I recently talked to my therapist about an issue I’ve been working on for the past few months. I’m doing a lot of one-sided reconciliation in this situation because the other people involved aren’t able to do the work with me in order to repair our friendship. The boundary issues that were raised within our friendship were unfortunately familiar to me, but the harmful reactions I received honestly surprised me coming from these people in particular.

My therapist had very helpful suggestions. I was reminded that feelings don’t have a timeline, and this situation is going to hurt for as long as it needs to hurt. I was reminded that anger, frustration, sadness, and betrayal are valid feelings and must be processed. I was encouraged to grieve the end of the friendship, because I said that I wouldn’t want to return to the relationship in the future due to the trust issues created there. The most helpful thing my therapist said was that my feelings were still close to the surface about this issue because there is something more that I need to learn from those feelings. The pressure will decrease when I have learned, addressed, acknowledged, and resolved everything that I need to know about my former friends and myself from this situation, and the things that I need to remain aware of in the future.

My therapist also wanted me to gauge my level of anger towards the most recent situation for our next visit, so that we can work to decrease a potentially unhealthy level of anger if it’s still lingering. Unfortunately, in working on that, I realized that I still have anger at other situations in the past in addition to the recent one. The anger doesn’t feel like it’s constantly there, but when I dig in and really think about and relive those situations, some of them are there just like the situation happened yesterday. A high level of emotion in the present about things from the past is considered a trauma response.

I spent many years with my nervous system fully in survival mode, unable to feel and process appropriately due to system overload and lack of safety. It has only been with professional help that I have learned to confront my difficult feelings, feel them through to their completion or resolution, and decrease my reactionary and emotionally immature coping skills. One of the most helpful techniques for these issues is EMDR, a therapist-guided trip along your own brain waves to find, feel, and release unprocessed emotions in a safe setting.

I had the idea of writing a series in which each article tells the story of a boundary that ended a relationship. It would end up being a fairly long series, and that’s a definite shame. I wanted to be heard and respected by sharing my values, not unfriended. On the plus side, the absence of unhealthy relationships makes room for more warm, kind, nourishing relationships. Over the course of several years, I have changed the people I surround myself with for the better in every way.

Writing has helped me so much to process everything over the years, and it now appears to me even more clearly that writing will be the way forward with boundary issues. It

will help me figure out more of what I need to learn and remember, how I need to grow, and what is important to me. It will help me decrease anger, resentment, confusion, and other sneaky feelings that I don’t always realize are there. Those kinds of feelings are usually the mind’s way of escaping sadness and grief.

I have learned so much about myself and the process of doing the work from these situations. I think it’s crucial to help others understand that our perceptions of boundaries change as we grow, and how we are perceived by others is going to change in painful ways as we grow. It was and continues to be one of the hardest and most distressing concepts on my pathway.

We lose friends that we ultimately need to lose for our own growth, but we don’t want to lose them in ways that demonstrate such complete disregard for our feelings and perspectives. It’s also one of the most important concepts to put in place in our own lives as we reclaim identity and healing, so it’s worth doing all of the hard work to make this happen.

Love is an action verb 💙