The Rant

This one is personal.

If you’ve ever worked your ass off only to be undermined by someone insecureIf you’ve ever spoken the truth and been punished for itIf you’ve ever trusted someone in a position of power who ended up exploiting youThis episode is for you

In this one, I talk about:

* Being targeted by a micromanaging coward who felt threatened by my performance

* Watching a company I helped grow turn its back the moment I stopped being silent

* Losing my career in finance, then losing my best friend

* Getting blackmailed by my own therapist during the darkest time of my life

* And still finding a way to build something real from the wreckage

Also — yes, my ADHD was loud todayI forgot to plug in the micSo the audio isn’t studio qualityBut the message still lands

This is not polishedIt’s not scriptedIt’s real

It’s me

—Cody Taymore

Kill The Silence

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Keep fighting. Keep showing up. And remember:

You’re not crazy. You're surviving.

-Cody TaymoreKill The Silence

Get full access to Kill The Silence at killthesilenceofficial.substack.com/subscribe

This episode is a little chaotic. A little funny. And a lot real.

Welcome to Cody’s brain.

I talk about everything from my new Willy Wonka hat to the moment I realized the police were actually taking my case seriously. It took months of isolation, investigation, and holding the line with no closure — but now things are moving. That means something.

We talk addiction. Self-regulation. Trusting people again after being manipulated by someone who was supposed to help you. I open up about trying therapy again after surviving one of the most devastating betrayals a person can experience.

I tell the truth about what it’s like to feel like you’re crawling in your skin. To not know if it’s trauma, anxiety, or just too much energy. And I get honest about nicotine pouches, recovery, work addiction, and how Eminem and Starbucks sometimes carry me through.

This episode isn’t polished. It’s not linear. But that’s exactly what healing actually looks like.

If you have ever felt like you were rebuilding your entire life alone…If you have ever doubted your own story because nobody believed it…If you are trying to trust yourself again…This one is for you.

Listen to Episode 7 now.Then send it to someone who needs to know they are not the only one.

— Cody TaymoreKill The Silence

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After psychological abuse, people expect you to “move on.”But what happens when your mind won’t let you?What happens when the person who was supposed to help you heal is the one who caused the damage?

In this episode, I talk about what actually happened to me after I broke away from a therapist who manipulated and extorted me.Not just the facts — the symptoms. The fallout. The reality I had to put back together.

I talk about:

* The confusion of not knowing what was true and what was a lie

* The racing thoughts, night terrors, and nervous system dysregulation

* The guilt of caring about someone who was actively hurting me

* How shame lives in the body, and how it can make you feel physically sick

* The way trauma makes time fold in on itself — how months of recovery can still feel like you’re trapped in the same moment

I also talk about the pressure to prove it.How painful it is to feel like you have to convince people what happened — like surviving wasn’t enough.Like the burden is on you to explain, justify, retell the worst moments of your life just to be taken seriously.

This wasn’t a clean break.It was a long, drawn-out process of slowly reclaiming my nervous system, my clarity, my sleep, my self-worth.And I’m still rebuilding.

But I’m not where I was.And if you’re in it — if you’re clawing your way back from something you never thought you’d have to survive — just know this:

You’re not alone.You’re not broken.And you don’t have to justify the damage to anyone.

You can recover from this.

Whatever “this” may be.

Keep going.

— Cody TaymoreKill The Silence

Get full access to Kill The Silence at killthesilenceofficial.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to Kill The Silence at killthesilenceofficial.substack.com/subscribe

Narcissists have a playbook.

They love their scripts, their tested manipulation tactics, their tried-and-true ways of making you question yourself.

But here’s what they don’t want you to know: they also have predictable weak spots.

After spending two years being systematically manipulated by someone I trusted completely, I learned something crucial: narcissists lose their shit when you stop playing by their rules.

“Narcissists depend on you explaining yourself. The moment you stop, their power structure collapses.”

They’re used to people who explain, defend, and justify. They’re used to people who care about being “fair” and “reasonable.”

They’re not used to people who simply refuse to engage with their bullshit.

