Don’t Box Me In
I have a problem with boundaries.
I know, I know - it sounds bad. But, hear me out.
I have a problem with boundaries because what started as a healthy concept intended to remind people that it’s very unhealthy to get emotionally entangled with people so far that we lose ourselves, has become a phenomenon for keeping people out.
In the name of boundaries, I can’t be around you anymore.
You’re not good for my mental health.
I’m removing myself from you to keep my peace.
Wanna know what I think?
F-U-C-K T-H-A-T!
It’s become common place to use boundaries as a way of staying stagnant and to remove anyone who challenges your beliefs from your life - but with the soft, socially acceptable, mental health language that somehow makes it okay for everyone to think they are right no matter what and everyone else is wrong.
Boundaries have become walls that we build around our hearts to stay safe, warm, and neat in our little bubble life and a really good way to remove all accountability for the part you play in your own suffering.
Did you get that?
Let me just repeat it for the cheap seats - THE PART YOU PLAY IN YOUR OWN SUFFERING.
Because, here’s a concept, you played a part. A big one. At the very least, a 50% part.
The minute we start living like we’re just as guilty as everyone we blame for our bullshit is the minute we might actually start getting somewhere.
If you’re using “boundaries” as a way to keep people at a distance because you’re uncomfortable with the fact that they’re different, that they might challenge the sturdy framework that you’ve so carefully built your belief system on, or because you don’t want to take accountability for your own actions - you’re the problem. It’s just a fact.
With all of the bogus information and the self-diagnoses of disorders that’s taken flight on the internet, I’d like to offer you this - at what point do all of these disorders stop being about the person, and start being about the box that you’re so carefully trying to put around other cognitive beings who are in a constant state of change?
What if by diagnosing people with these personality and attachment disorders, what you’re actually saying is “I need you to be more like me and if you can’t be, I need to put a label on you so I can make sense of you in my head”?
Moreover, what if the box we’re putting people in is actually the box with the four sturdy walls of our “boundaries”?
It’s bullshit.
Stop using Tik Tok as your source of information. Stop using boundaries as a way to remain right in a world that you can never actually fully be right in because it’s ever changing. Stop diagnosing people because they don’t think the same way you do.
Neurodivergence is a subjective matter of opinion, because neurotypical is a subjective matter of opinion. They’re not real.
Stop hiding behind them. Start getting uncomfortable. Start getting so close to people and letting people get so close to you that it makes your blood boil. I promise you, this is where the work is.
What people are showing you is you. Your disorganized thoughts, patterns, ways of life - it’s all a reflection of you.
The problem is not the person you’re looking at, the problem is the box you’re trying to squeeze them into instead of facing whatever trigger they’re bringing up for you.
Respectfully, fix it.
With Gratitude,
Kajelyn