‘More interested in how my life feels than how my life looks to others.’

As this little challenge progresses I have felt the ease of my writing return. I will sit and the words will flow. I can talk both nonsensically and seriously and I hope at times I really make sense. I know at other times I let the words flow over the laptop keyboard, like ink spilling from an inkwell over stark white paper, so freely that it’s only when I pause that I realise I’m 300 words in and have no idea what was said. As a reader I can imagine you may have to reread the jargon in front of you on more than one occasion.

At other times, I force myself to write something, anything, to complete this challenge. To write every single day for 365 days. That challenge has been marred by the website I use when it didn’t publish properly one day and it felt like a failure on my part. So I gave myself a telling off and pledged to continue on and ignore a failing that wasn’t mine.

The easiest piece of writing I find is to do with travel. Whether it is a day out, a weekend away or a mammoth trip somewhere new it’s just easy. Sadly, I cannot travel all day everyday. This is a bad thing. It means when I do I make the most of everything and take nothing for granted. It gives me an opportunity to write something I am passionate about rather than the mess in my head that makes little to no sense to other people.

We are lucky to travel as much as we do. Owning a home and experiencing lockdown restrictions during a worldwide pandemic saw our relationship with travel change vastly. In a way it has made me so much more aware of how lucky I have been in the past and how lucky I am now.

The last week or so has seen me take you to Majorca through my memories, talk about mental health and share older blogs. I don’t feel like it has been my best contribution but I have felt happy enough that I haven’t broken the consecutive run of the blogs written so far. I have spoken before about how I get writer’s block and I feel this week has been particularly challenging with a combination of this and mental health.

In the past I have read endless articles online and heard several stories from friends and family where the word ‘boundaries’ has been used. I’ve always come away from such encounters wondering if having a boundary in place means you shut people out. If the people you construct those boundaries against are bad people. Or if you, the boundary maker, are a bad person by giving up on others. I could never truly understand what it meant and why people reached the point to set their own limitations.

I have spoken before about how in its way covid granted us the time to reset our social lives and redefined what being ‘busy’ meant. Mr W and I regularly block out days on a weekend now to stay at home and actually exist in the home we work hard to pay for and create. Covid gave us the opportunity to see just how busy our lives used to be. Entertaining on a Friday night, running endless errands on a Saturday morning, rushing home to get ready to go back out for a family event, up early on a Sunday morning to go shopping or head somewhere to explore before heading to a friends for a social get together. It was often the case that we were out three or four times during the week too. It often felt like our home was a shell that we sometimes saw the inside of. There wasn’t much complaining because none of the social engagements we had were chores or forced upon us. Between the two of us we have a large blend of family and friends. I have kept a lot of friendships from my school days and they are some of the dearest, most cherished relationships I have in my life. They are important enough to nurture and I would never give them up. By giving ourselves time to stop recently and relax at home we are better people when we do visit our loved ones.

I feel this strongly at times when I become a shell of a person in other ways. I have been realising for a very long time that I am a people pleaser. I will step in to help anyone at the detriment to my own ability or energy. I’m also married to another people pleaser. Now, this can be misconstrued as only helping people to fulfil some need to be a people pleaser. This is not true. We would only ever help when there is love there. When the relationship is genuine and you want to help. Plainly put, you want to help because it’s nice to do so. There is no wrong in this situation.

However, it becomes hard when you are tired. When life is getting too busy, too much, too stressful, too tiring. TO THE LIMIT. And you don’t realise. Your cup runneth dry and you are scraping the paint off of the china. No energy but still pushing on. It ends up feeling like a chore. The once happy days out are filled with yawning, attitude and with the mental capacity of a flea. Going through the motions would be an accurate description.

I think I have started to understand the need for boundaries. As long as I live I will want to help my loved ones. In any way I am physically able to. But I want to be fully able. I want to be in a place where I can help in the best way I can. I’m no good to anyone running on empty. Something has to give.

It is hard to say no. It is never meant in a bad way. It’s never intended with malice. When we are asked to help with something or to go to a get together my/our immediate response is, ‘yeah great.’ But we now take the time to check our calendar and figure out how it works for the rest of the week. Most of the time it works. Occasionally it doesn’t. Do I feel guilty? Absolutely. Is it necessary? Again, absolutely. It is the new healthy. And ultimately people that care about you will absolutely understand the need to make that decision.

