TPND, I never realized you were 17. You are exactly right about being sent back to that 10 year old today. All of us had/have to grow up emotionally here. You can do it. It just takes time figuring out what needs to be worked on and how to work on it. I'm sure that you being sent back to the 10 year old is what is getting in your way of enforcing your boundaries. If you could just stop that triggering response. I stopped all my triggered responses by working on each one while it was happening. I would make myself stop and focus on what exactly was going on at that moment and tell myself that I was being triggered into the past and that I could learn how to stop it. It is basically making the unconscious conscious. This takes out the automatic responses and gives you the control back.

It is more difficult that these people are all around you. You are trying to give them the messages that are good for you but it seems like they are trying to pull you back into it. You are doing a good job with Rich. Don't think that you are not. You are enforcing that boundary. I guess you just want him to stop but you don't have control over that.