On the day my father passed away, my mother, Gretchen, began digging a grave. Not literally, but metaphorically. For 27 years, she tried to symbolically murder me, a public filicide in her systematic, intentional effort to bury the truth.

I’ve pondered my choice of words carefully. Murder, filicide. These are intense characterizations. I’m sticking with them. By the end of this article, I believe you will understand why.

Gretchen’s father, my maternal grandfather, was a child molester who preyed on little girls in the family. When my mother’s sister made accusations against him, the family symbolically buried her using isolation, smear campaigns, and cutting her off from the family. I was in my teens at the time and already a victim.

The First Shovelfuls of Dirt

Gretchen possessed a knack for altering the truth. When my father was alive, he acted as a restraint for her fantastical tales. In his absence, she became reckless and extravagant in her lies, which were increasingly detached from reality. 

She told her tales with utter consistency and persistence. Her narratives became less like ordinary lies and more like an alternate reality system that demanded participation from those around her. She immediately spoke over anyone who tried to present an alternate view.

She dug the grave slowly. One accusation at a time. One smear at a time. One triangulated conversation at a time. Every lie required another shovel of dirt.

For decades I remained silent. Many survivors do. Silence required no fight, just acceptance of isolation.

To speak against the narrative machine required waging war, going into battle, and grappling with those lies. It required sparring with extended family systems and social circles. I never held hope that eventually reasonable people would believe me. I already had the example of what my family did to my aunt.

I did try to address the issue of her father with her for decades, although I did this obliquely, timidly.

Each time I tried to do this, her reasons for destroying my credibility increased. Her need to write me off and cut me out of the family, her need for a symbolic death increased.

When a Birth Announcement Becomes a “Spiteful Letter”

One of the moments that finally shattered my silence involved the birth of my son.

I had gone “no contact” with Gretchen many years prior to my marriage. I told my husband he would never know her because she and I had such a poor relationship. 

During that time, I discovered that Gretchen was “lurking” on my blogs. Our original wedding plans involved going to Nepal for the nuptials. However, we changed to a small ceremony in San Diego.

I became pregnant, yet I announced the change in wedding plans and the pregnancy by email only to trusted family members. Gretchen repeated our initial plans to everyone as if she still had a good relationship with me. So she knew nothing of the changes.

Finally, a family member informed my mother that she had another grandchild on the way. I suspect that was quite humiliating for her to have her scheming so exposed. Still, I sent her his birth announcement.

In May 2010, shortly after my son was born, my mother sent an email claiming she had visited a psychotherapist because she was distressed by a “spiteful letter” from me. She claimed outright that the therapist had diagnosed me with Borderline Personality Disorder, which would be highly unethical for a therapist to do. In other words, it was a lie. She also stated the therapist advised her to “protect herself” from me.

That email got forwarded around and eventually landed in my inbox.

The only thing I sent to her was my son’s birth announcement.

That was it.

A photograph and announcement welcoming her grandson into the world became transformed into evidence of pathology and aggression.

At the time, I struggled to fully comprehend the psychological machinery at work. Her narrative painted me as a woman who was unstable, dangerous, and disordered—the daughter who deserved burial rather than relationship.

 And it served as an answer when people asked her, “why weren’t you invited to the wedding, and why don’t you know your grandson?” 

The Grave Deepens

As the years passed, the consequences of her lies became increasingly destructive.

My husband became quite ill and eventually developed severe psychotic symptoms, including paranoia and delusions. During this period, my mother sided not with observable reality, medical intervention, or stability, but with the narrative she had spent decades constructing about me.

She reassured a mentally deteriorating man that nothing was wrong with him. She repeated her lies about BPD and an “official diagnosis.”

She reinforced his paranoia while he spread her increasingly bizarre accusations about me to therapists, churches, schools, and family court systems. Even after psychiatric professionals documented psychosis, she continued to spread her lies that I was the problem.

Worst of all, she put her own grandson’s safety at risk by telling my ill husband that I was planning “to kidnap” our son and move away. After that, my son came home from visits with his father saying:  “Mom, if dad takes me somewhere and never brings me back, as long as I’m having fun, it’s not kidnapping. Dad said so.”

Out of anger, I texted her in 2015 telling her of my decision to go public regarding the sexual abuse. As a result, she doubled down on the efforts to metaphorically destroy me.

At one point, she even reinvented herself as the ‘Director of a Psychiatric Hospital” for a dual purpose. She claimed that my husband was not psychotic, and she had worked around people in psychotic episodes long enough to spot it. And, she used this tale to reinforce her claim that I was mentally ill.

In reality, she had once been an inpatient at a psychiatric ward while I was in high school. She was never an employee…not even a janitor.

These were all frantic efforts to destroy my credibility. If I spoke the truth, then it was no longer Gretchen’s word against her sister’s. It became 2 against 1.

But abusive family systems organize not to promote truth, but in order to prevent psychological annihilation.

Witnesses to the Burial

Those who smear the truth teller in a family need the smears to flood out from private family discussions into the public realm. The person driven by secrecy recruits unwitting allies. Some become active participants. Others remain in painful gray areas—recognizing pieces of the truth while still trying to preserve family equilibrium.

And occasionally, an outsider sees the entire dynamic with startling clarity.

A dear friend of mine, Lola, once sent my mother a lengthy email after the birth of my son. Lola had known me for years. We had played competitive tennis together, traveled together, and laughed together. She had watched my life directly rather than through distorted family narratives.

