Dispatches from the front lines of trauma healing.
I’ve been writing about trauma healing, PTSD, CPTSD, and wellbeing for almost 15 years, exploring what it means to be a high-performer making impact in the world — without sacrificing health or happiness.
Perfect is the Enemy of Safe
Many of us who grew up with complex trauma (CPTSD) in our families learned, from an early age, that getting it "right" is a precondition for attention and love.
Cultural Complicity and Complex Trauma
Society teaches us to dismiss and minimize the impacts of complex trauma, insisting we “Grow up and get over it,” instead of turning towards it with understanding so it heals.
Managing CPTSD During Holiday Family Gatherings: 5 Essential Skills
As adults, it's our responsibility to calm ourselves, when our nervous systems are activated. When we change how we respond, we have a better chance of connecting to the people we love from a place of curiosity and care.
It Wasn't That Bad
Until we get to know the shapeshifter of denial, our attempts to heal the past remain superficial at best. We polish our memories, not wanting to remember the fear or suffering under their smooth surface.
The Inner Child Does Not Go on Vacation
Despite the inner work we've done, parts of us still surface in despair, dejected precisely because they continue to be met with our disdain and indifference.
10 Common Roadblocks to Healing Trauma (PTSD/CPTSD)
We can't heal what we won't feel. And we can't feel what we won't see. That's why I want to explore the ten most common roadblocks to healing trauma.
What is Complex Trauma (CPTSD)?
I want to map the three tenets of complex trauma here, so we can start to recognize and reckon with the impact of it in our lives and relationships.
What We Get Wrong About Numbness
Numbness covers over unprocessed pain by limiting our ability to feel. But when we don’t feel the pain, we also restrict the good feelings.
The Intelligence of Flight
Listening to our flight responses means knowing when to leave. We don’t need to second guess ourselves or get stuck in situations that are not in our best interest to remain in.
How to Self-Soothe (with CPTSD)
As adults, we need to learn how to receive soothing and pattern it into our bodies. We need others who able to self-soothe well enough that they aren’t knocked off center by our overly activated nervous systems.
Why It's Hard to Self-Soothe (with CPTSD)
Human neurobiology is interpersonal. We learn how to self-soothe from others. Until our nervous systems learn this necessary skill, we simply don't know how.
What Dissociation is Trying to Tell Us (about PTSD & CPTSD)
When dissociation shows up in my trauma healing work, it always signifies we're right where we need to be, at the boundary where the nervous system and conscious awareness collide.
What to Do About Shutdown and Sexual Trauma
Feeling shutdown is a completely normal sign of being "stuck off" from unresolved trauma. Around intimacy, it shows up as physical numbness, low or no arousal, emotional distance, and a lack of interest.
Red Flags of Therapist Abuse (and Coaching Abuse)
We don't talk enough about discernment and boundaries in trauma healing, therapy, and coaching work. When things go wrong, we blame ourselves. But it’s not our fault.
Numbness is Not What It Seems
Numbness is trauma response. It's a survival mechanism that follows chronic stress or trauma. It happens after our nervous systems have been over-activated into a stress or trauma response for a prolonged period of time.
The Truth about Dissociation
The part of us that dissociates uses this pattern as a strategy to lessen our experience of pain and discomfort. It tries to help by removing us from our experience, which always means shutting down our access to the body. It often creates a kind of fog, haziness, or floating out-of-body feeling.
Presence, Not Perfection
Trying for perfection distorts our ability to connect with others. We focus on a rigid and unattainable ideal instead of allowing ourselves to be seen in all our messiness and vulnerability. Often, this comes from a deep fear of rejection or abandonment.
Maslow was Wrong
Understanding the importance of attachment needs has massive implications for people with developmental trauma, a type of complex trauma (CTPSD) that I work with a lot in my private practice.
When Guilt is Good
Those of us with complex trauma or developmental trauma from childhood may have crafted beliefs about ourselves, relationships, and the world from these experiences. We may have learned some version of, "I don't matter," "My needs don't matter," or "No one cares what I think."
Belonging and Self-Betrayal
When our sense of belonging is threatened, it's easier to give up our values and needs than risk abandonment. It's easier to sacrifice personal values and needs to remain connected, rather than face the terror of being cast out, alone.