Setting Healthy Boundaries for Chronic Pain

Setting healthy boundaries is another key way to practice self-care, especially when you live with chronic pain. Boundaries make your expectations clear, with yourself and others. They are an excellent way to communicate your limits, how you’d like to be treated, and what your values are.

Chronic pain vastly impacts physical and mental energy, social battery, and free time. Creating boundaries with your loved ones and yourself can help you better manage your relationships, time, and energy. 

This article will define boundaries and emphasize their importance for people living with pain. Additionally, you will learn the basics of setting clear boundaries.

What is a healthy boundary?

Boundaries help define what behaviors are acceptable to you. This could be in terms of your emotions, time, space, energy, health, etc. Although boundaries are not meant to control others, they do help communicate what your expectations are, and how you plan to behave as well.

It is possible to have unhealthy or inappropriate boundaries. For example, if your boundaries lead to you being completely socially isolated, or if they cause harm to others (e.g., forbidding a partner to have female friends), they are unhealthy.

Healthy boundaries will be clear and flexible and prioritize your wellbeing, without causing unnecessary harm to others.

Example:

“I have set a boundary with my mother who calls my phone non-stop until I pick up. I kindly let her know that this causes me stress and acts as a big distraction at work. I communicated my expectations: If I don’t pick up, please leave me a voicemail and I will call you back as soon as I can. Please do not call again if I haven’t answered your voicemail yet. I understand you worry, or need to talk to me, but I will make an effort to try to call you back as quickly as I can without disrupting my day.”  

This boundary shares the person’s expectations, and outlines how they will behave as well. It is centered around how the unwanted behavior makes them feel, without being accusatory. 

Why are healthy boundaries critical for people with chronic pain?

As you may know, living with pain makes managing time, energy, emotions, and relationships difficult. It’s so important to protect your energy—when your energy is depleted by others, there isn’t any left to take care of yourself. 

Along with protecting yourself, boundaries can help you communicate your limits to your loved ones. It can help them better understand what your needs are. For example, if your family knows that you need to leave the family function early to rest due to your pain, then they won’t be upset when you miss dessert or don’t stay to help clean. 

Healthy boundaries for people with chronic pain work to save the large amounts of energy needed to manage pain effectively.

Here are some examples of pain-related boundaries:

• I can’t play on the floor because of my back pain; but I’m happy to do an activity with you at the table.
• I will leave at 9pm so I can get a good night’s sleep.
• I’m not comfortable with others touching my mobility aid without my consent.
• I won’t be attending if people are not willing to wear a mask; but, I’m happy to video call.

How to Set a Healthy Boundary

First, reflect on where you may need boundaries. Is there anything in your life that is adding extra stress or sucking up your time? How might a boundary help improve your situation?

Considering why you need a boundary, how a boundary might help, and your overall expectations, kindly communicate this boundary with whoever is involved. Feel free to explain your reasoning; however, some boundaries don’t need an explanation. For example, you shouldn’t have to explain why being touched inappropriately makes you uncomfortable. 

When communicating a boundary, use “I” language as much as possible. This makes the boundary more about you and less about the person you are enforcing the boundary with. The receiver may be more responsive and understanding if the boundary is not accusatory towards them. For example: “I would appreciate it if you would leave me one voicemail instead of phoning multiple times in a row. I get distracted at work and it makes me feel stressed.” is less aggressive than “Please stop calling a thousand times, you are stressing me out. I wish you wouldn’t bother me so much while I’m trying to work.” 

After communicating a boundary, it’s important that you are consistent. It may take the receiver a couple of tries before understanding your expectations fully. Remind them of your boundary and how you’d like to be treated if they cross the boundary. If they are consistently crossing your boundary, you should have another serious conversation about it, explaining how their behavior has made you feel. If they continue to cross boundaries, it might be helpful to work with a professional. Alternatively, you can decide to cut ties with this person if they continue to disrespect your boundaries.

Here is a basic template you can use to communicate your boundary:

I feel ____ when you ____. For this reason, I’ve decided to only allow/not allow ______. If this behavior continues, I will have to ____. These are my expectations: _____. I’m hoping to work with you to maintain this relationship, I’m happy to talk about this more with you if you’d like. Thank you for listening.

In Conclusion…

In summary, healthy boundaries can help protect your time, energy, and health, especially when you have chronic pain. Creating healthy boundaries that are clear, appropriate, and solutions-based is a necessary skill for people with chronic pain. They can improve relationships with yourself and others!

If you’d like to learn more about supporting your mental health, consider taking our free eLearning course: Supporting Your Mental Health. This course discusses several ways to take care of your mental wellbeing, including seeking help, building strong relationships, taking care of your health, goal setting, and fostering a healthy relationship with yourself. 

For more free chronic pain resources, check out the I-Engage Academy!

References:

Carrol, A. (2021). 5 Ways to Practice Setting Healthy Boundaries in your 20’s. Healthy Humans Project. Retrieved from: here.

Kelp, C. (2021). Healthy Boundaries. Complex Chronic Illness Support. Retrieved from: here. 

Mulder, J. (2022). Living with Limitations: How to Set Healthy Boundaries and Communicate Them. The Health Sessions. Retrieved from: here.

Pattemore, C. (2021). 10 Ways to Build and Preserve Better Boundaries. PyschCentral. Retrieved from: here.