Do you like dinosaurs? I sure do. In fact, I was just watching Jurassic Park the other day (for probably the fortieth time) when one particular scene struck me as the basis for a mental health “teachable moment.”

The scene takes place early in the film. While touring the park, Mr. Hammond, his scientific experts, and the blood-sucking lawyer visit the raptor enclosure. (You know the scene I mean. Remember the grisly cow death?) Discussing the safety precautions that Jurassic Park has taken to protect its visitors, the game warden describes how the raptors like to attack the electric fences. They are not doing it because they are stupid— quite the opposite. These logical, intelligent creatures are methodically testing the fences to detect electrical weaknesses that might facilitate their escape. It’s all part of an experiment. And when they spot weaknesses, “they remember” (Spielberg, 1993, 0:34:25).

So how do snarling raptors hurling themselves at electric fences relate to mental health? Well …

It All Comes Down to Boundary-Building

When our psychological fences are weak, we often find it difficult to protect ourselves from outsiders who push too hard and invade the territory of our lives to which they are not entitled entrance. According to psychiatrist Abigail Brenner (2015), “Most people will respect your boundaries when you explain what they are and will expect that you will do the same for them; it’s a two-way street. Not so with people who don’t understand where you end and they begin. Chances are people who try to invade your space are not thinking about you or how pushing the limits of your boundaries will affect you.”

While some people violate boundaries maliciously, many intruders simply don’t understand that what they are doing constitutes a ‘boundary violation’. Take, for instance, a child who constantly presses your buttons— over-talking, interrupting, shouting, throwing plates of spaghetti at the kitchen wall, walking in on you while you’re in the shower, the works. Enraging as this behavior is, it is helpful to look at the situation objectively. The child’s behavior, though certainly annoying, is actually a sign of cognitive development (Boardman, 2020). Testing boundaries is part of a child’s learning experience. After all, none of us enter the world knowing the “dos and don’ts” of society; we must be taught. Like the raptor testing the fence, the child is experimenting to see which buttons are and are not acceptable to push. The more consistently we teach children what lines they may or may not cross, the easier it becomes for them to respect boundaries without our explicit direction. And the better they understand the boundaries of others, the easier it becomes for them to build their own boundaries.

It is Our Responsibility to Teach Others How to Treat Us

Oftentimes when you deal with a friend, colleague, or family member who repeatedly tests your fences, what you are actually seeing is a full-grown version of the spaghetti-flinging child— someone who missed their boundary lessons earlier in life and has consequently never fully grasped how the fence-system works. Frustrating though it often feels to deal with these people, we have an obligation to ourselves to electrify our fences in a way that will teach others to respect our “dos and don’ts” without causing serious harm to them or (hopefully) the relationship. To paraphrase Dr. Phil, it is our responsibility to teach others how to treat us (McGraw, 2014). In doing so, we protect our own mental health and take control of our lives. Not only is this beneficial for us, but we are actually doing something positive for the boundary violators. (Chances are, if they are violating your boundaries, they are doing the same thing to a lot of other people and are probably wondering why so many of their relationships are dysfunctional.)

It is important to emphasize that, in boundary-setting, we are not actively seeking to hurt the ones who test our fences. (In fact, sometimes we actually like our raptors. When they’re not threatening to emotionally devour us, our raptors are cool!) We certainly don’t want them running amok in our emotional ‘dino-parks’, but we don’t want to use our fences to fry them. Sometimes finding the balance between the two options is difficult (thus the reason I refer to it as a “delicate art”), but the healthier our boundaries, the happier we will become with our interpersonal relationships.

We add electric volts to our emotional fences, not to cause pain or to ‘be mean’, but to protect both ourselves and the ones testing us. In doing so, we become self-empowered. Moreover, we perform an act of kindness for others. Because let’s get real. If the raptors have free rein in your park, it is only a matter of time before your inner ‘Angry T-Rex’ emerges with a vengeance. If that happens, the raptors will probably get their heads bitten off. It will be very unpleasant for all parties involved. And at the end of the day, nobody wants to deal with that. Least of all you, the kindly gatekeeper.

Courtesy: Gwendolyn Brown, M.S..

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