Why this boundary hurt more than I expected

I set a boundary last week. What I wasn’t expecting was the shame that followed.

At first, it felt empowering. To finally say what I’d been dreading. To move past the fear of hurting their feelings while swallowing the discomfort of the position they’d put me in. To finally say I’m uncomfortable. Have been for a while. Please stop.

The heartbreak and disappointment from reading their response. The cold callousness that finally confirmed how little they cared about the human behind the Instagram posts. How the boundary didn’t fit with whatever fantasy they’d projected onto me.

What made it worse was the history I had with the person. The real life friendship that had spanned decades.

It was hard to comprehend their actions. Confusing at first. My mind used logic to file away the alarms going off in my body saying this isn’t right.

Being sexualized and objectified seems to be part of every content creator's journey at some point. It’s something we come to terms with, as part and parcel of the gig. Not saying that it’s right, just saying it’s the reality.

And while I’d learned to develop a protective filter against the uninvited and unwelcome comments and DM’s from strangers on the internet, my guard had been down with this person because they were a friend.

After setting the boundary and blocking them, I still felt uneasy. Disquieted.

And then I realized, it was shame.

Shame for allowing it to go on so long. Shame for laughing it off and even making a joke out of it to ease the tension I felt. To hope to dissolve any sexual tension so that it’d make it easier for both of us to pretend it was harmless.

Saying to myself, “It’s okay,” when it wasn’t.

Because I didn’t want to lose the friendship. Because it felt good to have a friend in an internet world that feels scary and overwhelming sometimes. To think at least I can lean on this person, trust this person, rest in this person's presence when I have to be on guard all the time with everyone else.

Realizing what was still eating at me has allowed me to exhale a little bit more. And it got me thinking how perhaps part of what’s so hard about setting boundaries is the shame around it. How there is an admittance that we can’t do it all, hold it all. The shame of not being able to please everyone around me.

And noticing how that’s shifted. While shame used to be around having to set boundaries at all, it now comes from not setting them sooner. Dreading things and dragging them out, out of avoidance.

These feelings would have made me panic in the past. But being able to recognize them now - as they are, and not as I’d wish them to be - comes with a newfound freedom, and realization:

There is no separation between shame and pride. Guilt and absolution. We’ve always been able to hold both. We cannot experience one without the other. And so if shame arises, what part of me needs more love? Needs to be shown it doesn’t need to hide? If guilt arises, which part of me requires more compassion? Needs to be shown forgiveness?

In this way, I’m learning that it’s not so much of letting go of these feelings, but giving them a place to be with me that acknowledges both its existence and impermanence. That all of me that feels is loving, is a result of wanting to be loved, a result of wanting to love.

While I’m disappointed, I’m not disillusioned. The thing that brings comfort is that because nothing is permanent, there is always hope. Because things can always change.

I have hope we can all be gentler to one another in the online world. I see more and more conscious connections online these days, especially in communities like Substack.

As our connections increasingly happen online, it is all the more important to remember to be kind. That a screen isn’t a barrier for feelings. The distance doesn’t dampen the hurt. There is a person on the other side of the screen. Receiving these words, this energy. Intention matters. You matter. Care for yourself.