You still catch yourself saying "it wasn't that bad." This episode is about the six most dangerous words in the English language — and the cage they build when you let them run unchecked. I break down how minimizing gets installed, what it actually costs your nervous system, and why "it counts" isn't a catchphrase. It's a prerequisite for everything else.
Connect
📖 Spiraling Into Control https://amzn.to/4bbYsfR
🎧 Read With Me — Chapter-by-chapter companion audio: https://www.laurentobey.com/readwithme
📱 The Spiral App — $97 lifetime access: https://www.laurentobey.com/spiralapp
📰 The Spiral Letter — Weekly email, every Tuesday: https://www.laurentobey.com/newsletter
Website: laurentobey.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurentobeyspiral/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@laurentobeyspiral
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LaurenTobeySpiral
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laurentobeyspiral/
About This Episode
"It wasn't that bad." "Other people have it worse." "At least he never hit me." "I should be over this by now."
These sentences sound like perspective. They function like a cage.
In this episode, I'm breaking down the most common lie high-functioning women tell themselves — and the one that keeps them stuck longer than almost anything else. I talk about how minimizing gets installed early, how it gets reinforced by a culture that treats trauma like a competition, and what happens inside your nervous system when you override your own signals long enough that you stop trusting them entirely.
I get into the neuroscience of how external reality-rewriting trains you to become your own gaslighter. I talk about why the woman who was loved — who grew up in a stable home with no obvious wound — can carry some of the deepest adaptations. I name the version of "it wasn't that bad" that looks like resilience and progress — the rebuilt life, the managed calendar, the performance of fine — and why your body knows the difference between unwinding and numbing even when you don't.
And I go into a version of this sentence that I haven't heard anyone else name: the one you use to protect the person who hurt you. Where compassion for them becomes a weapon against yourself.
This is the episode where "it counts" gets its full treatment — not as a catchphrase, but as a framework principle. Because orientation requires access to your own signals. And "it wasn't that bad" is the thing blocking that access.
Timestamps
0:00 — Intro: "It wasn't that bad" — the sentence that acts like a cage
0:33 — Lauren's story: the pastor's half-finished sentence
3:12 — Why the language we use matters & the weight of the word "trauma"
7:29 — When you were loved through it (the stable home wound)
10:41 — The neuroscience: what gaslighting does to your brain
18:40 — Why Lauren says "it counts" instead of "you're valid"
21:12 — Intent vs. impact: protecting the person who hurt you
24:46 — You don't need a threshold — the quiet erosion is real
About The Spiral Podcast
The Spiral Podcast is where the work breathes out loud. Each episode expands what the writing opens — through lived experience, nervous system science, and the kind of conversation that happens at the kitchen table after the kids are asleep. Hosted by Lauren Tobey, author of Spiraling Into Control and creator of The Spiral Framework.
New episodes every Tuesday.
Keywords
nervous system, trauma, spiraling, The Spiral Framework, Ashes, Ember, Flame, Rise, survival mode, nervous system regulation, complex trauma, cPTSD, identity erosion, relational trauma, high-functioning, polyvagal, nervous system states, Lauren Tobey, Spiraling Into Control
If This Episode Landed
Leave a review. A few honest sentences help the algorithm put this podcast in front of the woman who's searching for exactly what you found. Then share it with the woman you thought of. That's how she finds it.
