Recent posts
#21
Symptoms - Other / Re: Why "Inner Strength" Does ...
Last post by Marcine - January 12, 2026, 03:19:55 PMYes, theBigBlue.
I relate to the anger you felt when told you're so strong (to have overdeveloped coping mechanisms to survive trauma that you didn't deserve).
I'm glad you felt heard by your therapist. I wish you didn't have to educate your therapist on this, but I am glad you felt heard and appreciated by them.
Your words are clear and coherent. I relate with your experiences.
I relate to the anger you felt when told you're so strong (to have overdeveloped coping mechanisms to survive trauma that you didn't deserve).
I'm glad you felt heard by your therapist. I wish you didn't have to educate your therapist on this, but I am glad you felt heard and appreciated by them.
Your words are clear and coherent. I relate with your experiences.
#22
Recovery Journals / Re: Desert Flower's Recovery J...
Last post by TheBigBlue - January 12, 2026, 02:33:25 PMOf course, NK. I have opened the new thread here:
Quote from: TheBigBlue on January 12, 2026, 02:28:57 PMWhy "Inner Strength" Does Not Land – A Developmental Mismatch
#23
Symptoms - Other / Why "Inner Strength" Does Not ...
Last post by TheBigBlue - January 12, 2026, 02:28:57 PMThank you NK for the suggestion to open this thread:
Why "Inner Strength" Does Not Land – A Developmental Mismatch
When I hear "you have great inner strength," (something my CBT T said a lot) my system reacts with anger – not because I reject growth or don't understand the CBT intent, but because in my case, what looked like "strength" was actually over-adaptation. Survival depended on hyper-functioning, vigilance, maintaining harmony, suppressing my own reality and needs to preserve connection – self-erasure through compliance, endurance, silence, and not burdening others. That came at the cost of authenticity, needs, and safety. There was no opportunity to develop an internal self that could hold safety.
So when those same CPTSD adaptations are praised now, it feels like harm is being misnamed as virtue – like being congratulated for what nearly destroyed me. On a nervous-system level, "you have great inner strength" also lands as: you should already have the thing you were never given the chance to develop. That's why it feels invalidating. It also triggers my abandonment wire: if I'm told to "find it in myself" before it exists, I experience it as being left alone with the collapse – one of my core hot wires.
Internal safety isn't something I can simply access, will into existence or derive from the same adaptations that kept me alive. Those survival strategies cannot be the foundation of the future.
What research actually shows – and what finally made sense to me – is that internal safety doesn't originate from willpower, insight, or reframing. It develops relationally, very early in life, through repeated experiences of co-regulation. Through being seen, soothed, and responded to, the nervous system learns that distress can settle and connection is reliable. Even when that opportunity wasn't available in childhood, internal safety can still be built later – but it still forms through relationship, not "strength." It requires attuned presence and co-regulation after collapse, not assumptions that the internal structure already exists. The basis from which real strength eventually grows is the capacity to stay in connection without erasing myself. The fact that my therapist didn't dispute this, but actually thanked me for clarifying it, was gold. It helped stop the terror. I'm not on solid ground yet, but I am much more regulated.
Why "Inner Strength" Does Not Land – A Developmental Mismatch
When I hear "you have great inner strength," (something my CBT T said a lot) my system reacts with anger – not because I reject growth or don't understand the CBT intent, but because in my case, what looked like "strength" was actually over-adaptation. Survival depended on hyper-functioning, vigilance, maintaining harmony, suppressing my own reality and needs to preserve connection – self-erasure through compliance, endurance, silence, and not burdening others. That came at the cost of authenticity, needs, and safety. There was no opportunity to develop an internal self that could hold safety.
So when those same CPTSD adaptations are praised now, it feels like harm is being misnamed as virtue – like being congratulated for what nearly destroyed me. On a nervous-system level, "you have great inner strength" also lands as: you should already have the thing you were never given the chance to develop. That's why it feels invalidating. It also triggers my abandonment wire: if I'm told to "find it in myself" before it exists, I experience it as being left alone with the collapse – one of my core hot wires.
Internal safety isn't something I can simply access, will into existence or derive from the same adaptations that kept me alive. Those survival strategies cannot be the foundation of the future.
What research actually shows – and what finally made sense to me – is that internal safety doesn't originate from willpower, insight, or reframing. It develops relationally, very early in life, through repeated experiences of co-regulation. Through being seen, soothed, and responded to, the nervous system learns that distress can settle and connection is reliable. Even when that opportunity wasn't available in childhood, internal safety can still be built later – but it still forms through relationship, not "strength." It requires attuned presence and co-regulation after collapse, not assumptions that the internal structure already exists. The basis from which real strength eventually grows is the capacity to stay in connection without erasing myself. The fact that my therapist didn't dispute this, but actually thanked me for clarifying it, was gold. It helped stop the terror. I'm not on solid ground yet, but I am much more regulated.
#24
Recovery Journals / Re: Desert Flower's Recovery J...
Last post by NarcKiddo - January 12, 2026, 01:57:08 PMQuote from: TheBigBlue on January 11, 2026, 04:27:27 PMWhy "Inner Strength" Does Not Land – A Developmental Mismatch
TheBigBlue - There is so much to discuss in relation to this. I think it merits its own thread in the forum. Could you (or may I) copy this section into a discussion area so we can talk about it more, please?
#25
Recovery Journals / Re: Papa Coco's Recovery Journ...
Last post by NarcKiddo - January 12, 2026, 01:48:50 PMYay for the misfits!
#26
Books & Articles / Re: David Bedrick - The Unsham...
