The Fear of Setting Personal Boundaries
By
- The Ring
“Drawing boundaries is one of the hardest things that we do. We are so afraid of the consequences of standing up to a controller in our lives. I was afraid that if I stood up to my mom, I would never get the diamond dinner ring that she promised would be mine. I realize that this sounds really “off” to me today.” Darlene Ouimet
That was the comment that I posted on the facebook page for this blog yesterday and it generated a fantastic discussion, so here is the long version of it. I was so afraid of my Mother but if you had asked me why, I could not have come up with an answer but lets just say that our mother daughter relationship was one sided at the best of times.
I didn’t give much conscious thought to why I let people walk all over me. I had these fears that I didn’t totally understand about what would happen if I told my mother that I was sick of her pushing me around. She had this diamond dinner ring that she had made for herself after my parents divorced. It was made out of the diamonds from her weddings rings from my father. I loved it for its sentimental value, something left over from their marriage, and it was a beautiful ring too and my mother promised me that it would be mine one day.
When my mother re-married I hoped that she would give me the ring, but instead she kind of dangled it in front of me for the next 16 years or so. I didn’t think much about it, until one day when I was visiting her and we were sitting on her bed looking through her jewellery box. The ring was in there. She hadn’t worn it for years but she still didn’t want me to have it. I tried it on; it was such a pretty ring, and it fit me just right. After a few minutes, I put it back in the jewellery box, but my mother didn’t notice. She started frantically looking around. She looked at my pockets; I am guessing to see if I had snuck it into my pocket when she wasn’t looking. She looked all around the bed and floor and since I realized that she thought I had taken the ring, I just sat there stunned, not saying a word. Finally she looked at me and in a stormy voice she asked “Darlene, where is MY ring?” I told her it was in her jewellery box. Before she even looked in the box she demanded “WHERE?”
Something in me snapped that day. She knew I wanted that ring, and she used it against me, but now she was willing to think that I might steal it to get it! I was hurt but I was disgusted too. She had no reason to think that I might just take it. I have never done anything like that! I would have understood if she wanted to keep the ring for her own sentimental reason, but to taunt me with it, and then accuse me of stealing it was just too much. I vowed that I would never want that darn ring again.
So it was interesting when she gave it to me for my birthday a year or so later. Why did she decide to give me the ring then? I had finally decided that I didn’t want it. Could it be that the ring didn’t serve her purpose anymore and that the ring no longer had any power over me?
By then I was in therapy and well into what I call in my head “the real process of recovery”. I remember opening the gift box and thinking my first thought which was “OH MY GOSH she finally gave me THE RING”… and my second thought “well you just gave me the only “thing” I ever wanted… now what are you going to hang over my head?” At some level this thought proved that I knew her motives with regards to that ring.
I had some weird feelings when I got that ring and although I wore if for a few months, I have trouble wearing it anymore because it reminds me of how many years that I put up with people having control over me and how I took it. It reminds me of how my own mother treated me like I was inconsequential. It reminds me that her illusions of being a fantastic loving mother are more important to her then I am! In my new healthy mindset that sounds WRONG to me on so many levels.
I don’t think this was just about a ring. I think the ring was just a symbol of the real fear, which was that if I stood up to my mother, she would remove herself from my life and for most of my life I was pretty sure that I did not want to risk that consequence.
This is just one small example of the thoughts and the fear of abandonment that I harboured below the surface. I hope that you can relate in some way to this story and please feel free to share one of your own.
Exposing truth one snapshot at a time;
Darlene Ouimet
10 Comments
July 23rd, 2010 at 2:15 pm
I think we all can relate. Love and approval was the “diamond ring” held over my head as a child. I wanted it more then anything and was willing to allow my abuser to define what boundries were respected or not. This is an amazing story with beautiful analogies of how we can taint and be blinded to etching boundries lines with people. You know Jesus drew a boundry when He wrote in the sand..set a good example for us all. Thank you so much for sharing Darlene.
July 23rd, 2010 at 2:44 pm
Setting personal boundaries with my parents is one of my biggest issues regarding my relationship with them. So much so that I never heard of the concept of boundaries until I was in college.
I hate to admit this, even with the anonymity of a pseudonym, but I kind of wish my parents hated me or loved me. The back in forth is scary, confusing and unpredictable. I have a hard time setting boundaries because they can hold my house over my head. Due to medical illnesses I am no longer employable. So my parents paid off what was left of my mortgage.
See what I mean?
July 23rd, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Wow Darlene bless your heart. It amazes me how we humans can treat other and devalue each other honestly your life is way more worth than that diamond ring in other words you are priceless I just wished your mom could have realized that.
My parents tried to make up to me by buying me a puppy and a brand new flute and even still today they try to make up for what they think they did that cause me and my siblings to go lacking. I have to reassure them that they don’t have to buy me. My mom and I have come a long ways the other day my mom finally admitted to me that she thought that if she ignored the problem that I have (bipolar disorder) that it would go away (which I already knew that she ignored me but didn’t know why she ignored me) I told my mom I said yes and when you ignored it you left me to deal with it alone therefore you ignored me not that I am the disorder but that by not helping me to deal with it she ignored me. She went on to say that I was her inspiration because I have had to fight real hard and on my own to get where I am at today..
