I will add this. Sometimes "line in the sand" is a feeling that we respond to, rather than react to-- not a time, conditions, or circumstance. It is when "enough is enough" to the point where we act in our own behalf.
Lines in the sand are not in books. They are not in other people. They arise or emerge in us. Or more to the point, it's when we finally pay attention, give priority to, or take into account how we feel and what is the cost of what we bear.
It's putting ourselves, our welfare, our feelings into our own lives. A line in the sand is an act, it is an experience, it is an assertion of value. I have value. I am here. I am.
For me it was only tangentially related to some particular conduct or attribute of my child. It was when I allowed myself to pay attention to the cost to myself. It was when I became part of my own story. Until that point, only he was important.
