Types Of Boundaries:

Types of Boundaries:

• Material boundaries determine whether you give or lend things, such as your money, car, clothes, books, food, or toothbrush.

• Physical boundaries pertain to your personal space, privacy, and body. Do you give a handshake or a hug – to whom and when? How do you feel about loud music, nudity, and locked doors?

• Mental boundaries apply to your thoughts, values, and opinions. Are you easily suggestible? Do you know what you believe, and can you hold onto your opinions? Can you listen with an open mind to someone else’s opinion without becoming rigid? If you become highly emotional, argumentative, or defensive, you may have weak emotional boundaries.

• Emotional boundaries distinguish separating your emotions and responsibility for them from someone else’s. It’s like an imaginary line or force field that separates you and others. Healthy boundaries prevent you from giving advice, blaming or accepting blame. They protect you from feeling guilty for someone else’s negative feelings or problems and taking others’ comments personally. High reactivity suggests weak emotional boundaries. Healthy emotional boundaries require clear internal boundaries – knowing your feelings and your responsibilities to yourself and others.

• Sexual boundaries protect your comfort level with sexual touch and activity – what, where, when, and with whom.

• Spiritual boundaries relate to your beliefs and experiences in connection with God or a higher power.

It’s hard for codependents to set boundaries because:

• They put others’ needs and feelings first;

• They don’t know themselves;

• They don’t feel they have rights;

• They believe setting boundaries jeopardizes the relationship; and

• They never learned to have healthy boundaries.

Boundaries are learned. If yours weren’t valued as a child, you didn’t learn you had them. Any kind of abuse violates personal boundaries, including teasing. For example, my brother ignored my pleas for him to stop tickling me until I could barely breathe. This made me feel powerless and that I didn’t have a right to say “stop” when I was uncomfortable. In recovery, I gained the capacity to tell a masseuse to stop and use less pressure. In some cases, boundary violations affect a child’s ability to mature into an independent, responsible adult.

You Have Rights

You may not believe you have any rights if yours weren’t respected growing up. For example, you have a right to privacy, to say “no,” to be addressed with courtesy and respect, to change your mind or cancel commitments, to ask people you hire to work the way you want, to ask for help, to be left alone, to conserve your energy, and not to answer a question, the phone, or an email. Think about all the situations where these rights apply. Write how you feel and how you currently handle them. How often do you say “yes” when you’d like to say “no?”

Write what you want to happen. List your personal bill of rights. What prevents you from asserting them? Write statements expressing your bottom line. Be kind. For example,

“Please don’t criticize (or call) me (or borrow my . . .),” and,

“Thank you for thinking of me, but I regret I won’t be joining (or able to help) you . . .”

How most people with invisible illnesses are treated by health care “professionals”

i was doing my usual “jump down the TERF rabbithole to increase the database for shinigami eyes” and i encountered a TERF that had deliberately added “TERFs DNI” to her bio, and then she bragged about it in a post a little further down her blog.

while I knew right away that she was a TERF, because she reblogged exclusively from known TERFs and the posts were direct rhetoric, I think it’s important that I spread this information for people who are not as well-versed in the way TERFs operate on this website.

TERFs hide in plain sight. it is not unusual for a TERF to put “TERFs DNI” or “TME” (transmisogyny exempt) in their bio. In fact, some joke that “TME” stands for “transmisogyny enthusiast.” They do this in order to avoid being reported and banned. They also do this in order to trick people into feeling safe and following them. That way, more people will be exposed to transmisogynist rhetoric.

Just because someone has “they/them” in their bio does not mean they are not a TERF. Nonbinary people can be TERFs. GNC women can be TERFs. Don’t let pronouns lull you into a false sense of security.

Crypto-TERFs are a thing. These are people who follow and reblog from TERF blogs, but avoid reblogging posts containing direct rhetoric so as to not be detected as transmisogynists. Someone might have a blog full of pretty pictures and art, but when you look at WHO they’re reblogging that art from, it becomes very clear that they endorse those beliefs. They also serve as a bridge between the TERF community and tumblr at large. You may follow someone because they reblog poems or art, and then feel inclined to check out the blogs they got that content from. This is deliberate recruitment tactic.  

