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Surviving Mental Health: When Staying Alive Is the Work By BigmommaJ
Surviving mental health is rarely discussed honestly.
Much of the public conversation focuses on thriving, healing, or overcoming. While those are meaningful goals, they often overlook a critical reality: for many individuals living with mental illness, complex trauma, or co-occurring substance use, survival itself is the work.
Survival is not passive.
It is an active, ongoing process of regulation, endurance, and adaptation—often happening quietly, without recognition.
What “Surviving” Really Means From a Trauma-Informed Lens
Clinically, survival reflects the nervous system doing exactly what it was designed to do: protect.
When a person has experienced chronic stress, interpersonal trauma, neglect, abuse, or repeated loss, the brain and body may remain in a heightened state of alert long after the danger has passed. This prolonged activation of the stress response system impacts emotional regulation, decision-making, and physical health (McEwen, 2007).
Canadian trauma frameworks recognize that many mental health symptoms are rooted in unresolved trauma and adverse experiences, particularly when exposure occurs early or repeatedly (Public Health Agency of Canada [PHAC], 2018).
From a trauma-informed perspective, survival can look like:
*Emotional dysregulation or rapid mood shifts
*Hypervigilance, anxiety, or chronic fear
*Emotional numbing or dissociation
*Difficulty trusting others or forming stable attachments
*Avoidance, shutdown, or withdrawal
*Impulsive or self-soothing behaviors, including substance use
These responses are often misunderstood or pathologized. Clinically, they are adaptive survival strategies developed in environments where safety was inconsistent or absent (Herman, 1992; CAMH, 2021).
Neuroscience research consistently shows that trauma alters how the brain processes threat, emotion, and memory. Structural and functional changes in the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex affect fear response, emotional regulation, and impulse control (Teicher et al., 2016; van der Kolk, 2014).
Canadian clinical guidance emphasizes that these neurobiological changes are not character flaws—they are learned survival responses shaped by experience (CAMH, 2021).
This is why telling someone to “just calm down” or “move on” is not only dismissive, but clinically inaccurate.
The brain learned survival
before it learned safety.
Survival Is a Valid Clinical Phase—Not a Failure
Recovery from mental illness and trauma is non-linear. Both Canadian and international trauma models identify stabilization and safety as the first phase of recovery—often long before insight, growth, or symptom reduction is possible (Herman, 1992; SAMHSA, 2014; PHAC, 2018).
At times, survival may look like:
*Attending therapy while still struggling daily
*Using medication while navigating shame or ambivalence
*Harm reduction rather than immediate abstinence
*Pulling back socially to prevent emotional overload
*Staying alive through periods of suicidal ideation
From a trauma-informed clinical lens, survival is not regression—it is groundwork.
Without safety and nervous system regulation, deeper healing cannot occur.
The Hidden Grief of Surviving
Survival often carries grief that remains unspoken.
Grief for:
*The life that feels harder than it should
*Relationships lost to symptoms or misunderstanding
*Opportunities missed due to illness or instability
*The version of self that existed before the trauma
Canadian mental health literature increasingly acknowledges the role of grief and loss in long-term mental health conditions, particularly for individuals with trauma histories or chronic diagnoses (Mental Health Commission of Canada [MHCC], 2019).
Healing does not require gratitude for trauma.
It requires validation, compassion, and time.
Moving From Survival Toward Stability
Trauma-informed care does not rush people out of survival mode. Instead, it prioritizes:
*Establishing internal and external safety
*Strengthening emotional regulation skills
*Supporting healthy attachment and boundaries
*Reducing shame through psychoeducation
*Honoring autonomy, choice, and pacing
Polyvagal theory further supports Canadian trauma models by emphasizing how healing occurs through repeated experiences of safety and connection, allowing the nervous system to move out of chronic defense (Porges, 2011).
For some, this process is slow. For others, it unfolds in cycles. Both are clinically expected—and valid.
Personal Reflection: Survival Is the Part No One Applauds
There were seasons of my life where survival was all I had to offer.
Not growth.
Not stability.
Not strength the way the world defines it.
Just survival.
As someone who has worked in child welfare and mental health, I understand the clinical language—the diagnoses, the treatment plans, the frameworks. But I also know what it feels like to live inside a nervous system that never learned safety first.
I know what it means to function on the outside while unraveling internally.
To be judged for coping mechanisms that once kept me alive.
To be told I was “going backwards” when, in reality, I was still here.
Survival doesn’t announce itself.
It doesn’t look inspiring.
But it is brave.
And if you are surviving your mental health right now—quietly, imperfectly, painfully—please hear this:
You are not failing.
You are not weak.
You are doing the hardest work there is.
Staying.
BigmommaJ
#mentalhealthmatters #Surviving
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