The Day I Stopped Playing Their Game

Picture this: You’re sitting across from someone who’s spent months convincing you that you’re the problem. That your memory is faulty. That your instincts are wrong. That everyone else thinks you’re crazy.

For me, it was my therapist. The person I’d trusted with my deepest traumas for five years. The person who knew exactly which buttons to push because I’d handed her the manual.

She’d just finished explaining why I owed her another $15,000 for “protection services” while simultaneously gaslighting me about whether she’d ever demanded money in the first place.

My old self would have pulled out bank statements or old texts. Would have tried to logic my way through her contradictions. Would have explained why her version of reality didn’t match mine.

Instead, I looked at her and said seven words that changed everything:

“I’m not going to discuss this further.”

The mask slipped. For just a moment, I saw pure rage flash across her face before she caught herself.

“The moment a narcissist shows you their real face, you know you’ve hit their kryptonite.”

That’s when I knew I’d found their weakness.

Why Most Responses Don’t Work

Before we get to what actually works, let’s talk about what doesn’t.

Logic doesn’t work. They’re not interested in truth. They’re interested in control.

Emotion doesn’t work. Your pain is their fuel. Your anger is their validation that they got to you.

Evidence doesn’t work. They’ll move the goalposts, claim you’re misremembering, or simply deny reality.

When my former therapist was extorting money from me, I tried all of these approaches. I showed her bank statements. I appealed to her sense of ethics. I got emotional about how her actions were destroying my life.

She used every single response as ammunition against me.

Narcissists don’t argue to resolve anything. They argue to maintain power.

The breakthrough came when I stopped trying to convince her and started exposing her tactics instead.

Understanding the Narcissist’s Operating System

Here’s what most people don’t understand about narcissists: they’re running on a completely different operating system than you.

You operate from a place of genuine connection. You assume people mean what they say. You believe in fairness and reciprocity.

They operate from a place of strategic manipulation. Every interaction is a chess move. Every conversation is an opportunity to gain leverage.

“When you try to have a ‘normal’ conversation with a narcissist, you’re speaking different languages. You’re speaking Human. They’re speaking Power.”

The phrases I’m about to share work because they switch you from Human to Power — but in a way that exposes their manipulation instead of escalating it.

The 7 Phrases That Break Their System

These aren’t magic spells. They’re pattern interrupts that expose the manipulation in real-time.

1. “I’m not going to discuss this further.”

Not “I don’t want to.” Not “Maybe later.”

“I’m not going to.”

This drives them insane because it’s not negotiable. There’s no opening for them to push, prod, or guilt you into engaging.

Why it works: Narcissists need you to stay engaged in their circular arguments. They thrive on keeping you confused and defensive. This phrase cuts the power cord.

When to use it: When they’re trying to relitigate something you’ve already decided. When they’re asking you to justify a boundary you’ve already set. When you can feel them pulling you into a pointless argument.

When you set a boundary like this, they’ll usually escalate. They’ll call you names, play victim, or threaten consequences.

Let them.

Their reaction proves you hit a nerve.

“When a narcissist escalates after you set a boundary, they’re not proving you’re wrong. They’re proving you’re onto something.”

My therapist’s response to this phrase was to threaten my career. She claimed she’d “make sure everyone knew” about my “instability.” The more desperate her threats became, the more I realized I was onto something.

2. “That’s an interesting perspective.”

This is beautifully dismissive without being overtly confrontational.

You’re not agreeing. You’re not disagreeing. You’re essentially saying their opinion is noted and filed under “irrelevant.”

Why it works: Narcissists need you to care deeply about their perspective. They need you to either agree with them or fight them. This response does neither — it treats their opinion like background noise.

When to use it: When they’re giving you unsolicited criticism. When they’re trying to tell you how you “should” feel about something. When they’re making sweeping pronouncements about your life.

I started using this with family members who had opinions about my “overreaction” to the therapist situation. Instead of defending myself, I’d just say, “That’s an interesting perspective” and change the subject.

Watch how quickly they get frustrated when you don’t take their bait.

3. “I don’t remember asking for your opinion.”

Simple. Direct. Cuts through their tendency to offer unsolicited advice and criticism.

This works especially well when they’re giving you “feedback” about your choices, your relationships, or your life decisions.

