Overprotection, Control, and Emotions

I’ve been reflecting on why chronic hypervigilance and overprotection can feel so suffocating — and I think I’ve finally found a key piece of the puzzle.

For years, my brain treated emotional vulnerability like physical danger, trying to keep me safe by controlling everything. Overprotection was well-intentioned, but it amplified stress and bodily sensations instead of helping.

What I realized is that what I truly craved — as a child and even now — wasn’t more physical safety. It was emotional safety: connection, understanding, and the reassurance that I could be seen and held without constant “protection.”

Recognizing this distinction — emotional safety versus physical safety — has been transformative. It explains why the overprotection felt suffocating and why symptoms persisted, even though my body was fine.

 

Mike,
I remember reading recently that emotional pain and physical pain are generated in the same place in the brain. In other words, the brain doesn’t even really know the difference between them. To the brain, it’s all the same thing; all dangerous. (I think it’s in the Pain Reprocessing Therapy Workbook. I’ll look it up and let you know.) So, if you have enough emotional pain, it’s going to turn up your brain’s protection also to physical pain.

So you pinpointed here some of what you went through. But I wonder if there’s more to it? I wonder if your brain is being triggered now in ways that remind you (or your subconscious brain) of this childhood pain.

 

You’re right — the brain doesn’t really separate emotional danger from physical danger. Lately, what’s become clear to me is how strongly my nervous system still reacts to my childhood environment.


Certain cues in that home — voices, tones, the general atmosphere — feel emotionally unsafe to my brain, even though I know I’m physically fine. Somehow, my system learned early on that emotional unsafety = danger, and now it seems to be misreading harmless body sensations as actual threats.


I haven’t had a chance to really test being away from home yet — the longest I’ve been away since the hyperalgesia began is just a day — so this is still a theory. But it fits the pattern: the hyperalgesia only became extreme after I moved back into that environment, even though I had CS and insomnia before.


It’s strange and painful to realize that my mind is reacting so strongly not to what’s actually happening, but to what my brain remembers about feeling unsafe as a child. I’m hoping that once I’m out of that environment for good, the nervous system will finally get the message that I’m safe.

 

This is a powerful thing to realize— and I believe extremely key to getting better. Recently I realized that my sister was hurting me with narcissistic behavior, but even more importantly, she was triggering my father who was a narcissist and abused me. This knowledge is huge because it makes me realize I can’t possibly get better if I’m around my sister. My body will stay on high alert, indefinitely.

Yes! I truly believe you will feel better and get better… And stay better.

 

Yes! Our body remembers even if we don't. I'd also like to add that certain personalities can trigger childhood memories too. I dealt with a controlling parental figure. If my nervous system senses that controlling characteristic in someone, it automatically triggers me.

 

I know understand what Cactus used to mean by doing the work. I now get it totally. My mind has been working overtime trying to figure out what is the trigger, root cause and drivers for my suffering. I wake up in the morning and my mind is forming narratives to find an answer. This last two weeks has been like the deep knowing is going deeper and deeper like peels of an onion. The mind knows the answer, it will tell you when the time is right. Sarno had a point and I will test this theory when I leave the coded environment next week. Pain is always the mind saying danger and when you have cs it gains the signals. If you are in a coded environment those cues can be amplified and the mind says “physical danger, defcon 1”. Fibro and hyperalgesia are global pains where the mind is communicating something is wrong but doesn’t know where it’s from. Emotional danger isn’t localised and that’s why the mind diffuses the pain. Thank you for your reply, Diana. This knowing clicked with me and took me months to work out. When i worked that out my nervous system gave me shivers and shudders. Like a handshake as if we agree with you. I spent the last few weeks analysing my life symptoms and I realised that nearly all my sufferings were caused by the mind and not body. My body was always fine. I can now see with crystal clarity its strong, resilient and healthy. My mind was just trying to overprotect me because of the confusion around emotions and physical danger. I was always physically safe and that’s where the confusion happened. This insight and awareness gives me waves of shivers and shudders down my spine as this awareness is the key to my suffering. The mind now needs to start updating its maps over time to decouple emotional danger with physical danger. That’s is the long term solution and will calibrate the nervous system. Having this deep knowing will start the map updates in the mind.

 

You know, I wonder… are our minds OVER protecting us? Maybe they know something we don’t know or want to accept. Emotional pain can actually kill. One way or another. Our brains are saying, “Get away from that hell hole!” They are saving our lives.

 

But that’s the thing, it’s perceived danger. There is no actual danger in my environment . It’s a hallucination and an illusion. It’s not real in reality. My environment isn’t dangerous but my mind thinks it might be! It needs to learn to decouple emotional and physical danger then it will see reality for what reality actually is. It aligns with Dan B’s work.

 

Well, what I’m saying is, the emotional triggers are dangerous. They tear you down. Emotional pain is valid. Triggers are valid sources of “danger.” Thats why it’s good to find them and get out from under them one way or another. I love Dan B. He’s right.

 

They have proven this using fMRI. The same area of the brain lights up with physical pain as it does with emotional pain.