My therapist often says she feels so many people suffer from loneliness. Carl Jung once said that true lonelienss comes not so much from having no one around, but rather from having no one who connects to the real you. And as much as we can connect to ourselves genuine heartfelt connections with other humans are so important to our mental and emotional health.
One of the saddest things is when we feel we have to cut off from human connection due to avoidance, good things may be close but we may not be able to move through the wall of fear to embrace them. And there may be part of ourselves we find it hard to accept and love and then we will be more willing to tolerate abuse or being told we are bad for just being human and having valid feelings and boundaries.
Today has been complex. I connected with someone online it felt a peaceful and genuine connection, I know it could not be real until we meet, at the same time Scott is blaming me for not being willing to help him more.. Does he really expect me to sell my house? Today I felt guilty connecting to someone else. I put up with this much from Scott due to trust and fear. I also found it hard to believe in this situation, which may be on me.. But who makes someone else so responsible financially for their own issues?.. I know that trust takes time to build in any relationship.. and for those of us with boundary issues we have to educate ourselves often about healthy boundaries not having learned them in childhood due to be invaded.
Cynthia Bailey Rug posted a post on touch and boundaries yesterday and it spoke of those who use touch before it is appropriate.. I have been subjected to this myself in the last two relationships.. at the time the touch or move felt too early for me but I was not able to hold onto the boundary.. I started to feel a gut contraction at first and then anxiety about saying no, questioning was I being a prude? But as I look back the person may have been trying to advance things too soon and my emotional hunger and fear of abandonment made me too boundaryless.. the same may go when I overshare at times.. due to the fact of having to keep so much pent up for so many years, lately at times it all comes rushing out in a flood… Even after I post a post I may feel ashamed or that I may have done something wrong by sharing about things honestly in such a public forum..
Today the truth is in this new connection it feels so nice not being asked to fix things that are not my responsibility. In a video I listened to last night a therapist on this issue was saying sometimes we give too soon out of fear of being a mean or not nice person and others may play on this. I know Scott did this with me numerous times.. And today when this new connection asked me to do something I did not want to I just said I felt it was too early for me to be doing that.. He just said to me “That is fine, I respect that, I would rather you were honest.” My therapist has explained that each new connection gives me a chance to learn more and be less anxious about setting healthy boundaries.
Often loneliness made me collapse my boundaries. In a post I shared earlier I spoke of how the acting out of my promiscuity got worse after Dad disrespected my wishes and boundaries and I was so lowered in hope and vitality being forced to do that secretarial diploma when my passion lay in teaching.. .. Obviously the two are connected.. If your parents do not respect your boundaries you grow up feeling you do not have the right to have them, but the sadness and lowered vitality as well as confusion may not be fully registered mentally. This is very bad for our health and self esteem in every way.. Also being made to feel we are responsible for the feelings of others is not fair.. if we are not being abusive just self respecting it is not our fault if that upsets someone, maybe it just triggered something for them..
Today there is still that guilty voice telling me I am doing something wrong when really I am not knowing my history.. for in truth this boundary stuff takes time and if we were not allowed to know the truth about what happened to us due to be invalidated or gaslit that makes it even harder to hold onto our truth and self esteem and boundaries..
In the video I listened to last night the therapist said anger was a clear sign a boundary was being violated.. Sometimes I was punished for feeling angry..What message did that give me? Lie to yourself! Push the truth back down inside of you! Don’t allow yourself to listen to and trust the signal that your own body/mind is giving you. Was it any wonder I ended up with sinus issues and collapsed three times in my relationship with Phil when he put me under unfair boundary pressure?
In my recent studies on the vagus nerve the collapse response to trauma is clearly explained.. our bodies are such wonderful instruments and internal guidance systems.. There is a name given to the capacity to read inner signals in the body mind.. it is called introception. Our bodies and guts intuitively and instinctively register what does not feel good.. and only if we learn to betray our minds do we end up getting things and our bodies all twisted out of shape.. And our loneliness and despair continues to grow as we learn to over-ride these inner signals when shut down by those who should have been helping us to read or attune to them more effectively.
Emerging From The Dark Night 