Why "home" matters neurologically. 🧠🤯 aka the brain drain trap... 🪫💀

A look at how home shapes the nervous system, and how dysregulation shows up when safety is missing.

Home isn’t just a place.
It’s a neurological state.

And when you don’t have it—when it’s unsafe, unstable, conditional, or constantly threatened—your brain never fully comes back online.

It stays in survival.

That’s the part nobody explains.

The Brain Drain Trap 🧠⚠️

When a person lives without a true sense of home, the nervous system burns fuel nonstop.

Not because they’re weak.
Not because they’re lazy.
Not because they’re failing.

But because the brain never gets the signal: you can rest now.

Instead, it stays in:

• Hypervigilance

• Anticipation

• Scanning

• Managing

• Bracing

This is the brain drain trap.

You can be functional.
You can be productive.
You can even look “fine.”

But internally, your system is hemorrhaging energy just to stay upright.

What Abuse Does to the Concept of Home 🏠🧠

When abuse is involved—especially chronic, relational abuse—home stops meaning safety.

It becomes:

• A place you perform

• A place you disappear

• A place you stay quiet

• A place you survive, not recover

Your brain learns that rest is dangerous.
That stillness invites harm.
That letting your guard down costs you something.

So even when the abuse ends, the neurological imprint remains.

You leave the environment, but your nervous system doesn’t know that yet.

Why the Body Collapses Later 🪫

This is why collapse often comes after the danger.

Not during.
After.

Because once you’re finally safe enough to stop bracing, the body releases everything it’s been holding.

The exhaustion.
The overheating.
The brain fog.
The crashes.
The strange sleep patterns.
The delayed adrenaline dumps.

It isn’t regression.
It’s decompression.

The system finally saying: I carried you through hell. Now I need you to carry me.

Failure Isn’t What We Think It Is 💔

Here’s something I need to say clearly:

A person can lose everything and still not be broken.

You can fail:

• Relationships

• Jobs

• Systems

• Institutions

• Expectations

• Versions of yourself you never chose

And still be intact.

Because failure in survival mode isn’t failure.
It’s data.
It’s wear.
It’s cost.

And the fact that someone is still standing—still trying to come home to themselves—means something important survived.

What “Making It Home” Actually Means 🪑

Making it home doesn’t mean fixing your life.
It doesn’t mean stability overnight.
It doesn’t mean being healed.

It means:

• Sitting down when your body says sit

• Cooking one thing that grounds you

• Choosing routine over chaos

• Returning to the same chair

• Letting your nervous system recognize familiarity

Home is repetition without threat.

That’s what the brain needs.

Why I Keep Coming Back to the Kitchen 🍳

The kitchen isn’t symbolic for me.
It’s neurological.

Predictable steps.
Controlled heat.
Clear cause and effect.
A beginning, middle, and end.

Cooking tells my nervous system:

• You’re here

• You’re capable

• You’re safe enough right now

Even if the rest of my life is unresolved.

Even if it’s only for today.

The Truth About Recovery 🧠🤍

Recovery doesn’t happen through motivation.
It happens through containment.

Through home.
Through repetition.
Through safety signals so small they look insignificant to outsiders.

But to the brain?
They are everything.

You don’t heal by becoming someone new.
You heal by becoming reachable to yourself again.

If You’re Still Trying to Make It Home 🪑☕

If you’ve failed at everything they told you mattered…
If you’ve lost people, places, time, versions of yourself…
If your nervous system feels fried and you don’t recognize who you are anymore…

You’re not lost.

You’re exhausted.

And the fact that you’re still trying to come home—to your body, your breath, your routines—means something in you never gave up.

Home isn’t where you prove anything.
It’s where your brain finally stops burning fuel just to exist.

And if today you found even a moment of that—

That counts. ☕🧠🤍