So, this topic is embarrassing. I'm gonna sneak up to it by talking about something parallel in a kind of clinical manner and then LAUNCHING myself sideways into the actual topic.
Years ago I discovered that I was an Eight on the enneagram, which means that I tend toward black-and-white thinking, crave intensity, like to challenge people and ideas, and want to be strong. Eights also prefer to avoid weakness/vulnerability.
I always had a little bit of an...atypical Eight streak though, which confused me and made me question if I really was an Eight. I also didn't think that "avoiding vulnerability" was THAT big of a deal to me. I did avoid being vulnerable, but it wasn't, like, MY NUMBER ONE PRIORITY or anything.
Then I started therapy, and *steeples fingers together and peers at you over eyeglasses* it turns out it IS my number one priority. Turns out Gabe and Cassidy were right. Turns out virtually all of my other priorities are anti-vulnerability in disguise. I was actually uncomfortable with how obvious this seemed to my therapist. She began saying things like "...your favorite word, 'vulnerable'" or "Do you think this stems from your struggle with vulnerability?"
Miraculously, I still really love my therapist.
*LAUNCHES SELF SIDEWAYS*
So when I read Boundaries and found that I had been outsourcing my emotional regulation, I was, in a word, mortified.
On an average week, pre-Boundaries, I would lie on the couch at least four out of seven evenings being on my phone, and waiting for Gabe or Aaron or Cassidy to rescue me from the sadness that swallowed me the moment I wasn't engaged with another person. I literally just existed in a gray fog of lonely boredom or bored loneliness and waited for someone to notice and save me. If they didn't notice, it was because they didn't care about me or they'd finally gotten sick of me or they were happier without me or I was unloveable.
How f*#$%&@ embarrassing.
Boundaries makes the point that other peoples' emotions are not your responsibility—and the other side of that coin is that your emotions are not their responsibility. Other people cannot MAKE you angry, or sad, or happy unless you give them permission—no matter what the professional guilt-trippers say you're doing to them. Eleanor Roosevelt was right: "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
The day after reading that truth-bomb, I was lying on the couch as usual, and felt the lonely sadness lay itself over me.
My emotions are my responsibility. It is not anyone else's JOB to notice and fix me.
No one need to be coming to save me. If I was going to become happier, I had to do something.
And you know what? Weight. Lifted. Off.
How can it possibly be FREEING to be saddled with more responsibility? And yet, it didn't feel like being saddled with responsibility, it felt like EMPOWERMENT.
First of all, how stupid is this. Second of all, it felt so NICE not to be stuck waiting for someone else to move. (Not that I was ever stuck; that was a lie I don't even remember telling myself.) It felt so nice for my emotions to be in my own hands. It felt like getting your driver's license or moving out or breaking up with someone terrible.
You know what I did? I got off the couch, made myself a snack, and settled in to watch TV on my laptop. I looked myself in the face and said, "Stop it. No one needs to save you."
I can't even describe how freeing this revelation was. One moment I was feeling like a weak little bitch, and the next I was feeling like Wonder Woman.
Now, I struggle with depression, and some people REALLY struggle with depression. I'm absolutely not arguing that you can cure depression if you "just stop being sad." But those lonely-couch-save-me moments were not depression. Actually, I was struggling with boundary issues. I had drawn my boundary lines in a place that made me powerless and others responsible for something that fell on my own property.
If my husband or friends notice that I'm sad, is it kind for them to try to cheer me up? Sure. But it's a kindness, not a responsibility.
It is no one's job but mine to make me happy.
And damn, does that feel good.
~ Stephanie
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