Jesse Donahue | CPTSDfoundation.org https://cptsdfoundation.org The Foundation for Post-Traumatic Healing and Complex Trauma Research Thu, 26 Feb 2026 18:31:56 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://cptsdfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/cropped-Daily-Recovery-Support-Globe-iPad-Fav-32x32.png Jesse Donahue | CPTSDfoundation.org https://cptsdfoundation.org 32 32 The Dance of Life https://cptsdfoundation.org/2026/03/17/the-dance-of-life/ https://cptsdfoundation.org/2026/03/17/the-dance-of-life/#respond Tue, 17 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=987502840
There she strolled, with a designed grace, one foot forward after the other, pushing, dispensing, oozing that life’s source, that vibrant something. Something spoken, wildly, emboldened to dare tell, to call out the imperative want and hunger that is human nature.

She sauntered, conscious and unconscious, enacting the full inner drama that spoke through a designed expression. That song, that drama, elicits a response in others to meet her needs and desires. That something worn, adorned, and polished may have been the obvious outward expression, yet it is a duality of messaging.

Her image was received by a complex mind, which resurrected a reciprocal wish. The wish to see in others what we want to see, and to believe what we want to think is accurate and real.

From a physical adornment in attire, it is an inner expression, a statement, a driving inner hunger, and an impression sought to tell the outside world of her needs. That energy and goal to be seen, noticed, and hungered for in design to our wish “to be esteemed.”

Mommy and Daddy look at me! Watch this! An early need to receive the affirmation that we are worthy of esteemed attention from the world of others, outside of our solitary self-awareness. Feed me! Our outer expression of design cries out to the world around us. Is the design that she wears, which elicits the returned hunger from others toward her, a simple picture of what she needs? Is that the authentic reaction for which she hungers? Or is it a desperate plea to capture and cure an esteemed eye from others upon oneself?

A learned substitute that feeds a deep, driving inner sense of feeling unfulfilled. Our early-life attempts to find fulfillment in nature’s precious love are rooted in the authentic esteem of others.

It is always a symbolic dance of life’s energy, trying to meet the unconscious needs from a shortage of esteem from outside voices in our world. Often, we are unaware of what, why, or how our expression to be seen by others is generated. It is especially true of our youth, and we often glide obliviously through life, never understanding why or how we express ourselves.


According to Psychoanalytic and other personality theories, character is designed in our unconscious. We dance an expression for the world, a symbolic regurgitation of met and unmet needs. Symbolism is the language of the unconscious as well as our pulsing needs, which our unconscious mind knows and expresses to the world. We see ourselves through sizing up who we are in the mirror.

The ideal self, the desired self, has innate needs to be fulfilled. The symbolism that emerges from our inner depths guides and pushes us to be expressive with others in an effort to be seen. We act to heal our masked inner wounds, struggling to quench our need for outside esteem or positive regard from others. Our behavior is a colorful mosaic, searching for acceptable avenues to meet our need for esteem in the world.


Hopefully, this dance of ours reaches a plateau where we begin to view our inner need to achieve a state of “self-love.”

We find inner praise and self-esteem for our authentic self. Thus, we strive to achieve a self that is far less controlled by unseen and unclear forces. Working toward self-actualization, self-love, and self-acceptance becomes our chosen pathway that minimizes our incessant drive to act out in ways we do not comprehend.

The Dance of Life
Originally titled: Esteem from the Outside World
By Jesse B. Donahue © 2023

Photo Credit: Unsplash

Guest Post Disclaimer: This guest post is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing shared here, across CPTSDfoundation.org, any CPTSD Foundation website, our associated communities, or our Social Media accounts, is intended to substitute for or supersede the professional advice and direction of your medical or mental health providers. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CPTSD Foundation. For further details, please review the following: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer

]]> https://cptsdfoundation.org/2026/03/17/the-dance-of-life/feed/ 0 What is the Point? https://cptsdfoundation.org/2026/01/07/what-is-the-point/ https://cptsdfoundation.org/2026/01/07/what-is-the-point/#respond Wed, 07 Jan 2026 10:47:43 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=987502056 WHAT IS THE POINT?
By Jesse Donahue © 2023


Love, the theme of many songs and found in the words of poets, theologians, and philosophers alike, is too often hidden from man by his experienced and internalized traumas


Consciousness is the ‘point’ of the Universe. Without consciousness or awareness, the universe would be dead (non-existent?) and, indeed, pointless. Eternal existence would be the nothingness that is debated among the disciplines throughout time.

Consciousness lives within humankind as both a torture and a gift. Although lost and suppressed by most throughout history, it is the challenge and destiny of human life to reach toward the pinnacle of love as part of nature. “Not residing in humankind,” but an energy in the atmosphere of our living presence. Most creatures share it in bonding.

Love, the theme of many songs and found in the words of poets, theologians, and philosophers alike, is too often hidden from man by his experienced and internalized traumas. Fear diminishes the expression of emotion, and for some, even the ability to love. Living and viewing life through the lens of personal traumas constricts and dysregulates the smooth flow of feelings – the very nature of who we are. It is the nature of our inner and outer environment – the pulsing life of the natural world is to love, as a means toward fulfillment, as well as survival.

Find love, and your wishes will be answered. All you need is love. Love, love, love – we hear it all the time – just be yourself. Yet it is fear and internalized trauma deeply instilled in us that severs the bridge of love. Through the lens of our experiences of life, we are indoctrinated by trauma to a world of fear, mistrust, and psychic, physical, and social pain. Am I alone here?

What is love?! If I am emotionally shut down, fearful of the open, authentic expression of the moment, love is blocked from surfacing. I am conscious, but my emotions are stifled. Love is distorted because I have experienced too much pain, shame, and guilt to find love’s expression. Love – it is a mission for each of us to seek, develop, and begin to feel and live. It is our journey, our destination in this life; love is the experience that we all seek. It is the answer to life’s questions—our destination.
Look within to see the consciousness that lights the world. If you are lucky, given a life that has been deadened and culturally traumatized, love may one day knock at your door. Keep your eyes open and your heart full toward others, nature, consciousness, life, and yourself. Live the journey to the destination. The awakening, as it has been professed through the ages by mystics and peasants alike, is to love thy neighbor. The bold, destructive ones in life are deeply damaged brothers and sisters. Love has been blocked for them, allowing only anger, spite, and hate. Strive to love them.

Learn to love again, to awaken to the vision of consciousness as an eternal state of meaning, a state of grace that pulses with love.

