Building Resilience in Healing | CPTSDfoundation.org

The Dysphoric Nature of Redefining Yourself

Adan Rhoades — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Half a century is a long time to live in a state of perpetual survival. When a child’s world is confined to a short list of places filled with memories of, and anticipation of, savagery, the paradigm of a safe place is unrecognizable. In my case, I normalized the impacts until, at age ten, my psyche snapped into self-guardianship. CPTSD built the walls, and a guardian within me stood upon them, ever watchful for the slightest hint of an occasion to retreat or stand tall against the intolerable. Decades later, the question became, “Will the internalized guardian allow me to redefine myself and heal?”

When lifelong soul-crushing challenges can no longer be ignored, the past must be reconciled.

I can think of no better analogy for my endeavor than peeling an onion. With my limited insights, the dried, crusty outer skin gave the false impression that the challenge was only old wounds to be removed and “let go”. Yet each peeled layer exposed a more sensitive, raw layer beneath. Each insight gained from blogs, others’ personal accounts, and clinical studies of how the body keeps the score revealed that what I thought were unique personality traits were actually symptoms and characteristics of those like me. The hypervigilance that exhausted me, the strain on my relationships, and the expectation that anything good that happened to me was a setup by the universe to punish me were only a few of the characteristics I thought were uniquely mine. Often, I didn’t even recognize what was happening because these and other CPTSD traits were me—they had always been me—and I was only beginning to see them clearly.

Like a hermit crab discarding its old protective shell for a new one, vulnerabilities are exposed.

As I sought to uncover traits as symptoms to be expunged, I wondered how different I might have been had I not been forced into a tormented life. Such an exercise is exhausting, and I fought depression as a result. Having peeled away so many layers of myself, I sat in my living room and felt dissociation after concluding that I had lost all sense of myself. I held back tears as I shared with a trusted friend at a social event that I no longer knew who I was. It was terrifying. I spent my whole life being as independent as possible, ever distrustful of anyone else but myself. And now I, too, was a stranger. There is a cold emptiness that accompanies being so lost.

Then came the epiphany.

I was wrong to so flippantly wish to discard anything tied to a traumatic past. Many of those traits have served me well in my chosen career. I struggled to accept certain change. I don’t want to lose the ability to recognize risk and danger in an instant. I don’t want to lose the ability to have a sixth sense of people. I don’t want to lose my hard-won intuition or my desire to stand up for those who are being harmed. I just don’t want to be ruled by them. I don’t want to be harmed by the very traits that rose from the ashes of a child consumed by firestorms of abuse—traits that gave me resiliency against future firestorms and strength against injustice. Albeit traits which came with a very high price.

Before me stands the opportunity to rebuild myself in the image of what I’ve always wanted for myself and my world.

Fortunately for me, building from imagery is one of my strengths. I love to design. I love to build. I find extraordinary fulfillment in home remodeling—tearing out old features of a room, redesigning it, and then rebuilding it on whatever foundation I leave in place. Similarly, I thought, why not draw on these strengths as the approach to healing? The guardian within provides strength and a sense of protection. The architect within drafts the blueprint of the vision of the before and after. I would challenge anyone who has embarked on the journey to healing to use their strengths. As for me, for the first time, I had a positive outlook and a belief that success was achievable because I knew I could count on the strength of the structure worth keeping in place.

The time came to tear down the wall.

Rather than tossing all of the stones that made up the wall, I’m keeping a select few and using them to build a new structure. I had asked others to describe me in the hopes of self-discovery toward redefinition. That was the wrong question. Yes, I was told I’m a loving father, but that is familial. I have a title and a career, but that is a job as a provider.

What can be taken from me is not what defines me. What defines me is the center-most place of my being: a heart with the capacity for love and compassion in-depth, when distrust does not push them to the shallows; real kindness and gentleness that mask the strength of an intently determined protector; intellect that is free to express itself without fear of ridicule; and being a person worthy of joyful blessings without fear of being punished for receiving them.

These are the traits of a person I’d be proud to embrace and share with others.

These are the traits of this man as he aspirationally settles into a newly remodeled structure—the structure of peace.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

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Time to Turn the Tide: Helping Children of Complex Trauma Survivors

Denise Marie Ryan — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 10:00:00 +0000

I’m a domestic violence victim and I’ve been healing from symptoms of C-PTSD since September 2024 and for the first time ever, I saw what C-PTSD looks like in someone else.

