InSight Wellness Institute

01/09/2026

Withholding care is a power move. When affection, effort, and attention get rationed, your nervous system stays on edge.

You start overthinking, people pleasing, and working for basic respect. That’s emotional manipulation and control, and it fuels anxiety, self doubt, attachment trauma, and burnout while accountability stays absent.

Chasing crumbs trains your nervous system to stay on edge. You start performing for affection, overthinking silence, and calling it love. In healthy love, care is consistent, communication is clear, and effort shows up without games, withholding, hot and cold, or emotional neglect. That’s secure attachment, not an audition for validation.

01/09/2026

01/08/2026

01/08/2026

Performative vulnerability is sharing emotions or struggles publicly (often online or in groups or with specific family members) not for genuine connection, but for attention, validation, control, or to gain sympathy, appearing vulnerable without the actual risk or deep authenticity of real vulnerability, which builds true intimacy.