Learn to love again, to awaken to the vision of consciousness as an eternal state of meaning, a state of grace that pulses with love. Understand that for many of us, our vision of consciousness and our experiential sense of love have been shattered. We are blinded in sight, numb in our feelings, and live with a diminished experience of love. All you need is love. Learn to love. It is our goal’s course; our journey back to the home we once lived in, or to a new home we have yet to discover. Take back your life and find love. A new mission, looking within and becoming aware of the inner troubles that block the light of love. Stop the destructiveness. Answer your inner calling to return home or to build the new home that is calling to you. Find yourself! Give up the inner battle of acting out your pain and confusion upon others; The dissociation from who you truly are. Give up the mirage that we once thought was our life, our false and deeply wounded self, our damaged inner child.
We have vision in this life, yet we appear blind. We think we see the world as it is. Yet life is an onion that needs to be peeled back repeatedly through time to find the heart of who we are, who we want to be, and from where and why we exist. There is no answer other than we are here, and consciousness presents a state of meaning and purpose. There is love. Look for it. All you need is love. Find it! And if you live it, embrace it more deeply, teaching others your gift by showing them the depth of your empathy and compassion. If you do not live it, you have a journey toward which to strive. Stop seeking things, gadgets, and toys. Your journey has begun. Looking inward, not outward, for the passion of possessing things. “Things” are dead, as would be the universe without consciousness. Reach toward an inner broadening of personal vision, a perspective of what is essential in life! Things are not of any worth when love is missing. In the moment, that inner ache and emptiness is fed and fulfilled by human contact and authentic emotional joining with another.

Nothing of material substance can fix a broken soul that is separated from love.

Photo by Jens Lelie on Unsplash

 

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

]]> https://cptsdfoundation.org/2026/01/07/what-is-the-point/feed/ 0 The Silent Majority-and Finally Self Love https://cptsdfoundation.org/2025/11/25/the-silent-majority-and-finally-self-love/ https://cptsdfoundation.org/2025/11/25/the-silent-majority-and-finally-self-love/#respond Tue, 25 Nov 2025 10:20:58 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=987501716 The Silent Majority – and Finally, Self-Love
By Jesse Donahue 2024 ©

No matter what you think, believe, feel, say, or do, there will be a percentage of people out there who disapprove, possibly vehemently disagree with what you do, and/or who you are


This essay reflects my attempt to understand precisely how and why I fear disapproval from others. The question came to me when I heard the idea that no matter what, a percentage of people will never agree with you. For the moment, put aside the fact that the game of percentages is the reality from which our world among humans is made. I still fear rejection, and I know I am not alone. The journey of this essay is my attempt to understand why I have been so limited in my life. It has been fear. The fear of criticism and the basic experience of rejection that occurs when someone is upset with me. It is challenging to be present and express oneself fully in all respects if we are constantly controlled by the fear of conflict with others. This is not intended to be a lecture or an educational piece on the topic, but rather a platform to awaken myself and any readers. This is a brief essay filled with ideas that I hope will prompt the reader to ponder. It is intended to spark a moment of reflection, allowing you to consider the ideas presented here. Perhaps a moment that could change your life, as I am attempting to do with my own.

No matter what you think, believe, feel, say, or do, there will be a percentage of people out there who disapprove, possibly vehemently disagree with what you do, and/or who you are. Yes, even to the point of raging against you vocally and possibly doing worse. So, we sit silently and cringe, afraid to behave at all in some cases. Alternatively, we can take the opposite extreme and behave boisterously as if we are wholly committed to our group’s norms, attitudes, and beliefs. To the point of sometimes being a bit hysterical.

What is the percentage for you? The turning point where you might give in to the majority group and suddenly adopt their thinking to avoid disapproval? When you see or fear it is now at 50.01% disapproval, do you suddenly reshape your thoughts and behavior to the “ever-evolving” majority’s percentage of approving expectations? Have you ever thought about this, the fact that you cannot escape disapproval by a percentage of people, no matter what? Think about that. No matter what you do, say, or think! The percentage of people is not as much a consideration of numbers, but more importantly, a matter of who exactly those people are who are important to you. Alas, for some of us, it is not only the identity of those people. It has become almost all people. Wow, what an emotional burden!

We are enculturated.


We are enculturated. Meaning we take on and become the norms and beliefs of our world around us, the environment in which we live, “our tribe.” It is as natural for humans as breathing air. We need to feel we are welcomed as part of a community. BELONGING, the need to be accepted by peers, is present in most of us, though it may not be a conscious process. It is a real, powerful, and invisible force.

What do I think? How do I behave? What do I feel? Why and how do I hide what I think, behave, and feel? I am an individual who fears anger, confrontation, and rejection from others. Too often in my life, I have found myself to be a chameleon, changing colors (fawning) in the face of differing opinions and attitudes of others. A people pleaser. A silent soul. I think I’m just one of the Silent Majority in life. What are the percentages? What percent of people feel like I do, fearful of being expressive for fear of doing or making a social gaffe? It is a deeply subconscious process that requires significant effort, thought, and attention to awaken to or change. That can be scary and potentially filled with anxiety.

Here is the bugaboo: something is seriously off. Something went haywire in my life. My reaction to another person’s disapproval and/or anger toward me is to think that something is simply wrong with me. As I look into the years of therapy and to the current moment of participation in therapy, there was trauma experienced in the moment of angry emotions confronting me from another. Trauma. Deep-seated, buried, unadulterated traumatic experience coming to life with every raised eyebrow, misperceived facial expression, or distinct angry behavior from another. Coming toward me, or at times just displayed by another in my presence. Either way, I experience an emotional event that borders on a severe trauma being relived, a trigger. Trauma in my past is something that is not clearly remembered. The recollections of some of my emotional and early physical abuse are vague. As I have discovered in individual therapy, the more diffuse and felt but unseen, the deeper and the more horrific the event that fills my nerve endings now, fifty-to-sixty-plus years later.

As with all my writings, and this one is no exception, the initial inspiration morphs beyond my original intent of the writing. I land where my inner guide directs me. I’ve come to realize that my understanding of percentages is a revelation about why I shouldn’t be concerned about disapproval from 49.9%. It turns out, as I have come to see, I was horribly traumatized in my childhood, at an early and vulnerable age.

It is not easy to come to terms with the subconscious processes that have terrorized and crippled one’s life, preventing it from flourishing. I’ve realized that trying to find an escape from inner torment by witnessing the percentages of a culture in conflicting duality does not work for me. I cannot think my way out of past learned emotional trauma. Believe me, my life has been a crystal-clear example of someone trying to heal emotional pain through magical thinking. Clarity of thought, in the form of a more accurate understanding of problems, is a step forward from a negative, unrealistic method of inner self-talk. Indeed, positive self-regard is a significant step forward, helping to mitigate and manage negative feelings. I am seeing that, more than positive self-talk, self-love is the avenue out of the internal mental illness I have lived with throughout my life.

One consequence of being traumatized by our core caregivers, usually mom and/or dad, is a deep-seated internalized mistrust. When in the presence of psychic and physical abuse, a child learns not to trust others, especially those in authority. The absence of unconditional love is the existential trauma in life, and you might say, of our time. All those tirades of screaming, hitting, and shaming terrorize children and could well leave a lasting mark that may forever change a person’s direction in life. It could leave them unable to trust anyone. If my primary source of affection (parent) abused me, knowingly or not, I may learn they cannot be trusted to love me, or worse yet, think love means being abused!