Just the other night, I arrived at the edge of the driveway to pick up my 16-year-old son from his dad’s house. Now mind you, I say “dad’s house,” but we are not yet divorced so it’s technically the marital home because I’m on the deed and mortgage. It was exactly 7pm because that’s what the court order defined as my pickup time and I’m a girl who knows how to follow the rules.

I waited. No sign of my son.

I adjusted my weathered grey bucket hat and smoothed out my custom designed t-shirt that my daughter created for me several years back when we were all still pretending to be a happy family: navy blue with a light blue heart over my chest and a Leigh Hunt quote on the back saying “The groundwork for all happiness is good health.”

After the longest five minutes of my life, my son marched down the front walk of the house I can’t get into followed by my daughter who is in college now. As the parent who left, they’ve come to perceive me as the bad parent even though I’ve been operating in the shadows to protect them: most recently, I prevented an unnecessary knee surgery that my ex was pushing on my son.

Yet, all I saw were deadened faces. Solemn shuffles. The essence of their personalities absent. As they approached, my daughter had her phone up videoing the whole event.

A year ago, I hired a bankruptcy lawyer. Five months ago, the court ordered appropriate support payments and confirmed our 50-50 parenting plan. Then, the dam broke: It felt as though my estranged spouse claimed my son didn’t want to see me and stopped allowing pickups. More court battles began. That night, I sat at the driveway’s edge with another order defining pickup times, drop-off times, and my extra weeknight dinner on off weeks.

Those ghost-like versions of my children curdled my stomach.

I rolled down the window to greet them. The cool breeze reminded me to take a deep breath.

You’re okay. You got this.

Ever since I filed a police report against my spouse and left the marital home, I struggled with picking up my son. The bodily sensations that arose when I was anywhere near that home were almost too much. I’d been through numerous EMDR sessions and desensitization trainings with my therapist to execute what I politely called the “extraction.”

Now, not only did I have to deal with my potential dysregulation, but the forms approaching my car were not the children I’d raised to be loving and warm, compassionate and caring, absolutely extraordinary human beings.

My handsome, athletic, strong of heart and strong of mind son stood back from my window, crossed his arms, and stated for the camera that I was “manipulative” and he was “scared.”

After I left my marriage, and started healing from my symptoms of C-PTSD, my dad said to me, “I didn’t know where you went, but I’m glad to have you back.” At the time, that sentence struck me: I hadn’t gone anywhere. What did he mean?

Over the past few years, I’ve realized that when you are undergoing subtle emotional abuse, you don’t know it’s happening. You are ever so slowly changing to the outside world, but only the people closest to you who have known you your whole life can perceive the change.

I can tell you now that I felt my true self drifting away throughout my marriage and some other self replacing it. There was a darkness taking over my thoughts that I didn’t understand. I couldn’t share that darkness with the world, so my whole life became an act.

I understand now that emotional manipulation rewires the brain. For me, it felt like white turned into black. Happy into sad. Good into bad. It even turned a happy, optimistic person determined to do good work in the world into someone suicidal. But that wasn’t the real me. That was an irrational thought. That was my rewired brain talking and I had to undo the rewiring.

C-PTSD deeply impacts your ability to interact with people since it often results from an extremely close relationship, someone you trusted. As you heal, your behavior is strange and you’re processing a lot of anger. You need people in your life who will still love you, even when they don’t understand why this happy-go-lucky person is now so embittered.

Luckily …

I had a few close childhood friends ready to help me heal. I needed to reboot my real self, and they had the original source code.
My parents came to my aid as well in the greatest display of unconditional love I’ve ever known.
And my therapist, the woman who put the right label on my mental malaise, we’ve done critical work together to bring my psyche from a place of believing I was bad, broken, and unlovable, all the way back to better.

My healing journey also included trauma-focused yoga, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and a lot of natural supplements, journaling, reading and reflecting. My brain doctor was thrilled with my last set of SPECT scans. She’d seen thousands and she described the healing I’d achieved in only one year, “incredible.”

Now, I know I’ve rewired my brain back.

A loving marriage would never cause C-PTSD.

