A friend also lives with severe Complex PTSD rooted in extreme developmental trauma. They are profoundly disabled by it, not because they are incapable or unmotivated, but because their nervous system learned very early that survival required constant vigilance. The welfare system they now depend on does not support recovery from that. It reinforces the original injury.
If they receive more than about $1000 in a month, even once, they risk losing all benefits. Not just temporarily. Sometimes permanently. To step out of that fragile safety net, they would suddenly need to earn $3,000 to $5,000 a month, reliably, with no margin for fluctuation. That is not a bridge. That is a cliff.
On top of that, the system keeps them under constant pressure. There is paperwork, reviews, meetings, deadlines, and punitive rules.
My friend must prove over and over that they are still disabled, unable to support themselves, and still deserving of food. Every year, they must restate their own incapacity in writing.
The cruel irony is that they are too disabled to complete the paperwork on time. So it is late. And when SNAP paperwork is late, benefits are cut for a month or two. No food. More stress. More pain. Less clarity. Then the next round becomes even harder.
This is not a personal failure. This is how human systems respond to threat.
From an Interpersonal Neurobiology perspective, the body does not distinguish between past danger and present structural danger. Uncertainty, surveillance, and the risk of sudden loss all activate the same protective responses that once kept a child alive. Attention narrows, energy collapses, decision-making becomes harder, and time feels distorted. This happens when safety is conditional.
These “support” systems demand regulation while continuously removing the conditions that make it possible.
They also force a devastating identity bind. To survive, a person must repeatedly declare themselves incapable. Any sign of progress becomes a liability. A fluctuation becomes suspicious. The system teaches the body that improvement is dangerous and that stability depends on staying small. That undermines well-being at every level.
This is why people become trapped. It’s not due to lack of grit or insight, but because the structure itself keeps the nervous system in survival mode. You cannot build capacity while constantly bracing for loss. You cannot heal in a context that requires you to perform your own deprivation.
And yet, people do survive this. Not because the system works, but because humans find each other.
The real exits from these traps are rarely individual. They are relational: mutual aid, shared resources, people helping each other with paperwork, someone making sure you eat when benefits are cut, or holding your place in line when your body gives out. Someone saying, “I see what this is doing to you, and it’s not your fault.”
Community care reduces threat. Reduced threat restores capacity. Capacity allows choice to return.
That is not inspirational, but biological
When stress comes down, digestion improves. Sleep deepens. Pain eases. Thinking widens. Creativity returns. Not because someone “changed their mindset,” but because the environment finally stopped demanding constant self-erasure.
This is why the answer is not tougher eligibility rules or more hoops. And it is not better coping skills alone. The answer is building parallel structures of support that do not punish need, that do not vanish when paperwork is late, and that do not require people to prove their suffering to deserve food.
An Interpersonal Neurobiology revolution does not start in institutions. It starts when ordinary people understand that well-being is shaped between us. That regulation is relational. That survival systems can be replaced with care systems, one connection at a time.
If you are stuck in one of these systems, your exhaustion makes sense. Your delays make sense. Your anger makes sense. The fact that you are still here makes sense.
You are not failing the system. The system is failing human nervous systems.
And the more we name that together, the less power it has to keep people trapped.
