Going no contact can be one of the hardest decisions you will ever have to make. Severing ties with family is a self-determined and empowered step toward ending emotional, physical, and psychological abuse. The consensus is that the choice to go no contact falls into three distinct categories:

1. Limiting family connections and the amount of time spent with family or avoiding specific family members or events that are the most triggering and abusive. (This could be a first option before fully going no contact and might feel like the best long-term option for your situation.)
2. Deliberately choosing to go no contact and removing toxic family members from your life.
3. The choiceless choice – when the choice to go no contact is automatic, made for you, or when there is literally no other choice to make but to sever all contact.

You may find that one choice may feel too much, another too little, and one may feel just right. No matter where you are in the process of making this decision, it is never easy. Making this choice is much more consequential and important than porridge, or the comfort of household furniture, and should not be taken lightly. No offense, Goldilocks.

For many going no contact means cutting ties and having no interactions or communication with a dysfunctional family of origin or removing yourself and moving farther away geographically. Going no contact is an empowering step to take, but it is also challenging to navigate this kind of break from toxic family members and extended interpersonal relationships. The web of players, loyalists, and enablers can often work together to undermine your decision and cause more trauma, shame, and harassment, all in an effort to get you back into your assigned role within the family structure. The abuse you receive leads to the relief that abusers count on to manage their own demons. Losing you as the scapegoat, whipping post, and innocent vessel to project all their own anger, fear, insecurities, and mental health issues onto is a loss for them and their egos. However, unfortunately, they will generally find another person to traumatize and project onto if you cut ties, so they can continue to avoid and deny their own issues and revel in seeing pain and suffering play out in another.

Concerns might arise over the timing of your decision or you may experience invalidating and sabotaging thoughts about separating from family despite your own mental health needs. You may find yourself ruminating over the consequences, fallout, or backlash that you may suffer, or equivocating and negotiating with yourself to decide if the situation is “bad enough” to move forward with severing ties completely. If you find yourself normalizing or minimizing toxic behavior this could be a sign of trauma bonding and a way of avoiding this very difficult decision.

Trauma bonding is developed over time and lives within the nervous system. It is the glue that holds an abusive relationship together. Every time your fight/flight survival response is activated in conjunction with sustained trauma by an abuser, an adrenaline connection is established. Repetitive abuse coupled with a familial abuser or abusers can create a confusing narrative that muddles the boundaries between healthy and toxic attachment. When we are taught that mothers, fathers, and family in general are supposed to love us, but they hurt us instead, a psychological conflict or cognitive dissonance occurs that creates insecurity, shame, low self-esteem, and internalized wounding. This repetitive dissonance, abuse, and hormonal triggering can create a labyrinth of misperceptions that confuse abuse and neglect with love.

In my own experience, it was never a decision I made willingly. It was a choiceless choice. I felt lucky in some small way that the choice was one that was clear and made for me. My family, especially my mother, had pushed me to my limit. There were many growing and considerably toxic moments that had been coming to a head – and then the last straw broke. I was at a family event and my niece overheard a very degrading and hurtful statement that my mother said to me. My mother was usually able to hide her jabs and hateful actions toward me, but,  on this occasion, she was revealed. The look on my niece’s face towards my mother was absolute disbelief and disgust – and then she looked at me to see my reaction. My niece explained her outrage to me, as she was confused and concerned for me. I was so used to being treated cruelly and wasn’t sure what to say but was uncomfortable and overwhelmed by the fact that someone else was now in the toxic pool with me and had seen a small portion of what was going on. I was stunned. The level of shame I experienced by having a witness to my abuse was terrifying at that moment and is still felt today, and the tears that arise as I write these words and relive that moment are a time capsule of disgrace still held deep within me.

Although I am a minimalist, I found a thread of similarity when I realized that hoarders often experience a sense of feeling violated, left vulnerable, and exposed when their homes are cleaned and organized. The mountains of clutter, clothing, belongings, and random, everyday things are put in place initially to isolate themselves; hide behind feelings of embarrassment, shame, and pain; and shield and protect themselves from others and what they fear. I did not realize the full scope of my hidden feelings and triggered wounds at the time, but once someone else saw the truth of what was happening, the hidden hoard, you might say, I soon realized how exposed and vulnerable I felt in that moment.

There was always a big part of me that wanted others to understand what was happening behind closed doors, to help and save me, to find out about the abuse and neglect at the hands of my mother, and how she had recruited family members and others to her side as proxies and enablers. Yet, when my niece looked at me, I felt so much shame and humiliation that I was the one exposed and left feeling unprotected and completely devastated. It was as if the truth had been hiding behind layers of trauma and neglect that were now cleared away, and visible for all to see. While the truth was revealed so too was a level of shame that I could not abide. It was as if my own niece could now see my unworthiness, undeserving self, and unlovability. She could see that my own mother and family did not care for me or love me and treated me with disdain.

At that moment, as much as I love my niece, and knowing how much she loves me, I felt a breaking point within me and knew that I could not sit through another family event. I could never have her or any other person witness my degradation and abuse at the hands of my mother and family or see me exposed. I also realized what I had been putting up with, accepting, and how retraumatizing each encounter with my family was and would be in the future. This event was the last straw, and when it occurred, it was clear and severe enough to make my decision to go no contact. I knew then that I was done. It was never a solid thought or a statement that I made to myself. I don’t think I had even entertained the idea prior, but, at that moment, I knew I could no longer play the part I had been playing in my family or feel like a victim of their abuse one more day.

I ended up moving more than 2,000 miles away from my family, which included my extended and loving family of friends and the few members of my family of origin that I trusted. My new home was a place that felt like home to me from the first time I had driven into town and thereafter. I had visited this place frequently over the years and fell in love with the energy, beauty, space, simplicity, and response of my own personal feelings. It seemed like a great place to start building a new life. So, one day, when it felt just right, I hooked up my truck to a U-Haul packed with my belongings, along with my dog and two cats, and left everything behind in hopes of better times ahead.

I remember starting out in my new community and feeling free. It was as if someone turned on a bright light and said, “Now, go be authentically you.” I did not have to hide or wonder who I might know around every corner, or who was going to judge, ostracize, harm, or hurt me, or just do something randomly mean and demeaning towards me. The experience and freedom to be authentically myself had never been more realized than it was in my new town. My shame was nowhere to be found because no one had access to my past, my history, or my family that recruited others to join in abusing and hurting me. My family was well known in my hometown, so the feeling of freedom, peace, and relief that no one knew me in my new world was transformative.

My relationships continue to ebb and flow as all involved get older. I feel much more empowered and have developed very strong boundaries when dealing with family members, and others who push their limits with me, but there is still unhealed trauma that gets activated and boils to the surface. I struggle, heal, and fall again and again, but I keep getting back up. I write and share and listen and heal one Friday Edition and HeartBalm Healing podcast at a time. There is growth, expansion, and evolution that happens when going no contact and facing the next steps of rebuilding a life for yourself that is grounded in healing, self-loving actions, and an empowered HeartSpace that grows as we grow. It is an ongoing garden that needs tending, nourishing, harvesting, and a lot of love, compassion, understanding, rest, forgiveness, and gratitude.

Getting support from a trauma-informed professional can help make this transition more manageable and provide tools, structure, and a developed plan for moving forward. When you begin to remove toxic people from your life, you begin to understand that who you surround yourself with is entirely your choice. These empowered and positive actions support your own wellness and healing journey, and you begin to understand and embrace your own magnificent, deserving, authentic, and loving self. You nurture the ground you walk on and begin to find all the ways that you are deserving and that you are worthy of everything good!

I no longer look to my abusers with any expectation of remorse, apology, restitution, restoration, or relationship. I’m at peace, accepting that they won’t and can’t help me out of the mess they created. But,  I’m the best qualified for that job anyway and I’m happy with the job I’m doing.

— Christina Enevoldsen, The Rescued Soul: The Writing Journey for the Healing of Incest and Family Betrayal

For other helpful articles, tools, and topics visit the HeartBalm archives, and for healing-guided meditations please visit the HeartBalm Meditation Toolbox on the home page. To subscribe or to find out more information go to the HeartBalm website.

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.

Sunny Lynn, OMC

Sunny Lynn, OMC is a spiritual counselor, writer, poet, photographer, meditator, and nature lover on a mission of transmuting complex trauma through self-love, healing, and bringing balm to hearts everywhere. She has a blog and podcast – HeartBalm at heartbalm.substack.com that speaks on the topic of self-care and self-love, mindfulness and healing while living with CPTSD.

www.heartbalmhealing.com

There is a game afoot! It is there lying in wait for the next time you do something or act a certain way that mirrors an old pattern from the past. It is ready to rise up again and get you to turn on yourself in a way that you have been trained to do. Like a marionette on strings, you will hop to another’s tune, and move in the same way that you have been taught and habituated to react. Except now you are the one pulling the strings and are the puppet herself. You are in both roles now.

Oftentimes, the way in which we were made to jump through hoops as a child or with a long-standing abuser or abusive parent, guardian, sibling, or toxic extended family structure remains intact as we get older. Complex trauma does not let go of old wounds, patterns, and the sickening games we were made to play out with dysfunctional others just because we reach adulthood.

If you are dealing with CPTSD you know all too well the layered onion, and seemingly endless areas of wounding and places within that hold trauma. When repetitive abuse occurs, especially as a child, the entrenched patterns created by toxic abusers can be a minefield to navigate for the rest of one’s life. Throughout life, triggers and old patterns arise that throw us into flashbacks, dissociative episodes, and long periods of mental and physical anguish. Help is never quite sufficient, thorough enough, readily available, or affordable. Any stop-gap measure we might reach for never quite alleviates suffering or fixes what is wrong. The band-aid approach is never enough to heal the wounds faced in a day, a month, or a life. They become frustratingly inadequate, and a reminder of how broken, unhealable, and like an unfixable project we feel.

A child, who has endured and survived repetitive and long-term abuse and neglect is set up to fail. Used repeatedly in an abuser(s) game of self-interest and exploitation. A way to gain power and control over another because of their own feelings of insecurity, inadequacy, and mental instability. But for an adult to do this to another – let alone a child, and let alone their own child, is an inexcusable act. Yet, the child is the one that will carry all of the trauma, the wounds, shame, and self-hatred, and find no forgiveness for herself/himself even into adulthood. The child will internalize all the hatred, abuse, game-playing, hoop-jumping, neglect, unworthiness, undeserving, insecurity, and inadequacy as their own – and replay it for a lifetime. This is the perpetrator’s intention, however, to project all their own toxic shame, unhealed wounds, unaccepted parts, and places held and hated within them to those outside of themselves and onto their chosen target.

As a child – the first instincts are that of a wholly innocent being learning from those that are in charge of her/his welfare, growth, and healthy development. The child is a sponge – taking in what it is given. Learning from those in their immediate sphere. This child is not chosen because she/he is bad or wrong or deserved to be used and exploited – this is never or will ever be the fault of a child. We must go back to this place of innocence, of our wholeness at birth, of our deserving, our worthiness, and our already loved, loveable, and loving state of being. This is how we were born and how we came into the world. It is not gained through religion, spiritual practices, societal or cultural norms, or another’s determination that deems us so. Innocence and wholeness are the authentic nature of any newborn – this is your authentic nature – your intact, universally-given, and granted way of being. Take away all else that you think you are, or all that you have covered yourself in, or added to your being, and go back to the simple truth of who you are. Drop everything that you have tried to add to make yourself more, and see that you are already imbued with this truth of wholeness and completeness, and are absolutely and unconditionally loved.

