Made it through the first part of my workbook!

I finally made it through the first chapter of my workbook, writing out my codependent history of childhood abuses and how I reacted to them then versus how I react or act out on them now. It's a milestone for me, because it was long and hard to do emotionally and I frequently had to put it off to deal with the emotions that it brought up. Now I'm on to the next part, where I begin to work on boundary issues. Boundaries have always been troublesome for me, because I didn't really have any. Instead of proper functional boundaries I had either tall brick walls or a complete lack of walls.
When I sense that I have crossed another's boundary or my own boundaries have been crossed, or more accurately when I sense I should have a boundary where I didn't, this causes a shame or guilt conflict within me which leads to an anxiety reaction.

I'll quote from the book to better describe boundaries...

Functional adults use intact, flexible boundaries to protect themselves externally and internally and to keep from transgressing the boundaries of and authentically offending others....
The external boundary system is an invisible and symbolic "fence" that we can use to keep people from coming too close to our bodies and keep us from crowding others physically. The external boundary system has two subparts: the physical and the sexual boundaries....
The internal boundary system functions like a filter to protect our thinking, feelings, and behavior. People who have healthy internal boundaries know that they are responsible for what they think, feel, and do, and that no one else makes the think, feel, or do anything. People with impaired internal boundaries blame others for what they think, feel, or do, and on the other hand they often inappropriately take responsibility for the the thoughts, feelings, and behavior of others. People with impaired internal boundaries either can't say no to others and are constantly used or abused, or they put up inflexible walls and can't let anyone get close to them emotionally.

Quoted from Pia Mellody and Andrea Wells Miller from Breaking Free: A Recovery Workbook for Facing Codependence.

So without healthy boundaries, I am unable to experience my own reality. The reality of others is imposed upon me, or I impose my reality on others in an immoderate way. Kind of like over-reacting or under-reacting. I'm excited about working through this, this next chapter is long but the book has been doing a great job for me so far and from flipping through the next chapter I can see that this will really teach me some good, healthy and functional behaviors.