Boundary issues: how boundaries became the rules for mental health
July 11, 2023 1:04 PM Subscribe
"Boundaries are a Band-Aid in a bad world: if you can’t expect people to care for you and treat you well and protect you from violence or scarcity, you can at least protect yourself from their needs. They aren’t straightforwardly wrong to do this: negotiating other people’s needs, which are often unreasonable and unfulfillable and intolerable, is fraught, baffling, and overwhelming. It demands a good strong metaphor, and the image of boundaries is unusually tensile. But the term takes on its own momentum, overrunning intimacy with alienation. In its most extreme forms, boundary-speak makes it feel like some of us have given up on each other: the only effective social strategy left is to lock yourself in, fortify your defenses. If your emotional defense budget isn’t big enough to hold the line and you get trampled by other people’s greed, that’s on you."
From the leftist psychoanalytic magazine, Parapraxis.
From the leftist psychoanalytic magazine, Parapraxis.
I hate this topic. People tell me things like, "Boundaries! They are a thing! You should try having some!" and I want to point out, boundaries are not about me saying no and the other person saying "okay then, I'll back off." That would be easy. "Boundaries" are me saying no and the other person ignoring me and keeping on coming and continuing to bother/harass me/ask/demand, etc., to the point where I have to escalate and escalate--usually involving a LOT of screaming, hanging up the phone, and/or driving away and refusing to answer the phone for hours. (Hi, Mom! She will not take no for an answer! Seriously, she's a dog with a bone and won't let go, and she won't stop nitpicking and expressing her feelings toward say, my hair. If I was holding a gun to my head and said, "I will shoot if you say anything about my hair ONE MORE TIME," she'd say, "But your hair!" because she can't help herself.) "Boundaries," to me, are like having to set off a nuke. I do not want to have to set off a nuke or have a damn war trying to get someone to stooooooooooooop. God, it's so much easier to give in and do what someone else wants so that they will go away rather than fight fight fight. I can lose easy (by giving in) or lose hard (by saying no and getting into a fight), but I lose either way.
I ask and ask people, how am I supposed to handle this, and most people have no answers to this. A neighbor of mine was supposedly having a workshop on your sexy (????) boundaries and I thought I signed up for the thing but she never bothered to send me the Zoom and I frankly didn't feel like emailing her at the start of the thing to beg for it. But I said this on the "signups" and she said, well, you might have to just quit dealing with that person, then. Easier said than done when she's the only relative who cares if I exist, though.
Nobody teaches you how to deal with someone who won't follow boundaries, but you aren't quite ready to 100% burn it down, either. Or how you deal with situations where you want to set boundaries with someone who has power over you and you literally can't tell them no. Or how to deal with the super super super dogged and persistent people who won't go away until you give them what you want. They want what they want, I just want peace, and I won't get it until they get what they want out of me. I'm so tired of fights.
Back to the article:
“Wife Abuse,” anonymous experts describe how abuse decays a woman’s boundaries, leaving her unable to enforce her limits. But even these uses seem to devolve into patronizing and victim blaming in the writing of people like VanVonderen: “I’ve counseled women who have been victims of rape,” he wrote in 1989. “None of them say, ‘I’m important, and I don’t deserve to be treated that way.’ More often they say, ‘I should have known better than to have been there at that time or to have dressed that way.’ They have no sense of their right to boundaries.”
Well, people who are being abused have learned that if they set boundaries, those boundaries categorically won't be respected. They're just girls who can't say no. What good does it do you to think, "I don't deserve this treatment" when you get it anyway, and you'd have to set off a nuke to get it to stop? What if you're not ready to go nuclear? What if there's small children, you're a SAHM, etc. and you're going to spend the rest of your life fighting your abuser over joint custody and he doesn't have to to listen to you, but you're at his mercy waiting on the child support and some childcare relief every week (this one brought to you by a friend of mine saying she can't make rehearsal today because it's kid transfer day and her shitty ex will make damn sure not to get the kids for hours)?
Boundaries are a fight, and they are an exhausting one that frequently feel futile to me. I guess I "win" by screaming, hanging up, driving home, and refusing to not answer the phone for 3 hours, but did I really win? If it was that full of excruciating effort to do, was the war worth it?
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:55 PM on July 11, 2023 [38 favorites]
I ask and ask people, how am I supposed to handle this, and most people have no answers to this. A neighbor of mine was supposedly having a workshop on your sexy (????) boundaries and I thought I signed up for the thing but she never bothered to send me the Zoom and I frankly didn't feel like emailing her at the start of the thing to beg for it. But I said this on the "signups" and she said, well, you might have to just quit dealing with that person, then. Easier said than done when she's the only relative who cares if I exist, though.
Nobody teaches you how to deal with someone who won't follow boundaries, but you aren't quite ready to 100% burn it down, either. Or how you deal with situations where you want to set boundaries with someone who has power over you and you literally can't tell them no. Or how to deal with the super super super dogged and persistent people who won't go away until you give them what you want. They want what they want, I just want peace, and I won't get it until they get what they want out of me. I'm so tired of fights.
Back to the article:
“Wife Abuse,” anonymous experts describe how abuse decays a woman’s boundaries, leaving her unable to enforce her limits. But even these uses seem to devolve into patronizing and victim blaming in the writing of people like VanVonderen: “I’ve counseled women who have been victims of rape,” he wrote in 1989. “None of them say, ‘I’m important, and I don’t deserve to be treated that way.’ More often they say, ‘I should have known better than to have been there at that time or to have dressed that way.’ They have no sense of their right to boundaries.”
Well, people who are being abused have learned that if they set boundaries, those boundaries categorically won't be respected. They're just girls who can't say no. What good does it do you to think, "I don't deserve this treatment" when you get it anyway, and you'd have to set off a nuke to get it to stop? What if you're not ready to go nuclear? What if there's small children, you're a SAHM, etc. and you're going to spend the rest of your life fighting your abuser over joint custody and he doesn't have to to listen to you, but you're at his mercy waiting on the child support and some childcare relief every week (this one brought to you by a friend of mine saying she can't make rehearsal today because it's kid transfer day and her shitty ex will make damn sure not to get the kids for hours)?
