Thank you so much for taking the time to respond, this was very very helpful. And you are so right that I should not be sorry for putting my mental health first and protecting it - that is something I should always remember and I will need to work a bit on that. I will remind myself of this every day. Thanks 🥰 you sound like you have come a long way and I want to say massive congratulations on this as I know how much hard work it takes. You should be very proud of yourself.

I have for my whole life always put others first and I always think of the impact of my actions or words on someone else, so much more than anyone else I know - even although I have come so so far in the last few months, I can still spend days writing a text message making sure I have analysed every word and thought of all the different ways that the person receiving it may interpret it - it’s exhausting and takes up a lot of energy. Then I panic after sending it until I have had a response.

I have only just found out about boundaries and I’m trying to convince myself that it’s ok to have them. I had very few boundaries before and I have for my whole life always put myself out for others, at the detriment of my own mental health. I’m still uneasy at setting and sticking to boundaries but I’m actively working hard on that.

I have taken the useful steps since July in removing myself temporarily from people or situations that are damaging to my mental health (most of the people unknowingly do this and don’t do it out of badness). I’m working on my responses to the situations that impact my mental health just now and that’s going to take time - my aim is to get to a place where I am comfort setting boundaries, and comfortable in dealing with situations where people don’t respect my boundaries - it’s hard work but I’m putting a lot of effort in. I removed one person from my life more permanently who overstepped many of my boundaries, not just one. I chose to remove them mainly because they didn’t see the issue in what they had done and took zero accountability for any of their actions or the impact of their actions/words. I took accountability for my part in it - which was a big step for me in taking accountability ‘for my part in it’ as usually my brain tells me I’m 100% to blame and this is how my whole life has been until now. It took about 8 weeks of therapy sessions for me to process the impact of this situation. this is the first time I’ve protected myself like this but I had to and I’m proud now that I had the courage to do so. I have no regrets.

One of my current issues (and there are still a few, but much less than a year ago) is with one other friend in particular who just won’t give me the space I’m asking for to allow me to continue my journey. And she has made me feel so guilty for asking for this space - maybe not intentionally but when she contacts me I always feel so much guilt afterwards as I haven’t been there for her the last 6 months, and then that turns to anger that she has this effect on me and that I can’t stop my Brain from thinking this way yet. How do you learn to really put yourself first and not to worry too much about the impact on other people whilst you do this? I’d be really interested in hearing any thought processes or tools that you have used to allow this part of the journey to progress. Thanks