Brick Walls

I have a tendency to shut down, build up walls to protect myself. Sometimes even the smallest of hurts that people cause me to feel can make me put up that protection. I don’t do it intentionally.  It’s just a reaction, a sort of self defense I guess. 

The biggest problem with these walls……..I don’t know how to tear them down. Once someone is shut out, it feels permanent, like death. Maybe I expect too much of people, or maybe the standards for myself are too high. I hurt easily, I do know that. There is no getting around that fact. 

I don’t know how to turn it off, or stop it. Even in my most personal relationships.  With those closest to me, it takes a little longer for it to happen, a slower process, but once it does I do not know how to tear it down, or climb over it. It is probably not normal, but I can’t turn it off.  It is like it paralyzes my brain from feeling all emotions towards them. I need to learn a different coping strategy.