Attachment Trauma | CPTSDfoundation.org

11 Reasons to Never Be Embarrassed About Anything You Did as a Kid

Ellen Tift — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Your day’s going fine until BAM! You crumble in shame over a dumb thing you said when you were 15. Let’s talk about “shame flashbacks”, how they haunt complex trauma survivors, and how to break free.

The Aftershocks of Childhood Shame: A Guide for Survivors

[Content Warning: This article discusses childhood trauma, emotional abuse, animal harm, and shame experiences. Please engage at your own pace and practice self-care while reading.]

Eliana closed her office door and leaned against it, suddenly breathless. Her presentation had gone perfectly—the client was impressed, her boss had praised her work in front of everyone, and the project was greenlit with an increased budget. By all accounts, this was a professional triumph.

Yet here she was, eyes closed, whispering, “I’m so tired,” as the memory flooded back without warning: She was nine, proudly showing her teacher the extra credit project she’d spent the weekend creating. The teacher had smiled, praised her work, and then asked her to present it to the class. Twenty-five years later, she couldn’t remember what happened next, only the crushing feeling that she’d done something terribly wrong by being proud of her work.

This memory, like dozens of others, would ambush Eliana throughout her days—while grocery shopping, during meetings, even when laughing with friends. Each one brought a physical wave of shame so intense it felt like her body was trying to collapse in on itself, along with an exhaustion that went beyond physical tiredness—a soul-level weariness that made her want to simply disappear.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. This experience—these ghosts of childhood shame that haunt adult survivors of complex trauma and narcissistic abuse—has a name: “shame flashbacks.” But knowing the term doesn’t ease the burden. What might help is understanding why you should never feel embarrassed about the things you did as a child, and learning how to finally put these ghosts to rest.

The Trauma Earthquake and Its Aftershocks

Childhood trauma like an earthquake—a devastating event or series of events that shakes the very foundation upon which you were building your life. The immediate impacts are obvious and catastrophic, but the damage goes deeper than what’s immediately visible:

The foundation is compromised: Your developing brain, identity, and nervous system are altered by the experience.
The supporting structures are damaged: Your sense of safety, trust, and self-worth develop cracks that may not be apparent until weight is placed upon them.
The architecture becomes adaptive: As you continue to grow, you build your life around these compromised structures—developing strategies and beliefs designed to prevent further collapse.

The shame flashbacks you experience decades later are the aftershocks—seemingly random, unpredictable tremors that can suddenly destabilize you long after the original earthquake. Just as geological aftershocks can continue for years following a major earthquake, these emotional aftershocks can persist long into adulthood.

What makes these aftershocks particularly disorienting is that they often occur when everything seems stable. You’ve built a good life, you’re functioning well, and then suddenly—a memory, a gesture, a comment triggers an aftershock, and you’re plunged back into the feeling of the original earthquake, despite being far from the original danger.

Understanding shame as aftershocks helps explain why:

The intensity feels disproportionate to the trigger
The timing seems random and unpredictable
The sensations are profoundly physical, not just emotional
The experience can be as disruptive as the original trauma

Throughout this article, we’ll return to this metaphor to help explain both why these shame responses persist and how healing works—not by ignoring the damage, but by carefully reinforcing your foundation and retrofitting your emotional architecture to withstand these ongoing tremors.

Understanding the Roots of Shame: Psychological Frameworks

Before diving into the specific reasons you should never feel embarrassed about your childhood behaviors, it’s helpful to understand several psychological frameworks that explain why these shame responses persist long after childhood:

Complex PTSD and Chronic Shame

Many survivors of narcissistic abuse and childhood trauma develop what trauma expert Pete Walker describes as Complex PTSD (CPTSD). Unlike PTSD from a single traumatic event, CPTSD results from prolonged exposure to relational trauma, and one of its hallmark symptoms is a pervasive sense of shame. This isn’t just occasional embarrassment—it’s a deep, persistent belief that there is something fundamentally wrong with you.

Attachment and Shame

Our earliest attachment relationships shape how we view ourselves in relation to others. Secure attachment develops when caregivers consistently respond to a child’s needs with attunement and care. However, when these attachments are disrupted by narcissistic, neglectful, or abusive parenting, children often develop insecure attachment styles:

Anxious attachment: Characterized by fear of abandonment and a tendency to seek excessive reassurance
Avoidant attachment: Marked by emotional distance and difficulty trusting others
Disorganized attachment: Involving contradictory approaches to relationships, often stemming from caregivers who were both sources of comfort and fear

Each of these attachment patterns intertwines with shame in unique ways, creating relationship patterns where either vulnerability feels dangerous (avoidant) or rejection feels catastrophic (anxious).

The Neurobiology of Shame

Your brain physically changed in response to chronic shame experiences. The neural pathways for shame became well-worn highways in your nervous system, activating automatically at the slightest trigger. However—and this is crucial—neuroplasticity means these pathways can be rewired. Your brain can create new, healthier response patterns with consistent practice and support.

11 Reasons You Should Never Feel Embarrassed About Things You Did As A Child

1. Your brain wasn’t fully developed

As a child, your prefrontal cortex—the part of your brain responsible for decision-making, impulse control, and understanding consequences—wasn’t fully developed. It doesn’t reach maturity until your mid-twenties. You literally didn’t have the brain capacity to respond “better” to many situations. You were doing the best you could with a brain that was still under construction.

2. You processed the world through a child’s perception and modeled what you saw

Children naturally see themselves as the center of their universe—not out of selfishness, but because that’s how developing minds work. When bad things happen around them, they assume they must be the cause. If a parent was angry, depressed, or abusive, you likely internalized that as “I made them feel this way” or “I deserve this treatment.”

This wasn’t your failure—it was a normal developmental response to abnormal circumstances. Similarly, you simply didn’t know there were other ways to be. Your environment was your entire world. If you grew up in chaos, chaos seemed normal. If love was conditional, conditional love seemed normal.

Children learn primarily through observation and imitation. If you behaved in ways that now make you cringe—being manipulative, passive-aggressive, people-pleasing, overly dramatic, or emotionally withdrawn—you were likely mirroring the behaviors that were modeled to you. You can’t blame a child for speaking the “language” they were taught.

3. You were programmed to maintain attachment at all costs

Human children are biologically wired to maintain connection with caregivers—it’s a survival mechanism. When faced with the choice between being authentic and keeping parental love and protection, your instinct for survival kicked in. If you abandoned your true self to maintain attachment, you were following the most basic human programming. This wasn’t weakness; it was your body’s way of keeping you alive.

4. You were taught the wrong lessons about your worth

If you grew up with narcissistic or emotionally immature caregivers, you were likely taught that your worth was conditional—based on achievement, appearance, behavior, or usefulness to others. Children believe what they’re told and shown, especially about themselves. The shame you feel isn’t evidence of your inadequacy; it’s evidence of what you were wrongly taught.

The Unpredictable Spotlight of Shame

Many survivors can recall moments when they were simply existing—playing, daydreaming, or just being a child—when suddenly an adult’s negative attention would spotlight them, often with humiliating comments: “Stop acting like the village idiot,” or “Do you have to be so embarrassing?”

These moments were particularly confusing and damaging because:

You weren’t self-conscious until that moment—you were simply being yourself
The criticism came without warning or explanation
You couldn’t identify what you’d done “wrong”
It was often performed in front of others, adding public humiliation
The behavior being criticized was often just normal childhood existence

This pattern taught you that your natural state of being was somehow shameful, that you could be enjoying life one moment and be humiliated the next without understanding why. Over time, this created a hypervigilance about simply existing in the world—a constant background anxiety that at any moment, your very way of being might be deemed unacceptable.

When narcissistic parents use these tactics, they’re rarely actually responding to anything inappropriate in the child’s behavior. Instead, they’re often:

Using the child as a prop in their social performance
Attempting to get approval or laughs from other adults
Asserting control and dominance
Projecting their own insecurities
Maintaining their role as the judge of all behavior

The result? A child who learns that existing authentically in the world is dangerous and that shame can strike at any moment, for no comprehensible reason.

5. You didn’t know you were allowed to have needs

Many trauma survivors learned early that having needs—for comfort, attention, help, or even basic care—was somehow wrong or burdensome. You may have been praised for being “so independent” or “such a little adult” when in reality, you were being neglected. Children are supposed to have needs. That’s normal, not shameful.

6. You were responding to impossible situations

Children in traumatic environments often face no-win scenarios: If you spoke up, you were punished; if you stayed silent, you felt guilty. If you showed emotion, you were “too sensitive”; if you didn’t, you were “cold.” The “wrong” behaviors you feel ashamed of were often your attempts to navigate impossible situations with the limited tools you had.

7. You had to become a different person to survive

Many trauma survivors developed a “false self” to please caregivers or avoid abuse. This might have involved being unnaturally quiet, overly agreeable, high-achieving, or taking on caretaking roles. If you feel embarrassed about being “fake” or “performing” as a child, remember that this was a sophisticated survival strategy—evidence of your resilience, not your weakness.

For many, this shift from authentic existence to self-monitoring happened suddenly and repeatedly. One moment you were happily playing, lost in your own imagination or joy, the next moment you were jolted into painful self-awareness by a parent’s cutting remark or dismissive comment. These moments teach children to subconsciously toggle between states: the freedom of unselfconscious being versus the constraint of being constantly on guard against criticism. Over time, many survivors learned to abandon the former entirely, living in a perpetual state of self-monitoring and performance. And much of the time they have no idea they’re doing this.

8. You didn’t know healthy boundaries existed

If your boundaries were repeatedly violated, or if you witnessed unhealthy relationships, you had no model for appropriate boundaries. The times you may have been “too agreeable,” let others take advantage of you, or conversely, when you lashed out to protect yourself—these weren’t character flaws but symptoms of never being taught healthy boundary-setting.

9. Your emotional education was neglected

Children don’t inherently know how to identify, process, or express emotions—they need to be taught. If your caregivers dismissed your feelings (“Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about”), punished emotional expression, or were emotionally volatile themselves, you never received this crucial education. Emotional difficulties weren’t your fault; they were the result of emotional neglect.

10. You were dealing with an adult-sized burden with child-sized shoulders

Many children of dysfunctional families become parentified—taking care of siblings, managing household responsibilities, or emotionally supporting adults. If you feel embarrassed about times you failed at these tasks, remember that no child should have been given those responsibilities in the first place. The failure was in the adults who burdened you, not in your inability to carry that weight.

11. You were reacting to trauma, not choosing behavior

What adults may have labeled as “bad behavior” was often trauma response: hypervigilance, dissociation, emotional dysregulation, or fight/flight/freeze/fawn reactions. These weren’t choices; they were your nervous system’s automatic attempts to protect you from perceived threats. Your body was doing exactly what it was designed to do under threat.