The problem begins when the truth of our wholeness and innocence is consistently skewed by another, especially by a parent or caregiver, and then reinforced by the wider circle of familial enablers, and all those wishing to stay safe from attack themselves. Over time, the campaigns of abuse and being projected upon, gaslit, scapegoated, and traumatized create patterns within the child that become entrenched. How is a child’s mind supposed to cope with such strain and abuse, and the cognitive dissonance and callous senselessness by those that are supposed to love, protect, and care for them? A child’s psyche will eventually break under the pressure of abuse, and fractures as it jumps through endless hoops trying to find solid ground and a space or person who is safe and trustworthy but instead finds that safety and acceptance are a lost cause. In order to survive, the mind breaks off into fragments to hold parts of itself safe, and far away from terror and obliteration, while other parts become the bully, or the severe inner critic mimicking the abuser, and turning on herself/himself. The idea that any child is subjected to a home where they must endure and survive their own parents and family to develop and grow is an unconscionable thought. Yet, it is an unspoken, unaided, and unattended reality in so many households. It is no wonder the patterns developed as a child and reinforced within the family system and extended enabler system, become the abusive ghosts that follow us throughout life.

Habituated – practiced, addicted, seasoned, veteran, hardened, experienced, dependent, accustomed, inclined, hooked – these are all synonyms for the word habituated. It is clear the power that repetitive abuse and neglect have over another, and the way the mind, body, and heart adapt to handle the pressure and cognitive dissonance of manipulation and abusive encounters, especially by parents, caregivers, loved ones, spouses, family, and extended interpersonal groups.

We end up abusing ourselves, jumping through our own hoops and over our own created hurdles. We end up setting up similar games that we can play out in our day-to-day lives, and then if we fail or do not do it exactly as we think it should be done, we then become our own bully or abuser. We may not realize the negative self-talk and berating critical voice as an old abuser but if we look and listen again we may find a familiar narrative.

Your inner critic re-affirms untruths about yourself that you have internalized to be true. Athena Laz, “The Deliberate Dreamer’s Journal”

The inner critic can hold space as a gentle voice, as an impatient and judgmental voice, or come in full throttle as a severe and chronically abusive inner critic. These changes, or degree of severity can ebb and flow or it can be stuck on one consistent volume. This is the voice, including the language used and the games being played that we need to open to, come closer to, and really begin to listen to, to be able to unwind and reveal the looping narrative at play. Clarity in this practice is key to unlocking the power and control that this negative and repetitive pattern has over you.

STEPS TO REPATTERN OLD PATTERNS

1. The first step is just beginning to listen; to become aware of that inner toxic noise that comes in to berate, abuse, judge, or tell you that you are wrong, unworthy, or dole out other negative self-talk. Begin to journal what is arising, and what you are beginning to hear and see as ridiculously judgmental, over the top, and far from a loving voice. Get to know this recurring narrative, the sound, and tone of voice, and breathe deeply into your courageous and willing action to face, understand, and “out” this old foe that lives hidden and resolute in the dark corners of your mind.
2. The second step is to redirect negative self-talk in a new way. As the inner critic’s voice becomes clearer to you – begin to develop a positive inner coach – with a firm but fair tone and voice. If you played sports or had a teacher or other adult in your life that was a positive influence link into this constructive, supportive, and motivating way of being that you admired and how this helped you in your life. Foster and nurture an inner coach within you that stands in her own power, is confident and sometimes tough with you, but inherently and unconditionally loves you and wants the best for you. As the inner critic comes online, and you are swayed to take up your place in the old habituated pattern – bring your inner tough-loving coach in to stand up to the negative inner critic and say “NO! I will not play this game with you. I have had enough!” Allow your inner coach to stand in this place with you and guide you lovingly, and firmly through the experience, standing up to the voice of criticism and the deep trough of addicted reacting and negative feedback. As you stand up to, become clearly aware of, and face the inner critic this negative voice will begin to diminish over time. Allow your inner coach to direct you and bring you back to yourself, and back to a loving, safe, and protected place – grounded, and free from the negative patterning and toxic inner voices. Write down the language of your loving inner coach. Write down statements that you can reach for when old negative self-talk arises or when you notice the critical voice in the background of your mind – dictating softly what it does not want you to hear and become wise to. Be prepared and ready for the patterns that will cycle back and try to exploit your habituated mind and bring you back to the patterns of the past. Get ready to overturn the apple cart and interrupt the old voices and patterns trying to get you back into the game.
3. The third step is to find the toxic games you were forced to play as a child. Any games or hoops you were made to jump through by an abuser or others, and then find it within yourself today. Where are you still playing out that role or game? Where are you overriding your own ability to love yourself fully because of this seasoned pattern that is still replaying in your life? Where are you abandoning your own sense of self-acceptance and the ability to see yourself as whole, loveable, worthy, and deserving of being loved? If as an adult you find yourself feeling to blame for mistakes made by others or anything that goes wrong you may have been the subject of scapegoating or gaslighting. These patterns once seen and faced can begin to shift with your loving awareness, and your inner coach’s help to let go of the feelings of self-blame, shame, and guilt for all that is not yours. Another example could be if you had to take on the responsibility of your parents and family – overextending yourself to fix problems, secure love, and acceptance, survive, and parent your parents. This could manifest in your adulthood as someone who takes on the responsibilities of those that shirk their responsibilities – triggered by the feelings of having to survive, try and make things better, more organized, and less overwhelming and tolerable for you to exist in.

Overriding old negative patterns will take time. But as you move through and encounter these moments you will find that the love that supports you in this process – your own loving heart that wants to advise, support, motivate, and change old habits will become stronger than the old pattern put on you and adapted for your survival. It will become clear that it is no longer what you want to metabolize in your daily life or hold as a way of being. You will find yourself becoming more self-empowered, and unwilling to put up with nonsense, criticism, and negativity, and become focused on loving yourself from the inside out and being treated with care, safety, love, and respect. You are habituating your own loving patterns now and seeing the old hardened and unyielding ways of being unraveling and falling away.

EMBRACE YOURSELF

as the one that has been with you your whole life,

as the one who wants to love you more than anything else,

as the one who knows you best,

as the one who can understand your pain,

as the one who has deep compassion,

for all that you have endured,

as the one who feels the inner ache,

and wants to hold and soothe,

as the one who holds the key to your freedom.

Give way now to your own loving hand

outstretched and eager to lead you back home

to yourself,

and to your own loving heart.

Drop all that you believe about yourself

good, bad, or indifferent.

Drop all of the ways in which you judge yourself,

all of the ways in which you say you have wronged or are wrong,

all of the ways in which your abilities and life have not measured up.

Give way to a new space of allowing yourself to be just as you are.

Can you accept this?

Can you see yourself as whole and complete in all that you do?

Can you give up picking yourself apart,

and tearing yourself to shreds

because you think you have erred in some way?

It is time sweet one, to accept all that you are,

all that you have been and will ever be.

It is time to stand in your wholeness,

with your imagined flaws, imperfections, and all.

It is time to walk with head held high,

with chest raised, shoulders back,

breathing in and out fully and confidently.

It is time to stand in the space of self-empowerment,

of deserving, worthiness, of safety and spaciousness,

even if you do not yet believe it fully.

It is time to play the game your way,

to embrace, love and become all that you are

at this moment, in this place and time.

There is nothing else that needs to be added,

nothing to fix or figure out.

There is no new trauma project to take on and heal,

no more internal changes you need to make,

except for the one that makes you a friend to yourself,

and the practice

of wholeness,

self-acceptance and self-loving actions.

There will still be times when you falter,

and fall back into old patterns,

and play out others’ games,

using yourself as the scapegoat or whipping post,

but this will become your reminder

of what no longer serves you,

and you can step back into your practice,

and your game of loving yourself unconditionally

as the way of relearning your way back home

to your deserving, worthy and loving heart.

_Sunny Lynn, OMC, HeartBalm

To read or explore more please reference this publications resource list:

• _Athena Laz, “The Deliberate Dreamer’s Journal”
• _Sunny Lynn, OMC, HeartBalm

For other helpful articles, tools, and topics visit the HeartBalm Archives, and for healing-guided meditations please visit the HeartBalm Meditation Toolbox on the home page. To subscribe or to find out more information go to the HeartBalm website.

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.

Sunny Lynn, OMC

Sunny Lynn, OMC is a spiritual counselor, writer, poet, photographer, meditator, and nature lover on a mission of transmuting complex trauma through self-love, healing, and bringing balm to hearts everywhere. She has a blog and podcast – HeartBalm at heartbalm.substack.com that speaks on the topic of self-care and self-love, mindfulness and healing while living with CPTSD.

www.heartbalmhealing.com

As an adult, you may look back at your childhood self and realize how ill-equipped, poorly protected, vulnerable, and deceived you were. You begin to see how betrayed, used, abused, and manipulated you were by a narcissistic parent. From the adult perspective rage, anger, anxiety, panic disorders, and even sadness and depression may show up in our lives as we become aware of our dysfunctional childhood or may arise in response to coming to terms with this troubling truth.

A narcissistic parent will generally choose a child of the same gender to scapegoat, gaslight, and employ as their object to terrorize. Narcissists see others as merely extensions of themselves, not as individuals or autonomous beings – therefore, their ability to use anything you do or do not do as ammunition against you is easy for them to justify. They believe that who you are, what you do, and how you act and relate to others is a direct reflection of them. They can be competitive with the child, ignore the child’s needs, become jealous and angry when the child innocently outshines the parent, and treat you well in public and around others but revert back to the insensitive, cruel narcissist behind closed doors – in short, the child can never win.

From a child’s perspective being pleasing and pleasing the parent is their instinctual guide, and only tool to sustain their survival – which sadly, is the perfect landscape for the narcissist to exploit. No matter what the child tries to do to appease the abuser, or in frustration throws a tantrum in opposition, and pure overwhelm the abusive parent will use all of it to make the child the “bad one,” and to punish the child further. Conversely, any achievements the child might have, outside adoration or praise, physical looks, beauty, likeability, popularity, or other positive attributes are also theirs, and as a result of them.

Exploring the topic of jealous, and narcissistic mothers is complicated, and not always a space that is easy to open ourselves up to. For those that endured a toxic mother, we are left with the fallout of automated coping strategies that loosely served us as a child or teen but make managing adult life difficult. We are left with painful memories, repeating toxic narratives, and systemic familial betrayals and failures that are difficult to face and breathe in our waking moments. It is easier to put them aside and deal with them later, if at all. We can know some truths that bite internally; that ask us to move closer but the reality is this is a tough request to accommodate.

