As I have joined the gym, I knew I needed to prepare proper meals for myself. That was the obvious next step. But somehow, as always, I kept delaying it. I kept finding small reasons to push it to later. I would tell myself I’ll do it after this, or tomorrow, or when I feel more ready.
And then something very small but very clear happened. A moment later, my sister called me and asked me to find a document and send her a picture of it. And suddenly, I was alert. I got up immediately, started searching, opening files, going through things, thinking, focusing. It took me around fifteen minutes, and honestly, it took mental energy, but I did it without questioning it.
And that’s when it hit me.
For something that was for someone else, I had energy, urgency, focus. But for my own meal prep, something my body actually needed, I was stuck, delaying, feeling heavy, like I didn’t have it in me.
And because I’ve been working on my metacognition for years now, I paused and watched it. I noticed how even if I had to drink water, I would delay it. Something as basic as that. And when I would sit down for no real reason, there was this quiet, almost invisible urgency that would hit my body, like I shouldn’t be sitting, like I should be doing something else even if nothing was actually wrong.
It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t dramatic. But it was constant enough that I couldn’t ignore it anymore.
That’s when I realized this isn’t about discipline or laziness. There is something deeper happening here.
Because nothing in my current life was demanding that level of urgency from me. No one was watching. No one was about to punish me. I was safe.
But my body didn’t feel safe.
For a long time, I made that mean something about my character. I thought maybe I lacked discipline, or maybe I was just wired to be anxious, or maybe this is what being “driven” feels like. I kept trying to push past it, thinking that if I forced myself enough times, the feeling would disappear.
It didn’t.
What I didn’t understand back then is that this reaction had nothing to do with that delaying meal prep. It was older than that. It was built over years in moments that didn’t look dramatic from the outside but shaped everything on the inside.
If you grew up with a narcissistic mother, especially as a daughter, you were not taught how to stay connected to yourself. You were taught how to stay connected to her. That might sound subtle, but it changes everything about how your body learns to function.
You learned to notice her tone before your own feelings. You learned to adjust your behavior depending on her mood. You learned that peace in the house depended on how well you could manage yourself around her. And slowly, without anyone needing to explain it directly, your nervous system started forming a rule that felt like truth: your needs create problems.
It doesn’t happen through one big moment. It happens through small, repeated experiences. You express a need and get ignored, so your body registers that it doesn’t land anywhere. You express a feeling and it gets dismissed or turned back onto you, so your system learns it’s safer not to go there. You take up space and something in the environment shifts, maybe tension, maybe withdrawal, maybe subtle disapproval, and your brain connects the dots without asking for permission.
So you adapt, because children always adapt when connection is at stake. You become easier and become more aware of others. You start anticipating instead of expressing. And over time, this doesn’t feel like a strategy anymore. It becomes who you think you are.
Now add ADHD into this picture, and things become even more complicated internally. Your brain already struggles to send clear, steady signals about what is happening inside your body. Hunger can feel like irritability. Tiredness can feel like restlessness. Emotions can come late, or all at once, or not fully make sense until hours later. So instead of having a stable internal compass, you rely more heavily on what is happening outside of you.
What does this person need? What is expected here? What should I be doing right now so everything stays okay?
When your environment trained you to prioritize others to stay safe, and your brain already finds it harder to read your own signals, the pattern becomes automatic. You don’t sit there and decide, “I will ignore myself today.” It happens before that. You say yes quickly. You offer help without checking in. You adjust your schedule, your energy, your attention, often without even realizing you had another option.
So when you finally try to do something for yourself, even something small and reasonable, your system reacts like you’re doing something risky.
It can look like sitting down to rest and suddenly feeling uneasy instead of relaxed. It can look like buying something for yourself and then immediately feeling guilty, like you need to justify it or undo it. It can look like saying no to someone and then replaying the conversation again and again, checking every word, making sure you didn’t hurt them, wondering if you should go back and fix it.
Most people look at this and think it’s overthinking or sensitivity. But what is happening underneath is much deeper than that.
Your body is not reacting to the present moment. It is reacting to a pattern it learned a long time ago. Back then, being connected to yourself came with a cost. It risked disconnection, tension, or emotional withdrawal from someone you depended on. And for a child, that is not a small thing. That feels like survival.
So your nervous system did what it is designed to do. It associated self-focus with danger, and other-focus with safety. Not because one is morally better than the other, but because of what it led to in your environment.
The brain does not store this as a story. It stores it as a pattern. And patterns run fast.
This is also where the biology starts to matter. When a child grows up in a state where they are constantly monitoring, adjusting, and suppressing their own internal experience, the stress system doesn’t get a chance to regulate in a healthy rhythm. Cortisol, the hormone that helps us respond to stress, doesn’t rise and fall smoothly. It becomes irregular. Sometimes too high, sometimes too low, often out of sync with what is actually happening in the moment.
That is why rest can feel uncomfortable. Your body is used to being in motion, in alertness, in response. When things go quiet, it doesn’t immediately register that as safe. It feels unfamiliar, and unfamiliar can feel like a problem when your system is used to scanning for the next thing.
