The Struggle with Boundaries: A Trauma-Informed Exploration
Setting and maintaining healthy boundaries is something many of us struggle with, for example, saying no without guilt, expressing what we need, or even recognizing what feels right for us. These challenges often intensify in different settings. For some people, it is extra challenging in romantic relationships, whereas for others it is at work or within family environments.
From a trauma-informed and holistic perspective, boundary struggles are the natural outcome of survival patterns that we have formed in early childhood. When connection once depended on self-abandonment, saying no can feel unsafe. This blog article explores how childhood trauma impacts our ability to set boundaries and offers guidance on honoring your energy, staying connected to your truth, and maintaining healthy relationships without losing yourself.
How boundary struggles emerge from early childhood trauma
Boundaries are our body’s way of protecting itself, a form of self-care, and also an expression of our sense of self-worth. They show where we feel safe, how we are comfortable with ourselves, and how we relate to the people and the world around us. When our boundaries were consistently disrespected as children and overridden, our nervous system learns that self-expression and self-protection are risky. Even when parents or caregivers mean well, their own stress, unmet needs, or survival strategies can override the child’s experience, sending a message that the child’s body, needs, or feelings are less important than others’ expectations or emotions.
Over time, this creates somatic patterns and survival responses that often continue into adulthood. We unconsciously may scan for cues of disapproval or threat (hypervigilance), suppress our own needs and wants to maintain connection (people-pleasing), collapse or feel paralyzed when we want to set a boundary but feel unsafe (freeze), or create overly strong boundaries as protection after repeated overwhelm or violation and develop a sense of false autonomy (I don’t need anyone, I’m better off alone).
Over time, these experiences become the foundation for how we see ourselves and navigate relationships with others.
Examples of common boundary violations in childhood
For many, boundary ruptures in childhood happen especially in the quiet, everyday moments of disconnection or control. However, as children our nervous system does not distinguish between “big” and “small” violations, it registers only whether we feel seen, safe, and respected. When love or approval becomes conditional on compliance, we learn that authenticity must be sacrificed for belonging. Below are some of the most common types of boundary ruptures and how they are experienced in the body and psyche:
1. Physical Boundaries
Developing healthy physical boundaries teaches a child that their body is their own. When these boundaries are frequenlty ignored, the body learns to override signals of discomfort in order to stay safe or accepted. For example:
Being forced to hug or kiss (“Give Grandma a kiss, don’t be rude!”): This teaches the body to suppress discomfort and override natural protective responses.
Parents entering rooms or reading diaries without permission: This creates hypervigilance and the sense that privacy is unsafe.
Being told “It doesn’t hurt” or “You’re fine” when in pain: This can lead to disconnection from the body’s sensations and difficulty trusting one’s own experience.
Violence and physical punishment: Often framed as ‘‘discipline’’, this fear-based compliance creates chronic tension and a deep confusion between protection and harm.
Body shaming or control: Repeated comments about eating, size, or appearance teach the body that being seen as it is brings rejection or danger. Over time, this can create chronic tension, shame, and disconnection from natural hunger, pleasure, and the felt sense of safety in one’s own body.
Sexual abuse and being touched without consent: This is a severe violation that deeply impacts our body’s sense of ownership, control and safety. The nervous system often responds through freeze or dissociation.
2. Emotional Boundaries
Emotional boundaries help a child to better understand where their feelings end and another’s begin. When we experienced that our emotions are dismissed or shamed by our parents/caregivers, our nervous system adapts by suppressing authentic expression and over-attuning to others’ states in order to stay safe and connected. Common examples are:
Dismissing feelings (“Stop crying,” “Don’t be so sensitive”)
Being made responsible for a parent’s emotions (“You’re making me sad”)
Hiding emotions to maintain peace (“We don’t talk about that here”)
Being praised for self-abandonment (“You’re such a good girl, never causing trouble”)
The child learns that expressing (certain) feelings is unsafe or too much for their parents/caretakers. Later in life, this often shows as people-pleasing, fear of emotional honesty, difficulty identifying feelings, taking responsibility for others feelings, and feeling guilt or shame tied to self-expression.
3. Relational and autonomy boundaries
Healthy relational and autonomy boundaries allow a child to feel both connected and separate, that means to belong without losing themselves. When these boundaries are violated, the child learns that love must be earned through compliance, caretaking, or performance. Autonomy becomes confused with rejection, and closeness can become tied to responsibility or guilt. For example:
Parentification: The child has to take on adult roles and act as caretaker or mediator between parents or other family members. The child learns to suppress their own needs to stabilize the family system.
Entanglement / blurred parent-child roles (“You’re my best friend”, “You’re all I have”): This creates an identity confusion, the child feels responsible for the parent’s emotions and loses the sense of individual self.
