Why you’re putting up walls to protect yourself in your relationship

By Orit Krug  |  December 16th, 2021

Are you putting up walls to protect yourself from legitimate pain, or is it old trauma making you believe you’ll get hurt?

It can be really hard to tell the difference when you’ve experienced unhealthy, toxic, or abusive relationships in the past.

You might logically know that your current relationship is loving and supportive. You may see all the signs that your partner is dedicated to you and thinks you’re incredible.

But no matter how many signs you see or lists you make, you still put up walls to protect yourself in your relationship.

This is NOT your fault. There is a real science behind why you do this.

Putting up walls to protect yourself is a trauma pattern that’s currently wired in your body and nervous system.

It doesn’t matter how much evidence you have that your partner is healthy and safe. All your nervous system can focus on are the littlest things that remind you of how you got hurt in the past.

Even if your partner is generally showing how much they care and love you, it only takes one tiny slip-up to hijack your survival system in overprotection mode.

Let’s say your partner buys your favorite treat whenever they go to the grocery store. They just love seeing your face light up because they know how much you love blueberry muffins.

One day, your partner comes home from the grocery store with all the necessities, but no blueberry muffins.

Red signals and alarms immediately go off in your nervous system and your rational brain goes offline:

“He doesn’t love me anymore!”

“He’s leaving me!”

“He’s cheating on me!”

It all happens within a split second and you end up reacting before you know it. You might accuse your partner of all these things or go into freeze mode and completely shut them out.

Once you come back to calm, hours or days later, you realize you completely overreacted. Your rational brain comes back online and you think, “I’m so crazy. Why did I say those things… again?!”

You’re NOT crazy, but you continue to act irrationally. In fact, your rational brain has absolutely NO say in the matter when your trauma gets triggered, by something even as small as this. This is because the higher-functioning, rational part of the brain becomes overpowered by the brain’s fear center (Amygdala) in these triggering moments. When the fear center is activated, your body and nervous system immediately go into self-protection mode to keep you safe, even if there’s no real danger.

Remember, it’s not your fault. This is the way that old trauma rewires your nervous system and brain. Fortunately, we have amazing brains and bodies that can be rewired from a constant state of fear, to a baseline of calm, openness, and trust.

You’re putting walls up because you don’t believe that you’re worthy of love.

It’s hard enough that your nervous system reacts at the first “sign” of your partner disappointing you. It’s even more difficult when you can’t even take in the acts of love when they’re 100% there for you.

Because you experienced so much hurt in the past, you believe that – no matter what your partner does – you’ll eventually get rejected or abandoned. And, there’s no possible way that someone could love YOU.

You might think, “Why would someone want to be with me?” You might see yourself as damaged goods and unlovable.

Because this belief feels very real to you, your nervous system goes on high alert, especially when things are going well.

Healthy acts of love feel suspicious to you. It makes you wonder if your partner is hiding something.

You may also believe that it’s TOO good to last. You “know” your partner will eventually turn into a monster and sh*t will inevitably hit the fan.

This explains why you’re putting up walls to protect yourself even when things are going swimmingly in your relationship.

Learn the difference between “red flags” and normal relationship behavior.

In a normally healthy relationship, your partner will sometimes go the extra mile to make you happy and sweep you off your feet.

In other phases of your relationship, your partner will be more busy, stressed, and distracted. They won’t have the energy to do anything other than the basics: take out the trash and kiss you goodnight.

Sometimes, your partner will be incredibly impressed by you and won’t be able to keep their hands off you. Other times, your partner will feel bored. They’ll prefer to binge watch TV than be intimate.

As a healthy, loving partner, you will experience all of these different phases.

You can still have a baseline of love, respect, and attraction for each other AND go through these dips of excitement in your relationship.

However, unresolved trauma will make you believe that these dips mean SO much more. You’ll feel threatened and overreact. You’ll spend most of your days wondering if your partner is right for you or not. You may sabotage a normal, healthy relationship. Possibly the best one you’ve ever had.

You deserve to find peace in your body & let love in without fear.

The latest trauma research shows that cognitive-based therapies cannot fully access trauma stored in the non-verbal brain and body. Even alternative approaches, such as EMDR and Brain-Mapping, are often not enough to fully heal trauma from the physical body or nervous system.

This makes trauma healing a very frustrating journey for many people. They end up feeling stuck, even after spending decades of therapy and gaining so much self-awareness.

If you relate, you might’ve considered giving up on your healing. You might wonder if a fully integrated healing is not possible for you.

Every human being is 100% neurophysiologically capable of healing deeply & wholly, because we all have neural pathways that can be rewired from fear and overprotection to love, joy, and openness.

But even with an effective neuroscience-backed Somatic approach, going to weekly sessions could still require many more months or years until you feel that “click” in your body that finally makes you feel WHOLE.

That’s why I run Somatic Trauma Healing Retreats where many people experience accelerated, integrated, and lasting healing in just a few days.

(Disclaimer: each attendee must go through an application process that ensures this accelerated healing is possible for them).

If this sounds like something you might be interested in, I’d love to invite you to check out my retreats! There are several options from women’s healing, plant-assisted, 1:1, and more.