Setting boundaries & building walls. Are they the same? How could they be different? At first glance, these phrases seem interchangeable. Let’s explore the subtle yet profound difference between the two.
Building Walls In The Dark
Why do we build walls anyway? Safety. We build walls to feel safe. We may cognitively know we have walls up and still not be able to see the complete picture. The imagery I see is the walls of a fortress made of concrete or steel. The atmosphere is cold & dark. There is a fog floating just outside the fortress, distorting the view. We know we are inside and safe, but there’s something wrong. Our world feels small, and we are bracing for impact that may come from any direction.
We do not heal in the same isolation that compelled us to hide away from the world. We experienced something painful and confusing, and then we were left alone in that pain. We ended up developing a grim outlook on the world and assumed everything and everyone we loved would eventually leave us or hurt us in some way. Our experiences of the world were harsh and cold, which shattered our trust in ourselves and others. We locked ourselves away so that we might survive for another day, when the world might be brighter.
What Walls Look Like
- I can’t trust anyone.
- I wait for someone to let me down.
- I keep score of how others fail me.
- I tell my trauma story the same way over and over.
- I use my pain as armor to build my walls.
I intentionally started building my walls made of steel when I asked to go to therapy, and my mother denied me. “Oh, you don’t need that,” she said. Since I felt like I wasn’t allowed to have issues, I began to bury my pain even further. I chose to make my walls even stronger. I didn’t want to be abandoned again, so I just started abandoning myself even more than I already was. I was only an adolescent in the throes of middle school, and I was trying to navigate repeatedly being let down by my birth mother during this time.
When the Walls Crumble
When I was younger, I assumed that I was the problem. Since adoption is seen as a celebration, I was isolated in my loneliness and feelings of unworthiness. I didn’t dare even think to myself that maybe the problem wasn’t actually me. Turns out I was having a normal reaction to a very not normal situation, as so many of us adoptees experience our own version of this.
It wasn’t until I was in trauma therapy in my thirties that I began to truly understand how mistrustful I was of everything around me. As we know, we can’t control what happened to us, but we can choose how we respond. Slowly, my walls began to fall. I could feel all the cracks and the rubble around me. I started to feel even crazier because I had stopped accepting my grim worldview of complete darkness. I had not yet built what came next. I was meeting myself in the dark and allowing myself to see my own light for the first time. I was taking responsibility for my behaviors that kept me isolated. I learned who I wanted to show up as in the world. I decided what I would and would not accept from others. It wasn’t a quick process, but it was a profound one. I was forging a new path that once upon a time, I didn’t even believe was possible for me. In my lost years, a question would pop into my mind every so often. “What if my life could be different?” The vision of the woman I saw seemed so far away. “But what if I could be her?”
My worldview was so distorted. I didn’t trust anyone because I didn’t trust myself. As I walked into my inner dark forest over and over again, guided by my therapist, slowly my view began to change. I was able to approach life a little more openly than before. I was able to have more clarity. Slowly, I began showing up in the world more and making different connections.
Bringing boundaries into the light
I started to trust myself, which led to more trust in others. My nightmares faded. My hypervigilance softened. I found myself able to open up rather than be closed off. Every encounter wasn’t great—far from it—but I could see and feel myself changing. And that was something to be grateful for.
Boundaries are about connection, not separation. Boundaries help us keep relationships. Not all of them, of course. Some relationships have seasons, and some are toxic or abusive, and I will never say you should try to stick those out. But for the relationships that we either need or want, boundaries are how we keep connection with others without losing ourselves.
What Boundaries Look Like
- I use discernment to know whether someone feels trustworthy or not.
- I trust myself to handle what comes.
- I realize the behavior of others is about them, not me. I can shift my expectations of people based on their past behavior and respond accordingly to meet my own needs.
- I share parts of my story when safe and relevant. The more I process my past wounds, the less attached I am to keeping my trauma story tethered to me.
- I seek safe support to help me sit with the wound until I feel an internal shift happen.
Different ways to be witnessed
We are wired to belong. Belonging is a biological need. Finding other humans and communities that support us and allow us to be witnessed is vital for expanding into a more healed version of ourselves. Below are different ways and environments that helped me on my own healing journey. What about you? Where have you experienced supportive environments? Or what kind of connection or community do you long for?
- Being celebrated in a community when you make progress in your skills, fitness, or hobbies.
- Processing past wounds with a trauma therapist.
- Being part of a therapeutic group with others who share the same wound/trauma as you.
- Sharing your creativity in a supportive space.
- Being vulnerable with a safe human who meets you where you are.
- Witnessing a part of yourself who has been holding pain and fear.
Lasting Thoughts
Which category do you find yourself in? Building walls or creating boundaries? Does it depend on the environment? Maybe at work or socially, you have boundaries yet still have walls with family? Do you feel a sense of a before and an after when it all started to shift, or are you embarking on that shift now? It’s an interesting way to think about how you are participating in your life.
I hope you have found some insights, inspiration, & validation. Explore with curiosity and meet yourself with compassion. It’s never too late to start making small shifts.
Talk soon,
Stephanie
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