Why You Still Don’t Feel Safe:

You’ve cut the toxic people out.
You’ve gone no-contact, set boundaries, and maybe even started therapy.
But still… you feel anxious. Numb.
Detached, on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop—even though no one's around to drop it anymore.

If that’s you, first of all, you’re not broken.
You’re not doing healing wrong.
What’s likely happening is that your nervous system is still stuck in survival mode—still wired to seek safety in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways.

And no one really talks about that part.

Trauma Trains Your Nervous System to Survive… Not Thrive

When you’ve been in a relationship with someone emotionally abusive—especially someone with narcissistic traits—your body adapts to survive.

Imagine this:
You’re a soldier, except the battlefield is your living room.
You never know when a sarcastic comment will explode like a landmine.
You walk on eggshells, your body tense, scanning the room like a radar tower for signs of danger.

And because your nervous system is stuck in “ON” mode 24/7, when you do actually experience moments of peace - you can't even relax, enjoy it or even feel safe because you're stuck in hypervigilance waiting for the next emotional bomb to go off and steals that peace. Safety doesn't feel safe.... to even experience because you know you will lose it at any moment.

So you start chasing what feels like safety:
— Avoiding conflict at all costs
— Appeasing to keep the peace
— Obsessively seeking validation
— Over-functioning to stay in control

These survival habits kept you afloat during the storm…
But they also disconnect you from yourself after the storm has passed. I know with myself, after spending years stuck in these survival habits, I became a shell of a person, a whisper of who I truly was at a core level.

3 Coping Habits That Feel Safe (But Keep You Stuck)

Let’s break down three of the most common survival strategies that trauma wires into us—and how they backfire in the long run:

1. The Chameleon Habit: Appeasing to Avoid Conflict

You laugh at their backhanded jokes.
You say “it’s fine” when it’s clearly not.
You apologize even when you’ve done nothing wrong.

Like a chameleon, you change colors to blend in, hoping not to trigger their rage.
But each time you shape-shift, you abandon a piece of yourself.

Here’s the kicker:
Self-abandonment may keep the peace in the short term,
but it guarantees anxiety, disconnection, and chronic shame in the long term.

2. The Mirror Habit: Craving Their Validation to Feel Real

Narcissists have a sinister superpower—they erode your reality slowly.
They make you question your feelings, your truth, your worth.
And so you start outsourcing your sense of self.

It feels like dangling from a cliff, and the only thing holding you up is their opinion of you.
But real safety isn’t found in someone else’s approval—especially not when that approval comes with strings attached.

3. The Fixer Habit: Over-Functioning to Feel in Control

You become the emotional caretaker, the mood manager, the mind reader.
You anticipate their outbursts before they even happen.
You’re always two steps ahead, trying to prevent chaos.

But here’s the hard truth:
That hyper-vigilance doesn’t prevent chaos—it creates it in your body.
You never rest.
You don’t breathe.
You don’t even know what you feel anymore.

So… What’s the Way Out?

I want to share with you the things I did wrong (so that you can avoid MY mistakes) and what I finally discovered that helped me to heal and feel safe after emotional abuse and childhood trauma.

It’s not about managing them.
It’s not about forcing your body to “calm down.”
And it’s definitely not about shaming yourself for still feeling anxious.

The answer lies in rebuilding trust with your own body.
It’s helping your nervous system learn the difference between a real threat and a remembered threat.

Because here’s the thing:
Yes, narcissists feel dangerous.
But unless you’re in immediate physical danger, your life is not actually on the line anymore.

Your nervous system doesn’t know that yet.
But it can learn.

And when it does, something amazing happens:
You start to feel safe—even if someone toxic is still in the room.
You stop reacting like it’s life or death, because your body knows it’s not.

That’s the deep, inner rewiring work that most healing paths miss.

This Is Exactly What We Do in the School of Transformation

Hi, I’m Michele, a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner—and the founder of the School of Transformation.

If this post speaks to you, if you’re tired of managing triggers, living on edge, or feeling like healing isn’t working—I want to invite you to join me inside the School.

Every week, I meet live on Zoom with survivors of emotional trauma and narcissistic abuse from all over the world. We do the somatic work together—the kind that retrains your nervous system, rebuilds self-trust, and teaches your body how to actually feel safe again.

This isn’t just information. It’s transformation.
It’s the missing piece between “knowing you’re safe” and feeling safe.

If you’re ready to stop surviving and start living, come join me.

👉 Click here to learn more about the School of Transformation

Or, if you want to dip your toes in first—sign up for my FREE live webinar on April 18th, where we’ll dive deeper into healing trauma and building unshakable inner safety.
No fluff. No surface talk. Just the real work that gets results.

👉 Click here to register for my FREE LIVE Webinar: How to Find Safety After Trauma Part 2