starting to refuse to hate—and that includes refusing to hate yourself. Refusing to hate, after all, is an expression of love. And only with healthy boundaries can you act from love.
Refusing to break the law.
The law is absolute to a particular city, state, or country. Breaking the law is not just an act of hatred to authority, it is a criminal act with unpleasant penalties. If you break the law, even if others manipulate you into doing it, you pay the price—and self-sabotage is an act of self-hatred.
Refusing to bend the rules.
Unlike the law, which is absolute, rules are relative to a particular social context. Rules allow things to function smoothly because everyone within a particular context agrees to them. Rules can refer to a game, to office procedures, to family conduct, or even to the conduct of psychotherapy. But if rules are bent, then the whole social context suffers—and making someone suffer is an act of hate.
Refusing to betray your moral values.
Your moral values provide your own internal guidance about what is wrong to do, even if it might be legal or even if social rules permit it. Moral values derive from an abstract sense of the “good,” which often has a religious component to it. Betraying your moral values, then, is a way of hating the good.
Refusing to allow someone to get too close to you emotionally.
We do not live in a world of true love; we live in a world of selfishness, where others try to get their needs met even at the expense of your needs. People will try to get you to “open up” when you don’t feel like it, and they will try to get you to “spill your guts” when it can be used against you. Allowing yourself to be pressured like this hurts only you—and that is an act of self-hate.
Refusing to allow someone to get too close to you physically.
We are physical creatures. Our bodies are made of bones and flesh. Each of us, therefore, has a physical presence that makes us unique and contributes to our sense of individuality. Being touched when you don’t want to be touched violates your sense of soul. It makes you into an object—or, even worse, it makes your body into a piece of garbage. Allowing someone to treat you like garbage is an act of self-hate.
Sadly, defenses that served you well as a child to ensure survival can, when carried into adulthood, actually cripple you.
With persistence and courage, however, any psychological defense can be overcome.
Your first step will be to overcome the pernicious belief that you are worthless. Like any abused child you developed this belief to tolerate your lack of resistance to abuse. If you can convince yourself that you’re worthless, then you can more easily justify not resisting anything that degrades your value.
A good metaphor to help you understand your own personal value comes from aviation. If you have ever flown on a commercial airliner, you have heard the safety talks at the beginning of the flight. One talk concerns the oxygen masks, which will drop down from the overhead compartment in the event of a sudden decompression at altitude. In that talk, you are warned to put on your own mask before trying to assist someone else.
Do you know why? Well, at high altitudes there is very little oxygen in the air, and the brain can survive for only a few seconds without supplemental oxygen. So, in the time it takes to help someone else who is confused and struggling, you could both pass out and die. But if you put on your own mask immediately, you will have the oxygen you need to survive and think clearly, so you can be of real help to others.
Your second step will be to understand that healthy boundaries derive from love, not fear.
You will often see so-called “nice” persons who always appear to sacrifice themselves for others. They give the impression that capitulating to others promotes peace and that boundaries are selfish—but many of these persons are motivated by an unconscious need to keep the “peace” because of a fear of getting hurt. Such persons usually come from dysfunctional families, and they themselves may have played the unconscious “family role” of peacekeeper.
On the other hand, you can also find persons who, knowing full well that they are being hurt, will sometimes set aside their boundaries as an act of charity for others. For example, if people push past you to get on a bus, you might decide to say nothing, knowing that people who would push past you to get on a bus will also react with hostility if you say anything to them about their rude behavior. In this case you can tolerate their rude behavior with forbearance and pray that they might someday learn to act with charity to others. Yet these same persons who can willingly set aside their boundaries can just as well defend them. For example, if someone at work uses foul language, you can say that you do not like to hear such talk; if the talk persists, you can get up and walk away.
So remember that acting out of fear only leads to a wasted life because it unconsciously supports rudeness. Acting from love, however, can bring genuine good into the world, through personal example. But only with healthy boundaries can you act from love. Why?
Well, consider that boundaries have a fundamental place in life itself. Look around you, and you will see that every living creature has its own territory in which it lives and that it defends against intrusion. Boundaries are so fundamental that even criminals who thrive on violating the integrity of others have their own internal code of ethics, their own “boundaries.”
So, considering that boundaries have a core purpose in civilization, an individual’s lack of personal, psychological boundaries isn’t really a true lack—at least, it’s not a lack in the philosophical sense of something “missing.” Instead, this apparent lack is really a refusal to defend one’s own boundaries. And it’s a refusal based on hatred. That’s right. Hatred: a hatred of the self that results from having been abused as a child. Unable to make sense of senseless abuse, a child, using the full effort of imperfect childhood logic, arrives at the only “logical” conclusion: “It must be my fault. I’m just a worthless person. I deserve condemnation.” And there you have it: self-hatred engendered by abuse.
To re-establish healthy boundaries, then, an adult who was abused as a child can stop refusing to defend boundaries simply by starting to refuse to hate—and that includes refusing to hate yourself. Refusing to hate, after all, is an expression of love. And only with healthy boundaries can you act from love.
Examples of Healthy Boundaries
Refusing to break the law.
The law is absolute to a particular city, state, or country. Breaking the law is not just an act of hatred to authority, it is a criminal act with unpleasant penalties. If you break the law, even if others manipulate you into doing it, you pay the price—and self-sabotage is an act of self-hatred.
Refusing to bend the rules.
Unlike the law, which is absolute, rules are relative to a particular social context. Rules allow things to function smoothly because everyone within a particular context agrees to them. Rules can refer to a game, to office procedures, to family conduct, or even to the conduct of psychotherapy. But if rules are bent, then the whole social context suffers—and making someone suffer is an act of hate.
Refusing to betray your moral values.
Your moral values provide your own internal guidance about what is wrong to do, even if it might be legal or even if social rules permit it. Moral values derive from an abstract sense of the “good,” which often has a religious component to it. Betraying your moral values, then, is a way of hating the good.
Refusing to allow someone to get too close to you emotionally.
We do not live in a world of true love; we live in a world of selfishness, where others try to get their needs met even at the expense of your needs. People will try to get you to “open up” when you don’t feel like it, and they will try to get you to “spill your guts” when it can be used against you. Allowing yourself to be pressured like this hurts only you—and that is an act of self-hate.
Refusing to allow someone to get too close to you physically.
We are physical creatures. Our bodies are made of bones and flesh. Each of us, therefore, has a physical presence that makes us unique and contributes to our sense of individuality. Being touched when you don’t want to be touched violates your sense of soul. It makes you into an object—or, even worse, it makes your body into a piece of garbage. Allowing someone to treat you like garbage is an act of self-hate.
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