If my mother was unable to love me, to the extent that I did not ‘feel it’ as a child, that is certainly not my fault. Children do not misperceive the lack of love coming from a parent; instead, deep down, they feel unlovable. By intuitively knowing that love is absent, we blame ourselves. Mom would love me if I were not so… How do we, in the face of mistrust, with deep-seated subconscious fear of being rejected, find a healing love? When love from the outside is presented authentically or not, I have learned to think it is somehow not genuine. There is a con to it; it is fake, pretended, or acted. There is a “thought process” within them of “I should be loving towards this person,” that is going on, but it may or may not be ‘feelable’ to the person who has not experienced enough parental love. There is mistrust, and potentially, a numbness, which is unfortunate. But the world “is what it is,” as they say, and we must move on, facing reality as best we can.

How do I learn to love myself with the emotional lifelong dissociation and alienation from an abusive and narcissistic mother? Self-love. I can start by forgiving myself for the array of inappropriate behaviors that I have unwittingly shown to others. I can let myself off the hook for having an emotional engine that pushes me to eat more and more in an attempt to find comfort. I can try harder to accept myself as an overweight individual and attempt to be gentle with myself in losing weight. I can forgive myself for being emotionally shut down and come to understand what has happened to me to make me so stoic, emotionally frozen, and at times paralyzed from self-expression. It is OK to cry. Or in my case, it is OK to weep uncontrollably. Weeping is a part of reclaiming those feelings. I can understand now that my life has not been easy, and it was not by choice.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

]]> https://cptsdfoundation.org/2025/11/25/the-silent-majority-and-finally-self-love/feed/ 0 Do You Love Me? https://cptsdfoundation.org/2025/10/27/do-you-love-me/ https://cptsdfoundation.org/2025/10/27/do-you-love-me/#comments Mon, 27 Oct 2025 09:30:14 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=987500210 Do You Love Me?
By Jesse B. Donahue © 2023

I could suffer no longer; I had to seek a cure for my inner child’s living the symbiotic, enmeshed feelings of my mother’s abandonment issue (always unconscious to her and me). I asked her one day, “Do you love me?” I couldn’t handle my inner agony of alienation any longer. What was I seeking at eight to ten years old? What had I expected her response to be? I was frightened, somehow knowing this was forbidden behavior..

Accept me.


\She turned to me and said, or rather yelled, “How dare you ask me that I am your mother!” She was existentially wounded and consumed in the now out-in-the-open, before hidden, repressed core trauma. Why didn’t she take me in her arms and comfort me, as her child was clearly in need of love? That is what I was starving for: love me. Hold me… heal me. LOVE. Accept me.

Later in the early evening, my father came to my bedroom door and said, “You have no idea how badly you hurt your mother.” Then he just turned and walked away. Where did you go, Dad? You could have helped me to cope with my agony, too, then and there. So, I continued to suffer in silence as C-PTSD further reinforced a stronghold within me.

To this day, when I see someone emotionally angered, upset, or hurt toward me regarding something I said or did, I get a devastating gut punch of fear in my psyche. I become consumed in the symbiotic experience of my being responsible for their inner emotional damage and upset; Brutal, toxic shame infiltrates from my core and leaves me in agony. That is a good, I think, definition of co-dependency, where I become responsible for how you feel and, to the point of hysteria, try to fix you. Essentially, metaphorically, I ask any person I hurt, “Do you love me?” I need to get your forgiveness, to be plugged in again frantically, enmeshed as it was when you were not outwardly emotionally suffering. It is my responsibility for your inner feeling of Ok’ness. If you are emotionally hurt, I am responsible, and I live with inner torture for having made you emotionally hurt. Such power I have over others! Such damage was done to a young child from the undealt with, denied, and repressed generational trauma.

This is my core unbearable state, of now an autonomic (involuntary functioning, like breathing) emotional reaction to an interpersonal upset or conflict in a social interaction with another. It is like a psychic umbilical cord from my soul to another’s, where when they feel hurt… I feel hurt, guilty, shamed, and potentially in crisis. Psychic Enmeshment. My inner core is rejection. A developed state of RSD, Rejection Sensitivity ‘Dysphoria’ (unbearable). Did my mother abandon me, emotionally neglect me, or was I rejected by her (a really good question)? This paper certainly talks of the “Black Sheep” in the family, as there was a Golden Child, too. She never left me, but certainly, emotionally, regarding my attachment needs, feeling loved and welcomed as I am, she was absent from my needs being met. And I was shamed for daring to ask the obvious question a love-starved little boy would ask, “Mom, do you love me?” The family narrative is that I was loved… I beg to differ.


After the above essay, “Do You Love Me?,” this would be a good place to lay out my understanding of RSD: “Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria.” (I believe the original naming of this condition was termed Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria, but my assumption is Sensitive seemed a better sounding term… as it did for me.) RSD, that state of “Dysphoria” experienced with the feelings of rejection by some, was the culprit or answer I had searched for a lifetime. “What is wrong with me?” Dysphoria is a term specifically chosen to express an experience that is nearly impossible to describe. Its meaning is “unbearable” or an experience that borders on intolerable.

The feeling or experience of rejection is something we all have to deal with in some respect when growing up. But for some of us, this feeling of rejection by others can take on an entirely different inner reality. Rejection can be emotionally painful, upsetting, or certainly unpleasant for most, but for one who has dysregulated emotions, the experience of rejection can consume an individual to the point of a nearly unbearable emotional nightmare. Dysphoria: the near-unbearable, definition-resistant experience of severe psychic, emotional suffering. RSD lives as a potential symptom within those whose emotions are dysregulated. The ADHD community, as well as those on the autism spectrum, and individuals who suffer from depressive conditions whose emotions are dysregulated, are potential candidates for RSD.

Emotional dysregulation. Oddly enough, for the many years of therapy that I sought and engaged in, I hadn’t the remotest clue I was emotionally dysregulated until recently. I had some emotional issues, but no terminology to explain my unexplained hyper-arousal and feelings. Nor was it ever mentioned to me. I was repressed and numbed out, apparently with an emotional system shut down, blocked from open, free-flowing expression.

RSD, arising from untold numbers (multitudes of thousands) of rejection experiences growing up (internalized), is a product of hyper-aroused dysregulated emotions regurgitating the emotional pain lived and accumulated throughout one’s life. RSD sufferers may find relief in a limited number of medicines. I will leave the conversation about meds, as well as diagnosing, up to you and your doctor. Unfortunately, like CPTSD, RSD is not an “official diagnosis” (at least not in the DSM). I have read that psychotherapy may have a limited effect on the impact of RSD. That has been my personal experience that talk therapy is somewhat ineffective for true RSD.

Dr. William Dodson, an ADHD expert, speaks eloquently on the condition of RSD on YouTube and other professional journals.

