Understanding the Hidden Rules That Shape Our Lives
Trauma-informed therapy for complex PTSD, OCD and eating difficulties
The Rules We Never Chose
Most of us like to think we make decisions consciously.
We decide what matters to us. We choose how to spend our time, how we relate to other people, and what kind of life we want to build. Yet many of our choices are shaped by rules that we rarely stop to question.
Some of these rules are obvious. Others operate so quietly in the background that we no longer recognise them as rules at all.
They sound like:
“Don’t upset anyone.”
“Always be productive.”
“You should be able to cope on your own.”
“Making mistakes is unacceptable.”
“Your needs should come after everyone else’s.”
“If you aren’t in control, something bad will happen.”
“You must not take up too much space.”
“You need to be certain before you act.”
Over time, these messages can become so familiar that they stop feeling like beliefs and start feeling like reality.
We rarely ask where they came from. We simply assume they are true.
Yet many of the difficulties people bring to therapy are not only about anxiety, low mood, trauma, OCD, eating difficulties, or burnout. Often, they are about living under the weight of rules that once helped them survive but have gradually become restrictive.
The question is not whether these rules developed for a reason.
The question is whether they are still serving you now.
How Rules Develop
Human beings are remarkably adaptive.
Research in developmental psychology, attachment theory, and neuroscience consistently demonstrates that we learn from our environments from a very young age. We learn what creates connection, what attracts approval, what leads to criticism, and what helps us feel safe.
Some lessons are taught explicitly.
Others are learned through experience.
A child who is praised for being helpful may begin to associate worth with meeting the needs of others. A child who experiences criticism whenever they make mistakes may begin to learn that perfection is necessary. Someone who grows up in unpredictability may discover that control creates a sense of safety. Someone whose emotional needs are frequently overlooked may learn not to ask for help.
These adaptations are often intelligent responses to particular environments.
The difficulty is that the nervous system does not automatically update when circumstances change.
A rule that made sense at ten years old may continue operating at thirty-five.
A strategy that once protected you may continue running in the background long after the original danger has passed.
When Rules Become Schemas
Schema Therapy offers a particularly helpful way of understanding why some rules become so deeply ingrained.
Schemas are enduring emotional and relational patterns that develop through repeated experiences. They shape how we understand ourselves, what we expect from other people, and what feels necessary for safety, belonging, and worth.
In many ways, schemas function like internal rulebooks.
Someone with a strong Self-Sacrifice Schema may carry an unspoken rule that other people’s needs should always come first. Their attention naturally moves outward. They become highly attuned to what others require while finding it much harder to notice or prioritise their own needs. From the outside, this often looks caring and compassionate. Internally, however, it can create exhaustion, resentment, and a persistent feeling that there is never enough space for themselves.
Others may carry an Unrelenting Standards Schema. This is more than perfectionism. It is the deeply held belief that there is always more to do, more to achieve, and more to improve. Rest rarely feels earned because the goalposts continuously move. No matter how much is accomplished, it never quite feels enough.
For those with an Approval-Seeking Schema, worth can become linked to how they are perceived by others. Being liked, respected, admired, or seen as capable becomes emotionally significant. Decisions may be shaped less by what feels right and more by what will avoid disappointment or criticism.
Someone with a Defectiveness Schema may carry a quieter but equally powerful rule:
“If people really knew me, they wouldn’t accept me.”
As a result, they may become experts at hiding vulnerability, monitoring themselves, or striving for perfection in an attempt to avoid rejection.
What makes schemas so powerful is that they do not simply influence behaviour.
They influence what feels true.
This is why recognising a rule intellectually is often much easier than changing it emotionally.
The Cost of Following the Rules
Many of these rules continue because they provide something.
They reduce anxiety.
They create predictability.
They preserve relationships.
They help us avoid difficult emotions.
They offer a sense of control.
Yet even helpful adaptations come with costs.
The rule that says “always be productive” may lead to achievement, but it can also contribute to burnout.
The rule that says “don’t burden anyone” may protect against vulnerability, but it can also create loneliness.
The rule that says “stay in control” may create certainty, but it can also make flexibility and spontaneity difficult.
One of the challenges of therapy is helping people hold both truths at the same time.
A rule may have protected you.
And it may now be limiting you.
Those two realities can coexist.
Food Rules, Body Rules and Worth Rules
This is particularly relevant when thinking about eating difficulties.
Eating disorders and disordered eating are often discussed in terms of food and weight, but many people describe living under a much broader system of rules.
Rules about what is acceptable to eat.
Rules about what their body should look like.
Rules about achievement, discipline, and self-control.
Rules about taking up space.
Rules about worth.
Research consistently shows that eating difficulties are influenced by a complex interaction of biological, psychological, social, and cultural factors. They are not simply choices, nor are they solely about appearance.
At the same time, many individuals describe becoming trapped within increasingly rigid internal rule systems.
What begins as a way of creating safety, certainty, or control can gradually become restrictive and exhausting.
Recovery often involves much more than changing behaviours around food.
