I'm generalizing, assuming we're all similar, but hopefully this resonates a little.

People have agency over their own resources.

When others exert agency over your resources without your informed willful compliance, this crosses boundaries, which means it is abusive.

I repeat. Abuse can be defined as crossing boundaries.

The thing that is hard to put our finger on is where the boundaries are between them and us. We also lack the internal resources that others might have. These internal resources include: self-awareness, self-regulation, self-trust, self-efficaciousness.

And so, we often enmesh with others. We utilize their resources as if they were our own. We merge. We define ourselves using the internal resources of other people. We are incentivised to cross boundaries to gain access to others' abilities of reality checking and emotion regulation, and we become dependent on them like a plant growing on a wall. And when you remove the wall, the plant structurally fails. We use others like a surrogate mother, which is inappropriate for an adult relationship.

Now, the real hitter is that this is unconscious. We didn't separate-individuate properly. We therefore did not move into a paradigm of understanding boundaries and mentalization about ourselves and others the way we should have.

So, we *naturally act as if* there is no separation between ourselves and others, which is a covert contract. We create a strong sense of obligation, or imposition on others. We naturally disrespect their boundaries in an attempt to get our needs met, which we cannot meet ourselves.

For example, trauma dumping. We have a problem, we can't solve it ourselves, so we ask someone else to do our job for us, distracting them from their job.

It's very draining for others for us to divert their resources away from themselves and onto our issues which are not their responsibility.

And that pushes people away.

Part of healing for me is asking "where ought agency lay?". Making this understanding obvious. Marinade in it, seep it into your bones. Grow strong without relying on others, and stand on your own.

We are often operating from the unconscious belief that we are entitled to use the internal resources of others for ourselves. It's like opening someone's lunch box and taking their sandwich and then being surprised when they're mad. Well, you were hungry, you can't get your own food, but it doesn't mean it's fine by others for you to just take theirs, or impose on theirs.

The way forward is developing self-sufficiency. Dissolving the narratives of helplessness and victimhood. Using therapy and whatever we can to gain inch by inch our strength.

Just like a plant growing on a wall, when you remove the wall it falls down. That plant didn't grow strong on its own like some others. But you can correct it slowly. And that doesn't happen instantly. It just takes time. You're the plant. Develop the agentive (not victimhood) part of *yourself* that gives the plant the support it needs to gradually support itself. An internal friend. An internal adult.