As you begin to qualify what happened by sieving through the everyday reactions and triggers that you now face, and the coping strategies, and extraordinary maneuvers you make in order to maintain your equilibrium, and adult existence you realize the extent of what you endured and ultimately survived. Now comes the work of understanding, releasing, allowing yourself to feel into your being, learning how to love yourself, and excavating your needs, wants, desires, and all that was buried so long ago for the sake of a jealous and narcissistic mother.

This may ring out as a taboo topic but for so many this needs to be heard, aired out, understood, and allowed into the conversation on healing. It needs to be held and felt and no longer minimized! For many growing up with an anti-mother – one who is unable to nurture, to show healthy love and affection, whose parenting style is that of taking rather than giving, of destruction rather than creation – the topic is hidden and rarely discussed. This kind of toxic parent-to-child arrangement creates the Helen Kellers of CPTSD – unable to speak, hear, see, or understand the world around us. Hoping for someone to find and help us, teach us about love – show us what tenderness, safety, understanding, and compassion feel like. Allow us a chance to exhume, understand and make sense of what has transpired, and been hidden like our unmet needs and wants, our own unique and brilliant personality and being, and bring light to our eyes, ears, and hearts, and balm to our shattered being.

For so many that have endured this hellscape and survived finding safe harbor in others that have also lived through similar horrors of childhood, and realizing that there are answers and that you are not alone is so helpful. I want to honor all those that find solidarity and healing in the understanding, hurts, and pains of this kind of lived path. After writing many poems on the subject of narcissist mothers, and going more in-depth here to expand further on this subject I can honestly say I feel lighter and more free from my toxic benefactor, and more easily able to let her go, as well as her enablers and all of the old barbs stuck throughout my body and being that triggered me for so long. I want my freedom, and the ability to walk this earth each day without being haunted by old stories, and voices, feeling under attack or readying for imminent assault, or having anyone else taking up space in my mind, body, heart, and soul.

If you have endured and survived a narcissistic mother or caregiver, I invite you to open the door to your freedom and expand your heart and mind with the intention of pulling yourself close and placing yourself on a pedestal of priority, importance, and deserving.

I invite you to put yourself first in the process of taking back your individuality, embracing your authentic nature, and independent spirit, and begin to habituate and prioritize your own self-loving, self-nurturing, self-caring, and self-compassionate actions. This is a way to bring solace, consideration, kindness, and nurturing to yourself in a way that ushers in freedom from the past, a release and letting go of the pain, shame, and nonsensical experiences you faced and lived through.

I also invite you to write poetry or free verse, or journal about your experience, and what you endured. You may also consider writing an honest and no-holds-barred letter to your toxic benefactor(s), parent(s), or caregiver(s), and then burn or shred them with glee, relief, mercy, and ceremony.

I offer a poem here that I hope will inspire your own sacred voice and healing journey, bring resonance to your heart, a kindred voice, comfort, and words that resound loudly that “You are not alone!”

She would rather see me in pain,

reeling from heartache, loss, and failure

instead of happy, fulfilled, loved,

and on the precipice

of a hopeful

and abundant future.

Her pain,

her past stories

of her own trauma

clouding her heart

and love for me –

her own daughter.

She saw in me

what was taken from her.

She saw possibility in my world

in a way

that she could not see

in her own.

She could not bear the thought

of me having what she could not.

Freedom, abundance, beauty,

love, and kindness –

these things I may have had,

revealed, possessed,

or been given

at some early time in my life

but each one was ripped away,

broken, taken,

and thrown away like trash.

My pain her happiness –

transferred from biological mother

to innocent child.

She had given birth to the one

that could bear her pain,

the one

that she could torture

and shame,

and treat like dirt –

all the while watching

my tears, suffering, and agony

with a glee, and a relief

that I did not understand.

Her pain now living

in someone outside of her –

in front of her eyes,

and not ruining,

or taunting her

anymore.

What a wonderful plan

she had for herself

but never for me.

I learned to live in lack.

Learned to expect little,

and give everything.

All for her empty,

and voracious soul –

hungry to have

or destroy what she thought

I was given and she was not.

The unfairness of life

to give an innocent daughter

to a starving,

and traumatized mother.

She gave me her scorn,

her hatred,

her generational trauma,

and familial unfairness,

and saw me as the enemy

to be destroyed.

Yet, my heart still beats,

my lungs breathe,

and I am still here.

I Am.

So, I continue.

Finding understanding, patience,

love,

and breath as the way

to come alive each day –

for myself and those I love.

For the world,

and all that I love and hold dear.

There is no other answer for me –

no other reason to try

and change the past, fix

or figure it out,

or ponder the reasons

why me – yet

there is only ever this moment

and an infinite sky that says

I am here,

and I am not going anywhere.

The endless guiding brilliance,

and shining of the sun,

the stars ages and years away

sparkling on,

and the arc of life

outside my door in every plant,

tree, bird, bee, dandelion,

and deer that I see

tell me what is real,

and show me what is vital.

Her jealousy, rage,

and ignorance all hers now.

Gifted to me

as a nuclear bomb

but now a box of blessings,

light, grace, and the will

to keep moving forward.

There is nothing else but choosing –

choosing to accept, allow and be –

to keep moving forward

in the midst of pain, and agony.

All of it

part of life.

All of it

reminding me what love is,

and is not.

All of it

part of the process

that is a part of me,

and my unfolding,

and evolving journey.

_Sunny Lynn, OMC, HeartBalm

For other helpful articles, tools, and topics visit the HeartBalm Archives, and for healing-guided meditations please visit the HeartBalm Meditation Toolbox on the home page. To subscribe or to find out more information go to the HeartBalm website.

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.

Sunny Lynn, OMC

Sunny Lynn, OMC is a spiritual counselor, writer, poet, photographer, meditator, and nature lover on a mission of transmuting complex trauma through self-love, healing, and bringing balm to hearts everywhere. She has a blog and podcast – HeartBalm at heartbalm.substack.com that speaks on the topic of self-care and self-love, mindfulness and healing while living with CPTSD.

www.heartbalmhealing.com

Living with trauma has many facets and differing ways in which it forms and plays out in our lives. It can be a tightrope walk between trying to navigate a “normal” day and all that must be attended to alongside the chaos, triggers, trauma responses, and physical and nervous systems responses. The emotional roller coaster ride of despair confusion, anger, fear, and anxiety truncated with flashbacks and dissociative episodes showcases even further the unrelenting nightmare of CPTSD and the myriad effects of such a complicated disorder. Therefore, highlighting the superpowers attained as a result of CPTSD, and bringing validation to the superhuman strength and abilities developed over time, and the courage, and endurance needed to “live with” complex trauma is important and necessary.

If we look at the secretive nature of trauma, especially if exacted on a child’s first experiences of life and repeated into adulthood, and how it is hidden, dismissed, denied, and then continues on unaided and neglected in the growing individual we see its impact. This impact continues more broadly within the public sphere, as well as in humanity’s understanding of the collective nature of suffering, trauma, and untreated mental issues where we still find a wall of resistance, fear, silence, ignorance, and more rugs to sweep abuse under.

The idea of sourcing superpowers that arise from a state of survival and trauma is surely considered by some to be “raised eye-brow wisdom.” However, this isn’t about being an optimist on this very challenging topic and experience of trauma but to bring a different perspective to the conversation that we each, those that have experienced trauma, can bring to our truth and empowerment table; this space where we embrace all that we are in the here and now, and live fiercly and fully from the present moment as healthy, whole and remarkable.

So many of the conversations on complex trauma revolve around fixing ourselves. Trying to bandaid the litany of trauma experiences and aftershocks incurred daily, managing and healing ongoing and repetitive reactions specific to facing fears, embracing all of our fractured and terrified parts, and trying to meet a scary world one more time in hopes that this time will be easier and not alight our sensitive fight/flight survivalist responses. Little room is left to bring focus to the extraordinary human strength, ingenuity, and intelligence it takes to endure on a minute-to-minute basis and to simply carry on. There is little talk about bringing balance and understanding of how lives are molded, evolve, develop, and change (good and bad) to the table – or a new perspective. There is little talk about shining the light of truth on one’s self – on the cumulative self from birth to the present day that highlights the truth of wholeness, and the fact that you are not wrong nor is there anything wrong with you, you are not bad or broken, you are not worthless or insignificant – you are whole, enough, and worthy of thriving.

Sometimes, the loop that health professionals and others get caught in – is seeing your long-held survivalist strategies and trauma responses as all that you are – and something to focus wholly on and fix. We take up the gauntlet of “endlessly broken victim” in order to make it all make sense, and have something to focus on, have control over, blame, and cure. We consolidate ourselves into a small package that can hold us and all that upsets our lives as the only way to find relief, heal our broken self, and get to the finish line of “normal” – but what is “normal?”

What if you could stop and look squarely at yourself and see your exceptional, worthy, deserving, and complete self, and allow that narrative, and that truth to be yours? Can you taste that feeling if only for a moment or get a glimpse of your wholeness, and begin to understand that the crucibles you overcome each day are not who you are, nor do they define you but instead have revealed superhuman strengths and aspects that are exceptional and uniquely specific to you.

Everyone whether they have experienced childhood and/or adult trauma or not is a culmination of life experiences from birth to the present moment. You are fully who you are today – full stop. The question becomes… can you be okay with that? And, if not then how can you begin to accept who you are in this moment?

Childhood trauma fractures the mind into parts and pieces. You may never meet, be able to fix, or become aware of every fractured part. Can that be okay?

Can you begin to see yourself as complete right here and right now – even in the midst of all that trauma brings, leaves on your doorstep without permission, and is still inflaming in your mind, body, and life experience?

This is a true inquiry into your remarkable self, and from a trauma perspective a counterintuitive, and tough request to consider “radical acceptance.” This place within you that accepts all that you are in the face of what has happened and is still being experienced within you and mirrored back to you out in the world.

In my recent podcast on “radical acceptance,” I speak of staking ourselves to the hard ground as guinea pigs to experiment on in order to find relief, healing, understanding, and a way out of the jungle of complex trauma because there is so little help from outside sources. We use ourselves as experimental subjects to try and find any way to stop the screaming banshees, and ghosts from wreaking havoc on another day in our life. Having little to no help with our pain, or the topic of trauma and CPTSD itself we are left vulnerable and often vilified, ostracized, and heckled by our own families, extended family, family friends, and in-laws. We are retraumatized by this lack of understanding and care. Yet, we continue on in the face of the bullying, neglect, and rejection – we learn to love ourselves in order to keep moving forward – that is powerful and extraordinary.

The best minds in mental health aren’t the docs. They’re the trauma survivors who have had to figure out how to stay alive for years with virtually no help.

_Dr. Glenn Doyle, “Just So Ya Know: 30 Things To Keep In Mind While Rebuilding Your Life”

Throughout life, the broader hopes and viewpoints of youth narrow to a more battle-worn, measured, and realistic view of life through the lens of trial and error, wisdom, and maturity. The nonsense and superfluous chaff of life fall away to reveal the bare essentials instead. This can be a stark, scary, and revealing contrast to what we had been striving for as our benchmark of “normal” or societal acceptance. It can be an eye-opening and heart-breaking experience that we can run from, begrudgingly withstand, or radically accept. It is a choice and an opportunity for readiness. But do not miss the opportunity in its coming – this invitation is offered specifically for you and your benefit. It is asking you to perceive yourself and your life differently, and open to a new way of seeing how and who you are right here and right now.

