Boundaries With Your Dysfunctional Family

Welcome to the Overcoming Sexual Abuse podcast where you get the tools and inspiration to help you overcome childhood sexual abuse. I’m your host, Christina Enevoldsen, certified coach, author and incest survivor, and I’m here to help you heal and live your very best life!

If you grew up in dysfunction, it can be very difficult to develop boundaries with your family and adulthood. I’ll share how to overcome the pressures to go along with the way things have always been, and then I’ll give you a simple formula for expressing your boundaries and some practical tips. for thriving during family events. There’s so much self-doubt when it comes to setting boundaries.

When you come from a dysfunctional family, it can feel like your family is a corporation and your life is just an asset. of that corporation. And how that’s expressed is different from family to family. It might mean there are acceptable and unacceptable emotions and opinions that you can have. And it might mean that you don’t have a right to decide your own life, like your career or your marriage partner or your spiritual path. Or maybe it comes out as your responsibility to fix the family issues, like covering up, pretending and absorbing the consequences for other family members.

It might feel familiar to be pushed around and to placate and to please, and when you stand up for yourself, it can feel like you’re breaking the rules. Since you aren’t used to belonging to yourself, standing as an individual, it can feel selfish to claim your resources, like your time and your energy. and your money for yourself. And you’re really only taking what’s yours, but it feels like you’re robbing them of something that belongs to them.

And you do not have to keep doing things the same way that you have been doing them. It’s healthy to renegotiate relationships as you need to.
And it’s okay to grow and outgrow relationships just because you didn’t object to certain dynamics in the past doesn’t mean that you can’t do it now.

In episode six, guilt over setting boundaries, and that’s a good one if you feel like you’re wrong or mean or selfish for having boundaries, I recommend reviewing that if guilt is an issue for you.

And a lot of boundary work is this internal work to believe that you have a right to boundaries boundaries. And that’s really important because boundaries are not about words. It’s not a boundary if you don’t intend to back it up with action. So boundaries aren’t about the other person making a change, boundaries are about you making a change. And I’m going to clarify that shortly

Often, it’s anger that’s the motivation to set boundaries. You get really tired of feeling like a doormat all the time and you’re ready for a change and that’s great. That’s a very healthy response to being mistreated and that anger is a sign of growth, but it can also lead to more feelings of guilt because a lot of us were taught that anger is wrong or maybe you witnessed anger being used in ways that hurt people so use the suppress your anger. And then when it does come out, you haven’t been taught and you haven’t practiced expressing it in healthy ways, so it comes out maybe too strong, and maybe it’s over the top. Or maybe it just feels like it’s over the top in comparison to saying nothing for most of your life.

And that doesn’t mean that anger is bad or that boundaries are bad. It’s just completely normal to swing from one extreme to the other as you’re learning your own boundaries. So if that happens, just offer yourself compassion and know that other people may judge you, but you can stay on your own side. You can stay true to yourself. They may attack you, but you can be your own ally. And you can tell yourself that you’re learning and you’ll get better with practice and it’s okay.

So as you’re stepping out with the first steps and boundaries, you might have confidence in your right to set boundaries one day and then no confidence the next day. And it can be helpful to have some affirmations to repeat to yourself, something like, “I’m responsible for me and my emotions.” emotions, other people are responsible for their emotions” or “Nobody else but me can decide how I feel or what emotions are okay to feel” or “I can’t make anyone unhappy, sad or disappointed or angry or any other emotion, what they feel belongs to them.”

“So here’s a look at some more specific ways to affirm to yourself that you have a right to your boundaries. And to do that, there are a few things to explore first. So, let’s just use a scenario that’s actually pretty common. So,
let’s say your abuser is a family member and you’ve always spent holidays with this person. You’ve always been to family events with this person and you haven’t felt comfortable, but you didn’t have a choice about it when you were a child. And then as you got older, it was just normal for you and you didn’t consider that it was an option that you could actually say no to this. And then you start to object and your family pushes back. They refuse to disinvite your abuser and they insist that you still attend. And maybe your sister says to you, “Why can’t you just let it go and stop making a big stink about Uncle Joe being there?”