Sibling favoritism: When a child’s value depends on comparison or alliance with a parent, they learn that love must be earned through competition or performance. This deeply impacts the sense of safety and belonging within relationships.
Being shamed or punished for saying no: This teaches the nervous system that setting boundaries threatens safety or love, leading to chronic compliance (fawn/freeze) or rebellion (fight/flight).
Having choices made without input (“You’ll do this, because I said so”): The child internalizes that their preferences and agency do not matter, weakening self-trust and decision-making later in life.
The above described situations are examples of how a child learns that connection and autonomy cannot coexist and that being themselves risks rejection or shame. In adulthood, this often shows up as codependency, guilt for prioritizing oneself, the difficulty of saying no, or moving between states of over-giving and withdrawal.
4. Energetic and environmental boundaries
Some boundaries are not about what we as a child can actively assert, but about the conditions of safety, predictability, and containment that our environment should provide. When these protective boundaries are inconsistent or completely missing, our nervous system learns that the world itself is unsafe, shaping how we regulate, perceive safety, and connect with ourselves and others. Below are some common examples:
Growing up in chaos, conflict, or unpredictability: The nervous system never gets to down-regulate, and can become stuck in hypervigilance, constantly preparing for the next outburst or change. As adults, this can show up as anxiety, exhaustion, or difficulty relaxing even in calm situations.
Exposure to adult topics or substances too early: The child is drawn into emotional or energetic material that exceeds their capacity to process. This creates premature emotional maturity and blurred internal boundaries between what is theirs and what belongs to others.
5. Spiritual and Identity Boundaries
Our spiritual and identity boundaries help us form an authentic sense of self, purpose, and belonging. When these are imposed, ridiculed, or suppressed during childhood, this can create existential confusion, shame, or disconnection from our healthy sense of self. Common examples are:
Religious or moral control: When spirituality is forced or used as a means of control (“God will be angry with you,” “Good children behave this way”), we internalize fear and judgement rather than connection and safety.
Suppression of curiosity or creativity: When our natural wonder or imaginative play as children is dismissed or corrected, we learn to restrict our intuitive development and authentic self-expression.
Rigid cultural or family identity roles: When we grow up in a family system where we are told who & how we need to be to belong (“In our family, we all do X,” “That is not something people like us do”), our individuality becomes a threat to connection and we need to identify with these given roles.
Consequences of unhealed boundary violations
Many people struggle to identify their own boundaries because they never learned to have a healthy relationship with themselves or others. The effects of early boundary violations often become very visible in adulthood, impacting our self-worth, emotional regulation, relationships and how we navigate everyday life. Some of the most common consequences that we may experience are the following:
Internal confusion: Difficulty recognizing personal needs or distinguishing them from others’. When boundaries were chronically violated or ignored, it often becomes unclear what is actually okay or not okay for us. The body’s signals of yes and no can feel unreliable or muted, as our system once had to override discomfort to stay safe. This can lead to deep confusion about what feels right, when to say no, and how to trust our own sensations and instincts.
Chronic self-sacrifice: A deep pattern of prioritizing others’ needs and comfort over your own, often to avoid conflict, rejection, or guilt. Beneath this pattern lies a nervous system that does not feel safe to say no or tolerate another’s disappointment. When boundaries once led to disconnection, our body learned to stay externally focused, scanning for others’ reactions rather than staying anchored in our own truth. Over time, this outward focus weakens our self-trust and creates an inner void where our own needs and feelings become secondary to maintaining peace or approval.
Emotional dysregulation when trying to set boundaries: The difficulty is not that emotions such as guilt, shame, or anxiety arise, but that they become unbearable. Without having learned how to co-regulate and self-regulate ourselves in childhood, our nervous system experiences these emotions as danger rather than as natural signals. Triggers in the present moment reactivate our past experiences, keeping us stuck in emotional loops that feel overwhelming or endless.
Relationship challenges: Unhealed boundary wounds often show up most clearly in relationships. Many develop patterns of overgiving, over-accommodating, or codependency, shaped by fear of conflict or abandonment and a deep need to keep the connection at any cost. This often leads to losing ourselves in relationships, merging emotionally, or carrying others’ burdens. On the other side, those who have experienced repeated overwhelm or violation may develop strong, protective boundaries, creating emotional distance and difficulty trusting others. This can manifest as control, avoidance, or withdrawal, driven by a nervous system that cannot relax into relational safety. Both expressions are protective strategies, where in the first example we seek safety through closeness, and in the other, through distance.
Somatic impact: Chronic boundary violations leave our nervous system oscillating between states of hyperarousal and hypoarousal. In hyperarousal, the system is stuck in fight-or-flight and anxiety, panic, irritability, or restlessness dominate, where our body feels constantly “on.” In hypoarousal, our energy collapses and experience fatigue, numbness, depression, loneliness, and disconnection. Many trauma survivors fluctuate between these two extremes, struggling to find a balanced window of tolerance where regulation, connection, and presence are possible.
