The connection between nervous system dysregulation & toxic, abusive relationships #healingtrauma

When it comes to choosing life partners and other important relationships, we are often told to follow our gut instincts. But when we’ve been brought up in an environment that isn’t safe—physically, emotionally, or otherwise—we often lose connection to this inner knowing (i.e., our gut instinct is NOT accurate!). And that can lead to some severe consequences when it comes to the quality of our relationships and our health in general. The good news is that we can shift these patterns, get our spidey senses back online, and connect with people who are good for us. It starts with gaining awareness around what I outline in this video.

Extra resources:

►Can I heal if I’m living in a toxic environment?

► Functional freeze explained:

► How to break up with toxic people:

►Start the 21 Day Nervous System Tune-Up today:

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The statements on this YouTube channel or in videos are simply opinion. Content presented or posted on this channel is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment or a professional therapeutic relationship. Content presented or posted is intended to provide general health information for educational purposes only and you should contact the appropriate healthcare professional before relying on any such information.

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[ellenhendricks]

"They become that chaos because that's the only way you can survive in that family system."

[LaLeoRonroneo]

What is shocking is that i didn’t know that in a committed relationship I could walk away when my boundaries were crossed, sure cheating and physical abuse is a big no no, but there was this “ gray area” that I had lived in my childhood home that I had also allowed in the relationship I was in. I am so glad that I can clearly see where my boundaries are and enforce them and live in this integrity. Very freeing

[whoami]

I'm in permanent freeze during day and at night I go to hyper and in my head and I can't sleep. I'm exhausted.

[KheuaOuthone]

It true, I agree. I been through, I was confuse for a long time. During my second marry my body shutting down. I have pain shooting on my body, fatigue, anxiety, can't sleep. No matter I try to let go of thinking/worry, the pass is come in my head and I question myself and headache/migraine. to finish write these three sentence take me almost an hrs. Thank you very much Irene.

[steffyjustin]

Ohhh now I understand this weirdly 'pleasant' feeling I had at the end of this day. In the morning, my mum had called and revealed the chaotic situation which had been simmering among her siblings. I called the office, took an urgent leave, rushed to my mum's. Listened to all the drama. Took her to her mum's. Then to see her brother at the hospital. Then took my grandma for urgent admin works. Then this. Then that.

Instead of feeling exhausted and I need to take some healthy distance, my nervous system had felt hmmm 😋 I know chaos, I know how to take charge, I know how to settle everyone and everything, hmm 😋 let's dive in!

[gracelewis]

A really important piece of understanding this for me was the fact that I was so dysregulated - I couldn't feel other people.

Most people walk around feeling each other - and therefore responding to each other. I couldn't feel them in the same way, so I wouldn't respond appropriately, so I was "weird" "disconnected" "inappropriate".

Unfortunately, most people aren't educated in ways to lean in to this, and so I was avoided... except, by predators, who could spot me a mile away. Not only did this make me a target in an obvious way, but in two more subtle ways as well - 1) even logically or by comparison, I couldn't spot the red flags, because that's literally all I ever saw. No one EVER treated me well until I paid people to, ie; therapy. And I was incredibly blessed to live in a state that paid for that. Some people were detachedly kind - but they didn't HELP - they didn't move me towards connection in any way, which is what I needed. 2) I was lonely. So the only human connection that I was offered were these predators. And toxic connection is still connection.

I think this is a HUGE conversation that we really need to be having - kids from homes like this are getting left behind. No one wants to deal with them. In many ways, I had the advantage of being female - people don't and didn't react by recoiling in horror towards me when I did something incorrect socially. I was bullied, sure, but that feeling of someone pulling away from you in sheer horror and disgust is a whole nother level of awful. I have experienced it a handful of times to know what it's like - and also see young men being faced with this in awful amounts. I can only imagine what that's like. I certainly never ever want to feel that again.

[h.m.]

