The Hidden Wound Behind 'Simp': A Story of Healing and Self-Trust

When love and survival become entangled, true strength is found in learning to trust yourself again.

The Acorn’s Story: A Mirror for Our Healing

At the heart of my book, The Journey of an Acorn, is a simple but painful truth about love, freedom, and healing. The little acorn in the story longs to separate from the oak tree that once held it tightly. It dreams of standing tall under the open sky, drinking from the soil, and feeling the sun on its face. But when it finally breaks free, it doesn't find freedom right away. It finds fear, loneliness, and the overwhelming weight of being on its own.

When Love and Survival Become Entangled

Even as the acorn grows, even as it begins to heal and put down roots, it still carries invisible wounds. When a young girl comes along—offering it kindness, support, and unconditional care—the acorn struggles. It clings to her. It expects her to stay forever. When she leaves to chase her dreams, the acorn feels abandoned and betrayed, unable to see that real love allows others to grow and move freely. It’s not because the acorn is selfish. It’s because it never truly learned what love was supposed to look like. It confused attachment with love—because for so long, survival had been its only measure of connection.

“Many men aren't "simps" because they're weak. They are survivors of childhood trauma.”

Real Healing: Trusting Our Roots, Not Our Wounds

Today, society throws around words like "simp" or “beta” to disparage men who are submissive to women, and who are desperate for attention, men who cater to a woman’s needs in their relationship at the expense of their own. But what society rarely talks about is the hidden wound beneath those behaviors. Many men aren't "simps" because they're weak. They are survivors of childhood trauma. They learned, often painfully early, that love meant putting others first, erasing their own needs, and hoping that loyalty would buy them acceptance. When you are taught that your survival depends on keeping others happy, you become hyper-attuned to their needs—and disconnected from your own. This isn’t weakness. It’s survival.

Healing it is one of the bravest journeys a person can undertake. And like the acorn in my story, this kind of journey requires growth in order to become the strong oak you were always meant to be. This journey is the root of real strength—the kind that doesn’t just heal the self, but brings the elixir back to others, especially their own children, so they can break the cycle in their family, and create an empowering legacy for those that come after them.

”When you are taught that your survival depends on keeping others happy, you become hyper-attuned to their needs—and disconnected from your own. This isn’t weakness. It’s survival.”

Letting Go, Standing Tall: What the Acorn Teaches Us About True Strength

Healing doesn't mean abandoning kindness or connection. It’s not about swinging to coldness, dominance, or control. That’s just flipping around the same dysfunctional roles and maintaining a dynamic based on power. Real healing is about reclaiming something much harder—and much more powerful: self-trust. It’s about learning to stay rooted in your own worth, offering love not from emptiness, but from abundance. It’s about realizing that true strength is not losing yourself to hold onto others, but standing tall from a place of rootedness, even when the winds of loneliness blow hard. The little acorn didn’t grow by clinging harder to the broken tree. It grew when it let go—when it trusted its own roots to find their way toward the light. And so can we.

My Story: How Childhood Trauma Shaped My Attachment Style

I know this journey firsthand. I grew up with an emotionally immature mother and no father figure in my life. From a young age, I was programmed to fulfill my mother’s emotional needs instead of my own. To maintain any sense of safety or shared reality, I had to accept how she viewed me as the truth. I was merely an extension of her. There was no room for my own inner world—no space for my feelings, boundaries, or needs. The damage to the development of my identity went largely unseen until I fell in love for the first time as a young man. That's when everything I'd suppressed started coming to the surface.

I realized I couldn't assert what I needed in the relationship—because I had no template for it. My childhood had taught me that survival meant sacrificing my own needs to keep someone else emotionally stable. I found myself helpless in that relationship, unable to trust my instincts. I lost myself trying to meet someone else's expectations, just as I had done growing up. And even after years of therapy—which helped me grow in important ways—I still found myself drawn into similar dynamics later on.

“I lost myself trying to meet someone else's expectations, just as I had done growing up.”

The End of Shame: Reframing the Beginning of the Hero’s Journey

But here's what I’ve learned: Although I am still on my healing journey, I no longer carry shame for those patterns. I understand now why I fell into them. I am learning to trust myself. I am learning to be kind to myself for my past choices. Those choices—painful as they were—taught me what real love, trust, and self-respect look like.

What some people call being a "simp," I now see differently. I see it as the beginning of a hero’s journey—the journey of someone brave enough to go beneath the surface and face the emptiness others are too afraid to feel, the journey of someone willing to dismantle the invisible family systems that have silently shaped generations, so that those who come after me can be free to stand strong in their own sense of self. This is not weakness. This is the sacred work of healing. And it begins when we choose to trust the roots we are growing—roots that reach not just for survival, but for the light.

The Call to Grow: Beyond the Wound, Toward the Light

If this message resonates with you, and you want to explore these themes more deeply, my book The Journey of an Acorn was written exactly for that purpose:
— to honor the strength it takes to heal,
— to show the beauty that can grow from pain,
— and to remind you that you are never truly alone.

You can find more at www.coreywolff.com.