Trauma-Informed Boundary Setting - starryCandy6123 and audienta
Hello everyone,
Today I present to you a post about trauma-informed boundary setting, written by @starryCandy6123 and me. Please leave your appreciation for Candy's work, your thoughts on the topic and questions in the comments.
Trauma-Informed Boundary Setting - starryCandy6123
People who have been through trauma, often find it very difficult to trust. For example, people who have experienced abuse have memories of someone hurting them or someone not knowing what is a boundary. We as listeners need to be wary not to talk about anything that may be a trigger, to the member, and be aware that they may not have ever had any boundaries in their lives and may not understand. The way listeners work with boundaries for these people is to give them time and active listening. Show them empathy but accept their feelings are real, repeat their words, allow them to explain, and never make light of their trauma.
Trauma-Informed Boundary Setting - audienta
Today, I want to write about the importance of boundaries and how they can be set in chats with people who have experienced trauma.
Importance of Boundaries
People who have experienced trauma might also have experienced a lack of boundaries for themselves or for others. This can for example lead to being too close to and dependent on others, avoiding conflicts, seeing themselves as a victim, needing to be distant to others, or not wanting to be seen or heard. (Source 1, 12/10/2023) It can also make people very sensitive to rejection. That’s why we listeners need to model setting healthy and firm boundaries. They can also protect us from getting overwhelmed or burned out ourselves.
How to set boundaries
We want to be clear about our boundaries and communicate them openly. For example, you can say at the beginning of a chat that you have time for 60 minutes.
Boundaries aren’t intended to hurt others, however, they may do, especially when a member has experienced trauma before. If that happens, don’t remove the boundary, instead, explore with the member why the boundary triggers them.
If a member oversteps a boundary, it’s important to take consequences. Otherwise, it’s not really a boundary. For example, if someone repeatedly talks about a topic that triggers you after you've told them that that’s something you don’t want to discuss and reminded them of that multiple times, you should end the chat. (Source 2, 12/10/2023)
This post was written by a member of the Trauma Sub-Community Writing Team. You can find a masterpost with all the posts of this team linked here. If you want to join the team, please apply here. Also, please comment if you want to be tagged in future posts.