Why it works: It reminds them that you’re not seeking their approval or input. It reframes their “helpful advice” as the unwanted intrusion it actually is.

When to use it: When they start sentences with “You should…” or “If I were you…” or “The problem with you is…”

“The beauty of this phrase is that it’s factually accurate. You didn’t ask. And now you’re pointing out that their input is not only unwanted — it’s presumptuous.”

4. “Your reaction is telling.”

Use this when they’re having a disproportionate response to reasonable boundaries.

When you say no to something minor and they explode with rage, guilt trips, or threats — that’s your cue.

Why it works: This phrase puts the focus back on their behavior instead of letting them make you the problem. It’s like holding up a mirror to their overreaction.

When to use it: When they lose their shit over a simple boundary. When they guilt trip you for not accommodating them. When they threaten consequences for your perfectly reasonable decision.

This phrase saved my sanity during the contract negotiations with my therapist. Every time she’d explode about my “unreasonable demands” (like wanting to know where my money was going), I’d calmly say, “Your reaction is telling.”

It drove her absolutely insane because she couldn’t argue with it without proving my point.

5. “I’m going to need that in writing.”

Perfect for narcissists who love to make promises, agreements, or threats verbally and then deny them later.

Why it works: Narcissists thrive in the gray areas. They love plausible deniability. Documentation is their enemy because it creates accountability.

When to use it: When they make promises about changed behavior. When they’re making threats. When they’re making agreements that you suspect they’ll later deny.

My therapist constantly claimed she’d “never said” things I clearly remembered. If I’d started asking for written confirmation earlier, her gaslighting campaign would have collapsed.

They hate accountability. Documentation is kryptonite.

Pro tip: When they refuse to put it in writing, that tells you everything you need to know about their intentions.

“Narcissists thrive in gray areas. They love plausible deniability. Documentation is their enemy because it creates accountability.”

6. “I notice you’re trying to change the subject.”

Narcissists are masters of deflection. When you’re addressing their behavior, they’ll suddenly bring up something you did wrong three months ago.

Why it works: This phrase calls out the deflection in real-time and redirects the conversation back to the actual issue.

When to use it: When they respond to your concern about their behavior by bringing up your past mistakes. When they deflect responsibility by pointing fingers at others. When they try to make the conversation about everything except what you’re trying to address.

Don’t let them lead you down rabbit holes.

I used this constantly when trying to address the financial manipulation. Every time I’d bring up the missing money, she’d pivot to my “anger issues” or my “inability to trust.”

“I notice you’re trying to change the subject. We’re talking about the $126,000 you took from me.”

It’s amazing how quickly they scramble when you don’t let them control the narrative.

7. “No.”

Just “no.”

Not “No, because…” Not “I can’t because…” Not “Maybe if you…”

Just “No.”

Why it works: Complete sentences don’t require explanations. The moment you start explaining your “no,” you’re inviting negotiation.

When to use it: When they ask for something you don’t want to give. When they pressure you to change a decision you’ve already made. When they want you to accommodate their unreasonable demands.

Complete sentences don’t require explanations.

This was the hardest phrase for me to master because I’d been trained to justify everything. But “no” is a complete sentence. It doesn’t need a supporting essay.

What Happens When You Use These

First, they’ll escalate.

Narcissists have a predictable response when their usual tactics stop working: they try harder.

The guilt trips get more dramatic. The threats get more serious. The victim playing gets more elaborate.

This is actually a good sign.

When someone escalates after you set a boundary, they’re showing you exactly who they are.

“The extinction burst is proof that your new approach is working. Their escalation isn’t evidence of your failure — it’s evidence of their desperation.”

My former therapist’s reaction to me setting boundaries was to threaten my career, my reputation, and my financial stability. She escalated because she was losing control.

That escalation gave me all the information I needed.

The Extinction Burst Phenomenon

Psychologists call this the “extinction burst.” When a behavior stops getting rewarded, it gets worse before it gets better.

Think about it: if you’ve been feeding a narcissist’s need for control by explaining, defending, and justifying, and you suddenly stop — they’re going to try everything to get that supply back.