Many years on an experimental, painful, and revelatory journey have helped peel away the scales from my eyes, and the thick armor from my heart. As I fought with, dispelled, denied, and ran from myself, from life, and situations that triggered me to flashbacks and dissociation from life I began to understand my own inner needs, internal cries for help, positive self-loving actions, and my superpowers that surviving against all odds had revealed. I began to face, accept and embrace all that I was – as whole, as loved, loving and loveable, and not broken! I have challenges, obstacles, and pitfalls that I continue to deal with and face but they didn’t have to define me any longer. I knew I was different from others and had to meet life differently but I finally accepted that just made me – me. I embraced my differences and the exceptional abilities I had developed over time like being hyper-vigilant, highly intuitive, empathic, able to juggle many things and maintain high functionality even during stressful times. I am a creative out-of-the-box thinker, a human truth detector, can see repetitive patterns easily, and am adept at investigating and getting to the truth quickly. After a while I also began to accept that I cared less about what anyone thought of me – their opinion of me was none of my business – and vice versa. I became a compassionate and supportive advocate for myself – as there was no one better positioned for that role than me.

Along with owning and embracing our superpowers, there is the need to face the kryptonite or the power-robbing sources of our being. These can come in the form of toxic people and specific environments that feel “unsafe” or energetically “icky,” as well as past or current abusers, and specific feelings of overwhelm or becoming flooded with emotions. Sickness, or times when there is a lack of energy, feeling foggy, exhausted, or “out of it”, and for women, this can show up in hormonal shifts and become a trigger that pushes us to panic and rage when we feel that we can’t take care of ourselves, defend ourselves or fight back due to the spacey, foggy feelings and sensations. Anything that activates a triggered response, flashbacks, or dissociative episodes without warning is kryptonite – those things that weaken our abilities, make us feel that we have failed ourselves or others in some way and rob us of precious time, resources, and our ability to be present and fully in our body. Can you begin to identify the kryptonite that recurs in your life, and robs you of your power and peace? Can you begin to see that as you identify them – and as they are revealed more clearly you have more perspective, compassion, and understanding?

These are small steps to take but in the long run, this information along with your identified superpowers can pull together a more complete picture of who you are – one that more closely resonates with your truth and authenticity – and one you can see with full admiration and appreciation. CPTSD waits for no one and offers little respite or peace on the journey of life yet if you look closely enough you can see the extraordinary ways in which you have coped, endured, lived and breathed, and gotten to this point in life. You are a courageous warrior on the path of life – handling all that comes your way as best as you can. There are no answers or easy exits to take on this road only the one that is presented to us and that takes bravery, fortitude, curiosity, and grace.

There is no winning or losing at CPTSD – there is merely accepting what is. It is the tonic to find lasting peace and harmony, trust, and acceptance of ourselves. I invite you to begin the journey of seeing yourself as a whole and complete, extraordinary, incredible being that is worthy, deserving, unique to the world, and necessary. David Whyte, poet and author speaks of our unique and necessary being through poetry:

Poetry is the great act of jogging people’s elbows – or reminding people that they are this astonishing sacred frontier of experience that has never appeared before in the whole of time and never ever will appear again, and there is no one else who can occupy that corner of creation except that one person. And their taste, the way they see, the flavor of things that they feel has never quite been felt in the same way by anyone else and never ever will be.

_David Whyte, “Midlife and the Great Unknown”

What are your superpowers? Superpowers can be as simple as:

• strong intuitive and empathic abilities
• saying “no” when you need to – without apology
• sensitivity and deep resonance with nature, animals, art, poetry, etc.
• practicing self-care and self-loving rituals
• juggling multiple things at the same time
• unyielding boundary setting
• truth-telling, and truth detection

What gifts, creative outlets and skills, ways of being, relating to, or dealing with others have you developed and are unique to you?

Find all the ways in which you are different, have created distinctive ways to cope and survive, and see these as unique to you, exceptional, and extraordinary – these are your superpowers.

Find all the ways in which you have turned challenges and the chaos of life into sources of understanding, love, compassion, self-acceptance, and triumphs of enduring.

This is not an easy journey – but it is worthy of note – it is worthy of recognizing your customized way of adapting to and meeting yourself and life each and every day. That is superhuman – that is a feat of sheer will, strength, and self-love.

To read or explore more please reference this publications resource list:

• Dr. Glenn Doyle, “Just So Ya Know: 30 Things To Keep In Mind While Rebuilding Your Life”
• David Whyte, “Midlife and the Great Unknown”

For other helpful articles, tools, and topics visit the HeartBalm Archives, and for healing-guided meditations please visit the HeartBalm Meditation Toolbox on the home page. To subscribe or to find out more information go to the HeartBalm website.

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.

Sunny Lynn, OMC

Sunny Lynn, OMC is a spiritual counselor, writer, poet, photographer, meditator, and nature lover on a mission of transmuting complex trauma through self-love, healing, and bringing balm to hearts everywhere. She has a blog and podcast – HeartBalm at heartbalm.substack.com that speaks on the topic of self-care and self-love, mindfulness and healing while living with CPTSD.

www.heartbalmhealing.com

Self-love… what?

What is the path to self-love when I have only known suffering, abuse, fear, and survival? How do I access this space that allows me to hold myself with compassion, love, and kindness when I have not known this kind of nurturing and how it feels to be loved and cared for in this way?

For so many of us, surviving each day, keeping a roof over our heads, staying consistent, and staving off fears and anxieties, triggers and downward spirals that threaten to upend our health and sanity is a full-time gig. The simple act of tending to the everyday needs of life is more than enough to keep us moving forward and able to get to the next day, or the next hour or minute. How do we or how can we add this other task and element of healing to our to-do list?

Maybe we have a therapist or counselor we speak with and this healing helps and carries us through. Great – that is self-loving.

Maybe we have a mindfulness practice where we stay as present as we can throughout the day, and meditate regularly or when we can. Wonderful – that is self-loving.

Maybe we volunteer and give back when we are able and that expands our hearts, makes us feel good, and affirms that when we help others, we are helping ourselves. Perfect – that is self-loving.

There are so many ways to find and nurture self-love within us and to make that an inward-facing action of compassion and self-care. But there can also be a gap in our understanding, need, and willingness in how we care for and nurture ourselves because it has not been modeled to us and for us. For many who suffered childhood trauma and neglect – especially at the hands of a deeply narcissistic parent/guardian, and extended family we were only allowed to attend to their needs and wants – ours were quashed, manipulated, and made irrelevant and wrong in the face of a tyrannical narcissist or abusive parent. How do we come home to our vulnerable selves when we are not sure of our own wants and needs because we have become so accustomed to neglecting, betraying, and dismissing ourselves in the course of a day?

We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.

_Carl Jung, “The Undiscovered Self: The Dilemma of the Individual in Modern Society”

Growing up and into adulthood, I watched friends who had loving parents and families and how they responded to life. Fears, upsets, or anxiety may arise for them from a failed relationship, life event, or random occurrence, and they are, of course, devastated, in tears at times, frustrated, and scared. But their ability to move through it and find a way back into the ease and normal cycles of life, and carry on has always left me curious and jealous more times than I can count. It is a far cry from how I plummet to the deepest depths of despair and wonder how to come back and live again – how to climb back out of this bottomless pit of overwhelming feelings and terrifying sensations that weigh more than I could possibly ever carry.

The following is a poem I wrote about a friend’s reaction to a situation that confused me. I love this poem and love her dearly but it does explain the differences in our shared experience and how we both come to and experience life.

Those Geese are Mean!

And she said, “Those geese are mean!”

She is a kind soul.

A person who finds the good in all.

Someone for whom life is cushioned without fail.

Yet in a world filled with wars,

Greedy, soulless men,

And the planet on which we live

Exhausted by abuse and neglect,

She is unsettled by a bird.

Next to a beautiful early-morning lake,

On a spectacular fall-colored day,

She is adamant to say out loud,

“Those geese are mean.”

_Sunny Lynn

For the trauma survivor and those with CPTSD, each upset, abuse, and trigger is a life sentence that can also move to a death sentence literally or figuratively as in living a zombie-like existence. I realized over time that I was degrading my own reactions to life and normalizing my friend’s responses to difficult times and heartbreak, and how their journey seemed much easier, soft, and less life-threatening than my own. I realized I was taking their experience and putting it against my own responses to life’s upheavals – trying to fit it into me somehow, and wondering why their “normal” did not fit me. I found out it would never fit. It was a far cry from my own experience and I did not understand why for a long time.

I realized the common thread of many of my friends, and how loving and nurturing at least one or both of their parents had been towards them, and how that forgiving space, that consistency in having a soft place to fall within their family unit gave them a reliability and trust in where and how they landed after a difficult situation. They were not petrified when something bad happened, or that their life as they knew it was over and about to be extinguished. They were upset and distressed but the uninterrupted memory of being held, comforted, and loved through tough times was their anchor, and their deep knowing that no matter what – they were safe, loved, and would be comforted – even as adults. It was a built-in knowing within them, and unflinching solace for them in tough times – they knew no different. There were no deep, dark, bottomless holes to fall into for them – no places like mine and so many others, where life events cast them alone into the bleakest, darkest, scariest, and unprotected corners of the world. The spaces where the thick atmosphere of desolation, hopelessness, and continued threats was the only air to breathe.

When you are born in a burning house, you think the whole world is on fire. But it’s not.

_Richard Kadrey, “Aloha From Hell”

I came to understand how different I was from many of my friends and how they were at times, unable to understand me, how I reacted to life events, and why I was still triggered and haunted constantly by the past in the present. It did not matter what my explanations were, or my attempts at translating it all to them with analogies or relatable stories because it was untranslatable. You must live it to know what complex trauma looks and feels like, and I would never wish that on them. My luck came in the form of how my friends cherished and loved me no matter what – even if my reactions or time lost in the dark forest of complex trauma and its changing labyrinth kept me closed off, muted, and from their reach. Invariably, they were always there waiting with open arms when I came back. They became my anchors until I understood how to develop my own sense of safety and self-love – which is my responsibility to appreciate and foster. I honor that because I know better than anyone what I want and need, how to comfort myself as an adult – and how I would have wanted to be comforted as a child. So that is what I do now. I love myself, as best as I can each day, back to wholeness and my worthiness to know love and be loved.

Through my loving interactions with friends, and my curiosity to know what was so different about our experiences, and how they handled life and difficulties I began to understand and chronicle these differences. I began to identify what I found comforting and helpful in their nurturing upbringings and the habits and ways of holding themselves that were foreign to me. I gathered these along with my own experiences of being nurtured by my grandmother, great aunt, and other kind relationships with adults in my child-life and began to create my own process and map of self-love and nurturing.