And so when I used to hear something like that, my immediate response was shame. And then I’d shut down and I was unable to respond in the way that I would have liked to have responded. And I’d feel defeated and felt like then I’d have to go along with whatever they wanted.

But I want to say that you can slow down and pause instead of feeling the pressure to respond immediately. You’re not breaking any rules if you’d say, “I’d rather not continue this discussion right now.” And when you’re ready to respond, when you’re ready to continue the discussion, if you want to and you don’t have to, you can remind them of the conversation and say, “and here’s how I feel about that.”

And in that space that you give yourself, in that pause, you can ask yourself, what do I hear them saying about my intentions or my desires or about my feelings and my actions? I used to feel a lot of accusations in statements like that example that I used.

And so if I asked you those things, maybe you would say something like, “I hear them saying that everyone wants to have a nice time together and I’m ruining that” or “I’m hearing that their needs and desires are more important than mine and I don’t have a right to do what I want and I’m being selfish.”

And just a note here that as you come up with what you’re making that mean, it may or may not be accurate but that doesn’t matter. This is just to get your own narrative about this. It’s not to get to the actual truth because this is about your beliefs about boundaries and your right to set them.

Being pressured to attend a family function is to say that you’re responsible for other family members’ emotions. If your experience was anything like mine, I was so so used to taking care of everybody’s emotions and discounting my own, it was really hard for me to put that kind of thing in perspective. So let’s say you don’t go to the family event. Some family members might be sad or disappointed. But does that actually cause them harm? No, they’re just feelings.

“And now consider what you would feel if you did go. What would you feel? Maybe anxiety and fear. Why are their feelings, why are their emotions more important than yours? And they aren’t.

It’s not that yours are more important than theirs either but they’re responsible for their emotions and you’re responsible for yours. And so you don’t have to do something to prevent them from feeling sad or disappointed while you’re feeling anxiety and fear.

And in a situation like this you might need to affirm yourself with something like, “Their desire to have everyone together for this family event is not more important than my desire to feel safe and at peace. It’s not selfish to protect myself from anxiety-provoking situations. It’s actually responsible. I’m responsible for my safety and my emotional well-being, not theirs. It won’t cause anyone harm for them to be disappointed, and I refuse to take on the role of making anyone else happy.”

And you might say in response  to that, “They just won’t understand. But think about what that means. It doesn’t usually mean they don’t comprehend your decision. It usually means they don’t agree with it or they don’t accept it or respect that you have a right to make that decision.

So they don’t understand. So what does that have to do with you? And I know I was so used to it to making decisions by committee. What will they be happy with? What will they approve of? And even if they don’t like it, what will they allow? So do you hear how much this sounds like childhood or a teen instead of an adult? And I know it’s easy to stay in these childhood or teen roles or to revert to them. But remind yourself that adults make their own decisions.

Your family members for sure will have thoughts about your decision and their thoughts are their business. I know part of dysfunction is to try to control everyone’s opinion of you, but what if you just let everyone think what they wanted to think of you? Well, because you know what, they’re gonna do it anyway. anyway.

In dysfunctional families, relationships are based on control. They try to control you by punishing you for doing something they consider wrong and you try to control them through pleasing them and appeasing them. You try to control their opinions and feelings about you.

And a healthy family is about freedom. Family members take responsibility for their own emotions and they don’t expect others to take care of their feelings for them. That means that family members are free to make decisions best for them and even if it that’s disappointing to a family member, the disappointed one can handle it.

If you have a lot of traditions in your family, it can be especially hard not to go along with them. There’s a spoken or maybe unspoken family law that something like, “This is what we do. The whole family does this and we’ve been doing this for generations so you have to do this too.”

