How High-Functioning Anxiety and People-Pleasing Keep You Stuck and boundaries can set you free

Key takeaway: Feeling stuck or overwhelmed by obligation? This article explores how anxiety-driven overfunctioning and unclear boundaries can leave you feeling trapped—and how clarity, self-awareness, and healthy limits can set you free.

Overwhelmed, stuck, and out of options?

Cat wedged inside a backyard bird feeder—visual metaphor for feeling trapped by anxious over-obligation — Tomas Tuma-unsplash

Life offers us a variety of experiences over time. Sometimes we find ourselves in situations where we feel there is no way out. That we have to do a certain thing, or do life in a certain way, or show up and be a certain way. Truly, some situations are much more complex and difficult to maneuver than others, but for many of us it is also the black and white, self-limiting story we tell ourselves about how it has to be. In situations like this, not only are we stuck and trapped, but we are our own jailer.

When you hold the key yet still feel caged by anxiety

Only there is a problem. We are the problem. We are the jailer. We are the cage. We are our own worst nightmare when it comes to moving towards freedom. Our anxious thoughts are there to dog us every step of the way. Telling us why we have to do it and do it exactly the way we're doing it. Why we can't change. Why it is impossible to say "no". Why we need to consistently put others wants, desires, and needs over our own. In our anxious habit, we get stuck in not knowing how to set boundaries, not knowing how to say, "No," not knowing we can. In fact, often we don't even need to be asked. We are leaping out and volunteering, taking it on, and winning the day. We can have no idea what we want and need, other than to take care of others and be liked and valued for our ability to do so. After all, this is what loving caring people do, right? Or so we tell ourselves.

You hold the key to freedom from burnout: boundaries

Hand gripping a vintage key pendant—reminder that you already hold the key to set healthy boundaries and feel free. — Daryn Stumbaugh_unsplash

Here's the thing, we do enough of this often enough, for long enough, without any sense of what is actually appropriate, and we end up overextended, exhausted, trapped by our own willingness, burdened, resentful, blaming, sometimes feeling martyred and taken for granted. Sucks. Big time. The good news? While, yes, we are our own jolly jailer, we not only hold the key, we are the key. It's just a matter of figuring out what makes that lock fall open.

Real freedom starts with healthy boundaries

When we are operating in our anxious states of being, even the idea of establishing a boundary and saying "no" can be extraordinarily uncomfortable and anxiety producing. It feels like we absolutely have to act, have to fix the situation, have to manage the moment. Not having learned a healthy way to deal with this anxiety and stress, we take care of ourselves in the most effective way we can. We do. We act. We fix. We 'help," whether we have been asked to or not. We manage tasks, things, events, and people. I mean, how can we not help? We're so damned capable! We have an "If I could, I should" model of living, regardless or our actual capacity to continue to take on more. It takes an extraordinary amount of energy and requires more than a little hubris, but many of us will happily try and shoulder managing the whole world or at least our little corner of it. Definitely our people. It's no wonder those around us sometimes think we're controlling.

Why caregiving becomes self-soothing (and fuels burnout)

Young child tutoring sibling—early caregiving habit that can evolve into anxious overfunctioning and burnout. — Rachel-unsplash

Acting on what we feel needs to be done does relieve our anxiety in the moment. That's also part of the problem. As a result, our self-soothing through taking action is a self-reinforcing behavior. It also exhausts us. Ultimately pulling us deeper into exhaustion and our downward anxiety spiral. Our lack of appropriate boundaries for ourselves and others can lead to discord in our relationships, because guess what? It doesn't always feel good to be helped. It definitely doesn't feel good to be managed or controlled. In fact, it's irritating and obnoxious. Displeasing. This is the precise opposite of what our anxious self is trying to create in our world.

It’s okay to help—until helping crosses into anxious overfunctioning

What often starts out as the brilliant and successful coping strategy of a bright and observant child in a chaotic or anxious environment, morphs over time into the thing that is running us and limiting us. Knowing how to help and please may have saved your emotional or physical ass back in the day, but now runs you into the ground. If our parent was particularly scattered, needy, or emotionally demanding, it can leave us with no real sense of ourselves and what is appropriate to offer or not.

Healthy boundaries: the missing key to anxiety reduction

It's not that it's not okay to help. It is. It is also essential we understand our own limits, know how to stay in our own lane and not be up in someone else's business, and learn what is a healthy and appropriate offer or request for help. How much of either is too much? When we are trapped in our own anxious self-soothing through our over-functioning mindset, it all feels essential and urgent and as if there is no choice left to us. We feel compelled.It can feel like taking charge is the only option. We feel trapped.

Laughing woman playfully raises hand—confidence to say “no” without guilt and protect personal boundaries. — Bishka Nguyen—unsplash

Learn to create freedom by saying “No” without guilt

Feeling into your own wants, needs, and preferences is the essential developmental work of individuating and moving forward into adulthood in our culture. Sometimes, this normal, natural, essential work has been disrupted by the circumstances we grew and matured in. We've developed a lot of wonderful skills, some of them as a result of our sometimes extraordinary ability to feel into others and problem solve, and now we need to do the work of feeling more deeply into ourselves. In the process of learning ourselves at a deeper level, we can end up momentarily feeling self-absorbed and selfish.

Prioritizing your needs: the discomfort that leads to growth

If it's never really been okay to prioritize yourself, so this will be very uncomfortable. Learning ourselves, knowing ourselves at a deeper level, we can end up momentarily feeling self-absorbed and selfish. If it's never really been okay to prioritize yourself, so this will be very uncomfortable. Learning ourselves, knowing ourselves, feeling into what is a healthy boundary for ourselves, our own behaviors, and what we accept or tolerate in the behaviors of others towards us is the slow, incremental work of self-development. It is work that often benefits from the mentorship and guidance of a trusted helper. This. This self development, this stepping into knowing ourselves deeper, and sorting through our decisions, wants, dreams, needs. This is the depthful work of good therapy and the creation of a life more free from shouldering unquestioned obligation and worry. It's there for the taking. More peace. More ease. More happiness in your primary relationships. More freedom. It's yours to have.

Woman breathing freely among flowers—symbol of spaciousness after setting limits — Brooke Cagle-unsplash

Next steps to freedom: online anxiety therapy for Californians

Getting a better sense of yourself, learning how to set appropriate boundaries with yourself and others can set you free and open life up. This is the work of therapy and the kind of work we do in my practice every day.

Ready to trade exhaustion for ease? Book a free 15-minute consult and learn how online therapy across California can help you set boundaries and feel lighter—no commute required

I help people who feel bad feel better. Let’s talk. Learn about online anxiety therapy in California.

Feeling Trapped:a Symptom of Anxiety