Engineered for Fake Relief: Why You Crave Junk Food in a Junk Culture

Posted on February 13, 2026 by Shay Seaborne, CPTSD

The junk food industry is not in the business of feeding people, but extracting money from stressed nervous systems. Instead of nourishment, it sells stimulation, sedation, and distraction in edible form.

Human bodies evolved in environments where taste and texture were important. Sweet meant ripe fruit and quick energy. Crunch meant fresh, living plants full of water. Fat meant survival in times of scarcity. These signals helped guide us toward what supported life. Our bodies learned to trust them.

The junk food industry learned how to copy those signals without delivering what they evolved to mean. They engineer food so it lights up the same sensory and relational pathways that once guided us to real nourishment. The snap of a chip, the melt of sugar on the tongue, and the way fat carries flavor are tuned to trigger “this is good for me” without actually being good for you. Your system receives the message of safety and pleasure, but your body does not receive the resources that message is supposed to mean.

With sweet foods, the effect is especially powerful. Sugar gives a brief internal settling. In a body living under chronic stress, that feels like care. Their systems are overloaded and looking for regulation. The relief is short, then comes the drop that feels like lack. So the system reaches again.

That is how you end up in the sweet, salty, sweet loop. Sugar soothes. Salt wakes things back up and keeps appetite open. Fat carries everything and makes it linger. Each bite almost closes the door, then the next one kicks it open again. Your system never lands. It keeps cycling. This is not a personal failure. It is a design feature.

Now add chronic stress to the picture. When a body lives under pressure, fear, isolation, time scarcity, and constant demand, it spends more time in threat detection. When a system is focused on threat, it loses access to connection and real rest. It starts looking for fast ways to feel better. Junk food becomes emergency regulation. Not good regulation, but quick.

So people do not crave garbage. They crave steadiness, relief, and something that feels like being cared for. The industry has learned how to imitate those signals without giving what the body asks.

This suits inside a domination hierarchy that overloads people and then profits from their overload: long work hours, low wages, social isolation, and constant pressure. Then industries step in and sell fake relief. Food, substances, screens, and shopping don’t fix the conditions. They just keep people functioning inside them.

Economic factors are involved. Most junk food is made of sugar, fat, flour, and starch. These are some of the cheapest raw materials on the planet, thanks in part to government subsidies. The real expenses are in the processing, chemical flavoring, shelf-stabilizing, branding, and packaging. You are not paying for food, but engineering and marketing.

The packaging matters more than people realize. Bright colors, bold fonts, cartoon shapes, and nostalgic imagery affect your nervous system as familiar, safe, playful, and non-threatening. It is the same part of you that responds to old storybooks and childhood cues. The bag is talking to your body long before your mind gets a vote. When you reach for it, it is not just hunger. It is pattern recognition, memory, sensory pull, and a system that has been trained by stress to grab whatever offers fast relief.

You are human inside a structure that exploits human biology. The way out is not discipline, but understanding and support. When people start to get real nourishment, rest, connection, and pleasure, the grip of junk loosens. Bodies that feel safer do not need as much artificial soothing. Less overloaded systems do not need as many emergency exits.

There are ways to satisfy what your body is actually asking for without going down the junk food route. Crunch can come from real vegetables, nuts, apples, carrots, and cucumbers. Sweet can come from fruit, dates, honey in small amounts, foods that bring energy without the crash. Fat can come from things that actually build the body instead of inflaming it. Warm meals can bring settling in a way cold packaged snacks never will. Eating with other people does more for regulation than any product ever could.

And sometimes what your body wants is not food at all. It wants rest, touch, to feel seen, and to stop bracing for the next demand.

The more people understand this, the less shame they carry. And shame is one of the tools that keeps the hierarchical system running. If you think the problem is you, you will keep buying solutions. If you see the problem is the structure, you start looking for real alternatives.

You are not failing at eating. You are living inside a hierarchy that profits from dysregulated bodies.

And the more we expose that, the harder it is for the system to keep pretending this is about “personal choice” instead of organized exploitation of our most basic biological needs.

