#134 Why Boundaries Feel So Hard After Trauma | The Fawn Response Explained#134 Why Boundaries Feel So Hard After Trauma | The Fawn Response Explained
The Trauma Recovery School
Bonita Ackerman du Preez explains why trauma can make boundaries feel dangerous, focusing on the fawn response and its impact on the nervous system. She shares a new way to define boundaries and describes how retraining the body can reduce guilt and make self-honour feel safe.
4:26•5 Oct 2026
Why Boundaries Feel Unsafe After Trauma: The Fawn Response Explained
Episode Overview
- Boundaries are framed as decisions about one’s own actions, rather than rules imposed on others, removing the need for anyone’s compliance.
- Trauma can train the nervous system to read self-honour as danger, leading to the fawn response and chronic people-pleasing.
- The amygdala and surrounding brain areas become highly sensitive to others’ emotional cues, while the vagus nerve is primed to appease rather than assert.
- Physical reactions such as a tight throat, closed chest and panic during boundary-setting are explained as learned trauma responses, not personal failure.
- Strong, clear boundaries are described as quiet and deliberate, helping to build long-lasting, connected relationships despite initial feelings of guilt.
“A boundary is not a rule you impose on another person. It's a decision about what you will do.”
How do people cope with the challenges of staying sober and still struggle to say “no”? This episode from The Trauma Recovery School zooms in on why boundaries can feel terrifying after trauma, especially for those who default to pleasing everyone around them. Host and trauma recovery therapist Bonita Ackerman du Preez breaks down why sheer willpower isn’t fixing the problem.
As she puts it, “you have been trying to solve your nervous system problem with willpower and it doesn't work… not because you're failing, because will power is just the wrong tool when you've had trauma.” Instead of shaming anyone for people-pleasing, she explains the fawn response as a fourth trauma response, sitting alongside fight, flight and freeze. You’ll hear a clear reframe of what a boundary actually is: “A boundary is not a rule you impose on another person.
It's a decision about what you will do.” That simple shift means your limits no longer rely on someone else’s cooperation, which can be hugely relieving if you’ve spent years appeasing others to stay safe. Bonita walks through the science too. She describes how the amygdala becomes tuned to tiny emotional cues, how the vagus nerve gets primed “to appease rather than assert,” and why your throat tightens and chest closes every time you try to hold a line.
It’s not weakness; it’s “a nervous system doing exactly what it's learned to do.” There’s also a reality check on guilt. That knot in the stomach when you finally say no? She explains it as a predictable part of changing long‑standing patterns, and shares how their trauma recovery method gently retrains the nervous system so that self-honour starts to feel safe, even ordinary. Anyone who has ever apologised their way through a boundary will recognise themselves here.
Ready to let your “no” feel like home instead of a threat?
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