TERFs will sometimes have an about page or a pinned post insisting that they “aren’t a TERF” and “support trans people” but then proceed to write THE most transphobic garbage after it. The idea is to have someone skim the text, read the “not a TERF” part, and move on, while the rest of the text is intended to signal to other TERFs that they are, in fact, a TERF.

how to spot a TERF:

reblogs from other TERFs (obvi)

URLs that reference reproductive organs (like uterus, ovary, vulva, vagina, pussy, cunt, clit) are almost always TERFs. I’m sure exceptions exist, but I have never encountered one. Also keep an eye out for “rad” and “radical” (in reference to “radical feminst”/”radfem” - which is what TERFs call themselves.) Also, a dead giveaway, but I HAVE seen it: “TERF” or “Terve” etc. in URLs. 

TERFs are radfems. Radfems are anti-sex work, lesbian separatists, bioessentialists, and misogynists. They spend a lot of time attacking other women for shaving or wearing makeup, for doing sex work, for dating men, and doing other things they personally disagree with. They also believe that men are inherently predatory. If a blog is spreading radfem beliefs, they’re either a TERF or a crypto-TERF. There is no such thing as “trans inclusive radical feminism.” 

use of “TRA” (trans rights activists), “genderists” (transgender people), posts about “men invading women’s spaces” (they mean trans women), use of the word “female” - ESPECIALLY “adult human female” which is a well-known TERF slogan in the UK , use of this emoji 🏁 (”only two genders”), the phrase “sex-based oppression”, salem witch trial references (”we’re the daughters you didn’t burn”), and references to suppression (”i will not be silenced”), mentions the “S.C.U.M. manifesto” (a manifesto insisting that “the male sex” should be ELIMINATED. the author attempted to KILL andy warhol.)

bios containing: XX, radfem, adult human female, female, gender critical, terven (TERF), ex/former TRA, febfem (”female exclusive bisexual” - TERFs who consider all trans men and transmascs to be women/female. they are chasers unable to reconcile their sexual feelings for men.)

wait, love ur space knowledge, now i have a moon query. u said earth's moon is proportionally the hugest but isn't charon like half the size of pluto? which i know is technically a dwarf planet but she's very dear to me so what's the deal with that? thank u

yeah Charon really isn't a moon proper because it's not actually orbiting Pluto, they're orbiting each other!

this means that Pluto and Charon are actually a paired system of orbiting bodies and not a standard planet-moon-system at all, and this is a major reason why Pluto was disqualified from being a planet proper in the first place!

this double-orbit is also a major reason why Pluto's orbit around the Sun is just so unbelievably fucked up.

which, again, is another reason why Pluto got kicked off of the Planets table and had to go sit with Planetoids and Dwarf Planets at the kiddy table.

(thanks a lot, Charon.)

uhhh but yeah basically these two idiot rocks are just holding hands and screaming while they cartwheel wildly through the outer solar system and it's pretty hilarious actually

here’s another fun fact: asexual does not mean nonsexual.

asexuals’ relationship with sex and sexual attraction tends to be….complicated. there’s a bit of an idea of like, oh of course, you’re either sex-favorable, sex-neutral, or sex-repulsed, but honestly i see a LOT of discussion about how wildly different those can each look for each individual. some people are comfortable with some acts in very specific contexts, and deeply upset by them in all others. some people find certain forms of nonsexual intimacy (like kissing) to still be off-limits, while something most people might consider more charged (like nudity) is totally fine. a lot of us just kind of have a long laundry list like “this is fine, this isn’t, that one’s okay, that one’s always off-limits….” because the big secret is that “sex” isn’t really any cohesive act as much as a lot of little things that people just threw together and called one thing.

as for attraction: some aces are actually attracted to other people once in a blue moon, and simply don’t want to clarify that every time. some aren’t entirely sure, but don’t want to spend their whole lives guessing. some ARE completely sure they never have and never will feel an attraction.

at the end of the day, much like any label, this single word really doesn’t tell you much of anything about what a person is actually like unless you bother to ask them what it means to them.

Before you dismiss yourself with a "well I'm used to it" consider that maybe you shouldn't have to be.