Do you build walls?

[Shu]

I know some might be confused by the title but let me explain.

A wall is a mental block in which allows you to cope with a difficult emotional situation.

So let me use myself as a testament, and no, not trying to "talk about myself".. just trying to get you people to talk about yourself.

When I was a kid, I was very happy go lucky. I had good pals and could get along with damn well everyone actually. I was a hyper active tyke though.

1) When I was 8 years old my mother had cancer. I had to live in Arlington, Texas with her for 3-4 months while she was being treated with some heavy chemo and radiation. After removing her lymph nodes, removing half of her arm muscle, and going through 2 weeks of hospitalization she improved. For the next year when I went back to school and she stayed behind people asked me all about her, like I was some sort of science project. Like I was some sort of martyr or whatever. Me, I didn't really feel it at the time. It wasn't until I saw how mental it actually drove her, and seeing her strapped with tubes one night late that I saw how serious it was. The story ends with .. it went into total remission, but it took around 2 years for her to fully be treated. People thought I was off or weird, but I guess I just built an instant wall.

2) Girls to women.. I was 10 and had a little crush that I used to hang out with after school. We always were good friends but she admitted her feelings to me, and I sort of was like woa. Since god know a 10 year old can really have a relationship. Well safe to say, things got strange, and yea we stopped talking - and boom you have the other crazy ladies of my life happen, but after each one, it's like a sort of wall was built to keep me from losing it. Yea sure I shed a tear as a kid, but that's what little boys and girls do to each other. High school hit me hard, due to I had a cousin hang himself in Birmingham, AL, an Aunt get killed in Oxford, MS by a drunk driver and then my best bud (dog of course) passed due to onset anemia. Then I had that one girl when I was 18 get tooooo close and shook that wall. Like shook me to the point I thought I was insane, due to a flood a memories hit. Safe to say it took me a good year to actually shake that. My folks actually made me see a psychologist - bastards. Though my eyes sort of opened up due to my cousin Peter (brother of alan (RIP)) took Alan's old profession and counseled youth kids. I was like.. "wow I'm a selfish douche". So that wall came back up and was refortified with heavy set steel.

3) Yea relationships didn't phase me anymore. My two grand folks passing a year apart, I pretty much accepted right away. I found an easier way of being real. I don't like people being all sad and shit around me. I'm a super happy drunk, I look out for my friends around me. I wandered on here about that time actually. (22 I think). I also am married, and really.. I'm just a jack ass, but not too much of one. I try to be positive as much as possible, since negativity breeds like toxin. I don't think I have a wall, I just don't let shit get to me anymore unless you mean to be a dick to people in a way of malice.

My wall though is music. I'm married to it.

 

[The Welsh Paddy]

I dunno about building walls, but I remember for the longest time that whenever things got really bad for me all I ever wanted to do was sleep. I could sleep all day and night for three days straight and still just want to sleep more. I guess that could be considered building up a wall. It would drive my fiancée absolutely mental. Nowadays, I don't do that. I still don't think I deal with bad things as healthily as I should though.

I kinda emotionally detach myself from the whole situation. I deal with it. I do as much as I can to set things right and get my life back on track, but I find myself having to be cold and ruthless on a number of occasions which I really don't like. I can be a right selfish shit at such times. But, it's a huge improvement hiding from it I think. Over the past year, no matter how bad things got, I could still find the motivation to just go about and do things.

I do keep more positive nowadays, and I do hate it when I get dragged into a load of negativity, especially when there is no need for it. It's in that regard I can be really selfish too. I've had this frame of mind where I would be thinking "Well, I had to sort out all my own problems, so you should too." I just hate being dragged into problems because I'm terrified that going back towards all this negativity (even if it is someone else's) will only get me back into the rut I used to be in, and it certainly wasn't easy crawling out of that one.

I'm not sure how much of this is relevant to the topic.

 

[Dragon Mage]

I use logic.

"Logic is like the sword - those who appeal to it, shall perish by it." --Samuel Butler

 

[Twilight Sky]

It's one of the ways to attract good people sometimes. There's usually someone out there that wants to "fix" you. Then you either have to point out its not fixing you want, but a good person in your life, or they figure this out on their own. After realization that said walls are a filter to keep bad people out. Bad people will not think its worth their time to get past all your mental security.

As for using them to cope with situations, I have tons of those.

 

[Shu]

Well I didn't mean to "point this" at people fixing people. It's generally just who you let get close period, and also how you deal period. I've seen some folks use religion as a crutch, but in all honesty (this time not bashing) sometimes you need something real and tangible (5 senses) to bring you back.

