sidony, I think I'm very much like you with respect to boundaries. I'm always worried I'll step on other people's boundaries, so I give them a wide berth. Basically, I think I am just scared of getting rejected. As for setting my own boundaries, my T says I am terrible at it. I feel like I do set boundaries! But people walk all over them, and I don't know how to "enforce" them. I don't like to be an enforcer. So I just get hurt when my boundaries are crossed. I don't know how to make people respect them. The thing is, I've certainly tried the method ECHOES suggested, "when you do this, it makes me scared/mad/hurt, etc." But people just say "tough s**t" or "I don't care." What do you do then? My response has always been to leave the situation or relationship or just to take it but keep my hurt to myself. What else can you do? It hurts to keep setting your boundaries and have people ignore them. So I just give up and become the ever-hurt doormat. This is another thing I wish was in the how-to manual of life they should give you at birth: how to set boundaries and enforce them.

With regard to calling the therapist between sessions, I've always assumed you shouldn't do it except for matters regarding canceling or rescheduling the appointment. With my first counselor, I called quite a bit to cancel my appointments (I was a very unreliable client), but that was it. With my current T, I have never canceled a session and have called only once for other reasons--to tell him how freaked out I was about our most recent session and to reassure him he didn't need to take any action (I had become worried he would do something drastic). I have also called once (a few days ago on Wednesday) to request a session. He never returned that call, so this is just confirmation to me that I have been too needy and crossed his boundaries--that is the message his silence is sending to me. When I'm faced with that rejection, I feel like I will never call again. It's too painful to be rejected like that. Sigh. Boundaries!