Boundaries are a fight, and they are an exhausting one that frequently feel futile to me. I guess I "win" by screaming, hanging up, driving home, and refusing to not answer the phone for 3 hours, but did I really win? If it was that full of excruciating effort to do, was the war worth it?
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:55 PM on July 11, 2023 [38 favorites]
This essay feels to me like it’s trying hard to force a simile that doesn’t work, that personal boundaries share some similar traits to capitalism and since capitalism is bad then personal boundaries must also be suspect. Boundaries are too broad a concept for that to work. Communism as historically practiced as a form of government has not exactly manifested as borderless societies that value the free movement of people. Anarchism is arguably about the greatest and possibly most unattainable boundary of all; the fundamental right of people to say fuck no.
I have a wife and a non-primary partner and a group of close friends that is, when I list all of them out, kind of shockingly large. In any given week there are eight or nine people who are not members of my family to whom I say I love you and from whom I hear the same. I am not hurting for intimacy and frankly this lifestyle would not be sustainable if we did not have the ability to say this is ok and this is not ok and have everyone else respect that.
I did not imagine when I was a child how much of my adulthood would be about coming to terms with the notion that some people will never be ok, but there it is. Some people are unfillable and irreparable and no matter how much you pour into them they will always need more, so you help them when you can and when you can’t anymore you take a step back while there’s still enough of you left so that you can recover and help them again.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 2:05 PM on July 11, 2023 [12 favorites]
I have a wife and a non-primary partner and a group of close friends that is, when I list all of them out, kind of shockingly large. In any given week there are eight or nine people who are not members of my family to whom I say I love you and from whom I hear the same. I am not hurting for intimacy and frankly this lifestyle would not be sustainable if we did not have the ability to say this is ok and this is not ok and have everyone else respect that.
I did not imagine when I was a child how much of my adulthood would be about coming to terms with the notion that some people will never be ok, but there it is. Some people are unfillable and irreparable and no matter how much you pour into them they will always need more, so you help them when you can and when you can’t anymore you take a step back while there’s still enough of you left so that you can recover and help them again.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 2:05 PM on July 11, 2023 [12 favorites]
Still reading, but am intrigued at how the implicit metaphor operates (at least per the essay author):
Most boundaries books of the ’90s unselfconsciously steal imagery from land ownership. As Cloud and Townsend put it, “just as homeowners set physical property lines around their land, we need to set mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual boundaries for our lives to help us distinguish what is our responsibility and what isn’t.” Or, to be blunt, “if I know where my yard begins and ends, I am free to do with it what I like.” Ownership is the cornerstone of boundary ethics, and the self is a particularly pesky thing to own, because its edges are invisible. “In the physical world, boundaries are easy to see,” Cloud and Townsend go on. “Fences, signs, walls, moats with alligators . . . they give the same message: THIS IS WHERE MY PROPERTY BEGINS . . . . In the spiritual world, boundaries are just as real, but often harder to see.” The ’90s fetish for the suburban lawn is everywhere: “Like any fence, boundaries require maintenance,” writes Anne Katherine. “Some people are like ivy. . . . It’s tiresome, but if we let these people stay in our lives, we must keep pruning them and throwing the behavior weeds out of our yards.”posted by spamandkimchi at 2:11 PM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
And later:
It feels slick and too easy to analogize in this way. But it also feels absurd not to, because even in the present, this whole way of thinking is built on literal analogies to property and national security. In her 2022 boundaries bestseller, Melissa Urban... offers a helpful shorthand for measuring a risk to your boundaries: the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s levels of threat. Green, yellow, and red threat levels all merit different conversational scripts; she also includes “Threat Level Fuchsia,” which “Homeland Security does not recognize but anyone who’s been in front of their ex’s current girlfriend after multiple tequila shots surely does."posted by spamandkimchi at 2:15 PM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
The pull quote describes my life. Boundaries are walls that protect me from people who are supposed to love me who don't actually care if I get really sick. My pinned post on Facebook these days is as follows:
posted by hydropsyche at 2:24 PM on July 11, 2023 [28 favorites]
To be clear: I really am living my life like there is still a pandemic, following the rules that everyone is familiar with, because I can't be sick for 2 months again or risk further permanent damage to my health from Long COVID. That is a hard boundary for me, and I'm not willing to put myself into situations that push against that boundary when I have control over it, especially since I still have to do what the State of Georgia tells me to do and put myself at risk to keep my job.Yes, this exists because I have in fact given up on other people. Every time I explained what I need to be safe and people treated that as the beginning of some negotiation, where I offer to put my immunocompromised ass at more risk so that they feel more comfortable, that slowly chipped away at my trust in other people and the institutions they represent. Now, I just hope that the pinned post prevents most invitations to things I will never be able to attend. It sucks. I hate it. Fix the world. Until it's fixed, leave me alone.
posted by hydropsyche at 2:24 PM on July 11, 2023 [28 favorites]
I ask and ask people, how am I supposed to handle this
This is going to sound simplistic, but stop interacting with the people who don't respect you.
(Even if they're family.)
I can only control one variable, and that variable is me. If someone can't respect me despite my explicit and clear request, then I remove myself from the situation.
posted by phunniemee at 2:25 PM on July 11, 2023 [14 favorites]
This is going to sound simplistic, but stop interacting with the people who don't respect you.
(Even if they're family.)
I can only control one variable, and that variable is me. If someone can't respect me despite my explicit and clear request, then I remove myself from the situation.
posted by phunniemee at 2:25 PM on July 11, 2023 [14 favorites]
Boundaries don't stop my mother from harassing me. She repeatedly run roughshod over any boundaries and limitations I attempted to establish. I eventually cut off contact with her entirely, and told her not to reach out to me ever again. She, of course, has not respected that boundary either.
