Survival Isn’t Proof of Good Leadership or a Good Relationship

Reclaiming growth from those who mistake harm for guidance

A Scene That Hit Too Close

I was watching The Bear today. The show is a masterclass in how culture eats strategy and potential. It all starts with leadership.
This particular scene reminded me of something I’ve experienced more than once.

Carmen confronts his former chef, David. David tells him that the pressure and chaos of that kitchen made him who he is today.
He reframes emotional violence as professional development. He calls his cruelty, leadership. He mistakes Carmen’s survival and success as a reflection of his mentorship.

If you’ve lived through something like that, you feel it in your body before your mind catches up.

Sometimes the deepest trauma doesn’t come from what was said but from what was rewarded.
The praise you received in toxic environments can stay with you longer than the pain, because it taught you that suffering was the price of recognition.

When Harm Is Rewritten as Guidance

What David does in that scene isn’t unique. Many people have experienced it—sometimes repeatedly.

Harmful or emotionally immature people often try to reappear in your story once you are safe, steady, or successful.
When they do, they tend to rewrite their role through a heroic lens of support.
They call volatility a test of strength.
They treat your coping strategies as proof that their methods worked.
They rename harm as “high standards” and call it leadership.

This pattern is deeply familiar to many neurodivergent professionals, especially those who have learned to regulate themselves in chaotic environments while being praised for their ability to perform under pressure.

Surprising Reflection

The more skilled you are at adapting, the more likely you are to be misunderstood as thriving.
Your success may have been read as gratitude when it was actually grief.

What They Call Growth Is Really Adaptation

David didn’t make Carmen better. He gave him what looks a lot like PTSD.
Carmen adapted and succeeded anyway.

That isn’t mentorship- it’s survival against all odds.
When someone leads through humiliation or fear and you become hyper-vigilant and perfectionistic, outsiders may mislabel that as high performance.
What they’re seeing is self-protection. What they’re praising is a trauma response.

And when you finally heal- when you begin to operate from regulation instead of survival- it becomes clear how much you were carrying.
If someone reappears and tries to take credit for that growth, it isn’t just inaccurate. It’s a continuation of the harm.

The Ownership Inversion

In my coaching work, I call this the ownership inversion.
It happens when someone tries to claim the results of the emotional labor you did to survive their instability.

It shows up in families, in boardrooms, in mentor-mentee relationships, and in friendships.

• The boss who belittled you, then says your resilience proves their standards were effective.
  
  

• The parent who ignored your needs, then compliments your independence.
  
  

• The friend who crossed your boundaries, then applauds how “well you handle conflict.”
  
  

Your nervous system was never their success story.
Your clarity is not their legacy.
Your survival is not proof they were right.

Sometimes the people who harmed you want you to heal quickly—not because they care, but because they need your recovery to prove they weren’t really the problem.

What Emotional Maturity Really Looks Like

Maturity isn’t staying silent to avoid discomfort. It’s discernment in conversation.
Healing isn’t an invitation for revisionist storytelling.

You learned to regulate in chaos.
You masked when masking was the only safe option.
You got stronger, not because of their leadership, but because you had to.

That growth doesn’t belong to anyone else.

When people call you composed or high-functioning, they often have no idea how much effort goes into that state.
For neurodivergent professionals, this is especially common.
The better you manage, the more others assume you aren’t managing much at all.

Being praised for how well you “handle things” can be its own kind of erasure.
Emotional maturity isn’t about appearing unbothered—it’s about knowing what bothers you and honoring that.

You Do Not Owe Your Growth to the Source of the Harm

If someone wants to call your healing evidence of their wisdom, that isn’t a compliment—it’s a boundary violation in disguise.

You do not owe anyone a role in your recovery.
You do not need to validate anyone’s version of your story.
You do not have to make your pain easier for someone else to look at.

Your Excellence Is Yours Alone

The stability you built is yours.
The growth you worked for is yours.
The way you moved through harm and found yourself on the other side—that is yours too.

No one gets to rebrand that as leadership.
No one gets to use your endurance as evidence they were right.
No one gets to claim the strength you had to build to survive them.

You survived.
You grew.
You own every part of that strength.

When It Happens to You

When someone tries to take credit for your healing or your growth, you don’t owe them a performance of gratitude.
Here are a few ways to respond that protect your integrity and your peace:

1. Name the boundary, not the battle.
   “I appreciate that you see my progress. I want to be clear that this change came from the work I’ve done, not from the harm that happened.”
   You don’t have to re-litigate the past—you’re simply reclaiming authorship.
   
   

2. Decline the narrative.
   “That’s not how I experienced it.”
   It’s calm and non-negotiable. You don’t need to persuade someone who’s rewriting your story.
   
   

3. Re-center the credit.
   “I learned a lot through that time. The growth came from what I chose to do with it.”
   This keeps the tone neutral but returns ownership where it belongs—to you.
   
   

4. Choose silence when engagement isn’t safe.
   Sometimes the most self-respecting response is none at all. Clarity doesn’t always need to be witnessed.
   
   

These responses are less about confrontation and more about calibration.
They help you stay anchored in integrity when someone tries to make your endurance about them.

Healing isn’t gratitude for harm. It’s ownership of growth.