When boundaries feel hardest to maintain
Certain situations can re-activate old survival strategies, making it especially difficult to maintain our boundaries. Understanding what triggers us in these situations can help us regulate these responses. Common examples are:
Family gatherings: Here, our childhood dynamics are often replayed, triggering guilt, fear of disapproval, or the pressure to please others expectations.
Romantic relationships: Our desire for closeness can crash with the fear of losing ourselves, often repeating codependent/anxious or avoidant dynamics that creates unhealthy relationship patterns.
Work and authority settings: The pressure to over-deliver, fear of saying no, or discomfort with conflict can trigger hypervigilance and the pressure to please others.
Social obligations: This often becomes visible as overcommitment, difficulty prioritizing personal needs, or responding to peer expectations.
Internal triggers: Physical sensations (fatigue, tension), emotional states (anxiety, overwhelm), or memories from past boundary violations.
Somatic ways to sense your Yes and No
Before we can set a boundary on the outside, we need to sense what feels right or wrong on the inside. For many this is the hardest part, because our nervous system long ago learned to override discomfort in order to stay safe or loved.
The following practices can help you to gain a better understanding of your body’s signals and the embodied feeling of boundaries:
a. The Yes/No Body Scan
Choose a neutral situation and ask yourself:
What does a genuine yes feel like in my body?
What does a genuine no feel like?
Invite the body to speak through:
Tightness or spaciousness
Contraction or expansion
Warmth, coldness, heaviness, tingling
Holding your breath or breathing more freely
Most people do not know this immediately, but repeated practice helps reconnect your instinctive boundaries.
b. The Micro Pause
Before answering a request/question you feel unsure about:
Pause
Take one breath
Notice what happens inside
If your body tenses, pulls back, becomes shallow in breath, or feels uneasy, it often signals a boundary. If your body softens, opens, or feels clear, this often signals alignment.
Practical communication tips for setting boundaries
Many of us struggle to communicate boundaries and due to trauma experiences we often have limited access to clear inner signals, our voice and agency. When we begin to practice setting boundaries especially when we have experienced trauma, our system might swing between extremes. Sometimes we become rigid, guarded, or quick to withdraw because our body is protecting us from old pain. Other times we move toward pleasing, accommodating, or merging with the other person because saying no feels threatening.
This confusion is a sign that the past is blending with the present. A helpful step is to pause and ask: How much of my reaction comes from what is happening right now, and how much is an old survival pattern being activated?
This reflection can support you in better understanding your boundary and respond with clarity rather than fear. At the same time it also strengthens your capacity for healthy connection.
Below you will find a variety of different sentences to help you communicate your boundaries clearly in different situations that may feel challenging:
1. Neutral and clear boundary sentences
Here are some simple and steady sentences that can help stay true to yourself without needing over-explain yourself. For example:
I need some time with myself before I can offer an answer that feels true.
I appreciate the invitation, but this does not feel right for me (at this moment).
I hear what you are saying, and I need some time to reflect before I make a decision.
2. Protecting your energy
These sentences are helpful when you feel drained, overstimulated, pressured, or emotionally overloaded. For example:
I want to be honest with you that my energy is limited right now, so I need to step back and take care of myself before continuing.
I value our connection, and I also need space today so that I do not move beyond my own capacity.
I am aware that my system feels overstimulated, and I need to slow down rather than take anything else on.
3. Holding connection while setting a boundary
These sentences are essential if you fear conflict, abandonment, or losing the relationship. For example:
I care about you and our connection, and I also need to slow this discussion down so that I can stay grounded and honest.
I am here with you, and I need a moment to return to myself so I can listen with clarity.
I want to understand you, and I notice I am starting to feel overwhelmed, therefore I need a short break so I can stay present.
4. Situations with pressure, expectation, or urgency
These sentences can be helpful when someone pushes you to decide quickly or comply immediately. For example:
I hear that this feels important for you, and I need time to feel into my own truth before I respond.
I understand this feels urgent for you, and I need time to feel into my own clarity.
I do not decide well under pressure, so I will come back to this later.
5. Boundary sentences for digital communication
Here are some sentences that can help you to protect your energy in the digital space. For example:
I appreciate your message, and I will respond when I have more capacity.
I am reading what you shared, and I need a pause so I can reply with clarity rather than urgency.
Thank you for reaching out. I want to offer a grounded response, so I will come back to this later.
General communication tips:
Speak from your own experience, not the other person’s behaviour
Avoid over-explaining
Keep your tone calm and grounded
Expect discomfort, your body is remembering old danger, not the present reality
Remember that you cannot control how other people are responding
Personal Boundaries (boundaries you hold with yourself)
These are the most overlooked boundaries. They shape how you treat yourself, how you speak to yourself, how you regulate, and how you hold commitments with your own body and energy.
