Healing As Hiding: The Introversion Trauma Response
If you were raised by emotionally immature, absent, or toxic parents, you likely learned at a young age that it wasn’t safe to be yourself. You had to be agreeable. You had to stay small. You had no choice but to suppress yourself. To bury your true self down deep enough, that you’d no longer feel the pain of the disconnection.
That sort of programming doesn’t just disappear in adulthood.
During a fascinating conversation I recently had with Francesca Tighinean, we spoke about how when we come from that type of programming, we can sometimes mistake isolation for healing in adulthood.
It’s called avoidant coping and it’s what happens when your problems seem so overwhelming, you deal with them by avoiding them completely. Your mind might try to justify that the urge to be alone is introversion, for example, but you’re actually just an exhausted people-pleaser who isolates because they’re tired of performing and keeping themself small.
We also spoke about a whole host of related topics like how catastrophizing becomes a protection mechanism, why the fear of abandonment isn’t rational, the true test of emotional maturity, and the importance of learning to tolerate positive emotions when your nervous system is wired to anticipate disaster.
You can watch the full interview below - send me a message letting me know what you think once you do, I’d love to hear from you!
- Will
Links & Resources
Join the Academy Of Self Help Community
Join our free WhatsApp group chat
Read my book As Far As I Can Tell
Take the Healing From Emotionally Immature Parents course with Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson, author of Adult Children Of Emotionally Immature Parents
Thanks for sharing this video! I am seeing a lot of information now about healing in relationship as opposed to isolating and the illusion you’re healing. I can agree with this now - but I wasn’t always able to heal in relationship because I had not healed enough to be able to draw in any safe people. I had visits with family 3 times last year - one happening in early November - and by the time the holidays arrived all I could do was isolate. I was recovering and I didn’t want to spend time with anyone during those “family” charged days. I took a deep dive into my mosaic art and welcome solitude. This year, however, I don’t want to isolate like that. I’ve figured out some things about unfawning - being my more authentic self around people - and I’m excited about spending more time socializing during Thanksgiving and the end of the year. Because I’m more authentically me - it doesn’t cost me like it used to - nice. So I think sometimes we have to pull back in - but not forever - and then there’s definitely a time after that inner work where we need to go back out. 🩷✨
Blown away by thus content, provided such a deeper understanding to the patterns we fall into and how we rationalize them to appear healthy. Loved this!