Her email was warm, hopeful, relational. She praised my parenting, spoke lovingly about my son, and gently encouraged reconciliation between mother and daughter. She wrote something that has remained with me ever since: no matter how old her own adult children became, she believed it remained her responsibility as a parent to preserve connection at all cost.

My mother never responded to Lola. That hurt Lola immensely.

Looking back, the silence itself became symbolic. Lola represented something dangerous to the grave my mother was digging: an emotionally healthy witness. Someone standing outside the family system who could still recognize humanity where the burial narrative required condemnation.

If I was loved, stable, capable, and surrounded by authentic relationships, then the grave no longer made sense.

The Psychology of Burial

I no longer believe my mother’s lies were primarily about hatred.

They were about intense fear, shame, and guilt.

After decades of pondering my conversations with Grethcen I believe, my mother was victimized herself as a child. The fragments she revealed over the decades gave me enough information to understand that much. 

Acknowledging the truth would have required accepting shame and guilt. And it would have required an almost complete suspension of reality for those around her, like her husband. My parents were married in 1956. Her father was a pastor. Pastors didn’t do things like molestation. My mother would have been labeled mentally ill as her sister was, and she would have been considered “damaged goods.”

That is an unbearable confrontation for many trauma survivors trapped inside abusive family defenses.

In this way, this abuse functions like psychological entombment. The victim who chooses secrecy clings to distorted narratives because the collapse of those distortions feels synonymous with psychic extinction. 

The Final Exile

By the end of her life, my mother had largely isolated herself inside the reality she had constructed. She surrounded herself primarily with those willing to participate in it.

In her final instructions, she requested that I not be informed of her death or invited to her funeral. The same exclusion extended to relatives who had supported me publicly after I spoke about the abuse within our family.

Even after her death, her attempts to bury me and the truth continued. But now I know that the grave she dug was never mine.

It was hers.

Every lie deepened her isolation. Every distortion narrowed the possibility of authentic connection. Every attempt to bury truth required further separation from reality, from family, and ultimately from herself.

In trying to symbolically execute her daughter, she slowly interred her own life.

Climbing Out of the Grave

For survivors of abusive family systems, one of the hardest truths to accept is this: you may never receive acknowledgment from the people most invested in denying reality.

The apology will never come.

The reconciliation will never come.

The family may continue protecting the myth long after the damage is visible to everyone standing outside it. And they will likely try to send that false narrative down to future generations to preserve legacy.

At some point, survivors face a choice. We can continue organizing our identity around distorted narratives imposed upon us, or we can begin the painful work of climbing out of a grave not dug for us.

And perhaps that is the final tragedy surrounding abusive systems built on secrecy and lies: the person most committed to burying others rarely gains insight into their own self-imposed, metaphorical burial.

My mother’s funeral was held on June 27, 2025. Three days later on June 30, her sister, the one who had first made public accusations about her father and CSA, passed away.

I am the only living survivor holding the truth.

I will continue to hold and tell that truth until the day I die.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

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

But my favorite attraction was the house of mirrors.

Once inside, I was immersed in distorted angles and false illusions. Some reflections multiplied me into infinity, while others reflected back a fractured face. We all laughed inside the maze because the distortion -the mirage- provided entertainment.

The temporary illusions ended once I stepped out through the exit door and into daylight. Proportions returned to normalcy. 

When Distortion Becomes Structure

Families shaped by abuse often function differently, much like the house of mirrors. Non-abusive families frequently have difficulty understanding this dysfunction.

Abusive families build their reality around survival, denial, and secrecy. We could surmise that the distorted reflections do not remain inside the house of mirrors. Yet many times, those clinging to the lies refuse to leave the fun house and step through the exit door into the sunlight.

The fun house becomes the architecture of daily life. Roles form around that structure. The narcissist, the scapegoat, the golden child, the enabler, the invisible child, the flying monkeys, the hero, the grey zone, or the truth-teller. Over time, some family members recognize the distortion and leave. Others never gain any insight into the maze of lies.

The system depends on the mirrors remaining intact.

That is why naming abuse inside a family system rarely breaks only one relationship. The revelation acts more like a structural demolition. The entire building trembles prior to collapse. People who seemed grounded suddenly cling to distortions that once comforted them. Some retreat deeper into the maze. Some desperately try to reposition the mirrors so the old reflections still work. Others stand frozen, unable to reconcile the person they loved with the reality now standing in front of them. Those who remain stand amidst the shards of shattered glass.

Some will walk out into daylight, even though it costs them nearly everything.

Disrupting the Family Illusion

When I spoke publicly about my maternal grandfather being a child molester and that I had been a victim, I did not fully understand that I was doing more than telling the truth. I disrupted an entire system of orientation, or I would argue, disorientation. Family members who had spent decades accepting distorted images suddenly had to make choices-the comfort of the familiar maze or the disorienting clarity of sunlight.

Some relatives supported me immediately and without hesitation. Others hovered in painful gray areas: We believe you, but we also want to support the family. At first, I struggled to understand how both statements could coexist. Now I think trauma often teaches people to confuse harmony with safety. The preservation of the structure can begin to feel more urgent than the protection of the people inside it.

Some people viciously attacked me. And they still do. Mostly, these are family members who married into the family after the first accusations had long been smothered.

My mother could never fully leave the house of mirrors..