I’ve made peace with that. I am also proud of the work I’ve done to bring myself back. If you can believe it, I am grateful for what I have been through. The sun shines brighter. The air smells sweeter. Every moment is more precious than ever.

I have a dedicated therapist who promised me we’d discover the root cause of my mental health mess, and we did. I have the best relationship I’ve ever had with my parents: a deeper, more meaningful connection than ever before. And, I know who my real friends are because they did not judge the person I appeared to be on the outside when I was suffering the most, they remembered who I was on the inside, and they helped me find her again.

Now it’s my turn to help.

Seeing my kids that way the other night meant that I am now healed enough to see C-PTSD in other people, but it also means that my children need to heal now too. I’m ready to be a therapist, a parent, and a good friend all wrapped into one.

I am the only one who has loved them unconditionally through spilled milk, temper tantrums, car accidents, and more. I am the only one who has observed them closely—with empathy and curiosity—and quietly questioned and actively listened to understand how they think, who they are, and where they want to go in life.

I am the only hope my children have of reclaiming their real selves and it’s time to turn the tide.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Are You a Highly Sensitive Person? Here’s How You Survive When the World Overwhelms You

Elizabeth Woods — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Have you ever been told that you’re too sensitive?

Have you heard comments like:

“You need a thicker skin?”

“You take everything to heart”

This article is for you.

As a trauma survivor, I see the world differently from others. I see the pain that people carry long before they start to speak. It’s in the nuances of how they move and hold themselves. Their body language. It’s in the interactions and words they choose over others. It’s in the tone of voice and ways people communicate.

I’m a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) because I’ve lived through trauma and survived. There are many people like me who have also lived through abuse and trauma. There are people who live with HSP who haven’t survived trauma, but are still sensitive.

What does it mean to be a Highly Sensitive Person?

Being sensitive in this world doesn’t mean something is wrong. It is not a disability or a mental disorder. Being an HSP means that you have a sensitive nervous system.

Are you easily overwhelmed by loud noises, bright lights, strong smells, or rough materials?

Do you get stressed when you have a lot to do in a short amount of time?

Are you a deep thinker and reflect on conversations after they’ve happened?

Do people tell you that you are good at understanding what they are feeling or thinking?

Do you avoid violent movies and content?

Do you shy away from conflict?

If you answered yes to these questions, you’re likely a highly sensitive person.

In everyday life, this boils down to an HSP being aware of tiny, nuanced details in surroundings that others may miss. An HSP is sensitive to other people’s moods and deeply feels pressure and overstimulation.

Unfortunately, this also means that an HSP can easily become overwhelmed in certain situations, like those with strong sensory inputs.

If this sounds like you, read on for advice on how to manage these.

Where did the term HSP come from?

Research Psychologist, Dr. Elaine Aron, came up with the term HSP and wrote a book about it in the mid-nineties. Dr. of Psychology, Ted Zeff, published a book on HSP in 2004, and psychotherapist Mel Collins wrote her book about HSP in 2019.

I think that the world needs to be educated about HSP because we now (more than ever), live with suffering and pain due to traumatic events. It’s literally everywhere we turn, whether it’s in the real world or on social media.

How to Manage HSP in daily life

Cut down on your sensory input

External inputs affect our mental health every day. Most of the time we can shrug it off, but some days feel heavier than others. If you find crowds overwhelming, choose a different time to shop. If you can’t avoid loud, busy places, noise-canceling headphones are a good investment.

Trust your own intuition

“If it doesn’t feel right, then it probably isn’t.” This is a saying that I heard years ago, and I live by it. Trust in your own instincts.

Sleep

This is such a simple and basic need that it tends to be forgotten. If you sleep less than seven hours every night, then you aren’t going to be at your best the following day. Make sure you get plenty of sleep to recharge those batteries.

Rest and relax and reinvigorate yourself

This is another need that most of us forget. We are busy people living in a world that is “on” 24/7. If you have a stressful job, regular breaks are essential to keep you working at your best. Make sure you take breaks. Go somewhere quiet where you won’t be disturbed and do something that nurtures you. Switch off for a while.

Get back to nature

Research has proven that we need nature in our lives. Being outdoors centers us in a profound way. The sounds of bird song, the breeze in the trees, undulating waves crashing onto a beach.

