ALL OR NOTHING WALLS

Growing up in an environment where your personal boundaries 🚧 were repeatedly violated was pivotal—it taught you that the limits between family members simply didn't exist. When you tried to create distance or say no, you were punished, rejected, or made to feel guilty—so you learned that a complete merging with the others' needs was the only way to avoid rejection. But that felt suffocating and dangerous, so you'd swing to the opposite extreme—putting up walls and shutting everyone out. But that created guilt, loneliness, and fear of being left behind, pulling you back into enmeshment.

This exhausting cycle became your survival strategy: togetherness felt safer than rejection, but eventually the suffocation would feel worse than being alone. Your nervous system learned that the middle ground—healthy boundaries—was a luxury you just couldn't imagine with your family. The way you struggle with closeness and distance with your partners isn't a flaw; it's the result of a childhood spent ping-ponging between two impossible choices and never having experienced what a secure parent-child attachment feels like.