Boundaries
“Boundaries are your responsibility. You choose what is and isn’t allowed in your life.”
Yes! You decide what you allow in your life, and let me tell you…sometimes it isn’t easy.
I trust to easily
I am a “fixer”
I go the extra mile to help people if they need help
I always give people the benefit of the doubt and believe the best in people
Some would say these are amazing qualities to have, and if you have the proper boundaries in place, they can be. But, if you don’t have boundaries, these qualities can lead to being taken advantage of, being used and being manipulated. Unfortunately I had to learn this by experiencing it. Looking back though, I’m not even sure I’d change anything…which to me even seems a bit bizarre, but I’m the type of person that cares deeply for those that I let into my life. I also believe that even negative things that happen to you can bring something good, even if you don’t realize it until later on down the road.
She was my best friend (aside from my Husband of course). We met in Tennessee back in 2014 when our boys shared the same Kindergarten class. In 2018 her family relocated from Tennessee to Washington. We kept in touch and my oldest son Miles and I actually travelled out to Washington that same year to visit! Towards the end of 2019 her life began to unravel. Knowing my best friend was having such an incredibly hard time, and being over 2000 miles away was difficult. We would message with each other off and on all day long, basically every day. Her life continued to fall apart and in the midst of everything she found out she was pregnant. My Dad, my oldest son Miles, and I drove across the country to be there for her, offer her support and help her however we could. We only spent a few days and then made the trek back home. We helped several times with groceries, supported her through legal situations and helped her provide Christmas for her children. You name it, we probably did it because she said she didn’t have anyone and was alone. She gave birth to her baby boy on New Years Eve, a few days earlier than expected. I left my family so that I could be of some support during that initial week home with a brand new baby. It was during that trip and the weeks following when I started feeling a check in my spirit. I started noticing how dependent she was, and I started recognizing how reckless her decision making was, and I also began having uneasy feelings about a person in her life. She was my best friend, and because she was my best friend I felt comfortable enough speaking up. I always told her I would be honest with her no matter what, so I didn’t hold anything back. It was within days of this that I realized how much she was hiding, how misleading she was being to not only me, but her family and others that had started stepping up to try and help her, and I also began to see through all the lies she had been telling. I had spent months praying over her and her situation and asking God to guide me in ways to help her, and at this point I had a moment of clarity and realized that maybe just maybe helping her didn’t look like how I thought it should, and that maybe that helping her looked like allowing her to face the consequences of her bad decisions and reckless choices. I ultimately made the decision to walk away.
Looking back now there were red flags all over the place. I missed them because of how emotionally vested I was in the situation. People even told me the truth of different things that were happening, and I chose to believe her…because she was my best friend.
It’s hard to accept someone is toxic, especially when you’re close to them. I think that I knew all along, I just chose not to believe it because like I mentioned before, I always believe the best in people.
Here are some of the signs to look for to see if you are befriending a toxic person:
You are emotionally affected by their drama.
You’re stuck in a cycle of trying to rescue, fix and/or take care of them.
You find yourself making excuses for their behavior.
Stepping away was not easy, especially because of the drama in her life had crept in and consumed most of my life. After I removed her from my life, I immediately felt like I had so much more time. Do I wish things would have turned out different? Yes. Do I still pray for her and hope that her life turns around? Yes. But, I’m choosing peace for myself and my family. This entire situation made it very clear to me how important boundaries are, and the irony is that I spent most of the last year trying to convince my friend that she needed to set boundaries in her own life. Going back in time would I still have provided groceries for her family, helped with Christmas gifts for her children? Of course. But, I should have created a boundary that kept myself from becoming as emotionally vested as I was, and that protected my peace.
People can inspire you, or drain you. Be wise when choosing who to surround yourself with. Not everyone is meant to be in your life, and if they are in your life not everyone needs to be involved in your life in the same capacity. Healthy boundaries are necessary. Pray for them and love them from a distance. Your peace is worth it.