Find a quiet place where you can relax and listen to the sounds around you without any interruptions.

Most of all, believe in yourself and follow your heart. There is nobody else like you in this world and your ideas and thoughts matter.

My name is Lizzy. I’m a trauma survivor, a wife, a mom, a teacher, and an author.

If you like reading my posts, then please follow me.

For more about me: www.elizabethwoodsauthor.com

Support your fellow writer:

https://ko-fi.com/elizabe69245484

Here are the three books mentioned in my article:

The Highly Sensitive Person by Dr. Elaine N. Aron
This is the quintessential “bible” for HSPs. Written by the research psychologist who coined the term, it explains the science behind the trait and provides essential tools for thriving in an overstimulating world.

The Highly Sensitive Person’s Survival Guide by Ted Zeff
A practical, hands-on book loaded with specific skills — such as grounding techniques and lifestyle adjustments — to help you navigate daily stress and find peace.

The Handbook for Highly Sensitive People by Mel Collins
Written from a fellow HSP’s perspective, this approachable guide offers actionable strategies for managing overarousal and shifting towards greater self-love and acceptance.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

8 Things Survivors Need to Stop Apologizing For | Part 7 | Prioritizing Your Peace

Rachel Grant — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Protecting your peace is not selfish. It’s wisdom your nervous system earned the hard way.

What helps you protect your peace?

Photo Credit: Unsplash

8 Things Survivors Need to Stop Apologizing For | Part 6 | Taking Up Space

Rachel Grant — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 10:00:00 +0000

So many survivors learned how to become small. Healing often includes returning to visibility.

Where are you practicing taking up more space?

Click Here to watch video (opens in new tab)

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When Negative Self-Talk Is the Only Language You Were Taught

Dr. Mozelle Martin — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Ask some trauma survivors to name five (5) positive things about themselves and watch what happens.

The room may go quiet, they may nervously laugh, deflect, look uncomfortable, make a joke, or reach for traits that sound useful instead of personal.

Reliable. Hardworking. Good in a crisis. Loyal. Helpful.

The answers often sound less like self-recognition and more like a job reference written under stress.

Ask for five (5) negative things, and the list can arrive with almost no delay.

Too sensitive. Too intense. Too much. Too emotional. Too needy. Too guarded. Too weird. Too damaged. Too angry. Too quiet. Too loud. Too hard to love. Too hard to understand. Too late to become anything else.

Sit with that a minute. That imbalance tells a story many survivors already know in their bones. Criticism became fluent long before self-respect had a chance to form its own language.

Some people call this low self-esteem, which is accurate enough for a screening form but far too thin for lived experience. Low self-esteem sounds like a personal confidence problem. For many trauma survivors, the injury runs deeper than confidence – it sits in the way a person learned to describe themselves, assess themselves, explain themselves, and stand trial inside their own mind before anyone else even enters the room.

Negative self-talk rarely begins as self-talk – it begins as somebody else’s voice.

The First Narrator Was Usually External

Children borrow language before they own it. They borrow words for their bodies, moods, talents, failures, behavior, worth, and their place in the family. A child called dramatic enough times may begin to doubt every strong feeling. A child called lazy may stop noticing exhaustion, depression, boredom, sensory overload, or lack of support. A child called selfish may become afraid of preference. A child called difficult may begin translating every need into an accusation against themselves.

Children can be corrected without being injured because they need correction. They also need adults who can say no, set limits, demand accountability, teach repair, and tell them when their conduct harms someone else. The problems occur when correction becomes the child’s identity.

You made a mistake becomes you are careless.
You are upset becomes you are unstable.
You need attention becomes you are manipulative.
You disagree becomes you are disrespectful.
You are sensitive becomes you are weak.
You are different becomes you are embarrassing.

A child may resist at first – they may argue, cry, explain, or try to prove the adult wrong. Over time, resistance can cost too much so the child learns the family’s preferred vocabulary as the outside critic moves indoors. That is how a survivor can become an adult who no longer needs anyone in the room to feel accused of something.

Negativity Can Feel Like Accuracy

One reason negative self-talk survives so long is that it can feel honest. A survivor may distrust compliments because praise feels vague, sentimental, unsafe, or manipulative. Criticism feels sharper – more familiar, more serious – almost professional in its certainty. If the mind has spent years rehearsing self-attack, kindness can feel like bad data.

