Respecting Boundaries

This month has been a mixture of so many things for me. I've been going in and out of depressive episodes; sleeping as much as I can, skipping school classes, not keeping up with my hygiene, not eating, avoiding intimacy. But I will randomly get energy to clean my room or go out for drinks (maybe even kiss someone new), work on something that isn't due for weeks or eat more in one day than I've eaten in several days combined. It doesn't make a lot of sense but nothing really does, so I'm just going with it.

A couple days ago I reopened a conversation with someone who has done a lot of damage to me over the last couple months, hopeful this conversation would be different. It wasn't, because we're both still the same people. Of course.

I tend to do a lot of small things based on impulse, in-the-moment feelings, whether that be words, actions, texts, or anything else. If it won't kill me within the next 5 days, I'll probably do it just because I want to have the experience and see what happens. What I got confronted with today is that not everyone wants that. Not everyone needs that impulsiveness in their life and I need to respect that. There are a multitude of scenarios that could explain when and why it's okay or not okay to lead with impulsivity, but in a basic scenario, you have to respect the other person involved. If someone is doing fine without me, it isn't my job to keep invading their life. If someone doesn't want to hear from me, it isn't my job to talk. It isn't my job to change their mind, either. I was pretty offended when this was said to me because of the background story involved, but the person who said it wasn't wrong, I just wasn't ready to hear it in that moment.

I have a lot of feelings about a lot of things. I'm an incredibly emotional person still trying to figure all of that out and sometimes, I really believe I'm not doing a good job at it. But I'm not always going to be good at what I do. It takes a lot of time to become good at something; 10,000 hours is what the saying is, I believe. I'm 21 years old, damn it. I haven't spent 10,000 hours doing anything but breathing. I don't know when I'll become good at having feelings or managing impulsivity or communicating properly, but I'll get there. And I want to apologize for anything I've ever done that has stepped beyond the boundaries I didn't see or, possibly, refused to see in our relationship.

So here are some things I'm going to work on:

1 - take time to thank the people in your life for being in your life

2 - openly discuss and set boundaries for those relationships

3 - build boundaries with your personal relationships

4 - introduce impulsivity and respectfulness (they can be friends)

5 - actively make this part of my daily routine

We've all got things to work on. Sometimes we don't want to work on them. Sometimes we don't want to get out of bed, wash our hair, or change our clothes. But damn it, it feels good when you finally do, doesn't it? Every time you disregard your personal goals or boundaries, you're disrespecting yourself. This will probably lead to the disrespect of your other relationships as well. Start with the first problem. Respect yourself enough to create boundaries and not give into the urge to lie back down. Stand up, change your clothes, respect yourself, set boundaries, and tell the ones who care about you that you care about them too. You can be spontaneous and impulsive once you stand up for yourself, too, but know who you're doing it with/to.

Love it already

- Tess