Your Symptoms Are Survival in Disguise
If you’ve ever felt ashamed of your anxiety, self-doubt, or the way you shut down in stressful situations, I want you to take a deep breath for a moment. The things you struggle with now—the patterns you wish you could change—likely started as survival instincts. At some point in your life, they helped you get through something hard. And that means they make sense.
Many of the things we label as “problems” in mental health are actually adaptations—your brain and body doing their best to protect you. Let’s look at a few examples:
Anxiety? Once helped you stay hyper-aware of danger.
People-pleasing? Might have been the safest way to avoid conflict.
Perfectionism? Probably started as a way to feel in control when life was unpredictable.
Shutting down in stressful situations? Your nervous system’s way of protecting you when things felt overwhelming.
These responses didn’t come out of nowhere. They’re part of a deeply intelligent system that helped you navigate past experiences, even if they don’t serve you in the same way now.
There’s Nothing Wrong with You
When we frame mental health symptoms as “disorders” without understanding where they came from, it can feel like something is fundamentally wrong with us. But you are not broken. Your brain and body have been doing their best to keep you safe, even if their strategies are outdated.
Rather than judging yourself for the way you cope, what if you got curious instead? What if you asked:
When did I first learn to do this?
How has it helped me in the past?
What is it trying to protect me from?
Often, these patterns don’t need to be “fixed”—they need to be understood.
Therapy Can Help Without Pathologizing You
If you recognize yourself in any of this, therapy can be a space to explore these patterns with compassion instead of criticism. It’s not about forcing yourself to “get over” anxiety, perfectionism, or avoidance—it’s about learning what your system needs now so you can feel safe in new ways.
Healing doesn’t mean erasing the parts of you that once kept you safe. It means giving those parts new jobs, ones that align with the life you want to live now.
If you’re ready to explore your patterns in a space that doesn’t judge or pathologize them, therapy at Rooted Therapy can help. You deserve support that sees your strength, not just your struggles. Reach out when you’re ready—we’d love to walk this journey with you.