She and I had many conversations over many decades surrounding her father. While she went to her grave denying he committed child sexual abuse, those conversations gave me enough information to decide that she had also been a victim. However, she had learned that survival depended on silence, minimization, and denial. Survival depended on viciously attacking any truth teller, which is what she did to her sister and me. 

Those distortions became so woven into her understanding of reality that removing them may have felt like psychological annihilation. To acknowledge the truth would have required her to confront not only what had been done to her, but also her failure to protect her daughter despite knowing what her father was capable of doing.

That is the unbearable weight hidden inside many family systems shaped by abuse: pain welds itself to grief, which welds itself to guilt and identity. The resulting amalgamation presents as a unified whole. 

By the end of her life, my mother had surrounded herself primarily with the few people who could still remain inside her version of reality. In her final instructions, she requested that I not be informed of her death or invited to her funeral. The same exclusion extended to relatives who had supported me when I spoke publicly about the abuse. Even in death, the family remained divided along the fault lines opened by truth.

Stepping into the Light

For a long time, I experienced that division as proof of destruction. Now I understand it differently.

The truth did not shatter a healthy structure. The structure was already fractured beneath the surface. The mirrors merely concealed it.

And perhaps that is the cruelest part about systems built around secrecy: when the mirrors finally break, people often blame the person who spoke truth rather than the violence that made the distortions necessary in the first place.

Still, I no longer believe healing happens inside the maze.

Healing begins the moment we stop using distorted reflections to tell us who we are.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

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

That victim frequently faces dismissal and derision.

Let me describe aspects of my situation to give you an idea of what can happen.

Disclosure: Prelude and Aftermath

At the age of 57, I finally committed to telling the truth. I had been sexually abused by my maternal grandfather, Konrad Koosmann, a Bishop in the American Lutheran Church, between the ages of 7 and 9. I went public in a big way. I wrote a book and advertised it beginning in March 2020.

(The book was originally titled: Family Legends, Family Lies. Due to a dispute with the publisher, it has been republished with the current title: The Bishop’s Cross)

The lengthy prelude to this decision included decades of trying to address the abuse with my mother. When I was a teenager, her sister went public with the news about their father being a child molester. Then I watched silently as the entire family, led by my mother and Konrad, cut her out, smeared her as mentally ill, and declared her “dead” to the family.

Every effort I made to broach the topic led my mother to initiate similar smear campaigns against me. When my brother announced his engagement, I watched as my mother told his fiance, “you’re the daughter I’ve always wanted!” Anytime she saw my boyfriend, she warned him to stay away from her “mentally ill daughter.” My parents adopted me, and she told me that the adoption agency had given her defective babies. There’s more, but you get the picture. 

When I published the book, I expected to be treated as my aunt had been: cut out, cut off, smeared, derided, declared “dead” to the family.

That is part of what happened. 

At the same time, many members of my family, especially on my father’s side, remembered my aunt’s accusations against her father, and they publicly supported me.

The Aftermath

My mother passed away in June 2025. She left instructions that I was not to be called or told of her death, and no one was to invite me to her funeral. But, family reached out to me, anyway. I wasn’t the only person blacklisted, either. She had a lengthy list of “enemies.” The old battle lines would not be buried with her.

She was polarizing in life, and polarizing in death. 

Last year, I thought a lot about how she tried to send hatred of me down across generations–specifically, to my son. By banning me from her funeral, she banned my son from the family.  It was guilt by association directed at an innocent child to protect her “legacy” with descendants.

The Escalation 

Then came a stark escalation that illustrated how deeply the old family defenses still operate.

Recently, I found four X posts (Twitter) that my cousin had made in January 2025. This cousin is the son of my mother’s sister, the sister who also accused the patriarch of sexual abuse. The vitriol and violence were stunning. Without disclosing his X handle, this is what he wrote (still up on X as I write this):

The Irony

These words came from the son of the aunt who had once been punished for making the same accusations against Konrad. My cousin is treating me the way my mother treated her sister for telling the truth.

The internet is forever, but tweets can be deleted just the same. I took screenshots of these posts before reposting and responding to each one. Then I posted those screenshots to my Facebook account. He put it on social media. I intended that it remain on social media even if he deletes it, and I intended for all of my family to know what he posted.

Some family members who sided with my mother and cut me out are still connected to my FB account. At the same time, I have many family members who have backed me publicly. Some of them posted messages of support in front of everyone–including the naysayers.

Not one of my detractors had the temerity to criticize me openly on FB.

Still, I’m aware of the continuing controversy going on in conversations, email, texts. And the family at large is beginning to see that my mother left her entire estate to her former daughter-in-law, the “daughter she always wanted,” and to the only other grandchild, her son. This includes all the contents of her home, such as my elementary school photos. I assume those will be tossed into the trash. My mother used money for a couple of reasons: reward loyalty and cut off an entire branch of family–mine.

While that may sound like bitterness over money, it is not. I’ve known for decades that she had done this. If anything, it played a role in my decision to come forward with the truth. I reached a point in life where I took control of my own narrative, despite the blowback.

On my Facebook post about my cousin’s tweets, I said that my only regret was not coming forward with the truth sooner. One cousin said this in response:

“I have always believed you. I, too, wish you would have spoken up earlier so you would not have had to bear so many years of pain with no support. Blessings to you and much love.”

Speaking the truth carries a cost. Some family members will choose the comfort of the old legend over the discomfort of reality. Yet every time a survivor breaks the silence, we weaken the shame that has protected predators for generations. That is why I will never regret coming forward.

