The Messy Side of CPTSD CPTSD can make you snappy, defensive, moody, and unpredictable. It’ll make you shut down right when someone needs you the most. It’ll push you into self-sabotage, blowing up relationships, jobs, and chances before they even get off the ground. And occasionally? It makes you come across as cold, detached, or […]
Why The Brain Registers Absence In CPTSD
I came across a line recently that lodged itself in my head like a song lyric: “The brain registers absence, not cause.” At first, I thought, “Yeah, okay, sounds deep.” But the more I sat with it, the more it felt like someone had put words to a quiet truth I’d been carrying for years. […]
7 Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting Therapy
When I walked into my first therapy session, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I honestly thought it’d be like the movies, me lying on a leather couch while some therapist with glasses scribbles notes and gently asks about my childhood, in a soothing voice that would have me opening up like […]
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. […]
Healing Hurts Before It Heals
The Truth No One Tells You at the Beginning In my most recent Healing Out Loud episode, I talk about something no one warns you about: healing hurts before it heals. Most people picture recovery as a peaceful climb into some serene place. But the truth? It feels more like tearing up the old floorboards […]
Breaking Free from Emotional Control
Thinking Instead of Feeling: My Lifelong Habit There’s something I’ve always done, and frustratingly still do, even with all the tools I’ve learned in therapy: I tend to think my way through emotions instead of fully feeling them. Allow me to explain. I do feel things, yes. But I have a hard time actually releasing […]
