Saying Goodbye to Boundary Breakers

On your journey to finding healthy relationships, it is necessary to say goodbye to boundary breakers. This is not a witch hunt, it is very easy to identify a toxic person. There is an old saying, people come into your life for one of two reasons, to bless you, or to curse you.  When you examine your relationships, it is easy to identify the relationships that make you feel loved, excepted, forgiven, and joyful.  You know the ones; the people who make you smile, and your world lights up when you hear even their name mentioned.  

Compared to the people in your life who drain you, cause strife, , and negative.  These people are manipulators, doubters, accusers, intimidators, and controllers.  When you hear their name, often uneasiness and fear paralyze you.  You get defensive, and anxiety sets in, with the apprehension that once more you will be the scape goat to whatever they think is your fault.  These are the people, often in your family, or work relationships, that you feel you can’t cut out of your life.  These people are the ones, that at some point you were the greatest and best to this person. But on a dime, things changed, turned for the worse, and you are still trying to figure out what happened.  Relationships with these people are like a whirlwind filled with confusion.  You never know what spending time with a person like this will be like at the end of day.  Sometimes it has been exhilarating, fun, fulfilling, and then, sometimes it has been scary, you have been attacked.  You have gone from being the best thing in their life, to the very reason everything is falling apart.  You are the reason they are not happy.  You are the reason they are unfulfilled; you are the reason they got angry and either ended in verbal or physical fighting. 

There was a time in my life, I would have read the above and thought, wow! You mean to tell me that people have other people in their life you genuinely cause them to smile and experience joy at the mention of their name?   Other than my children, I did not have this experience.  Throughout my life I have had multiple relationships with people who wore me out, drained me, and blamed me for everything in their life.  Those relationships never started out bad.  They started out feeling like I had finally found someone I could trust.  Someone who would be there for me just as I was for them.  Being in so many disappointing relationships leads one to build walls that isolate you from safe people.  It seems in my experience while I was in toxic relationships, the walls I build only kept the safe people out.  I say this, because the supply of toxic people never ran out.  Toxic people are boundary breakers. Toxic people climb those walls with deceit, flattery, false admiration, and false support.  The effort toxic people take to climb those walls, appeals to the loneliness, and yields an appreciation from the isolated soul.  You tell yourself; they must really love me; they are trying so hard.  In reality, they are breaking every false boundary you have set.  You ask, what is a false boundary? I have come to the conclusion a false boundary, is a boundary I believed I should have had in place because of social norms.  They can be moral expectations, or simply natural expectations. A true boundary is when you know your limits and have determined what is boundaries you need in place, to protect your safety in all areas of your life. Depending on your healing journey, a safe boundary within social norms may not be safe for you at this time.

Trust is something that is built over time, and when you can truly trust someone, you can trust them with knowing you more fully.  It is a natural expectation when you first meet someone, that you do not share personal details, or compromise your safety.  Toxic people are the best friend you just met.  Toxic people are the people who pull information out of you.  Toxic people manipulate you to find out all they can about you.  They do this not because they are truly interested in you, but because they are studying you, to find out the best way to manipulate you without you knowing you are being manipulated. 

It can be very painful to have your eyes opened to the motives and truth of toxic people.  However, it is a very necessary process if you want to be healed of past hurts, and start a journey moving forward with only safe people.  It starts off with you becoming a safe person.  I know what you are thinking.  I am a safe person!  And you are a safe person, to an extent.  You are very different from the manipulating, narcissistic, toxic, dominating, intimidating, fear inducing, jezebel described above.  The only person you are not safe for, is YOURSELF. You have not been safe for yourself.  I know that is a hard bite to chew.  But my friend, you are the one who keeps the door open to toxic people who hurt you, misuse you, and steal your energy and peace. 

One thing we cannot be anymore, is a victim.  There are times we are victims.  We are victims when we are children and we are violated and cannot get ourself out of a situation.  We are victims when we have absolutely no responsibility to our current situation.  I thought a I was victim for a very long time.  I was put into a series of events through the decisions of my parents that kept me on a blinded path for some time.  I was reacting to the dysfunction, and outcomes of other people’s mistakes for the first quarter or so of my life. 

For me, I think I felt vindicated of the responsibility of doing better because it wasn’t my fault.  However, at some point, I had to say, do I want to be right? Or do I want to be free? I wish I could tell you, that just like that, I faced the decisions and outcomes of my parents’ past, forgave them, and bam, I’m free and successful.  No, that is not my testimony.  I came to a place where I knew I had to forgive them, and I asked God to help me do that.  It has been an on-going process to forgive certain people in my family.  It would be one thing to forgive past actions, and behaviors.  But when it is every time, you get close to these people, it becomes exhausting. 

I recognized as the Lord brought me out of captivity, not being taught proper boundaries, and balance in my life as a child, that I did not know these relationships were emotionally abusive to me.  I was in my forties when I discovered, almost every close relationship I had been in, had been abusive emotionally.  I came to the revelation I would have to learn how to be a safe person, a person I could trust.  I would have to take responsibility and not be a victim.  Say with me, no more victim mentality!  I would start a journey of forgiving the toxic people of my past.  I would learn how to trust God to vindicate me.  I would learn how to forgive myself for staying too long in unhealthy toxic relationships.  I would start a guided journey and learn what boundaries were, how to set them, and how to keep them set.  I would learn how to cut off relationships that would not respect the boundaries set.  I would learn to like, and love myself.  I would learn trust myself, trust my gut. 

See, when you are in one or more toxic relationships; you do not have any boundaries in those relationships.  You are a people pleaser, and you will compromise your peace, happiness, health, morals, etc., to keep that person happy.  As we dive deeper in this discussion, we will expose the ugly spirit that is behind the toxic person.  We will expose the agenda that was set to keep you confused, bound, and isolated.  The cold truth is a person without boundaries, is bound.  A person without established boundaries has either lost their identity in the toxic person, or perhaps you never truly knew your identity.  For me, I think it was the later.  I think I grew up with so many expectations of toxic people, I only experienced acceptance, or reward when I fulfilled the needs or desires of the toxic person.  It is called conditioning. 

The toxic person conditions you through their behavior of either delight or disgust.  When you please the toxic person, you are the best and greatest and highly valued.  When you stand up for yourself, when you pose to set a boundary, or simply say NO, you are met with retaliation and disgust.  You are now to blamed, you are at fault, and you are the problem.  Toxic people live in a world of delusions.  The truth is what they say the truth is, no matter the proof, or facts you have to prove otherwise.  In a toxic relationship each time you compromise and give into the desires of the manipulator, you lose a little more of your identity.  Your identity is comprised of what you will, or will not allow to be in your life.  As we move forward on this topic, we are going to dive deeper into the scope, and order of your identity.