Setting boundaries

Have you ever experienced trying to help someone who's drowning? Hard isn't it? It's so difficult to try to save someone who is in the state of distress because his panic and fear will not only drown him, it'll drown you too. This is something I have to learn and re-learn over and over again.

It was my second nature to help people. In fact, my husband always jokes that I have a sign in my forehead that says, "come here, talk to me, I can help". True enough, regardless of any situation, even for the most mundane of  tasks like, someone asking for directions, people rarely go to my husband. They always come to me. But over the years, I've lost my own boundaries because of this, almost uncanny, need to help that, when I give my arm and leg, I am expected to give more... to the point of being expected to give limbs I don't have.

But I do have to accept the fact that I am doing this to myself. My lack of boundaries is a personal choice for reasons that somehow fulfilled something in me. But the satisfaction to be needed will never weigh as much as the peace of mind of not having to deal with invalidators.

At this moment, right now, I feel I have had enough of this! I am constantly derailed because I stop to pick up after others. I am so tired of not being able to have any breathing room because I am expected to help more by the people I've already accommodated. I am done paying for the mistakes of others. I owe this to my husband and my child. I am done!