The Wall

In English, we just finished reading the "Scarlet Letter". As a response to the novel, we had to write an essay defining what OUR letter would be...basically, what is our biggest weakness? This is what I wrote:

"The Merriam-Webster dictionary contains three separate definitions for the word “defensive”: of or relating to the attempt to keep an opponent from scoring in a game, serving to defend, and devoted resistance to preventing attack. All of these descriptions relate to an action that protects against something harmful. The dictionary also lists the definition of the word “damage”: harm resulting from injury to a person. Outwardly, these two words are opposites, and yet, they are interconnected in my life. My defensiveness is a characteristic that limits emotions, communication, and promotes stubbornness—all of which damage me as well as those I love.

In my life the word “defensive” can function as an adjective, a state of being, and an emotion. However, how the word performs in a sentence doesn’t serve as its essential feature. The defining characteristic of my defensiveness is “The Wall”. “The Wall” exists as a survival instinct that aims to protect me from any emotional pain as well as prevent me from displaying my feelings. It surrounds me at the first hint of emotional stress, discomfort, or insult.


As soon as “The Wall” stations itself around me, I am disconnected from reality. It eliminates the outside world while simultaneously creating its own inner world with a population size of one: me. I become the only person that matters and my opinion becomes fact. I no longer have the capability to be affected by my emotion or the emotions of others. With my feelings turned off, I possess no interest in anything or anyone.


Lack of emotion and interest inhibit my ability to effectively communicate with others. Conversation becomes a competition in which stubbornness and egotism are needed to win and winning is the only objective. I am incapable of admitting any faults, because in my version of reality, I am perfect. My life becomes me versus the world, in which the world and everyone in it are trying to hurt me. Those I love become my enemies. I refuse to trust them or to listen to them, all for the sake of my emotional defense. Not only does this reflex limit communication, it also aggravates those on the opposite side of “The Wall”. From their perspective, they’re trying to have a conversation with me when suddenly I refuse to listen or care about what they say.

“The Wall” causes others to experience confusion, because they don’t understand what’s going on, pain, because their feelings and opinions don’t matter to me in the moment, and frustration, because they don’t know how to handle the situation or talk to me.
My defensiveness, specifically “The Wall”, exists as a result of my childhood. Growing up, my family life was filled with positive experiences and loving, happy parents. Since I didn’t come across any extremely negative emotions early in life, I never learned how to appropriately express those feelings. As I got older and came into contact with new social environments at school, I was unaware of how to handle my emotions. As a result, my parents took me to counseling sessions the beginning of my fourth grade year. I learned that screaming, kicking, and threatening were wrong and quickly corrected my mistakes, as I was eager to please. The correction came with a cost, though. Because I struggled to manage my emotions, I began to build “The Wall” to hide my feelings. It became a reflex, a mechanism to control myself when situations got too stressful and I got too upset to handle myself.

By emotionally shutting down, I am able to prohibit my emotions from influencing me and further maintain control by not caring about what those around me might say or do. However, by protecting myself I simultaneously hurt those that I love. A product of my childhood and an acquired habit, defensiveness is the weakness that defines me."