What Are Healthy Boundaries?

What are healthy boundaries? Not all boundaries are beneficial. So, how can you tell when the boundaries you’ve set strengthen your growth efforts or when they hem you in, keeping you from others who could support you? To distinguish between a constructive boundary and a toxic one, remember this: Healthy boundaries aren’t walls; they are doors.

Walls are impenetrable barriers, built to remain intact and provide permanent separation. Once a solid wall is constructed, it takes enormous effort to break it down, compared to doors, which provide room for growth and change. A door offers a range of options, from a secure lock to being flung wide open when the situation calls for it.

Constructing a wall places a permanent barricade between you and those you wish to be separated from. At times, that solid wall may seem like the best way to protect yourself, but as walls come up, they do more than act as a barrier between you and that toxic person. Those walls box you in, limiting your existence.

My Escape Story

In 2012, when I fled to a domestic abuse shelter, my psychopathic spouse did everything possible to destroy me. I had built my identity based solely on being a mom to my four children. I placed everything I had into raising them. They were my reason for existence, and my ex knew it.

My ex used his charismatic talents to manipulate everyone around me and carefully wove a thick thread of lies amongst each of my children and other key people. Due to his extreme narcissistic skills, it didn’t take long for those who loved me to fall victim to his lies and turn against me. The effects were devastating. Before long, he had my children pitted against each other and all of them against me.

My ex had them believing in his warped, twisted reality, convincing them that I was the abuser and that I had abandoned them when I fled to the shelter. Mind you, at that time, my three sons were adults, my oldest already married with a child of his own. My youngest, my daughter at age fifteen, had the option to come with me, but chose not to. For more on my escape story, see https://crystalmmhuntley.com/2025/11/why-not-just-leave/.

Lost Hope

While in the shelter, I watched each of my children turn against me, along with many others in our local community. Atrocious false accusations continued to be flung in my direction. It devastated me that everyone believed those outlandish lies, and no one granted me the courtesy of asking my side of the story. They all took my ex’s words as gospel truth without question.

With even my children turning against me, I lost all hope. Everything I had dedicated my life to had been stripped away. Without my children, I felt that I had no purpose. Being wheelchair bound, I drove my electric wheelchair toward the active train tracks that ran just beyond the shelter’s borderline. I fully intended to park on the tracks and wait for the train to remove me from that agonizing emotional pain that I no longer could stand.

Something stopped me. I don’t know for certain what that something was, but I call it God’s loving hand. As I approached those tracks that dark day in my life, for some unexplained reason, I turned around and drove my chair back to the shelter.

Contemplating suicide is all too real for far too many of us. If you or someone you know is at risk, don’t hesitate to seek help. One place to find help is the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (available 24/7/365): https://988lifeline.org/ – 988. Here is a website if you are interested in receiving training on suicide prevention: https://www.soulshopmovement.org/newsletterandblog/interview.

Dark Times

When amid those dark times, it can seem as if that moment of pain will never end. It took a decade of healing for me to move through the pain of losing my children. During that decade, my daughter experienced the deceit and malice behind her father’s actions, which opened her eyes to the truth about him and the danger he presents. She clearly saw how he twisted reality, turning me into a villain while making himself appear like a hero, when in reality he was the villain.

My daughter’s open-eye healing spilled onto her brothers. Each of them had to journey down their own healing path. Today, we share a close bond like never before. I survived that season when I had lost all four of my children, yet today, I have most of them back, along with their spouses and their children, my grandchildren. If I had given in to the temptation to park my wheelchair on those railroad tracks on that dark day in 2012, I would never have experienced the blessings of today—Life with my precious grandchildren and the closeness I share with two of my children today.

Forgiveness Isn’t Forgetting

Considering everything my ex did to me, my children, and my grandchildren, I could easily be justified in forever holding resentment toward him. After all, he irrefutably robbed me of time with those who are most precious to me and severely harmed us all. But choosing resentment would only magnify that harm. Refusing to forgive someone is like being bound by chains of resentment that stunt your growth and interfere with every area of your life.

Forgiveness isn’t forgetting; it’s the holy act of freeing the soul so it can love again. I will never forget the atrocious actions of my ex and all the pain that resulted from them. Remembering what he’s capable of protects me from future harm. But I refuse to let those memories harden me. I forgive what happened, not to pardon him, but to set myself free so I can fully experience the joys of today.

Resentment is like a strong cord connecting you to the perpetrator. Forgiveness severs that cord. When I forgive, I cut myself free from that cord, but it still dangles from the perpetrator. What they choose to do with it is up to them.

To see more Crystalisms, visit https://www.facebook.com/groups/1360983917796761.

From time to time, I find myself wishing that things from my past were different. But I have no control over the past. All I can do is live today and work toward a better future.

I wrote on the back cover of my book, The Hidden Diamond, “To forgive is to give up on the wish for a different past so that we might embrace the present.”

Again, forgiveness is not forgetting; it is not pretending the harm did not happen. It is giving up the wish that it had happened differently. It is accepting what was so that you can live in what is.

Upcoming Posts

I invite you to join me next time on the topic of how habits can get in the way of healing.

Note to My Readers

To further support your healing journey, I’ve added a direct access hotline/resource page to my website. You can view it at https://crystalmmhuntley.com/resources/.

Writing is my passion. It is also an excellent healing tool. The beauty of fiction is that it allows you to create outcomes that don’t exist in the everyday world. This is why I have chosen to write my book in this genre. May all of you who indulge in my written creations find entertainment, enjoyment, and inspiration to move forward in your healing journey.

Hopefully, you have gained value from this blog post. If so, I would like to offer you the opportunity to purchase my books. You can purchase The Hidden Diamond and Robin’s Gift here at BUY THE BOOK – Crystal MM Huntley.

***Robin’s Gift*** – Lost and alone, Natalie’s biggest dream is to fulfill her desire to be loved. A tragic accident calls her home. Can she return and face her greatest fear?

***The Hidden Diamond*** – Immerse yourself in a journey that uncovers the worth of a wounded soul amongst a lifetime of sin.

Post Views: 155

My Escape Story

Lost Hope

Dark Times

Forgiveness Isn’t Forgetting

Upcoming Posts

Note to My Readers

You Might Also Like

A Hidden Link to Survivor’s Guilt.

Find Freedom Through Forgiveness.

Is Something Missing this Christmas?