Putting up boundaries against family, is not an easy task, and yet, with the statistics as they are, boundaries against abuse, WILL be against someone you know, most often a family member. This is how abuse ends, not with kindness and understanding, those are NOT boundaries, nor a deterrent for abusive behaviors, but an open door.
Having boundaries, is a fuzzy concept and one that needs to be clarified...it can blend into the background of life.
A boundary is to stop or change behavior...to respond differently, and it is more often seen as 'not kind'. Kindness is very allowing and accepting, no matter what. Boundaries are much more selective and rejecting.
Somehow, we as a society, see people who have healthy boundaries as being 'unkind' and those without them kind, christian like and forgiving. There is a totaly dysfunctional viewing upon how we respond to evil and what we call it.
When I wrote a very clear and concise letter to my mother, requesting space and for continual silence and separation, and for her to remain absent in my life, it may be seen as "unkind".
And, what many will focus on is my behavior and not hers.
Not the fact that she had no boundaries against evil...or the fact that her actions were to ad and abet my father's deviancy. She isn't untainted or less guilty than he, her lack of boundaries allowed his evil to permeate her...she joined what she did not stand against.
What I have come to know, is if the parent doesn't use boundaries against evil within the home, the children will erect boundaries against the parent. IF, they choose to change the pattern of abuse. Otherwise, they too will join the evil side, simply by their lack of boundaries; they become colored by the same brush as evil, they don't stand out.
I am okay with others seeing me as bad, wrong and heartless...for I know different.
I know how it feels to reject a parent, to set up a boundary, to become an orphan by choice. I know the backlash I am opening myself up to...and I am okay.
I would rather stand against evil, than be washed in its bloody tones.
There is no way you can be kind to evil and not be stained by what you are allowing.
I cannot see how you can remain in relationships with folks who are hurtful and not be colored by their behavior.
The only way, I can show my boundaries is to walk them out.
You can't say you are against what someone is doing while standing with them when they are doing it, doing nothing to show your objections.
What does 'objection' mean?
"An expression or feeling of disapproval or opposition; a reason for disagreeing."
How can you show your disapproval when you are silent and not acting different?
What I feel so strongly about, is that if you are not the one doing the evil, but the one who is unmoved by evil, you are contributing to it.
You are either with it or are standing free of it.
What I am still amazed by are the sheer numbers of folks who are standing with evil and calling it loving kindness.
And, even more floored at how I am seen as unkind, for having boundaries.
