julia childs-heyl
“What I’ve learned is that the people in my life who need boundaries, don’t want boundaries. The people in my life who don’t need boundaries are already aware of natural boundaries.”
I’ve realized it’s on me to take care of myself.
And of course, in a perfect world, I’d be safe with everyone who’s in my life — family relationships, friends, love, whatever. . . But it’s just not how it is.
So it’s meant really setting up plans for myself when I know I’m entering a triggering situation.
When I know a conversation, a family affair, whatever it might be - might be hard on me. Making sure that I limit my time. Reaching out to close friends, mentors, whoever. Letting them know “hey, I’m doing xyz this weekend. I don’t know - it might be kind of hard for me. Can I call you on my drive down and my drive back?”
Just making sure that I have that buffer and giving myself a day to recover after I do anything that I know is going to be difficult.
If I want a number of my relationships to be a part of my life, I have to be willing to compromise and I have to be willing to do the work.
And if I’m not willing to do the work, I can’t be in that relationship.
So that also means I’ve had to end friendships where I’m like - I deeply love this person. I’m so thankful for the time we’ve had but I’m also not willing to constantly have to set up boundaries and restrictions around how we communicate and give myself time to recover because that’s too taxing. And then having to have really open conversations with people being like,
“I send you off with love. but I send you off.”
And it’s hard but I think because I do struggle with depression and anxiety and because I do have historical trauma in my life,
I just don’t want to be in a state of survival anymore. I really want to enjoy my life.
And because of that, I’ve had to accept that the enjoyment comes with doing the work.
It comes with constantly being open and sometimes it means that it turns out I’m a bitch and people are angry because I’m always setting boundaries or it’s like, “oh, there’s rules.” But I’ve come to accept that because of all the things that make me who I am and my unique experiences, I’m not for everyone.
Getting comfortable with that has also made it a lot easier to not take it to heart when I do set a boundary and someone hates it and tells me that I’m awful because that does happen.
SOMETHING ELSE I’VE REALIZED IS THAT 99.9% OF THE TIME, SOMEONE ELSE’S REACTION USUALLY HAS TO DO WITH THEM.
Maybe I’m triggering something in them. I’m bringing up something for them that’s been really hard. Maybe they’ve been left a lot before in their lives.
also knowing when to be like, “Hey, I understand this is hard for you. Here are resources I’ve used - maybe you want to utilize them but I can’t be the person to help you.”
It also means that I have to be really careful with how I have these conversations.
Because I can’t walk into them with anger. Sometimes that means I can’t talk to people for awhile. I have to get really clear on my feelings because I don’t get to just unload all my stuff because of the cards I’ve been dealt and now you have to take it. I really have to come with love and respect and be as kind as possible knowing it might be difficult subject matter.
I couldn’t do it without therapists. That’s someone who’s really objective. I could talk to so many of my loved ones and they’re not necessarily going to give me the best advice.
with a therapist, they know my patterns. They can call me on my shit and help me take contrary action even if I don’t want to. And I get to go into the anger, the hurt feelings, the depression, the anxiety - with a safe person.
A huge reason I wanted to pursue becoming a therapist is because as a woman of color, I felt that therapy was more stacked against us.
Out of all the therapists in the world, 5% are black women. So when I think about intergenerational trauma within the black community, for me it’s been really important to speak with someone who’s black or biracial so we can connect on things that come up that might trigger me. And it’s different for every single culture. I have hope that overall cultural competency within therapists will get better.
I was able to see a low income therapist at first which was $35 per session. But that’s still $140 a month. That was the lowest they could offer and that was tight for me at the time.
I can’t imagine if I hadn’t been able to receive that help.
That’s another reason I pursued social work as a route to therapy because I do think that having competent, fantastic therapists who do incorporate mindfulness, who are aware of generational trauma and having social services that can help, is so key.
Therapy can look like so many different things and sometimes it’s just holding space for someone and what they’re going through. It’s not that common to have that. I think you’re privileged if you have a healthy and clear person to hold space for you.
I have hope that within my lifetime, the conversation around mental health will change. I think people are coming to terms with the fact that unfortunately, PTSD is everywhere. And we can’t move forward ignoring our traumas.
I really hope at the very least, one day my children will have the option to seek out mental health care services regardless of what their checkbook looks like.
Self-respect
for me means honoring
my power and autonomy
as an individual.
It’s prayer.
It’s being in touch with myself
and knowing who I am
and reminding myself of that.
And standing in my power doesn’t mean that things always go my way. It simply means that no one has control.
I don’t have control.
Something bigger than me has control and that’s the most powerful thing to be connected to - knowing that I can’t really control this.
There’s so many day to day decisions where I’m like, I can’t do this on my own. I can’t figure it out. Yes I ask people in my life for help but I also really rely on God (as I understand him… because I’m not Christian) to make those decisions for me.
Something I do often - especially when I’m feeling pretty hopeless is - I think of what my evidence of God is.
I think about the fact that I haven’t had alcohol in over 3 years. I’m in a loving, non-abusive relationship. And I have an apartment I can pay the rent for. Those are all things that to be truthful, growing up, all felt impossible.
I’ve been putting out conscious effort to make contact with something greater than myself for years now.
And it takes time.
SOMETIMES EVIDENCE OF GOD MIGHT LOOK LIKE NOT HAVING A NIGHTMARE LAST NIGHT. OR NOT RUNNING OUT OF GAS ON MY WAY TO A JOB INTERVIEW.
Just that feeling and knowing that I’m taken care of.
Julia Childs-Heyl is a writer and holistic psychotherapist
interview, photos and direction by Lauren Pierce-Bautista
2018. Los Angeles, CA.