I Didn’t Deserve This

In one of the most personal and vulnerable episodes of Project I AM to date, Dr. David Schlosz explores the painful intersection of shame, trauma, grief, and healing. Drawing from his recent experiences in an intensive training, David reflects on a profound realization that moved from intellectual understanding into something much deeper. This episode explores how children internalize blame in order to survive unsafe environments, how shame becomes embedded in identity, and how survival strategies formed in trauma can later affect relationships, emotional regulation, and self-worth. David discusses the difference between cognitively knowing something and emotionally believing it, the role of the nervous system in trauma, and why anger often protects deeper grief. Blending personal storytelling, somatic awareness, relational healing, and reflections from thinkers like Gabor Maté and Carl Rogers, this episode offers a deeply human reminder that survival was never your identity, it was an adaptation. And beneath the adaptations, there is still a self worthy of love, grief, compassion, and belonging. This episode contains discussions of childhood trauma, sexual abuse, conversion therapy, shame, and grief. Listener discretion and self-care are encouraged.