Having boundaries is good. But sometimes they make trouble.
Boundaries are internal and external.
Internal boundaries define what someone considers acceptable in relation to themself or someone else, and what is unacceptable.
External boundaries define what someone considers acceptable in relation to themself from others.
For example "I have no right to be late, it's a disrespect to the others and sloppiness" is an internal boundary. While "no one is allowed to be late for a meeting with me" is an external boundary.
The Anxious Person's Boundary Imbalance
Anxious people usually have very strict internal boundaries and almost don't have the external ones. Such an imbalance is the result of being emotionally neglected and ignored in childhood.
From relationships with parents a child finds out that his or her external boundaries can be easily violated. "Why? Because I said so, that's why". "What do you mean you don't want to? You have to!" Every attempt to defend the boundaries could end with physical or emotional abuse. Lesson learned.
The Role of Guilt and Shame
Strict internal boundaries are based on the feelings of guilt and shame. "Look at your behavior, I am ashamed of you" and "What will the people say".
The lesson here is that you are obliged to correspond to hundreds of thousands of strict rules and norms.
As a result, after growing up, a person lives in strict limits which can easily be violated by almost everybody but not themself.
When the Mind Can No Longer Cope
At some point the mentality can no longer handle that and bills us with neuroses, phobias, and panic attacks.
Further — we "have to" do even more (for instance - to immediately calm down during the turbulence) and the others can blame us with impunity, shame us or demand us to correspond to THEIR norms and rules.
In some cases, a person trying to cope with the imbalance of the boundaries makes a "strike back" which is often excessive. In that scenario external boundaries also become very strict and absolutely inflexible. And the non-flexible things break easily.
The Path to Recovery
Restoring healthy boundaries is an important component of anxiety treatment. It is not easy to do this, since our childhood attitudes are very strong.
Fortunately, we know how to fix it.