Photo by Christopher Ott on Unsplash

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

]]> https://cptsdfoundation.org/2025/10/27/do-you-love-me/feed/ 4 Personal Power https://cptsdfoundation.org/2025/10/02/personal-power/ https://cptsdfoundation.org/2025/10/02/personal-power/#respond Thu, 02 Oct 2025 10:34:01 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=987501335 PERSONAL POWER
By Jesse Donahue 2024 ©

Characterized by a lack of desire or an inability to focus…

Here I go winging it, with no outline to follow. The development of this paper is a reflection of my life, characterized by a lack of desire or an inability to focus. The push to go forward without thoughtful planning, many would say, as does the voice in my head, “You should carefully plan before you begin writing.” But it seems I do not want to, indeed am resistant, even adverse to, succeeding? (Within this illogical “process” lies a deficiency of will, beyond mere laziness. It is a reflection of lacking a sense of personal power, or “permission,” that has left my life’s vehicle stuck on the side of the road.) This is equivalent to forgetting to get fuel before setting off in life.

In all too many moments, I feel powerless to go down the path I know I “should,” at this moment and throughout my life. I might be successful, I might become somebody of noteworthy recognition, if only I would focus on the moment. Yet the moment is a blur in time, a place I want to escape from, as I quickly and busily avoid any ‘conflicts’ that arise from engaging with others in life. For me to set out and fail from the beginning is a silent, hidden mission of dutifully surrendering my personal power, or my agency, over to my abuser. I have become powerless! Suddenly, I see a new mission and message, “finding and developing my lost and squashed personal power.” Loss of personal power is akin to “Learned Helplessness.” Life and personal success are about engagement in the world, using one’s personal power—a self-permission to succeed.

The moment is a blur in time…

All the suffering in my life, the constancy of moments spent trying to find a remedy for the symptoms of C-PTSD, has derailed me. I wrote a paper a while back where I boisterously decried the audacity of abuse from my mother in childhood. She has passed now, but my mostly unrecognized lifelong battle has been with personal disempowerment. Never daring to confront her openly for what she did to me. It strikes me now that was the depth of my hiding in life; (That paralysis toward facing my abuser. My cowering in the proverbial corner of my mind, hiding my “secret and repressed anger,” is a large part of my elusive neurotic symptoms.) Yet, it still shows a spark of life, having not completely succumbed. Depression, anxiety, phobias, and magical thinking are some of the symptoms of many who suffer from C-PTSD. It may be an imperative, specifically, working to “reclaim that loss of personal power toward your abuser.” To phrase that differently, learning to stand up for yourself. It is not simple. Many of us stand in front of our abuser and instantly revert to a powerless, helpless child. It is nothing to be ashamed of, and it is not our fault. Trauma can do that to a child.

The strength found in taking my abuser to task for their disturbing behavior towards me was a big step toward starting personal agency. Even if it was after she passed away, and written down as a personal expression of how I feel. Safety always comes first! Personally, I would never have shared that writing if she were still alive. The consequences could have been being cut off from my entire family and being disowned. We may want to, alone and/or in a therapist’s office, take the reins of steering our life, individuating from the abuser and their lack of permission. It has taken years since her death to find the strength to look at the tangled web of issues toward her, let alone stand up to her, for myself. The depth of accumulated trauma upon a soul’s “personal permission” toward self-empowerment can be staggering. The transgenerational buck stops with me! (Ha, famous last words.) Co-dependency requires us to remain powerless. Transcending to freedom does not. Freedom, the journey to it, requires ‘resurrecting’ one’s innate personal power, and the development of self-agency.

The loss of personal power can be related to the concept of “Learned Helplessness.” See my essay at the CPTSDfoundation.org titled “Learned Helplessness.” You can be the judge in comparing these two essays: https://cptsdfoundation.org/2024/02/14/learned-helplessness-jd/

Photo by julian mora on Unsplash

 

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

]]> https://cptsdfoundation.org/2025/10/02/personal-power/feed/ 0 The Smoldering Embers of C-PTSD https://cptsdfoundation.org/2025/08/26/the-smoldering-embers-of-c-ptsd/ https://cptsdfoundation.org/2025/08/26/the-smoldering-embers-of-c-ptsd/#comments Tue, 26 Aug 2025 11:17:10 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=987501278 The Smoldering Embers of Complex PTSD
By Jesse B. Donahue 2024 ©

The metaphor of smoldering embers nicely depicts my experience of day-to-day life. No smoke is coming from my ears, but hiding and avoiding social experiences are efforts to control a threatening fire. C-PTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) always smolders within my brain, and when the right outer or inner experiences are touched upon, the ever-present smoking embers burst into flame. It seems that fuel, stepping into the emotional theater with others, is all that is needed to ignite a potential flaming disaster, a psychological-emotional crisis.

I am perpetually vulnerable to a debilitating state of mind that has eluded my understanding, perplexed me, and tortured me for most of my life



Putting the descriptive metaphor aside, I am perpetually vulnerable to a debilitating state of mind that has eluded my understanding, perplexed me, and tortured me for most of my life. Along with it, for me, comes severe depression, free-floating anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive efforts to find ways of calming the anxiety that threatens to devour me. Panic attacks, phobias, deluded-magical thinking, and addictive indulgences in sedating ingestions, including “obsessive” activities, are distracting, and/or dissociative experiences. Distraction is found in overeating, smoking, reckless over-indulgence of alcohol and drugs, and seeking the titillating pinnacle experiences of orgasm. Behavioral “rituals” can serve the purpose of distracting one’s focus from the pain caused by burning embers. The flames of pain are ever present, just waiting to burst into a secret fire. The “Secret” is our inner pain, which we attempt to hide from the outside world.

I carry a personal demon. This Demon leaves me feeling lonely, alienated, jealous, and distortedly different from all others. There is a constant subconscious threat of annihilation anxiety internally present – a state of impending doom. Extreme hypervigilance and arousal are the ongoing experiences of life. My emotions are dysregulated. What are others really thinking about me? Do they see how unlovable I am because of my being so different (toxic shame), as I feel?

What is the problem with allowing one more diagnosis to give clarity to a clinician’s diagnostic endeavors?



The American Psychological Association (APA) decided not to acknowledge C-PTSD in the current DSM manual (DSM-5) of recognized psychological disorders. That means the myriad of recognizable diagnoses satisfactorily covers the experiences of one who suffers from C-PTSD. Most modern theoreticians also recognize C-PTSD as (Developmental Trauma Disorder), yet it is not an official “diagnosis” either. (I think I prefer Developmental Trauma Disorder better than C-PTSD). As a student of psychology, it strikes me that my symptoms fit within the diagnosable categories of so many known disorders. Having a multitude of symptoms is typical of C-PTSD. For the sake of argument, I pick C-PTSD as a diagnosis. This diagnosis houses virtually all the symptoms with which I must contend. As we are all unique, there are some comorbid diagnoses I have as well. What is the problem with allowing one more diagnosis to give clarity to a clinician’s diagnostic endeavors? As a layperson, I don’t understand, and perhaps many therapists would agree with me. Is there a political consideration lurking somewhere in the denial of C-PTSD as an approved diagnosis? After all, the World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes C-PTSD as a diagnosable condition.