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

Photo Credit: Unsplash

In 2 days, I will send my two teen sons off to summer camp for a week. I will have the entire place to myself for 6 nights. I have decided to use the time to revamp my Christmas ornaments, which are an amalgam of inherited color schemes, mismatched design motifs, and competing textile finishes. I have collected an array of spray paints, foliage to preserve for garlands and wreaths, and inexpensive pool noodles to use as topiary bases.

The last 12 months have been heavy. My mother passed away. My dog died. My older son was hit by a car (he’s ok), lawsuits, small claims court, family court, a very ill ex-husband, 2 surgeries for me, and more. This was in addition to dealing with a few family members who continue to attack me for telling the truth about child sexual abuse by my grandfather.

In the midst of this heaviness last year, I decorated the house early for Christmas, a few days before Thanksgiving. As always, I was dismayed by the lack of coordination in ornaments and decor unlike my living area, which is awash in harvest vineyard colors.

Then a week later when I picked my older son up from woodshop, he was hiding something behind his back. I wasn’t allowed to see it. Later that day, a wrapped Christmas present showed up under the tree.

“It’s for you, mom. I made it in woodshop just for you,” my son said.

My excitement was boundless. As a single mom, Christmas had become just for the kids. There was never a present for me under the tree. 

On Christmas morning, the living room became a hurricane of flying wrapping paper ripped from packages as the boys opened their gifts. Finally, It was my turn. 

I opened my one Christmas present. It was a piece of wood 4 inches wide, 16 inches long, and 1 inch deep.

“It’s a piece of wood.”

“No, mom, it’s a cutting board.”

“No cutting board is 4 inches wide.”

“It’s portable. You can take it camping.”

“Oh, great! Then it has a dual purpose right? If a bear comes along, I can hit it over the head with my portable cutting board.”

Despite my disappointment, the silliness of it all became the predominant mood. Suddenly, the heaviness of the year lightened immeasurably. 

And this has led to my upcoming project to redo the Christmas decorations, to bring them in line with the rest of my decor. And this has become a metaphor for redecorating my heart in preparation for the holiday season of 2026.

Christmas trees often become collections of memories:

• the handmade ornament,
• the kindergarten reindeer,
• Grandma’s angel,
• the souvenir from Disneyland,
• the ugly ornament Aunt Martha loved.

Most of those memories are pleasant. But some are painful. Still they are a record of life. And now my kids are teenagers.

Instead of all new ornaments, I will transform them. I will repurpose them, just as I repurpose memories both pleasant and painful. 

When my boys were young, a cohesive color palette was unnecessary. They didn’t care. It was simply an abundant tree. Yet, I saw too much visual noise, too much incoherence.

Recovery isn’t about accumulating more. It’s making decisions about which memories deserve a prominent place in my home, on my tree of abundance. It’s choosing what truly belongs.

Every year we unpack boxes filled with memories.

Some still make us smile.

Some we keep out of obligation.

Some we haven’t looked at in years.

Healing asks a simple question:

Which memories deserve another season?

I have spent the last 12 months editing my life.

Not deleting it.

Editing it.

Keeping:

• relationships that nourish
• traditions that still fit
• colors that bring peace

Releasing:

• visual clutter
• emotional clutter
• obligations
• inherited expectations

My ornaments reflect my identity, and not every ornament belongs on the tree. Some can remain packed away. Not every part of my history deserves equal prominence. Not because I’m in denial. Quite the opposite. I took those memories out, looked at them, analyzed their significance, and put them back in the box. 

The boys will head off to camp in a couple of days, leaving me with six quiet nights and a garage full of spray paint, ribbons, preserved greenery, and bins of Christmas ornaments waiting for their makeover. By the time Thanksgiving arrives, I hope the burgundies, deep plums, sapphire blues, timber greens, and antique brass finishes will finally feel like they belong together.

But I already know the most important part of the project won’t be the colors.

It will be the decisions.

Some ornaments will receive fresh paint. Others will stay exactly as they are because they already tell the story I want them to tell. A few may quietly return to the storage box for another year. None of those decisions erase the past. I choose which ornaments to display.

Recovery has never asked me to forget.

It has asked me to choose.

To choose which relationships nourish me.

Which traditions still fit.

Which expectations no longer belong to me.

Which memories deserve to remain on display, and which can be gently wrapped in tissue paper and placed back in the box—not because they are unimportant, but because they no longer define the room.

When people talk about healing from complex trauma, they often imagine becoming someone entirely new.

That has not been my experience.

Healing has felt much more like decorating a Christmas tree.

The ornaments are still mine.

The memories are still mine.

Even the painful ones helped shape the person I have become.

But today I get to decide where they hang.

And then there is one object that will never need repainting or repurposing.

The little “portable cutting board.”

The piece of wood that made me laugh after one of the heaviest years of my life.

The epic prank of a teen boy on his mother.

I still tell him that one day I’m going to mount it on a walnut plaque with a brass plate underneath.

The engraving will read:

Piece of Wood. Christmas 2025.

He rolls his eyes every time I say it.

I laugh every time.

And perhaps that is the greatest gift of healing.

Not that every ornament finally matches.

Not that every painful memory disappears.

But that after years of surviving, there is once again room for laughter beneath the Christmas tree.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

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

The clock can’t be fixed, but it functions just well enough to insist on remaining in my life.

This year feels different.