Examples of personal boundaries include:
Resting when you are tired
Eating when you are actually hungry
Leaving overstimulating situations
Not abandoning yourself to meet others’ expectations
Not forcing productivity when your body is overwhelmed
Personal boundaries create the internal structure that makes relational boundaries possible.
Understanding triggers when setting boundaries
Certain situations especially challenge our ability to set boundaries, because it activates a nervous system response shaped by our past experiences where speaking up was unsafe. Common triggers that can activate past trauma-responses often include:
When someone expresses disappointment
When you fear rejection or abandonment
When you feel responsible for another person’s emotions
When you sense conflict or tension
When someone reminds you of a parent or past authority figure
When your body goes into freeze and you cannot access your voice
In these situations, it is especially important to practice self-regulation to better differentiate past experiences from the present situation. Below you will find some examples that you can easily practice in everyday life:
Regulation tools when triggered
Place one hand on your chest and one on your belly to anchor yourself
Gently press your feet into the ground and notice the support underneath your feet
Slow your exhale
Orient to the room/space around you by looking around slowly and taking in shades, forms, colors and objects
Name what you feel (naming helps to reduce activation)
These practices can help your nervous system to find more regulation so you can respond from clarity rather than from past survival patterns.
Moving forward with compassion
Learning how to set and maintain boundaries is not simply a skill, it is a healing process. For many of us, the difficulty does not come from a lack of willingness, but from the ways our body once had to adapt in order to stay connected and safe. When boundaries were unsafe in childhood, it is natural that they feel confusing, overwhelming, or even threatening later in life. At the same time, strong protective boundaries that once kept us safe can become rigid in adulthood, shaping patterns of withdrawal, avoidance, or emotional distance. Both expressions are rooted in a nervous system trying to protect us.
This is why boundary work asks for patience, compassion, and honest self-reflection. It invites us to explore questions like: What boundaries support my wellbeing today? Where am I protecting myself from the past rather than responding to the present? What does my body need to feel safe, connected, and authentic? There are no perfect answers, only gradual reconnection to the signals we once learned to silence.
As you move forward, it can be helpful to remember that every boundary you set, soften, or clarify is part of rebuilding trust with yourself. Understanding your triggers, staying connected to your body, and recognizing when old survival patterns are activated can support you in choosing responses that are grounded rather than reactive. This not only strengthens your sense of self, but also supports healthier, more honest relationships with the people around you.
Boundary work is ultimately not about pushing others away or trying to be perfect. It is about learning to stay with yourself while staying in connection. It is about meeting your experience with compassion and choosing the boundaries that honour both your truth and your capacity.
✍️Questions for Self-reflection:
What sensations arise in my body when something feels too much, too fast, or not aligned?
In which relationships do I lose my own perspective or feel guilty for having needs?
Which situations feel spacious and safe enough for me to be honest about my inner experience?
Which boundaries were never available to me as a child, and how does that show up today?
Are there moments where I respond more strongly than the current situation asks for? What earlier experiences might be activated in those moments?
👣 Exploring your boundary blueprint
Write two lists:
What I allow that hurts me
What I need but do not ask for
These two lists are simple, but they go directly to the core of your early attachment dynamics. They help you see the places where your system still operates from learned survival responses rather than present reality.
What I allow that hurts me shows the situations where your boundaries collapse, where you override yourself, or where your nervous system moves into old survival roles such as pleasing, or disappearing. These are often the same strategies that helped you stay safe, loved, or accepted in childhood.
What I need but do not ask for shows the places where your voice was once discouraged or unsafe. Many people learned to silence needs because asking brought conflict, punishment, withdrawal, shame, or emotional neglect. The silence was protective then, but it limits connection now.
When you look at your lists, try to meet yourself see with gentleness rather than judgment. Invite curiosity, to further explore:
What part of me learned that this was necessary?
What was I protecting myself from when I stayed silent or said yes?
What does my body feel when I imagine doing the opposite?
The purpose of the exercise is not to fix anything quickly. It is to help you see the emotional logic behind your patterns, and to begin building a bridge between your adult self (your healthy I) and the younger parts who still try to protect you (your trauma & survival parts).
Over time, this awareness becomes the foundation for setting boundaries that are more steady, compassionate, and rooted in the present rather than in past survival.
If the reflections shared in this article resonated with you, you are invited to leave a comment and share your thoughts and experiences. And if you feel that you’d like to explore your own story in more depth, I offer trauma-informed & holistic therapy sessions, both online and in Oslo. Our work together can help you understand the origins of your patterns, reconnect with your healthy boundaries, and support your nervous system in moving toward more regulation and self-trust.
With warmth,
Julia 💙