Let's start with the most rebellious truth about relationships: A clear boundary is not a declaration of war. It is an act of profound love.

You are an expert at contorting yourself to fit the needs of others. You can sense a shift in a room's mood before anyone else. You say "it's no big deal" when it is a very big deal. You have become a human pretzel, bending and twisting to keep the peace, operating on the deep, terrified belief that if you stand up straight for even a second, the entire relationship will shatter.

For you, the "Boundary" is a monster that lives under the bed. It looks sharp, aggressive, and angry. Just thinking about letting it out — saying "no," stating a need, disagreeing — sends a jolt of pure terror through your body. It feels like a guaranteed path to rejection and abandonment. So you keep the monster under the bed, and you continue to twist.

Your Fear of Boundaries is a Brilliant Trauma Response

Your fear of setting boundaries is not a character flaw; it is a brilliant, deeply ingrained trauma response. And the research confirms the mechanism: neuroception is the body's subconscious process of detecting safety, danger, and life threat in the environment, which then determines our autonomic state.

For a nervous system wired with the intense pain of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD), the perceived threat of abandonment feels like a literal survival threat — because to your neuroception, it is. Fawning, or "people-pleasing," is a sophisticated, unconscious strategy your nervous system learned to keep you safe in environments where your authentic needs were not welcome.

And the cost is devastating: masking consequences are overwhelmingly negative. The pretzel-twisting — the chronic suppression of your real needs to perform a version of yourself that feels safe — is the exact behavior that drives burnout, depression, and the loss of identity that brought you here in the first place.

A Field Guide to Boundaries

  • NO BOUNDARY (A Puddle): You don't know where you end and they begin. Leads to resentment and burnout.

  • A WALL (A Fortress): Rigid, punitive, and designed to keep everyone out. Leads to isolation.

  • A FENCE (Your Yard – The Goal): Clear, flexible, and has a gate. It defines your space and allows for safe connection.

A Fence, Not a Wall

You've been taught that a boundary is a wall you build to push people out. This is a lie.

A wall is a tool of isolation, built from fear. A healthy boundary is a fence. It doesn't block the view. It's not angry. It has a gate that you can open and close. It simply marks the edge of your property and says, "This is my yard. This is where I feel safe. To love me well, please don't set up a tent in my flowerbeds."

You are not pushing them away; you are finally showing them the path to get closer to the real you.

The Formula: I feel [YOUR FEELING] when [THEIR ACTION]. I need [YOUR NEED].

The Example: "I feel overwhelmed and unheard when we talk about this late at night. I need to pause this conversation and pick it up tomorrow afternoon when my brain is working better."

(Notice: It's a statement about you, not an accusation about them.)

The work of individual therapy is often about learning to gently and safely untwist the pretzel. It's about realizing that you can stand up straight and still be loved. When you're ready to stop breaking yourself and start building your fence: We're here to hand you the tools →

Part of: Trauma & Growth Hub → | Related: Understanding RSD · Unmasking