HEALTHY BOUNDARIES
• You can say no or yes, and you are ok when others say no to you.
• You have a strong sense of identity. You respect yourself.
• You expect reciprocity in a relationship—you share responsibility and power.
• You know when the problem is yours and when it belongs to someone else.
• You share personal information gradually in a mutually sharing/trusting relationship.
• You don’t tolerate abuse or disrespect.
• You know your own wants, needs and feelings. You communicate them clearly in your
relationships.
• You are committed to and responsible for exploring and nurturing your full potential.
• You are responsible for your own happiness and fulfillment. You allow others to be
responsible for their own happiness and fulfillment.
• You value your opinions and feelings as much as others.
• You know your limits. You allow others to define their limits.
• You are able to ask for help when you need it.
• You don’t compromise your values or integrity to avoid rejection.
COLLAPSED BOUNDARIES
• You can’t say no, because you are afraid of rejection or abandonment.
• Your identity consists of what you think others want you to be. You are a chameleon.
• You have no balance of power or responsibility in your relationships. You tend to be either
overly responsible and controlling or passive and dependent.
• You take on other’s problems as your own.
• You share personal information too soon. . .before establishing mutual trust/sharing.
• You have a high tolerance for abuse or being treated with disrespect.
• Your wants needs and feelings are secondary to others’and are sometimes determined by
others.
• You ignore your inner voice and allow others expectations to define your potential.
• You feel responsible for other’s happiness and fulfillment and sometimes rely on your
relationships to create that for you.
• You tend to absorb the feelings of others.
• You rely on others opinions, feelings and ideas more than you do your own.
• You allow others to define your limits or try to define limits for others.
• You compromise your values and beliefs in order to please others or to avoid conflict.
RIGID BOUNDARIES
• You are likely to say no if the request involves close interaction.
• You avoid intimacy (pick fights, stay too busy, etc.)
• You fear abandonment OR engulfment, so you avoid closeness.
• You rarely share personal information.
• You have difficulty identifying wants, needs, feelings.
• You have few or no close relationships. If you have a partner, you have very separate lives and
virtually no shared social life.
• You rarely ask for help.
• You do not allow yourself to connect with other people and their problems.