I Can not change the past 

As an adult, I cannot go back and change the past. I cannot change anyone in the present that triggers me and feels much like an abusive or narcissistic person from years ago. The only control I have over difficulties now is to nurture my inner scared and despairing self, give comfort and compassionate self-directed actions, cultivate and foster feelings of safety, security, and self-love, and create a safe place to fall within myself. The serenity prayer comes to mind here: “God [Love], grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

The lifelong education and homework involved in living with complex trauma, abuse, neglect, and PTSD can be overwhelming but it does not have to mean it is a brutal life sentence. It can be, with acceptance, and the desire and will to expand beyond what we were shown, told, and taught, become an honored, respected, and much-loved journey towards a dedicated practice of worthiness and deserving, that allows us to appreciate, and admire ourselves, and our one wild and precious life. It can become the beautiful, abrasive contrast that pushes us to expand past our limitations, and beyond what we thought we knew and who we thought we were. It can help us understand ourselves at the deepest levels, develop unwavering self-esteem and self-respect, and empower us to love ourselves back to life and connect back to our worthiness of being, and our shared place of oneness with all things.

Tell me, what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life.

_Mary Oliver, “House of Light”

I invite you not to wait a moment longer to begin to bring light to your needs and wants and build a bridge back to yourself. Even if you have already begun, do not waver or become complacent or dishearted in this task. Wherever you are on your journey continue to seed, attend, and nurture the garden of your heart. Within a short time, you will see, feel and know the fruits of your labor. Flowers will blossom and bloom and even when they fade the child seeds of their life will continue to reseed and bloom again – becoming the beautiful, soft space for you to harvest, enjoy and find comfort in. Find your way – in whatever way you can to express, build, imagine, and continue to breathe deeply in and out – loving all that you are and realizing your worthy and unique being – needed and necessary, and at one with everything.

Like wildflowers, you must allow yourself to grow in all the places people [and you] thought you never would.

_E.V. Rogina

To read or explore more please reference this publications resource list:

• Carl Jung, “The Undiscovered Self: The Dilemma of the Individual in Modern Society”
• Richard Kadrey, “Aloha From Hell”
• Mary Oliver, “House of Light”

For other helpful articles, tools, and topics visit the HeartBalm Archives, and for healing-guided meditations please visit the HeartBalm Meditation Toolbox on the home page or go to the HeartBalm Channel on YouTube. To subscribe or to find out more information go to the HeartBalm website.

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.

Sunny Lynn, OMC

Sunny Lynn, OMC is a spiritual counselor, writer, poet, photographer, meditator, and nature lover on a mission of transmuting complex trauma through self-love, healing, and bringing balm to hearts everywhere. She has a blog and podcast – HeartBalm at heartbalm.substack.com that speaks on the topic of self-care and self-love, mindfulness and healing while living with CPTSD.

www.heartbalmhealing.com

The “Tells” of Complex Trauma and Chaos (as published in The Friday Edition of HeartBalm Healing at https://heartbalm.substack.com)

At some point in your healing journey, you will come to face to face with the parts and pieces of who you are or think yourself to be. Complex trauma waits on no one and just carries on as the dysfunctional chaos creator that reigns over your life. This chaos is a tell, however. It is the way toward what is in pain. It is your internalized world answering – and pointing to where it hurts.

Much of what is arising is ready for healing – is ready to be seen – has risen into consciousness from the subconscious. There may be much in the subconscious that is still submerged, hidden, and not able to come to the surface. Fear and self-preservation are the gatekeepers between our subconscious and conscious worlds. As you heal and fears slowly subside or the need for vigilance and safety begins to dissolve then more will be revealed.

Life is an onion and one cries while peeling it.

_French Proverb

If this sounds daunting and overwhelming – it is. Complex trauma is a difficult cross to bear but sometimes, it is necessary to jump into your ocean of chaos and complexity. You must accept your own dysfunctional and elite ways of surviving and acting out your life. For it is acting. It is a complex narrative of characters and triggers and pieced-together storylines that play out before us and within us. Those with CPTSD know all too well that we can leave the house in the morning feeling fine until an unknown quantity enters the scene and our world is turned upside down. Taken from the present and deftly spun into a past story with tentacles reaching into all areas of our being – we are triggered. Hijacked and confused our old safeguards, dog-eared stories, long-held reactions and ways of surviving a similar situation from our past is now our life script again.

We are led out of time and space – and out of body and mind. A zombie in the place of who we thought we were this morning as we left the house. Life feels veiled, fuzzy, spinning out of control and we are left to try and act normal. We reach into our inner depths beyond ourselves and for any energy and strength left, and the mental acuity to try and see through our zombie bodysuit and carry on, work, survive and do the things we think normal people do.

There is a price for this superhuman ability to continue, and exist when we are using every ounce of human strength, energy, and focus to simply carry on. Our traumatized body and mind are also in the game – utilizing every resource we have to assess the threat, ready the body for fight or flight, defend against it, and survive what has arisen.

This cycle of life for the traumatized soul is like being in a boxing match every week of your life. There is the match and then there is the healing from the beating. Then before you are fully healed you are thrown back into the ring again. Resources are slim and so trying to defend with frayed gloves, a half-broken mouth guard, and an inner critic acting as coach asleep or cursing you from the corner is the best you can do. At some point you realize doing your best is barely surviving and all you want is to thrive. This is another tell – this asking and opening for a sense of long-term relief and deep full breaths, a feeling of expanding more fully into your body and being, feeling clear-eyed and alive, and living the life that you know is waiting on you.

The paradox of trauma is that it has both the power to destroy and the power to transform and resurrect.

_Peter A Levine, “In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness”

That is why at certain points of your life and journey it is necessary to begin to fully embrace all that is happening and all that you are. It is in the conscious act of stopping to stand and see yourself with compassion and with the little curiosity that you have left and look again with unveiled eyes. To view the play that continues to be acted out day in and day out that shows you the ceaseless futility of trying to keep digging into resources that have long since been depleted to face another day – another trigger, and another surprise takeover. In some ways, it is the last place we want to look. To turn and face ourselves seems like another let-down, another insurmountable attempt to find peace and some sense of routine and stability for this is where it all originates. We look outside ourselves for all the answers, for the magic pill, the best therapist, and the golden ticket that will make it all better. We use our stories of pain and hurt to bind us in our zombied life and cement us in a habitual way of being so we can try and find some rest and normalcy in all of it because changing anything now would be like climbing Mount Everest. We reason that it was brought on by someone in our external sphere so why do we have to clean up the mess – why is it up to us to fix what others broke?

To begin turning towards ourselves and accepting how we live our life, how we respond to this or that or them, how we exist and get through our day and our week is part of the reckoning that can lead us back to ourselves and back to wholeness.

If you can see it is as a journey of discovery – the opportunity to begin to unearth all that is within you; all that has become covered over, ignored, allowed to grow and run wild and begin to see how extraordinary you are for all that you must do in the course of a day, a week or an hour – then you can begin to lean into what you need, how you have neglected yourself and how to better respond and love all that you are.

Each time you notice a tell, and face a part of you that has acted out unconsciously in response to a triggered situation and look at it again with eyes of interest, compassion, and self-loving kindness you continue the process of healing, and integration. Over time you may begin to laugh at the folly of how you respond to something because now you see clearly how you have had to function and how the old habits and seasoned characters are still acting out. The heat begins to lessen and the coolness of how you respond to life as it unfolds and shows up is profound. How you begin to see what is happening with new eyes that beam with your nurturing love behind them offers more healing, more clarity, more aliveness, and more transformation.

At the end of the day, this world is your canvas. You give it all the color, contrast, and control that it has over you. If you recoil, get angry, and lash out at the judgment and words another directs towards you remind yourself that this is another tell, and it is up to you to see where within you their words and actions have hit their bullseye. What are you believing in another’s words or judgments about yourself? This is where you begin to uncover, face, and learn what still hurts within you. That is where you begin the conversations about what you are believing and how someone else seeing that is a direct reflection of how you have painted your inner landscape and then believed yourself to be.

This is not easy work. It is grueling and humbling and digs away at the ancient foundations you have built to keep yourself safe, hold you grounded in place when your world has lost all gravity, and support your walk in your fractured and dysfunctional world. But you can find solid ground and walk taller by accepting wholeheartedly who you are right now – with all of its complexities, feelings of brokenness, anxiety, exhaustion, perpetual hope to feel better, days of wellness and feeling whole, and all that breaks us into pieces again, and how we handle these trials.

No matter what you think of yourself – or what your inner critic tells you in harsh tones and judgmental words – you are uniquely you. There is no one that is without problems in this world. No one that does not wish for something better or to be different or feel well. Each of us has a unique way of living and existing in the world and if you can face yourself right now, and accept yourself as the wisened, courageous, vibrant, alive, and breathing soul on her own exquisite journey that looks like no other than you have started.

how you love yourself

is how you teach others

to love you

_Rupi Kaur, “Milk and Honey”

To read or explore more please reference this publication’s resource list:

• Subscribe to the HeartBalm Channel on YouTube. A growing collection of HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny are available.
• Peter A Levine, “In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness”
• Rupi Kaur, “Milk and Honey”

For other helpful articles, tools, and topics visit the HeartBalm Archives, and for healing-guided meditations please visit the HeartBalm Meditation Toolbox on the home page or go to the HeartBalm Channel on YouTube. To subscribe or to find out more information go to the HeartBalm website.

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.

Sunny Lynn, OMC

Sunny Lynn, OMC is a spiritual counselor, writer, poet, photographer, meditator, and nature lover on a mission of transmuting complex trauma through self-love, healing, and bringing balm to hearts everywhere. She has a blog and podcast – HeartBalm at heartbalm.substack.com that speaks on the topic of self-care and self-love, mindfulness and healing while living with CPTSD.

www.heartbalmhealing.com

“Surviving while f*cking trying to thrive” was the initial title for this piece but it is a better explicit beginning statement to describe how frustrating and difficult complex trauma is; how life-jarring trying to heal from abuse and neglect can be. And the irony of trying to heal and face old wounds that expose and break us apart, and dismantle old paradigms, stories, and flimsy safety features while at the same time attempting to hold ourselves together.

Life with complex trauma is a roller coaster ride of uncertainty – plunging us into deep crevasses only to find ourselves back on the rising swells of hope and possibility. Everyone that has experienced trauma has their own way of dealing with and expressing the deep hurt and pain, the losses and never agains, and hopeful rays of light that come in whims of uncertainty and unreliable, chaotic thunderbolts. You may know someone that has alluded to past abuse or childhood trauma, or this may be you.

In the end, we all have the wish to heal, to thrive, to feel fully into our body and mind – and into the moment. We long to know what true love feels like and looks like – we long to trust another fully and let ourselves unfold. We yearn to know who we are without the shackles and memories of traumatic experiences haunting our every breath, and the words and actions of callous abusers creeping through our mind disguised as our own thoughts and beliefs.

I heard someone say “healing is ruthless honesty.” It stung.

Pains and hurts find us and bite the hardest when we are at our most vulnerable.

It brings us to our knees and as we grow, we find a similar sting from events and others that we meet along our life’s path.

Patterns return.

Cycles cycle.

It hurts.

It burns.

It tears us apart again and again as we try to heal and piece ourselves together.

The saying “two steps forward and three steps back” is an understatement but we know what it means.