BUT: Establishing these boundaries in a clear manner allows me the peace of mind to know that I'm doing the right thing in cutting her off for my own mental health. Abusers will wheedle and negotiate with your limits and consent, and society frowns upon the notion that you might cut off family. Having established and reinforced clear boundaries does prevent the inevitable self-doubt that might otherwise crop up.
posted by explosion at 2:41 PM on July 11, 2023 [16 favorites]
BUT: Establishing these boundaries in a clear manner allows me the peace of mind to know that I'm doing the right thing in cutting her off for my own mental health. Abusers will wheedle and negotiate with your limits and consent, and society frowns upon the notion that you might cut off family. Having established and reinforced clear boundaries does prevent the inevitable self-doubt that might otherwise crop up.
posted by explosion at 2:41 PM on July 11, 2023 [16 favorites]
I think one thing that really needs to be talked about in this conversation is autonomy and agency, the ability to govern oneself, and the related ability to act as one wishes.
When they talk about abuse victims having their boundaries eroded, what we are actually talking about is a loss of self-governance, where people were not in control of what happened to them, mentally, physically, emotionally, or sexually. When people talk about what they could have done differently to avoid abuse they are telling a story about actually having autonomy by suggesting they had agency they didn't exercise... blaming yourself is a way to retroactively assert control over a situation where that control was actually taken away.
And when we talk about boundaries we are asserting a claim to autonomy that we want others to recognize, and using the language of property to present it as fundamental and inherent. And there is something degrading to that in my mind, that people aren't concerned enough about us as people to try to do right by us through collaboration and communication. So yes it is a band-aid in a sense, something we cover ourselves with to protect us from harm.
I think one thing I need to work on is knowing when I have agency and autonomy and when I lack it. Because many of the things that trouble me are one or the other.
I have many more thoughts but that will do for now.
posted by Chrysopoeia at 2:49 PM on July 11, 2023 [23 favorites]
When they talk about abuse victims having their boundaries eroded, what we are actually talking about is a loss of self-governance, where people were not in control of what happened to them, mentally, physically, emotionally, or sexually. When people talk about what they could have done differently to avoid abuse they are telling a story about actually having autonomy by suggesting they had agency they didn't exercise... blaming yourself is a way to retroactively assert control over a situation where that control was actually taken away.
And when we talk about boundaries we are asserting a claim to autonomy that we want others to recognize, and using the language of property to present it as fundamental and inherent. And there is something degrading to that in my mind, that people aren't concerned enough about us as people to try to do right by us through collaboration and communication. So yes it is a band-aid in a sense, something we cover ourselves with to protect us from harm.
I think one thing I need to work on is knowing when I have agency and autonomy and when I lack it. Because many of the things that trouble me are one or the other.
I have many more thoughts but that will do for now.
posted by Chrysopoeia at 2:49 PM on July 11, 2023 [23 favorites]
Boundaries are kind of a sloppy metaphor. I prefer to think about this in terms of someone else wants me to do something I don’t want to do. Why don’t I want to do it? Maybe I find it to be immoral. Maybe I’m not comfortable doing it. Maybe I have reasons not to want to do it. Maybe I can’t do it. If they ask I should be able to say No. That’s where the problem begins. I need to be able to say No. And they need to be able to understand and accept my No. In both cases of me and them, inability can arise and hence a problem. It’s communication, both saying and listening on both sides. If you say and they don’t listen, time to talk with someone else.
posted by njohnson23 at 3:03 PM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by njohnson23 at 3:03 PM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
I agree with Parasite Unseen that the author is reaching by tying the concept so closely to the property metaphor, using it to try to appropriate some of the stench of capitalism for their critique. If there is a connection to property, it's in the way that I think would still be sacrosanct in a post-capitalist world: I have a room or a space that I can call my home, and I can decide who comes into it.
the fundamental right of people to say fuck no
Spot on. But the 'no' is just the beginning, and the general discourse absolutely does not attend enough to what comes after, as jenfullmoon says.
Sometimes boundaries are like a labor strike – they force a crisis in order to prevent future harm. (the differences are important, of course: a strike aims fully to negotiate with the other party, setting boundaries may end the relationship)
And sometimes boundaries are how we learn trust. If you respect my spoken boundary I learn that you're someone who will work to avoid doing me harm. That's powerful. And that trust is ultimately what build interdependence! It's part of how we learn to see each other and show up for each other.
I thought of COVID and immunocompromised folks when reading. The author I think misses the point with their example of immunocompromised folks who may not be able to set the boundary they need (a positive air pressure environment) on their own – the need for some individual boundaries to be held/enforced by the collective doesn't actually mean the concept of boundaries is bankrupt. In fact by speaking your boundaries you create the possibility for your needs to be met by the collective.
Considering all that it's disappointing that this left critique misses it entirely.
Though I'm also curious if the author has another way of thinking about autonomy / preventing harm that doesn't map to the boundary/property idea – there are of course many ways to understand living as a human and I'm sure there's value in orthogonal concepts.
Also to be clear there are for sure legit critiques of the ways that some folks talk about boundaries - for instance I think that the way some people use "healthy boundaries" way undersells the amount of conflict boundaries may cause, and the ways in which our agency is constrained by circumstance. We also generally don't talk enough about the flipside of boundaries, choosing and moving toward safety and joy. But, yeah, this piece doesn't get at those things.
posted by wemayfreeze at 3:28 PM on July 11, 2023 [9 favorites]
the fundamental right of people to say fuck no
Spot on. But the 'no' is just the beginning, and the general discourse absolutely does not attend enough to what comes after, as jenfullmoon says.
Sometimes boundaries are like a labor strike – they force a crisis in order to prevent future harm. (the differences are important, of course: a strike aims fully to negotiate with the other party, setting boundaries may end the relationship)
And sometimes boundaries are how we learn trust. If you respect my spoken boundary I learn that you're someone who will work to avoid doing me harm. That's powerful. And that trust is ultimately what build interdependence! It's part of how we learn to see each other and show up for each other.
