Identity/Illness as a Nervous system Structure
I began teaching a class, “Awareness That Heals” in January 2026 6 months after a surgery that caused paralysis on the left side of my face. I interpreted the paralysis as a clear message to start living my life more authentically, from my vulnerable, sensitive self not from behind the mask of the doctor. I called it the “Year of Unwinding”. It involved committing to daily meditation, journaling, yoga and to live from my true pace, true voice and in a way that honored me above all else. It was clear that the writing, healing and lifestyle practices I utilized to heal myself of Mold, and Lyme needed a witness and to be shared. Awareness That Heals. a weekly class was born. I came to terms with the fact I was addicted to caffeine, over-doing as well as using exercise and work as my distractions. As of May 17, 2026, my face has healed and I am increasingly able to face the aspects of myself I have been hiding from for 61 years. I am grateful for those enrolling in Awareness That Heals to help me to go even deeper in my unwinding process.
IDENTITY/ILLNESS AS A NERVOUS SYSTEM STRUCTURE
We are shaped by a combination of our genetics, epigenetics, environment, experiences, and relationships. Our identity is not created from one thing alone, but from the interaction of all of these influences over time.
Much of our identity is formed through how we were parented and how our parents were parented before us.
Genetics can influence our susceptibilities to certain physical and emotional patterns. Some people may be more predisposed to inflammation, metabolic dysfunction, anxiety, depression, autoimmunity, addiction, or stress sensitivity. For example, someone with a slower COMT gene may break down stress hormones more slowly, causing adrenaline and cortisol to remain active in the body longer and contributing to feeling chronically overwhelmed or “on edge.”
But perhaps the most important influence is how safe we felt as infants and young children.
If we were consistently held, soothed, comforted, fed, protected, and emotionally supported, we were more likely to develop secure attachment and a more regulated nervous system. If one or both parents were highly anxious, emotionally unavailable, dysregulated, unpredictable, or overwhelmed themselves, the child often absorbs those patterns because nervous system regulation is largely learned through co-regulation.
Many parents deeply loved their children and did the best they could, but may not have had the awareness, emotional tools, or nervous system capacity to recognize how their own stress and wounds affected their children.
We are biologically wired for survival. Our nervous systems are constantly scanning our environment for cues of safety or danger.
The more chronic stress, instability, trauma, emotional neglect, criticism, abandonment, or unpredictability we experienced early in life, the more hypervigilant the nervous system can become. We develop protective strategies and defense mechanisms to help us survive emotionally painful situations.
Unprocessed emotions do not simply disappear.
If something painful happened and we did not feel safe enough to fully process the emotional response — crying when hurt, expressing anger after injustice, grieving a loss, asking for comfort, setting boundaries — the emotional energy often remains unresolved within the nervous system and body.
These experiences are not only stored as conscious memories. Many are stored as physiological states and survival patterns.
The body remembers through tension, contraction, hypervigilance, shutdown, dissociation, anxiety, numbness, restlessness, digestive issues, chronic pain, fatigue, or emotional reactivity.
Fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses may have been activated but never fully completed. Perhaps fighting back would have led to punishment. Maybe crying was shamed. Maybe expressing needs was ignored. So the nervous system learned to suppress, disconnect, or “go underground” in order to stay safe.
Over time, these unresolved states can live quietly in the background like open tabs running beneath conscious awareness.
Every time we say “I’m fine” when we are actually hurt, lonely, anxious, angry, or overwhelmed, we reinforce those protective patterns.
Eventually, maintaining the mask takes tremendous energy. We begin to identify with the defense mechanisms themselves.
We may become overly independent, emotionally avoidant, perfectionistic, hyper-achieving, people-pleasing, controlling, constantly busy, or disconnected from our authentic emotions and needs.
This helps explain attachment patterns such as anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, or fear of intimacy. These are not character flaws — they are adaptive nervous system strategies developed in response to early experiences.
The important thing to understand is that these patterns are not your fault.
The nervous system’s primary goal is survival.
When emotions remain chronically unprocessed, the brain and body adapt around them. The amygdala can become more sensitized, lowering the threshold for stress responses so that smaller and smaller triggers create larger reactions.