Hope: the thing that keeps expectation alive – of good things, salvation, and relief to come.

The princess in the locked tower waiting for rescue by a handsome prince.

But this is not a fairy tale and hope always disappoints. If it were not for the constancy of disappointment, we might still have an ounce of hope left but now there is nothing for it – hope is long gone, and good riddance too. I often wonder what is left when all hope is gone.

I hike, I write and I think. I read.

I watch and listen to teachers, healers, and therapists, and I exist.

I study nonduality, I write poetry, I soak up the sun.

Life goes on and nothing really changes except the healing – the endless f*cking trying – to integrate all parts of myself, heal and become whole, understand the universe, and let the past go.

To be free of what I think is holding me back, what keeps me imprisoned, and feeling separate from the world.

My trauma –

a fortress surrounded by a huge moat filled with alligators pretending to be a barrier of safety,

an unwanted prison,

keeping dangerous and unknown others at arm’s reach.

The drawbridge comes down but rarely.

Easier to just keep it drawn and wonder if the food and money will hold out or if I will get lucky and die before I have to worry about diminished resources and more feelings of lack.

Life can be cruel in these ways.

Dead woman walking.

A ghost at the grocery store.

Waiting for death – wondering at life.

No more hope.

No more fire.

No more abiding.

F*ck it!

Writing has been a way of speaking my truth. Of salving my pain. Of not normalizing or minimizing trauma but breathing in and breathing out ruthless honesty. Of understanding and learning to love and nurture myself. It has been a further effort to share what I have learned and unearthed along the way. I have become an archeologist of trauma – simple and complex, and an autobiographer of the forced, unbidden, experienced, and accepted life stories and the story of survival and attempts to reach the gold ring of thriving. It is a way to help share light, love, and understanding with others who are also struggling, and say fervently – you are not alone; those whose life has been overshadowed by abuse, trauma, and neglect, and are venturing to appreciate themselves, heal, and step more fully into their own lives.

As I stand back as an observer, this space of HeartBalm is my brain unfolded, my heart unfurled, my way of being and seeing and processing life – relaxed and sometimes pausing in the eternal moment of Now. The entirety of it is a map of sorts – of my life, the trauma points, the harrowing journey from complex abuse and non-sensical actions and events to learning about love, life, connecting and belonging; the mysteries of this universe, the world, and everything in between. Trying to make sense of it all when none of it – this life – has rarely ever made sense to me.

I believe there was a gift in my trauma, and the world not making sense. In light of life’s cognitive dissonance, it gave me an opening to poke holes in the false reality of what I was told to believe; in my deserving of being used, exploited, and abused, and unworthiness to be loved, to belong, and to be kept safe. There was always something seemingly there – where I knew that I was Love, I was innocent and that those trying to make me wrong, hurt me, tell me I was different, and endeavoring to make me believe that I had no worth was not true. It was nonsensical to me somehow. That knowing has stayed with me even in the moments of life and experience when I forgot myself and carried on believing what they showed me and told me.

A deep truth and awareness arose out of that constant gaslighting and projection of others’ broken selves, deep insecurities, and unhealed wounds onto me. Those adults projecting their own lack and fears onto a child by way of abuse and neglect should reflect clearly the true reality of how weak, small, and selfish abusers are, as well as mentally ill. The overarching trajectory and path of my life were and are buried in their stories about me, how they treated me, the trauma and neglect I endured throughout my life with them, and how I must continue to endure it today.

As I heal, and bring light to the false stories, the pain and hurt of what I experienced at the hands of those that should have loved me, and the patterns of betrayal, disregard, and abuse happening from those in my interpersonal sphere I am enlightened by it. It shows me clearly what I am not and never was.

As I heal, I am able to see more and more clearly, and meet parts and pieces of who I am, who I thought I was, and how I functioned, struggled, and survived. How I got here.

As I heal, I am able to allow more fractured parts of myself, and unhealed wounds to come forth into the light of my awareness and be transformed. I am more able to open to whether the triggers, flashbacks, and raging storms of reemerging pain and allow them to come forth to be integrated into the infinite spaciousness of who I am in this moment. My-being – my-self is finding a new path forward that includes all of me – the more integrated sense of being – that which I know as my innate and authentic self.

As I heal, I feel more empowered to do what I must do to learn how to love life, love others, and especially love myself. I am learning to stand in my truth without apology, and embrace the fact that, as the saying goes “I have no more f*cks to give.” My journey is mine – it is sacred – it is not for anyone else to judge, shame, or tell me what, when, why, or how quickly I need to get there. Healing includes grieving, and grieving takes time. Healing is uniquely personal. It is a journey – whether done with the help of someone or others you trust or taken on yourself. It is your sacred gift to yourself and requires no opinions from anyone else.

Healing from trauma takes an unrelenting spirit and mindset to embrace who you truly are as innocent, as Love, and as a bold, courageous, unapologetic, unique, and deserving being in this world, at this space and time.

Healing takes no prisoners and leaves our internal landscape scorched and raw at times.

Healing allows for transformation, truth, peace, and love but one must be willing to accept it as it comes and leave the rest behind.

Healing asks for the death of old ways of being, old ways of existing, and old ways of thinking about and holding ourselves.

Healing is not a magic pill or cure or something that happens overnight. It is a process – a practice of patience and steadiness, of presence, of loving yourself through the darkest nights, of opening yourself up to the possibilities of your life, and readying for life to show you what you are not so you can understand the truth of who you are.

I heard someone say “healing is ruthless honesty.” It stung at first but now I understand as Rumi said:

The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

_Rumi, “Rumi’s Little Book of Life: The Garden, The Soul, The Heart, and the Spirit”

To read or explore more please reference this publications resource list:

• Subscribe to the HeartBalm Channel on YouTube. A growing collection of “HeartBalm Meditations with Sunny” are available.

• Rumi, “Rumi’s Little Book of Life: The Garden, The Soul, The Heart, and the Spirit”

For other helpful articles, tools, and topics visit the HeartBalm Archives, and for healing-guided meditations please visit the HeartBalm Meditation Toolbox on the home page. To subscribe or to find out more information go to the HeartBalm website.

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.

Sunny Lynn, OMC

Sunny Lynn, OMC is a spiritual counselor, writer, poet, photographer, meditator, and nature lover on a mission of transmuting complex trauma through self-love, healing, and bringing balm to hearts everywhere. She has a blog and podcast – HeartBalm at heartbalm.substack.com that speaks on the topic of self-care and self-love, mindfulness and healing while living with CPTSD.

www.heartbalmhealing.com

Lost in the Woods: An Inside Look at the Fractured Experience of Trauma (as published in The Friday Edition of HeartBalm Healing at https://heartbalm.substack.com)

INTRODUCTION: In the previous Friday Editon, I wrote about The Downward Spiral of Flashbacks & Dissociative Episodes which is very relevant to this writing and why I wanted to give this brief introduction on today’s offering. As I looked back on when “Lost in the Woods” was written it is apparent that I was still in a dissociative state because of its recent date, subject, tone, and my faint memory of it. I highlight this to showcase how even in the grips of reliving complex trauma, we still move forward, keep creating, continue moving through life, and survive amidst the chaos, fog, fear, worry, and depression that come with flashbacks and dissociating. Because I write for a larger audience to help heal and bring understanding to subjects and experiences related to living with a condition like CPTSD I want to offer this personal experience. This is a deep dive into the experience of reliving the trauma, of facing our fractured parts, watching how they operate and exist, and the intense struggle, profound pain, and creative and herculean healing efforts that come with healing complex trauma.

Often my healing process is to move closer to the pain, see what is playing out, the characters that are present, allowing it all to be there even the horrifying parts and pieces of it. I am then able to try and bring in a non-judgmental, loving, and benevolent part of myself to begin the process of saying “enough” to the inner critical part. This entire technique is not easy, and I do not always have the strength or energy for it but I must have had enough frustration and wherewithal on this occasion, and thankfully captured it on paper.

I feel scared, humbled, and grateful to be able to share this with you and hopefully give insight and understanding of the trauma experience as it is unfolding. And, to urge everyone to write, journal, and befriend your frightened inner child(ren) and yourself, and to see the story playing out in order to bring wisdom, love, and understanding to its unfolding narrative.

This speaks to the inner battles that rage within us as we try and live life. We may be conscious or semi-conscious of them, or totally oblivious and unconscious of these internal wars. These inner battles bring fear, shame, blame, and devastation that can spill out into our daily lives and retraumatize us, and wreak more havoc. I had to find a different way and this is part of my ongoing process for I must meet them over and over again until they are resolved, loved enough to heal or dissolve of their own accord. There should be no shame or guilt in being a trauma survivor when it is known how difficult life can be for those that must live with the aftershocks of trauma, abuse, and neglect, and heal from it with little help and resources.

Lost in the Woods: An Inside Look at the Fractured Experience of Trauma

Lost in the woods she reverts to her survivalist nature of hypervigilance and hyper-attunement. She becomes highly sensitive to all sounds, sights, others, tastes, and sensations. Her only knowledge now is walking the tightrope that is her world in this moment. She is trapped in the darkness of her surroundings and wounds where no parent comes to support her, help her, or save her. Even as an adult she reverts to her old role of mother to herself – a child mother trying to navigate a terrifying world.

I cry for her – I yearn to hold her and help her – give her all of the things she needs – all of the things as an adult I would offer a wounded, scared, desperate child. Yet, I can’t always reach her in the deep dark jungle where she wanders alone. Her focus becomes a terrorized march to figure out the map that she is lost in – yet there is nothing there to map and no direction that offers respite. She grasps and reaches for knowledge, and understanding – curious about this sparkle of light, or that change in the storm. She reaches for anything that might give her a sense of how to survive this place and how to find solid ground again.

Her mind rages at the injustice. Her heart aches and closes down in defiance of letting anyone else in that could upset and ignite the inferno that sits in embers ready to alight at a moment’s notice. She loses patience for herself – unable to work out which way to go and how to be safe. Her anger is total. Angry at those that would leave her lost in this no-woman’s land, searingly judgmental of her own failures to find resolution and understand this hellish existence, seeing her own finger pointing back at herself in blame, shame, and anger. There is only this place of emptiness – no heart, exhausted, drained, and failing body, a mind emptied of options, and a hopeless bid that there is anyone left in the world to exorcise her from this land of demons and lift her back to the light of Love’s embrace, and freedom.

The flood of thoughts and feelings of this child-mother have overtaken all reason, all mechanisms, and sense of being from the adulting being and threatens to obliterate everything – pointing to the finality of burning it all down to stop the pain, the loss, the war within that stirs the wars without. There is no peace in her being – no peace for herself except for the sliver of light that never leaves and gently expresses and shares its ceaseless love. It is an opening to remember herself again. To step away from the role she has taken on of mothering her own self that sounds equal to her own mother abuser.

