Boundaries and Gut Punches

It’s taken me an embarrassing number of years and a lot of therapy to learn a lesson I finally learned this week, and it’s this:

If someone keeps punching me in the stomach, it’s my fault. 

There’s a person in my life who SOMETIMES thinks I’m the greatest thing in the entire world. I am loved and adored; I am brilliant, beautiful and funny. Sometimes. And then SOMETIMES, for reasons I can neither predict nor prevent, this same person thinks I’m the most vile piece of garbage who has never in my entire life done one thing right. 

Can’t predict it. 

Can’t prevent it. 

It’s the same psychological trick of a slot machine: the randomness and unpredictability create this almost-uncontrollable urge to keep going back for more and more. 

Will I be praised and adored today?

Or am I going to get verbally punched in the stomach today? 

So why, a sane person might ask themselves, would I keep subjecting myself to the random gut punches (that really aren’t all that random)? Because it feels so dang incredible and amazing to be praised and adored and all the dopamine and whatnot, and THIS TIME COULD BE THE NEXT BIG WIN EEKS! And I LOVE that for myself! CRAVE it. 

But then, there’s a solid chance that I might also get gut-punched. It’s likely, even. I go in with every muscle in my body tensed to prepare for the blow, every time. I psych myself up ahead of time, trying to think through all of the ways I might get punched and my strategy for when I do:

If they say this, I’m gonna say this. 

Or, I’ll tell them about my recent accomplishment and they’ll think I’m amazing and I won’t get punched today. 

Because THIS time I think if I can just do the right dance, I can win this. But just like a slot machine, the odds are decidedly not in my favor. After all these decades, I know this. But all this time, I keep waiting for the slot machine to realize how WRONG it is and to CHANGE. 

I finally realized THIS WEEK, at this advanced mature age, that if the same person keeps punching me in the stomach, it’s MY OWN FAULT. If I were LITERALLY being punched in the stomach over and over again, how dumb would it be to keep opening the front door to this person, exposing my belly, and then being surprised when I get punched?

Letting yourself get gut-punched is not a fruit of the spirit. It doesn’t make you Godlier. It’s not the key to a healthy and fulfilling relationship.