Mental Health: How to Set Boundaries
Since the pandemic began, anxiety and depression have gone up 25% worldwide.
With the state of the world, it’s not hard to imagine a lot of people are dealing with stress. It’s more important than ever to safeguard your mental health.
Why Is It Important To Set Boundaries With Our Mental Health?
Our mental health can be thought of as our overall psychological well-being, including our emotional states, thought processes, feelings and behaviors. So as you can imagine, our environment, including people, can have a huge impact on our mental health. which is why setting boundaries is so important. This is true regardless if you’ve been diagnosed with a mental health condition. Those in our lives can cause a strain on our well-being.
Those who love us might have the best intentions, but their actions may also affect our mental health-choose another word. As a result, many of us do not want to say anything for fear of hurting those we love. But, if we allow negative behaviors in our life, our own mental health will suffer.
It’s important to care about those around us, but it shouldn’t come at a cost to our own well-being. You are better able to care about and support those in your life when you take care of yourself first.
Not setting boundaries can come in many forms. Below are just a few examples of ways you may be putting your mental health on the back burner.
Maybe you are a people pleaser who can’t say no, so you tend to get taken advantage of (hint- it's our responsibility to say 'yes' when we mean yes and 'no' when we mean no).
Maybe your personal beliefs conflict with that of loved ones. You choose not to say anything to keep the peace.
Maybe a friend continues to treat you in a way that you don’t appreciate. When you try to explain that, they think you’re overreacting and continue their behavior.
What Are Energy Vampires?
Judith Orloff, MD, is a psychiatrist with the University of California-Los Angeles Psychiatric Clinical Faculty. She says that “An energy vampire is somebody who literally zaps your energy dry.”
Is there an energy vampire in your life?
Anyone could be an energy vampire: your friend, mother, or coworker. Energy vampires fall on a spectrum. One may suffer from a bit of narcissism while another uses their tendencies to commit crimes.
What they all have in common is that they “feed on” those around them using manipulation. Christiane Northrup, MD, says that they all know they’re doing this on some level. They continue to do it because they know it works.
They find people who are the easiest to take advantage of. This usually includes good listeners who are compassionate and sensitive to others’ pain.
Being around an “energy vampire” can be damaging to your health. This is especially true if they are someone you’re around all the time, like a boss, spouse, or parent. Their presence can lead to chronic stress. Chronic stress can lead to physical health issues. It may affect the cardiovascular, nervous, neuroendocrine, and immune systems.
In some cases, it might be necessary to completely cut this person out of your life. At the very least, you will benefit from learning/practicing setting boundaries.
What Are Some Ways To Set Boundaries?
Setting boundaries requires knowing yourself and taking ownership of vocalizing those needs and acting accordingly. If there is any push-back, stick to your boundaries and don’t compromise. Those who truly care about you will respect those boundaries and want the best for you as well.
You have every right to come up with a set of guidelines for yourself. These guidelines can help you define which behaviors you are and aren’t okay with. They tell you what behaviors are reasonable and safe for you to be okay around. If someone steps outside these boundaries, these guidelines give you a way to respond.
Limit Contact
It’s not always possible to cut people out of your life, and you may not always want to. But, if they’re draining your mental health, you should limit their contact.
You can do this by limiting the length of your phone calls or visits. Also, know that you’re under no obligation to answer calls or texts.
You can also remove them from your social media. Sometimes, people will post things that we don’t agree with. Sure, you can keep scrolling. But, it can be detrimental to see those things all the time and to have an emotional reaction to them. It’s okay to “unfriend” or “unfollow” someone.
Learn To Say “No”
One of the most important pieces of advice you can receive is to learn to say the word “no”. Many people are people-pleasers, and they can’t say no to anything. They don’t want to upset anyone else, so they say “yes” to everything. This abandoning of self causes more harm in the long run, to self and others, and like it or not, it is selfish for us to request others to know our needs without us taking the chance of vocalizing them.
Set boundaries
It can leave you with little time, energy, or mental capacity. Some people will take advantage of you because they know you’ll always say “yes”. Others truly do need help but don’t realize how much stress they’re causing you.
If you’re beginning to feel frustrated or resentful towards someone, it’s time to set boundaries. Therapist Nedra Glover Tawwab says to “recognize your capacity”. Take notice of when your mood begins to shift and you’re reaching your limits. This is when you need to say “no”.
Safeguard Your Space
Remember how we mentioned earlier that you can create a set of guidelines for yourself? Keep these guidelines in mind, and don’t compromise on them. If someone breaks a physical or mental boundary, let them know.
They might not have known they did anything to upset you. If they knew it would upset you, and did it anyway, then that warrants a discussion. You need to insist that they respect your boundaries.
Recognize that it’s important to safeguard your own emotions. You are not responsible for anyone else’s emotions or how they respond to things.
Here are some examples of boundaries that might be broken:
Going through your phone without permission
Getting too close while talking
Calling you by a name or nickname that you don’t like
Expecting your help just because you’ve offered it before
Chances are that those who love you the most may also cause you the most stress. Setting boundaries are going to be important for sustaining healthy relationships and well-being.
Make time for friends
But it’s important to safeguard your mental health and set boundaries. Doing so will lead to better physical and mental health. It will also result in healthier relationships.
Wellness Center in Bend
Stay tuned to The Blissful Heart Wellness Center’s social media and events calendar for a variety of classes and events that focus on improving your mental wellness. We are also the home to many talented spiritual/energy healing practitioners as well as counselors and therapists. Learn more about our community here.