"Last year, I found myself crying in my car outside a grocery store because choosing between two types of bread felt impossible. This wasn't about gluten preferences or price points. My brain was so overwhelmed from months of pushing through that even the smallest decision felt like climbing Mount Everest. That's when I realized I'd been living in survival mode for so long, I'd forgotten what normal actually felt like."
"If you're constantly exhausted but can't explain why, or if you feel like you're drowning despite keeping all the balls in the air, you might be stuck in the same invisible trap. Survival mode has become so normalized in our culture that we often don't recognize it until our bodies force us to stop. Here are eight questions that might reveal whether you're mistaking survival for living."
"When I was laid off during media industry cuts in my late twenties, I spent four months freelancing and found myself working harder than ever before. Not because I had more work, but because any moment not spent being "productive" felt like proof I deserved to lose my job. The guilt was suffocating. Psychologists call this "toxic productivity," where our self-worth becomes so tied to output that stillness feels like failure."
Survival mode is a prolonged state of overwhelm where routine tasks and small decisions become insurmountable. Chronic survival produces decision paralysis, persistent exhaustion, and emotional concealment, such as answering "I'm fine" when distressed. Rest often triggers guilt because productivity becomes tied to self-worth, a pattern labeled toxic productivity. Research from the University of Kent found that people who cannot rest without guilt show higher stress-hormone levels even during downtime, preventing physiological recovery. Self-reinforcing behaviors, like overworking after job loss, maintain the cycle. Diagnostic questions about guilt, concealment, and exhaustion can help distinguish survival from living.
Read at Silicon Canals
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