Boundaries
The concept of boundaries is related to something called Systems Theory. It is the idea that any
entity has a boundary around itself. Without that boundary, the entity would disintegrate, and
blend into its surroundings. Boundaries are therefore essential to both form and individuality.
An infant plays with its feet, as it explores its own boundaries. A three year old can argue with an
adult about facts, such as whether he is a boy or a girl. A five year old girl can know that a
mother's preferences are not the same as hers.
As a child matures, the personality differentiates into a variety of parts. Just as the human body
differentiates into parts, including the heart, liver, and skin, the personality develops parts, or
individual "personas". Some of these personas appear to correlate with the various roles that
we play, such as the role of child, parent, student, employee, spouse, citizen, and child of God.
Other personas are expressions of our own interpretation of the personalities of significant
others in our lives. So a person's personality might include a persona remarkably like her father,
her mother, her aunt, her favorite teacher, and so forth. All of these personas are intricately
linked to each other, and are governed by the "self" which determines for us which part of ourself
acts at any particular moment. Thus my "self" chooses appropriate behavior for attending
church, cleaning the kitchen, or relating to a child.
The development of human personality is vitally important and valuable. After all, the human
personality is the way we relate to others, and the way we organize our thoughts, feelings,
actions and goals. The human personality is so important that nature has designed ways to
protect us from extreme blows to that structure, blows that might cause permanent destruction of
a human development that has taken years of a person's life to create.
The human personality is under-rated and under-valued. It is second only to "self" in importance,
which is in turn second only to God in value. One of nature's protections of personality is the
process of grief, during which the brain insulates itself from unbearable stress. Sudden stress,
dynamically impacting the consciousness, such as the death of a loved one, or severe calamity,
could cause deterioration of the personality. So we see that the personality is preserved during
overwhelming stress by a blunting of experience. Grieving people are observed to have
problems with concentration. Grief means that we cannot think of two things at a time, or that our
concentration is so poor that we cannot remember the details of our daily experience. Grief
delays the capacity for goal-directed behavior. All of this prevents the personality from shattering
under extreme stress. It is nature's blessing and should be respected as God-given.
The human personality is dependent for its existence on boundaries. The self makes choices
because we have an understanding of the parts of ourselves. I write because my self can direct
the writer in me to act. I abstain from talking loudly in church because the self knows which part
of me can sit quietly.
For that reason, an assault on personal boundaries is a potential destruction of personality. The
lives of fat people are a long history of corruption of boundaries by parents, and later by portions
of the adult world as well. When a parent views a child as an extension of herself, she is saying,
"You are an extra set of legs and arms to me. I will be the brain for both of us. My goals are your
actions. My feelings are your experiences." The child is denied existence as a discreet entity
with its own brain, heart and soul.
This history so far includes a long list of boundary violations. They have included force feeding, a
violation second only to sexual assault, because it literally invades the body space. But boundary
violations also occur in depriving a child the right to think for herself, to feel her own feelings, to
take care of basic bodily needs, to make decisions, to love selectively according to one's own
values, to create, to be curious, to learn, and to set limits. A human being who has no right to set
limits on others and to say no to boundary violations has no possibility of normal maturity and
growth.
Fat is symbolically a protection against boundary violations. It says "you can force-feed my body,
but you cannot dominate my soul". You can sexually abuse me, but while you do it, my spirit will
be absent. You can hurt me until I can't bear the feelings of pain, but my fat will insulate me from
your hurtful intentions. You can damage my body, but I will separate myself from my body, and I
will survive.
But fat is also a hallmark of unresolved grief. Grief is about loss. And every denial of
personhood during childhood creates a state of grief. The mind is numbed to the excessive
stress; if the stress is continued long enough the personality will lose its resilience, its elasticity,
its ability to bounce back from stress. Creativity, originality, curiosity and ambition can be lost in
the effort to survive boundary violations. But survive we do. And that is something to be proud of.
If our body provided us with a symbolic refuge from boundary violations, then we must learn to
honor our bodies for the relief it afforded us. Our body did not harm us; it saved us.
No person recovers from fatness without healing the damage of boundary violations first. There
can be no effective weight loss without this necessary growth process. One must learn who he
is, including what he values and what he wants. Then that person must learn to set limits on
people who block the fulfillment of needs and achievement of personal goals. The recovered
person learns to say "no", first to others, then to impulses to eat, and then finally to fatness itself.
There is no shortcut. It is a long, hard, painful, time-consuming, and uncertain effort. It is an
adventure that may not have a happy ending. The thing that makes it worth doing has nothing
whatever to do with having a slim body. It has everything to do with having the right to be a
complete and healthy person, able to be happy and creative, able to love and be loved, and able
to build one's life consistent with God's intentions for us.
