#surprise!!!! turns out healthy approaches to interpersonal relationships have a lot of nuance

[eldritchmochi]

i keep seeing posts about how the term "boundaries" is constantly misused to inflict rules on other people when boundaries "only relate to rules for yourself" which..... isnt true according to things ive discussed with my therapist? like yeah the overuse of medical terms as get out of jail free buzzwords is bad but also strict black or white rulings of a concept in a tweet or two is also bad, especially since i have not seen a damn one of these come from a credible source, either a mental health professional or like, clinical terminology sources

CONCRETE EXAMPLE where i set a boundary with roommates that required behavior changes on their part that my therapist named specifically as a boundary when i described it:

dishes are the biggest point of contention in basically any living situation with multiple people. my previous roommates were really bad at doing them, in a way that resulted the kitchen being really gross if i hadnt just cleaned it. even after many requests to do basic things of "empty the sink trap of soggy food so it doesn't rot" and "dont hoard dishes long enough to grow an ecosystem" over m o n t h s, i got nowhere with dishes being done regularly in a way that didnt bother me

in the end it was so continuously upsetting that i told them to not do the dishes at all ever whatsoever, i would take care it. mind, i was the only one who worked out of the house while commuting via bus as a chronically ill person with severe fatigue and i was putting in an average of 50 hrs a week every week for werks on end at the time. me deciding to take this on was not done lightly, this was me recognizing that it was better and healthier for all of us for me to take on this one task. it would result in me being much happier in that living situation at no real cost to the other party other than maybe the dishes would stack up a bit if i was particularly exhausted one day, but things would get caught up within the week

this did not go down well despite my best efforts, and i would not be surprised if this black and white portrayal of what boundaries are influenced that. this nonsense went down over like six solid months and every single session i had with my therapist had him absolutely baffled because he couldn't think of a single thing i could have done better

i am not a mh professional i do not know the specific difference between "dont do this thing it upsets me" and "dont do this thing that 'upsets' me because i am controlling you", but the blanket statement of calling something like this a boundary is misusing the term is black and white thinking. i have bpd, ive done some dbt about it and the first thing they teach you is how to spot black and white thinking because it us incredibly mal adaptive and *really fucking dangerous* and this specific trend is going to be taken advantage of by abusers just as much as coopting the use of "boundaries" to justify their behavior

tldr "boundaries are never about other people's behavior" and "you can't do xyz thing because it violates my boundaries" are two sides of the same abusive coin. people who have put in the work in a tangible and meaningful way, who are able to examine their motives and give grace to other people within their boundaries, can recognize that boundaries are a spectrum, like everything with social relationships and mental health in general