The Body’s Response: Shame Lives in Your Physical Self

Shame isn’t just a psychological experience—it lives in your body. As psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk explains in his groundbreaking work “The Body Keeps the Score,” trauma and chronic shame create lasting physical effects:

Somatic Expressions of Chronic Shame

Immune System Impact: Research from the ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) study shows clear links between childhood trauma and physical health problems in adulthood, including autoimmune disorders and chronic inflammation
Physical Tension Patterns: Many survivors develop characteristic tension in the neck, shoulders, or gut—physical armor against perceived judgment
Pain Syndromes: Conditions like fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, and unexplained pain disorders often have connections to trauma histories
Your Body’s Alarm System: Shame triggers can send your nervous system into fight/flight/freeze/fawn states, affecting digestion, sleep, and energy levels

These physical manifestations aren’t “all in your head”—they’re real physiological responses to your experiences. The exhaustion Eliana feels when shame hits isn’t just emotional fatigue; it’s her body responding to a perceived threat with the same intensity as if she were facing physical danger.

Understanding this somatic component is crucial because healing often needs to involve both the body and mind. Practices like trauma-informed yoga, somatic experiencing therapy, or even simple grounding exercises can help recalibrate a nervous system stuck in shame response.

Try This: When shame hits, place one hand on your heart and one on your belly. Take three slow breaths while silently saying, “This feeling is old and was never about me. My body is responding to the past, not the present.” Notice any shift in your physical tension as you acknowledge the source of these sensations.

When Shame Has No Memory: Understanding Implicit Trauma

Not all shame comes with a clear memory attached. Sometimes, you might experience sudden waves of overwhelming shame without knowing why—a formless, nameless feeling that you’ve done something terribly wrong or that there’s something fundamentally flawed about you. This is often connected to implicit memory—experiences that were stored in your body and emotional systems before you had the verbal or cognitive capacity to form explicit memories.

These might include:

Pre-verbal Experiences

Some of our most profound shame can originate from our earliest years, before we could form narrative memories. The infant who cried and wasn’t soothed, the toddler whose excitement was repeatedly met with irritation—these experiences don’t become stories we can recall, but they become feelings embedded in our nervous system.

Atmospheric Trauma

Sometimes it wasn’t a specific incident but the persistent atmosphere of your childhood home. If you grew up with a pervasive sense that you were a burden, unwanted, or somehow “too much,” this might not be attached to any particular memory but was communicated through countless subtle interactions.

Body-based Shame

Many survivors experience shame as a purely physical sensation—a hollowness in the chest, a burning face, a desire to disappear—without a connected narrative. This can be your body remembering what your mind cannot explicitly recall.

The Shame of Existing

Perhaps the most profound form is what some therapists call “existence shame”—the deep sense that your very being, your taking up space in the world, is somehow wrong. This rarely connects to specific memories because it wasn’t created by a single event but by a persistent message that your authentic self was unacceptable.

How to Work with Implicit Shame

When shame arises without memory:

Acknowledge the feeling without demanding a reason. “I’m feeling shame right now. I don’t need to know why to respond with compassion.”
Attend to the body sensation. Place a hand where you feel the shame in your body. Breathe into that space with gentle awareness.
Speak to the feeling directly. “This shame was never about me. It was about the environment I was in and the treatment I received. This feeling is old and doesn’t reflect the truth of who I am or who I’ve always been.”
Create containment. Visualize the feeling as having boundaries—it is a part of your experience, not the totality of who you are. Imagine putting it into a golden bubble and letting it float up to the sky.
Remember context. Even without specific memories, you can recognize: “These feelings were formed when I was vulnerable and dependent, in circumstances I didn’t choose.”

This formless shame can be the most difficult to address precisely because it lacks a narrative you can reframe. Yet by acknowledging its existence and responding with the same compassion you would offer to your remembered child self, you can gradually create new implicit memories—ones of being met with understanding rather than judgment.

When Children Harm: Understanding and Healing from Your Most Shameful Actions

Among the most painful shame experiences survivors carry are memories of times when, as children, they harmed others—perhaps another child, an animal, or themselves. These memories often carry the heaviest burden of shame because they seem to confirm the deepest fear: “I really was bad.”

A man in his sixties shared that his most persistent shame came from a memory of killing a turtle when he was six years old—an act he has carried as evidence of his inherent badness for over five decades. What he revealed later was that at the time, he was being sexually trafficked by his parents from infancy. This context changes everything about how we understand his childhood action.

The Neurobiology of Re-enactment

When children experience severe trauma, especially ongoing abuse, their developing brains and nervous systems are profoundly impacted. Children who harm others or animals are often:

Re-enacting their own victimization: Attempting to process overwhelming experiences by shifting from the powerless position to the powerful one
Responding from a dysregulated nervous system: Acting from fight/flight activation rather than from the higher reasoning centers of the brain
Expressing unspeakable emotions: Using behavior to communicate feelings they have no words for and no safe person to tell
Seeking a sense of control: Trying to gain some agency in a life where they have none

The “Identification with the Aggressor” Defense

Psychologists recognize that children sometimes psychologically identify with their abusers as a survival mechanism. This doesn’t mean they become like their abusers in character, but rather that they may temporarily adopt behaviors they’ve experienced as a way of making sense of their trauma or trying to master their fear.

Contextualizing, Not Excusing

Understanding the context of harmful actions you took as a child doesn’t mean excusing them or suggesting they didn’t matter. Rather, it means recognizing that:

A child acting from trauma is fundamentally different from an adult choosing to harm
Your actions emerged from your circumstances, not your character
What you did then reflects what was done to you, not who you inherently are
Children have extremely limited tools for processing severe trauma

Healing from Your Most Shameful Actions

If you carry shame about something harmful you did as a child:

Recognize your complete context. Don’t isolate the behavior from the full circumstances of your childhood. What else was happening to you? What were you being exposed to? What resources for processing emotions were available to you?
Apply developmental understanding. Children at different ages have different capacities for impulse control, emotional regulation, empathy, and understanding consequences. Your action needs to be viewed through the lens of your developmental stage at the time.
Practice fierce compassion. Imagine watching another child with your exact history do what you did. Would you condemn them as inherently bad, or would you recognize their pain and need for help?
Allow for grief alongside shame. Many survivors find that beneath their shame is profound grief—for the animal or person they harmed, but also for the child they were who was so desperate and alone that this action seemed necessary.
Consider symbolic amends. While you can’t undo the past, many survivors find healing in making contributions to related causes—supporting animal welfare organizations, child protection agencies, or other efforts that help prevent similar suffering.

Remember: One action, even a harmful one, taken by a traumatized child does not define their character or worth. It is a symptom of their circumstances, not their soul. That child—you—deserved help, not condemnation.

When Good Deeds Feel Shameful: The Paradox of Trauma-Induced Shame

One of the most confusing aspects of shame flashbacks is that they can attach to positive memories as easily as negative ones. Many survivors share the bewildering experience of feeling intense shame when remembering acts of kindness or generosity they performed—organizing charity events, helping others, sharing gifts, or expressing care.

A survivor might recall organizing a care package project for people serving overseas, only to be flooded with embarrassment rather than pride. Another might remember publicly thanking someone who helped them, and feel overwhelming shame at the memory. Despite having done something objectively good, the emotional response is pure, visceral shame.

This happens for several interconnected reasons:

The Distorted Mirror of Visibility

For those raised in environments where being seen was dangerous, memories of being visible—even for positive reasons—can trigger delayed shame responses. While a part of you genuinely wanted to contribute or express care (by organizing the care packages, for example), another part—the protective part shaped by trauma—later responds with alarm: ‘You’ve made yourself visible. You’ve taken up space. This is dangerous.’

This explains the confusing experience of feeling genuinely motivated to do something meaningful, only to be ambushed by shame afterward. The shame isn’t about what you did, but about the perceived danger of having been noticed at all, which might lead to unfair judgement—a danger that was very real in your childhood. Just for existing.

The Contamination of Small Mistakes

When a small mistake or misunderstanding occurs within an otherwise positive action (like stumbling over words during a thank-you speech or forgetting to acknowledge someone important), the trauma brain magnifies this detail until it consumes the entire memory. This is because in abusive environments, tiny imperfections were often used as justification for disproportionate punishment or criticism.

The Discomfort of Positive Regard

Many survivors were conditioned to feel uncomfortable with positive attention or appreciation. If doing good things led to being singled out for praise, and praise was followed by heightened expectations or eventual disappointment, your nervous system might have learned to associate even positive attention with danger. And simultaneously, you may crave affirmation as reassurance against your deepest fears.

The “Who Do You Think You Are?” Effect

In narcissistic family systems, taking initiative often triggered the narcissist’s insecurity. A child demonstrating competence, leadership, or generosity might have been met with comments like “Who do you think you are?” or “Look who thinks they’re so special.” This teaches you that stepping into your power is somehow arrogant or wrong. Societal forces (e.g., school shaming, religious guilt, cultural hierarchies) often compound personal shame, making it harder to unravel. Especially in systems where:

perfectionism is rewarded,
self-worth is tied to productivity,
self-criticism is mistaken for humility.

Healing This Particular Wound

This specific type of shame—shame for good deeds—can be particularly persistent because it’s so irrational, and yet so visceral. Here are approaches that can help:

Practice the “Both/And” perspective: “I both made a small mistake AND did something genuinely kind and worthwhile.”
Document objective feedback: Keep a record of the actual responses you received for your actions, not just the shame response your brain generated later.
Challenge the ownership of shame: When shame arises around a positive memory, ask “Whose voice is this? Who benefits from me feeling ashamed of my kindness?”
Reframe visibility: Practice saying “It’s safe for me to be seen doing good things” when these memories arise.
Honor your younger self’s courage: Recognize that any act of generosity or leadership requires you to overcome the very conditioning that now generates shame about it.

For many survivors, this shame diminishes over time with healing work, but it can persist for decades. The good news is that recognizing this pattern as a trauma response rather than legitimate shame is itself a significant step toward freedom. Your rational mind recognizing the irrationality of the shame is the beginning of its power diminishing.

Righteous Anger: The Path Through Shame

For many trauma survivors, there’s a crucial emotion that’s often missing in their healing journey: healthy anger. Survivors of narcissistic abuse were frequently punished for showing anger or taught that their anger was inappropriate, selfish, or dangerous. As a result, many survivors skip the anger phase of healing and default to self-blame and shame.

Why Anger Matters in Healing

Righteous anger—anger in response to genuine mistreatment—serves several important functions:

It establishes boundaries: Anger signals “This treatment is not acceptable”
It reallocates responsibility: Anger says “This wasn’t my fault; it was wrong what they did”
It provides energy: Anger can mobilize you out of the paralysis of shame
It honors your worth: Anger confirms “I deserved better than what I received”

The Shame-Anger Connection

Shame and anger are often two sides of the same coin. What looks like shame (“I’m terrible”) may actually be anger turned inward (“They treated me terribly”) because directing anger outward felt too dangerous in your childhood environment.

Accessing Healthy Anger

If you find yourself drowning in shame about past experiences, try these approaches:

Witness your child self: Imagine watching what happened to you happening to another child. What would you feel toward the adults in that scenario?
Write an unsent letter: Express all the anger you weren’t allowed to show then. No one needs to see this—it’s about accessing the emotion.
Use physical release: Punch pillows, scream in your car, or engage in intense exercise to help move the energy of anger through your body safely.
Validate the anger: Tell yourself “I have every right to be angry about how I was treated.”

