North Jersey Counseling Associates LLC

08/31/2026

08/30/2026

Something in the present brushes against something old, and your nervous system reacts as if the past is happening right now. You don't choose it. A part of you that never got to finish an earlier experience simply takes over, and for a moment you're responding from the age the wound was made rather than the age you are.

These reactions aren't proof that something is broken in you. They're unfinished feelings asking to be noticed.

Healing doesn't mean shoving those parts down or forcing yourself to move on. It means slowing down enough to hear who's actually speaking inside you, and offering the safety, presence, and understanding that weren't there the first time.

You learn to meet the younger version of yourself with curiosity instead of judgment, with kindness instead of shame. You turn toward the parts that have been waiting to be seen, heard, and held.

Often the person they've been waiting for this whole time is you.

08/29/2026

The silent treatment says more about the person doing it than it does about the person receiving it, Daryl Austin wrote in 2021: https://theatln.tc/5oEytG4S

It might be employed by passive personality types to avoid conflict, while strong personality types use it as a means of punishment or control. Some people, so flooded with emotion that they shut down, may not even consciously choose it at all. For others, it’s literally addicting. “Most people who start giving the silent treatment never intend for it to go on for as long as it does, but it can be very difficult to stop,” Kipling Williams, a psychology professor, told Austin. “It’s psychological quicksand.”

Many of those who are subject to the silent treatment become anxious, withdrawn, depressed, or even suicidal. One study found that it provokes the same areas of the brain as physical abuse. Of course, the silent treatment harms the person causing it too. It goes against human nature to ignore someone and, in order to justify the behavior, the perpetrator keeps in mind all of the reasons they’re choosing to ignore someone. “You end up living in a constant state of anger and negativity,” Williams said.

Read more about the silent treatment, who it hurts, and why it’s so dangerous at the link.

🎨: Getty / Adam Maida / The Atlantic

08/29/2026

People grow out of sweaters, not neurological conditions!

Via Eating Off Plastic