When I write, my thoughts take on the direction of my subconscious. It is also clear to me that writing is a distraction. I can focus my attention, similar to a ritual, on my inner thoughts, lay them out on the written page, and at the same time use them as a distraction from the threatening fire. If I am wholly engulfed in the distraction of the working ritual, the beast is often held at bay. The corollary is that when flames have begun to take over my moment, the interest and inspiration to sit down and write is blocked by the overwhelming inner trauma dramatically consuming me. I cannot focus or find my reasoning. My inspiration is crushed. When the psychic trauma is reexperienced in a C-PTSD flashback episode, I lose who I am and become a person psycho-emotionally enflamed in the moment, desperately trying to find escape.

C-PTSD is not listed as a diagnosis in the DSM-5, as I mentioned. If it is going to be accepted as an official diagnosis, it will have to wait for the DSM-6. I have read that it cannot be included in an update of the DSM-5. Therefore, those of us with the condition of C-PTSD can only wait with hope. It would be nice to be officially listed, thus legitimizing our experiences. C-PTSD is an interpersonal Trauma disorder that is created and established by long-term exposure to traumatic experiences, both physical and emotional. Its range of possible symptoms is considerable. There is a significant number of diagnoses that research psychologists think may have their basis in trauma. Perhaps this developing understanding of trauma may be one of the reasons for the delay in the authoring of the DSM-6. I envision the possibility of “Trauma” as a basis of psychological disorders in general. New understanding with “Trauma” as a diagnostic basis, incorporating specific features associated with structuring a more definitive diagnosis. Time will tell.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

]]> https://cptsdfoundation.org/2025/08/26/the-smoldering-embers-of-c-ptsd/feed/ 4 What Am I Feeling? https://cptsdfoundation.org/2025/07/30/what-am-i-feeling/ https://cptsdfoundation.org/2025/07/30/what-am-i-feeling/#comments Wed, 30 Jul 2025 12:21:00 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=987501023 What Am I Feeling?
Copyright 2024 By Jesse Donahue

What am I feeling? It has been four to five years since the concept of a trauma disorder made an appearance and a diagnosis in my life; I am sixty-eight years old. A diagnosis of CPTSD, a trauma disorder, was made by a Clinical Psychologist. Admittedly, it is tough to be diagnosed with a disorder that hasn’t even been acknowledged to exist as a diagnosis in our land of the DSM.

I grew up in the sixties and sought out therapy in the late seventies or the first year of the eighties. Psychoanalysis still held sway with many of the powers that be back then. Psychoneurosis was the culprit I suffered from back then. It’s funny how the term lost favor over the decades, yielding to trauma disorders, but still, personality disorders have survived to our present day. Sometimes, it seems the baby was gleefully tossed out along with the bathwater regarding psychoanalysis as a legitimate source of intellectual understanding of the human mind. I suppose it is neither here nor there today, but I’ve just wanted to make a point: “Don’t completely whitewash the utter genius our forefathers handed down to us. Without them and their astonishing insights and mind maps of human suffering, we would be lost in the wilderness.” Returning to where I started, “What am I feeling?”

My lungs begin to clench, which makes filling them nearly impossible

As of the last year or so, I have been taking a new tactic when I experience what I’ve learned to call a CPTSD flashback of an earlier emotional state. My feelings at the moment can come upon me, often unexpectedly, as a raw state of gut-ugly, unexplainable psychological pain. What am I feeling? What is coming over me? Is this a panic attack? My lungs begin to clench, which makes filling them nearly impossible. My psychic state becomes that of being paranoid, unable to confront others in the moment. I typically feel as though I want to curl up into a fetal position and rock myself to make it stop, to make it go away. How would that look at the kitchen table or in the classroom? WHAT AM I FEELING?

If I take various medications, often this emotional experience is awakened, causing me to quickly get off the meds. I am extremely sensitive to this nearly unbearable feeling state that lives perpetually within me, but it is often held or kept out of my emotional experience. My behavior subconsciously knows this emotional upheaval is lurking below, and that sets the stage for other “diagnoses” that manifest from within. What do I feel?! I can no longer escape this question.

I can’t know what others are feeling or describe their experiential moment. Hell, I can barely describe what “I” am feeling. I cannot put a definitive finger on what comes over me. My present inclination is to label the torturous burden I have lived as “REJECTION.” Perhaps it is a state of abandonment emanating from the earliest memories of an internalized, living, traumatic experience. But as keenly and consistently as this energy is regurgitated and re-lived within me, it has to be an emotional experience I endured repeatedly. Repeated emotional states of being touched to the depths of what it is like to be flat-out rejected as a child. Wouldn’t you think? Why else would I know this lifelong, usually unconscious “terror” as a built-in framework of my inner emotional life? Where did this feeling that overtakes me come from? What am I feeling, and why am I feeling it?!

(RSD Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. I hope to finish soon an essay regarding Rejection Sensitivity and the state of Rejection dysphoria that many come to live with. Until then, if you relate to suffering from a feeling of rejection, look up RSD as used in psychology).

IT IS NOT JUST ME WHO IS IN AN EMOTIONAL CRISIS

Was it okay for me to be different as a toddler and a growing boy, whether I was or wasn’t “different”? Were the raging assaults with “the belt” and the open hand truly appropriate to the moment’s punishment? Where did my mother’s rage toward me come from? I now know it was not I who caused her emotional rage; it was her own flavor of “What Am I Feeling” that hypnotically commandeered her emotional moment… driving her to assault me. As an adult, my mission is to seek and find the answer to what I feel. I know I’m not alone because one thing I’ve learned about us humans is that when I am feeling something, IT IS NOT JUST ME WHO IS IN AN EMOTIONAL CRISIS. It is me suffering the way others who were treated like me are also experiencing. I’ll bet that too many of us suffer the experience of WHAT AM I FEELING, yet we can’t bring ourselves to tell the familiar story. It feels too shameful, that toxic feeling of brutal shaming for feeling damaged (Toxic Shame).

If you are suffering, please don’t think you are alone. If you feel it, it is because that is how a human feels when they are mistreated in their youth. How could it possibly be our fault when we were such helpless children? You can’t argue with that. It was not our fault.

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Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

 

]]> https://cptsdfoundation.org/2025/07/30/what-am-i-feeling/feed/ 4 My Hidden Self https://cptsdfoundation.org/2025/07/23/my-hidden-self/ https://cptsdfoundation.org/2025/07/23/my-hidden-self/#respond Wed, 23 Jul 2025 13:16:17 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=987500208 My Hidden Self
By Jesse Donahue © 2020

I hide so deeply, beyond my ability to see and to understand


I forced myself to write this. I felt it to be an insight that should be noted before it returns to a state of amnesia. A shrunken statue of a once vibrant self seems to lie frozen, mummified, wounded within me, and I have no way of definitively reaching it. It recoils in fear, creating a suffocating anxiety when I am watched or in the presence of another person. I cannot control this. My lungs constrict, my mind races, and becomes cloudy. I feel too vulnerable and must escape. As I gasp for breath to fill my lungs, hypervigilance consumes me, knowing others hear my struggle to breathe. I try to hide the dysfunction I manifest from others’ eyes, knowing they will react to me with reciprocal anxiety. It can be contagious. How do I talk about it with the others in my life in the moment? I hide so deeply, beyond my ability to see and to understand. I feel powerless over the now apparent automatic anxiety reaction.