Remember that healthy anger doesn’t mean acting aggressively or holding onto bitterness—it means acknowledging the natural emotional response to mistreatment as part of your healing process. For many survivors, allowing themselves to feel angry about their mistreatment creates space for the shame to finally begin dissolving.

When Present Becomes Past: Adult Shame Flashbacks

Thus far, we’ve primarily addressed shame related to childhood experiences or memories. But one of the most insidious aspects of trauma-based shame is how it infiltrates your adult experiences, creating new shame flashbacks about current events in your life.

Eliana’s experience at the beginning of this article illustrates this perfectly—her professional triumph triggered a shame response not because she did anything wrong in the present, but because the situation shared elements with past experiences where being visible led to painful consequences.

Why Adult Experiences Trigger Old Shame

Several mechanisms explain why perfectly ordinary—or even positive—adult experiences can trigger profound shame responses:

1. Pattern Recognition Gone Awry

Your brain is constantly scanning for patterns based on past experiences. When it detects elements that share features with earlier trauma (even subtly), it can activate the same emotional and physiological responses:

A boss’s neutral feedback might trigger the shame response originally connected to a critical parent
Receiving appreciation might activate the shame originally tied to moments when praise preceded disappointment
Making a minor mistake might trigger the shame response from when mistakes led to humiliation

2. Emotional Time Travel

Trauma can create what therapists call “emotional flashbacks”—where you emotionally time-travel back to how you felt during traumatic periods, even without specific memories. During these states:

Your emotional age regresses to how old you felt during the original trauma
Your perspective narrows to match the limited understanding you had then
Your body responds with the same physiological stress reaction
Your beliefs temporarily revert to the negative core beliefs formed then

3. Nervous System Conditioning

Your nervous system developed conditioned responses to certain types of situations. When similar contexts arise in adulthood, your body responds automatically before your conscious mind has time to evaluate the present reality:

Physical sensations of shame (face flushing, chest tightening, stomach dropping)
Urges to hide, disappear, or apologize excessively
Overwhelming fatigue or sudden disconnection from others
Harsh self-criticism that seems to arise from nowhere

How to Distinguish Healthy Remorse from Trauma-Based Shame

Not all negative feelings about your actions are trauma responses. Healthy adults experience appropriate regret, remorse, and accountability. Here’s how to tell the difference:

Healthy Remorse:

Is proportional to the actual impact of your actions
Leads to specific behavioral change and repair
Passes with time and corrective action
Feels clean and clear, not toxic and overwhelming
Focuses on the behavior, not your worth as a person
Empowers you to do better

Trauma-Based Shame:

Feels disproportionate and catastrophic
Leads to global self-condemnation (“I’m terrible”)
Persists despite evidence or reassurance
Creates physical symptoms and exhaustion
Attacks your fundamental worth and right to exist
Paralyzes rather than motivates change

Breaking the Adult Shame Cycle

When you find yourself experiencing shame about current experiences:

Name the time travel: “I’m having an emotional flashback. This overwhelming shame is from my past, not my present. This shame was never truly about me.”
Orient to now: Identify specific ways your current situation is different from your childhood—the power you have now, the resources available, the people who support you.
Address the younger part: “The part of me feeling this shame is young and scared. That makes sense given my history, but I’m an adult now and can respond differently.”
Check external reality: Seek perspective from trusted others about whether your action warrants the intensity of shame you’re feeling. Often, what feels catastrophic to you appears minor to others.
Practice exposure with support: Gradually increase your tolerance for situations that trigger shame (like visibility, making mistakes, or receiving praise) while maintaining compassion for your responses.

Remember that these adult shame flashbacks are aftershocks—they don’t reflect your current reality but rather the continued reverberation of past events through your nervous system. With practice, you can learn to recognize them as such, reducing their power to define your present experience.

When Shame Feels Protective: Why We Resist Letting Go

One of the most surprising aspects of healing from shame is encountering our own resistance to letting it go. Even as the rational mind understands that these shame responses are irrational and harmful, a deeper part often clings to shame as if it were vital for survival. This isn’t a failure of healing—it’s a normal part of the process that needs to be approached with understanding.

How Shame Became a Protection Strategy

In trauma-informed approaches like Internal Family Systems (IFS), these resistant parts are understood as “protectors” that developed for good reasons. Your shame response may have originally served essential functions:

Prevention of further harm: “If I feel ashamed enough, I’ll prevent myself from ever taking a risk that could lead to criticism.”
Connection maintenance: “Feeling shame when I stand out keeps me from threatening relationships with caregivers who were threatened by my achievements.”
Identity coherence: “This shame has been with me so long that it feels like part of who I am—who would I be without it?”
Moral compass: “My shame proves I care about doing the right thing and prevents me from making mistakes.”
Control illusion: “If I blame and shame myself, I maintain the illusion that I could have controlled what happened to me.”

Signs You’re Resisting Shame Release

You might be experiencing protective resistance if you notice:

Intellectually understanding shame concepts but not feeling any emotional shift
Finding yourself arguing with supportive messages (“That’s not true in my case”)
Physical tension when trying shame-release exercises
Feeling anxious or unsafe when imagining life without shame
Worrying that without shame, you’d become selfish or careless

Building a Relationship with Your Protective Shame

Rather than fighting against this resistance, try approaching it with curiosity:

Acknowledge the protective intent: “I understand this shame feels necessary for my safety or identity.”
Dialoguing with shame: Ask your shame, “What are you afraid would happen if you weren’t here?” Listen for the answer without judgment.
Gradual release negotiation: “What would you need to feel safe enough to let me feel less shame in just one specific situation?”
Establish new protections: “Instead of shame, I can use discernment, boundaries, and values to guide my actions.”
Honor the service: “Thank you for trying to protect me all these years when I had few other resources.”

Building this relationship with your protective “shame parts” creates space for them to trust that you’ll remain safe as you gradually release their grip on your life. This is definitely not something to “power through.” This approach honors the wisdom of your whole self—including the parts that developed these strategies in response to genuinely difficult circumstances.

Breaking Free: Moving Beyond Childhood Shame

Understanding intellectually that you shouldn’t feel embarrassed about your childhood self is one thing. Actually releasing that shame is another. Here are some practices that can help transform these painful shame flashbacks:

Recognize the Flashback

When a memory ambushes you and that wave of shame hits, name what’s happening: “This is a shame flashback. This is my past, not my present.” Simply recognizing the process can help break its power.

Meet Your Younger Self with Compassion

When a memory surfaces, try this exercise: Visualize yourself at that age, in that moment. Now approach this child as the adult you are today. What would you say to them? How would you comfort them? Would you judge them harshly, or would you offer understanding? Practice directing the compassion you’d show to any vulnerable child toward your own younger self.

Challenge the Shame Narrative

For each memory that brings shame, ask yourself:

What did I believe this said about me as a person?
Who taught me to interpret it this way?
How would I interpret this same behavior in a child I love?
What context or understanding am I missing from my adult perspective?

Create a Reparative Witness

Many shame flashbacks persist because your child self needed a protective, supportive adult who wasn’t there. Now, you can be that person. When memories arise, practice saying (either silently or aloud): “I see you. This wasn’t your fault. You were doing your best. I’m here now.”

Practice Physical Grounding

Shame flashbacks often trigger the body’s stress response. When one hits, try:

Placing a hand on your heart and one on your stomach
Feeling your feet firmly on the ground
Taking five slow, deep breaths
Naming five things you can see in your present environment

This helps return your nervous system to the present, where you are safe.

Share Selectively

Shame thrives in isolation. Consider sharing your experience with a trusted person or trauma-informed therapist. Often, speaking our shame aloud in a safe space can diminish its power.

Develop a Mantra

Create a brief phrase you can repeat when shame flashbacks occur: “That was then, this is now.” “I was a child doing my best.” “I release all shame that was never about me, and isn’t mine to carry.”

The Self-Compassion Hurdle: When Kindness Feels Wrong

For many survivors, one of the most challenging aspects of healing is the practice of self-compassion. Despite intellectually understanding the concepts we’ve discussed, you might find that treating yourself with kindness feels:

Fake or inauthentic
Undeserved or unearned
Selfish or self-indulgent
Vulnerable or dangerous
Foreign or uncomfortable

This resistance isn’t a character flaw or a sign that you’re “doing it wrong”—it’s a natural response when self-criticism was either modeled to you or became a survival strategy.

Why Self-Compassion Feels Threatening

According to self-compassion researcher Dr. Kristin Neff, there are several reasons why survivors struggle with self-kindness:

Familiarity with criticism: Harsh self-judgment feels normal because it mimics how you were treated
The drive for control: Self-criticism creates the illusion that you can prevent future mistakes or rejection
Identity concerns: If self-criticism has been part of your identity, compassion can feel like losing yourself
Misunderstanding compassion: Many survivors confuse self-compassion with self-pity or letting yourself “off the hook”
Fear of vulnerability: Self-compassion requires acknowledging pain, which can feel frightening

Easing Into Self-Compassion

Rather than forcing self-compassion (which often increases resistance), try these gentler approaches:

Start with compassion for others: Practice kindness toward others, then toward your younger self, before attempting it for your current self
Use the “good friend” perspective: Ask what you would say to a dear friend in your situation
Begin with permission: “I’m allowed to be kind to myself about this specific thing”
Acknowledge the discomfort: “It feels strange to be kind to myself, and that’s okay”
Try physical self-compassion: A gentle hand on your heart can convey kindness even when words feel impossible
Start with neutrality: If kindness feels impossible, begin with “I don’t have to condemn myself for this”

Remember that self-compassion is a skill that develops with practice. The discomfort you feel is not evidence that you’re undeserving of kindness—it’s evidence of how deeply you were taught that you were undeserving. And that teaching was wrong.

Rebuilding Your Foundation: Long-Term Healing from Shame

Returning to our earthquake metaphor, healing from chronic shame isn’t about pretending the damage never happened. It’s about carefully assessing the structural damage to your foundation and systematically reinforcing it to withstand future aftershocks.

Understanding Structural Damage

Just as structural engineers assess buildings after earthquakes, trauma-informed therapy helps identify where your psychological foundation has been compromised:

Connection circuits: Your brain’s capacity for safe relationships
Regulation systems: Your nervous system’s ability to maintain equilibrium
Identity structures: Your core beliefs about yourself and your worth
Agency architecture: Your sense of control and efficacy in your life

The Rebuilding Process

Healing involves reinforcing these damaged areas:

Foundation stabilization: Developing basic emotional regulation skills and safety practices
Structural assessment: Identifying the core beliefs and nervous system patterns that were damaged
Reinforcement: Gradually introducing new experiences and perspectives that strengthen your capacity to withstand shame triggers
Architectural upgrades: Building new response patterns that allow you to respond to shame triggers with compassion rather than collapse
Regular maintenance: Ongoing practices that continue to strengthen your resilience and self-relationship

Living in a Rebuilt Structure

A fully retrofitted building doesn’t look damaged anymore, but it has been fundamentally changed by the experience of the earthquake. Similarly, healing from chronic shame doesn’t mean returning to some imagined state of “never having been traumatized.” Instead, it means:

You recognize aftershocks when they happen, but they no longer destabilize your whole structure
Your foundation has been reinforced with compassion and understanding
You’ve built beautiful new rooms in your life that weren’t part of the original blueprint
You understand the engineering of trauma in a way that helps you support others
You appreciate the resilience of your structure in a way others might never understand

This is why many survivors, once sufficiently healed, speak of being grateful for aspects of their journey—not for the original earthquake, but for the person they became through the process of rebuilding.