They’ll love-bomb you. They’ll threaten you. They’ll play victim. They’ll involve other people. They’ll escalate until you break.

Don’t break.

“The extinction burst is the narcissist’s last stand. If you can weather this storm, you win.”

The extinction burst is proof that your new approach is working. Stay the course.

The Real Power Behind These Phrases

These phrases work because they do something most people won’t do with narcissists: they refuse to participate in the manipulation.

Instead of explaining why you disagree, you simply state your position.

Instead of defending your boundaries, you enforce them.

Instead of trying to make them understand, you accept that they don’t want to understand.

You’re not trying to win an argument. You’re ending one.

Advanced Tactics: Reading the Room

Once you get comfortable with these phrases, you can start reading the narcissist’s reactions to gather intelligence.

When they immediately comply: They’re testing your boundaries and will likely push again later.

When they argue but stay calm: They’re strategizing their next move.

When they explode: You’ve hit a major nerve. This boundary is threatening something important to them.

When they play victim: They’re trying to recruit others to pressure you into backing down.

When they disappear: They’re either planning retaliation or looking for easier targets.

Each reaction gives you information about what matters to them and how far they’re willing to go.

A Warning About Using These

Some situations aren’t safe for direct confrontation.

If you’re dealing with someone who has control over your housing, finances, children, or physical safety, these phrases might escalate things in dangerous ways.

Trust your instincts. Sometimes the safest response is still gray rock or strategic compliance while you plan your exit.

Your safety always comes first.

I was fortunate that my therapist’s control was primarily psychological and financial. If there had been physical threats, I would have handled things differently.

What I Wish I’d Known Earlier

For two years, I tried to reason with someone who was systematically destroying my life.

I explained why her demands were unreasonable. I provided evidence of her lies. I appealed to her conscience.

I was playing chess while she was playing a completely different game.

The moment I stopped trying to convince her and started exposing her tactics, everything changed.

Not because she suddenly became reasonable — but because I stopped giving her the responses she needed to maintain control.

“I was playing chess while she was playing a completely different game. The moment I realized this, I stopped playing altogether.”

The Ripple Effect

Here’s what surprised me: once I learned to use these phrases with my therapist, I started noticing manipulation everywhere.

The family member who guilt-tripped me for setting boundaries.

The friend who always made our conversations about their drama.

The colleague who constantly undermined me while claiming to be “helpful.”

These phrases work on all manipulators, not just full-blown narcissists.

The Ultimate Narcissist Kryptonite

Here’s the truth narcissists can’t handle:

You don’t need their permission to set boundaries.

You don’t need their understanding to protect yourself.

You don’t need their approval to walk away.

You don’t need to justify why you won’t tolerate their behavior.

When you stop seeking their validation and start trusting your own judgment, their power over you evaporates.

“You don’t need their permission to set boundaries. You don’t need their understanding to protect yourself. You don’t need their approval to walk away.”

The private investigator’s report that came later confirmed everything I’d suspected. $126,000 stolen through fabricated threats and fake protection services. Two years of systematic psychological manipulation.

But I didn’t need the report to know I was right.

My nervous system had been telling me the truth the entire time.

These phrases just gave me the tools to trust it.

— Cody Taymore

Kill The Silence

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In this episode, I go all in on something I’ve carried for years — shame.

I think I’ve always struggled with shame due to my upbringing. It seems like it was hard wired into me.

The kind of shame that doesn’t belong to me. The kind that was planted in me by people who should’ve protected me.And the kind that grew because I stayed silent for too long.

I talk about what it’s been like to live with the shame of being manipulated, targeted, abused, and extorted by my therapist of five years.

This one’s heavier. But it’s the truth. And I’m done being quiet about it.

What’s Inside This Episode:

* Why shame lingers after abuse — even when it wasn’t your fault

* The fallout of being targeted and fired while in recovery

* How my therapist exploited my darkest fears and made me question my sanity

* What it’s like to be gaslit by the person you trusted most

* The pressure to keep it all secret, and what happens when you stop

* Why I refuse to carry the shame that belongs to my abuser

* The real cost of silence — and why predators rely on it

This is one of the most personal episodes I’ve ever recorded.Not to make you uncomfortable — but because I know I’m not the only one who’s felt like this.