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Bill Gates Is “Giving It All Away” While Keeping the Power

Posted on February 13, 2026 by Shay Seaborne, CPTSD

Bill Gates announced he plans to give away “virtually all” of his wealth–around $200 billion–over the next 20 years in “the “largest philanthropic commitment in modern history.” He says the Gates Foundation will shut its doors on December 31, 2045.

To most people, that sounds like extraordinary generosity. But this isn’t about giving. It’s about control. Gates retains control of narratives, systems, and people.

The money will flow, but who decides what gets funded? Who decides what “health” means? Or how “resilience” is defined? Not the communities being served. Not the people directly affected. Until the very last dollar is gone and the foundation is shuttered, twenty years from now, Bill Gates still gets to decide.

Power Disguised as Benevolence

This is how the domination hierarchy keeps itself alive: concentrate unimaginable wealth through monopolies and exploitation, call it innovation; rebrand it as humanitarian, and receive praise for “generosity,” as it shapes global systems from a boardroom. All with a vast fortune that never should have been concentrated in the first place.

Gates’ philanthropy is just a continuation of the same logic that made him a billionaire: centralize control, engineer solutions from the top down, and ignore the people at the bottom, except as metrics.

Public health isn’t democratic when one man funds it. Food sovereignty doesn’t exist when billionaires decide what farmers grow. Education isn’t liberating when it’s designed to fit the elites’ worldview. This is colonialism as a TED Talk.

We Don’t Need a Savior. We Need a System Change.

The real issue is the structure that allows someone to hoard $200 billion while millions suffer, and then frame it as generosity when he starts handing it out. We don’t need billionaires to “give it all away” on their timeline.

We need:

  • To tax that wealth before it accumulates. No 20-year PR runway.
  • To fund public goods publicly, through systems that reflect collective needs and democratic values.
  • To dismantle concentrated wealth and power, not celebrate it for deciding to self-destruct.
  • To return decision-making to the people living the realities that philanthropy claims to fix.
  • As long as billionaires get to decide what counts as “progress,” we will never have justice.

Bill Gates may be giving away his money. But he’s keeping the most important thing: the power to decide how the world works, until the very end. That’s not generosity. That’s end-stage domination disguised as legacy. Let’s stop applauding it.

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Stuck on Red Alert: The Hidden Harm of Seeking Help

Posted on February 11, 2026 by Shay Seaborne, CPTSD

For most of the last seven years, I haven’t been able to feel the normal range of human emotions. Joy, peace, gratitude, awe, and beauty have been mostly absent. Most of the time, I can only think about these things. The ability to *feel* them has been taken from me by the systems I turned to for help.

Nearly every medical appointment did something to keep my body on red alert, or turn the volume up even higher! That constant red alert is the real problem. It’s not just stress or fatigue. It’s my nervous system saying, “Danger! Protect yourself!” The so-called healthcare system has actively blocked my recovery, over and over. That’s not healthcare. That’s exploitation.

For the last five years, what has kept me alive is rage, determination, and my commitment to my cause. I’ve relied on those feelings because almost nothing else was accessible. My nervous system has been in survival mode, constantly on edge, making it impossible to feel calm, safe, or connected.

Here’s the thing: when you’re stuck in red alert, your system can’t rest. Thinking clearly, regulating emotions, and even just feeling life fully, becomes blocked. Healing can’t happen. Growth can’t happen. And yet, almost every interaction with mainstream healthcare has dialed UP my alarm instead of down. Even when I tried to explain what I needed, to guide the doctor with neurobiology, the system’s routines and lack of attunement made my body feel unsafe. Every appointment used up energy I needed for recovery.

I’ve tried alternatives. I’ve spent tens of thousands on out-of-mainstream therapy, on practitioners who understand trauma and chronic pain. But the level of care I need–coordinated, trauma-informed, fully attuned care–is mostly inaccessible unless one can pay for boutique practices. That’s a privilege most people don’t have.

The real problem isn’t just symptoms or behaviors, but being stuck in red alert. And the mainstream system often makes it worse. To relieve this, healthcare practitioners must understand this: patients’ bodies and nervous systems are always present in the room. Safety, attunement, and responsiveness aren’t extras. They’re the foundation. Without them, “care” can do more harm than good.