Life circumstances have pulled me back toward a period between 2013 and 2016—years marked by chaos, conflict, and past trauma layered atop older wounds. I had long since moved forward, but I am again navigating doctors, therapists, and courts. Systems designed to help now mirror a time I worked hard to survive.

My former husband is reliving his own trauma history, responding to the present as though it were the past. Years ago, his serious mental illness was evaluated by doctors, and while some diagnoses were ruled out, his grasp on reality was not consistently intact. Anyone who has lived with someone in this condition knows this truth: you cannot reason with someone who is time-collapsed into trauma and out of touch with reality. Attempts to explain, correct, or defend only pull you deeper into the spiral.

As a parent, my primary task is containment—protecting my 15-year-old son from being drawn into an emotional reality that is not his responsibility to carry. And yet, even with firm boundaries in place, I find myself spending more time revisiting events I believed were behind me.

Like that clock in storage, the past keeps chiming—insistent, familiar, yet out of tune and slightly inaccurate.

So the question becomes essential rather than philosophical:

How do we keep another person’s unresolved trauma from pulling us out of the present and back into a time we no longer live in?

Trauma Lives Outside of Time

One of the most disorienting aspects of complex trauma is its relationship to time. Trauma does not age chronologically. It does not move forward simply because years pass. When someone has not processed or integrated their experiences, their nervous system can remain anchored to a moment of threat long after the danger has ended.

To the person holding the broken clock, the time it shows still feels very real.

For survivors of CPTSD, this can be especially dangerous. Many of us learned early that safety depended on vigilance—on monitoring emotional shifts, anticipating explosions, and preventing collapse. When someone around us becomes destabilized, our nervous system may respond automatically, pulling us into an old role: mediator, protector, translator, and peacekeeper.

But engaging with someone who is time-collapsed does not bring resolution. It brings reenactment.

You cannot convince a clock to tell the correct time by arguing with it.

When Compassion Turns Into Self-Abandonment

For trauma survivors, boundaries often come tangled with guilt. We confuse compassion with participation. We fear that stepping back makes us cruel, uncaring, or disloyal—especially when the other person is clearly suffering.

But compassion does not require immersion.

We can acknowledge another person’s pain without stepping into their emotional storm. We can recognize that someone is reliving something that feels real to them–without agreeing to live there, too.

CPTSD survivors are particularly vulnerable to emotional contagion. Another person’s dysregulation can feel physically destabilizing, triggering old survival responses: hypervigilance, dissociation, panic, or collapse. What looks like “overthinking” is often the nervous system scanning for danger it has learned to respect.

Boundaries, then, are not a moral stance. They are a physiological necessity.

Boundaries as Timekeepers

Healthy boundaries are not walls meant to punish or exile. They are closer to property lines—clear markers of where one person ends and another begins. They do not erase history. They simply prevent history from overrunning the present.

In trauma recovery, boundaries often function as timekeepers. They help us stay oriented to now.

When someone insists on engaging from an old emotional reality, a boundary says: I recognize that this feels urgent to you, but I am choosing to live in the present.

This may look like limiting conversations, declining emotional engagement, or allowing professionals—not family members—to hold therapeutic responsibility. It may feel cold at first, especially to those of us conditioned to respond in a dysregulated way.

But stability is not cruelty.

Parenting in the Presence of Unresolved Trauma

When children are involved, the stakes are higher. Children should not be asked—explicitly or implicitly—to inherit unfinished emotional business. They should not be pulled into loyalty binds, emotional caretaking, or adult conflicts rooted in the past.

As parents, we may feel torn between empathy for another adult’s suffering and fierce protectiveness toward our children. This tension is real—and exhausting.

Containment becomes an act of love.

Sometimes that means keeping our children anchored in the present, even when another adult is living in the past. It means refusing to let yesterday’s pain dictate today’s relationships. And it means protecting children from being pulled into someone else’s unresolved history.

Letting the Clock Stay in Storage

I still haven’t donated the clock.

That matters.

Letting something remain in storage is not the same as denying its existence. It is a recognition that while the object may hold history, it no longer belongs in my daily life. It does not deserve a place on the wall simply because it once did.

This is what healthy boundaries often look like in practice. Not dramatic cutoffs. Not erasure. But intentional distance.

I don’t have to throw the clock in the dumpster.
I don’t have to hang a clock on my wall that can’t keep time correctly.
I simply decided not to organize my life around it.

Choosing the Present

Healing often involves reclaiming our right to live in the current time—to experience relationships, parenting, and daily life without being pulled backward by someone else’s unresolved pain.

Some people will continue to measure time by moments of loss, betrayal, or fear. That does not obligate us to do the same.

Boundaries are how safety becomes predictable.
They are how compassion stays humane.
They are how the present remains livable.

And sometimes, healing looks like this:

Choosing a clock that keeps time with who you are now—and letting the others keep chiming quietly, somewhere out of view.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

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

Many years ago, while hiking out from Thousand Island Lake, I rounded a sharp bend in the trail and nearly walked straight into a bear sitting in the middle of it. We were no more than four feet apart. For a brief moment, we simply stared at each other.

Then something interesting happened.

Before fear could take over, there was a pause. The bear assessed me. I assessed the bear. Two nervous systems met, gathered information, and decided what level of response was necessary.

My first conscious thought was practical and immediate: ditch the backpack!

If the bear wanted my food, it could have it. And if I needed to run, carrying a fifty-pound pack would make that impossible. In the same moment, the bear stood up, stepped calmly off the trail, turned around, and sat down—watching me.

