Recovering from Karenism: A Trauma-Informed Look at Reactivity, Control, and Healing

Let’s talk about Karen.

You know her. We all do. She’s the one losing it in the grocery store, demanding a manager over nothing, calling the cops on kids selling lemonade, spiraling over a mask policy. She’s reactive, entitled, and exhausting to be around.

And here’s the part we don’t usually admit:

Most of us have been her in smaller, less public moments. Those times we couldn’t regulate. Couldn’t soften. Couldn’t let go because it felt like the world would fall apart unless we controlled it.

Before we go any further, let’s ground something important.

A Word About History and Harm

The “Karen” label didn’t appear out of nowhere. It has been used as a cultural shorthand to call out very real harm. Specifically, white women weaponizing their social, racial, and institutional privilege against Black people and other marginalized communities. Women calling the police on Black neighbors for existing. Women policing service workers. Women enforcing rules that only protect them.

That matters.

It’s not something we gloss over or “rebrand.”

The archetype is old.

She was once “Miss Ann” during Jim Crow.

She has been “Becky,” the busybody, the tattletale, the gatekeeper of someone else’s freedom.

Those names emerged from lived experience and pain.

But what I’m exploring here is slightly different. It’s related, yes, but it turns inward. I’m talking about the internal experience of Karenism: the trauma patterns, the dysregulated nervous system, and the protective parts that drive reactive, controlling behavior.

This isn’t about excusing harm.

It’s about understanding what leads to it so healing becomes possible.

So What Is Karenism?

Karenism isn’t about being a “bad person.”

It’s about being stuck in a protector pattern that never learned how to rest.

The Karen part is often the one who:

learned to fight for what she needed, or what she thought she needed,

shows up when we feel unsafe, unheard, or dismissed,

demands to be seen and respected because she never was.

She’s the part of us that refuses to be small anymore, but doesn’t yet know how to be big in a healthy way.

Underneath the reactivity is a nervous system stuck in survival mode. Fight-or-flight masquerading as righteousness.

Karenism is:

the chronic hypervigilance that won’t turn off,

the emotional hijacking that happens before you even realize it,

the exhausting need to control everything because nothing ever felt safe,

the moral injury of becoming someone you didn’t want to be just to survive.

These behaviors don’t appear out of thin air. They grow out of betrayal, neglect, pressure, powerlessness, and the internalized belief that safety must be forced.

The Moral Injury Piece

This is the part most people don’t talk about.

Many of us became Karens in micro-ways because we truly weren’t safe.

Or we were gaslit.

Or we were silenced.

Or we were expected to be small, agreeable, compliant.

Sometimes the Karen part is simply an overcorrected rebellion, the protector who formed when no one protected us.

The injury deepens when we realize:

The strategies that once protected us now cause harm — to ourselves and others.

That’s the crack in Step One of The Humble Pie.

The place where light gets in.

And Karenon?

If Karenism is the pattern, Karenon is the recovery.

Karenon is not about shaming the Karen part.

It’s about understanding her.

Like Al-Anon exists for the people affected by alcoholism, Karenon exists for anyone affected by these reactive patterns, whether the patterns live in us, in our families, or in the culture we’ve survived.

Karenon is:

healing the nervous system instead of shaming it,

understanding protector parts with compassion instead of denial,

learning how to meet your needs without harm,

reclaiming who you actually are under all that armor.

We still love our Karens.

Just like we love anyone who’s hurting and doing their best with the tools they have.

This framework is not about condemnation.

It’s about clarity, compassion, and actual change.

Why Use This Language at All?

Because people recognize it instantly.

Yes! “Karen” is loaded.

Yes! It has been weaponized.

Yes! It has roots in racial harm and historical power imbalance.

That’s exactly why we use it intentionally and honestly.

It grabs attention, but we handle it with care.

If you don’t resonate with the word, that’s okay.

Call it something else.

The framework is what matters, not the label.

Where This Meets The 12 Humble Steps

The 12 Humble Steps borrow the structure of recovery and widen it into a trauma-informed, moral-injury-informed, nervous-system-informed pathway home to yourself.

Karenism is one doorway into this work.

Each step has two layers:

Journal-style reflections from lived experience

Educational overviews explaining what’s happening inside your body, patterns, relationships, and nervous system

You can enter anywhere.

You can return as often as you need.

There’s no wrong door.

If you’ve ever recognized the Karen part rising up in you…

If you’ve ever looked back at your behavior and thought,

“That wasn’t who I really am”…

Welcome.

You’re not alone.

And recovering from Karenism is possible.

Thank you for reading. If this stirred something in you and you’d like to spend more time with this work, you can explore The Humble Pie 12 Steps and learn more about how I support people as a trauma recovery coach.