Recovery doesn’t come from a set of treatments. It emerges through creating conditions where the nervous system can relax, where survival mode can ease, and where life–joy, peace, and connection–can start to return. Anything less keeps people stuck in red alert, fighting to survive instead of living, which is what we get from “healthcare.”

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I  Can’t Trust a Doctor Who Doesn’t Trust Me

Posted on February 9, 2026 by Shay Seaborne, CPTSD

Over the past eight years, the biggest barrier to my health has been my practitioner’s refusal to trust me. They don’t believe what I say about my body, my experience, my reality. They can’t take in what I need, what I know, or what I’ve been through. It’s exhausting.

I can’t trust them if they won’t trust me, if they dismiss my observations, ignore my data, belittle my efforts, or treat me like a problem to manage instead of a person to collaborate with. If they can’t see, hear, and empathize with me, I can trust this: they will harm me.

In an honest, integrated doctor-patient relationship–one based on mutual respect and interpersonal neurobiology–trust has to go both ways. When it doesn’t, when they refuse to meet me with curiosity and attunement, it makes it impossible for me to trust them.

When my provider disbelieves me, my nervous system reacts. It knows the rupture. It says: “This is not safe.” Suddenly, I can’t receive care, tolerate guidance, or co-regulate with them. Not because I’m resisting, but because my body is protecting me.

Everything I bring–my charts, my studies, my self-awareness–is aimed at deep collaboration. I’m showing up fully. Are they?

I’m not being difficult or controlling. I’m doing the hard work of making healing possible. If they can’t meet me there–if they insist on staying in power-over rather than relationship–I can trust one thing: disconnection in medicine is harm. Maybe not malicious, but real, measurable, damaging harm.

I see it clearly. That clarity is hard-won. It’s part of my power, and it increases my ability to protect myself from practitioners who mistrust the people who turn to them for help.

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Why Conversations End When You Expose the Hierarchy 

Posted on February 6, 2026 by Shay Seaborne, CPTSD

A few months ago, I agreed to a podcast interview with a prominent pain specialist, someone widely known for using Stellate Ganglion Blocks (SGBs) to treat people diagnosed with PTSD. He states that the shot works fast, with people often “feeling like themselves again” within 30 minutes. At the time of the interview, I had undergone 27 SGBs for severe Complex PTSD (CPTSD) and quadrilateral Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). That means I was not talking about a single reaction or an outlier experience. I was speaking from repeated exposure over time, with ample opportunity to notice patterns, shifts, and delays in how my body responds.

I went in willing to speak plainly about my experience, not as a testimonial or a success story, but as a person living in a body shaped by prolonged threat, repeated violations, and layered loss.

At one point, I told him something simple and ordinary. For me, it usually takes about two weeks to notice the full effect of a stellate ganglion block. Not hours. Not days. Weeks.

His response was a single word. “Interesting.” He showed no interest in how change unfolds over time in a human nervous system that has been carrying load for decades. Just a pause and a quiet closing of the door.

What makes this especially telling is that my experience is not unusual. In PTSD forums, other people share how they have similar experiences. The shift is gradual. Sleep may change first. Vigilance softens later. Pain, digestion, and social tolerance often follow more slowly. This is common, particularly for people with complex trauma histories. Two weeks is not strange. Pretending there is one clean timeline is.

Later in the interview, I showed the doctor a painting I made about the neurobiological effects of hierarchy. It came directly from lived experience and from years of studying Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB). His response was to sarcastically accuse me of having a negative view. Then he changed the subject. Soon after, he cut the interview short. That told me a great deal about him.

Sarcasm is often a way to assert dominance without engaging. Painting my view as negative, he avoided the actual subject, which was how hierarchy shapes stress, safety, and human capacity. It also made clear that this was not a shared inquiry. He controlled the frame, the tone, and the ending.

From an IPNB perspective, this is an example of how hierarchy behaves when it is exposed. When lived experience disrupts a tidy intervention narrative, or when someone points to power itself as a source of suffering, control tightens. The conversation narrows. The person with institutional authority decides what is acceptable to discuss and when the discussion is over.