A gentler voice beckons to stop and look again. Look again at the innocent child that feels lost and at war with herself and the world. To see herself again as found, loved, loving and loveable, adored, grounded, safe, and protected. To feel the truth of these things rather than the hellish beliefs put on her by others and accepted as her responsibility to own and therefore become. She is asked to find peace with her own feelings instead of beating and berating herself for having any. She has had to be her own maternal source using the language of hatred, withholding, judgment, severe criticism, shame, blame, guilt, and manipulative maneuvers learned from the mother abuser – and now using it against herself. The child was only able to go as far as the parents would allow. Her stubbornness and creativity kept a small sliver of light in view but so often overwhelmed by swaths of darkness that blotted out all light that tried to find her.

She is drowning in her own wounds. Losing consciousness and life as she succumbs to the travesty of believing that as her own family tried to destroy her for so many years it would have been better if they had. Left to her own devices, her own fractured mind and thoughts, her own darkening world of lost and alone, and not having enough strength to find herself again – she wanes. She lets go and sees the futility of fighting. The enormous cost to mind, body, heart, and soul with each falls back into the abyss to find the way back is beyond herself – beyond comprehension, logic, and reason.

It is here that her limp psyche is lifted to a higher view. She can see the infinite jungle below – thick and impassable – with no vantage points to gain insight or find clarity to take the next step. She can see the point in the middle of it all where she is lost – and high above the enormity of finding her way out looks impossible and never-ending. Her place in the deep forest is a ruse to keep her in the game. A ruse to keep her small, feeling unsafe, and not risk getting close to anyone or holding onto hope of something better.

Her mind, like the jungle, is so tangled, overwhelmed, and intent on creating more complicated twists and turns that even with an overview of clarity it is still impossible to find an open space to be still and find rest. This maze of loss and seeking a way out, exhaustion, and terror holds her body in debt and draws on her strength, energy, and health. Even with light and lucidity offering their hand the toll of her yearning for survival and righting feels out of reach. Giving over her hand to the light is surrendering her life; a life even in tatters, shredded, and in chaos, her body ripped, stabbed, and bloodied is still hers. She has given a fight of a lifetime to have her own life, her own way, and be free of those who used her to blame, hurt, exploit, shame, manipulate, judge, and silence her so they didn’t have to feel their own anger, shame, and hatred. A sacrificial lamb grown into what?

She is ready to give over. Ready to accept the hand of found, of love, of freedom and being. Yet, her own maternal terrorizer still holds her back. She can feel the deep intensity of this force. The flailing, screaming, angry one that still hangs on to her with both hands. If she accepts this force dies. This powerful place of pasts lifesaving remedy has turned jailor and tyrannical protector. It is strong. It is vicious. It is determined. The beauty lies in its intent to keep her safe, protected, and alive but not its mother-abuser tactics of harassment and hate. She is no longer willing to be bullied by the angry voice of herself as child-mother. She is ready to let her go and find peace within herself.

She reaches out and accepts the loving hand of light – the offer to let go and allow herself to melt into the flow of life even if that means letting go and death of her fractured self. She feels her world opening up and growing brighter. There is a lightness in this place of submission. She is never hopeful but curious about embracing Now as the only place that exists and allowing the threads of the past still tied tightly to her ankles to drop away and never find her again.

She is learning to find peace in herself and her feelings. To accept, love, and nurture her own wild, creative, singular self with Love as mother and guide, and accept her own hand to hold in the infinite space of Now.

From the perspective of Presence, you do not heal ‘from’ trauma. Rather, you simply reconnect with that Sacred Place ‘in’ yourself that was never traumatized, never broken, never damaged in the first place; your true Self, absolute and ever-present, uncorrupted and free. Is not a destination; it is You, alive and awake in the safety of the Present Moment. Never truly broken, and utterly Unbreakable…

_Jeff Foster, “The Way of Rest: Finding The Courage to Hold Everything in Love”

For other helpful articles, tools, and topics visit the HeartBalm Archives, and for healing-guided meditations please visit the HeartBalm Meditation Toolbox on the home page. To subscribe or to find out more information go to the HeartBalm website.

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 do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Sunny Lynn, OMC

Sunny Lynn, OMC is a spiritual counselor, writer, poet, photographer, meditator, and nature lover on a mission of transmuting complex trauma through self-love, healing, and bringing balm to hearts everywhere. She has a blog and podcast – HeartBalm at heartbalm.substack.com that speaks on the topic of self-care and self-love, mindfulness and healing while living with CPTSD.

www.heartbalmhealing.com

Recently, a very painful and triggering event dropped me into a deep hole of flashbacks and dissociation. Over the next few months, a series of other events threw me into more flashbacks, deep dissociative states, and depression. Like being tossed and rolled endlessly in the raging waves and surf of a stormy, violent sea you can never find a quick escape because you are never sure which way is up or down. And, even in the moments when you think you have found the way up and out, you are slammed again by another ferocious breaker that leaves you stunned and pushes you back down into the deep, dark abyss.

Having gone through this many times it seems like it would be an easy thing to know the landscape and the road back out of a flashback. But like being born anew – the understanding of reality, knowledge, reason, and essential functioning are wiped clean in these states. Amnesia-like experiences are common here so believing that you can recreate an old route back to safety and the land of the living is a pipe dream. Coming back to what you knew previously as “your life” is a hellscape of roiling, crashing waves – taking you under – spinning you around over and over again. It is a waiting game while being tossed around like a rag doll.

The traumatic event itself, however horrendous, had a beginning, a middle, and an end, but I now saw that flashbacks could be even worse. You never know when you will be assaulted by them again and you have no way of telling when they will stop.

_Bessel van der Kolk, “The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma”

When I finally found an opening to come back I found myself numb, my eyes unable to focus, having trouble thinking and breathing; almost feeling like I was being suffocated. I was deep in a dissociative state. But even there while my worldview seemed familiar, my mindset was of an alien looking out through my own eyes. There was some knowledge that I was myself but everything was skewed in some way that made the world seem surreal, darkened, unsafe, and unnavigable. I felt like a zombie – a dead woman walking; functioning as best as I could to the outside world but completely shattered and confused within – held together in a deep freeze of numb detachment.

There are so many who know this feeling, and I am sorry for it. When complex trauma takes hold life becomes a downward spiral to other worlds, other times and spaces, the inability to discern up from down, other dissociative and emotionally adverse conditions take hold, and reaching for harmful remedies and actions to try to find wholeness overtake all else. Additionally, during these times we often try to employ superhuman efforts and abilities created to continue normal functioning, at a job or in a relationship, for example, and to just simply survive another day. But as we are not superhuman these over-achieving actions and efforts, while in a state of being mentally and physically depleted and compromised takes a toll, and comes at a high price to mind, body, and soul. Sometimes the only reason to keep trying for the surface is simply the habituated and mere fact that the body is still breathing, and the strained hope that the storm clouds will part and bring light back into our world again, and refocus our eyes and senses – so we keep trying.

Every day takes figuring out all over again how to f***ing live.

_Calamity Jane, the HBO series “Deadwood”

Having experienced flashbacks, dissociation, and the varied states of Cptsd, I am so much more aware of these episodes, in hindsight. What was enlightening about these recent consecutive occurrences and the fallout, especially physically for me, was the added stressors and triggers in my life, along with the holiday season. These all happened in close proximity to the initial cataclysmic occurrence and seemed to create a slow but steady downward spiral. Each flashback, dissociation, and fallout of emotional and physical repercussions had its own unpredictability, order of events, unfolding timeline, and lingering effects of being malevolent and stealthy in how it hijacked me each time. It seemed that this domino effect of triggers, and my continued state from one flashback to another, and overlapping dissociation was made easier by already being hampered by the initial flashback. Since I was not fully out of the initial episode I was already sitting in a primed and conditioned state to succumb to additional occurrences of post-traumatic stress.

To read more about CPTSD please see my article at HeartBalm titled, “Courage, Self Love, and CPTSD.”

I cannot say for sure if these more recent stressful events would have pushed me or triggered me into a full-blown flashback if I was in a more healthy and balanced space and time in my life. I do believe, however, that the initial event began the downward spiral, and due also to its severity and strength, made it much easier for me to slide back into traumatic responses due to stressful and triggering events. Even after the events, thinking that I was feeling more stable and grounded there was a moment, out of the blue, when I felt like I had just woken up from being somewhere else. In that moment, I sadly realized I had still been in a dissociative state. Like the movie “Inception,” there are levels of reality where you can become lost in thinking and believing you are back in reality when in fact you are not even close. It is a surreal feeling to be awake, yet wake again to the moment and wonder where you have been. Wasn’t I experiencing reality before – where was I when I thought reality was happening – there is little to recall or remember. It is in the period of coming out of dissociative states that you may begin to feel back to normal – only to find yourself awakening to the moment and realizing that you haven’t been fully present. It is maddening, frustrating, and unsettling to realize how fractured you really are, and that you are never quite assured that you are whole, grounded, and awake in the present moment. It is another traumatic event and another breach of trust by your own mind and body that you must face, find compassion for, and contend with.

The long-term damage, hijacking, and slow demise of mind and body by abusers, narcissistic others, and their enablers is total, and for most goes unpunished. For those with Cptsd it is a never-ending walk through life of trauma management, physical and mental triage and maintenance, and sifting through the shattered remains of the past unraveling in the present to find hope, love, and meaning – as the only remedy and reason to get up again and continue on.

We have learned that trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body. This imprint has ongoing consequences for how the human organism manages to survive in the present. Trauma results in a fundamental reorganization of the way mind and brain manage perceptions. It changes not only how we think and what we think about, but also our very capacity to think.

_Bessel van der Kolk, “The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma”

When the body is already in a state of fight/flight it takes a long time to bring it back into balance, especially for women with the added challenges of a more complex endocrine system. The endocrine system does everything in its power to address the threats perceived and experienced. Yet, with adrenaline and cortisol taking over and attempting to right the sinking ship it can get stuck in this response and take a long time to come back to homeostasis. The fallout from this is widespread – affecting our minds, body, and soul. I will be digging deeper into these areas, the physical repercussions of fight/flight, and how our endocrine system works to support us during times of trauma, perceived threats, triggers, and flashbacks in upcoming editions.

To the outside world, and even to my friends and family I may look put together, and without fractures yet if you stand back and look at the inhibited and truncated arc of my life you can see the profound impact of complex trauma, and the unrelenting onslaught and the broad swath of destruction it has wreaked on my mind, body, and soul, and my life. Those of us that live with Cptsd work hard and creatively to make ourselves and our lives work and look presentable. It is all we can do. I work hard to understand what happened, to understand the world itself, and how it all works, how to heal, to love. I work diligently to release old wounds and transmute and integrate all that is arising and unraveling from the multi-layered onion that is my life as the unwitting victim of childhood abuse and neglect, and the ongoing abuses that continue into adulthood.

Inadvertently, and another subject I will dive into more in a future edition is that the ride of Cptsd is also a course in subconscious manifesting and the reason why things, conditions, and events continue to recur. The energy patterns of trauma stored so long ago, hidden, and pushed deep down so as to protect, as best as can be achieved, are in fact still active and holding sway in the energetic patterns of present-day life, as triggers and new abuses are encountered. Reality was the bedrock of time in which trauma was experienced and from which the mind tries to make sense of this thing called life. The cognitive dissonance and sheer nonsensical nature of life as a child in an abusive and neglectful household is mind-, body-, and soul-altering. The word complex in complex trauma and complex post-traumatic stress disorder is an understatement but denotes the conditions of living life that are constantly unknowable, chaotic, fraught with terror, unreliable, and uncertain in nature.