I adjusted my pack and kept walking. When I looked back, the bear was still there, seated, alert, and unmoving.

Nothing dramatic followed. And yet, that moment stayed with me.

What Nervous-System Literacy Really Means

Years later, I understand why.

Nervous-system literacy isn’t about eliminating fear. Fear is not the enemy. Fear is information. What matters is whether our nervous system has enough capacity to use that information rather than be overwhelmed by it.

For those of us living with PTSD, this distinction is crucial. Trauma conditions the nervous system to react quickly and intensely—often for good reason. Hypervigilance, rapid threat detection, and strong survival responses once kept us safe. But when those responses remain locked on high, even in the absence of present danger, they can pull us into patterns of overengagement, collapse, or reenactment.

Healing doesn’t mean never feeling fear again. It means creating enough internal space to pause.

That pause—sometimes only a second long—is where choice lives.

Regulation Is Often Quiet

In popular culture, recovery is often portrayed as dramatic or visibly triumphant. But real nervous-system regulation is usually subtle. No one watching my encounter with the bear would have known that anything significant had occurred. There was no display of courage or mastery.

I didn’t dominate the moment.

I didn’t flee it.

I stayed present.

That presence wasn’t accidental. It was the result of a nervous system that had lived through trauma and was slowly learning to distinguish between current danger and remembered threat.

This is what lived recovery often looks like. Quiet. Unremarkable. Effective.

Applying Nervous-System Literacy to Human Relationships

The same principles apply far beyond the wilderness.

Many PTSD survivors find themselves repeatedly drawn into intense emotional dynamics with people who are dysregulated, time-collapsed, or reliving unresolved trauma. When another person is operating from a past emotional reality, their urgency can feel contagious. Our nervous system may register it as danger, compelling us to explain, fix, defend, or contain.

But engagement is not always required.

Just as with the bear, not every perceived threat calls for confrontation or escape. Sometimes the most regulated response is continued forward motion—staying grounded in the present and refusing to carry more than is ours.

Nervous-system literacy allows us to ask different questions:

• Is this a present-moment threat, or an echo from the past?
• What response is proportionate to what’s actually happening now?
• Am I being pulled into someone else’s survival state?

These questions don’t arise from intellect alone. They come from embodied awareness.

Carrying Only What Is Yours

In the mountains, you learn quickly that carrying unnecessary weight is dangerous. The same is true emotionally.

For PTSD survivors, there is often a long history of carrying what did not belong to us—other people’s emotions, responsibilities, or crises. Recovery involves relearning where we end, and others begin.

Sometimes that means being willing to drop the pack if necessary.

Not because we don’t care, but because survival requires discernment.

Recovery as Integration

Looking back, the most striking part of that encounter wasn’t the bear. It was the pause. Two nervous systems met, assessed, and adjusted without escalation.

That pause is the fruit of healing.

Recovery from trauma is not about becoming fearless or unreactive. It is about restoring enough internal safety to remain present—to recognize danger accurately, respond proportionately, and move forward without reenacting the past.

Sometimes recovery looks dramatic.

Often, it looks like nothing at all.

And that is how you know it’s working.

Photo by Becca on Unsplash

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

Lately, there seems to be an increasing trend wherein the term “PTSD” (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) is thrown around in casual conversations, often pertaining to mild inconveniences or day-to-day challenges. I’ve heard statements like, “I have PTSD from that awful exam” or “That movie gave me PTSD!” While these statements are most likely meant in jest, they gloss over the profound impact and weight the condition carries for those truly diagnosed with PTSD or its more intense variant, C-PTSD (Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder).

For those unfamiliar with C-PTSD, it’s a condition that stems from prolonged exposure to traumatic events, often during critical developmental periods such as childhood.

The effects are deep-seated and pervasive, impacting nearly every facet of our lives, from our relationships to our self-worth. It isn’t just about “having a bad day.” It’s about reliving traumatic moments day in and day out, experiencing emotional flashbacks, and constantly grappling with a heightened state of alertness, expecting danger even in the safest environments.

When PTSD is made light of, the message is that our experiences are just simple overreactions or that we’re being histrionic. Such a limited understanding equates trauma with common daily stresses or short-lived negative experiences. But let’s be clear: PTSD and C-PTSD aren’t about a generally bad day or experience. These disorders involve traumatic events that have left a lasting mark on our psyche.

Using PTSD as a catch-all phrase for distress also overlooks the real stigma that survivors face. There’s a pervasive myth that those with PTSD are unstable and dangerous. Many of us are hesitant to disclose our diagnoses for fear of being perceived as “damaged” or “broken.” We struggle in silence, hiding our pain, and overcompensating so as not to appear weak. The casual misrepresentation of PTSD only serves to further isolate us.

The widespread misuse of the term PTSD can also create more challenges for those who genuinely suffer from PTSD or C-PTSD, particularly when they seek help or wish to be taken seriously. By making it “fashionable” or trendy, we run the risk of watering down the severity and the recognition of real symptoms.

I hope for a world where mental health issues, including PTSD and C-PTSD, are understood and respected. While it’s essential to create an open dialogue about mental health and break the silence surrounding trauma, it’s equally crucial to ensure that the conversation is informed and compassionate. Those who live with these conditions daily should not be belittled or trivialized.

If you are someone who has used PTSD colloquially, I urge you to reflect on your language.

Consider the weight of your words and the impact they might have on those around you.

