Setting Boundaries
whatever it was I felt, and that no one could stop me from feeling my own feelings. Nevertheless, I also had to realize that I was afraid to feel my own feelings and that because of this I needed to manipulate others just to get my feelings out. Of course, others were doing the same to me, and we all thought we were doing all the right things. The truth, I discovered, is that I can't make others feel anything that they don't choose to feel any more than others can't make me feel anything that I don't choose to feel. In essence, I made choices, and many of them were the wrong ones for me.
Once I realized that I didn't have to allow others to manipulate me, and that I didn't have to manipulate others, just to get to my own feelings, I began to feel my personal power returning. Ah, but with power comes responsibility. From that point on I was going to need to take full responsibility for the results of my actions. I had to come to the understanding that others may choose to be hurt by what I do and say, even though I never meant that to be the case. So, I needed to take care how my actions and words influenced others. Too many times, in early recovery, I found myself using a boundary to get back at someone else's seemingly hurtful action or remark.
One of my early boundaries was spacing myself from those individuals who caused me to have difficulty coping, through their words and actions. I had to let these people know how I felt about certain things and tell them that, although I valued their friendship, I could no longer tolerate those things in my environment. Another of my boundaries was not entering into a relationship with anyone who played emotional games with me. Another was that I would no longer play emotional games with others to get my needs met. Even if they begged me to.
One of the emotional games, that I had played often, was to act wounded in order to get the care and concern of others. Sometimes I would even use that game to get my way when nothing else worked. Finally, I had to make a decision to stop playing those games. First, so that I would feel better about myself, and second because it was not the responsible thing to do. Those games had always seemed to drag me down into an emotional quagmire. I had to
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