At the same time, chronic stress and elevated cortisol can impair the prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain involved in reasoning, emotional regulation, patience, learning, and presence.
You may become more reactive, less resilient, more anxious, exhausted, inflamed, disconnected, or emotionally overwhelmed. Sleep may suffer. Immune function can become dysregulated. Metabolism may shift. Inflammation can increase.
To avoid discomfort, many people unconsciously turn toward distraction or control:
staying constantly busy
overworking
intellectualizing emotions
caretaking others
perfectionism
substances or alcohol
emotional eating
shopping
scrolling
binge watching
smoking
excessive achievement
chronic productivity
These behaviors are not random. Often they are attempts to avoid feeling what the nervous system does not yet feel safe enough to experience.
Sometimes these adaptations even shape our identity and profession. We may become caretakers, doctors, therapists, high achievers, performers, entertainers, entrepreneurs, rescuers, or adrenaline seekers.
A powerful example is Robin Williams — a deeply gifted comedian and actor who became extraordinarily skilled at masking pain through humor and performance.
Others may struggle with addiction, where substances temporarily numb unresolved emotional pain. This may partly explain why relapse rates can be so high in addiction recovery when the original emotional wounds and nervous system patterns are never addressed underneath the behavior itself.
People also tend to unconsciously recreate familiar emotional dynamics. If abandonment was familiar, they may repeatedly attract emotionally unavailable partners. If love was conditional growing up, unconditional love may actually feel unfamiliar or unsafe.
This “emotional debt” may not come from one major trauma. Often it develops through hundreds or thousands of smaller “micro-threats” over time:
criticism
emotional invalidation
unpredictability
feeling unseen
walking on eggshells
chronic stress
not feeling emotionally safe
being told to “be strong”
needing to suppress emotions to belong
At some point, many people reach a turning point.
It may come through illness, burnout, anxiety, panic attacks, relationship loss, grief, depression, chronic fatigue, addiction, or an emotional crisis.
Suddenly the old way of living no longer works.
The armor becomes too heavy to carry.
This can become the beginning of the healing process.
1. Awareness is the first step.
You begin to recognize the patterns, defenses, coping strategies, and nervous system states you have been living inside of.
2. You do not have to relive every detail of the story.
Healing is not about endlessly retraumatizing yourself. Often it begins simply by noticing sensations, emotions, tension, discomfort, or activation in the body with curiosity and safety.
3. You do not have to judge your defense mechanisms.
Your defenses helped you survive. Instead of criticizing them, you can begin to understand and appreciate why they developed.
4. You begin to step outside the pattern.
Before, you were unconsciously living inside the defense mechanism. Now you observe it from a new vantage point with awareness.
5. You begin to notice unfinished emotional moments.
Not necessarily through analyzing the story, but through gently allowing yourself to feel what has been waiting underneath the surface without becoming overwhelmed by it.
Healing is often less about “thinking your way out” and more about safely feeling your way through.
6. Nervous system practices become important.
This can include:
silence
slowing down
breathwork
somatic work
meditation
therapy
journaling
nature
safe connection
hypnotherapy
movement
creativity
psychedelic-assisted therapy
prayer or spirituality
There is no single path. The goal is finding what helps your nervous system experience greater safety, regulation, and connection.
7. You begin to see your symptoms differently.
Instead of viewing your body or illness as the enemy, you begin to understand symptoms as communication — signals that something inside has needed attention, safety, expression, or healing.
8. Challenges are approached differently.
When stress arises, you learn to pause, breathe, notice, and feel without immediately needing to suppress, fix, numb, defend, or escape the experience.
And when you do fall into old patterns, you can recognize them with compassion rather than shame.
9. Healing also involves being witnessed.
Many people feel profoundly lonely because they have spent their lives living a false identity while hiding their authentic inner experience.
Healing often includes allowing yourself to be seen.
Not because someone must fix you, but because safe connection helps the nervous system learn that vulnerability, authenticity, and emotional truth are survivable.
This class was inspired by Chase Hughes, “Emotional Debt”
Books Related to This Theme
Untamed by Glennon Doyle
Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes
All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert