Boundaries: Can Someone Build Walls Around Themselves If They Were Abused As A Child?

What someone may find, if they were to reflect on their life, is that it is hard for them to get close to others. In general, they may prefer to keep their distance and only have surface-level connections.
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Due to this, they could often feel lonely and yearn to have closer connections with others. Naturally, only getting so close to others is going to deprive them of the depth that they crave.

Empty Interactions

When they are around others, then, they could typically talk about what they have been doing and perhaps what they plan to do. Along with this, they could talk about what has been taking place in the media and current affairs.

During this time, most of their needs and feelings will be covered. In other words, they won’t reveal their true self and this is why they won’t be able to deeply connect to another or others.

Keeping a Distance

In addition to hiding their true self in most cases around another or others, they could also spend a lot of time in their own company. Being away from others could be something that feels very comfortable.

When they do feel lonely, they could often end up doing something to disconnect from how they feel. By consuming something or engaging in a certain activity, it could soon be removed from their conscious awareness.

A Painful Time

If there has been at least one moment when they have let someone get close to them and revealed their true self, this may have been a time when they were deeply wounded. They may have ended up in a relationship with someone who ended up harming them in some way.

Either way, something would have taken place that caused them to close up again and go back to how they were before. At this point, they may have decided to never let anyone into their life again.

Enough, Is Enough

However, although this would have been a time when they were deeply hurt, they might have gotten to the point where they want to experience life differently. This doesn’t mean that the thought of opening up and revealing who they are doesn’t cause them to feel scared and experience fear and anxiety.

No, what it means is that part of them is no longer willing to tolerate living in this way. As a result of this, they will probably have the need to look for a way to experience life differently, and this may cause them to look for answers.

The Reason

If they were to do this, they could end up coming to the conclusion that they are this way because they have been hurt in the past. Therefore, if they were not hurt by their previous partner or perhaps a number of partners, along with the other people who have hurt them throughout their adult years, they would be different.

Nonetheless, if they were to go back in time, to before they had been hurt, they may find that they still had the need to keep their distance. It could then seem as though they were born this way.

Going Deeper

If they were to think about their childhood years, this could be a time when their mind goes blank. They might not be able to remember anything about this stage of their life, or they could say that it wasn’t that bad.

What this could show is that their brain has blocked out what took place in order to protect them. This could show that their early years were brutal, to say the least, with this being a time when they were physically, emotionally and verbally abused, as well as being neglected.

Defenceless

As they were totally powerless and dependent, they wouldn’t have been able to defend themselves or run away. Their only option was to repress how they felt and to disconnect from themselves.

This would have stopped them from being aware of what was going on but it wouldn’t have changed it. If there was another option, it might have been for them to isolate themselves from their family.

A Natural Outcome

Being mistreated by the people who were supposed to love, protect, care and look after them would have deeply wounded them. Every part of their being would have been impacted by what took place.

They would have come to believe that the only way to protect themselves and ensure their survival was to keep their distance. Ultimately, human contact would have been seen as a threat and something that they had to avoid.

It’s Over

Now that they are an adult, they are no longer defenceless as they can assert themselves or walk away from someone or a situation that is harmful. But, as a big part of them is in a developmentally stunted and traumatised state, they won’t know this at the core of their being.

To use an analogy: they will be like a castle that has had many, many walls built to protect it and while this was necessary at one point in time, not only will the battles and the wars be over but this whole era will also be over. But, while this is so, this won’t be something that their being can fully accept.

Awareness

If someone can relate to this and they are ready to change their life, they may need to reach out for external support. This is something that can be provided with the assistance of a therapist or healer.