The concept of boundaries is related to something called Systems Theory. It is the idea that any
entity has a boundary around itself. Without that boundary, the entity would disintegrate, and
blend into its surroundings. Boundaries are therefore essential to both form and individuality.
An infant plays with its feet, as it explores its own boundaries. A three year old can argue with an
adult about facts, such as whether he is a boy or a girl. A five year old girl can know that a
mother's preferences are not the same as hers.
As a child matures, the personality differentiates into a variety of parts. Just as the human body
differentiates into parts, including the heart, liver, and skin, the personality develops parts, or
individual "personas". Some of these personas appear to correlate with the various roles that
we play, such as the role of child, parent, student, employee, spouse, citizen, and child of God.
Other personas are expressions of our own interpretation of the personalities of significant
others in our lives. So a person's personality might include a persona remarkably like her father,
her mother, her aunt, her favorite teacher, and so forth. All of these personas are intricately
linked to each other, and are governed by the "self" which determines for us which part of ourself
acts at any particular moment. Thus my "self" chooses appropriate behavior for attending
church, cleaning the kitchen, or relating to a child.
The development of human personality is vitally important and valuable. After all, the human
personality is the way we relate to others, and the way we organize our thoughts, feelings,
actions and goals. The human personality is so important that nature has designed ways to
protect us from extreme blows to that structure, blows that might cause permanent destruction of
a human development that has taken years of a person's life to create.
The human personality is under-rated and under-valued. It is second only to "self" in importance,
which is in turn second only to God in value. One of nature's protections of personality is the
process of grief, during which the brain insulates itself from unbearable stress. Sudden stress,
dynamically impacting the consciousness, such as the death of a loved one, or severe calamity,
could cause deterioration of the personality. So we see that the personality is preserved during
overwhelming stress by a blunting of experience. Grieving people are observed to have
problems with concentration. Grief means that we cannot think of two things at a time, or that our
concentration is so poor that we cannot remember the details of our daily experience. Grief
delays the capacity for goal-directed behavior. All of this prevents the personality from shattering
under extreme stress. It is nature's blessing and should be respected as God-given.
The human personality is dependent for its existence on boundaries. The self makes choices
because we have an understanding of the parts of ourselves. I write because my self can direct
the writer in me to act. I abstain from talking loudly in church because the self knows which part
of me can sit quietly.
For that reason, an assault on personal boundaries is a potential destruction of personality. The
lives of fat people are a long history of corruption of boundaries by parents, and later by portions
of the adult world as well. When a parent views a child as an extension of herself, she is saying,
"You are an extra set of legs and arms to me. I will be the brain for both of us. My goals are your
actions. My feelings are your experiences." The child is denied existence as a discreet entity
with its own brain, heart and soul.
This history so far includes a long list of boundary violations. They have included force feeding, a
violation second only to sexual assault, because it literally invades the body space. But boundary
violations also occur in depriving a child the right to think for herself, to feel her own feelings, to
take care of basic bodily needs, to make decisions, to love selectively according to one's own
values, to create, to be curious, to learn, and to set limits. A human being who has no right to set
limits on others and to say no to boundary violations has no possibility of normal maturity and
growth.
Fat is symbolically a protection against boundary violations. It says "you can force-feed my body,
but you cannot dominate my soul". You can sexually abuse me, but while you do it, my spirit will
be absent. You can hurt me until I can't bear the feelings of pain, but my fat will insulate me from
your hurtful intentions. You can damage my body, but I will separate myself from my body, and I
will survive.
But fat is also a hallmark of unresolved grief. Grief is about loss. And every denial of
personhood during childhood creates a state of grief. The mind is numbed to the excessive
stress; if the stress is continued long enough the personality will lose its resilience, its elasticity,
its ability to bounce back from stress. Creativity, originality, curiosity and ambition can be lost in
the effort to survive boundary violations. But survive we do. And that is something to be proud of.
If our body provided us with a symbolic refuge from boundary violations, then we must learn to
honor our bodies for the relief it afforded us. Our body did not harm us; it saved us.
No person recovers from fatness without healing the damage of boundary violations first. There
can be no effective weight loss without this necessary growth process. One must learn who he
is, including what he values and what he wants. Then that person must learn to set limits on
people who block the fulfillment of needs and achievement of personal goals. The recovered
person learns to say "no", first to others, then to impulses to eat, and then finally to fatness itself.
There is no shortcut. It is a long, hard, painful, time-consuming, and uncertain effort. It is an
adventure that may not have a happy ending. The thing that makes it worth doing has nothing
whatever to do with having a slim body. It has everything to do with having the right to be a
complete and healthy person, able to be happy and creative, able to love and be loved, and able
to build one's life consistent with God's intentions for us.
| Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name;you are mine. Isaiah 43:1b NIV Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord... Jeremiah 29:12-14 NIV |
© Copyright by Nancy Carter, LCSW, ACSW
Boundaries
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