And I will say that going against tradition can feel like it’s stopping a moving train. And that’s not actually true. It’s actually only like jumping off a moving train. Especially if it’s a cultural thing, you’re going to need outside support. But traditions are meant to serve you. You’re not there to serve tradition.

So, if it feels like an obligation or a rut, “no” is an option. You’re not tied to how things have been before, or things that were established by someone else at an earlier time, or even the you of the past.

When we talk about family boundaries, they go both ways. So it feels really good to talk about asserting what you want, but boundaries are also about accepting what other people want. And just to be clear, just because you accept that they have a right to what they want, that doesn’t mean you have to stick around to experience that. Actually, just the opposite, accepting it puts you in the position to decide how you want to respond to what they want.

A mistake I used to make is in waiting and hoping for someone else to change. Either change themselves or change the circumstances. And while I was waiting, I was still tolerating mistreatment.

This is what not accepting their want sounds like: “They shouldn’t make me the family scapegoat. I didn’t do anything wrong. I only spoke the truth.”

And this is something I used to get trapped in, feeling like it shouldn’t be happening if it wasn’t fair or if it wasn’t justified. As though just because I point out that it’s not fair that that will change things. But unfair things happen all the time. Since when has what’s fair stopped someone from hurting you?

And so acceptance would mean accepting that dysfunctional families have dysfunctional ways of acting. And when you accept that, instead of fighting against that reality, then you’re in an empowered position to protect yourself from that dysfunction. Because, just because they assign you a role, that doesn’t mean you have to play that role. You get to decide. You can identify all the dynamics that are in that role, that are part of that role, and then refuse to respond in that way. You don’t have to play their game. You could also say that you aren’t going to go along with that anymore, if you want to. And if that’s the only way that they will relate to you, you don’t have to be in that relationship.

Okay, another one is, “They shouldn’t expect me to do all the planning and cooking and cleaning” or whatever it is, fill in the blank here about what it is for you. What are the expectations that you feel like they put on you? And that’s the key, you feel like they put on you. They may offer that to you,
but you don’t have to put it on.

So I touched on this in a previous episode in 019: “Saying Yes When You Mean No”. Other people’s expectations are their business. That falls within their boundaries, not yours. So you’re controlling them if you’re trying to change their expectations. What is yours is how you respond to their expectations.

I know this really well because I’ve done this so many times I did this for most of my life. Using what they expect as this rule that I’m supposed to follow. Their expectations are my obligations.

And of course this comes from childhood. You protect yourself from getting into trouble or from more mistreatment by being alert to what other people want. And so it originated from this very loving way of protecting yourself, but it can feel constricting now and that’s because you’ve outgrown it.

So if getting in trouble is still a fear, you’re relating as your child self and we tend to do that in situations that match an unresolved painful experience from childhood. When you notice that that, comfort your child self and then consciously step into that role of your adult self. And from that role,
accept that you’re the one who needs to make shifts instead of waiting and hoping for other people to change. As Henry Cloud says, “Hope isn’t a strategy.” Wishing that people were different doesn’t act make them different.

In your expectations, and there’s that expectation word again, that other people live up to your standards of what’s fair or unfair, that doesn’t improve the situation. Hope won’t change things, action changes things, and the action to take is to establish boundaries.

Okay, another one is “I shouldn’t have to tell them. I shouldn’t have to say it, they should just know.”  And you deciding they should do something, they should know something, they should feel something, is you trying to control them. What they do, think and feel isn’t up to you. What is up to you is that you communicate what you do want, and a lot of times we expect people to know what we know. And, that’s what we do. just not an empowering way to live and it’s not healthy boundaries.

There are so many of these ways that we try to control other people as a substitute for setting actual boundaries. And I started to listen to myself for when I’m complaining because that’s my cue that I’m not acknowledging my own power and instead I’m waiting for another person to change things for me.

So if you find yourself complaining, don’t stay there. Just use it as a way to sort out what you do and don’t want and from there then decide what action you need to take.