As I sit and write my novel, envisioning my characters on the page being respected, revered, glorified, and honored, that hidden childhood statue within me weeps beyond my awareness, understanding, and control. All I see is the constant stream of tears consuming me, simply at witnessing the positive regard shown to my book’s heroes. The storybook figures are unconsciously the grandiose desire of that little child within me, desperately needing to be affirmed as lovable and acceptable. Yes, I am hiding! That statue is locked away deep, manifesting in the unexplained flowing of tears, fighting mightily to remain subconscious. I know deep anxiety, depression, and the completely awkward, socially odd crying as I hyper-empathize with others’ tears and emotional pain.

I live in my head, acutely witnessing my numb feelings. That numbness has pushed my wounded inner child so deeply into that place where trauma cannot be found, its secret hiding place. It is too painful to see and witness. I gasp for breath and weep, dissociated from a reason why. I don’t know how to fix this problem. I cannot feel or see that frozen statue of self. I just know it exists. This came to me at one point, reading my novel while drowning in tears at the hero’s and heroine’s deep respect and esteem from others. It is amazing how our subconscious mind works, symbolically creating storybook figures that tell and know of my needs. Those needs of which, generally, I am unaware.

I need to find the core, the inner shrunken statue’s place in my interior reality (an expedition now lived and undertaken in therapy). Though I don’t fully know how, it has been a tremendous struggle to soothe the toxic energy, even with years of therapy. I have tried self-love development and am coming along on that path, but I struggle to love something that hides from my eyes and awareness to the point that so often, I do not recall that it exists. In an emotional flashback, you do not always see the events that amnesia hides from awareness. I think this statue of myself is hidden in that way or in that special place that cannot be seen or easily touched. I don’t know, but that is how it all seems. I feel blocked and stuck because of this, and I sincerely question my ability to conquer this problem, as so many of my journal writings speak. Writings do not mean a thing until I can heal myself or significantly lessen my suffering, proving to myself that therapy does indeed work. Am I different from other sufferers of CPTSD or trauma disorders in this regard? I often wonder. I know that little boy was damaged so badly. Trauma can be a dictator, forcing one’s authentic free-floating being into a petrified wooden statue of blinding and binding inhibitions.

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Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

]]> https://cptsdfoundation.org/2025/07/23/my-hidden-self/feed/ 0 The Suit of Life – A Message for Self-Love https://cptsdfoundation.org/2025/06/19/the-suit-of-life-a-message-for-self-love/ https://cptsdfoundation.org/2025/06/19/the-suit-of-life-a-message-for-self-love/#comments Thu, 19 Jun 2025 10:27:39 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=987499281 The Suit of Life
A Message for Self-Love
By Jesse Donahue 2023 ©

I can see the powerful impact that self-expression makes upon the world of others and, most fundamentally, within myself.


The morning shines with a new day rising, and we don our clothes, our suit adorned, accentuating our desired impression upon the world of others, or simply utilitarian in covering ourselves by social law. It goes mostly unnoticed, superficial in its importance to the day, at least by most. It is routine. To be simplistic, we put on clothes as part of being an animal that wears clothes, but do we really feel the full impact of our attire, or as I have referred to, our suit? There is more than one way to conceive of a suit being worn as an impression spoken to the world and oneself. That is what this essay entails: the multifaceted expressions of being suited up to meet the day. There is a new awakening within me. I can see the powerful impact that self-expression makes upon the world of others and, most fundamentally, within myself.


Shakespeare spoke of the whole world as a stage. We are the actors performing on the stage of human life. The costume’s powerful impressions so often go mostly unnoticed, having been relegated to the subconscious mind. Many of us do not pay attention to the impact our image empowers in ourselves and others. Nor do we realize how impactful a negative self-expression is to our state of mind. I have come to see the image worn and shown to the public as being far more than a fabric creatively shaped and adorned by individuals. Our image is expressed by our appearance and by emotional and physical factors that do not directly relate to clothing but are nonetheless a part of the suit we present to the world. One’s physical beauty and one’s visible attitudes toward experiencing life are all expressions shown as a part of a package presented to our social world.

Studies have shown that people like those with beautiful, desired features and traits. That is not to say those of us who are less attractive are not liked and loved. Beauty is praised and sought after in our culture. We feel the indoctrination by the media’s propaganda, commercial after commercial. I must confess that seeing an extraordinarily beautiful woman can feel like a religious experience. As if fulfilling a poetic masterpiece. Beauty can be captivating, somewhat similar to free entrance into a show that fulfills the senses. Why am I writing my impressions of expressing to the world the suit we wear and show to others? It is because I have witnessed a previously unnoticed phenomenon within myself. In my life, I have experienced, over varying durations of time, a sense of my emotions being numb as though I am deadened to certain emotions of life’s experiences. At other times in my life, those feelings were a bit more vibrant, at least they felt as if they were radiating in a more natural flow.

Interestingly, awareness of all this was blocked from my ability to recall that information.


As I was talking with a friend, I was speaking of my experience of not being as able to feel a sense of sexual energy in my life as I had known in the past. Well, I am getting on into the years, but still, it dawned on me that it may be partly the suit I am presenting to the world that is sapping my free flow of emotions. It is more, far more, than just being improperly or poorly dressed. Of course, we have all heard it said that the suit makes the man or woman. In many ways, that is true, if others think so and if we believe it is so. I am overweight. It was not so long ago that I had lost thirty pounds, and caught myself at that time, several years ago, paying attention to my sexual energy re-awakening. “Now what the hell is this all about?” I asked myself. Since that time, all that weight has returned, and those energies are again turned down. Interestingly, awareness of all this was blocked from my ability to recall that information.

Here again, I’ve noticed that age is a factor that has turned down the burner on energies that once churned in my life. It may be a bit of a normal slowing down, being a part of the aging process… but. Here too, I had seen a psychic picture of myself recalled from a couple of years ago of a man standing in front of the mirror and seeing, deeply, an aging man, Grandpa. That changed my life. It changed my mindset and put up psychological barriers to seeing myself as that younger man I had always known. I’ve come to see that my being emotionally blocked from my free-floating energy from my past is “my projection” onto others as to how they think and feel about me. My internalized experience of myself as being overweight and now being older has shut down my inner energies and left me repressed and blocked. This same phenomenon pertains to other issues in my life where energies, once more present, and where feelings had been experienced, are now absent or turned down, living in a state of numbness.

What is our sense of self?