Show Notes:

* Abuse doesn’t always look like violence. Sometimes it looks like support.

* I talk openly about my experience being manipulated by a licensed therapist while I was vulnerable, recovering, and isolated.

* I share how shame became the tool she used to keep me quiet — and how I’m finally taking that back.

* I reflect on why survivors blame themselves, and why that shame never belonged to us in the first place.

* This episode includes real details of what happened — including identity distortion, manipulation, and threats.

* I talk about how difficult it’s been to find a new therapist, trust again, and function under PTSD symptoms like emotional flooding, night terrors, and dissociation.

* And why none of that is going to shut me up.

—Cody Taymore

Kill The Silence

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Let me tell you something you already know — but probably haven’t said out loud:

You’ve been white-knuckling it for years.

Not with drugs. Not with rage. Not with obvious breakdowns.

But with “holding it together.” With productivity. With niceness. With becoming the most competent person in every f*cking room.

And your nervous system? It’s screaming.

But it doesn’t use words. It uses symptoms.

So here’s what I wish someone would’ve told me back when I was crushing sales calls during the day and having panic attacks behind the wheel at night:

Your body knows you’re not safe even when your mind is pretending you are.

“Your most impressive skills aren’t accomplishments…they’re adaptations. Your hyper-competence, your constant vigilance, your ability to power through? Those aren’t personality traits. They’re survival responses.”

Here are 7 silent alarms it might be sounding while you fake fine.

1. The 3 AM Emergency Broadcast System

You fall asleep exhausted. But at 3:17 AM, your eyes snap open. Heart racing. Mind spinning. Every. Single. Night.

Your mind: “I just need a better sleep routine.”

Your body: “Sleep isn’t safe. Danger could come while we’re unconscious.”

This isn’t insomnia, it’s your body’s emergency alert system.

When you experience trauma, your brain rewires itself to scan constantly for threats. Even years later, your nervous system remains convinced that letting your guard down during deep sleep could be lethal. So it jolts you awake precisely when you should be entering your deepest sleep cycle.

I spent two years thinking I had a sleep disorder. Tried every supplement, sleep hygiene trick, and breathing technique. None of it touched this problem. Because this wasn’t about sleep quality — it was about my nervous system believing that unconsciousness equals vulnerability.

The cruel irony: this protective mechanism is actually killing you slowly through sleep deprivation. Your body’s attempting to save your life by slowly destroying it.

And that melatonin? It’s like putting duct tape over the check engine light. The warning system isn’t the problem.

2. You Can’t Catch Your Breath — But You’re Not Out of Shape

You’re just sitting at your desk. No one’s chasing you. You didn’t run a marathon.

And yet your chest tightens. You sigh constantly. You forget how to breathe deeply.

Your mind: “Maybe I should get my lungs checked.”

Your body: “We need to stay ready to run or fight at any moment.”

That’s not a respiratory issue. That’s your nervous system in fight or flight convinced you’re still in danger.

Look, your breathing is directly wired to your autonomic nervous system. When your body perceives threat (even if your rational mind doesn’t), it automatically shifts your breathing to prepare for action. Shallow, upper-chest breathing keeps you ready to move, fight, or flee at a millisecond’s notice.

The kicker? This pattern becomes so normal you stop noticing it. I went years thinking everyone felt like they couldn’t get a full breath. I only realized how constricted my breathing was when a trauma therapist pointed out I hadn’t taken a complete inhale during our entire session.

“It’s not breathlessness. It’s the body saying, ‘We don’t have time to rest. We’re not safe yet.’”

“The body’s language is symptoms. What you call chronic illness, I call desperate Morse code from a system that’s been screaming for years while you’ve been trained to ignore it.”

3. You Feel Exhausted After Doing Absolutely Nothing

You slept 8 hours. You didn’t do anything strenuous. But by 2pm, you feel like you’ve been hit by a truck.

Your mind: “I must be getting sick or I’m just lazy.”

Your body: “Conserving energy is our only option in a situation beyond our control.”

That’s not laziness. It’s not burnout. It’s freeze mode. Your system is conserving energy because it doesn’t trust the world.

