Recently I had to return to the land of my birth, Louisiana, and deal with a family crisis. I quickly figured out that the situation had little to do with me personally, it was more to do with two powerful matriarchs in the family and how they related to one another. Neither were completely wrong or right. It wasn’t a true crisis either.

One thing I did carry away was the realization that I genuinely did not need to take any real actions in this matter. This was more about the two of them, and boundaries. It was less about myself than it was a power struggle. Their boundaries and expectations of each other, how that had played out over over the last few years, and with other toxic interpersonal family dynamics.

One of the strangest things to come out of it was that one side was offended by the way I’d been treated going back some years from the other side. This relative was just outraged for myself over something I’d long since made peace within my self. You have to care about something to take offense, and I didn’t care at all any longer.

In the ensuing month leading up to this trip I’d had contact from one side of the conflict, and I found myself getting sadder and more upset with each passing day. I finally realized that certain people were violating my own personal boundaries, and that it was driving the despair I was feeling. I had to put a measure of calm back into my life by reestablishing boundaries, speaking only to one of the people involved once or twice a week, being unavailable most of the time. Never speaking to the press gang of many different relations.

This whole boundaries thing has been such a difficult task for me, and I still struggle with it, knowing that after a conversation this morning I must have still better boundaries to protect myself. Boundaries are those things that you’re taught in high demand religious organizations that you must never have. It’s posited as this: How on earth can one expect to be close to God if one has boundaries in place? Many times you’re taught that to hold boundaries is to deny God (and pastors plus others) the place of supreme authority over your life.

But see, here’s the thing, what type of a ‘God’ would want you to be harmed by denying your own essential emotional and mental hygiene needs? God is such a gentleman in His own way that He does not go around harming you to teach you a lesson, or to make you be more open, or for any other reason.

Do you know who it really is that wants you to have no boundaries? People that wish you use you in some way. Or to manipulate you, or to distract you long enough for them to steal in and take what they please. Sometimes they seek to strip you of your inner walls with the express purposes of upsetting you, feeding off your expressed negative emotions like some psychic vampire. So they can justify some awful stance, or idea they hold. They just want a mirror reflecting their own falsehood as truth.

It always circles back to the selfishness of others.

Boundaries keep us emotionally and mentally healthy. They make it hard for the bad actors in our paths to use us for their own ends. I would say establishing and defending boundaries gets easier as you go along, but sadly that’s not true. There will be those times when others will surprise you, and you’ll have to mentally calibrate where that line actually is.