For all of my life, I have feared being loved. Being accepted. I have felt jaded. Lost. Ashamed. Hurt. There are so many different words that can be used to express the magnitude of the pain I have carried around with me. To reach a point in your life where you know you are truly […]
Today marks another year around the sun for me, and you would think by now that I would be used to this day, but I’m not. In fact, I dread my birthday, and it is a day that I don’t look forward to at all. It’s not just a matter of aging and recognizing I […]
Individuals who have experienced trauma and have cPTSD are often told that they lack empathy. Which isn’t the case at all. At least not for me. I think I’m capable of great empathy, but if I’m not in a good place or stressed out, I cut it off completely and go into no-emotion-survival mode. And […]
Learning to accept the love I deserve has not been an easy task for me. I have spent years believing that I was unlovable and nobody would ever fully love me when they learned of my past. That, of course, wasn’t true, and it was again my cPTSD lying to me. To accept that you […]
Having CPTSD is debilitating. To be constantly at war with your mind where it makes you believe the very worst parts of yourself is something that is hard to overcome. I have been working hard on self-compassion and forgiveness. I’ve been too hard on myself for way too long, overanalyzing what I’ve done wrong in […]
If you’re around my age, you probably remember that 80s classic sung by the late, great Tina Turner: “What’s love got to do with it?” Man, that song hits different when you’ve lived a little, doesn’t it? Especially that line. “Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?” Yeah. That’s a mood. Love […]