The freeze response is what happens when fight and flight aren’t viable options. Your body essentially shuts down non-essential functions to conserve energy. The devastating part? This biological survival mechanism gets misinterpreted as character failure by others and by yourself.

I can’t tell you how many times I called myself lazy, unmotivated, or broken when I was actually stuck in a physiological shutdown state. I tried to willpower my way through it, which only deepened the exhaustion.

That bone-deep fatigue isn’t because you’re weak. It’s because your nervous system has been running a marathon every day just trying to keep you safe.

“You’re not tired. You’re trapped.”

4. You Can’t Sit Still — Even When You Want To

You try to meditate. Your leg starts bouncing. You open your laptop. You suddenly need to clean your entire kitchen.

Your mind: “I’m just not good at relaxing.”

Your body: “Movement equals survival. Stillness equals death.”

Welcome to flight mode.

Your brain thinks movement = safety. Stillness feels like death. Because when you were still, something bad happened. And your body remembered.

The human nervous system evolved with a simple equation: movement = life, while immobility often meant you were dead or about to be. When your system has experienced overwhelming events, that equation becomes hardwired. The result? Your restlessness isn’t ADHD or character flaw — it’s survival intelligence.

This is why “just relax” is the most useless advice for trauma survivors. Your fidgeting, pacing, and constant motion aren’t personal failings — they’re physiological imperatives. Your body is literally saying: “Keep moving or die.”

“You call it hustle. Your nervous system calls it escape.”

“Your productivity isn’t ambition. It’s avoidance. Your perfectionism isn’t excellence. It’s protection. Your overthinking isn’t anxiety. It’s surveillance. You’ve been running a security company when what you need is a sanctuary.”

5. You’re Clenching Everything — And Don’t Even Notice

Your jaw is tight. Your fists are curled. Your stomach feels like a rock. And you didn’t even know you were doing it.

Your mind: “I must be stressed about work.”

Your body: “I need to be ready for attack at any moment.”

That’s your body bracing for impact. Even if there’s no impact coming.

The constant muscular tension, especially in the jaw, shoulders, and core is your body’s way of maintaining a perpetual shield. It’s exhausting, but your nervous system believes it’s necessary for survival.

I spent years with chronic jaw pain, spending thousands on dentists, night guards, and TMJ specialists. Not one of them identified what my body tension actually was: stored trauma preparing for the next blow.

The most sinister part? This chronic tension becomes your normal state. You don’t even register it as discomfort anymore — just your default setting. That’s why you’re often unaware of how much you’re holding until someone touches your shoulders and you nearly jump through the ceiling.

“Your body doesn’t know the trauma is over. So it keeps the armor on.”

6. The Phantom Pain Syndrome

The migraine that appears before difficult conversations. The stomach pain that coincides with work stress. The lower back pain that comes and goes with no apparent physical cause.

Your mind: “I need better medical care for all these random issues.”

Your body: “I’m storing your unprocessed emotions in your physical tissue.”

Doctors run tests. Everything comes back normal. They suggest stress management. You feel dismissed.

Here’s what’s actually happening: your body converts emotional distress into physical pain when you exceed your capacity to process it consciously. This isn’t psychosomatic in the dismissive sense — it’s a legitimate neurophysiological response.

When emotions aren’t metabolized, they get stored in your fascia, muscle tissue, and nervous system. Your chronic neck tension isn’t just poor ergonomics — it’s fear, stored in the tissue. Your IBS isn’t just dietary sensitivity — it’s boundary violations compressed into gut dysfunction.

I spent over $30,000 on medical testing, specialists, and procedures for mysterious physical symptoms. All while numbing out emotionally, priding myself on my rationality. My body was screaming what my mind refused to say: I wasn’t okay.

The kicker: pharmaceutical interventions often fail because they’re targeting the symptom, not the cause. Your body isn’t malfunctioning — it’s speaking the only language it knows will finally get your attention.

“You don’t have a mystery illness. You have unprocessed trauma. The problem isn’t in your body, the truth is.”

7. You’re Always ‘On’ — Even in Silence

You go home. No one’s around. But your brain keeps scanning as if someone’s about to yell, judge, or leave.

