Some people’s boundaries are so rigid that they are unable to have any real emotional relationship. They dissociate (make themselves emotionally distant), and refuse to let anyone in, or if they do, they quickly cast them out as the discomfort caused by intimacy is too great, more than likely because they were never used to parental warmth when they were children. This becomes a never-ending spiral of acceptance and rejection creating confusion and hurt in the other person. They swing between engulfment and abandonment. They erect their rigid boundaries to protect some hurt, probably from childhood. It is extraordinary how a child abused at a very young age can create the most rigid boundaries; an impenetrable shell to protect itself. Psychologists call it numbing out. This arrest of emotional development may come from traumatic events such as rejection, emotional abandonment, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and physical abuse. That shell does not weaken as they grow into adults when it continues to protect that open wound inflicted on their psyche so long ago. It is a sad reality that boundaries have to be rigid and impenetrable in such cases. The child must protect that painful wound. However, protecting the wound, although vital, has disastrous consequences. The victim shuts himself off from human warmth and all parties in the relationship suffer. There is a possibility that that child may become an adult abuser, because he cannot relate emotionally to another human.
Other people have gapped boundaries and rightly erect them on some occasions, but fail on others. They create uncertainty and conflict in their intimate relationships. Partners never know what to expect. There are also people who have no boundaries, and allow others to invade their space and vice versa. These people do not know what boundaries are, because they never had the opportunity to construct them.
People with gapped or no boundaries are able to relate better than those in the impenetrable shell, but they find it difficult to have stable relationships, and may indulge in behaviours which create many other difficulties for them. They may smother those with whom they relate. They may try to be more than human, and always strive to be nice to others, trying to ‘fix’ them, giving unwanted advice, taking on the feelings of others, taking over from them and making them powerless. Their focus is on the problems of others rather than on themselves. In doing this they step inside the boundaries of others, become over friendly, confide personal information and cause embarrassment.
Adapted from Jim O’Shea’s book Abuse. Domestic Violence, Workplace and School Bullying published by Cork University Press