I thought of COVID and immunocompromised folks when reading. The author I think misses the point with their example of immunocompromised folks who may not be able to set the boundary they need (a positive air pressure environment) on their own – the need for some individual boundaries to be held/enforced by the collective doesn't actually mean the concept of boundaries is bankrupt. In fact by speaking your boundaries you create the possibility for your needs to be met by the collective.
Considering all that it's disappointing that this left critique misses it entirely.
Though I'm also curious if the author has another way of thinking about autonomy / preventing harm that doesn't map to the boundary/property idea – there are of course many ways to understand living as a human and I'm sure there's value in orthogonal concepts.
Also to be clear there are for sure legit critiques of the ways that some folks talk about boundaries - for instance I think that the way some people use "healthy boundaries" way undersells the amount of conflict boundaries may cause, and the ways in which our agency is constrained by circumstance. We also generally don't talk enough about the flipside of boundaries, choosing and moving toward safety and joy. But, yeah, this piece doesn't get at those things.
posted by wemayfreeze at 3:28 PM on July 11, 2023 [9 favorites]
Oh and two quotes that I love around this:
Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.
- Prentis Hemphill
on so many levels, interdependence requires being seen, as much as possible, as your true self. meaning that your capacity and need are transparent.
- adrienne maree brown
posted by wemayfreeze at 3:29 PM on July 11, 2023 [7 favorites]
Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.
- Prentis Hemphill
on so many levels, interdependence requires being seen, as much as possible, as your true self. meaning that your capacity and need are transparent.
- adrienne maree brown
posted by wemayfreeze at 3:29 PM on July 11, 2023 [7 favorites]
I am a big believer in healthy boundaries, and I was very fortunate to have been raised in a family where boundaries are respected. I am always really happy when I see people sticking up for themselves by setting healthy boundaries, especially if I know it's hard for them, or their family of origin had a culture that did not support boundaries.
However, whenever ideas like this become fodder for pop-psychology, it's very easy for a few things to happen:
1. People with a lot of societal/positional power use these ideas to gain even more power, especially over those with less power to begin with. The whole Jonah Hill situation is a perfect example of that.
2. The idea becomes another way to criticize/shame people who are victims, in this case people in abusive or controlling relationships - "just set better boundaries!" Or the truly baffling thing I saw going around a year or so ago, which is the idea that stating boundaries isn't enough - for it to actually be a boundary, you have to enforce it. Which - no. If you set a clear boundary and the other person ignores it, it's not your fault for not enforcing it. Not everyone wants their interpersonal relationships to be a constant battle. It's their fault for trampling it.
3. It becomes an easy way to avoid mutual responsibility and care. This one is tricky, I know. If you have a loved one with serious mental illness or addiction issues, it's often even more important to set firm boundaries. But I've seen people use "boundaries" as a way to avoid any kind of emotional or practical responsibility to the people in their lives, and that kind of individualism really goes to what the author of TFA is talking about, I think.
I think boundaries are ONE tool in establishing and maintaining healthy, supportive relationships. But there are so many other tools that are important too - like expressing vulnerability/asking for help, telling people in kind ways when they've hurt you, showing up for people when needed in the best way you can, reaching out to loved ones, etc etc etc - and I wish those got more play.
posted by lunasol at 4:27 PM on July 11, 2023 [28 favorites]
However, whenever ideas like this become fodder for pop-psychology, it's very easy for a few things to happen:
1. People with a lot of societal/positional power use these ideas to gain even more power, especially over those with less power to begin with. The whole Jonah Hill situation is a perfect example of that.
2. The idea becomes another way to criticize/shame people who are victims, in this case people in abusive or controlling relationships - "just set better boundaries!" Or the truly baffling thing I saw going around a year or so ago, which is the idea that stating boundaries isn't enough - for it to actually be a boundary, you have to enforce it. Which - no. If you set a clear boundary and the other person ignores it, it's not your fault for not enforcing it. Not everyone wants their interpersonal relationships to be a constant battle. It's their fault for trampling it.
3. It becomes an easy way to avoid mutual responsibility and care. This one is tricky, I know. If you have a loved one with serious mental illness or addiction issues, it's often even more important to set firm boundaries. But I've seen people use "boundaries" as a way to avoid any kind of emotional or practical responsibility to the people in their lives, and that kind of individualism really goes to what the author of TFA is talking about, I think.
I think boundaries are ONE tool in establishing and maintaining healthy, supportive relationships. But there are so many other tools that are important too - like expressing vulnerability/asking for help, telling people in kind ways when they've hurt you, showing up for people when needed in the best way you can, reaching out to loved ones, etc etc etc - and I wish those got more play.
posted by lunasol at 4:27 PM on July 11, 2023 [28 favorites]
Honestly this just seems to be a case of the internet ruining everything it touches. The concept of "listen you don't have to take on the problems of ever human being you ever encounter, even if they try to shovel them onto you" is completely valid. "You can say no and decent folk are supposed to hear you and honor that whenever possible" is entirely the basis of an autonomous existence (which is not the same thing as an atomized or alienated one).
In the al-anon circles where I used to spend a bit of time the word "boundary" did get thrown around a lot, precisely because people did tend to show up on day 1 hoping for a magic spell that they could use to make their person stop drinking, and was this "boundaries" thing it? "If I set a boundary that I won't see him when he's drinking, that'll make him quit, right?"
But of course if you stick with it in Al-Anon (or similar) you do eventually realize that the boundaries aren't magic and can't make anyone do anything; they just help you remember that actually, you're a person and you have choices you can make even if someone close to you keeps drinking in ways that affect your life. They're tools to remind you of where you do have agency and where you do not. Because thinking you have too much agency--that you can save or change another person because you'd like to--is just as hairy as thinking you don't have any.