What's the difference between you and a troubled teenager? They can not handle their stuff. What is one of the occupations of most highschool's whom does not teach or coach? A guidance councilor. What does a guidance councilor do? Listen and provide minimal feedback.

Most folks and by most I mean 60% actually truly feel you should always muscle up and get over stuff, while sadly not getting over their own. 35% due to the pressure of society, follow the 60% but truly want someone who is a little bit more real than the mold.

The precious 5% usually are the outcasted ones. They are usually known as the Artsy people, the Drama people, or the slightly emo. (emo is a societal group now, so trying not to say emos in the context you think). The slightly emo may talk less, they won't dress any different than you or I, but they have a hard time actually branching out due to feeling effed up in the head. Having the inability to relate to society basically, due to actual real world problems that have been bottled up.

In your years of adolescence did you ever actually have anyone come up to you and say.. "hey I need someone to talk to, just 'talk' to. No relationship, nothing else, just need someone who might understand what I'm going through" You might have had your pals. You might have had your parties and your sports on weekends to get to, but not someone that will stop you in your tracks and pull you away from your BS.

It's much easier to put up a wall in today's world. You are mostly right that no one will care what you have to say about certain personal subjects. It is seen as weakness or complaining. It is seen as baggage. Society has deemed it necessary to call people out on these weaknesses and to make them feel more shitty, due to arrogance and pride. Then the other part, might to ride on your misfortune. Say your mother or paps died, and say miss barbie so and so was with you due to it made her look better in society's eyes.

I do know one thing though. No matter how much shit you have actually trudged through. No matter how high the wall you seem to put up, one day it has to come down. The later you deal with your shit, the much more of an impact it will have on your family, your husband, your wife and your kids. The more substance you do to try to weather the storm, it will eat you once you are sober enough to think.

I think about this all to say, in a perfect utopia you could say what you feel 24/7 and people would be able to actually share their accumulative recounts of life stories to try to help someone understand. The realism is, the person dealing with someone could get over that hump much faster then in today's society. Most often times the most cheerful person is actually the most depressed. It's a wall.

So, have you ever had to put up a wall?

 

[Dionysos]

I have a mental block or wall of a sort, but for me it is less of a good thing. In terms of emotions, I don't really talk about them much, or really anything about my life. I don't often bring it up.

But the wall I'll talk about here must originally have been for reasons of security, but it became an enormous hindrance to me. It’s all a bit silly in the universal scheme of things but, then again, this is a silly little rock we’re floating on in a vast cosmos which is as hilarious as it is vast and endless.

Essentially I was mocked for a while when I was in first / primary school for my voice, and I was told I had a bit of a lisp, etc. Fine. I understand that people do that sort of thing, because that’s what people do, and I could still like people, etc etc, for other reasons (as there is usually something to like in everyone at least). But as it continued it did make me deliberately (at first) miss out words from sentences entirely, so that I wouldn’t be producing as many of the sounds that I was afraid of using.

Then eventually there were personal issues such as family deaths, and then the start of puberty made me self-aware as a human being amongst others and I was a bit embarrassed about the whole thing, so regressed deeper inwards. Walls that had been built up gradually previously then started to build up much more rapidly, and there must have been walls behind walls. I wouldn’t say I completely forgot how to speak, but I essentially did. I went very, very quiet, and because I was avoiding more and more words I wouldn’t naturally form a coherent sentence structure when speaking. It might have been an instinctive security wall at the time, but it was a security system which worked against me, in quite a humiliating way. To find your brain and tongue freeze up when others around you are chirping like budgies is rather embarrassing. It led me into feeling that I was an inferior human being, not so much because of the voice at all, but because I felt as if my mind wasn't functioning at an adequate social level. My grades were good, and I could think okay alone, but in the presence of others I would have my soul ripped out from my skull.

I’m vastly improving now as with my job I have to guide people. Hundreds of them in a day. I survive that, but I’m still very quiet and awkward at a social level. I’ve been improving, so it is all onwards and upwards (or so I must say, and it is better to say such things than ‘oh! Ahhh! I’m falling into a pit of despair and I can’t even be confident that I can sufficiently pronounce the word despair!’)

So the good personal positive side of life is still yet to blossom for me. I know a lot of people, and I listen to a lot, and I like most people I meet, and I’m talking more now. But as for friend-friends, I have very few. As for relationships on a romantic level, well the day a deer learns to bark like a wolf, or the day a lion takes up grazing must be the day that aspect of my life starts to bloom. I've never been desperate though. Perhaps if I beat my chest and roar with raw aggression then my soul will temporarily return to me and I’ll be in full possession of my wit, can communicate as humans do, and then be successful on these fronts. Perhaps. Perhaps not. Who knows!