It’s so overwhelming! It’s as if you were talking about me without you knowing me 😢 Thank you for sharing ❤

[bebaaskaful]

Dear Irene so truth. I suffer BPD, and everyone thinks that it is mental disorder. But from personal expirience and inner work I can say that it is severe disregulation of emotions. And then comes the behaviour. I was brought up in unsecure atachtment and missatunment with mother who also had toxic parents. And she never did the work. Many many abusive partners, many self harm behaviour. I suffered my whole life untill I found you and SBSM. Also working with SE pracricioner one on one. But thw knowledge you gave me is incredible. I could go on SE and flee instantly because I didnt understand trauma and the body. Youve hwlped me a lot to gain capacity for owerwhelming waves of emotions. I still work on my system. Im begginer, but I have so many shifts in behaviour without trying to fix behaviour. Only body work. I tried CBT, DBT, hypnosis, bioenergetics, rheiki, medications, meditations, cold pluggins, deep breathing and only got worse. I started SBSM in totaly shutdown phase when I was broken and suicidal. So If I can shift wirhout medications, and do the work, thanks to you and SE, I know that anyone can heal. It is hard work, but it is worthy of healing. Thank you so much again❤️

[erikalarsson]

Thank you stress and drama was only thing i know .thank you thoght somthimg was wrong with me .Now i know why .

[erstwhile]

So glad to see the title of this video by Irene pop up in my feed this morning. Thanks for offering this!

I believe there’s a whole layer more of complexity to this question. It arises partly from the way that so many of us living in nervous system dysregulation tend to have great difficulty understanding the subtle social “codes” around us. It also has to do with (I’m guessing) the way that dysregulation shows up in our nonverbals; our body “language”, expressions, vocal inflection and tone. To put it in colloquial terms, we often do not “fit in” with more regulated folks.

Like in Irene’s example of the person visiting a friend’s home where the atmosphere and interactions are more healthy, we might look around us and see people living in healthy, affirming ways that we would love to be part of, but the welcome mat to join with them is often not on the doorstep for us. A lot of us who grew up in unsafe, “toxic’ parenting situations unwittingly send out the signals of that toxicity in our whole being, in subtle ways that healthier, safer people recognize and avoid (usually without understanding what they’re seeing, exactly, or way they feel like avoiding it). The only people, often as not, who are willing to form closer kinds of connections with us ARE the people who also carry the patterns of toxicity and unresolved trauma.

So, that’s the other layer I’m thinking of; that it’s not like we have an array of healhty and toxic people in front of us, willing to be our friends and family, and that we just choose the less healhty ones out of habit. Most of the time, until we heal ourselves enough, varying degrees of unhealthy is our only choice for connection. They recognize our dysregulation as familiar and comfortable (safe), just as much as we recognize theirs in that way. As much as I longed to be part of the families I met as a child, who were more kind and calm and stable, I also felt very much an outsider among them, and it was clear in subtle ways that they were as uneasy with me.

And, it’s not just that we need to choose a different “brand” of person to be friends/partnered with. It’s more that we start to relate to people (and ourselves) differently as we heal.

None of which is meant to challenge what Irene is saying here, at all! These are just the thoughts that arise as I ponder what I just heard here. Hearing her put it in her wonderful, clear-eyed way, helps me see things just a bit clearer in my own experiences now. Irene is pure gold. I wish more people could experience her vision and her work. The world needs this.

[chilloften]

It makes it very scary to me as my career choice has me in toxic, abusive, dysfunctional, situations on the daily.
I’m safe and single but I need money and cannot leave it.
It’s heartbreaking.

[patriciapatricia]

Thank you so much Irene, I have done so many things over so many years, but the way you explain this process is the one that gives me the clues I am missing. Im looking forward to joining tour programms

[bryanmccaffrey]

It took mine a month to come down after a nine month relationship. Interesting to kearn this. Totally unresolved trauma.

[MA-tidg]

I love this video. Ever since I started working on myself so much more, I’ve gotten the confidence to be able to speak up when I feel like I need to draw a boundary with my partner. It’s never anything serious, he’s always respected me and I to him. I notice that when we get closer and closer my nervous system acts up. But thankfully because I’ve done research and now even watching your video, it makes me feel better knowing that I knew I was causing certain friction.

My nervous system makes me feel so safe and hyperactive that it wants to find SOMETHING to say it’s not safe, even when there are no signs of it. If there’s silence, it wants to find THAT as the excuse for something being off. Lol. But this is comforting. I’ve been able to tell him his needs matter but in moments like that one, what I really need is to do things to regulate my system. Once I’ve regulated, then I can go back to activities with him. Usually it’s rather quick. Now it takes about a few hours, a few days max to get back to feeling like myself. But this explains a lot.