And for those reading this post who truly understand the depth of trauma, know that your experiences are valid. You are not alone, and your strength is immeasurable.

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.

What happens when your therapist lobs an unforced error across the net at you?

This happened to me recently. I was angry and afraid because of what transpired. Ultimately, I decided he made the error inadvertently. Still, I paid a price. He paid a price as well because I chose to sever our appointments completely.

What happened?

On the initial intake form, I stated that my goal in therapy was to deal with residual anger at my mother. I had been diagnosed with PTSD 20 years ago due to childhood sexual abuse, and I wanted to prevent a relapse. The appointments were conducted virtually over Google Meet, and I wasn’t expecting long-term therapy. I just sought a safe place to rant and rave about my mother for a bit.

During our first appointment, I informed him that several years ago I broke my silence and revealed to everyone that my maternal grandfather had been a pedophile who preyed on little girls in our family. In fact, I wrote a book about it that was published in 2020.

In a later appointment, perhaps the third or fourth, he asked if he could read my book. I didn’t mind if he did so. The book is in the public realm, so I couldn’t stop him. I wrote the book very carefully. I stand by everything in it, and I’m not embarrassed by it. I’m very happy that I finally told the truth about being sexually abused when I was nine.

However, I couldn’t shake the feeling that he had already purchased the book, read it, and now wanted to “use” certain information and needed my “permission” to read the book.

During the next appointment, he guided the conversation a bit and asked me to imagine myself as a little girl. He used a lot of imagery from WWII, such as Anne Frank and soldiers. My book has many references to WWII. Moreover, he asked me to “tell us who anger is protecting?” The use of the third person surprised me. In retrospect, I believe it was another reference to my book, which details a murder trial from 2002, where a San Diego man, David Westerfield, was convicted of murdering a seven-year-old girl, Danielle Van Dam.

Perhaps he was expecting a verbal response from me. However, that’s not what transpired. I remember when he asked me to “tell us who anger is protecting?” Then he said that he had just given me a lot of information and asked me to summarize it back to him. He wanted to ensure that I understood.

Suddenly, I became aware of a “black hole” in my brain. I couldn’t recall anything between “Who is anger protecting?” and “summarize back.” I had slipped into a dissociative episode, and it shocked me. I had been stable for over 20 years, and I didn’t believe this was possible again. I quickly ended the appointment and closed the laptop.

An alarm bell rang in my head

However, before I closed the laptop, he mentioned that I had given him a lot to work with and thanked me for being so vulnerable. An alarm bell rang in my head.

I called a friend who is a counselor to talk through what happened. Her comments were, “Sometimes, the therapist is sicker than the client,” and “You’ve only seen him a few times. You don’t have much invested in him, and you can always find someone else.” But then she started talking about her sciatica and how much pain she was in. I concluded that she didn’t really hear me and offered me a platitude.

It took me a couple more appointments to tell my therapist what she had said and to explain how the episode had frightened me. I was now spending a considerable amount of time during the day, wary that I would encounter evidence that I had done something that I didn’t remember doing. I did not use the word “dissociation” or any variation of it.

He attempted to reassure me and mentioned that he had personal experience with what had happened. That set off more alarm bells in my mind, whether rightly or not.

I met with him a few more times, even though I had already decided to move on. We only had seven or eight appointments total, and I wanted to get a better sense of him, which can be difficult in virtual meetings. He seemed very caring, compassionate, and empathetic, not as a façade for therapy, but genuinely so. He appeared to be in his early to mid-50s, yet his license was issued only a few years ago. Perhaps this was a career change, which is admirable. He seemed to have a good sense of humor. I had found him through a service for Christian counselors, and we shared our faith in God. And he seemed genuinely surprised when I mentioned “wrapping things up.”

So, what was the true unforced error here? Was he overly eager? Did he fail to truly understand my history with PTSD? Should he have been more transparent about his “personal experience?” Should he have initiated a frank conversation about the episode? Was it a mistake to wait for me to talk about it? One thing is certain, he avoided any more imagery about WWII and didn’t speak using the third person again.

Did I err? I said nothing about dissociative amnesia on the intake form, and even after the episode, I avoided the words completely. Should I have insisted on more transparency about his “personal experience?”

One thing I learned is this: Therapists often talk about the power differential in the therapeutic relationship. They assert that the balance of power is tilted toward the therapist. That’s an illusion, in my opinion. Ultimately, I held the power and the choice to no longer continue paying for appointments.

In tennis, when one player makes an unforced error, the other player wins the point. In this case, the unforced error was a lose-lose situation.

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.

2022 was chock-full of 20-year anniversaries for me. I was diagnosed with PTSD 20 years ago. Several terrifying events happened 20 years ago. And I began experiencing dissociative amnesia 20 years ago. Thankfully, all that dissipated within about 2 years. The PTSD was the result of child sexual abuse.

I was on a bit of edge last year, expecting the anniversary effect to trigger my brain into becoming a broken record again. It didn’t happen, perhaps because my awareness of the effect helped keep a relapse at bay.

The length of time that has elapsed has made me more confident to put pen to paper and write about the experiences without worrying about a relapse. In particular, I’ve been trying to describe what dissociation or dissociative amnesia feels like. I dipped my big toe into that water in this article here on the CPTSD blog.

What does dissociation feel like? Can it have a feeling? Perhaps I had feelings during the episode, but once out of the episode, how do I know what I don’t remember?

