The kind of parenting we experienced shapes our pattern of how we relate to other people. Trauma destroyed our sense of safety and introduced helplessness to our life. The way we set our boundaries today is often a result of these experiences.
Healthy boundaries help us to keep the good things inside and the bad things outside. They are like a fence around our person and property, with a door where people can knock so we can have a positive exchange with them.
There are some classic patterns how traumatized people manage their boundaries. We usually show a mix of all of them.
Appeasement
This tactic is marked by compliance to whatever is brought to us. We don’t have a fence. Anyone can come and we can’t say no. We actually find ourselves saying “yes“ to all kinds of bad things, because we are afraid that if we don’t, we might be rejected, abandoned or punished. It means that people are left with free access to our resources and we are vulnerable to more abuse.
As a child this was a good tactic to avoid additional problems. Today it is causing us harm. We can learn to put up a fence by practicing a safe “no“ with close friends or other supportive people. That way we can learn that a boundary does not result in punishment or loss of relationship. Only try a “no“ with a more difficult person when you have people who support you with acceptance and love. Trying to enforce a boundary without emotional support to back you up can be overwhelming.
Avoidance
Some people are really good at saying no to the bad and keep that outside, but their boundary is a wall, not a fence, and it also keeps out all the good. They don’t have a door and don’t allow for a positive exchange. Behind a wall is a safe place to live, but it is also very lonely and desperate. We need to avoid or even dissociate our interpersonal needs out of fear of our own vulnerability. It makes it impossible to ask for help.
We can transform our walls into fences by learning trust. To do that we need to open ourselves a little bit and give other people a chance for a small exchange. If we don’t allow them to show us that they are trustworthy we can never have this experience. It can be very scary to reduce a wall and it is ok to take small steps, test the safety of the situation, and adapt our boundary accordingly.
A twist on not allowing the good in is not allowing the bad to get out. We cling to our pain because it is familiar and change is scary. We don’t know who we would be without the pain that defines us. This too is a form of avoidance. We are avoiding healing by raising walls to every attempt to reduce our suffering.
Trust and strong interpersonal connection could help us to carefully loosen our grip on our pain and see what happens. We can’t do it alone.
Control
Here the struggle is not with saying no to the good or yes to the bad, it is with hearing the no of other people and therefore disrespecting their boundary. Control is based on the idea that my desperate problem can be solved if I can make someone else manage it for me. Often this involves our responsibilities, needs and emotions. If we are not yet aware that we are powerful we might try to use manipulation to reduce our feeling of being out of control. Our fear of rejection keeps us from communicating our needs directly, so we try to circumvent other people’s boundary to get access to the good they have.
To get out of this pattern we have to learn to be vulnerable and communicate directly, to knock at other people’s door instead of climbing over their fence. And we need to learn to regulate yourselves when we receive a no. There are more people out there we can ask. And sometimes we can or even should actually take care of it ourselves. We are not powerless to manage ourselves.
Disconnection
With this boundary problem we struggle to respond to a knock on our door and give the good that we could share with other people. Our encounters are not an exchange. We just take without giving. It might look incredibly self-centered or critical and it reflects the boundary issue that is nowadays often called ‘narcissistic’ by people who don’t know what that actually means. People who disconnect from an exchange usually feel a deep sense of shame. They believe that they have nothing good to give. They prefer to withdraw in an attempt to manage their extreme fear of failure.
Practicing empathy can help us to overcome disconnection. It will help us to first connect to the shame and the fear of failure in others so that we can experience that we are not alone with our vulnerability. We can take small steps to reconnect with ourselves, our feelings and then cross the bridge to connect to the feelings of others. A safe emotional connection can encourage us to share more of who we are. We will be surprised that we can add something of value to other people’s lives by sharing ourselves.
We rarely only show one type of boundary issue. Sometimes we have one with our spouse, another with our work and yet another when it comes to our friendships. It is important to become aware of our behavior concerning boundaries to improve our experiences and relationships. Our life will be richer if we live with fences instead of walls and if we have doors and healthy exchanges with other people. It takes time and patience, but we can transform the way we manage our boundaries so that they actually let the good in and keep the bad out while we keep our responsibility with us and share our treasures with the people we choose.
More about myths and misconceptions about boundaries
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