The Importance of Knowing My Limits & Boundaries
It occurs to me that lately I've been very focused on what I can't do. It's even in the title of my last post here on Ouch!I don't think it's completely caused by self-esteem issues related to the disability, although I certainly know I have those. It's important to me to figure out exactly what I can do, what I can't do, and what I can do with help or modifications. For some strange reason, I seem to want to figure out what I can't do first. I guess I want to get the bad stuff out of the way, maybe.
Ah, hell, that's not true. I just want to figure out what I can't do so I can tell people. That way, when people ask me to do things, I can give them a definitive answer. I'm mostly thinking of my partner in this regard. Despite having been with him for three years, I'm still trying to figure out what I can and can't contribute to the relationship.
I'm also trying to discover what my boundaries are in regards to my arthritis. In today, I posted:
I have also come to the conclusion that I am not a burden. It is true that my illness can be a burden and a bitch sometimes. But I am not my disability. It is one part of me, an important part, a very troublesome part, true. It is a burden I get to bear. Anyone who loves me will help me bear it, at least some of the time. I don't ask them to bear it all the time. That's for me to do. But anyone who cares about me will never tell me I am a burden, or they won't have a place in my life anymore. If I sound militant about it, it's because I spent my childhood being treated like a burden. I won't put up with it anymore.
I've had very flexible boundaries all my life, and am a very forgiving person, and it's often resulted in me being unnecessarily hurt. I've learned that I have to take a stand against harmful behavior directed towards me, even from people I love.
• Visit Arthritic Young Thing
*May contain adult content*
Comments
A bigger, "Yeh-ess!," and Hooray!," yell, than I can ever make my screenreader do justice to. If I could clone myself to fill the Dallas Reunion arena, I'd mosh you across it on a big comfy couch with streamers, balloons, and your favorite band, for this statement.
It says it all, and keep on saying it.
I feel for you on this one too Zephyr.
I guess in a way what you are expressing here is the very human question faced by all, disabled or not, and possibly summed up best in the one and only "Serenity Prayer" by Reinhold Niebuhr as follows:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
The last one of course always being the hardest of all to actually achive. :)
Audrey - Which statement are you cheering? The one about how I refuse to be a burden anymore?
Zephyr,
Yes! It's about refusing to be a burden, just in the way you said it. In the "anyonw who cares about me..." part.
It's also the part about, "...I have to take a stand against harmful behavior directed towards me, even from people I love."
I think this hits so strongly with me because I get so tired of the statements I hear about how, Poor, So and So, is such a stellar individual because he or she is the spouse, lover, or friend of a person recognized as disabled, hiddenly or obviously. Not once have I ever heard them consider that perhaps the disabled person is such a jewel and so "longsuffering" for being married to, and or putting up with the antics of the non disabled friend.