In a morbid moment of tiredness I started wondering whether my saying yes all the time, in relation to helping people, had almost become expected behaviour. And by always saying yes, I had given up my right to say no. That the guilt of saying no far outweighed the feelings of tiredness I would feel when pushing myself to the limit. It is the fear of letting people down that controls the ‘yes’ response. Your life should not be about how guilty you feel being the deciding factor. It should be about wanting to help because you are a good, nice, kind person. And it’s rooted in a loving and reciprocal relationship. I will never be that person that sits and expects a give and take in order to help others. When you have the ability to help others it is regardless of anything other than love that is part of the decision making progress. If it’s about gaining something back you don’t fit into the good, nice, kind tick box. HOWEVER, and this is one huge ‘however’, there will come a time, when you keep helping someone and you feel used. When the roots of the loving relationship are only nurtured from your side. You nurture while they take. You help while they take. It is a drain on your mental health and when your mental health takes a hit it will inevitably cause you physical problems and it has to stop. The guilt is a short term problem. Your health in both senses is much more long term.

People pleasing is a great feeling. It is how we show love, concern and compassion. When we find ourselves going out of our way to extend those parts of ourselves it is so natural that when it is seen as something ‘other’ it is really quite harmful. Going out of our way to help without being asked was always something I saw as a plus. To help someone without them asking was just another way to make someone smile. To predict a need before being asked, I thought, was a way of truly knowing someone. Some people may see it as interfering and recently I’ve had to defend my actions. In a big way. It cost me a day of my life due to worry and anxiety. It made me question how I could be misunderstood in such a negative way and what I’d done wrong. It’s the worst feeling to think someone looks at you in such a bad light. I lost my voice.

The situations made me look at boundaries completely differently. That boundaries don’t mean you stop seeing someone out of anger or you change who you are and not help in the future. It made me see that boundaries on how people talk to you and react to you are within your control. That standing up for yourself and challenging someone’s treatment of you is itself a boundary. It questions someone’s respect for you. It gives you the answer of what you mean to them. If they think it’s okay to treat you badly without hesitation there is a reason for a boundary. Talk about why they are talking to you in that way and come to some kind of understanding about what has actually happened, rather than what has been perceived. To have a discussion about it may not be possible, there are some people who have their own mental health issues that stop them seeing past their anger or own views. And that is where another boundary would come in.

I used to think boundaries were there to stop people getting close. To keep people away. A real physical boundary. No invites to dinner. No days out. Making your excuses as to why you didn’t get to talk at a family party. But these days, with mobile phones and instant messaging on all kinds of platforms, the barriers of the physical world will always be beaten by the technological world. How do you politely ignore messages and phone calls and social media conversations? It makes sense now that the boundary is within ourselves. It gives ourselves a guilt free existence and the power to say no. To talk up despite our fears and question those around us about why they treat us how they do. To not place our sense of self worth in the way others behave towards us. It is a barrier in which we can peek over or close entirely. It is ours to control. It is unlike the walls you build up after a break up. One you hide behind. It is a barrier that you control and negotiate from. It is a safety barrier for our mental health.

My barriers are small, but growing. My newest one is a barrier from myself. My challenge to write every day, however great a feeling, will be met with the struggles of writer’s block and tiredness. It is a question of limits, not of laziness, that may stop me on the very odd occasion and that is okay.

I release myself from the guilt of not writing. I release myself from the guilt of saying no. I release myself from being a people pleaser.

I am allowing myself the time to be at home. To look after my health from time to time. To nurture myself so I can be the best person for those I love in my life. I am more interested in feeling good with my own mental health than being a person who always says yes. Saying yes all the time looks good on paper, being known for saying yes has its merits, but behind the scenes it can have its after effects, and those don’t make for happy feelings. So despite life looking good from the outside, it’s gone to pot on the inside. The smile that doesn’t quite reach the eyes and the fear of letting people down aren’t indicative of inner happiness.

Boundaries are the new healthy.

Photo by Dave Watson
Please check out his work on https://www.instagram.com/davewatson_uk/ or at https://davewatson1980.picfair.com