When you grow up in environments where your safety depends on who you appear to be, not who you actually are, the performance becomes automatic.
You learn to read the room, anticipate needs, smooth the edges, stay agreeable, stay impressive. Your nervous system links belonging with pleasing, and safety with hiding the parts of you that were never welcomed.
As an adult, being real isn't just "vulnerable" - it feels dangerous. Your amygdala interprets authenticity as a threat. The body remembers the moments where being yourself cost you connection, closeness, or peace. This is why so many high-functioning trauma survivors feel like they're "too much," "too emotional," or "too needy" when they stop performing and start showing up honestly.
Therapy that targets the nervous system, like
EMDR, helps the brain update those old patterns so that authenticity no longer feels threatening. Over time, your body learns that being yourself isn't a risk.
If you want to know more about EMDR then book a free initial consult (link in bio). ⭐️
#trauma #traumahealing #traumarecovery #emdr #complextrauma
We don’t talk enough about the trauma survivors who are functioning. The ones who hold everything together, run households, lead teams, go to the gym, never miss a deadline and yet live with a nervous system that never truly switches off.
For many high-functioning survivors, “being fine” became a survival strategy long before adulthood.
You learnt to stay in control.
To anticipate every possible outcome.
To manage other people’s moods.
To avoid being a burden.
To cope alone because no one was available for you.
And when this becomes the template, your brain wires itself around over-responsibility, hypervigilance, and relentless self-reliance. It looks like competence, but underneath it’s a body stuck in threat: tight chest, shallow breathing, buzzing mind, always scanning.
This is why slowing down feels unsafe and why rest feels wrong. It’s why even a loving, secure relationship can feel overwhelming. Your system doesn’t yet know you’re safe because it only knows the survival pattern.
The good news is the brain and body can update.
With trauma-focused treatments like EMDR, the nervous system learns what it couldn’t learn back then:
that you’re no longer in danger, you don’t have to hold everything alone and that support is not a threat.
If you see yourself in this, you’re not “too much” or “dramatic”. You’re a survivor whose strategies worked brilliantly in the past, but are exhausting you now.
You deserve a life where “fine” isn’t your baseline.
You deserve to feel safe in your own body. And healing is absolutely possible.
⭐️ Download my freebie (link in bio) to start your healing journey.
#emdr #complextrauma #traumahealing #traumarecovery #trauma
For a long time after my dad died, I tried to control everything. If I could plan, predict, and prepare, maybe nothing else bad would happen.
It made sense - my body was still wired for danger.
But when things did go wrong (as they inevitably do), it hurt even more. Because I had believed that control would keep me safe and it couldn’t.
That’s what trauma does: it teaches your nervous system that safety depends on vigilance. The amygdala stays on high alert, the body tenses, and uncertainty feels unbearable. Control becomes the illusion of safety.
What actually brings healing isn’t more control,
it’s processing what’s happened so your body can register that the danger is over.
It’s learning to live in the grey, where things can be uncertain and still be okay.
Therapies like EMDR help the brain and body update that old survival map, so you can respond to life rather than brace against it.
Safety isn’t about everything going right -
it’s about knowing you can handle it when it doesn’t.
#trauma #complextrauma #control #emdr #releasecontrol