It involves becoming curious about the rules that have been driving those behaviours and asking whether they still deserve the power they hold.
OCD and the Search for Certainty
Rules also sit at the heart of many experiences of OCD.
People often describe feeling governed by powerful rules around certainty, responsibility, and harm prevention.
“You must be completely sure.”
“You must not make mistakes.”
“You are responsible for preventing harm.”
“You need to check one more time.”
Compulsions frequently develop as attempts to follow these rules.
Checking, reassurance-seeking, researching, analysing, and mentally reviewing situations can all function as efforts to create certainty and safety.
The difficulty is that certainty is rarely achievable.
As a result, the rules become increasingly demanding.
What initially appears protective gradually begins to take up more and more space.
Approaches such as Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) and Inference-Based CBT (I-CBT) recognise that the goal is not to eliminate uncertainty but to develop a different relationship with it.
In many ways, recovery involves learning that the rule itself is not always telling the truth.
Neurodivergence, Masking and Social Rules
For many neurodivergent individuals, particularly those diagnosed later in life, another set of rules often develops.
Social rules.
Rules about eye contact.
Rules about communication.
Rules about emotional expression.
Rules about how much space to take up.
Rules about appearing “normal.”
Research on masking suggests that many autistic and ADHD individuals spend years consciously or unconsciously adapting themselves to fit expectations. These adaptations often emerge for understandable reasons. They may reduce bullying, increase acceptance, or help someone navigate environments that are not designed with their needs in mind.
Yet masking can come at a significant cost.
Many late-diagnosed adults describe reaching a point where they are no longer sure which parts of themselves feel authentic and which emerged primarily in response to external expectations.
The question becomes not only who they are, but who they might be without all the rules they learned to follow.
Not Everyone Pays the Same Price
It is also important to acknowledge that rules do not develop in a vacuum.
The expectations we absorb are influenced by family, culture, community, race, gender, disability, sexuality, religion, and broader social systems.
For some people, following certain rules has genuinely been linked to safety.
Others may face greater consequences for breaking social expectations. Experiences of discrimination, exclusion, or marginalisation can create additional pressures to monitor behaviour, work harder, prove competence, or avoid standing out.
This means that questioning rules is not always straightforward.
The goal is not to reject every rule we hold.
Rather, it is to develop enough awareness to distinguish between rules that reflect our values and rules that are driven primarily by fear.
Rules Versus Values
One of the most useful distinctions we can make is the difference between rules and values.
At first glance, they can look remarkably similar.
A person may say:
“I care about people.”
“I work hard.”
“I take responsibility seriously.”
“I value kindness.”
None of these are problematic.
The question is what happens when flexibility disappears.
Values tend to guide.
Rules tend to demand.
Values allow for context.
Rules often do not.
Values create choice.
Rules create obligation.
For example, kindness as a value may sometimes involve supporting others and sometimes involve setting boundaries.
A rule such as “I must never disappoint anyone” leaves very little room for flexibility.
Similarly, responsibility as a value may involve caring about the impact of your actions while recognising your limits.
A rule such as “I am responsible for everyone else’s wellbeing” often creates anxiety, guilt, and exhaustion.
Many people discover that what they initially believed were values are actually fear-based rules.
The behaviour may look similar from the outside, but the internal experience is very different.
One is driven by choice.
The other is driven by threat.
Who Would You Be Without the Rules?
Perhaps one of the most challenging questions in therapy is not:
“How do I get rid of this rule?”
But:
“Who might I become if this rule no longer made my decisions for me?”
This is not about becoming someone completely different.
Nor is it about abandoning responsibility, ambition, discipline, or care.
Rather, it is about creating enough distance from old rules that genuine choice becomes possible.
For someone with OCD, this may mean allowing uncertainty to exist without repeatedly seeking certainty.
For someone experiencing eating difficulties, it may involve learning to relate to food, movement, or their body with greater flexibility rather than rigid control.
For someone recovering from trauma, it may involve discovering that safety does not always require hypervigilance.
For someone who has spent years masking, it may involve exploring who they are when adaptation is no longer the primary goal.
These changes are rarely dramatic.
More often, they happen in small moments.
A need that is expressed.
A boundary that is held.
A compulsion that is resisted.
A meal that is approached differently.
A preference that is voiced.
Over time, these moments create new experiences.
And new experiences gradually create new possibilities.
Perhaps healing is not about becoming someone entirely different.
Perhaps it is about discovering who you are when fear is no longer writing quite so many of the rules.
Considering Therapy
Therapy can help you explore the rules that shape your life, understand where they came from, and decide whether they still deserve the influence they currently hold.
I work with adults experiencing complex PTSD, OCD and eating difficulties, offering trauma-informed, neurodivergent-affirming therapy in Menai Bridge and Llandudno, as well as online across the UK.
Many of the rules we live by developed for good reasons.
But healing sometimes begins when we become curious enough to ask:
Whose rules are these?
And perhaps even more importantly:
Do I still want to live by them?