But most folks at the moment seem to have gotten their idea of what "boundaries" mean from an instagram huckster or a tween who makes money by popping popcorn one kernel at a time in a hair straightener on TikTok. SHOCKINGLY, those people did not have a firm grasp on the therapeutic history of individuation.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 4:52 PM on July 11, 2023 [24 favorites]
In the al-anon circles where I used to spend a bit of time the word "boundary" did get thrown around a lot, precisely because people did tend to show up on day 1 hoping for a magic spell that they could use to make their person stop drinking, and was this "boundaries" thing it? "If I set a boundary that I won't see him when he's drinking, that'll make him quit, right?"
But of course if you stick with it in Al-Anon (or similar) you do eventually realize that the boundaries aren't magic and can't make anyone do anything; they just help you remember that actually, you're a person and you have choices you can make even if someone close to you keeps drinking in ways that affect your life. They're tools to remind you of where you do have agency and where you do not. Because thinking you have too much agency--that you can save or change another person because you'd like to--is just as hairy as thinking you don't have any.
But most folks at the moment seem to have gotten their idea of what "boundaries" mean from an instagram huckster or a tween who makes money by popping popcorn one kernel at a time in a hair straightener on TikTok. SHOCKINGLY, those people did not have a firm grasp on the therapeutic history of individuation.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 4:52 PM on July 11, 2023 [24 favorites]
this just seems to be a case of the internet ruining everything it touches
I came to say this. Much as I enjoyed and appreciated the article (and thanks for posting!), the writer's understanding of boundaries seems wonky to me. I've always thought that boundaries are guidelines for your own behaviour, and don't even have to be explicitly communicated to the other person at all. Endless debates about what you will or won't do, or put up with, are a sign that real boundaries don't exist. Sometimes, living with the other person's disapproval, disappointment, or even anger comes with the territory.
posted by rpfields at 5:23 PM on July 11, 2023 [17 favorites]
I came to say this. Much as I enjoyed and appreciated the article (and thanks for posting!), the writer's understanding of boundaries seems wonky to me. I've always thought that boundaries are guidelines for your own behaviour, and don't even have to be explicitly communicated to the other person at all. Endless debates about what you will or won't do, or put up with, are a sign that real boundaries don't exist. Sometimes, living with the other person's disapproval, disappointment, or even anger comes with the territory.
posted by rpfields at 5:23 PM on July 11, 2023 [17 favorites]
I thought it was a very snarky approach to an interesting subject, but kind of polemic and surprisingly uninformed (or biased by the need to voice Marxist slant). The author seems convinced that boundaries are a new fad and that the *real* OG psychoanalytic folks didn't think they were important.
In my experience, self/other boundaries are key to many very foundational psychoanalytic developmental theories (Klein, A Freud). I'd even say the whole notion of transference hinges on an understanding of boundaries.
It might be that Freud and Jung didn't write much about boundaeies because they violated them so often with their patients. Indeed I think a lot of the traditional cold abstinent stance of psychoanalysts could be understood as a reaction against the founders' seeming cluelessness about the importance of boundaries and personal autonomy.
posted by jasper411 at 5:39 PM on July 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
In my experience, self/other boundaries are key to many very foundational psychoanalytic developmental theories (Klein, A Freud). I'd even say the whole notion of transference hinges on an understanding of boundaries.
It might be that Freud and Jung didn't write much about boundaeies because they violated them so often with their patients. Indeed I think a lot of the traditional cold abstinent stance of psychoanalysts could be understood as a reaction against the founders' seeming cluelessness about the importance of boundaries and personal autonomy.
posted by jasper411 at 5:39 PM on July 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
I was putting off commenting on this til after work but I see lunasol literally hit every point I wanted to.
posted by praemunire at 5:42 PM on July 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 5:42 PM on July 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
My initial problem was, at the very least, what wemayfreeze states in one point - there's a difference between personal belongings, including one's self and one's right to interface or not with non-essential personnel, and accumulation of capital. There's still personal property!
Then I spent some time discussing it with a friend who trained under some Lacanians and the argument is 1. thin and 2. more Hegelian than Marxist-Leninist and thus falls into the idealist trap and can't self-support. Ergo it has to be a thin argument, at least per ML thought. It seems to try to condemn pop-psychology but just fall in with another crowd - pop leftist, pop-socialist idealist.
posted by cobaltnine at 6:30 PM on July 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
Then I spent some time discussing it with a friend who trained under some Lacanians and the argument is 1. thin and 2. more Hegelian than Marxist-Leninist and thus falls into the idealist trap and can't self-support. Ergo it has to be a thin argument, at least per ML thought. It seems to try to condemn pop-psychology but just fall in with another crowd - pop leftist, pop-socialist idealist.
posted by cobaltnine at 6:30 PM on July 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
Boundaries are in the abstract and in most specifics quite good. But, good God, did my most recent romantic partner use them to instantiate in herself the exact behavior of her parents which she was using to avoid in others. Real ironical. But, also, straight up abusive. Anyways, I'm one-and-done here because it's still too recent to engage in a useful conversation yet
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 7:24 PM on July 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 7:24 PM on July 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
My friend went to Italy. When she came back to the US she said that people there 'live their lives together'. I was so struck by that comment a month ago I can't stop thinking of it.
In the US, we are taught from birth that we must aim to be autonomous, individuated, individuals. That is not a 'truth'; it is a cultural value that is not universal through human time and place. Those who grow up in non US cultures may view themselves in all sorts of ways - some of which may be as part of a family, a neighborhood, a tribe, a historical tradition, a religious community, etc. Some see our needs as tied up closely in the needs of others. An anthropologist's non-judgmental eye would view these different perspectives as both 'valid'.
Every single day, our survival depends on other humans: they manufacture our food, sew our clothes, sell us soap, talk to us, create art that we imbibe. We could not survive one day without the animals and plants and fungi that surround us.
When I was pregnant, I had for the first time since childhood, the experience of feeling that another being and I were also one being. My child inside of me, which started as nothing and magically became something, was 100% dependent on me, and I was dependent on the world around me. We were part of an expanding set of waves of interdependent human existence and for once, I could viscerally feel that. After I gave birth I was so struck by how my new baby didn't feel separate from me for months - we still felt like part of one whole.
