The Shame Beneath: Why Coping Isn't the Problem - Unacknowledged Trauma Is

Always remember: your coping strategies were the best options you had at the time.

1. Many people feel shame about their coping mechanisms—when in reality, those behaviors helped them survive.

2. Shame leads us to judge or hide our survival strategies, reinforcing the pain they were meant to ease.

3. To heal, we must compassionately understand how trauma shaped our adaptations—and make space to feel safely.

📣 If you’ve ever judged yourself for how you cope, this article is for you. Share it with someone who needs to hear this too.

Why It's Not the Fall That Hurts—It's the Aftermath

The simplest definition of trauma is this: a boundary violation occurred. But the violation itself is just the beginning. What happens next—how others respond, how life moves forward—is what shapes our nervous systems and sense of self.

Imagine you’re a toddler learning to walk. You trip and fall, scrape your knee, and cry. In one version of the story, your caregiver scoops you up, co-regulates, soothes, and reflects back safety. In that moment, your brain learns: I’m okay. I’m safe. The world isn’t always easy, but I’m not alone.

Now imagine a different ending. You fall, and your caregiver yells, “Quit crying or I’ll give you something to cry about,” then walks away. Your nervous system stays activated. You learn: I’m alone. I’m unsafe. I have to handle this by myself. And so you do—by finding strategies to survive what your brain interpreted as a dangerous, shame-filled world.

The Volcano Inside Us All

Let’s visualize your internal system as a volcano—a triangle with explosive potential. At the center is your true self: calm, creative, connected. That core is who you were born as, no matter your neurotype.

But life happens. Boundaries are crossed. Pain is ignored or punished. To protect your core, you shove those intense feelings—what we call the Four Horsemen (Shame, Grief, Loneliness, and Anger)—into a box at the bottom of the volcano.

Proactive strategies (fight/fawn) emerge to keep that box sealed: perfectionism, people-pleasing, anxiety, depression, high-achieving. Reactive strategies (flight/freeze) show up when pressure builds: addiction, binge eating, dissociation, rage, self-harm. These strategies aren't defects. They’re defense mechanisms. They’re the system doing what it had to do to survive.

💡 We share trauma visuals like this every week. Subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on YouTube or Instagram for more.

Releasing the Pressure, One Breath at a Time

Most people come into therapy because their coping strategies are starting to cause harm—or no longer work. But the goal of therapy isn’t to shame those strategies. It’s to understand them, and slowly release the pressure stored underneath.

Healing begins when we can open Pandora’s box just a tiny bit—with someone safe, in a safe place. This is how therapy works, no matter the modality: co-regulating, witnessing, and making space for what was never allowed to be felt.

As the pressure drops, the strategies often drop away too. They’re not needed anymore. You don’t have to fight to hold the box shut. You’re no longer alone in carrying it.

Society may still judge your behaviors. Your own parts might too. But healing asks us to be curious, not critical. There is no shame in how you survived. Your strategies were the best your system could come up with at the time—and they protected something precious: your true self.

Now, healing invites you to reconnect with that core. Not by erasing your story, but by honoring it. Not by rejecting your behaviors, but by listening to the pain they protected.

And if therapy isn’t accessible to you, remember: healing existed long before therapy. 

As one of my first professors, Starla Simmons, once said: “People were healing from trauma long before there were therapists.”

So wherever you can find community, connection, or compassion—seek it. Your healing is valid, no matter the path you take.

💛 Subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on YouTube or Instagram for weekly insights, nervous system tools, and a gentle place to begin again.