The Cost of Shrinking: What Happens When You Make Yourself Small

By the time people reach this phase of awareness, many can already see the systems, patterns, and roles that shaped them.

What becomes harder to ignore is the way they have shrunk themselves to keep those systems running smoothly.

Shrinking can look like:

Softening your words so no one feels confronted

Laughing off comments that actually hurt

Taking up less space so others can stay comfortable

Hiding your needs, opinions, or pain to “keep the peace”

From the outside, this can look like being easygoing, flexible, or “low maintenance.”

From the inside, it often feels like disappearing in slow motion.

This is not a weakness.

It is an adaptation.

But adaptation has a cost.

What Shrinking Looks Like in Everyday Life

Shrinking rarely announces itself. It hides inside ordinary behavior, such as:

Saying “it’s fine” when it isn’t

Apologizing for having feelings

Over-explaining to avoid being misunderstood

Making yourself smaller in conversations so others won’t feel threatened

Volunteering to carry more, so no one calls you selfish

Many people who shrink are seen as “the strong one,” “the understanding one,” or “the reasonable one.” Their capacity is often praised.

Inside, there is usually a quiet ache; a sense that they are paying for everyone else’s comfort with their own aliveness.

Why Shrinking Was Once Adaptive

Shrinking did not start because you lacked courage. It started because, at some point, it worked.

It may have:

Reduced conflict in your family

Kept you safer around volatile people

Protected attachment with caregivers or partners

Made you more acceptable in environments that punished dissent

Secured approval, support, or basic stability

In those contexts, taking up less space was not self-betrayal. It was survival.

Awareness does not erase the fact that shrinking once kept you intact.

It simply makes visible what it has been costing you.

The Hidden Costs of Shrinking

Over time, chronic shrinking can lead to:

Resentment that has nowhere to go

Relationships that only know the “smaller” version of you

Difficulty identifying what you actually want

A nervous system that equates visibility with danger

Exhaustion from constant self-editing

People may say you are “so easy” to be around.

Meanwhile, your body is working hard to manage everyone else’s comfort.

Shrinking keeps the peace on the surface.

Underneath, it often keeps you from fully existing.

Why Awareness Makes Shrinking Harder

Once you see the pattern, shrinking tends to feel different.

What used to feel like “being kind” or “being flexible” may start to feel like self-erasure. Jokes you once laughed at feel sharper. Situations you tolerated now leave you buzzing or numb.

Your nervous system begins to notice:

Who gets to be fully human in the room

Whose discomfort is prioritized

How often you disappear so others don’t have to adjust

This can be deeply unsettling. You may feel:

Guilty for wanting more space

Afraid of being seen as difficult

Unsure how to exist without over-accommodating

It can be tempting to swing between two poles, while shrinking completely or blowing everything up.

Neither extreme is the goal. The work is learning to stay present in your full size without abandoning yourself or dehumanizing others.

The Moral Cost: When Shrinking Hurts You (and Sometimes Others)

Shrinking is not just emotionally expensive. It can become morally painful.

You may notice times when:

You stayed silent while someone else was harmed

You went along with a dynamic that betrayed your values

You minimized your own experience to protect someone’s image

This is where shrinking overlaps with moral injury.

The more awake your conscience becomes, the heavier it feels to keep disappearing.

The point is not to judge the younger you who needed that strategy.

The point is to recognize that the bill has come due.

A Grounded Orientation

You do not have to stop shrinking overnight.

You do not have to “be big” all at once in every room.

You also do not have to prove your worthiness by staying small.

A more grounded approach might look like:

Noticing when you edit yourself in real time

Allowing slightly more honesty in low-risk spaces

Practicing saying, “That didn’t feel good to me,” even quietly

Honoring the grief for all the years you had to make yourself smaller

You are not selfish for wanting to exist at your full height.

You are not “too much” for wanting your internal world to count.

Shrinking was a wise adaptation.

It is allowed to retire.

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.

This post is part of the Learning Library from The Humble Pie. It quietly reflects Step Seven: The Cost of Shrinking, and is part of a growing collection of trauma-informed resources designed to be read in any order, at your own pace.