A calm, healthy relationship can feel more dangerous to you than the chaos you grew up in.
That’s hypervigilance. It hates the absence of a threat, so it manufactures one, even when you’re finally safe. Patrick Teahan, a clinical social worker and childhood trauma educator, breaks down why your body still reacts like it’s protecting a nine year old.
You’re not overreacting. You’re replaying. Teahan explains how most people experience the present entirely through the lens of childhood, filtering every text and every silence through wounds that happened decades ago.
This episode gets into inner child work, re-parenting, and the murky question of when going no contact with a parent is healing versus when it’s avoidance. You’ll hear what real boundaries look like when love and abuse get tangled together.
By the end, you’ll understand why healing isn’t about proving your parents wrong. It’s about finally believing you were a good kid the whole time.
