Setting Boundaries for Mental Health
We first heard the term ‘boundary’ in a mental health context a few years back, when we ended up on the mental health side of TikTok. According to the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA), a boundary is a set of ‘defined rules or limits that someone establishes to protect their security and wellbeing around others.”
Boundaries can be physical or emotional, designed to help you protect your rights and sense of self in all types of relationships. They allow us to define what we will and will not accept within our relationships. Your boundaries might look different in romantic relationships versus family relationships, and may even differ from person to person.
How does boundary setting benefit us?
Boundary setting has a profound impact on our mental health by allowing us to focus on the things and behaviors that bring us joy. Some of the impacts having healthy boundaries have on our wellbeing include:
Self-care and wellbeing and reduced stress and anxiety
Think work-life balance or carving out time for self-care (whatever that looks like for you). Boundaries can help us dedicate time to things that are important to us so that we can avoid burnout and lower stress. Boundaries can help protect you from overcommitting to things, define when you will and will not work, etc which can all lead to a reduction in stress and help you focus on things that bring you joy
Protection from harm
In a safety sense, boundaries allow us to avoid situations that make us feel unsafe and distance ourselves from people who either ignore our boundaries or who are prone to cause us harm.
Self-awareness
To set boundaries, you have to understand what is important to you, what you will and will not tolerate, what triggers you, etc. This requires a lot of self-reflection and therefore helps us build our self-awareness around who we are, what makes us happy, and who we want to surround ourselves with
Improved relationships
A boundary is a way to communicate our limits and our needs. Setting and enforcing boundaries, allows us to be more open when something is bothering us or when we might need more attention, which can help build healthier relationships
Empowerment and self-esteem
Setting and enforcing a boundary teaches us to advocate for ourselves, protect ourselves, and overall allow us to see that our needs and desires are important
Preventing codependency
It can be easy to rely on others in relationships, but setting boundaries about time to yourself can help you focus on your independence and autonomy
How do I know if I need to set boundaries?
As noted above, boundary setting is reliant on your values and triggers. Self-reflection and knowing what those are to you will help you to determine areas where it might be good for you to set some boundaries.
Verywell Mind has a good list of signs, including:
You feel resentful that people ask a lot of you very often or you feel like you do more than others than they do for you
To avoid disappointing people, you say yes to things you don’t want to
You feel more stress in the idea of disappointing others than you do in the drain taking on too much might have
We also love their list of additional questions to ask if you’re on a self-reflection journey around boundaries.
Getting used to boundary-setting
One struggle we’ve seen a lot of people talk about on social media around boundary setting is that in relationships where there haven’t been boundaries set, those boundaries can be seen by others as being difficult. It can be a hard adjustment to go from letting people in your relationships have unfettered access to you, to say no or enforcing whatever boundary you’ve set.
In a lot of cases, boundary setting is as simple as saying ‘no’, which is hard if you default to ‘yes’ and can also be difficult for others who expect you to say yes.
It’s important to be assertive when communicating your boundaries and it will take some adjusting to the discomfort you might feel around saying no or stepping back. If you find yourself struggling with sticking to your boundaries, remember that you have just as much right to your autonomy, hobbies, and mental health as everyone else does.
Further, it is important to pay attention to who respects your boundaries and who does not. You may need to strengthen boundaries or end relationships altogether where your boundaries are disrespected.