And I’ll just say here that unpleasant emotions are meant to motivate us to change something. So, if you’re feeling angry and resentful about something, these emotions are telling you, prompting you to do something. However, if other family members are happy with the situation or the dynamics as they are, they aren’t going to feel the anger. They’re not going to be motivated to change anything. They’re getting what they want. So that’s why you’re the one who needs to take action and complaining is not an action.

So part of survival mode is to think of yourself as powerless. And that was a necessary position to take to survive in an abusive situation. And when are you supposed to know that you have other options available? It becomes just so habitual to think of yourself as someone without any impact.

And it’s really hard to change that. that. The most powerful way to change a habit is by changing your self-identity, what you believe about yourself.
And so to assume the identity or role of the type of person who has the ability to change the situation is really powerful. So you can ask yourself,
“Who would I need to be right now to change this?”

 When I started healing, I saw myself as just this weak and timid little creature. And I had plenty of experience that really gave me evidence that that was the truth about who I was. But I started to imagine myself like Indiana Jones, who loved adventure and exploration and discoveries and he didn’t let fear stop him. And as I owned that role with those desires and those qualities, which by the way, I admired them because they were already in me. And as I did that, the more empowered I became.

So who is that for you? Who would embody the qualities you need to make the changes that you want to make? It can be a historical figure, a fictional character, like I chose, or someone you admire. Who would you need to be right now to change this? What action would someone take now who had permission and power to change things? And then do that.

So let’s talk about how to actually communicate your boundaries. I’m going to give you a formula and this formula is a reminder that it’s not another person’s responsibility to guard your boundaries. It’s your responsibility. You can’t control other people but you can control what you do if they don’t honor your boundaries.

So the formula is when you do blank, I feel blank. I would like blank if you continue, I will care for myself by blank. And that’s your action right there in that blank. An example is when you comment on my weight, I feel devalued. I would like you to stop commenting on what I eat or what I weigh. If you continue, I will care for myself by not talking with you.

And notice this is respecting their boundaries. You’re not controlling them. They can continue to comment on what you eat and what you weigh. They’re free to keep doing those things that bother you. However, if they do, you’re the one who’s going to make the change. You’re going to stop talking with them.

Okay, here’s a few tips for if you’re going to a family event. And these are things that you’ll need to prepare ahead of time, but these are just a few simple steps. The first is decide what you do and don’t want. Like, I’m only staying as long as everyone is sober. Or I’ll leave if my sister comments on my weight. And the second one is, affirm your right to your boundaries and your value ahead of time. And you might do that with some affirmations like we talked about, or you might also spend time with people who love and respect you so it’s more noticeable if family members mistreat you.

And the third is to take an ally with you to ground you to the present so you don’t get pulled into those old childhood roles. And if someone is there with you, that might make it more likely that family members will treat you better. And even if they don’t, you have a witness to confirm to you exactly what happened and also to support your right to keep yourself safe and to set boundaries. Because sometimes it’s so familiar that it’s hard to even notice and it’s also easy to second guess when our experience has been discounted so much.

And the next one is to have an escape plan. Be sure you have your transportation and aren’t dependent on other people to leave that you can leave exactly when you want to leave.

And then have a plan for what strategies to use if you’re triggered. Know what self soothing you’ll use or more importantly not use like I won’t drink and if I’m triggered.  I’ll use my breathing exercises and then I’ll decide what boundaries are appropriate.

And then the next one is have a nurturing backup plan in case you need to leave early. Like have food available and some sort of plan for doing something nurturing or empowering for yourself.

And the last thing is to know that you have a choice of saying no, you don’t have to go. You don’t have an obligation. Even if you’ve RSVP’d already, you can change your mind.

All right, that’s it for today. Thanks for joining me. You can find the boundaries formula I shared and the boundaries preparation checklist on the show notes page by going to overcomingsexualabuse.com/020.
I’m bringing you lots more on healing and self care and boundaries and family and relationship issues. So be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any of it.