By the way, the ‘lisp’ isn’t even that bad, I’m told. Sometimes it comes on stronger, particularly when I’m more nervous, thirsty, or more self-aware that I’m talking, or with particular words which have caused me grief in the past. It’s all silly, again, but ah well. Perhaps I’ll laugh this wall down, eventually. With much mead to aid me.

 

[Dr. Percival Cox]

I don't know if it could be called a wall but I typically find myself in states where I feel like I don't care. When bad things happen, my emotional response to them is almost immediately resolved. I stay mad or sad for only a little while. Then I go back to my apathetic self. I've been told that I don't seem to "give a fuck." I'll sometimes defend that I do. But when I look at the evidence, I don't know if I do or not. That could be the wall.

On the other hand, there have been points when my emotions fully got the best of me and no matter how hard I tried to shut them out, I couldn't do it. My ability to do so usually comes from some sort of distraction. Be it music, film, reading, or video games. Unfortunately, I was in a situation where I couldn't rely on those things and it screwed me royally. I lost a pretty good opportunity in my life because of it.

I guess I could sum up to say that I don't always get the walls I need when I need them.

 

[Squalllionheart]

I have had a "wall" up for 11 years, thing is I built them too high, until recently I was in a 5 and a half year relationship, during that time I have spoken about my past emotional problems (death of my father at an early age due to cancer and other emotional trauma) on a handful of occasions and have never really dealt with those issues, while I'm not (and never have been) a violent person I do have anger issues and can get annoyed or angry at the smallest things sometimes and it's done me no good, that and a lack of caring about things that are worth caring about, basically it's been a massive contributing factor towards the cost of my relationship and only now do I realise that while it's always a good thing to protect yourself, if your defense is so good that things can't get in, then things can't get out and your problems will always be there.

I have since moved out and moved on and I'm getting on with my life, I'm going counseling for my issues that i've failed to deal with over the years and from here it can only get better, I find myself to be more motivated (something which I lacked before) and generally a more positive person (again before I was always fairly negative about myself).

I'm not going to say I'm grateful that it's happened but I've certainly learnt a lot from it and it's going to make me a better person in the long run so maybe one day i'll look back on this experience and say "I needed that to happen". I would recommend anyone with the same/similar issues seek professional help, you can only be strong for so long before you fall..

 

[Karu]

Not really going to jump on the bandwagon of personal stories here, just not sitting quite tidy for it exactly but I recognise I do build various walls through various methods and means. All I can particularly elaborate on is that I myself am currently going into counselling / therapy as soon as my number comes up on the waiting list or as soon as education resumes so likely September.

Yeah, I've got reasons to but my perspective is that maybe some walls are needed against certain things. That said, I still hope somewhat foolishly for the ideal world where people wouldn't actually need those walls. In a practical view I suppose I'd settle for not all walls are so bad so long as they are put up against the right things for the right reason and for the right amount of time.

 

[Lirael]

I probably don't build walls enough. I wear my heart on my sleeve, I'll share my problems with new friends, and I am completely and utterly dedicated to a select few people.

Sometimes, I wish I could take a step back from a situation and build a wall - life would be easier if there was little to no chance of getting hurt! - but ultimately, building a wall could mean I miss out on something incredible. Getting hurt sucks - I have recently learnt what a broken heart feels like - but I still hold onto the idea that things will work out in the end, even if the dreams I live for today don't.

 

[Shenorai]

I don't build walls. Looking back at how I (can't) deal with heavy situations, I find myself completely hiding in bunkers, completely shutting out everything while slowly trying to work out how to cope. It's like all connections that my mind has to my ability to communicate undergoes an emergency shut down and my body itself enters a near-comatose state. Despite how much I scream on the inside, there is no sound that emerges from my lips. Not a finger is lifted. No attempt made to flee. I simply find myself staring while my mind battles how to stop or fix a situation.

Yet by the time I finally bring myself to act, the argument is already over and the damage is already done. The people around me wind up hurt while I wind up with a migraine and an aching heart. My inaction caused by internal malfunctions has probably caused more problems than any interaction I've made has. It's made others assume that I'm a cold and heartless bitch when really, it's like trying to force an entire river through a pinprick in the dam.

