The Thing I Wish My Younger Self Knew Last night I caught myself thinking, what’s the one thing I’d tell my younger self if I had the chance? The answer came to me quick, sharp, and almost painful. Speak up. That’s it. That’s the answer. If you want to read more of what I’d tell […]
Childhood Sexual Abuse CPTSD CPTSD Recovery Emotional Awareness Healing Journey Mental Health Personal Growth Self-Acceptance Therapy & Healing Trauma Recovery
Why CPTSD Makes Failure Feel Safer
Setting Myself Up To Fail When I first started therapy and learned about my CPTSD, I did one thing over and over: I set myself up to fail. My brain was on a mission to prove its own negativity right. Weirdly, failure felt safer; if it was coming anyway, at least I was in control. […]
Acceptance Childhood Sexual Abuse CPTSD CPTSD Recovery Healing Journey Mental Health Self-Acceptance Self-Worth
CPTSD and the Struggle for True Acceptance
Why Acceptance Feels Like Everything There are many things CPTSD makes harder than they should be. For me, one of the big ones is my need to be accepted, not necessarily liked. I get that people will either like me or not. What I really want is to be accepted for who I am, and […]
The Questions That Never Got Answers
I’ve generally been a curious person. I just like learning things. Researching, asking questions, seeing how things work. There’s a satisfaction to be found in pulling apart the mess and trying to put it back together in a way that makes sense, even if it only makes sense to me. But trauma doesn’t always come […]
Childhood Sexual Abuse CPTSD Recovery Healing Journey Mental Health Survivor Stories Therapy & Healing Therapy and Support Trauma Recovery
Healing for Male Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse
Let’s just get this out of the way: being a man who was sexually abused as a child messes with your head in ways that are hard to explain, and harder to talk about. I’m no therapist. Or self-help guru. I’m just someone who’s lived it. And if you have, you know that this kind […]
How a Superman Body Spray Triggered a CPTSD Flashback
Yesterday, I time-traveled. Not in the cool, H.G. Wells, steampunk kind of way, but the CPTSD way. The no warning, no mercy, full-body flashback kind of way. The time machine? A body spray. Specifically, the Old Spice Superman limited edition. Yeah. A superhero-branded deodorant did me in. But this wasn’t about smelling fresh. This was […]