I found this article very resonant. Thanks for posting it.
posted by latkes at 7:25 PM on July 11, 2023 [24 favorites]
In the US, we are taught from birth that we must aim to be autonomous, individuated, individuals. That is not a 'truth'; it is a cultural value that is not universal through human time and place. Those who grow up in non US cultures may view themselves in all sorts of ways - some of which may be as part of a family, a neighborhood, a tribe, a historical tradition, a religious community, etc. Some see our needs as tied up closely in the needs of others. An anthropologist's non-judgmental eye would view these different perspectives as both 'valid'.
Every single day, our survival depends on other humans: they manufacture our food, sew our clothes, sell us soap, talk to us, create art that we imbibe. We could not survive one day without the animals and plants and fungi that surround us.
When I was pregnant, I had for the first time since childhood, the experience of feeling that another being and I were also one being. My child inside of me, which started as nothing and magically became something, was 100% dependent on me, and I was dependent on the world around me. We were part of an expanding set of waves of interdependent human existence and for once, I could viscerally feel that. After I gave birth I was so struck by how my new baby didn't feel separate from me for months - we still felt like part of one whole.
I found this article very resonant. Thanks for posting it.
posted by latkes at 7:25 PM on July 11, 2023 [24 favorites]
I’ve known people who approach polyamory from the perspective that controlling other people is bad - polyamory because you’re not the boss of me - but instead of rejecting control or ownership within romantic relationships, merely flip to “I’m the boss of me”, which is still fundamentally within the same framework (the way that Satanism is often still a Judeo-Christian religion). I haven’t seen or heard it myself personally, but can certainly believe that many people also conceptualize emotional boundaries in reference to property and ownership. We live under capitalism which tends toward being a totalizing system, so many people can understand changing ownership much more easily than they can envision relationships not centered around ownership in the first place. But yeah, that doesn’t mean that “boundaries” are necessarily a fundamentally capitalist concept.
This blog post (by the author of Dating Tips for the Feminist Man - previously) seems also relevant.
posted by eviemath at 7:50 PM on July 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
This blog post (by the author of Dating Tips for the Feminist Man - previously) seems also relevant.
posted by eviemath at 7:50 PM on July 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
A fantastic article, and one I've also longed to see written given I knew I hadn't the specialism to try myself.
Equally, while I'm not surprised by some resistance here to the central thesis - boundaries are a legacy of the increasing capitalism of the self dressed in the clothes of self-actualisation - I'm not dissuaded by that resistance. Those that see liberty, independence and autonomy in being/performing a better guarded, self-owned property-person are articulating how much the concept of property already owns their conceptualisation of self.
posted by onebuttonmonkey at 7:57 PM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
Equally, while I'm not surprised by some resistance here to the central thesis - boundaries are a legacy of the increasing capitalism of the self dressed in the clothes of self-actualisation - I'm not dissuaded by that resistance. Those that see liberty, independence and autonomy in being/performing a better guarded, self-owned property-person are articulating how much the concept of property already owns their conceptualisation of self.
posted by onebuttonmonkey at 7:57 PM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
The people with the most effective boundaries absolutely see them and deploy them as an exercise of power, an assertion of a proprietary interest in some form of well-being or contentedness trespass against which ought to be prevented if possible, and punished if necessary.
The problem with those people is that they are a total drag. I want nothing more than to tell them, "Buddy, it ain't about you, and when it most seems it's about you, it's least about you." Accepting that is when you truly get free, but boundary-keepers will never get there.
posted by MattD at 9:44 PM on July 11, 2023
The problem with those people is that they are a total drag. I want nothing more than to tell them, "Buddy, it ain't about you, and when it most seems it's about you, it's least about you." Accepting that is when you truly get free, but boundary-keepers will never get there.
posted by MattD at 9:44 PM on July 11, 2023
The problem with those people is that they are a total drag.
If refusing to give up my job, home, and partner to move in with my alcoholic parent and try to manage her life for her makes me a "total drag" uhhh so be it, friend, I ain't here to entertain you.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:25 PM on July 11, 2023 [23 favorites]
If refusing to give up my job, home, and partner to move in with my alcoholic parent and try to manage her life for her makes me a "total drag" uhhh so be it, friend, I ain't here to entertain you.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:25 PM on July 11, 2023 [23 favorites]
use them to instantiate in herself the exact behavior of her parents which she was using to avoid in others. Real ironical. But, also, straight up abusive.
I've witnessed this sort of situation as well. I walked away because of it. I don't regret the decision.
posted by gimonca at 4:09 AM on July 12, 2023
I've witnessed this sort of situation as well. I walked away because of it. I don't regret the decision.
posted by gimonca at 4:09 AM on July 12, 2023
Count me in the drag column then, buddy. I have lots of boundaries, because my physical, sexual and emotional safety is abso-fucking-lutely about me, and I don't really give a shit if anyone thinks it's a power play for me to defend that safety.
I learned boundaries in therapy, and in the process of figuring out my boundaries resolved to respect as much as humanly possible the boundaries of others. Forming boundaries actually helped me break the generational cycles of abuse in my families of origin. My boundaries keep the people I love safe from my rage as well - I have set consequences for myself if I ever transgress in certain ways.
So I may be boring to you because I don't allow myself to be denigrated by my friends and beloveds, and you may think I'm some kind of capitalist apologist because I want control of who puts their hand on my ass, but I really don't see a healthy, safe alternative.
Who benefits from the absence of personal boundaries? How does a lack of those clear lines get us closer to a socially just society? How is "nobody is allowed to harm me" capitalist?
Of course some people take it too far. Anything and everything will be taken too far by somebody. That's just humans being human. That's no reason to toss a conceptual framework that has helped many, many people escape from or avoid real harm.