This specialist is well-versed in SGB for PTSD as a diagnosis. But he did not want to engage with CPTSD, where threat has been chronic, relational, and embedded in systems. In those bodies, change is rarely immediate. It unfolds over time, in interaction with daily life, with safety, and depending on whether the person is still living under domination and contempt. Bodies adapt to conditions. They do not obey scripts.

The physician’s behavior told me he is comfortable with his place in the hierarchy. Comfortable enough to deflect, dismiss, and shut down the podcast recording once the hierarchy itself was made visible. Such comfort depends on hierarchy remaining unexamined.

When people talk about healing without talking about power, something essential is missing. When clinicians center interventions but refuse to look at the structures that keep bodies in prolonged threat, they protect their position, which does not support recovery. And when lived experience is treated as an inconvenience rather than a source of knowledge, hierarchy is doing exactly what it is designed to do.

I considered sending the specialist a follow-up email, but quickly recognized that I am not interested in conversations that require silence about this, or narratives that flatten complex human recovery into neat timelines. And I am not willing to participate in spaces where control matters more than truth.

Hierarchy shows up in bodies and conversations. And when you make it visible, the conversation often ends. But I will keep sharing my lived experience, including with the podcasting doctor, to ensure the conversation about the harms of hierarchy continues. 

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What Are Our Core Biological Needs?

Posted on February 4, 2026 by Shay Seaborne, CPTSD

From an Interpersonal Neurobiology perspective, the core biological needs that are chronically unmet in people with severe CPTSD involve safety, connection, and regulation. These needs are not abstract, but embodied.

1. Co-regulation. Human nervous systems are designed to settle in the presence of steady, attuned others. Without this, our systems remain in a constant state of alert, scanning for threat, unable to rest. Chronic CPTSD usually develops in contexts where this stabilizing presence was inconsistent, unavailable, or harmful.
2. Predictable, non-threatening environments. When threat is constant—whether from caregivers, institutions, or social hierarchies—the body’s stress response stays elevated. This overload prevents natural homeostasis, and every sensation, sound, or touch can trigger survival reactions.
3. To have one’s bodily and emotional experiences witnessed and mirrored. Being seen and understood in our states—without judgment or contempt—provides the feedback the nervous system relies on to learn it is safe. In severe CPTSD, this validation has been repeatedly denied, leaving the nervous system dysregulated and hypervigilant.
4. Autonomy and agency over one’s own body and life. When that is systematically violated, the nervous system experiences chronic threat signals, reinforcing patterns of hyperarousal, shutdown, or dissociation.

In a nutshell, what is unmet is steady human presence, safety, attuned validation, and the ability to influence one’s environment. When these core needs are denied over time, the nervous system is left in a prolonged state of survival rather than life.

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The Great Misdiagnosis: Why Medical Trauma Requires a Different Lens

Posted on February 2, 2026 by Shay Seaborne, CPTSD

The standard treatment for PTSD is the problem. It nearly killed me. And then the standard treatment for that was even worse. It locked me into psychiatric hospitalization for 8 days and nights. There, my rights were violated, I received no individual therapy, and I was threatened with commitment if I tried to leave before my insurance benefits ran out. That combination of mistreatment left me in far worse condition than when I asked for help just 5 weeks earlier.

PTSD is not a single, uniform condition just because the mental illness industry gives it the same diagnostic label. The source, context, and ongoing nature of the threat matter enormously for how it shows up and what actually helps. 

Medical trauma is real, and for many of us, it is distinct because the threat comes from the place that is supposed to provide care, safety, and relief. When harm is repeated, sanctioned, and denied inside medical systems, the nervous system learns something very different than what it does from a one-time event.

From an Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) lens, recovery depends on whether the environment stops re-exposing the person to threat and whether their lived experience is accurately named and responded to. A generic “tailored treatment plan with a licensed therapist” fails when the therapist does not understand medical power dynamics, bodily violation, betrayal by authority, or the way ongoing medical needs keep the threat active. Coping strategies do not restore regulation when the harm is relentless.