Tell a survivor, “You are resilient,” and the reply may come back fast: “I just had no choice.”

Tell them, “You are talented,” and they may begin listing everything they failed to finish.

Tell them, “You are lovable,” and they may remember the people who left, those who harmed them, or the people who stayed but treated closeness like a chore.

The mind trained by trauma often searches for the exception to any good statement. It cross-examines hope, and demands a file full of evidence before allowing one decent sentence about the self to stand.

Negative claims face far less review, which is one of the quiet distortions of complex trauma. The survivor may believe they are being fair because they are being harsh, and they may confuse self-attack with realism because excessive kindness once came with a hook. Criticism came with history.

For some survivors, saying something good about themselves feels like lying yet saying something cruel about themselves feels like remembering.

Praise Can Trigger Suspicion, Debt, or Shame

Positive self-description can be uncomfortable for reasons that have little to do with vanity. In some homes, children learned that being proud invited punishment. Confidence was called arrogance, joy was called showing off or attention-seeking, talent became a family inconvenience, beauty brought resentment, intelligence brought ridicule, sensitivity brought contempt, and ambition made adults nervous because ambition threatens every room built on resignation.

In other homes, praise was conditional. A child was valued when they performed, obeyed, pleased, achieved, stayed quiet, made the family look good, or took care of an adult’s emotions. Praise became less about the child’s self and more about usefulness.

Both leave a mark.

An adult survivor may struggle to name positive traits because positive traits never felt safely theirs. Being good at something may mean being used for it, being attractive may mean being targeted for it, being smart may mean being expected to carry more, being calm may mean being denied help, and being strong may mean no one comes.

So when someone asks, “What do you like about yourself?” the survivor may freeze because the answer has never been simple. Every strength came with a bill, every gift had a family interpretation, and every visible quality attracted some form of control. Negative self-talk may then become a hiding place. If the survivor gets there first, no one else can use the good thing against them.

The Body Learns the Critic Too

Negative self-talk is often discussed as if it lives only in thought – but it rarely stays that contained in the mind because the body learns it.

A survivor may flinch when praised, feel heat in the face when seen, tighten the jaw when asked to talk about accomplishments, shrink posture when entering a room with confident people, feel nausea before asking for fair treatment, and lose words when challenged by someone who sounds like an old authority figure.

The nervous system may treat self-approval as exposure and this is why affirmations can fail so quickly for trauma survivors. Repeating “I am worthy” may sound harmless from the outside, but to a body trained on shame, the sentence can feel false, unsafe, or ridiculous. The survivor may reject it before the words have any chance to settle.

The problem is not the survivor’s unwillingness to heal, it’s that the body was trained in a different language. A person taught for years to expect criticism cannot always absorb kindness on command because they often need smaller, more credible sentences at first.

I handled that better than I used to.
I told the truth there.
I was tired, not lazy.
I was scared, not weak.
I made one choice that protected me.
I can dislike something without explaining my whole existence.

Those sentences may lack inspirational shine but that’s likely why they work better. They do not ask the survivor to leap from contempt to self-love in one theatrical jump. They ask for accuracy, and accuracy is a safer starting place than forced positivity.

Relearning Self-Description Takes More Than Compliments

People often try to help by arguing with the survivor’s negative self-talk.

“You are not too much.”
“You are beautiful.”
“You are smart.”
“You are strong.”
“You are a good person.”

Those statements may be sincere, but they may also bounce off a nervous system that never learned how to receive them. The survivor often needs something sturdier than reassurance. They may need to rebuild self-description from observable fact.

What did I do?
What did it cost me?
What did I protect?
What did I survive?
Where did I show restraint?
Where did I tell the truth?
Where did I keep going without turning cruel?
Where did I make a choice that my younger self could not make?

The aim is not inflated confidence – it’s a self-description that can survive contact with reality.

A trauma survivor may begin with modest but accurate language.

I am learning to pause before blaming myself.
I am allowed to name effort even when the outcome was messy.
I can be flawed without being defective.
I can be responsible without being sentenced to self-hatred.
I can own harm without becoming only harm.

