The Defenses

Lay them down Sethe. Sword and shield, both of them down. Down by the riverside. Sword and Shield. Don't study war no more, lay all that mess down" -Baby Suggs/Beloved

One thing I realized about therapy is that it's not meant to heal, it's only meant to help in connecting the dots, in understanding and putting things into perspective so that one can begin the journey of healing with a clear understanding of their certain behaviors and of everything that is going on. One of the things I got to understand during therapy is that our experiences and traumas can most of the time shape who and how become in the future. These traumas usually cause fears, then because of these fears, we tend to build defenses around us to protect ourselves from the things or the people that hurt us.

These defenses may differ for each one of us because we are different, and we deal with our traumas differently. Some of us come off as rude, some come off as mean, some come off as shy, some as arrogant, some as self-serving/ selfish, etc. I can continue counting but the bottom line is that we build these defenses because we got hurt somewhere and we don't want to get hurt again, we build these walls to keep ourselves safe. The funny part is that most of the time we are not even aware of these defenses or walls ourselves, we may be aware that there is something a bit off without being able to put a finger on it. The worst thing about these defenses is that they not only protect us from hurt (inverted commas) but most of the time they make it difficult for other people to get to us, they are like thorns, and they scare people away, they have the potential of ending up isolating us which also just hurts us at the end.

I also struggled for years, and I had no idea what was going on until I started going for therapy. I struggled to make friends, if I do make one then I struggled to keep them, either way, I always ended up feeling so alone. It bugged me for years and I thought I was unlovable until I realized that I was the problem. I feared rejection, as a result, I built walls all around to keep myself safe from it. I didn't allow people in, I kept them at arm's length so that it won't hurt if they decide to leave tomorrow. Only a few managed to break through the walls and I can count them on one hand, unfortunately, a lot couldn't, and I thought they hated me.

My defense mostly came off as being shy, it still does. Because I'm scared of people and I fear rejection, I prefer to keep my mouth shut especially around people I’m not familiar with (one day I will tell a story of how I kept quiet the whole day when my husband and I visited his friends in PE because I was thrown off by something the friend did at the beginning of the conversation). I fear saying stupid things, I'm obsessed with sounding intelligent, and like I have things figured out therefore the best thing is to keep quiet and try to understand and get to know the people first. If I don't keep quiet, I'm putting myself at risk of being laughed at, of being bullied, of being rejected, etc. Unfortunately, in this process of trying to understand people before letting them in, I end up losing them because they do not understand me.

A few have broken through the defenses though through persistence. A few have managed to really get to know me, the real me, the loud me, the talkative me, but it's only those who stuck around long enough for me to trust them and feel comfortable around them. We are so difficult to understand, so difficult to love, so difficult to befriend. We are not rude, we are not mean, we are not shy, we are not selfish, we just got hurt and we are just trying to keep ourselves safe. We want friends, we want love, we want to be understood, we just need patience and grace. We want to lay these defenses down, we want to trust, we just need more support and understanding, we just need people who won't get tired, we just need people who will stick around long enough.