Boundaries Are Our Friends

I am an empath. 

I have always been able to read people pretty well, and I have always been attracted to the broken. What can I say? We can smell our own.

I love being the helper, and this has set the tone in many of my relationships. I give and give and others take and take. It’s hard to set boundaries with people after that kind of dynamic is set.

Emotional vampires don’t look like emotional vampires. That would be no fun. Sometimes I don’t even notice the blood loss until the shit hits the fan in my own life and I need support. It’s then I realize how much time and energy I have wasted on giving to people who double as empty wells with no bottom.

My give will NEVER be enough for them, and yet I continue to try. I mean, SOMEONE should fight for their happiness, right?

The thing is, that someone is NOT me. I forget this too often, and it leaves me emotionally and mentally drained. It splits me wide open, and leaves me less time and energy to care for myself and heal.

Emotional vampires and empaths cannot maintain anything like healthy relationships without very clear and emphasized boundaries.

What really sucks (see what I did there?) is that emotional vampires don’t recognize boundaries, and some may not even know they have fangs. They might really believe that life is constantly happening to them and that they have no part. It’s not our job to convince them.

I have worked SO hard to get where I am — to find peace with WHO I am. It’s absolutely foolish of me to just hand it all away to someone who can’t appreciate the sacrifice.

I deserve healthy relationships, and so do you. We deserve to have our boundaries and limits respected, but WE HAVE TO SET AND STAND BY THEM.

Otherwise, fahgetaboutit.

Those bitches will drain us of all that we are until we’re dead. And don’t believe for all we’ve done they won’t just simply walk over our lifeless bodies on the way to the next poor bastard.

We deserve true friendship and the give and take healthy relationships require.

Life’s too friggin’ short.

Let’s unload the vamps and let go of the guilt. It’s not our job to fix people — only to love them.