Your Boundaries Will Always Disappoint The People Who Benefited From Your Lack Of Them

Healing changes the dynamics that once required your self-abandonment

Boundaries are one of the most essential parts of healing—especially for people who learned to earn connection through self-abandonment.

Because when you’ve spent years shaping yourself around other people’s needs, emotions, expectations, and comfort… it becomes very easy to lose touch with your own limits in the process.

You stop asking yourself how something feels for you. You start asking how much discomfort you can tolerate in order to keep the connection. And for a long time, that pattern can feel completely normal—until eventually, your body starts reacting to what your mind has been trying to normalize for years.

If you’re that kind of person, boundaries probably feel absolutely terrifying.

I know they did for me.

What do you mean I’m allowed to say no? What do you mean I don’t have to endlessly accommodate everyone around me? What do you mean protecting my peace is more important than avoiding someone else’s discomfort?

For the longest time, even the idea of disappointing other people felt deeply unsafe to my nervous system. I had spent so many years associating safety with keeping the peace that I barely even questioned it.

Staying agreeable felt safer. Staying constantly available felt safer. Making myself easy to be around felt safer.

So believe me when I say: you’re not alone. I really do understand exactly how you feel.

But now that I’m on the other side of it, let me also tell you:

Your lack of boundaries is not making you safe. In fact, it’s keeping you emotionally unsafe while convincing you otherwise.