In my experience, dissociative amnesia is a complete blackout of events. It has a start and a stop. It is different from forgetting where you put your car keys. In that situation, you typically can backtrack your steps: I was in the kitchen, but before that, I was in my bedroom. Before that, I was driving the car into the garage…and so on.

Instead, I have a black hole in my memory.

A black hole is a region in space where the gravitational pull is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape from it. It is created when a massive star dies, and its core collapses in on itself under the force of its gravity. This results in a point of infinite density called a singularity, surrounded by an event horizon beyond which nothing can escape.

This is such a perfect metaphor for me. When I was sexually abused at 9 years of age, my inner star died, and the core collapsed in on itself under its own force. Now that point of infinite density in my memory is surrounded by the event horizon, and no memory within the black hole can escape.

What’s worse is that anything that may significantly remind me of the sexual abuse can get sucked into the black hole never to escape.

However, I have experienced the escape of some memories from that black hole

However, I have experienced the escape of some memories from that black hole. They come trailing clouds of terror from a prison house that has closed upon me. (Sorry, Wordsworth!)

That terror, that speechless dread, that fearsome horror is exactly why my brain tries to protect me from those memories. I suppose a therapist would say, “Good, now you can integrate those memories into your daily consciousness and live a better life.” But let’s be real. That’s not what happens. I can live with the conscious memories, but I can never go back to how I would have been if the child sexual abuse had not occurred.

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.

Occasionally, I write for myself. I do this with increasing frequency as I get older. The urge to tell my story as a victim of child sexual abuse and describe my experiences grows as I become more comfortable with speaking the truth.

But, can AI produce a personal story that rings true?

What about other uses? Will AI replace therapists and doctors? Proponents espouse its potentially miraculous uses. I have one friend, a professor of mathematics at a top university, who believes ChatGPT is already a sentient being.

Let’s have a little fun with this latest development in technology. (Full disclosure: any AI-produced content here will be in italics. Everything else is my own.)

Let’s take my story and apply AI.

I’m a survivor of child sexual abuse. However, I dislike the word “survivor,” to describe myself. I also dislike the word “victim,” although I think that is the most accurate.

So I asked ChatGPT to list 10 synonyms for “survivor.” Its response:

Resilient
Fighter
Overcomer
Thriver
Endurer
Conqueror
Champion
Escaper
Sustainer
Surmounter

First of all, resilience is an adjective, not a noun. Still, there isn’t a single synonym on the list that adequately describes me. Actually, my preferred synonym to “survivor” is “mountain climber.” I’m a mountain climber, literally and figuratively.

I asked ChatGPT for 10 synonyms for “victim.” Its response:

Sufferer
Target
Prey
Casualty
Martyr
Subject
Recipient
Quarry
Fall guy
Mark

Well, I’m hardly a martyr. I was a target of the sexual predator. I was his prey. Still, I don’t like any of these synonyms either. I like the phrase “innocent child” best.

I asked ChatGPT: “How does silence by child sexual abuse survivors manifest itself in physical symptoms?” It wrote an introduction, 5 supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion in about 60 seconds. The bullet point symptoms listed were:

Chronic pain
Sleep disturbances
Sexual dysfunction
Substance abuse
Eating disorders

That’s pretty accurate, but not comprehensive.

20 years ago, I experienced dissociative episodes for about 1 ½ years as the “matter-of-fact” memories of the sexual abuse flooded into my mind and reconnected with the physical pain caused by the abuse. It was a frightening experience. Recently, I have decided to try to describe what it was like because I have found only inadequate descriptions that sound like they were written by someone who never experienced a dissociative state.

The description that irritates me the most is that it is like “highway hypnosis.” No, in my experience, it is not like “highway hypnosis.”

In highway hypnosis, you still have a general sense of being in your car, seeing the landscape go by, and hearing the music on the car radio. You might have a slightly altered sense of time passing. You still know who you are.

I asked ChatGPT to describe how a dissociative episode feels. It gave me 7 paragraphs with the specific points being:

Feeling disconnected from reality
Loss of time
Emotional numbness
Memory loss
Feeling like an observer
Feelings like floating or drifting

OK, I had memory loss and loss of time. But, the AI-produced essay sounded like a clinician trying to sound clinical.

In my experience, dissociative amnesia doesn’t have a feeling. It can’t because the person experiencing the episode doesn’t remember what happened during that episode. How do you know what you don’t remember? How do you feel when you don’t remember?

Let me be more precise. The person experiencing a dissociative episode knows how he or she feels at the time, but those feelings are contained within the episode. Once the episode ends, it becomes impossible to retrieve those feelings and memories.

If I have difficulty putting words to the experience, then AI cannot learn. Even so, AI cannot be compassionate or sympathetic as a human therapist would be. It may put on a good pretense. It may say standard “therapist” type phrases. But, it will not ever be a substitute or be able to establish an emotional connection.

I’m still working on an accurate description of the dissociative experience. Right now, the best I can describe is the deep fear I felt when I realized I had lost a significant amount of time. But, all the AI in the world can’t help me with that self-assigned task. It can’t feel what I felt. It can’t hear what I heard. It can’t taste what I tasted. It can’t smell what I smelled.

In other words, it can’t be human. It can’t understand the human condition with its infinite nuances. It may come close. But, I’ll go to a competent, compassionate human therapist if I need help.

I’ll keep working on writing down what a dissociative episode feels like.

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 and Terms of Service.