The Nervous System of a Woman Who Was Always Left to Regulate Alone
And what healing looks like for her
Emotional regulation is the ability to calm ourselves down when distressed, or return to a state of balance after being triggered. In childhood, this ability develops through co-regulation, which means someone is there to help soothe you.
For example, when a child cries and a caregiver picks them up, rocks them, and speaks softly, the child’s nervous system begins to associate closeness with safety. Over time, they internalize that soothing, and their body learns, how to downregulate from being upset.
Now, imagine the opposite.
A child cries and no one comes. Or someone comes but is angry, cold, overwhelmed, or dismissive. The child is either left to deal with overwhelming feelings by themselves, or the comfort they get is inconsistent and unpredictable. They don’t learn co-regulation, they learn survival regulation instead, which is often panic, freezing, fawning, shutting down, or numbing.
How this wires the nervous system
When you’re left alone in distress repeatedly, your autonomic nervous system adapts to the environment. Here is what that looks like:
1. Hypervigilance becomes your baseline
Your system becomes biased toward detecting danger. This means you may constantly scan for signs of abandonment or rejection, misread neutral behavior as threatening, and become flooded by emotion very quickly and struggle to calm down
2. You develop high emotional intensity, low tolerance for uncertainty
When you're used to being left alone, uncertainty doesn’t feel neutral but dangerous. Waiting for a text, a delayed reply, a change in tone hits differently when your body was trained to expect rupture.
You might end up feeling anxious in the space between closeness and distance, deeply triggered by mixed signals or inconsistency. You might also be pulled toward emotionally unavailable people because their system is used to chaos and confusion as the norm, and their steadiness might feel regulating to you.
3. You internalize shame and self-blame
When comfort doesn’t come, children assume they’re the problem. Over time the nervous system pairs emotion with isolation and shame. This means that feeling anything deeply feels unsafe, even as an adult, because big feelings weren’t met with soothing or safety.
This might show up as apologizing for being “too much,” suppressing needs or emotions until they burst or having difficulty asking for help, even in moments of real pain.
What this looks like in adulthood
You’re no longer a child, but your body remembers. Even if you’re successful, articulate, and well-rounded, your nervous system is still shaped by the original wound.
In relationships, you might:
feel like you’re “too sensitive” or “overreacting”
chase connection intensely when someone pulls away
become exhausted from always managing the emotional tone of the relationship
break down in private but act “strong” in public
gravitate toward emotionally unavailable or avoidant partners, because your system sees that as familiar
Even in stable, healthy dynamics, you might struggle to believe the safety is real. Almost as if you were waiting for the other shoe to drop, with your body still prepared for abandonment.
What healing looks like
Healing starts with co-regulation and self-compassion. You need experiences where your emotions are met with presence, your needs are responded to, and you can feel your feelings and still be held, by someone or by yourself.
Over time, these experiences compound and help you down-regulate quicker, distinguish real threats from perceived ones, feel safer in your own body and in closeness, and rewire the belief that you have to deal with everything alone.
Somatic work, trauma-informed therapy, and secure relationships can all help. But it’s not about fixing yourself. It’s about teaching your nervous system something new.
And if you need guidance to get there, my program, Anxious to Secure is designed to help you focuse on somatic healing and body-based practices that help your nervous system feel safe, supported, and steady in love.