Last weekend, Dr. Dee Rajska posted part 3 of her series about Pushing People away:
http://canadianveteransadvocacy.com/comingbackhome/?p=946
My sister set out a stuffed horrid-looking tomato, as in it had a cranky face, by her door. It let anyone in the family who saw it know she was having a bad day.
I think that’s brilliant.
Sadly, it doesn’t work for everyone. Some people simply insist on prying…then again, maybe it’s more about the healthy boundaries again.
I had a dear friend who struggled with her health. We would make plans to go to dinner, and one of us would call the other and cancel. We both understood that the other sincerely didn’t feel well. We plan again. It would take us several attempts, but we always managed to finally make it. We enjoyed every moment, laughing and chatting for hours. She finally lost her battle with cancer, several years ago. I miss her.
We never worried about offending each other. We trusted each other that we really did want to spend time together, but our respective health problems were real and interfered. We patiently worked around it.
Now that I think about it, my good friends now are all like this. I’m improving.
The Project: Me by Judy 
I think that there is a level of trust and knowing that each person is being honest with each other that allows us to be who we are (good and bad days). I can imagine you miss her. ((Judy))
Sometimes I would think “this is about ME” and other times I wouldn’t. With my mother I never knew. Learning to understand others and not take it personally has been a hard but wonderful relieving lesson. Letting go of that unhealthy narcissism and letting people ‘be’ and giving people space is another way of living with healthy boundaries (which I think you are right with it having to do with boundaries). I don’t know if this is healthy: I hope that people feel comfortable enough that if it is about me that they will let me know in their own time and manner that I have hurt them.
By: TR on June 16, 2015
at 1:24 am
I think it’s a sign of being healthy: Wanting to improve. The difficulty lies in people who hold you responsible for hurt that really has nothing to do with you… I may have said or done something that hit a trigger, but what I did wasn’t actually wrong. I don’t want to hit triggers, but I don’t want to be walking on eggshells either. A delicate balance.
((TR)) Thanks.
By: Judy on June 16, 2015
at 5:33 am
[…] also share her challenges with being with people. https://theprojectbyjudy.wordpress.com/2015/06/16/sliding-in-a-post-from-coming-back-home/ I did use a stuffed TV vegetable tomato as she mentioned in her blog. It was the fabric kind […]
By: Pushing People Away | PTSD - Accepting, Coping, Thriving on July 19, 2015
at 1:50 pm