Throughout most of my life, I bear witness to horrors that I will not delve into. But because there was no one I spoke to who could relate to such things, I often kept to myself and my drawings. I kept to myself because no one around me understood my situations. I kept to my drawings because they were the only way I knew to express how I felt and what I desperately longed for. Those who have seen my deviantART gallery will notice that I draw a lot of characters. A lot of people. I have entire sketchbooks on my shelves that I've kept since high school, all of them filled with nearly nothing but people. As much as I wanted to have loads of friends in my youth, those dreams weren't met simply because of how badly others reacted to me and my lack of experience with human interaction. I didn't know how to behave around others mostly due to my toxic environment and was cast out because of it.

These days, now that I've moved out, faced the world, and grown up, I'm getting better, at least. As strange as it sounds, my current job is what changed things around for me. Even if it was for the sake of customer relations, I learned how to greet others, see what help they need, help them meet those needs, and keep happy and upbeat throughout the entire process. People rag on Wal-Mart for various reasons, but it's probably the second best thing that's happened to me. There is still the odd occasion where I find myself hiding in my bunker again, but in time, I think I can break it down bit by bit.

I don't mean to derail the thread by any means, but I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for my past behavior. I know I basically exploded five years ago and hadn't bothered to show up until now, but I'm still surprised that people still have fond memories of me. I never noticed just how big of an impact I've made on people until recently while poking around on old threads. I got so easily caught up in everything that I simply couldn't function. Most people have likely forgotten, but these regrets keep tearing at me.

I'm sorry, everyone, for treating you the way that I had. I really am.​

 

[Mr. Zombie]

Yes I do build walls, and did on two different occasions. While one was unintentionally built and remained erect for a long time, the other was a fully conscious choice and lasted one day.

The first one was built instinctively during most of my childhood. This one was constructed to protect me from the then "heavy" atmosphere my family had, exclusively due to the problematic relationship between my half brother (who has mild mental disabilities) and my father (my father was not his father, as you can suspect). I was completely powerless and unable to protect him and just flew to the world I created in my drawings, as it was the easiest hobby I had as a kid (and still have, though the reason to do so is, thankfully, different).

The second one was built and destroyed at July 28th, 2011, the day I had to move from my older and only home I knew. I had bad memories there, but I had amazing, beautiful ones too. I knew I would just fall into a bottomless pit of depression if I didn't react, and felt I just had to ignore the situation, but then I found myself following the Buddha's teaching I knew from long ago, that if something is inevitable there's no point in getting disturbed about it, thus destroying the then newly constructed wonder "wall".

 

[Mitsuki]

An interesting topic as usual, Tyler.

I've never really thought about this, or at least gave it a serious thought. Whenever I hear this particular phrase, I've usually shrugged it off in the 'cliché' category and think no more of it. I tend to avoid blurting out whether I build or don't build walls, it's not like I do these things on purpose. It's simply as is. We've all gotten hurt in the past, and some even allow their past to dictate their present. Can I say I've done that? Absolutely. Do I have it in mind to start 'building walls?' Not really. If I do, I won't be the one to recognize it first. But when people explain to me that I may have been building a wall, then I guess I can see some truth in that, and I won't deny it. In fact I'll gladly reflect with those individuals, although a lot of times I am left feeling confused, and then I get frustrated with myself. But I'm just saying... I'm not actively aware that I may or may not be building walls.

And just because we don't easily share or open up to other people doesn't mean we're building up a wall. Maybe we just like to be private about some things, which is perfectly okay in my book. xD At times I feel that people tend to look more into things a lot more than they should, including myself. But then again, that can have its benefits overall. It depends.

 

[Ultimaja]

I know some might be confused by the title but let me explain.

A wall is a mental block in which allows you to cope with a difficult emotional situation.

A caffeine apocalypse + anything hands on

OR
A bottle of liquor and a good drinking partner that will keep up


On a day to day basis, my general 'walls' to separate myself from riffraff is basically the things I'd do anyhow: music, video games, a fat physics book, the home girl *who I think has been plotting to kill me* (Or maybe I just smoke too much), and so on.

And then there's literal walls. They're pretty efficient to

 

[Ed Elric]

I know some might be confused by the title but let me explain.

A wall is a mental block in which allows you to cope with a difficult emotional situation.

I can really say I've built walls for heartache, mostly. Whenever I'm really stressed out; by my family/boyfriend I isolate my-self hard. I get really emotional and sad... I tend to listen to music, eat , or write to help me cope through my emotional situation. I over-think and think over every little detail of every little situation and try to use my feelings to guide me through-- I'm very optimistic, so when I'm damaged, it takes only a few days to recover.

I haven't really got a story behind it, because I really haven't faced anything that was so emotionally damaging, that it crushed me.[losing a loved one for instances] you can say I use isolation as my wall.