My Support Forums - View Single Post - Know the difference between rigid and loose boundaries

Lilly2 · Nov 09, 2019 at 12:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lightly toasted

Thanks for sharing the article, Lilly.

This struggle to find the grey area of boundaries is particularly difficult for those of us with mental illness. I know I for certain have spent all my life either being the doormat (which is very lonely) or also lonely, in the isolation of rigid boundaries.

Thank you, lightly toasted!

I, too struggle with that.

Sometimes I'm too trusting, and so my boundaries are too loose. I forget the red flags, or I'm too tired to pay attention to the social cues at hand. Or sometimes I'm just too nice. This happens when someone inflates their services, friendship, or position (or when people exhibit antisocial behaviors like manipulation, lying, cheating, etc.), which is hard to detect when our guards are down, when we've been deceived, when we've been told by a T to start trusting (almost blindly), when we've experienced desensitization (loose boundaries could potentially be an iatrogenic effect of that, therefore leading to increased trust and decreased appropriate vigilance), etc.

But other times, I'm too distrusting, and so my boundaries are too rigid. Because of my past traumas, trust becomes hard, especially when I see warning signs and red flags all over the place. As opposed to blind trust, I can distrust everything and everyone. I forget that trust takes flexible boundaries and a healthy give-and-take in a relationship. For example, it's unfair for one person in a dyad to demand that the other person trust them completely when trust has not been earned. In that scenario, only one person is trusting the other without the other offering any trust back and, at the same time, without the other showing signs of being trustworthy. We, as individuals are responsible to ease into our trust, not shut it out or demand it from others.

Herein lies the problems with therapy and medicine: Such fields demand trust from us, but the person on the other end has not truly earned our trust (other than their say so and titles), nor has the other person trusted us with our stories, our concerns, and our full engagement in that relationship. Our words should be heard and trusted, over and against validation, because that kind of understanding means that the other person does care about our needs apart from their own, though both can have their needs met in some way, such as when a therapist is paid for doing a good job or rewarded when seeing a client benefit from his/her treatment or when a psychiatrist sees that his/her prescriptions are working for the client. Unbalanced trust means that one or both parties have rigid boundaries. Also, it's easy for offenders to take advantage of others when their rigid boundaries demand trust from the other - almost in a gaslighting way. On the other hand, it's easy for us who have experienced trauma to distrust others and remain isolated and/or paranoid because we are too afraid of being hurt again.

Somewhere in the middle is ideal. It's hard to find, but generally when any given dyad has a healthy balance of trust, then both parties are being trustworthy and offering trust in the other - hopefully at equal or appropriate intervals.

Reestablishing trust after losing it or having the other person do something untrustworthy is difficult. Rigid boundaries (which are sometimes required, but not all times) happen when someone shuts the person out completely. This might be necessary if the other person continues to harm or doesn't have a way to manage his/her behaviors well enough to provide safety in the relationship. But other times, forgiveness or second chances can happen where one is truly working at correcting their behaviors and showing that they are trustworthy without demanding trust from the other. Both parties work on reestablishing trust with one another, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. Flexible boundaries are allowed when it is safe to proceed in reestablishing trust, and it allows the relationship to be flexible. Not all situations deserve that though, so it is important to note that rigid boundaries are called for in some circumstances.

Too loose of boundaries involve giving ourselves away, making sacrifices, or becoming doormats. For the "martyrs" of the world, this might feel good or make someone feel that they are "good," but it can damage relationships, too. It's one thing to trust too much so as to give a person a chance to learn what love and acceptance is, regardless of their behaviors, but it's another thing to be a doormat. Flexible boundaries would state that the relationship can continue under some healthy conditions, and those conditions are stated and agreed by both parties, not just one party doing all the boundary settings. It's important for both people to have a voice, and to have a healthy balance of give-and-take.

--This is how I interpret healthy boundaries, and the time and need for loose boundaries and rigid boundaries. This is how I link boundaries to trust.

I'm hoping that more people here can offer additional tips on trust and boundaries.