I dropped into holiday survival mode and stopped my course of study with Blueknot….several of the areas cover details of how long and how much therapy is needed for CPTSD/PTSD. Mine was 10 years and 3 counselors. I am still a work in progress. I’m fortunate that my first counselor focused on teaching me the process of healing. He knew because of the extent of my damage from a very young age my healing would be an ongoing process of growing up when I was over 45 years old. Now I am 61 and feel confident I hit my teen years. I can be such a pain and rebellion is the name of my game. I remind myself that rebellion destructively is counter productive. I am working on magnificent rebellion to catapult me into a more positive and happier place. Boundaries is one of the things that all 3 counselors taught me. I was at different phases of healing and each one taught me more. In the resources page is the two books I read on boundaries, plus countless articles, posts and workshops. Boundaries are key to healthy living. Most people learn them from a young age. Sadly my mother treated me as an extension of herself and all the parts she hated. I didn’t learn who I was until I was in counseling.
18. Recognise the importance of implementation of boundaries
`Boundaries are particularly salient with clients who have been subjected to violations, exploitations, and dual relationships’ (Kinsler, Courtois, Frankel, 2009 p.127) Boundaries should be mutually negotiated, and care should be taken to ensure that the client understands their significance and does not experience them as punitive. Maintenance of boundaries is also important for therapist self-care; while this is always the case it is especially so in the demanding work of complex trauma.
This is what Blueknot shares about boundaries. I learned boundaries with my first counselor because he used them and pointed out how he used them so I could see the connection. However my second counselor taught me a metaphor that I still use….we both lived in the country for part of our lives so understood the “country rule” if you open a gate, close it. If the gate is locked stay out. I also learned that healthy people have boundaries and don’t make a big deal about it. Unhealthy/abusive people hate boundaries because that is how they control by taking over your life and crushing all boundaries.
In the country you build a house on acreage. Around the entire property you have a fence. Unsafe people are not allowed in this outside perimeter fence. The acquaintances can come in. Then there is a fence around the house. Friends come in this far, like inviting friends over for a bar-b-que. Great friends are invited into the house to the living room. Only the closest and most intimate friends are allowed in other parts of the house. This helped me figure things out as to how to treat people and how much information I share with them. I tend to over share thus lowering boundaries too soon. Not a good thing. I am working on this. I share here with hundreds but this is a place a reader chooses to be and has its own natural boundary of being here on the internet and I don’t see most people’s reaction to what I write.
Part of the process of setting up my boundaries I needed to understand what it was I was protecting in the first place. This led to me writing my personal bill of rights. This was a month long project with many, many rewrites. Tomorrow I will share more information about writing a personal bill of rights.
PTSD - Accepting, Coping, Thriving 