For my mom to actually share that with me it has been a long hard road there were often times she would refuse to talk at all she would change the subject, deny it, or blame me. But now its not like that and at the same time I have learned to stand up to her and to my dad as well as set my own boundaries and that has been hard for me to do.
Money isn’t everything and neither is material possessions. We came into this world with nothing and we will leave it without taking any of it with us. The only thing that we can bring with us into this life is love and the only thing we can carry with us when we leave is love.
I have had to learn the hard way myself that I don’t have to sale myself out to get the approval of others. Don’t get me wrong I like having the approval of others but I think we are all that way to a certain extent. What I am learning is there is only two approvals in this life that I have to really focus on and that is God’s approval and my own. I think that goes with acceptance too. And that is another thing I am learning is God is not like our earthly parents He understands us more than we understand ourselves so comparing Him to my earthly father or to another human being is not who He is. I am having to really rewrite my own belief system in so many ways because for most all my life I have felt that God was just like my earthly dad.
Thank you for sharing this Darlene you give me much to think on! (((HUGS)))) to you for being who you are and being willing to share as you do.
July 23rd, 2010 at 4:12 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Darlene Ouimet and Splinteredones, Sharon Sanquist. Sharon Sanquist said: RT @DarleneOuimet: New blog post: The Fear of Setting Personal Boundaries http://bit.ly/aPXRl5 [...]
July 23rd, 2010 at 4:14 pm
There you gonagain, writing about exactly is on my mind! I posted a blog I think yesterday about this very thing–boundaries. I never thought to develop them basically because my life belonged not to me but to my pimary perp. Which happens because he was a gun freak and was very serious in his threats to blow memapart from one orifice or another when I was from I’d say five or six to twelve. So it was just coincidence that I was still alive all this time. Disposable hence valueless. Huh, who knew.
I have recently become aware that this thread runs in me. I was talking in therapy about some bullshit thing and it hit me like a lightning bolt. Disposable, I’m disposeable. C says you were. In just another minute i heard myself say valueless. Life threatened, disposable, valueless.
It’s been a pretty quick trip to finally getting these beliefs outside of mento fake a look and see how totally untrue they are. At this level anyway. So if I have value then I can have things i want and things I don’t. I have no idea how to establish boundaries and it would be unwise for me to try until I know what I’m doing.
Anyway, that’s the process in me. It is frutrating the shit out of me because if sems everywhere I look, especially in my marriage, I just want things changed. But I need to remain patient so I can take it in bits and pieces, see where it goes. Thanks again my dear
July 23rd, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Hello Christina W.
Love and approval are certainly the most commonly withheld, and then given at the will of the parent. Such an untrue definition of love and yes it is so often what causes us to allow our abusers to define any boundaries well into adulthood and beyond. (I think I had given up hope for love or approval and just wanted the freaking ring.. LOL, just kidding.) Actually I wanted acceptance, love and approval more then anything else too and I went through a major grieving process over the mother I longed for but that I would never have. The ring now serves as a reminder of my grief. I tried to make it represent my freedom, but it didn’t work so I keep the ring in a box.
Thanks for your beautiful compliments on my post.
Hugs, Darlene
Nikki,
So great to hear that you are working things out with your parents. That is so excellent! So many of us are scared that freedom means letting go of parents but it doesn’t have to be that way at all. The truth is that everyone can heal, and relationships CAN thrive and recover!
Hugs, Darlene
July 23rd, 2010 at 5:08 pm
IAmEchad,
Well, do I ever hear you! The back and forth is about the power and control. It is the nature of the beast. Scary, confusing and unpredictable enables others to keep us off balance, therefore more easily manipulated. I smiled when you wrote about your parents paying off the rest of your mortgage… ah yes…. and you see what I mean too.
Hugs, Darlene
July 23rd, 2010 at 6:41 pm
Darlene … Sounds like our moms are the same. My mother always had things to hang over my head too. Her gifts weren’t really gifts – they were always a tool to use to control.
July 23rd, 2010 at 7:21 pm
Splinterdones,
Ah yes.. we get restless in the process of recovery, don’t we? Sometimes things don’t go fast enough.. and then other times they go TOO FAST.. and that bugs us too. All I can say is keep striving to go forward, or at the very least not to go backward…and the changes will come at all the right times too.
Hugs, Darlene
Hi Paulette,
I could tell a million stories about gifts that were not really gifts, most of them about my husbands father….. and yes, always a tool to control.
Thanks for stopping!
Hugs, Darlene
October 16th, 2010 at 10:50 am
[...] the singles dances she liked to go to. She had money for her, but not for me. My mother had a diamond dinner ring made for herself from the diamonds out of the wedding set my father bought her. I knew that it cost [...]