Copyright Notice: This excerpt is from my forthcoming book. All content is © 2025 Worldwide Groove Corporation. Unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or use of this material without permission is prohibited. Thank you for respecting my work. 😊

Photo Credit: Author, Substack

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

Ellen Tift

Ellen Tift** is a longtime university educator, veteran musician, and trauma-informed writer. After three decades as a music professor, she now brings the same clarity, depth, and care to her work on narcissistic abuse, betrayal trauma, and Complex PTSD.

A survivor herself, Ellen combines lived experience with extensive research to offer insight that’s both emotionally validating and intellectually grounded in language that’s easy to understand. Her writing speaks to fellow survivors with warmth, precision, and hard-earned wisdom.

Her book series, _There’s A Word For That_, began its release in 2025 on Amazon and Kindle. Designed for overwhelmed minds and hurting hearts, each volume can be read in small doses, with skimmable headings and stand-alone sections that meet readers right where they are.

Additional Terms and disclaimers for images used in my posts on CPTSD Foundation.

www.ellentift.com

When Being “Good” Hurts: The Doormat Syndrome

Jeanne Jess — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Setting Boundaries and Protecting Your Peace of Mind:

Yes, because of my CPTSD, I was a people-pleaser. This was like a survival-mode I learned as a child. And that doormat syndrome was often painful for me, for many years. Until one day, I had had enough and decided to change. Here is what I learned:

Studies show that people-pleasing significantly increases the risk of burnout. People-pleasers are especially susceptible because their difficulty setting boundaries and their desire to be loved by everyone directly lead to chronic stress and emotional exhaustion.

Maybe you’re an empath, and perhaps you’ve often heard, “Oh, you’re so kind.” Many of us were raised to be good girls or good boys to earn our parents’ approval and affection. Nothing is more traumatic for a child than losing that parental love.

Children who experience love withdrawal when they make a mistake naturally become people-pleasers. What many don’t realize is that these patterns often lead to depression and chronic burnout later in life.

Being taught to be a good girl or boy as children turns people-pleasing into a learned, but deeply painful emotional pattern. At home, in church, and at school, the message was the same: we had to be kind and nice. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be loved and might even be rejected by our entire social circle, triggering primal survival fears in young hearts.

The roots of that chronic fear of rejection run deep and are triggered in every area of life, both private and professional. Naturally, we always do more than we’re asked to do, driven by that OCD-like need to keep everyone around us happy. This is where burnout and depression gently take root, growing over time when our efforts remain unreciprocated.

Yes, people will love you as long as you serve them in one way or another. The people-pleaser is often the best student, the most perfect secretary, the kindest boss, and, of course, the ideal parent. People like you because you’re always the first to help others.

But one day, the sky becomes clouded. You notice that weird feeling in the background and realize that people may be abusing your kindness: they aren’t there for you when you need them and don’t appreciate all your efforts. Often, we respond by working harder, trying harder, and performing better until we find ourselves in the doctor’s office, exhausted and perhaps diagnosed with depression.

There is a lasting impact of early approval‐seeking.

When you grow up trained to be a people-pleaser, it often looks on the outside as if everyone likes you; but they stop liking you as soon as you learn to say, “Sorry, no. I can’t help this time.” The more you establish healthy boundaries, the more they criticize you, accusing you of selfishness.

When a people-pleaser awakens and starts setting boundaries, their children often rebel because their parent suddenly says “no” as part of a healthy upbringing. Coworkers begin to gossip because they can no longer exploit your kindness and must handle their own tasks. Employees in your team, too, have to learn to respect their boss in earnest.

And, of course, all the groups that once welcomed you (as a volunteer, donor, or committee member) will let you go as soon as you stop paying with your time or money. They never truly cared about you, only about the resources they could extract.

Maybe, those so-called best friends, or even family members, will tell you that you’ve disappointed them lately, because as a people-pleaser you were their favorite trash bin for emotional issues. But since you learned to say “no” and you’re no longer as available as before, of course, they’re disappointed: they can’t use you for their narcissistic intentions anymore.

Now, another important point: as people-pleasers, we were often trained to forgive and taught that we should always remain kind and nice to those who hurt us. In many situations, this pattern is deeply harmful. It’s one of the main reasons so many of us end up feeling exhausted, depleted and depressed

Depending on the situation, yes, we may forgive, but we don’t have to stay in contact.

If you keep seeing toxic, negative, critical narcissists and other manipulative people, you’ll never move forward or reach your goals in life. If you feel worse after every conversation, that’s a clear sign it may be better to move on.

Like my grandfather used to say, “It is often wiser to spend a season in your own gentle company than to remain surrounded by those who do not truly see, honor, or respect your sacred light. When you lovingly release connections that no longer feel aligned, you create beautiful, open space for the Divine Universe to bring in people who genuinely cherish you.”

It’s wonderful to be kind and helpful – so long as it’s mutual and the appreciation is genuine, valuing you as a person rather than your performance. You are not a doormat or a trash bin for other people’s unresolved issues, jealousies, laziness, or frustrations. There is great relief on the other side of healthy boundaries, and sometimes going no-contact is simply the healthiest way to protect your peace of mind.

Warning signs you’re a doormat for others include chronic exhaustion and resentment, guilt when you say “no,” and feeling used or unappreciated. And the cost of continuing to “be good” often shows up as burnout, depression, and loss of identity, along with relationship imbalances at home and work.

It’s better to be alone for a short time than to stay with people who have no honest respect for you, who belittle, judge, and criticize you just to keep you pleasing them. When you let go of the wrong people, you create space for the divine universe to bring better people into your life.

The good news is that you can build a healthier tribe: because you deserve people who truly support you, respect your boundaries, and uplift your self-worth.

If this message resonates and you need help with a similar situation, feel free to reach out.
With warm regards,
Jeanne
💗

Photo Credit: Unsplash

Jeanne Jess

Having navigated trauma and its long-term effects myself, I understand how non-linear, layered, and deeply personal recovery can be. Every article here is written by me from the heart, based entirely on my own lived experiences and personal journey. The goal of my writing is to encourage all those who, like me, are living with a lifelong medical diagnosis, and everyone navigating difficult times in their lives. May my texts bring you comfort and encouragement. My website: https://www.janehealingangels.com/

www.janehealingangels.com/

The Hidden Legacy of Relational Trauma: Breaking Free from Codependency and Complex PTSD

Jenney Clark — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 11:00:00 +0000

I have often been asked why I am an outspoken writer, willing to tackle thorny and difficult issues well beyond my usual scope of mystical interest. In an era of stifling correctness that governs much of the media, it would be career-savvy to “stay in my lane.” So why do I speak out? As with most human phenomena, the answer lies in my genetic wiring as a free thinker, unabashedly opposed to groupthink, and my personal history shaped by neglect, abandonment, and relational wounds. The ideals that drive me are love, freedom, and truth; any attack on these standards feels like an existential crucible.

Those in the complex trauma community, especially myself, are well aware that childhood interpersonal relationships set the stage for toxic patterns like codependency—experiences that echo and intensify those childhood violations of safety and worth.

The Onset of Abuse and Humiliation

My own childhood was marked by toxic parenting and relational trauma, beginning at age 6 when my mother remarried. Soon after, life became a living nightmare as I endured the hardships of neglect, physical and emotional abuse, displacement from home, and a dysfunctional family history. These violations of dignity and safety created deep anguish, instability from neglect, issues with self-worth, fear of abandoment and shame for being who I am.

Confronting the Pain and Building Resilience

Withdrawal, hypervigilance, and distrust are core elements of CPTSD that linger into adulthood.

I first wrote about these experiences in the third person to keep some emotional distance. Facing them directly now shows how this long-lasting relationship trauma shaped my ability to bounce back, along with a practical side that wanted to heal my emotional wounds.

Toxic Patterns

Strangely, in my line of work, I frequently encounter women—and men—who seem determined to prove they are unworthy of healthy, reciprocal love. They repeat cycles of painful relationship choices, often returning to dynamics that echo earlier wounds. Because early life shapes how you view love. While it is tempting to simply blame “a bad childhood,” unresolved CPTSD frequently plants the seeds for these patterns.

What Codependency Looks Like

Unhealed trauma often leads to codependency: a pattern where people put others’ needs first, ignore their own needs, and look for approval by trying to fix, please, or take care of others—often in unfair, one-sided, or even toxic relationships.

Ego and the Marriage Trap: A Cautionary Tale

I hold firmly to the belief that each of us carries an innate code of ethics—an internal compass distinguishing right from wrong. Despite the depth of my own childhood pain, I have never intentionally harmed another person emotionally or physically, and I never will if I can help it.

Consider the messy marriage of my friend Rene. Her husband Charles had a shall we say, ”momma” complex bordering on unhealthy attachment to a narcissistic parent. Everything he did was with the intention of seeking her approval. So tied was he to his mother’s apron strings that the marriage suffered.

Both partners were stubborn and ego-driven; together, they were a disaster waiting to happen. They walked on eggshells around each other, clashed constantly, and allowed “mother-in-law” interference, financial stress, and family pressure to widen the rift. A few years after his mom’s passing, Charles became a victim of a deadly disease.

Yet, despite Rene nursing her husband through the debilitating disease—a moment one might expect to cultivate closeness—nothing really changed. They ended up living in separate parts of the same house. Her once-vibrant self-respect eroded into a chronic state of pessimism and fear. Individually, both were decent people; together, their colliding egos poisoned the bond. While pride and stonewalling create isolation in relationships, it is vulnerability and love that disarm conflict.

The Poison of Unresolved Anger: Paulina’s Story

Hatred and prolonged anger corrode the body and mind. My friend Paulina endured severe childhood sexual abuse from a cousin at age 9 and buried it deeply. At 21, she entered an abusive marriage, enduring beatings and infidelity while pregnant, all for the sake of her child. When she discovered the cheating, her rage erupted. She divorced, fought in court, and won a substantial settlement, becoming financially independent overnight.

Years later, Paulina met a genuinely kind, loving man. Yet she could not fully receive his love—unresolved rage, fear, and shame blocked her. Despite my encouragement to focus on the present, she felt compelled to seek confrontation and closure with her childhood abuser. Traveling to her remote village, we discovered the abuser had passed away. The news brought a partial release: she no longer needed to confront him. But the man who had waited patiently for her had, under family pressure, married someone else. Heartbroken but ultimately free from the grip of hatred, she continues to seek true love, and I hold hope for her.

The Deeper Message in The Pain

These experiences—my own childhood, Rene ’s marriage, Paulina ’s journey—illustrate how unhealed trauma fuels codependent habits. It increases patterns of chronic people-pleasing, blurred boundaries, attracting or remaining with unhealthy partners, and attempting to “repair” old wounds through current relationships.