People-pleasing, in this context, is not a personality trait that you chose. It is a strategy your nervous system learned because it worked. It kept things stable. It reduced conflict. It helped you stay connected. So your brain automated it, the same way it automates walking or speaking. You don’t think about it each time. It just happens.
Now when you try to do something different, like choosing yourself, the reaction you feel is not a moral signal telling you that you are selfish. It is a conditioned response telling you that you are stepping outside of what used to keep you safe.
This is why guilt shows up so quickly. Not because you did something wrong, but because you did something unfamiliar. Your system reads unfamiliar as potential risk, and it tries to pull you back to what it knows.
That tightness in your chest, that urge to explain yourself, that feeling that you need to fix something even when nothing is broken, all of that is your nervous system trying to maintain an old form of safety.
The problem is, that old form of safety came at a cost. Over time, you lose clarity about your own needs. You don’t know what you want until someone asks you directly, and even then it takes time to find an answer. You don’t notice you’re tired until your body forces you to stop. You don’t recognize resentment until it builds up and spills out in ways that confuse you.
And then you question yourself. You wonder if you are too much, or too sensitive, or not strong enough. So you go back to what feels easier, which is adjusting again, accommodating again, putting yourself second in ways that don’t even look obvious from the outside.
But your body keeps track of all of it. The fatigue, the tension, the quiet frustration, the moments where you ignore yourself again and again. It doesn’t forget.
So the work of healing here is not about forcing yourself into big acts of self-care or suddenly becoming someone who always puts themselves first. That kind of pressure usually backfires because it ignores what your nervous system actually needs.
What your body needs is a different kind of experience, repeated over time. It needs to learn, slowly, that turning toward yourself does not lead to loss, conflict, or disconnection anymore.
This starts in very small ways. Not big changes, not forcing yourself into a new personality, but small things you repeat until your body slowly believes you.
Here’s what this can actually look like in your day, in real life, not in a perfect version of you:
- When you sit down to rest and that tight feeling shows up, don’t rush to get up right away. Stay a little longer than you normally would. Even one or two extra minutes matters. Your body needs to experience that nothing bad happens when you don’t immediately respond to that urgency. This is how you start teaching safety, not by forcing calm, but by staying present inside the discomfort.
- When guilt hits after you do something for yourself, don’t try to fight it or prove it wrong. That usually makes it louder. Instead, notice it and quietly name it in your head. Something like, “this is guilt, this is old.” You’re not trying to erase the feeling. You’re showing your brain that the feeling can exist without controlling what you do next.
- Before you say yes to someone, build in a pause. It can be as simple as saying, “let me get back to you.” That pause is not about getting the perfect answer. It’s about interrupting the automatic response. Over time, your body starts to realize there is space to check in with yourself.
- Start paying attention to your body in moments that are not stressful. Ask yourself small, simple questions during the day. Am I tired right now? Did I eat? Do I need a break? You’re not trying to become hyper-aware overnight. You’re slowly rebuilding a connection that was ignored for years.
- Give yourself one small part of the day that is just yours. It doesn’t have to be long or impressive. It just has to belong to you. And when that uncomfortable feeling shows up there too, because it will at first, stay with it gently. That is the moment your nervous system starts learning that you are allowed to exist without earning it.
At first, this doesn’t feel like healing. It can feel slow and even frustrating. The guilt doesn’t disappear right away. The discomfort still shows up. The old patterns still pull at you.
But something begins to shift quietly. The intensity of the reaction starts to lower. The time it takes you to notice what you need becomes shorter. The gap between the feeling and your response becomes wider.
You start catching yourself in the moment instead of after the fact. You start feeling your needs earlier, when they are still small and manageable. And one day, you sit down to rest, and your body doesn’t react as strongly as it used to. There is still movement inside you, but there is also space.
Not perfect calm, but enough space to stay.
This is what it looks like when your nervous system begins to learn something new.
There is nothing wrong with you for feeling the way you do. Your body did exactly what it needed to do in an environment where being fully connected to yourself did not feel safe. Of course it reacts now when you try to change that pattern. Of course it feels unfamiliar.
But unfamiliar does not mean impossible. It just means new.
And new things take time, repetition, and a different kind of relationship with yourself than the one you were given.
You don’t need to rush this or get it perfect, and you don’t have to become a completely different person overnight. You can take this one moment at a time, one small pause, one small choice where you stay with yourself a little longer than you used to.
If you’re in that place where doing something good for yourself feels wrong in your body, I understand how confusing that is. It can make you question everything about yourself. But this is not the end point. It is a pattern that can be understood, and slowly, gently changed.
And if you feel like you want support while you do this work, you are welcome to sit with me in a one-on-one session through my homepage, or stay connected through my newsletter where I share more of these real, in-between parts of healing.
You don’t have to do this alone, and you don’t have to force your way through it. There is another way to come back to yourself, and it can be steady, and human, and yours.