This acknowledgment awakened my understanding of my ability to project onto others my feelings and attitudes about myself being overweight, “projection.” I fear I will not be as welcomed by others, so I turn myself off and emotionally hide (though not consciously). The same stands true for my age. I project onto others that they will be less interested in me (the “Grandpa Syndrome,” I should call this), so I turn myself off and avoid many interactions. It is my thinking that certain expectations are no longer met for one who is older or overweight. I am no longer that skinny young man. My deep-seated belief about myself is shutting down my energies. I have no real clue of what others are thinking, even though I tell myself they will not be as welcoming to me. I do not like myself as I am. My eyes create the problem. The problem does not emanate from others.
The bottom line: our expression of self to the world outside, adorned with colorful glittery jewelry, and fine expensive fabrics, is all just a self-illusion if we do not love the being that we are. Who would we be in our minds if we did not have the glittering jewels, fancy car, the expensive house, and on and on and on? When you stop and think about it, one is either loved for who they are, or they are not loved at all. Am I being naive here? If the fancy adornments are necessary to be loved within our mind, where does that leave us if we misplace our required artifacts that accentuate our expression to the world? Those who love us: will they really change their feelings toward us if we no longer shine with the image I seem to have always felt is needed? Was that image needed? Have they loved the image of who I present to the world, and not me? Who am I really? Would that leave me unlovable, or show they are capable of only loving an external presentation of who they want me to be? In the end, self-acceptance, self-understanding, and self-love are what I have been trying to grasp. With or without the outer costume to the world, if we do not love ourselves, it creates all sorts of issues in our lives. Some are not so impactful, but others can be critical in their effect on our happiness or lack thereof, upon even our ability to feel and experience the free flow of our own emotions. Where is our true identity? What is our sense of self?

Photo by Mohamed Jamil Latrach on Unsplash

 

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

]]> https://cptsdfoundation.org/2025/06/19/the-suit-of-life-a-message-for-self-love/feed/ 2 The Heart of The Matter https://cptsdfoundation.org/2025/05/14/the-heart-of-the-matter/ https://cptsdfoundation.org/2025/05/14/the-heart-of-the-matter/#comments Wed, 14 May 2025 11:58:12 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=987498817 The Heart of the Matter
By Jesse B. Donahue 2023 ©

Hidden deep, and I mean buried at the core of my human soul, lies my “internal being,” repressed, shrunken, having been shattered by chronic trauma. How many years, how many moments of a wasted life have I endured and not within my control? My path in life has been an urgent and unavoidable mission, yet so often led astray off the path of self-discovery; it could not be helped; it was and is my process. Being diverted from looking within and seeking the center of a neurotic engine, the condition of neurosis itself is a battleground laden with minefields, confusing signs showing erroneous directions to take, false images of oneself, and unclear answers. It is an inner wasteland of delusions and desert-like mirages, all working against humanity, shielding me from what I seek. It protects that terrorized and traumatized core, so desperately needing healing. It screams DON’T TOUCH ME! as it hides, desperate for survival.

The truth is that I’m struggling to get to the bottom of things. What is wrong with me, and how did I come to be this way? My struggle is certainly not the way of being that I see in others around me. Of course, I can’t look into their inner workings and see their feelings and experiences from the outside. Perhaps, in the same way, I struggle to make the battle inside, hidden from those around me, to look normal, to fit in, to be accepted, to BELONG. God knows I don’t need any more experiences of not being accepted as I am. A child’s crisis of shock coming from caretakers is enough, don’t you think? Ah, but now and always, there is the reality of bullying threatening. It just never ends.
Speaking of neurosis, there are all kinds of flavors of maladies the human animal experiences and must contend with. Some survive life with mild and unnoticeable symptoms and issues. Those are the lucky ones. Others of us must contend with depression, phobias, anxieties, poor self-esteem, and an endless assault, whoops, I mean an array of symptoms from inner glitches from… something. Some quirks, no doubt, are inherited from a gene pool one is related to, but other origins are imposed by culture, man-made. A culture of a small family unit, or the larger culture in which we were raised.

I have spoken of trauma within myself; Let’s get to it! A child needs love, a feeling of belonging, respect, dignity, praise, to be needed, understanding, and, for God’s sake, welcoming. This all forms a bond that lives within one’s soul; it is to the heart of the matter. It is bonding. If one is so blessed to have been raised and treated in a fashion that your basic needs of being comforted and authentically loved are met in infancy and childhood, then one probably has little baggage to contend with throughout your life. This core comforting is now an internalized part of you. You own it, and it can function as a shield to lessen the blows that come from others. Perhaps, those who have not been as lucky as you. You have developed and been gifted with self-esteem by having been held up in high esteem by those who loved you. They held you in high esteem and you internalized that, giving you self-esteem. Off you go in life, like a wind-up spiritual robot, and with a smile on your face. How utterly wonderful, and I mean that sincerely.
Psychology is just somewhat beginning to come to terms with and gain an understanding of the effects of trauma on a growing child. We have all heard of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) a sudden explosive experience, or event, that registers such a state of shock that it radiates its impact in an ongoing, pulsing remembrance of the terrible event. It tends to live on until it is minimized or managed by expressing to others, and the self, the terror it left within you. Now imagine a young child, especially an infant, being hit, screamed at, and sexually assaulted, all repeated chronically over time, a long time. Talk about PTSD! This reality of ongoing multiple experiences of trauma and abuse has come to be termed Complex-Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD). What some might see as normal disciplining behavior may, in far too many circumstances, be a condition of repeated Traumatic Stress to a child.

At the core of all my lifelong problems, it seems to me now, in my quest for self-understanding, and sadly, late in my life, is C-PTSD – a trauma disorder. I have been traumatized so completely and so systematically that the subconscious intentions of the perpetrator were achieved. I have become an obedient stallion broken of its free will. A vast cauldron of mixed messages coming at me, enforced by belt whippings and rage. I conceded to all of them, and not by choice; Obedience Demanded! Indeed, there was no conscious decision made, no choice given to me; to survive, I spiritually abandoned my sense of being, or sense of self, and became the “yes boy” that was demanded of me. I had to become non-threatening to my caregiver. Just being me was threatening, in that world of rage. Within me? No doubt, I was always filled with anxiety, which is basically one’s inner rage turned inward, unable to be expressed. No, I mean the rage, the teeth-grinding fury bestowed upon me if I was displeasing to her, or not obedient to her whims. Obedient to her desire for power over me.

Anger, rage, venomous fury, why? Why? What the hell did I do? As an infant, a vulnerable child, what in God’s name did I do that was deserving of such cruelty? What? There are no answers; it wasn’t what I did, and I see that now. This is the only avenue I can find to start a path of forgiveness. To see that it had nothing to do with me. And I was not alone or unique in the fact that someone had been abused in childhood. Clearly, she too must have been horribly traumatized in her childhood and, obviously, still carrying the unresolved and unspoken rage at what had been done to her, her secret, repressed rage turned outward, externalized, on me. Where is her rage at life expressed?