Recognizing the Signs of Trauma

Trauma from codependent dynamics often shows up as persistent feelings of unworthiness, hyper-responsibility for others’ emotions, chronic anxiety in relationships, and a deep fear of abandonment. Survivors may struggle with self-trust, feel empty when alone, or experience physical symptoms such as tension, digestive issues, or exhaustion from the constant emotional upheavals.

Common warning signs include:

Martyr Syndrome. Over-focusing on a partner’s needs while ignoring your own.
Saviour complex: Feeling responsible for fixing or controlling their behavior.
Abandonment issues: Intense fear of rejection that leads to bending backwards in excessive compromise
Toxicity: Attracting or staying in unbalanced, abusive relationships
Chronic resentment, suppressed anger, or emotional numbness.
Difficulty saying “no” without overwhelming guilt.

The Secrecy of Silence

Many remain silent about codependent patterns due to profound shame. Thinking they seem “too needy” or “defective”, fear that speaking up will lead to abandonment, or the internalized belief that enduring pain proves love and loyalty. This enforced silence keeps the trauma cycle alive while ingraining powerlessness.

Codependency can both originate from and increase CPTSD. Childhood relational wounds condition you for adult trauma bonding, where love feels conditional. The constant relational strain magnifies toxic shame and emotional flashbacks, reinforcing feelings of unworthiness and isolation. Understanding this link to codependency is a core part of CPTSD recovery.

Healing the Inner Child.

Healing begins with turning toward the wounded inner child with the compassion that was missing in the past. Through gentle practices such as inner-child visualization, therapeutic writing, somatic grounding, or mirror work, survivors can offer themselves the self-validation, safety, and unconditional acceptance they were once denied. Re-parenting oneself involves setting healthy boundaries, practicing self-soothing, and gradually rebuilding self-worth independent of external approval.

The Bottom Line: Finding Help is the First Step to Healing and Recovery

Trauma-Informed Steps for Support and Healing for Survivors:

Validate your experience: The patterns were survival strategies, not character flaws.
Practice boundary-setting: Start small—say “no” without explanation or apology.
Regulate the nervous system: Use breathwork, grounding exercises, or body scans to interrupt dysregulation.
Seek specialized support: Work with therapists trained in complex trauma, attachment, or codependency (e.g., using EMDR, IFS, or somatic approaches).
Cultivate self-compassion: Use daily affirmations rooted in truth (“I am worthy of mutual, respectful love”).

CPTSD Foundation offers daily support, trauma-informed resources, blogs, and safe communities to help heal from childhood relational trauma and codependency. Explore attachment wounds, neurodiversity, and practical strategies to reduce isolation and rebuild your life.

Your pain is valid. Healing isn’t linear—every small act of self-kindness builds resilience and opens the door to real connection. You’re worthy of peace, mutual love, and full recovery. Help is available—reach out.

Support

Helplines and Immediate Support: If you are in crisis or need urgent support:

CPTSD Foundation Help Centre
US: Crisis Text Line – Text HOME to 741741 (24/7); National Suicide Prevention Lifeline – Call or text 988.
International: Local crisis hotlines, mental health services, or trusted professionals.

References and sources:

Photo by DICSON on Unsplash

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Names have been changed to protect identities. 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.

Jenney Clark

Jenney Clark is an Indian author and poet, best known for her book “Don’t Be Afraid to Love.” She has published eight books, including “Magic of the Ancients,” and hosts a podcast titled “Awakened Souls.” After leaving a successful job in the service industry, she pursued her passion for writing and became a life coach. Raised in a small town in India she discovered her psychic abilities at a young age and developed a strong interest in Tarot, astrology and numerology. She enjoys connecting with a diverse range of friends, including artists and writers and lives in a cozy “cubby hole” in Hyderabad with her dog, along with her beloved books and music

jenneyclark.com/

“What’s Wrong With You?”: A Ridiculous Question

Heather Jurvelin — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 12:10:48 +0000

“What’s wrong with you?” she asks the person in the mirror. This echo reverberates within her head as a chorus of voices. Her mother’s voice mingles with her own, changing in tone and pitch throughout her four decades of life, yet always asking the same question. Though she never finds an answer that seems to stick, she finds many faults masquerading as possibilities.

She hears the voice of the five-year-old shamed for being overly rambunctious, the 12-year-old who struggles to make friends, the 16-year-old who actively fantasizes about death, the 22-year-old who has no idea what to “do with her life,” the 30-year-old who is too depressed to get out of bed, the 35-year-old mother who can’t seem to find joy in every moment of motherhood, the 41-year-old who erupts into tears during a dental procedure, and on and on. They all chime in.

This person in the mirror itemizes every mistake that she has made throughout her life. She criticizes her inability to form and maintain deep relationships. She nitpicks her physical “shortcomings” and catalogs all the ways she is simultaneously “too much” and “not enough.” Unable to answer the question, she carries these shackles of self-deprecation as “proof” of all that is “wrong” with her.

A part of me, however, stands beside her and sees a survivor. I see that there is nothing wrong with her, but rather the situations she faced. I see a five-year-old child who was just being a kid, her noise and frenetic energy not compatible with my young mother’s exhausted and overwhelmed nervous system. I see a 12-year-old entering my third school in as many years, not seeing a point in making new friends. Besides, I was pretty sure my “peers” couldn’t relate to a parent almost intentionally killing them during the first week of school. I see a 16-year-old hunted by a predator in my own home.

As if that wasn’t enough, that year I felt survivor’s guilt for being able to walk while my then-boyfriend lay hospitalized after becoming paralyzed in a car accident months earlier. I see a 22-year-old who, against all odds, graduated from college but didn’t feel “worthy” of a “real job” or healthy relationships. How could I possibly have known what to do, how to be, in those “normal” contexts?

I tried to be “normal,” but couldn’t define it, and only now do I understand that it is because “normal” doesn’t exist.

I didn’t understand it then, though…I only saw someone who felt “wrong.” It would be another decade before I saw beyond the flaws. Within that old lens, I see a 30-year-old who still didn’t know “what to do with my life.” My shame around this only grew under the unforgiving lens of my mother’s criticism, which she unloaded all at once in an argument. Under the influence of a substantial amount of alcohol, she held nothing back in her assessment of all the ways I’d failed.

Apparently, I have crappy taste in men, and my recent attempt to prove my worth by earning another degree had backfired. Mom berated me for supposedly thinking I’m “smarter than everyone.” I didn’t think that, but her words momentarily stole my will to participate in life, which, according to her, I was failing anyway.

A half-decade later, I see an overwhelmed 35-year-old mother of a one-year-old. They say it takes a village to raise a child; unfortunately, that didn’t apply to me in my mid-thirties because help didn’t exist in places where one might expect it, and I simply didn’t know how to ask for it. That word wasn’t in my vocabulary. Little did I know, I would have one more child, and I was only in the dawn of the exhaustion that is now second-nature. It would be another seven years before I had my first and only 48-hour break from motherhood.

The overwhelm and fatigue, along with an overpowering love for my children, is what finally encouraged me to make some changes in my early 40s. Those changes came with some stark realizations and interesting experiences, like having a breakdown in a dental chair at 41 years old when I couldn’t hold my crap together for another second. As my startled dentist tried to soothe his suddenly sobbing middle-aged patient, I asked myself the same question I always ask myself: “What is wrong with you?” (Sometimes I use other words like “Why am I like this?” and “Would the world be better off without me in it?”)

The problem is, all this time, no matter how I phrased it, I’ve been asking myself the wrong question. There’s nothing “wrong” with me. There’s plenty wrong with the circumstances I’ve faced. The real question should have been, “What is happening to and around you to make you feel this way?”

That question, however, was not written into the original script. Five-year-olds who grow up in healthy, supportive environments don’t ask themselves, “What’s wrong with me?” Ironically, those words often first come from the person or people responsible for providing a supportive and secure environment for that child. Having failed to do that and instead of taking responsibility for their shortcomings, these people sometimes direct the blame to the child.

Over time, their voice(s) mingle with ours, and the question that should have never been asked imprisons us in insecurity. We find ways to justify the question. We stockpile our “failures” and can give you a grand tour of places we went wrong. It’s easy to showcase our faults.

What happens if we turn that logic outward? Think about someone you love. Imagine them internalizing the message that something is wrong with them. How do you feel? This piece, inspired by someone dear to me, was born in my anger at her being held prisoner by the very words that are as present in my head as stars in a night sky. Her self-defacing mantra was also planted by a parent and then reinforced by her own inner voices for decades. I look at her and see bravery, humility, and strength. I don’t see anything “wrong” with her. Instead, my focus narrowed to a person I’ve never met. A part of me fought the urge to deliver an unsolicited, unfiltered piece of my mind to her mother.

How dare she say something so awful to this person who brings so much light to the world? I wrestled with how I could remove the sting of these words from my friend’s heart. How could I possibly convince her that there is nothing wrong with her? How could she believe something so ridiculous about herself?

And then…I silently acknowledged that I’d swallowed the same poison. It was not until I heard those words within the context of a loved one’s internal narrative that I so blatantly questioned them in myself. I, too, had been asked that question by my mother. I, too, believed that since she asked the question (repeatedly), there must surely be something “wrong” with me. I have spent much of my life searching for the answer to that question. I’ve identified a slew of potential candidates, but nothing has felt solidly “right.”

Well…at 43 years old, I finally found the answer to the question “What is wrong with you?” Ready for it? It’s a real nail-biter.

Here it is: not a damn thing. Do I have flaws? Areas for improvement? Weaknesses? Yes, of course. We all do. But there’s nothing “wrong” with me. It is “wrong” that my mother ever demanded an answer to such a ridiculous question. It would be easy to get angry at her the way I did at my friend’s mother. In thinking about it, however, I suspect that they, too, have stood in front of mirrors and asked: “What’s wrong with you?”

Likely, long ago, someone carelessly hurled that very question at them. I think asking that question of another person is a sign of something unbalanced or emotional malnourishment within. I feel compassion for anyone who has asked this question of another, for I know it is born in insecurity.

That’s not to say that I’m not mad. This ridiculous question made my blood boil when my friend acknowledged it as an internal mantra. When I internally admitted that I shared this mantra, I decided I’m not buying it anymore. The fact that these words live within me only renews my commitment to healing. I will not ask this question of my children, and I will do my very best to ensure that their environment does not create inner chaos.

Furthermore, though this question can sweep in at the drop of a hat for me, I will be conscious of its roots. I will rephrase the question. Instead of demanding to know what is wrong with me, I will ask myself what was wrong with the circumstances that created these feelings.

So many of us have been asked this question that shouldn’t be asked. Even worse, it has often been asked by the people we looked to for love. Instead of searching for answers we will never find, let’s reframe the question and consider who asked it and why. When we consider the source and motivation for this question and reword it to explore what was wrong with what we faced, we infuse it with what was missing all along: compassion. There was never anything wrong with us.

We simply did our best to handle things we shouldn’t have had to experience. It’s time to stop trying to answer the question that should not have been asked. So, if you, too, have been asked this ridiculous question, please remind yourself that you finally found the answer: not a damn thing.

Photo credit: Pixabay

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.

