There’s a kind of shame that wraps itself around trauma survivors like smoke after a fire. Invisible and suffocating. If you’ve lived through abuse and now live with CPTSD, you know exactly what I mean.

It’s not the shame of doing something wrong. It’s the shame of having survived something that never should have happened in the first place.

CPTSD doesn’t just carry memories; it carries blame. Not just from others, but from within. It’s the quiet voice that says, Maybe it was your fault. Maybe you let it happen. Maybe you deserved it. Even when your rational mind knows better, your nervous system still rings the alarm.

And the worst part? That shame is a lie. But it feels like truth.

Carrying shame from trauma can make you shut down emotionally, feeling like vulnerability is a weakness. But healing means learning to sit with those feelings, to accept them rather than run from them. I explored this journey more deeply in my post There Is Empowerment in Vulnerability, where I share how embracing vulnerability became a source of strength for me.

Abuse Isn’t Just a Wound, It’s a Rewriting

For many of us, especially those who experienced childhood abuse, the damage wasn’t just physical or emotional. It was cognitive. It rewired our sense of self, our ability to trust, and our understanding of safety. We were taught, sometimes subtly, sometimes violently, that love could hurt, that boundaries were optional, and that our needs didn’t matter.

So we adapted. We froze. Fawned. We stayed quiet when we wanted to scream. Returning when we wanted to run. We forgot on purpose. We learned to survive, not thrive.

And then, years later, when the body finally starts to whisper what the mind couldn’t handle, we start to feel it all: the fear, the grief, and yes, the shame.

The Shame of Surviving

No one really prepares you for this part. Not the healing, but what comes after. The realization that, underneath the trauma, you carry guilt, not just for what happened, but for how you survived it.

• The shame of dissociating.
• Shame of going back.
• The shame of still being affected.
• Shame of how long it’s taken to feel okay.
• The shame of hurting people because you were hurting.

And here’s the thing: None of that shame belongs to you.

The people who harmed you may never carry the weight of what they did, but you don’t have to carry their silence, denial, or cruelty any longer.

What I Know Now

I don’t have all the answers. And I still stumble into old patterns. I still have days when my body reacts before my brain can make sense of it. But I know this much:

Survival is not a moral failure.
You didn’t “fail” by adapting. You endured.

CPTSD isn’t who you are; it’s what happened to you.
It’s your nervous system trying to protect you. That doesn’t make you damaged — it makes you brilliantly wired for survival.

Shame hates the light.
Talking about it, even if it’s just to a journal or a trusted friend, takes away its power.

You don’t need to justify your pain.
You don’t have to explain why it still hurts or how deeply it runs. You get to heal without apologizing for it.

You’re allowed to take up space.
You’re allowed to say, This hurt me.
Or, This wasn’t okay.
You’re allowed to exist without carrying someone else’s cruelty in your chest.

If This Is You

If you’re in the thick of it, if the shame still sits heavy on your shoulders, if you’re learning to breathe again after years of holding it in, please hear me:

The shame isn’t yours.
The burden was never yours.
You’re not broken; you’re healing.

That healing won’t always be graceful. Some days it’ll feel like dragging yourself through emotional mud. But even on those days, you are doing something incredibly brave:

You’re taking back your life.

One breath, one boundary, one unlearning at a time.

• Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash