If you’ve ever told me something like, ‘We need to talk later,’ and then walked away, I can almost guarantee you’ve just activated my fight-or-flight system like it’s Black Friday at Best Buy. It’s not that I’m overreacting (though, okay, maybe a little); it’s just that, when you live with CPTSD, vague communication doesn’t merely […]
The Impact Of Leaving Survival Mode
For 40 years, I lived in constant survival mode, running on fear, stuck in fight-or-flight, exhausted but pushing forward anyway. I had no idea I was running myself into the ground. I thought I was just doing what I had to do to exist. Then, about a decade ago, I began therapy, and I started […]
I Can’t Fix Everything, And That’s Okay (Sort Of)
In my fifth decade on this earth, I’m only now beginning to accept that I can’t fix everything, no matter how badly I want to. And that truth? It’s brutal. Since I was a kid, I’ve carried this deep, unrelenting need to fix things. Not just the broken toy kind of fixing, but people, relationships, […]
Trauma Doesn’t Make You Stronger: A Journey of Healing
There is no truth to people saying that trauma makes you stronger. The fact is, it doesn’t. Trauma breaks you. It eats you alive and spits you back out in tiny pieces that you no longer recognize, and what is left are complex problems that you spend the next how many years trying to work […]
Overcoming the Superman Complex in CPTSD Healing
Being a major fan of DC comics and, more specifically, Superman, I was thrilled to hear the term “Superman Complex” used in therapy; it had my inner child jumping for joy. It seemed to me like a compliment. To have this and to be perceived in this way was kind of cool. Who wouldn’t want […]
From Shame to Self-Acceptance
For most of my life, I’ve struggled to accept the person I see in the mirror. But it’s never been about insecurity, not in the way people usually mean it. My discomfort with my appearance goes deeper than surface-level doubt. It’s rooted in childhood trauma, in abuse that left my body feeling like a prison. […]