Last post by Hope67 - January 12, 2026, 01:46:52 PMThank you SenseOrgan, I was impressed by everything written here and also the reviews I saw on Amazon, plus the fact it was on a special price at the moment, so I actually ordered it! I am looking forward to reading it - although I have a line-up of books I need to get through, and feel like I don't have sufficient time (but I am going to pace myself!!!)
#28
General Discussion / Re: Psychosis from extreme dis...
Last post by Chart - January 12, 2026, 11:38:12 AM
Teddy bear, your posts are good in the sense that they revive certain subjects and re-activate threads that others (definitely me) might never have come across.
Thanks!
Chart
#29
Recovery Journals / Re: Papa Coco's Recovery Journ...
Last post by Chart - January 12, 2026, 10:11:23 AM
#30
Frustrated? Set Backs? / Re: stuck in a loop
Last post by dollyvee - January 12, 2026, 09:58:19 AMI'm sorry asdis, all that is really tough.
It took me years of trying to get someone to believe me that something was going on and it wasn't all in my head, trying to manage it on my own. Sometimes that's what you have to do and it is in way, like reliving my trauma again ie being in the hospital with my m because I couldn't breathe at age 5, questioning if I really needed to be there because she had to get up and go to work the next morning. Did she stop smoking or consider it when the doctors told her it was a problem for me? Definitely not.
So, I read a lot and tried a ton of different things, trying to get some answers from doctors over the years. What I found that worked for me, was making some changes ie cutting out gluten when I thought my symptoms were related to Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. I cut it out for three weeks and had a reaction (acute joint pain) about 20 minutes after I ate it. That signalled to me that something was up. So, I stuck with it. However, all my symptoms didn't go away, but I could see a very real cause and effect from that. I asked the doctors to genetically test me for celiac and they did, but it was neagative. They had no further answers. The inflammation took a long time to go away and clear from my system, but it did until I moved and was exposed to mold again and then proceeded another round of trying to find out what was going on. I miss eating sourdough bread, but to me, the benefits of not feeling sick that I could distinctly feel, outweighed the foods that I could no longer eat.
I will also say that my symptoms were not just on a physical level, eating gluten also did something to my mood and cognitive function. I would feel like I "hated the world," and would feel quite mentally dark as well as lacking the ability to focus. So, this stuff is tricky because the symptoms aren't always solely physical. I know someone who tried the autoimmune paleo diet after I suggested it to her, and it made an incredible improvement (so much so that she was thinking about selling her car because it was so painful to shift at the end of a working day, to not having that problem), but the diet is/was so difficult, and she was having to meal prep on top of working 14 hour days that she didn't know how to keep up. Of course if you're having issues with oxalates and/or salicytes as well, it can compound the foods that you can't eat. But over time, these little steps help to calm your body down a bit to take the next step.
The other thing I found that helped me was to find online communities of people who had the things I thought I did and learn for them. It helped me find out what are the correct diagnostic tests that doctors should be running, so there wasn't your test results are fine and there's nothing wrong with you, as well as what are the functional levels that actually need to be on a good lab result (functional medicine was what helped me source the problem and it does suck because it costs an absolute fortune, but your insurance may cover it as I think some peoples' do). It was also good to hear stories about what did and didn''t work for people, but there are also dead ends too, and people chasing their own snake oil cures.
You are taking care of yourself in a way that your FOO didn't and that's great
Sending you support to take the next step.
It took me years of trying to get someone to believe me that something was going on and it wasn't all in my head, trying to manage it on my own. Sometimes that's what you have to do and it is in way, like reliving my trauma again ie being in the hospital with my m because I couldn't breathe at age 5, questioning if I really needed to be there because she had to get up and go to work the next morning. Did she stop smoking or consider it when the doctors told her it was a problem for me? Definitely not.
So, I read a lot and tried a ton of different things, trying to get some answers from doctors over the years. What I found that worked for me, was making some changes ie cutting out gluten when I thought my symptoms were related to Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. I cut it out for three weeks and had a reaction (acute joint pain) about 20 minutes after I ate it. That signalled to me that something was up. So, I stuck with it. However, all my symptoms didn't go away, but I could see a very real cause and effect from that. I asked the doctors to genetically test me for celiac and they did, but it was neagative. They had no further answers. The inflammation took a long time to go away and clear from my system, but it did until I moved and was exposed to mold again and then proceeded another round of trying to find out what was going on. I miss eating sourdough bread, but to me, the benefits of not feeling sick that I could distinctly feel, outweighed the foods that I could no longer eat.
I will also say that my symptoms were not just on a physical level, eating gluten also did something to my mood and cognitive function. I would feel like I "hated the world," and would feel quite mentally dark as well as lacking the ability to focus. So, this stuff is tricky because the symptoms aren't always solely physical. I know someone who tried the autoimmune paleo diet after I suggested it to her, and it made an incredible improvement (so much so that she was thinking about selling her car because it was so painful to shift at the end of a working day, to not having that problem), but the diet is/was so difficult, and she was having to meal prep on top of working 14 hour days that she didn't know how to keep up. Of course if you're having issues with oxalates and/or salicytes as well, it can compound the foods that you can't eat. But over time, these little steps help to calm your body down a bit to take the next step.
The other thing I found that helped me was to find online communities of people who had the things I thought I did and learn for them. It helped me find out what are the correct diagnostic tests that doctors should be running, so there wasn't your test results are fine and there's nothing wrong with you, as well as what are the functional levels that actually need to be on a good lab result (functional medicine was what helped me source the problem and it does suck because it costs an absolute fortune, but your insurance may cover it as I think some peoples' do). It was also good to hear stories about what did and didn''t work for people, but there are also dead ends too, and people chasing their own snake oil cures.
You are taking care of yourself in a way that your FOO didn't and that's great
Sending you support to take the next step.