The existence of healthy boundaries need not exclude interdependence. On the contrary, they can help work through codependency and consciously, intentionally accept and welcome the duty to others that is then healthy interdependence. The more a person honors my limits, the more eager I am to help them at need, and the more I can trust them enough to ask for help.
I don't think boundaries are a capitalist construct. Rather, I think capitalism seeks to distribute boundaries in the same ways it distributes wealth and other kinds of power.
posted by Vigilant at 8:08 AM on July 12, 2023 [13 favorites]
I learned boundaries in therapy, and in the process of figuring out my boundaries resolved to respect as much as humanly possible the boundaries of others. Forming boundaries actually helped me break the generational cycles of abuse in my families of origin. My boundaries keep the people I love safe from my rage as well - I have set consequences for myself if I ever transgress in certain ways.
So I may be boring to you because I don't allow myself to be denigrated by my friends and beloveds, and you may think I'm some kind of capitalist apologist because I want control of who puts their hand on my ass, but I really don't see a healthy, safe alternative.
Who benefits from the absence of personal boundaries? How does a lack of those clear lines get us closer to a socially just society? How is "nobody is allowed to harm me" capitalist?
Of course some people take it too far. Anything and everything will be taken too far by somebody. That's just humans being human. That's no reason to toss a conceptual framework that has helped many, many people escape from or avoid real harm.
The existence of healthy boundaries need not exclude interdependence. On the contrary, they can help work through codependency and consciously, intentionally accept and welcome the duty to others that is then healthy interdependence. The more a person honors my limits, the more eager I am to help them at need, and the more I can trust them enough to ask for help.
I don't think boundaries are a capitalist construct. Rather, I think capitalism seeks to distribute boundaries in the same ways it distributes wealth and other kinds of power.
posted by Vigilant at 8:08 AM on July 12, 2023 [13 favorites]
Fascinating article! Like a lot of things, I think boundaries have to be matter of finding the right balance. If you don't have strong enough boundaries, you'll can have your life sucked away by people who want your energy. But you can't really be in an intimate relationship without accepting that other people do have some kind of moral claim on you, and vice versa. Thinking of boundaries as absolutely rigid and impermeable to everyone can be a problem.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:29 AM on July 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:29 AM on July 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
> When she came back to the US she said that people there 'live their lives together'. I was so struck by that comment a month ago I can't stop thinking of it.
There's something powerful here, and something to reach for. But my sense is that a lot of cultures/societies/communities that successfully "live together" already have shared values, histories, or cultures. And the great task of the fully globalized world is to learn how to live together with people who do not share those things.* Boundaries (as I know and live them, as I have seen them transform and improve people's lives and relationships) are a way of showing up in a pluralistic world; listening for and respecting others' boundaries is a way of welcoming people who are different from you, and making space for them in your life.
I definitely want to build communities where we live our lives together; as others have said, boundaries are not really about atomization at all but are a technique to bring more types of people and experiences into community in caring and supportive ways. It's a lot more complex than leaning on tradition but it also means that if someone shows up in community in a new or different way (new gender, new partner, new diet, new style, new needs) we can be there for them, and with them.
* though of course a critical part of boundaries discourse is saying who does not get to be in your community; ie for me if you don't share the desire to get down with + support every kinda people, you're not going to be in my close community.
posted by wemayfreeze at 11:11 AM on July 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
There's something powerful here, and something to reach for. But my sense is that a lot of cultures/societies/communities that successfully "live together" already have shared values, histories, or cultures. And the great task of the fully globalized world is to learn how to live together with people who do not share those things.* Boundaries (as I know and live them, as I have seen them transform and improve people's lives and relationships) are a way of showing up in a pluralistic world; listening for and respecting others' boundaries is a way of welcoming people who are different from you, and making space for them in your life.
I definitely want to build communities where we live our lives together; as others have said, boundaries are not really about atomization at all but are a technique to bring more types of people and experiences into community in caring and supportive ways. It's a lot more complex than leaning on tradition but it also means that if someone shows up in community in a new or different way (new gender, new partner, new diet, new style, new needs) we can be there for them, and with them.
* though of course a critical part of boundaries discourse is saying who does not get to be in your community; ie for me if you don't share the desire to get down with + support every kinda people, you're not going to be in my close community.
posted by wemayfreeze at 11:11 AM on July 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
My pet peeves about common misapprehensions about boundaries is very long, but the biggest one is how many people seem to use boundaries as their cover for expressing hostility and rage with plausible deniability. Like, boundaries are supposed to be about finding a safe and pleasant way to preserve connection. But a huge amount of advice on the internet over boundaries seems designed to increase conflict and create situations that give us a justification covertly venting our stored up resentments at someone who has treated us badly in the past.
A great example is the aphorism, "NO is a complete sentence," which is technically correct, to be sure, but that's like saying a bathing suit is a complete outfit. It's only appropriate in very specific situations - such as when we want to nuke the relationship (my bathing suit metaphor doesn't really work, lol). To preserve connection, we have to pair each boundary-related rejection with some amount of relationship-tending, like, "Oh, I'm busy with _____ that day! I'm so sorry." <----- If something like that doesn't seem possible, it proves that our complete-sentence-NO is just a way to express buried hostility, not really about boundaries.
(Just to be clear, I'm not opposed to expressing hostility! Not in the least. Some people fully deserve hostility. But I AM opposed to expressing hostility and then being like, "Hostile? Who, me? I'm just setting boundaries! You must be a narcissist if you have a problem with it.")
posted by MiraK at 12:35 PM on July 12, 2023 [12 favorites]
A great example is the aphorism, "NO is a complete sentence," which is technically correct, to be sure, but that's like saying a bathing suit is a complete outfit. It's only appropriate in very specific situations - such as when we want to nuke the relationship (my bathing suit metaphor doesn't really work, lol). To preserve connection, we have to pair each boundary-related rejection with some amount of relationship-tending, like, "Oh, I'm busy with _____ that day! I'm so sorry." <----- If something like that doesn't seem possible, it proves that our complete-sentence-NO is just a way to express buried hostility, not really about boundaries.