I worked with therapists for 6.5 years and fired 13 of them. None could help me with Medical PTSD. They did not understand the physiology, relational betrayal, or cumulative harm. They defaulted to techniques designed for discrete past events, not ongoing medical exposure. They had no clue. No clue.

The current standard of care is insufficient for many people with medical trauma. If it worked, people like me would not have to build our own recovery plans from scratch just to survive.

When treatment ignores power, embodiment, and the ongoing nature of medical harm, it fails. That failure belongs to the system, not the person living with the trauma.

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Big Ways to Support Your Nervous System With Tiny Actions

Posted on January 30, 2026 by Shay Seaborne, CPTSD

You can support your nervous system by building small, regular practices into your daily life to support your system’s ability to find steadiness over time. These practices don’t have to be complicated or take much time; consistency is what matters most.

Daily grounding practice could mean spending a few minutes each day bringing your attention to your body in the present moment. This could be as simple as feeling your feet on the ground, noticing the texture of something in your hands, or tuning into your breath.

Gentle, rhythmic movements, like walking slowly or swaying, can also help.

Creating pockets of safety involves finding activities or places where you feel even a little bit calm or safe. This might mean sitting in a quiet corner, spending time in nature, or doing something soothing like listening to music or taking a warm bath.

Co-regulation happens when you spend time with someone who feels safe to you—someone who listens, stays calm, and doesn’t try to fix things. Even sitting quietly together can help your system feel more supported.

Pausing and resetting can help if you feel yourself getting overwhelmed. Practice pausing for a moment before responding. This might mean excusing yourself to take a few slow breaths or focusing on something neutral, like looking out a window or holding something comforting.

Developing a pre-upset ritual can be helpful when you’re not already activated. Take time to practice calming techniques like slow, gentle breathing (especially longer exhales), humming, or lightly tapping your chest or arms. These practices help build your system’s capacity to recover more quickly when you do get upset.

Repair moments matter, too. If an interaction gets heated, returning later to repair the connection with your partner is powerful. It’s okay to acknowledge the difficulty and express care. This process helps rebuild trust and connection over time.

Be patient with yourself. Building the capacity for regulation is a gradual process, and even small steps can create meaningful changes. 

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My Best Ever Hospital Experience

Posted on January 28, 2026 by Shay Seaborne, CPTSD

In the past few years, I had too many awful hospital experiences here in Delaware. They are a stark contrast to those I previously had in Virginia.

Twenty years ago I had a severe gallbladder attack. The pain was intense. My partner called 911, and I went to the hospital in an ambulance. By the time I was admitted the pain had eased, and I wanted to go home. The hospital told me I couldn’t. Some lab number tied to my gallbladder was still too high, so they said I had to stay for an emergency surgery. They didn’t schedule the surgery for four days.

So I was stuck in the hospital. Too sick to leave, not urgent enough to operate on. But I had plenty to keep me busy.

Ironically, I was in the final stages of planning a big event for the Science Museum of Virginia called “Emergency 911.” It covered everything from natural disasters to computer hard drive crashes. Dozens of organizations were lined up for displays and demos, but there was still a lot to do. I had my notepad and phone list and started making calls from my hospital bed.

I used my hospitalization as leverage and joked about finally seeing the other side of a 911 call. When I told the guy who had obtained a fire boat for the event that I was calling from the hospital after arriving by ambulance, he asked if I wanted a police boat too. Of course, I said yes.

I wasn’t allowed to eat, only drink. A friend brought a variety of juices and teas that weren’t normally in my budget. Drinking them was like having a treat.

I had read Patch Adams, so I knew I should keep moving. I briskly walked the halls dragging my IV pole.

My roommate was uncomfortably hot. I made an ice bag out of a surgical glove and tossed it across the room to her. She said it looked like a little doll. I had her toss it back, drew a face on it with a Sharpie, and tossed it back again. I suggested she place it between her wrists to cool her down.

That moment was significant, too. Two people noticing each other, responding, and sharing a little play changed the tone of the room.

My support was so good that I only became dysregulated when my agency disappeared as they wheeled me toward the OR.