[crazykatrockchickhippie]

Wow you've done it again, I have spent the last 2 hours repeatedly trying to make the perfect audio to go to my dad despite being shunned from the family and blamed for everything due to all the reasons that you and I and many others are aware of underlining this. I finally sent one which was quite long included me saying I cannot delete anymore audios so here it is and then went on to my YouTube subscriptions and saw your video. As soon as you spoke of the 'trying to make it better is something that we do' the sensation within my chest and the words that I saw where 'yes that's exactly what I do each and every time'. Synchronicities or Star Wars, I am being nugded again to crack on with the 21-day that I have purchased yet still sits in my inbox so come on girl you have to get on and do this! thank you so much for your video and another universal shove!! I'll get to it eventually but it's that invisible wall again!!🙏🌱😻

[Tinyteacher]

Thank you! I would love to see a family who gets along ad talks nicely to each other!
I’m now, at 68, a retired disabled teacher recovering constantly from mold, implants, Lyme a broken shoulder, a horrible spine, and my life is becoming numb.
I’m caregiving my son who can’t go back to his dad’s house because after 2 1/2 years, he’s been living here, and has had every environmental illness and long covid for over two years. He yells at me constantly because he is trapped here with no transportation, along with my ex being here every night and weekends. He thinks this is just fine and us taking his time to remediated his house.
My sisters have deserted me, and don’t respond when I call or text. I find out about family gatherings from my daughter, who is closer to my sisters
than I am, and I’m the oldest of 3 girls and took care of them every day for years while my mom worked because our father was an alcoholic and undependable. I’m the only college educated sister, but they both have much more money than I do, probably because I’m divorced. It’s much longer and lonelier than i can even write, but I’m going to cry.
I can’t even drive because I fell off a ladder and broke my shoulder, and I’m now sick again with severe Lyme disease.
I consider this living hell!

[johmi]

I was narcissistically abused by (mostly) my mother and following my impulses mostly makes me feel guilty and anxious, especially regarding eating behaviour. Do you recommend to do it anyways and “endure“ these feelings? Thank you for your videos!

[siobhanmcgregor]

I needed this ; perfectly timed Irene, you have a beautiful name 😃

[ruthhase-gutierrez]

The thing that's hard for me is how to break the cycle for my KIDS. I already see how my childhood and my estranged spouse's childhood contributed to our bad marriage, which was started by our parent's bad marriages stemming from their childhood traumas and on and on. But now how do I help my kids with that BEFORE they are old enough to start romantic relationships. Because our bad marriage has had such a negative impact on them. And the way our parents modeled parenting was not good, and we brought that into our own parenting, so trying to unlearn that after it's already had an effect on my kids, and trying to help them heal so they don't perpetuate the cycle, that's where I'm stuck.

[sophiehorvath]

Thank you, Irene. Such a great explanation!
It is interesting that people can create toxicity/abuse even in healthy relationships or look for hints of that quality.

This video has also made me wonder what nurturing relationships look like. I believe we all have different ideas; however, it must not be easy for some who grew up in unhealthy settings and have no other examples.


I love how all your videos make me think a lot about how I relate to different aspects and topics mentioned in that video. For example, what a nurturing relationship looks like when all partners have healthy nervous systems or have healed and regulated their systems from severe traumas. Especially when they have never experienced connections like that before.
It is beautiful how healing and learning expand one's reality and create one that has never existed. Finding our own wisdom on what it feels like somatically as well to be in that nurturing relationship. What the signs and behaviours are like and how they can be built.

If you feel like it is a good topic (maybe there is a video already that I have not seen yet, in that case, apologies), then can you please talk about what a healthy and nurturing relationship looks and feels like after healing traumas?
Or the journey and somatic changes in how we receive energy shifts and behaviours during the healing in our connections? Can some anxious somatic sensations be projections of unhealed traumas and hints we look for, as you had said in the video, because we are not healed yet?
I have been doing the 21-day nervous system tune-up, and my capacity is much greater; however, I am sometimes still confused about what is real and what still needs to be healed and whether it is a perception projected there from my past to people around me.

Thank you so much for your work and for reading this.🙏