"When Old Wounds Keep Looking for New Proof"
May 9, 2026
“When Old Wounds Keep Looking for New Proof”
There are a lot of people who spend years of their lives worrying about and trying to “remotely control” other people’s impressions and opinions of them. This concept is very real and more common than many people consider.
When this happens, people pay “emotional interest” on something that they cannot control that results in acquiring “emotional debt” by the hour.
What I have discovered, later in life, is that this behavior can begin in childhood where someone learned to monitor and manage other people’s feelings around them. This resulted in some form of emotional trauma from the erratic behavior of another around them at a young age. This “hyper-vigilance” can last a lifetime.
Most people are “hard-wired” to fear social rejection and the ambiguity is like “gasoline on a fire.” When erratic actions by others are constant, the brain of the one being impacted tries to close an “open-loop” by replaying “what-ifs” and 24/7/365 scanning to disarm another potential “attack” by someone (codependent hypervigilance) close to them. As these victims grow up those emotions extend to every area of their lives.
Again, this hyper-vigilance can be life-long and robs many of us of peace. The incoming “signal” is triggering a response to a lifestyle that was created long before we had any control of our lives.
Dr. Gabor Mate said, “When your trauma is triggered, you don’t act your age, you act the age the wound was created. Trauma is that scarring that makes you less flexible, more rigid, less feeling and more defended.” Read those words again…
Dr. Gabor Mate said, “When your trauma is triggered, you don’t act your age, you act the age the wound was created. Trauma is that scarring that makes you less flexible, more rigid, less feeling and more defended.”
Constant emotional exhaustion becomes a way-of-life and, for those who realize the source of that constant emotional exhaustion, create “tricks” to try to push through it. It is an attempt to survive as you sit with your “back to the wall” mindset.
There is not such thing as “emotional disarming” when someone lives this way. Constantly “scanning the room” or monitoring the faces of others to ensure they are happy so that you can finally feel “close-to-okay.”
This is a “survival strategy” and it can be a life-long effort to try to overcome it once you recognize it.
If you have children in your life, please read and reread the words of Dr. Gabor Maté: “Children do not experience our intentions, no matter how heartfelt. They experience what we manifest in tone and behavior.” You and I are responsible for the life-long emotional health of the children who we have direct, and personal, influence over daily. We need to be so careful.
There are some people who won’t like you even if you’re flawless because they’re reacting to their own insecurity, envy, wounds, tribal thinking or a distorted story. If your peace requires universal approval, then you have accepted an impossible contract.
There are some of those who have hurt you who have been hurt by some in their past and they never learned how to push past that hurt.
We must learn to name the signal. When I feel myself scanning faces, replaying conversations, or wondering what someone “really meant,” I try to stop and say, “This may not be danger. This may be an old wound looking for proof that it is still unsafe.”
What do I know to be true?
What story am I adding to the facts?
What part of this is mine to own and what part belongs to them?
You cannot control when people misunderstand, assume and judge you. We can’t control how others perceive us. Guard your peace.
I Believe in YOU!
John W. Carver, LUTCF
john@johnwcarve.com