Other than a horribly painful first night, that was by far the best hospital experience I ever had. From an Interpersonal Neurobiology perspective, this was because the conditions were the kind that help people stay regulated, even in stressful environments. I wasn’t passive or isolated. I had purpose, movement, humor, and real human contact. This experience was a perfect example of how safety and steadiness are built not by control, but through connection.

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Brutal Work: Trauma, Mushrooms, and Integration 

Posted on January 26, 2026 by Shay Seaborne, CPTSD

Four years ago I bought “magic” mushrooms from a company in Canada. The box arrived wrapped in holiday paper. Inside was a quality t-shirt and a pair of cheap footies. At first I was alarmed that I might have been ripped off, but then I found a cardboard divider underneath. The product was behind that. The cleverness felt human and thoughtful. Care changes how the body receives experience.

I didn’t take mushrooms to have a good time, but to survive.

When I was taking mushrooms to help with Complex PTSD recovery, most of it was grueling work. Very little was enjoyable. From an Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) lens, that is significant. Enjoyment requires safety, shared presence, and enough internal balance to allow play. Those conditions were mostly absent from my life. I had been too isolated for too long, thanks to repeated and egregious medical and psychiatric abuse after I asked for help with severe Complex PTSD from extreme developmental trauma. Three of the disease management industry’s standard treatments nearly killed me within three years. After each, they assured me the harm wasn’t a problem because it was standard treatment.

The only two times I had fun on shrooms were when I did them with my friend and we were outside together, with her dog. There was shared presence, another mammal, nature, sound, movement, and no hierarchy. My system could settle enough to experience joy.

The first time was near her place. It was a perfectly beautiful day. The town in West Virginia bore a gash of a valley cut by a creek, an old mill race, and the remains of a stone mill. It sat below everything else and was buffered with trees, so it felt like its own little world. The roar of the water drowned out the sounds of the city. That kind of containment reduced threat and made room for connection.

The other time was in the forest near my house. That was silly and fun. Again, no performance, no fixing, no power over. Just presence.

Aside from those, I found little enjoyment in mushrooms, although it was interesting to this biology nerd. There were very few visionary experiences. From an IPNB perspective, that also makes sense. My system wasn’t seeking transcendence, but coherence. Mostly, I had insights. I put things together into a clearer picture of my lived experience, how it affected me, and how I could integrate it.

At first, and for many times after, I spent the whole trip in bed, lying there and groaning in response to the sense of healing. This was embodied integration. A system that has been held in survival for a long time doesn’t leap into joy. It moves slowly toward balance.

The best way I can describe the feeling of those trips is like the first warm spring day after an awful winter, when you go outside with your sleeves rolled up and the sun hits your skin. You feel the glow from the warmth, the hope of the returning sun, the promise of spring, and butterflies and birds, and fresh fruits and vegetables, and long evenings on the patio with friends. That’s how it felt inside my whole body. That is what coming back toward regulation feels like after prolonged threat.

I actively integrated a lot of trauma during those sessions. Memories and emotions would arise. I allowed, observed, named, and experienced the emotions involved. That sequence is important. It’s how experience becomes integrated rather than overwhelming. Then, I would soothe myself so I could come back more into balance. That back-and-forth is regulation in real time. It’s also damn hard work.

I experienced sixteen trips in sixteen weeks. After that, I went on microdosing for a few months. I had occasional trips after that. Twenty-two total. It was a lot. It was expensive. But my condition was so extreme that I needed to take extreme measures.

The only solo trip I had that wasn’t just hard work was one where I saw myself and my first pain specialist as nine-year-old kids. We were in an open space in a fruit orchard, dancing and mirroring each other. From an IPNB perspective, this was pure attunement: mutuality and resonance. There were no rules, no expertise, and no hierarchy. Just coherence between two humans. It felt sweet and innocent and attuned. It was really nice. Thinking about that trip still gives me a sunshiny feeling.

I haven’t tripped or even microdosed in a long time. My body has no interest in shrooms anymore. The shrooms have done what they could, and my body has released the need for the tool. This is the simple, hard-won effect of integration: a system, once extremely dysregulated, is now steady enough to continue recovering without that medicine.

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