The Psychology Behind Walking on Eggshells: Why You Overthink Every Move

Have you ever preemptively apologized to someone prior to finding out what you did wrong?

Have you ever found yourself adjusting aspects of your personality based on who you’re talking to?

Have you ever agreed to a social outing or request for help even though your plates already full?  

Let’s be so for real. No one enjoys conflict. However, most people accept conflict as a part of life. Then, there are those of us who will do just about anything to avoid conflict or confrontation. So, why do we lean into walking on eggshells to keep the peace instead of facing conflict head on?

There have been times where I caught myself rereading a text three times before hitting send. I soften my tone. Add a smiley face. Apologize for taking too long — even if it’s only been twenty minutes. Sometimes I rehearse conversations in my head the way someone else might rehearse a speech. It isn’t dramatic. It’s quiet. Subtle. Ordinary. And if I’m truly being honest, it’s not really about the words at all. It’s about trying to keep the peace.

For a long time, I attributed this to overthinking. However, lately, I’ve been contemplating whether it’s something more profound, a learned response from our nervous systems when unpredictability becomes familiar. After all, for many people, “walking on eggshells” isn’t a personality trait; it’s a survival strategy we acquired as children.

🧠 What’s Happening Underneath the Overthinking?

When we grow up or live in relationships where anger, withdrawal, or criticism appear without warning, our bodies adapt. The nervous system becomes skilled at monitoring for danger intuitively scanning tone, expression, pauses, timing. It begins to predict threat before it happens. 

Trauma researchers describe this as hypervigilance, a state where the brain stays alert because the world hasn’t consistently felt safe. Over time, this can become automatic. You don’t decide to overthink. Your body automatically does it for you.

And in relational trauma, especially situations involving emotional manipulation or narcissistic dynamics, unpredictability is the pattern. Affection might be followed by silence. Warmth by attack. Approval by shame. The rules change, but the cost of getting it wrong can feel high.

So, the nervous system learns that if you stay small enough, agreeable enough, careful enough… maybe you will be safe. That’s not weakness. That’s intelligence in a threatening environment.

🫶 The “Fawn” Response: People-Pleasing as Protection

Most people have heard of fight, flight, and freeze. Another common response to those who grew up with complex trauma is the fawn response, which involves appeasing others to reduce perceived threats or conflicts.

Think of fawning as a shapeshifter, with many forms. It can look like apologizing excessively, anticipating reactions before they happen, avoiding expressing needs or preferences, shrinking your presence, or smoothing tension at your own expense. In narcissistic dynamics, this pattern can become deeply ingrained because approval is conditional and connection feels fragile. Appeasement becomes the price of proximity.

And here’s the unfortunate and fortunate truth: It works. At least at first it does. Which is why the body keeps doing it.

📚 What Research Tells Us

• Chronic emotional unpredictability is linked to heightened threat monitoring and rumination, essentially a feedback loop that constantly has us on high alert scanning the environment for potential danger.
• Emotional abuse can result in symptoms just like other forms of trauma, including shame, anxiety, and self-doubt.
• Attachment science shows that when safety in relationships feels inconsistent, people often develop anxious vigilance, scanning for cues that connection might be at risk.

So, what does this mean? Your brain learns to protect you by paying attention to everything.

💔 The Hidden Cost

Hypervigilance seemingly keeps the peace on a surface level, but over time it can erode self-trust and cause resentment. 

If you start to notice that you are second-guessing yourself constantly, struggling to make decisions, minimizing your needs, feeling responsible for other people’s reactions, or exhaustion from constant monitoring it’s likely that you’ve been in overdrive for far too long attempting to keep the peace. It’s not that you don’t know what you feel. It’s that your feelings were often unsafe to honor. You became skilled at disappearing, almost like a chameleon. 

🌱 What Healing Can Look Like

Healing isn’t about “stopping the overthinking.” It’s about helping your nervous system learn you are safe now. You might start to notice when you start rehearsing or shrinking, offer compassion instead of criticism toward that part of you, practice tiny truths (“It makes sense I learned this.”) Additionally, you may try reconnecting with preferences, no matter how small and be intentional with building relationships where truth doesn’t cost connection

And often, therapy helps, not because someone tells you who to be, but because a consistent, safe relationship can soften the hypervigilance that once protected you. Slowly, your body begins to trust. You do not have to earn safety anymore. 

💛 A Gentle Reframe

If you walk on eggshells, you are not broken. You are adaptive. Intelligent. Attuned. At some point in your story, staying small may have kept you safe. But you deserve relationships where you don’t have to disappear to belong. Where honesty doesn’t bring collapse. Where your nervous system can finally breathe. Your kindness toward yourself matters more than anything.

If you are ready to explore a new, safe environment schedule a consultation today to get the support you deserve.