Heather Jurvelin

Finally feeling truly alive for the first time in my life, I am writing from a place of gradual healing with an eye to the future and a hope of connecting with others on similar paths. Forced to withhold a tsunami of emotions deemed irrelevant under the roof of my childhood “home,” the blank white pages of my notebooks invited my raw reflections without judgment. Writing allowed me to free the burdens of my soul, but at some point, I muzzled myself. My pen lay dormant for years until, at 41 years old, I experienced a traumatic flashback during an everyday activity that shook me to the core. Five days later, I started writing about the things I had long withheld. I couldn’t stop. Written words have once again become my refuge. I now recognize that these words, resurrected from the ashes of my pain, may have the power to help others. Above all, I want to magnify and share the messages that I have most treasured on my journey: we are not alone and we don’t ever have to go back. This is where we live now and the future is ours.

Heavy Emptiness: The Weight of Attachment Wounds

Heather Jurvelin — Thu, 09 Oct 2025 09:52:23 +0000

I don’t always feel hopeful or strong.

Abandoned insecurities masquerade as anxiety
Splintering me into a million shards
I seek safety in an impossibility
A home to isolated and shattered parts

The weight of my sadness
Sits idly at their feet until they kick it away
Severed connection to nothing but loneliness
An open rejection of my pain

Forbidden feelings cast love in violence
Attached to nothing but despair
Neglected needs gone cold, I suffer in silence
Shadows of comfort stripped bare

Choking on my emotions
I live in desperate loneliness
Where I roll through the motions
That ride a wave of emptiness

I stand alone in alienated isolation
Handing out pieces of unsanctioned love
I stand apart from the separation
On this side of never enough

I hurl my love into an open pit and listen for it to land
Wait for the earth to swallow it
Like water soaked up by the sand

This is the truth of abandonment
A malignant curse coated in disgust
These are the scars of misaligned attachment
Raw, gaping, and unversed in trust

My heavy emptiness stands unhealed by time
There’s only one thing in life that’s permanent and it’s not life
My worth lies untouched by love
A shadow of myself hides beneath the emptiness
Where it is lost between too much and never enough

If you’ve read anything else I’ve written, you may have noticed a strong undercurrent of hope and strength woven within my reflections. Unfortunately, I don’t always feel hopeful or strong. At times, I am crushed by the weight of my pain. The words above capture a jagged sliver of the darkness that sometimes brings me to my knees. As I heal and grapple with tending to my long-ignored attachment wounds, I am furious and gutted by grief. A few steps into my healing journey, I am learning to really feel. The pain was always there, clinging to me like a soaked shirt on wet skin.

Of course, I felt it to a degree, but not like this. The universe has cranked up the volume of my emotions. Sharp lines and vibrant colors have replaced the blurriness that once robbed my vision of clarity. I see my life through new eyes. It’s simultaneously blindingly beautiful and mercilessly gut-wrenching. Not that long ago, I couldn’t feel what I didn’t have in my life. Now I feel it all. I feel all of what I never had, and I hate it. I hate the canyon of loss it has carved into my soul. I hate it even more that my therapist is right when she reminds me, “the only way out is through.” I don’t want to listen to her because I know it means embracing this pain and feeling the burn of its raw rage and gut-churning grief. How can there possibly be more pain? And yet there is.

It’s unfair that so many of us live with these deep wounds that can only heal by being opened again. If you’re reading this and you relate, hugs to you. Then again, if you’re battling an insecure attachment style, you might not want one anyway. Or maybe you want a hug, but are terrified of the implications. It’s one of those things where if you know, you know. I’m not making light of the destruction created by these wounds; I’m simply pointing out that they are the gift that keeps giving and these “gifts” suck. The stupid things don’t have a return policy; they are ours to carry. It’s infuriating. I’m not going to sugarcoat it; this is a crap deal, and we didn’t do anything to deserve this. We have every right to feel the way we do, whether it’s rage, sorrow, denial, or an unappetizing stew of all these feelings.

Many of us find ourselves suffocating beneath the unforgiving weight of this heavy emptiness. Unfortunately and fortunately, even though we may often feel alone, we are not. As I mentioned in my article, “The Club We Never Asked to Join,” many people share similar experiences and feelings. Thanks to the way our traumatic experiences have disfigured our ability to connect without fear, we may doubt that we can be loved and that it is safe to love others. Love can feel like the riskiest feeling of all. Recently, I realized that I’m terrified of embracing love because in my mind, it so often comes with strings and/or a price. This discovery of my distorted thoughts about love ignited my rage. It also solidified my commitment to doing everything I can to heal the wounds I’ve carried for decades.

Although our strength and hope are at times submerged, it doesn’t mean they’re not there. They are there. If they weren’t there, we wouldn’t be here right now. We’ll get through this. We always do. I have to think that when our wounds heal this time, thanks to the tender love we give them, the scarring will not carry the sting that it started with. I also believe that we will come out the other side with a relieved and much-earned smile on our faces. Mine will be a little bit cocky because I just can’t help it. Love has its place in the world, but sometimes it’s okay to be fueled by the fumes of our rage. I will heal this gaping, bloody abyss because I’m irate and I’m too stubborn not to at least try. I hope you do as well.

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

Heather Jurvelin

Do I Tell Them? Sitting with the Weight of Sharing Your Story with Your Parents

Danica Alison — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 12:48:38 +0000

There comes a point on the healing journey when the question doesn’t whisper. It roars.

Do I tell my parents?
Do they deserve to know what happened to me?
Would they believe me?
Would they hold it with care, or would it break me all over again?

If you’re here, standing in that in-between place, you’re not alone. This is one of the hardest crossroads survivors face. For some, the decision feels clear. For others, like me, it’s layered and ongoing.

Sometimes the abuse happened under your parents’ roof.
Sometimes it was hidden in plain sight.
And sometimes, you don’t even know if they know.

You might find yourself circling questions like:

Do I owe them this truth?
Will it bring healing or harm?
What if they can’t hold it? What if they say the wrong thing, or nothing at all?
What if I speak it and everything changes—or worse, nothing does?

The truth is, sharing your story with a parent is not required for healing. It is a choice. And like all sacred choices, it deserves time, care, and safety.

Ask Yourself These Questions First

Before deciding to disclose, here are a few grounding questions to sit with:

1. Why do I want to share this?
Is it for connection? Clarity? Validation? To reclaim power? To draw a boundary?
There is no wrong reason, but knowing your why can anchor you.

2. What do I hope will happen? What do I fear might happen?
Give yourself permission to answer both. Hope and fear can live side by side.

3. Have I processed this enough to hold steady if their response is hurtful, shocked, or dismissive?
If not, that’s okay. It may not be time yet.

4. Do I have support ready, a friend, therapist, or coach to debrief with afterward?
You are not meant to carry this alone, no matter how strong you are.

If You Do Choose to Share, Prepare Yourself First

Here are a few things that can help:

Write down what you want to say.
It can be a letter, a few bullet points, or a full narrative. Organizing your thoughts helps you stay grounded.
Practice.
Talk it through with someone you trust. Let your nervous system rehearse what it feels like to be witnessed.
Set boundaries before the conversation.
Say things like, “I just need you to listen right now,” or “I’m not looking for advice or debate.”
Prepare for all outcomes.
They may meet you with compassion, or they may not. Your truth is still valid.
Have a plan for how to step away if needed.
If things get overwhelming, you get to pause, end, or redirect the conversation.

And If You Decide Not to Tell Them? That’s Valid Too.

You do not owe anyone your story. Not even your family.

You can be deeply healing and wildly brave without ever telling your parents what happened.

Not telling doesn’t mean you’re hiding. It means you are choosing what is safest, kindest, and most aligned for you right now.

And if your answer changes later? That’s okay. This journey is not linear.

Final Thoughts

This part of your story, the telling, the not telling, the wondering, still belongs to you.

You don’t have to rush. You don’t need anyone’s permission. You get to honor your truth in whatever way feels right. You are not broken. You are becoming. And that is powerful.

As for me, I still haven’t shared my story with my parents.
They can’t even hold my warm memories without minimizing them, so I’ve chosen not to interrupt my peace just to be met with silence or dismissal. I may never get the response I would hope for, and that’s a grief I’ve learned to hold gently. For now, protecting my healing matters more than being understood by people who never truly saw me.

And maybe that’s the bravest choice of all.

Photo by Ioann-Mark Kuznietsov on Unsplash

Danica Alison

Danica Alison is an optimist, deep thinker, and out-of-the-box adventurer who finds meaning in life’s chaos. She’s a writer, a healing advocate, and someone who believes healing is a journey best traveled with curiosity, humor, and a little bit of rebellious joy.
A lifelong lover of stories, both lived and told. She is passionate about exploring the messy, beautiful process of being human. Whether she’s writing, learning, or connecting with others, she brings a mix of warmth, honesty, and a refusal to fit into neat little boxes.

www.DanicaAlison.com

Our Mental Health and Society

Sylvie Rouhani — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 09:37:04 +0000

Mental health services in the UK have always been hard to access. In the past 5 years, they can no longer meet the increasing number of suffering individuals’ needs. The recurring question is, “Why are more people diagnosed with depression/ADHD/ BPD?” So, what is happening?

John-Paul Ford Rojas recently wrote in The Daily Mail: “Britain is suffering its longest sick note epidemic for 25 years as 2.7MILLION people claim they are too ill to work and holding back the country’s economic growth in the process” Please read: “People claim they are too ill to work” Meaning: “They are lying and work-shy.” “Holding the economy back:” Meaning:” The current disastrous state of the economy is the fault of all those liars and work-shy individuals.” All following the popular theories. Take Mel Stride, for instance, who declared: “Mental health culture has gone too far.” And “Normal anxiety life is being labelled as an illness.”

For 13 years, under a Conservative government. People suffering from mental illnesses have been subjected to increasing abuse and mistreatment in the forms of Work Capability Assessments, the creation of Universal Credit, with a long process to get first payments, penalising individuals for minor errors, placing them into distressing living and emotional conditions; some losing their lives waiting for support and care, others dying by suicide, pushed to their limits.

UN warns UK government ‘demonises’ disabled people with ‘onerous’ benefits system: “Rosemary Kayess, the chair of UNCRPD, said: “We see a reform agenda that is framed in a political narrative that demonises disabled people, including proposals to cut disability benefits to reward working people by cutting taxes, which tells disabled people they are undeserving citizens.” Later, She adds: “Reforms within social welfare benefits are premised on a notion that disabled people are undeserving and skiving off and defrauding the system. This has resulted in hate speech and hostility towards disabled people.” Indeed, hate speech and hostility towards disabled people have never been higher.

The constant dehumanization of disabled people has been brought a few times now to the UN, but no concrete actions have been put in place for change. As the General election approached, it was clear the Labour and Conservative parties were planning further attacks on their most vulnerable citizens – anyone who was sick, living in poverty, and unemployed. Liz Kendall, Labour’s Shadow Work Secretary, declared on the 4th of March 2024: ” Under the Labour party, if you can work, there will be no options of a life on benefits.” The Standard read as follows: “Labour has promised tougher measures on handing out benefits payments as it sets out plans to reduce the number of young people out of work, education or training.” If their promise is to support young people to get easier access to work or apprenticeships, that is great, but “Labour has promised tougher measures on handling out benefits” feels like more unnecessary punishment and pressure instead of making sure these young vulnerable adults have a safe and supportive system in place while they work things out and heal. There are plans for DWP to have access to benefits claimant’s bank accounts just to make sure they aren’t lying and committing fraud.