Your mind: “I just overthink things sometimes.”

Your body: “Constant surveillance kept us alive before. We can’t stop now.”

That’s not overthinking. That’s hypervigilance. And it’s not a flaw. It’s the survival instinct of someone who learned early: silence isn’t always safe.

Hypervigilance is the constant scanning of your environment for threats. But in trauma survivors, the definition of “threat” becomes disturbingly broad: a certain tone of voice, a specific facial expression, or even just an unexpected noise can trigger the full alarm system.

I used to pride myself on my “ability to read a room.” What I didn’t realize was that this wasn’t social intelligence — it was trauma-induced hypervigilance. I wasn’t reading rooms; I was scanning for threats. Every micro-expression, tone shift, or ambiguous comment became a potential attack my system needed to prepare for.

“Stillness doesn’t feel peaceful. It feels suspicious.”

The Chronic Dissociation Default

You frequently feel slightly disconnected from your surroundings. You “zone out” during conversations. You can’t remember your drive home. You feel like you’re watching your life through a slightly foggy window.

Your mind: “I’m just spacey sometimes.”

Your body: “Reality became unbearable, so I created an escape hatch.”

This isn’t absent-mindedness — it’s dissociation, your brain’s built-in emergency exit. When physical escape wasn’t possible, dissociation provided a neurological escape, dampening sensory input and creating psychological distance from unbearable experiences.

The insidious part: what began as an emergency response becomes your baseline state. You dissociate not just during active stress but preventatively, staying slightly disconnected from reality at all times.

I spent years not feeling fully present in my own life, describing it as “watching myself in a movie.” I thought it was just how my brain worked. I had no idea it was a sophisticated protection mechanism, keeping me partly absent from my own experience because full presence had once been too painful to bear.

And here’s the darker truth: successful, high-functioning people often dissociate so seamlessly that even they don’t recognize it’s happening. Your ability to “power through” might actually be sophisticated dissociation wearing a productivity mask.

“Your ‘high-functioning’ is actually evidence of how deeply wounded you are. The more seamlessly you operate while disconnected from yourself, the more practice you’ve had at surviving the unsurvivable.”

You Feel Numb — But Somehow Still Anxious

You don’t feel joy. You don’t feel fear. You just feel…blank.

Except your chest is tight. Your heart is racing. Your gut says something’s wrong.

Your mind: “I’m just emotionally stable and logical.”

Your body: “Emotions were dangerous, so I shut down that circuit.”

Welcome to functional freeze. This is what high-functioning people look like in shutdown: composed on the outside, crumbling underneath.

This contradiction, emotional numbness paired with physical anxiety symptoms, is the hallmark of trauma. Your cognitive mind has successfully disconnected from emotional processing, but your body still carries the response.

I spent years priding myself on being “rational, not emotional.” People came to me for level-headed advice precisely because I didn’t get swept up in feelings. What I didn’t understand: this wasn’t emotional maturity — it was emotional amputation. I wasn’t choosing logic over emotion; I was physiologically incapable of accessing my feelings.

“It’s not emotional stability. It’s emotional lockdown.”

You Can’t Cry — Until You Absolutely Break

You stay strong for everyone. You say you’re fine. You mean it.

Until one tiny moment — a song, a delay, a dumb comment — and suddenly you’re sobbing in a parking lot.

Your mind: “I don’t know where that came from. I must be stressed.”

Your body: “I’ve been holding back a tsunami. The dam finally broke.”

This is your nervous system discharging stored survival energy. Because it couldn’t leak out before. So it explodes when it can.

The giveaway: when something minor finally does crack the façade, the response is disproportionate. That’s the circuit temporarily coming back online and releasing accumulated emotional charge.

I remember sitting in my car sobbing uncontrollably because a drive-thru got my order wrong. It wasn’t about the food. It was about months of compressed emotion finding the one tiny crack in my armor.

Most disturbing: you can’t selectively numb emotions. When you shut down the ability to feel grief, fear, or anger, you also reduce your capacity for joy, love, and connection. Your protection from pain is also your prison.

“You weren’t faking being okay. You were surviving.”

