Pick Your Poison: Friends or Boundaries?
The Halloween special where you choose your nightmare and I give you the way out
Happy Halloween. Choose your horror: dying alone or getting walked all over.
Door #1: You have no friends.
Door #2: You can’t say no.
This Week’s Double Feature
Look, I don’t usually drop two full episodes in one newsletter, but these topics are too good to separate. So this week you’re getting a Halloween special: two episodes, two different nightmares, and very practical tools for both.
Think of it like “choose your own adventure” but make it therapy.
Ready to pick your poison? Here’s what’s waiting for you behind each door...
🚪 DOOR #1: The Friendship Graveyard
You moved to a new city six months ago for that dream job. You’ve been to networking events, joined a book club, tried that hiking meetup group. You smile at your neighbors. You’re friendly at the coffee shop. You have 487 Instagram followers.
And zero people to call when the workweek is over.
Your Friday nights are you, your Netflix queue, and a growing suspicion that everyone else got some secret manual on adult friendship that somehow skipped you entirely. You scroll through photos of friend groups doing brunch and think “how did they all FIND each other?“ Like genuinely, was there a sign-up sheet you missed?
You’re not antisocial. You’re not even that introverted. You’re just... alone. And starting to wonder if maybe the problem is you.
The specific horrors haunting this house:
The phrase “we should hang out sometime!” makes you want to scream because you KNOW it means never
You had a great conversation with someone at that party, exchanged numbers, and then... crickets. Did you text too soon? Wait too long? Come on too strong? What IS the friendship etiquette here?
Everyone else seems to have their “people” and you’re starting to think you missed the friendship formation window that apparently closed sometime after college
You’re having full conversations with your houseplants and honestly they’re better listeners than most humans you’ve encountered lately
Living in this nightmare? Episode 2 has your name on it.
In Why Making Friends as an Adult Feels Impossible (4 Barriers + What Helps), I’m walking you through the exact strategies that helped my clients go from “eating dinner alone for the fourth night this week” to “actually having Friday night plans with people who get them.”
Here’s what I’m giving you:
The proximity problem: Why we lost the natural friendship incubators and how to create artificial ones that actually work
The initiative strategy: How to be the person who goes first without feeling desperate (because someone has to, and it might as well be you)
The comparison trap: Why you’re giving up on potential friendships way too soon and what realistic timelines actually look like
The 10-interaction rule: This one changed everything for my client Jake, who thought he was “bad at friendship” but really just needed to understand how long connection actually takes
The assumption flip: How to act as if you’re wanted instead of treating yourself like a burden nobody asked for
Watch Episode 2 on YouTube • Listen on Apple Podcasts • Listen on Spotify
🚪 DOOR #2: The Boundary Haunted House
You have a reputation for being the helpful one. The reliable one. The one who always shows up. And now you’re completely trapped in that identity like a cage made of everyone else’s expectations.
Your mother calls. You know, you KNOWWW it’s going to derail your entire day. You answer anyway.
Your coworker asks if you can cover their shift. The “yes” is out of your mouth before your brain catches up.
Your friend needs to vent. For the third hour this week. You’re nodding along, making supportive sounds, while internally screaming into the void.
You said yes to helping someone move this weekend even though you desperately need a day to yourself. You agreed to bake cookies for the school fundraiser. You’re on another committee you don’t care about. You can’t remember the last time you did something just because YOU wanted to, not because someone asked.
You’re not even sure what you want anymore because you’ve been living according to everyone else’s needs for so long that your own desires feel like a foreign language you used to speak but can’t quite remember.
The specific horrors haunting this house:
The phrase “can I ask you for a favor?” makes your stomach drop because you already know you’re going to say yes
You’ve tried setting boundaries before but the guilt ate you alive and you caved within 24 hours
You feel guilty for wanting time to yourself, like protecting your energy somehow makes you a selfish terrible person
You’re starting to resent people you genuinely love (not because they’re bad people, but because you keep saying yes when you mean no and that resentment is turning you into someone you don’t recognize)
Everyone thinks you’re so generous and giving and you’re like “no, I’m just terrified of disappointing anyone ever”
You’re completely exhausted and can’t figure out why because “all you did” was help people (spoiler: that’s exactly why)
Living in this nightmare? Episode 4 was made for you!
In Setting Boundaries That Actually Work, I’m breaking down why the boundaries you’ve tried keep crumbling and giving you the exact framework thats helped my clients protect their peace without destroying their relationships.
Here’s what I’m giving you:
The ultimatum mistake: Why you’re confusing boundaries with controlling other people (and why that makes them fail immediately)
The guilt strategy: How to sit with discomfort without letting it make all your decisions—including the 24-hour guilt rule that changes everything
The worthiness foundation: Why you can’t set sustainable boundaries on top of a “my worth = never disappointing anyone” belief system
The enforcement approach: The broken record technique and natural consequences method that make following through feel less brutal
Watch Episode 4 on YouTube • Listen on Apple Podcasts • Listen on Spotify
🎃 Your Mission This Week
Your mission (should you choose to accept it):
Pick the door that’s currently ruining your life
Watch or listen to that episode this week (links above)
Try ONE strategy from it
Come back and tell me what happened
Feeling ambitious? Binge both episodes and make it a proper Halloween double feature of psychological insight and practical tools.
Either way, you don’t have to stay in the haunted house forever.
Happy Halloween. Whatever house you’re living in right now, there’s a way out. 🎃
Now tell me: Which door are you walking through first? Drop a comment below.
Need help now?
These resources can help:
Suicide Prevention Lifeline | SAMHSA National Helpline | The Trevor Project