Unfortunately, it is in the belt in her hand. But that does not let her off the hook. It is the mission of all human beings, to at least “make a damn effort” to try and heal oneself in this life, because, you have no right whatsoever to inflict trauma upon an innocent, vulnerable child, or any person. The buck stops with you. Though you are a victim, and life is most certainly unfair, brutally so, no one is responsible for you and your behavior, other than you. You are now God with the authority over the vulnerable child in front of you and you must learn how to stop yourself. Go seek help! Stop victimizing your children for the sins of “your” abusers! Put an end to passing the buck (trauma) onto the generations to come. Stop abusing. My God, a wonderful bumper sticker. Stop abusing! Become – AWARE.

My point in writing this essay was to expose the knowledge and understanding I have gained about my core issue. That issue is abuse from intolerance, dominating control, rejection of the real self, anger, whipping, and most especially from a numbed-out caretaker whose emotions were shut down and dysregulated. The anger, the spankings, the verbal raging, the lack of feeling affection, it was too much. It broke me, and yes, just like that stallion. Over time, I stepped out of that suit of me and abandoned the self. I became another and lived as someone else in another world, my fantasy self. If I were able to see, if I had God’s eyes, I would be witness to my abandoned self, rocking in a fetal position in the corner of my mind. It was that traumatic to the vulnerable and “sensitive” child that I was. He is still in me and I’m trying to rescue him, but the trauma laid me down for the count. I am alive, yet purgatory seems to be a fit title to the world as I grew up, and the wasteland I wandered through in my life. My attempt in therapy is to come in from the cold and rejoin the human society I have lived in. Life was on the outside looking in, disconnected.

Life was on the outside looking in, disconnected.


A troubling issue we traumatized folks must deal with is distrust and being severed from the umbilical cord of human connectedness. I feel detached. I do not belong or fit in with a community. Anxiety, separation, inadequate or “trauma bonding,” attachment issues, just the unspeakable state of despair and alienation. It shall remain that way until we “make a choice” and speak to a “safe” someone, an understanding soul. The ugly, awful experiences that shattered us, that story must be told openly and authentically. To heal yourself is to take responsibility for what has been done to you by acknowledging your suffering, shame, and terror of being exposed. It is frightening reaching out and asking for help, sharing with someone what has been a secret, horrifically lonely state of agony that makes you feel broken and isolated in this world; I know. It can be terrifying at first, but it is better than suffering silently throughout your entire life. It is better for you and better for those around you. One should want to present to the world with the best and the truest you that you can be for everyone’s social and mental health, and that can only be done by rediscovering and rescuing your hidden, abandoned self, your wounded inner child.

So, within me, many aspects of what is considered normal and traditionally viewed as a given human trait have been warped by hiding from the angry rage. It is once again the anger, the RAGE, creating the internalized trauma within myself. If someone gets angry at me, I sometimes become that child rocking himself in the corner (flashback symptoms of Complex-PTSD). I re-experience the emotional terror, the feeling experience, the abandonment I knew as a child in the painful moments of being abused. If I express myself for one thing or another, usually, I just don’t or haven’t expressed myself in the past. I have been avoidant. I sat silently in human interactions and hid my authentic self, wants, wishes, and desires while trying to figure out what the other person wanted from me. I want to avoid the anger they might show and their disapproval (rejection). It is that potential rejection, lurking behind everything, that holds me back. To be raged at, or in my case, to be in a relationship and have anger thrown at me, again, back to the child rocking himself in the corner. It is intolerable, as my anger and being free-spirited was intolerable to my caregiver. Being obedient in showing no anger is a pathetically sad expectation. Don’t be masculine was an issue for my caregiver, her hypervigilance toward sex in general, don’t own your sexuality, or don’t be an expressive man that threatens me. The depths I had to go to, to avoid the anger, disapproval, and rejection, were truly unbelievable. It is a miracle I survived. I did, but certainly not in one piece. Note to self: put the pieces back together in therapy.

Stepping out of one’s suit (skin), the spiritual self is like a floating spirit aimlessly seeking an identity. I cannot be me, so what do I put back in this empty suit to present to the world? One’s imagination can be strikingly creative around adopting a “false self.” Another condition of trauma is becoming codependent or enmeshed in the gooey expectations of an abuser. If you can’t escape, and a child can’t, “becoming like them” does not seem so far-fetched a solution or consideration. Might one even take on, or adopt the characteristics of one’s caretaker, to make one feel safe? It is the disapproval, fear of the rageful rejection, what wouldn’t one do to be safe from it… as a powerless, vulnerable child?

So many things are locked away, shut down, protecting myself from disapproval and rejection. I can’t own my sexuality for fear of ridicule and condemnation. I cannot dance for fear of ridicule, hypervigilant self-consciousness monitoring of me, judging me, and verbally enforcing the judgment. I can’t exit a relationship with another for fear of emotion-backed disapproval. That trauma drama of experiencing anger from another, or most especially hurting their feelings, that is strictly forbidden, verboten! Everything must be nice and tidy, safe, gentle, jovial, agreeable, PLEASING – FAKED! It can’t be contradictory, antagonistic, or disagreeable. It must be “pleasant” to avoid the risk of unleashing the secret, lurking, emotions of fury, hidden behind – the closed front door. That core of self that is paralyzed from even seeing the truth of what I just wrote; THAT is where I need to look in therapy. That is my mission’s new course. It is all blocked and repressed, numbed out by the INTERNALIZED fear of anger and REJECTION. At my core it is all about the inability to bond, to feel connected, and to feel loved. Why is my emotional affect shut down, stoically frozen in public? Fear of ridicule, and a rageful, contemptuous judgment. Why is my sexuality hidden even from myself most of the time, numbed out (asexual)? Fear of judgment, scorn, and shaming. What are most of my issues based on? “Internalized FEAR!” of rage, disapproval, and rejection. Attachment problems, feeling so different from others, “unlovable,” and it must be something about me that is “different, and unacceptable (toxic shame) created by internalized TRAUMA.”

What are my goals in therapy and life? Getting to that core of reclaiming my traumatized, abandoned self. Self-love recovery and repair, the journey, step by baby step, learning to risk being expression-full, calming myself, and trying to free my blocked and frozen emotions. State what I authentically mean, believe, and want. BE PRESENT and speak up. Be expressive of my sexuality, learn to own it, and to reclaim it; learn to fight back and stand up for myself. Rethink the learned trauma, associated with being the cause of another’s anger, upset, rage, (their hurt). Let them be themselves with their own emotions, separate from mine. Reclaim and recognize “the truth,” reality: I am not the cause of others’ emotions. Stop owning others’ emotions. I am not them; I am me, and I am reclaiming that little boy in the corner who needs my love and support (SELF LOVE!). This is my intention. He is never going away again, and he never should have. My mission is to help that little boy stand up on his own two feet, come back to me, and allow me to reclaim him. I have not been who I am; he is who I am, and I see he has had enough punishment for a lifetime.

Now that is getting to The Heart of the Matter.

Photo by Gabriel Mihalcea on Unsplash

 

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