The standards of living in the UK have seriously plummeted, with “The Cost of Living Crisis” and ever-increasing food, bills, mortgage/ rent, etc. Even those who work can’t afford a decent lifestyle. Working doesn’t pay enough anymore. Getting into University puts young adults in debt for most of their lives and no longer guarantees a good job/ life. There is a constant fear of becoming homeless and of losing everything, which all creates stress, anxiety, depression and trauma for parents and their children. Stressed and unhappy parents make stressed and unhappy children. People are struggling to survive: how can they be fully present for their children? These situations create Attachment Trauma. Small and big kids are not getting what they need more than anything: loving, caring and available parents. These little ones will grow up with difficulties such as ADHD, depression, anxiety., and more. They will be labelled as difficult, attention-seeking, and childish.

Adult survivors of child abuse (whether mental, emotional, physical and/or sexual abuse.) have already been through hell, trying to manage a life of total despair. If some get out of the abusive parental home/ or care setting in one piece, they will have more difficulties than others in building their adult life. Some will fit well into society – workaholism and being forever busy are also trauma responses, which are celebrated, but still, these individuals are left alone to carry their pain. Society doesn’t mind nor care if you are struggling as long as you can play the rat race game, even to the detriment of your health and happiness.

For those whose trauma manifests as depression, anxiety and lethargy, having great difficulties even going out in the world, feeling frozen in fear and in sadness, with no one to turn to, and for those dealing with inflammatory illnesses, with chronic pain as well as mental illness, who really can’t “actively participate in the economy”, they are doomed to suffer even more. They are dealing with having to beg for the emotional and financial support they need and deserve. They are more likely to be dismissed by GPs or so-called mental health experts. They are constantly bullied in the news, in the papers and in politicians’ speeches. They are hunted down and pushed to death by DWP – IT IS BULLYING AND PERSECUTION.

Suicide rate rise in England “very concerning, says charity.” Nic Paton wrote, on 8 Apr 2024, for Occupational Health Plus. “In all, 5,579 suicides were registered in England in 2023. In response, the mental health charity Mind has called the figures “very concerning”. Jen Walters, Mind executive director of social change, said: “Even one suicide is one too many. The causes of suicide are many, complex, and vary from one person to another.” She added: “What we do know is we are still feeling the seismic effects from the pandemic, and the cost-of-living crisis is continuing to have a devastating impact on society. We must do much more to reverse this.”

You can read about my own experience of suffering from mental illness as a result of severe child abuse, which was labelled as BPD, and how it has affected my work life on the page – About Sylvie. Suffice to say the messages we are receiving through the media – social, newspapers and News – as well as from politicians: “You are lazy. You are not wanted here. Everything is your fault, and you deserve your “lifestyle”. You are useless to us. You are just pretending to be ill, so you don’t have to work.” resonates strongly with the words I grew up hearing, from my biggest bully: my own mother. It is triggering, cruel and abusive.

Take gentle care of yourselves – it isn’t easy to live in such a cruel society.

Sylvie

You can read:

– The Office of National Statistics’ latest release, Suicides in England and Wales Statistical bulletins

– On Winter Turns into Spring: The impact our environment has on our mental health.

– I tell my story in The Blossoming Lotus

Sylvie Rouhani

Writer – Blogger – Poet – Mental Health and Child Abuse Activist

Deputy Editor and Journalist for Taxpayers Against Poverty

Author of The Blossoming Lotus”

https://www.austinmacauley.com/book/blossoming-lotus

New Website: Breaking The Cycles

https://breakingthecycles.co.uk/

breakingthecycles.co.uk

A Drop in the Ocean

Sophie Gourdon, M.Ed, MA, CTRC, CHt — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 13:04:00 +0000

Life is a series of dominoes—each experience triggering the next, creating a chain reaction that shapes our journey

For those navigating the path of healing from complex trauma, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the weight of past experiences. But within this very sequence lies a profound lesson: the domino effect can be harnessed as a force for resilience and transformation.

Healing from complex trauma is not a linear process; it’s a journey with many twists and turns, setbacks and triumphs. Like a domino setup, it may seem that one fall could cause the collapse of the entire structure. But what if we reframed our perspective? What if, instead of fearing the falling dominoes, we embraced the potential they hold?

The first step in this journey is acknowledging your strengths, no matter how small, because our strengths are the resources we can use to build from. You’ve endured and survived. That resilience is the cornerstone upon which you build your path to healing. Each domino represents a step forward—a trauma recovery coaching session, a moment of self-reflection, a meditation, a prayer, the decision to confront a particular fear, a day, or even just an hour or a minute where you can choose self-care over self-doubt.

Often, we underestimate the power of small actions. Imagine each action as a domino, poised to tip the next one. A kind word to yourself or seeking support from a friend or an online support group—these seemingly small actions set off a chain reaction. They create momentum, gradually shifting the trajectory of your healing journey.

There will be many moments when you feel stuck, when progress seems halted, to be sure. So it’s crucial to remember that just as a chain reaction slows at times, it doesn’t mean it’s stopped. It only takes one domino to restart the cascade—a moment of insight, a breakthrough with your coach, or a newfound coping mechanism. These moments reignite the domino effect, propelling you forward once again.

Healing from complex trauma requires patience and understanding. Be gentle with yourself at your current ability level, when the road feels arduous. Remember, it’s okay to rest. Even in rest, as you catch your breath, the dominoes are still in place, ready to move when you’re rejuvenated and prepared to continue.

Community and support are pillars of strength. Surround yourself with individuals who uplift and encourage your journey. Share your story (only what feels ok and safe to share), and connect with others who have walked similar paths. In doing so, you create a network of interconnected dominoes, each supporting the other, amplifying the power of collective resilience.

As the dominoes fall, each one symbolizes progress—a testament to your courage and determination. Embrace the idea that healing is not about erasing the past but about finding peace from it. Your wounds turn into scars and your scars tell stories of your survival, resilience, and eventual triumph.

IT’S NOT MAGIC, IT’S SCIENCE:

WHAT EXPONENTIAL GROWTH TRULY LOOKS LIKE

Imagine this: a single domino can topple another, and that one, in turn, can set off a chain reaction. This simple idea embodies the science of the domino effect—an illustration of how small actions can lead to massive results. The “magic” lies in the exponential growth inherent in this phenomenon: When a domino falls, it can knock over another domino that’s about 1.5 times larger. This seemingly minor increase in size results in a progressively greater force. After just 23 dominoes, the last one would be as tall as the Empire State Building. And with only a few more, those dominoes could stretch all the way to the moon!

This scientific principle mirrors the journey of recovering from complex trauma. Initially, taking those first small steps might not seem significant, but each action creates a ripple effect, setting off a sequence of events that gain momentum over time.

So, as you embark on your trauma recovery journey, remember the power of the domino effect. Every small step forward is like toppling a domino, setting in motion a chain reaction of healing. Embrace the compounding effect of these actions, knowing that they have the potential to create a monumental shift in your life.

1st Domino:

The size of a standard domino is roughly about 2 inches by 1 inch (5 cm by 2.5 cm).

5th Domino:

Comparable to a smartphone, measuring approximately 5.5 inches by 2.75 inches (14 cm by 7 cm).

10th Domino:

Roughly the size of a standard laptop, around 15 inches by 9.5 inches (38 cm by 24 cm).

20th Domino:

Similar in size to a small flat-screen TV, approximately 1.05 meters by 41 inches by 20 inches (0.52 meters).

23rd Domino:

Reaching the height of an average adult, standing at about 5 feet 7 inches tall (1.70 meter).

26th Domino:

Towering to the height of a two-story house, at approximately 14 feet 5 inches (4.39 meters).

29th Domino:

Standing at approximately 1,454 feet (443.2 meters) tall, the height of the Empire State Building.

50th Domino:

Using the initial domino as a reference (approximately 2 inches or 5 cm tall), it would take around 50 iterations of the 1.5 times growth to achieve a height capable of reaching the moon. So, after merely getting to the 50th domino in the sequence, with the exponential growth continuing, you could literally reach or even surpass the distance to the moon (238,855 miles or 384,400 kms from Earth)!

This staggering illustration showcases the incredible power of exponential growth in the domino effect, and the astonishing progression in size as the dominoes continue to fall. From the small scale of handheld objects to human-sized and even architectural and astronomical proportions, this sequence illustrates the tremendous impact that the cumulative effect of small actions can have as we take one step back, then one small step forward, and then another, and another, on our brave journey towards trauma recovery. In the face of daunting challenges, you may not always be able to see it, yet it is a scientific fact that every small action sets off a chain reaction, capable of monumental outcomes.

WHAT’S THE POINT?

Within the simple fall of a domino lies a profound lesson—the power of resilience and the potential of incremental progress. Each step forward, no matter how seemingly small, contributes to the exponential chain reaction of your growth and transformation.

As you bravely navigate the journey of healing from complex trauma, remember the wisdom of the domino effect and trust the resilience within you because as a survivor, you have indeed survived 100% of everything you have had to endure to get to this very blog post today.

Embrace your process, with all its highs and lows, knowing that your actions, each one akin to toppling a domino, carry within them the potential for monumental transformation, in the same way that the humble acorn carries within its tiny, hardened shell, the promise of a mighty oak.

ARE YOU READY TO RECOVER WITH THE SUPPORT OF

A CERTIFIED COMPLEX TRAUMA RECOVERY COACH?

BOOK A FREE 45-MINUTE DISCOVERY CALL WITH ME!

[contact-form]

Sophie Gourdon, M.Ed, MA, CTRC, CHt

As the Founder of Little Wave Coaching, LLC, Sophie walks alongside complex trauma survivors, helping them recover and thrive beyond trauma to live more connected, meaningful, authentic lives. She is a Somatic IFS-Informed Certified Trauma Recovery Coach, Certified Clinical Emotional Freedom Techniques practitioner, and Certified Consulting Hypnotist. She is also a complex, childhood, and sexual trauma overcomer. She offers evidence-based coaching to survivors seeking to overcome their anxiety, overwhelm, cravings, chronic pain, complex, childhood, or sexual trauma. Littlewavecoaching.com is a comprehensive self-healing resource welcoming and supporting all complex trauma survivors seeking recovery. It is packed with psychoeducation about somatic tools like Emotional Freedom Techniques, Tapping, IFS/Parts Work, Solution-Driven Hypnosis, and Brain Rewiring, as well as hundreds of resources (e.g. 130+ videos, 50+ books, 80+ calm kit tools & more).

www.littlewavecoaching.com

Trauma & Shame: The Struggle is Real

Jennifer Kindera — Wed, 10 Jan 2024 14:02:46 +0000

How does toxic shame start? How does it become internalized and pervasive?

