Boundaries

I don't have very strong ones.

For a long time I had no idea of what boundaries really are. I think if you know me, especially online and have read here, you know my boundaries are very soft.

Wikipedia explains them as follows:

Personal boundaries are guidelines, rules or limits that a person creates to identify for him- or herself what are reasonable, safe and permissible ways for other people to behave around him or her and how he or she will respond when someone steps outside those limits.^[1] They are built out of a mix of beliefs, opinions, attitudes, past experiences and social learning.^[2]Personal boundaries define you as an individual, outlining your likes and dislikes, and setting the distances you allow others to approach.^[3] They include physical, mental, psychological and spiritual boundaries, involving beliefs, emotions, intuitions and self-esteem.^[4] Jacques Lacan considered them to be layered in a hierarchy, reflecting “all the successive envelopes of the biological and social status of the person”^[5] from the most primitive to the most advanced.

 After my little breakdown this week and a chat with my psychologist yesterday it once again came to my attention that my boundaries need some enforcing.

I had to deal with a difficult client, who refused to pay me, even though I did absolutely nothing wrong, followed every letter of the law, and tried my best to prepare them for a large bill.

I took it extremely badly and ended up feeling worthless, desolate, and hopeless. For the first time in a very long while I had suicidal thoughts, I felt absolutely useless. I only realised yesterday in therapy that there is absolutely no correlation between a client projecting their own crap onto me, and my abilities.

That's very blurry to me. I take any kind of rejection extremely personally, and half my emotional blocks have been because of that. I hurt so easily.

So now to figure out where it comes from and how to repair my crappy sense of self. No self esteem is so unattractive, and yet I can recognise and discuss it intellectually and still fail to apply it.

I don't have many psych visits left that the medical aid will pay for, and there is no way I can afford any more visits on my own, so I am very scared that I'm going to just revert to old behaviour and thoughts when I don't get my weekly dose of reason. My psychologist is very honest and I have learnt to trust him, even though that's hard for me, and I still hold back sometimes. It feels like we are making progress.

I don't like to see the hurt and pathetic little lost child part of me, but recognising and fixing that is what will bring the healing in all aspects of my life.

Slap in the face from the Universe

It’s funny how the day after I came to talk about, assimilate and recognise This the universe decided to re-affirm this lesson and pull the rug out from under me in no uncertain terms.

I will write about what happened and my feelings around the actual event, and then probably discuss the realisations and thoughts I’ve had since then in separate posts.

On Friday 4 June 2010 I took my daughter Caitlin to the paediatrician in order to find out what the cause was for her continued and constant cough. Since she’d been sick in April the cough just never went away. I realised last week that it could not be healthy to keep her on cough medicines, especially as they where not working.

As both her dad and I had asthma as children this was also a possibility, so obviously the safer course was to have it checked out by a professional.

The paediatrician was truly great. He was able to safely say that she does not have asthma but the continued infections had more to do with her enlarged tonsils and adenoids. His recommendation was to have them taken out, but preferably wait till summer for that.

While I was there I also mentioned the fact that at almost 4 years old she was not potty trained yet. He asked me some questions and then examined her stomach after which he told me she most probably has some intestinal blockages which have, over time, made it nearly impossible for her to have any kind of predictive sensation in going to the bathroom. Hopefully this will clear up as soon as we give her something to clean that out.

As a final thought I asked him to have a look at a black mark she’d had under her foot for at least 2 years.

I asked the GP about it in April, but she wasn’t sure of what it was, and said it was most probably a mole. Well it turns out to be the one very serious thing.

It is a melanoma, it has a high risk of being or turning cancerous, and it needs to be removed as soon as possible. We got confirmation of this from the Plastic Surgeon yesterday.

As you can imagine the last thing any parent ever prepares themselves for is hearing the word Cancer when referring to their child. Just the mere possibility of it completely sent me on a reeling trip through worse case scenario’s and with vengeance hooked into every big fear I ever had.

The rest of Friday was spent in a daze and moving between near hysteria and shock, to utter numbness and denial.

On Saturday morning I woke up, and the memory hit me like a ton of bricks. I spent the next 2 hours, while Caitlin was still sleeping, crying my heart out, absolutely sobbing at this overwhelming feeling of helplessness, and fear. I allowed myself to experience this pain fully, while she couldn’t witness it.

Then I put my big girl panties on and started to just deal with the facts.

Since then and from there, I have had to deal with some depression and a ton of conflicting emotions, but right now I feel like I have achieved emotional balance again. Better able to just get through whatever is coming. There is a bit of denial still in there, but Hey if it helps me cope.

What has been going on in my head will probably still have a ripple effect into my life for a long time, and so I will discuss some of that in later posts.