The writer Patrick Dahlstrom reflects on how what he once considered laziness was actually the result of a nervous system shaped by an unpredictable childhood.
Dahlstrom recalls sitting on the living room floor one evening while his sons played nearby. One of them was trying to build something with Legos and grew frustrated each time the structure collapsed. Dahlstrom recognized that frustration in himself, not just in that moment but throughout much of his life. It was the feeling of wanting to do something but being unable to stay steady long enough to do it consistently.
Growing up, Dahlstrom says things at home could change quickly. His father drank heavily at times. There was often tension before he even walked through the door. Dahlstrom remembers feeling it in his stomach before anything had happened. But he also remembers good things: football with friends on summer evenings, watching TV with his brother, the smell of coffee in the kitchen before school. Ordinary moments mixed with things that were not ordinary at all.
For years, Dahlstrom says he was confused because he did not feel like someone who had been through “real trauma.” He thought trauma belonged to people who had it worse. Meanwhile, his body was reacting to stress constantly, and he did not realize it.
As he got older, Dahlstrom started drinking. Later came drugs, chaos, and periods of feeling lost. He also had periods where he looked fine from the outside. He could function well under pressure, sometimes better than people around him. But everyday life, normal routines, and calm structure were often harder. He could stay focused during intensity and high stress, but folding laundry, answering emails, or doing small repetitive tasks felt exhausting in a way he could not explain.
After becoming a parent, Dahlstrom started seeing himself differently. There were moments where he would react too fast, become emotionally overwhelmed, or lose motivation and disappear into his own head. He would sit there thinking he was broken.
For years, he thought the answer was discipline, or a lack of it. He started reading about stress, dopamine, motivation, and how the nervous system works. He learned that the brain adapts to environments, especially during childhood. If stress, unpredictability, and chaos are repeated enough times, the nervous system organizes itself around that. A person begins living in reaction before they notice it is happening.
Dahlstrom believes many adults call themselves lazy when they are actually experiencing a nervous system that learned survival long before it learned safety. Survival patterns do not disappear just because life looks more stable later on. They can follow a person into relationships, parenthood, work, and rest.
What changed for Dahlstrom was not becoming a perfectly healed person. He says he does not think life works that way. What changed was learning to stop immediately turning every struggle into a character flaw. He started asking himself questions: What is this reaction? Why does my body go there so quickly? What did my nervous system learn years ago that it still thinks I need today?
That shift changed the way he parents his children. He says children are learning from experiences constantly, not just from what is said to them but from what life around them feels like over and over again. He now approaches this with a sense of responsibility rather than guilt.
Dahlstrom is the founder of Hope for Families, a platform focused on dopamine, motivation, emotional regulation, and early prevention in children and families. He writes about stress, behavior, parenting, and how repeated experiences shape the developing brain.