My clients find me because they are looking for help with their childhood trauma, and many don’t realize the depth of the toxic, pervasive shame that goes hand in hand with that. While I’ve written more in-depth articles on shame before, (see article Unshaming Shame) as it’s a huge part of what we show the world, and how we view ourselves, I haven’t done a bite-size article. This topic is vast and we seem to underestimate the power of this mysterious primary emotion, time and again.

When we are born, we have the cognition of shame. This is where it differs from guilt, as guilt is a secondary emotion, not a primary. In childhood, it takes one triggering event to bring the healthy emotion of shame to the center. Shame is meant to protect us, to keep us safe.

When you were little, maybe toddler age, you perhaps reached for something that the adult with you deemed was unsafe, such as the hot stove. This adult grabbed your hand back and said, “No! Don’t touch that!” Pretty standard for kiddos, yeah? In that moment though, shame rose. You heard the tone of voice, saw the facial expression and body language, and the panic. Shame jumped up and said, “Oh no, protection time!” You most likely started to cry and hopefully were comforted. Shame keeps us small and silent, to mitigate risk and keep us out of trouble where we could get hurt.

That sounds like a pretty great mechanism inside our bodies and minds, doesn’t it? Like a safety valve that gets flipped to try keep us alive. Amazing.

Now, that doesn’t speak to how it “feels,” because it’s so darn uncomfortable. Shame feels like we did something wrong and people outside of us are going to see and it’s bad bad bad, if they do. We can feel exposed and it’s uncomfortable.

Despite how this “feels,” it’s a beautiful thing to recognize that our bodies and brains use shame to help us stay safe. And, it’s healthy.

That being said, when we are little ones, growing up in dysfunction, healthy shame can turn toxic. It becomes the go-to mechanism and we will turn it inward, resulting in a loud, harsh, and unrelenting inner critic who has lots to say and none of it is nurturing.

When healthy shame turns toxic, its purpose is to keep us small and silent to try to mitigate the risk of repeated chronic, consistent trauma and abuse. As we grow up, this toxic shame doesn’t just go away. It is the guiding principle in all our parts and has to be addressed for healing to happen.

Toxic shame is about a person, not an event(s). When a child growing up in a healthy family, makes a mistake, the caregiver might say, “It’s just a mistake, we all make them, let’s clean it up together.” The child is not shamed and taught a valuable lesson; they get to be human, and make mistakes, however, they are not the sum-total of their mistakes.

When a child growing up in a dysfunctional environment makes a mistake, the caregiver may say, “You are so clumsy, stupid, how could you do that?” This moment is the break in attunement. Toxic shame has now been established. The child then takes those statements and internalizes them as “I am my mistakes.” Not, “I made a mistake.”

And, we know that shame, healthy or toxic, is a primary emotion and a nervous system freeze.

If you are a science geek like me, understanding the nervous system piece with shame is vitally important. We feel shame in the body and have a cognitive label for it and the nervous system goes into fight, flight, freeze, fawn, or flop when it rises in the body. Bottom-up approach!

What does this look like in our adult life? I mean, hey, we are grown up, out of that home life where all the abuse happened, why am I not fixed, better, okay with who I am? Why do I question myself at best, and berate myself at worst?

You guessed it: because of the toxic shame. So the trauma(s) may have been addressed in therapy and/or trauma coaching, but if we miss working with the toxic shame piece, it will continue to rise and attempt to protect you, by mitigating risk and keeping you small.

It looks like so many things. As toxic shame is pervasive, it affects our personal relationships, professional life, parenting, choices we make, and lifestyles we choose or don’t choose.

For example, in a professional setting, it can look like perfectionism, self-sabotage, disorganization, and many other things. I created an infographic a while back for teaching: here is a clip of just some of the ways toxic shame manifests in our work life.

The layers run deep for those of us with developmental trauma and toxic, pervasive shame. What I know to be true today, is that developmental abuse and attachment wounding are relational trauma and must be healed in the context of a relationship. For toxic shame “pockets” as I like to call them with clients and students, it means we shine a gentle light on them and excavate the non-reality of the internal statements, re-shape and soften the events and the deeper meaning of “I couldn’t have done it differently.”

Is this easy work? No. Is it worth it? Absolutely.

Hoping you are taking good care of all your parts today, especially those with toxic shame. You deserve healing and nurturing.

Jennifer Kindera

As a Certified Trauma Recovery Coach Supervisor and Certified Healing Shame Practitioner, my focus at Jennifer Kindera Coaching is to help clients navigate their potential traumas which may be holding them back from living life to their fullest capacity. Trauma recovery coaching and healing shame takes time, but with an honest, inclusive, and compassionate space for the unfolding of your life journey, you can work to unravel the binds of trauma and shame to promote your capacity for healing and growth.

www.jenniferkindera.com

Attachment Wounds in the Workplace

Cyndi Bennett — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 10:28:51 +0000

Today, I will share a personal story of how attachment wounds play out in the workplace. I am opening myself up and being vulnerable because I know I am not the only one who has experienced a situation like this, and I want you to know you are not alone.

Attachment Theory Primer

Attachment Theory was originated by British psychologist John Bowlby, who described attachment as “lasting psychological connectedness between human beings.” Bowlby believed that the earliest bonds between children and their caretakers have an incredible impact throughout their lives.

According to an article on verywellmind.com, there are four patterns of attachment:

“Ambivalent attachment: These children become very distressed when a parent leaves. Ambivalent attachment style is considered uncommon, affecting an estimated 7% to 15% of U.S. children. As a result of poor parental availability, these children cannot depend on their primary caregiver to be there when they need them.
Avoidant attachment: Children with an avoidant attachment tend to avoid parents or caregivers, showing no preference between a caregiver and a complete stranger. This attachment style might be a result of abusive or neglectful caregivers. Children who are punished for relying on a caregiver will learn to avoid seeking help in the future.
Disorganized attachment: These children display a confusing mix of behavior, seeming disoriented, dazed, or confused. They may avoid or resist the parent. Lack of a clear attachment pattern is likely linked to inconsistent caregiver behavior. In such cases, parents may serve as both a source of comfort and fear, leading to disorganized behavior.
Secure attachment: Children who can depend on their caregivers show distress when separated and joy when reunited. Although the child may be upset, they feel assured that the caregiver will return. When frightened, securely attached children are comfortable seeking reassurance from caregivers. This is the most common attachment style.”

There is significantly more research about the effects of the failure to form secure attachments on children than on the lasting effects of these failures on adults. However, based on my own experience of having both a disorganized attachment with my father and an ambivalent attachment with my mother, I passionately contend that even with significant therapeutic intervention, these wounds wreak havoc in the lives of trauma survivors.

The Havoc of Attachment Wounds in the Workplace

This was the case for me last week at work, even though I have spent countless hours in therapy working to neutralize the adverse effects of my attachment wounds. To start, let me say that trauma survivors don’t stop experiencing the effects of trauma just because they go to work. It is not something you can put in a locker someplace until after work is over…it’s part of you. It is woven into the fabric of your life.

Often, these wounds are not triggered by something that happens at work but rather by situations or circumstances that happen outside of work and bring to work with us…which was the case for me this week.

Over the past couple of years, I have gotten much better at letting people in and allowing myself to attach to safe people. Last week I experienced a scenario where most of my significant attachments were unavailable due to vacation or other situations, and I started feeling lonely, lost, sad, and abandoned. It wasn’t that I didn’t know what was happening, but that did not seem to matter.

I introduced another attachment to my system in the last ninety days when I got a new boss. She and I hit it off immediately, which doesn’t usually happen, and I didn’t realize how attached I had become to her until this week. She is new to me and new to managing someone with trauma, but I found her open to learning, which I highly respect.

On Monday, I experienced a rupture in our relationship when I reached out to her for guidance on a deliverable she asked me to complete. She became frustrated that it was taking so long for me to understand what she was asking me for when she thought she was being clear (the call was going longer than she expected), and she became a bit sharp in her communication with me.

As a trauma survivor, getting “yelled at” (not that she really yelled, mind you) by my boss or any authority figure is a definite trigger for me. I immediately shrank back into my armor and detached. I got off the phone as quickly as I could and provided the deliverable she was looking for before I logged off for the evening.

At first, I thought maybe she was just triggered by her previous meeting, but you know how these things germinate in your brain, and then you start making up stories about how pissed off she really was at me and that she no longer wants me on her team…yes, I was catastrophizing.

For the rest of the week, I felt like I was walking on eggshells around her. I was sullen, withdrawn, and extremely sensitive to her good-natured teasing (which hadn’t been a problem for me before this situation). I was dysregulated and ready to cry for much of the week. I tried several times to text her to reestablish a connection, but she was unaware of how I was feeling or why.

After multiple days of seeing me like this, my dear sweet husband intervened…thank God for him. He asked me if I would just let this go on until my next 1:1 with her (next week) or if I would just deal with it and get it over with.

I chose to pull my big girl panties up, gather my courage, and reach out to her to see if we could repair the rupture. When I texted her the question, “Are we OK?” she realized something else was going on and asked me to jump on a call with her.

We talked through the situation that happened on Monday, and I let her know that I was feeling a little lost and needed a connection when I got on that call with her on Monday. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand what she wanted, but my need was for connection more than instruction.

She was willing to hear me. She didn’t know how big a thing this had become for me. She told me that, to her knowledge, she has never managed anyone with my degree of trauma (yes, I told her about my trauma). She said that she should be the one to change her management style to adapt to me so that I could be successful and that this situation was an opportunity for me to teach her more about trauma and how to manage someone who has trauma.

The bottom line is that the rupture/repair process works in the workplace when you have two willing participants. The process of repairing the rupture in our relationship has made us stronger and closer. We negotiated and established guidelines on what to do when/if this happens again.

In Retrospect

Looking back at my week and the whole situation, I noticed that I was already triggered by the multiple “detachment” events that occurred on Sunday. My desire to be on the phone with her on Monday for longer than she desired was an attempt to attach and gain assurance in that attachment because I felt alone and lost. Reaching out to her via chat on multiple occasions was also an attempt to re-establish a connection due to the rupture.

For Managers

When an employee has attachment wounds from childhood trauma, they can be triggered inside and outside of work, but they may not know they are triggered. This scenario exemplifies how an ambivalent attachment style plays out in the workplace.

Someone with an ambivalent attachment style may need many assurances that everything in the relationship is OK, and some people can become very frustrated with that because they take it personally. I have been blessed with some really understanding people in my life who realize how insecure I am and constantly reassure me that they are still with me.

Attachment wounds don’t just go away with time; however, recent attachment research is telling us that having one secure attachment as a child, even if it isn’t with their parents, can negate the parental attachment wound.

For Survivors

For those who did not get that secure attachment as a child, there is still hope…you can work on creating it with a therapist or trauma recovery coach. They will understand the need for attachment. It could be a start for you.

Eventually, you can learn to attach in a healthy way to other people. It will take some work and some practice, but you are not alone because I’ll be right with you doing my own work. We’ve got this!!

As always, you do not have to walk this journey alone.

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Cyndi Bennett

Believer. Leader. Learner. Advocate. Writer. Speaker. Coach. Mentor. Triathlete. Encourager. Survivor.

Most of all, I am a fellow traveler on the rocky road called, Trauma Recovery. My mission is to minimize the effects of trauma for survivors in the workplace.