“Your symptoms aren’t malfunctions — they’re messengers. And they will only get louder until you finally honor what they’re trying to tell you.”

Breaking the Silent Alarm Cycle

Let’s Be Clear:

Your nervous system isn’t overreacting. It’s overcompensating.

Because your trauma was real. The pressure is real. And the way you hold it together? That’s not weakness. It’s proof you’re still here.

But survival mode was never meant to be permanent.

Your exhausted nervous system isn’t broken — it’s doing exactly what it was conditioned to do. The problem isn’t the alarm system; it’s that you’ve gotten so used to the sirens that you don’t hear them anymore.

The work isn’t silencing these alarms — it’s finally listening to what they’re telling you.

Recovery begins with two radical premises: your body isn’t lying, and your symptoms aren’t the problem — they’re the solution your body created to an impossible situation.

For me, healing started when I stopped fighting my body’s signals and started translating them instead. My insomnia wasn’t a sleep disorder; it was stored fear seeking resolution. My chronic pain wasn’t medical mystery; it was embodied grief. My dissociation wasn’t spaciness; it was my brain’s desperate attempt at harm reduction.

The pathway back requires more than cognitive understanding. Your thinking brain didn’t create these patterns, and it can’t think its way out of them. You need interventions that speak directly to the nervous system — somatic experiencing, EMDR, neurofeedback, polyvagal-informed therapy, and specifically targeted physical practices.

The most unbearable truth is also the most liberating: your body will keep screaming until you finally listen. The volume will only increase until you respond. But when you do, when you finally turn toward these signals with curiosity instead of suppression, something extraordinary happens.

Your alarms become allies. Your symptoms become signposts. Your survival mechanisms transform from prison guards into guides leading you back home to yourself.

Your body has been keeping score all along. It’s time to stop pretending you don’t see the scoreboard.

— Cody Taymore

Kill The Silence

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I wasn’t planning to talk about all of this today.

But like most of what I’ve built — this episode is unscripted, uncomfortable, and real.

I talk about why I didn’t record yesterday.I talk about losing my entire career.I talk about what it felt like to have a therapist blackmail me, threaten me, and destroy my trust while I was already in the middle of the worst professional collapse of my life.

And I talk about what it means to try and build something again… when you don’t even know if you’re okay.

What’s inside this episode:

* How being the top performer in my role didn’t protect me from being targeted

* The aftermath of being fired, silenced, and psychologically manipulated by a therapist I trusted for five years

* Why traditional “shame regulation” and therapy tools never worked for me

* PTSD symptoms I still deal with daily — night terrors, rage spirals, dissociation

* How one friend saved my life just by showing up when no one else did

* Why most people have no idea what to say when you’re spiraling — and what actually helps

This episode is messy, honest, and probably uncomfortable to listen to.But it’s not for everyone.It’s for the people who’ve been there — or who are there right now.

If that’s you, press play.

—Cody Taymore

Kill The Silence

Get full access to Kill The Silence at killthesilenceofficial.substack.com/subscribe

In this raw and unfiltered episode, I share the truth I’ve never fully told until now — the story of how I was blackmailed and psychologically abused by my therapist of five years, and what it took to survive it without relapsing, losing my job, or giving up on myself.

This isn’t a sob story. It’s a war story.It’s about what happens when the person you trust most becomes the one who destroys you.

I talk about:

* Getting sober after years of alcoholism and trauma

* Why I created the Kill The Silence digital library

* How my therapist manipulated, isolated, and extorted me

* The emotional cost of being silenced, and how I broke free

* The tools that actually helped me stay grounded through it all

* How shame almost killed me — and how I took my power back

Topics Covered

* ADHD, CPTSD, and the shame of "not being healed"

* Getting sober without AA, church, or traditional therapy

* Why I’ll never charge for recovery tools — and what’s in the Digital Library

* The truth about therapist abuse, coercive contracts, and trauma gaslighting

* How I kept my job and didn’t relapse under extreme psychological pressure

* Why I’m turning this story into stand-up comedy (and survival power)

—Cody

Get full access to Kill The Silence at killthesilenceofficial.substack.com/subscribe