(Just to be clear, I'm not opposed to expressing hostility! Not in the least. Some people fully deserve hostility. But I AM opposed to expressing hostility and then being like, "Hostile? Who, me? I'm just setting boundaries! You must be a narcissist if you have a problem with it.")
posted by MiraK at 12:35 PM on July 12, 2023 [12 favorites]
For me, boundaries and consent are extremely closely related, like sets and indicator functions. They're practically two sides of the same coin. I am still working on developing the ability to say "no" after being raised by a family that didn't take that for an answer, and found Anne Katherine's book (referenced in the link) to be very illuminating during the course of therapy. I guess I am glad that I have not, as the author and many commenters here have, encountered situations where the concept of boundaries is over-applied.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 9:52 PM on July 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 9:52 PM on July 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
Jpfed, I think it's almost exclusively people who have been raised without good boundaries and have only just learned about the concept who are most likely to over-apply it. If you want to see what that looks like and how common it is, head over to r/raisedbynarcissists or r/justnoMIL or any of thousands of subreddits where people go to seek and give advice on boundary setting.
posted by MiraK at 8:31 AM on July 13, 2023
posted by MiraK at 8:31 AM on July 13, 2023
A relevant Twitter bit from Ryan Ken.
posted by praemunire at 12:24 PM on July 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 12:24 PM on July 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
Learning about and practicing boundaries has been very important to my health and happiness, so I started this article with a lot of skepticism. However, I found it to be a fascinating look at the intellectual history of a metaphor that many of us take for granted. Though I've used the term "boundaries" a thousand times (even going so far as to discuss it in terms of "territory"), it hadn't really occurred to me that this was a metaphor rooted in ideas of property ownership. It makes a lot of sense that our capitalistic society, which often insists on individualism over interdependence, would see human relationships in this way. Like I said, I've gotten a lot of use out of the concept of interpersonal boundaries -- but seeing this metaphor for what it is allows me to imagine different possibilities. "Boundaries" has been a powerful and useful metaphor for me, but are there other property arrangements that could yield useful results? Like, say -- what would interpersonal usufruct look like? And are there other metaphors, unrelated to property ownership, that can express ideas about separateness and togetherness? What might those metaphors make possible?
I really appreciate it when someone can illuminate language for me in this way -- I'll be chewing over the implications of this one for a while.
posted by ourobouros at 1:50 PM on July 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
I really appreciate it when someone can illuminate language for me in this way -- I'll be chewing over the implications of this one for a while.
posted by ourobouros at 1:50 PM on July 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
I hope it's clear that I'm arguing strenuously with some ideas presented in this thread rather than attacking the people commenting. Please feel free to let me know if I've misinterpreted.
My abuse history has made me tend to look for what can go wrong with ideas that are new to me. So I read the definition linked of usufruct, and what leapt immediately to mind is that that's what many of us (and many of our ancestors) have been trying to move away from. Obviously, first it would be best to end in practice as well as in law the possibility of anyone owning anyone else, full stop.
But even those who have both historically and in the modern period have, it seems to me, only had usufruct over their own persons. The third part of full ownership is after all a abusufruct, or the right to abuse, destroy or sell a thing. So if that thing is oneself?
Well, many of not most ( I haven't studied legal history of the world exhaustively) nations still have laws against abusufruct of self, depending on the culture - there are laws against suicide, sex outside of certain restricted categories or relationships, selling ones own sexual services, which books people may read, the use of many drugs (including birth control and trans affirming meds), even voting (some of the rationale of restricting women from voting in the the young US was that ladies should not soil themselves with politics) and I'm certain that's not an exhaustive list. Even seatbelt and helmet laws could be put in this category.
And while I don't always disagree with the aims of all these laws - I think seatbelts are good!- I have and still experience the danger of the culture in which I live deciding to legislate what is good and bad for me, and no thanks.
Even entirely interpersonally - I always want veto power over anything anyone may want of me. Even those to whom I am closest, to whom I have made promises that I fully intend to keep, may one day change in such a way that I will need to withdraw consent. Or I may change. I mean, most abused spouses don't take vows knowing that relationship will become abusive. But again until relatively recently, historically speaking, many people have not been allowed to withdraw such consents, if indeed they ever had any real consent to begin with.
posted by Vigilant at 7:32 PM on July 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
My abuse history has made me tend to look for what can go wrong with ideas that are new to me. So I read the definition linked of usufruct, and what leapt immediately to mind is that that's what many of us (and many of our ancestors) have been trying to move away from. Obviously, first it would be best to end in practice as well as in law the possibility of anyone owning anyone else, full stop.
But even those who have both historically and in the modern period have, it seems to me, only had usufruct over their own persons. The third part of full ownership is after all a abusufruct, or the right to abuse, destroy or sell a thing. So if that thing is oneself?
Well, many of not most ( I haven't studied legal history of the world exhaustively) nations still have laws against abusufruct of self, depending on the culture - there are laws against suicide, sex outside of certain restricted categories or relationships, selling ones own sexual services, which books people may read, the use of many drugs (including birth control and trans affirming meds), even voting (some of the rationale of restricting women from voting in the the young US was that ladies should not soil themselves with politics) and I'm certain that's not an exhaustive list. Even seatbelt and helmet laws could be put in this category.
And while I don't always disagree with the aims of all these laws - I think seatbelts are good!- I have and still experience the danger of the culture in which I live deciding to legislate what is good and bad for me, and no thanks.
Even entirely interpersonally - I always want veto power over anything anyone may want of me. Even those to whom I am closest, to whom I have made promises that I fully intend to keep, may one day change in such a way that I will need to withdraw consent. Or I may change. I mean, most abused spouses don't take vows knowing that relationship will become abusive. But again until relatively recently, historically speaking, many people have not been allowed to withdraw such consents, if indeed they ever had any real consent to begin with.
posted by Vigilant at 7:32 PM on July 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
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posted by dutchrick at 1:45 PM on July 11, 2023 [12 favorites]