A lot of the advice I got about learning to enforce my boundaries was framed as an adversarial thing. Like, âyes, it might upset and disappoint the people around you, but you have to learn to tell them ânoâ anyway.â At best, âgood people will still like you if you enforce your boundariesâ.
What I wish Iâd been told is that good people will think it's awesome that you enforce your boundaries, that there are people who will respect the hell out of you for it, that there are people who will admire you not despite you telling them no, but because of it. That most people donât want to make you do something you donât enjoy,and so theyâll actively be happier and more relaxed around you if they know they can trust you to decline to do things you donât enjoy and to ask them to stop things that bother you.
It helped me a lot, personally, to stop thinking of âenforcing my boundariesâ as something I did for me and more as something I did to empower the people I was close with, to build a situation where they and I felt sure everything that was going on was something we all wanted.
Most advice isnât good for everyone and this advice seems maybe bad for people in abusive situations, because sometimes you do need to learn to enforce boundaries against people who will try to violate them. But if there are other brains like me out there: your partner will be really happy you can say no to them. your friend will be really happy you change the subject when you hate it. your roommate will really appreciate that you tell them to turn down the music. most people will feel safer and more comfortable around you if they know youâll reliably express your needs, AND theyâll feel better about voicing theirs.
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