Unlike other forms of psychological disorders, the core issue in trauma is reality.

_Bessel van der Kolk, “The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma”

For those of us that live in and out of the deep crevasses and contrasts of life, we can find the tiny gems, the bright lights in the darkness, and the love that never leaves us and finds us even in the deepest depths of the abyss. Somehow, somewhere light and love is always there in a pet, loved one, or cherished friend. I want to acknowledge the wonderful friends I have found and who have found me over the years. Those special few that have never questioned my sporadic existence, nor judged me for my inner turmoil, my stints of elusive departures and long silences at times, my opinionated and sometimes aggressive stance towards injustices, especially as they relate to women and children, nor have they stood in hope or expectation that I be any different than who I am. My friends have accepted me as is and loved me when I had little love for myself. They are the bright stars in my sky – the lights that guide me home when I am lost and walking dead amongst the masses of this world. Their love is what gives me the strength to keep believing in myself, and strengthens my belief in love, friendship, and life rather than crumbling to the hatred that bore and raised me. They breathe love and acceptance into me so that I can write to help others understand; to see themselves as loved, loveable, and loving beings on this planet, and worthy of living a blessed life even as they struggle to heal and become more of who they are along the way because, in the end, you are never alone!

When I stand back and look at my life so far, it is evident that the journey truly is the destination, and how you buckle yourself in while on the ride, and who sits next to you – is how you make this journey a life.

For other helpful articles, tools, and topics visit the HeartBalm Archives, and for healing-guided meditations please visit the HeartBalm Meditation Toolbox on the home page. To subscribe or to find out more information go to the HeartBalm website.

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 do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

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Sunny Lynn, OMC

Sunny Lynn, OMC is a spiritual counselor, writer, poet, photographer, meditator, and nature lover on a mission of transmuting complex trauma through self-love, healing, and bringing balm to hearts everywhere. She has a blog and podcast – HeartBalm at heartbalm.substack.com that speaks on the topic of self-care and self-love, mindfulness and healing while living with CPTSD.

www.heartbalmhealing.com

As we roll into November, December, and the new year, it is inevitable that the holiday season will bring challenges, anxiety, fear, flashbacks, and other unjolly things. But it doesn’t mean that we can’t create celebrations and festivities that honor and support who we are, and how we manage holidays, and “the season.” I hope ease and love walk with you no matter what your plans are and how you face, accept or meet holiday invitations, family, friends, and others.

If I am honest, I abhor the term “holiday survival guide” thrown out to trauma survivors at this time of year. It is a banal idea that not only highlights differences and increases feelings of separateness. It makes it seem as if not being with family or choosing other options to celebrate is somehow less than or falls short of the norm. How you manage your life while enduring family or not during a “special date” on the calendar is for you to discover and honor. You are not different or less than any other or in need of surviving a date on a calendar. You are everything sweet one. You have the power to determine how you want to celebrate a “special day” with family, and friends, helping others or reveling by yourself. It is up to you how you greet and define a day or a season.

I love mimosas so I always have them ready for my mornings on special days but I just as easily make every Sunday morning a special day for “mimosas and me” because I find that I like this extra special addition to my week – and in exchange I am nurturing myself, healing and feeling my worthiness to be me. I love time for self-reflection, and having an entire holiday all to myself is the best feeling ever. I create it how I want and it generally contains, movies, puzzles, reading or writing, a bubble bath, talking to friends on the phone, napping, eating my favorite foods, with my favorite wines or scotches, good desserts, and maybe a walk in the woods or exercise on the treadmill or just more napping. It has become a fun project to find out what I want to do on these days when so many are with the family and the world is closed for the day. I have friends that will invite me to join in at their homes but I generally don’t go – I love that they ask and hold the gratitude of their invitation as a gift in and of itself. I pamper, love, and adore myself on these days. I make it as special as I want it to be and it has become a wonderful time to focus solely on my own healing and nurturing. How we each choose to celebrate a holiday or just a Tuesday is our business and only ever ours.

For those of us with CPTSD, we can get lost in the hazy chaos and emotions of the holidays as well as have to deal with flashbacks, dissociation, and other trauma responses. Allowing ourselves to breathe instead and come home to ourselves, to what we want and deserve, what gives us respite and nourishment, gives us joy, and fills our hearts with love and groundedness is a critical piece of healing and recovery. We have the right to take our power back and say no to attending a party or celebration that does not honor who we are or may enable others to lash out at us as part of a holiday cycle of abuse, or trigger us and push us back into the dark caverns of flashbacks and old stories.

To read more about CPTSD please see my article at HeartBalm titled, “Courage, Self Love, and CPTSD.”

Healing comes from letting there be room for all of “this” to happen; room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.

_Pema Chodron

For my part, I am a scrooge and can admit it. I was born on December 25th along with my twin. I grew up with a malignant narcissist mother and her army of enablers around her. She was a growing volcano of abuse and misery leading up to a holiday, and like clockwork exploded in rage, victimhood, blame, and whatever other emotion tickled her fancy on the “special day.” Add on a birthday for twins, and you have a recipe for disaster. There was always a sense of “how dare we arrive to be born on a holiday and do that to her.” Neither my twin nor I like the holidays to this day. But no one asks why they just point it out and make snide comments about it – placing blame and disdain squarely in our laps. This is nothing new for those of us who grew up with narcissists and the codependents and enabling fandom also in attendance. As an adult, and after I moved west my twin decided to celebrate his birthday in the summer without family, and left me alone on our birthday. In response to that, I defiantly chose to stop celebrating my birthday and “Benjamin Button” ma bon anniversaire instead – counting and aging backward. Ooh, la la! I am so much younger now than my twin and relish reminding him of that fact. Happy birthday indeed.

The only intelligent tactical response to life’s horror (or the holidays) is to laugh defiantly at it.

_Kierkegaard

So, let’s get to it. You know your holiday experiences, past and present. You may already have invitations coming in, foreboding feelings and emotions arising that are already setting your teeth on edge, constricting your throat, and closing the door to your heart. Maybe you are thinking this year it will be different or you will try something new. Like Groundhog’s Day, trying a new approach, a different way of relating, or how we speak to an abuser or family member. We are always trying new ways to be received, be loved, and gain acceptance. And while it is not wrong, it can oftentimes backfire or be a setup for more abuse.

So how can you celebrate your way? Most importantly, get clear about what you want. If you could arrange your favorite things or do something you’ve always wanted to do what would that be? Go to Hawaii or a warm spot on the beach for Christmas or the New Year? Give yourself the day off and stay at home with your favorite holiday foods, drinks, and games. Spend holidays with friends – Thanksgiving with a friend near you, Christmas with friends in another part of the country, and New Year at home – sleeping in late, watching your favorite movies, putting together puzzles, taking a nap, a favorite cinnamon roll for breakfast with great coffee, turkey, stuffing, dinner rolls, and a favorite bottle of wine for dinner along with a favorite dessert? And you can text or call others wishing them whatever holiday cheer to spread love and merriment while putting yourself first during these times of the year. If there is still confusion ask yourself the question, “what would someone who loved themselves do?” Begin there and keep adding to that which fits your budget, and brings you relief, joy, happiness, a flush of love in your heart, and calm.

Over the years I have shaped many holiday rituals and norms for myself. I have created a way to celebrate “special dates” that are on the master calendar but have no real meaning for me. It gives me the chance to think about what I want and need. This is a critical piece of redefining your worth and building the list of things that are important to you and for you. Growing up in abusive and neglectful families strips away the ability to decipher what we are passionate about, what we want in the moment or out of life, what brings us joy, what self-care habits and rituals nourish our minds and bodies, and what about the everyday things, nature, love, and life itself resonate and moves our soul. Using traditional holidays can be the catalyst to break free from family trauma which is oftentimes intensified during the holidays and can instead, empower us and allow us to think again. It can be the opportunity to emerge from the dungeons of trauma and the anchored, recurring feelings, thoughts, and stories of past family holidays that did not account for your needs or wants. Celebrating your way can be the new chapter of your life that releases you from the past and allows you to rewrite your life today.

Whether you are single or have a family or a great group of friends it is always possible to begin to carve out your own unique way of harvesting and celebrating holidays or the season in a way that feels right for you and honors your worthiness to do what you want and be who you want while feeling the joy, gratitude, and love of the holidays. You are allowed to love yourself, honor, and give yourself that which speaks to your heart and soul. You are asked to understand your wants and needs so that you can expand on those things, ask for more and hold them high in your heart so that the Universe can bring you more of what you want. It is your responsibility to honor yourself in a way that represents who you are, affirms your worthiness and love for your uniqueness, and brings love to your heart, mind, and soul even when you don’t feel that from external sources. Your life is in your hands and giving back to yourself with gentle, loving, and grateful reminders of your worth, deserving, and loved presence is the most generous thing you could do for yourself and for the world. Living your truth as love and authenticity is your gift to the world, and this begins and ends with you sweet one.

If you think you want to be around family during the holidays – even knowing that you may be targeted in some way – create a “list of your rights for the day” or “an honor code” that reflects your love for yourself and how you want to be treated:

• get grounded fully before you go (see my Recharging & Grounding Meditation for help)
• release expectations of how others will or should act
• hold yourself as worthy and deserving of being wherever you are
• remind yourself of how much you are loved, how loveable and loving you are
• honor the feelings arising in each moment; and take steps to notice, hold and love yourself in your experience
• stay present and in the moment
• stand your ground and do your best not to take things personally; other’s actions are a direct reflection of them not you
• know your limits and if you feel yourself getting triggered or having a trauma response know when and how you need to leave
• nourish, hydrate, and take care of yourself before, during, and after an event
• have something ready at home to soothe you or allow you to decompress after your event (lay out your comfy clothes to change into, ready a bubble bath, turn up the heat, or ready candles, a blanket, a book, or a movie to curl up with…)
• know your red lines – those lines that no one has a right to cross – NO ONE!
• have an exit strategy; excuse yourself to go to another party or meet up with a friend even if it isn’t true – you don’t have to justify or explain yourself
• do not budge on any of your terms
• when in doubt just say “no” or “enough” or “goodbye” or smile and just say nothing

Create, customize, or add to the list above for yourself and really get clear about what you want, need, and how you want to be treated. Holidays cycle through every year and you can keep changing or adding to your rituals of how you meet, accept, and regard yourself; how you love, nourish, and cherish yourself, as well as how you celebrate your life and your days – because they are all yours to do with what you want, how you want and love yourself wholly in each and every moment. Cheers!

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Sunny Lynn, OMC

Sunny Lynn, OMC is a spiritual counselor, writer, poet, photographer, meditator, and nature lover on a mission of transmuting complex trauma through self-love, healing, and bringing balm to hearts everywhere. She has a blog and podcast – HeartBalm at heartbalm.substack.com that speaks on the topic of self-care and self-love, mindfulness and healing while living with CPTSD.

www.heartbalmhealing.com