This work may feel dreadfully slow but that’s because the old soundbites in the mind are faster… predictable. Despite it’s intent at the time or dysfunction driving it, those soundbites have family approval behind it, cultural reinforcement behind it, and sometimes years of therapeutic misunderstanding behind it if a helper mistook self-attack for insight. So the new language has to be built through use.

Five Positive Things May Begin as Evidence, Not Feeling

A survivor may not feel the truth of positive self-description at first, and that is totally okay. Feeling can come later because evidence has to begin anyway.

Instead of asking, “Do I feel worthy?” the survivor may ask, “What facts have I ignored because shame edited the report?”

Did I survive conditions that required adaptation?
Did I protect someone, including myself, when protection was costly?
Did I learn something I was never taught?
Did I keep a conscience in a room where conscience was inconvenient?
Did I return to life after years of being trained to disappear?

The first list may be uncomfortable – awkward. It may feel like wearing clothes that do not yet fit, but that doesn’t make the statements untrue. Many survivors have practiced negative self-description for decades. Positive self-recognition will not always feel natural just because it is overdue.

Start with what can be verified.

I came back.
I learned the skill.
I told the truth.
I left the room.
I stayed kind without staying silent.
I protected the part of me that was almost trained out.

Those are not slogans – they are corrected entries in a historical file.

Sources

Beck, A. T. (1976). Cognitive therapy and the emotional disorders. International Universities Press.

Courtois, C. A., & Ford, J. D. (2016). Treatment of complex trauma: A sequenced, relationship-based approach. Guilford Press.

Gilbert, P. (2010). The compassionate mind: A new approach to life’s challenges. New Harbinger Publications.

Herman, J. L. (1992). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence from domestic abuse to political terror. Basic Books.

Janoff-Bulman, R. (1992). Shattered assumptions: Towards a new psychology of trauma. Free Press.

Tangney, J. P., & Dearing, R. L. (2002). Shame and guilt. Guilford Press.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

When You Love Someone Who Never Feels Good Enough: Understanding the Lasting Effects of Chronic Parental Criticism, Part 2

Angela Solic — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Loving an emotionally healthy partner

Here is Part 1 of this series.

If the adult child finds an emotionally healthy partner, they might feel uncomfortable because this person can challenge everything they learned about love. For the adult child, love was historically mixed with criticism, guilt, disappointment, and control while unconditional love and kindness can make the adult child suspicious and distrusting.

The adult child might wonder, “what does this person really want?”; “why are they so nice to me?”; “why do they love me like this?”; “when will the criticism come?” The absence of criticism can feel unfamiliar and unfamiliar doesn’t always feel safe.

The emotionally healthy partner may express appreciation, affection, gratitude and admiration. The adult child might hear the words, but struggle to internalize them because they might think to themselves, “if they really knew me, they wouldn’t feel like this.” Years of criticism can create a deeply rooted belief that love must be earned. However, the adult child’s difficulties with emotional regulation, if not recognized and handled through interventions, risks negative effects to their romantic relationships (Riggs, Cusimano & Benson, 2011).

Researchers have found links between childhood emotional maltreatment and reported difficulties in communication, relationship satisfaction, intimacy, empathy, hostility, defensiveness, and overall relationship quality (Vaillancourt-Morel et al., 2024).

Specifically, some research has discovered that men who grew up with parents who were chronically critical or did not provide a healthy emotional environment are found to provide their partners with less support, engagement, and positive communication skills and have a greater observation of negative traits like high levels of conflict (Malek & Papp, 2015).

The risks of refusing to recognize the unhealthy patterns

If the healthy partner is trying to hold up a mirror to their emotionally injured partner, that person will have to answer to their partner’s insistence that they’ve been unfairly treated, how much they’ve sacrificed, how very little recognition they received, and how long they’ve tolerated this treatment. Sometimes these adult children get angry at the messenger showing them the truth.

If you happen to be one of these people, you are potentially sacrificing your relationship to hold on to your old coping strategies with your parents. That is very direct, I know, but it is true. While you’re feeling tremendous pressure to remain loyal to your parents and the criticism dynamic, you’re putting your partner in the position of being second and ignoring the pain they feel on your behalf, or pain they get if they are also in the line of criticism fire.

If you are the partner in this situation, understand that your partner might feel a great sense of shame beneath the defensiveness, irritation, and anger. They grew up in a family where emotions were not processed in a healthy way, so they didn’t learn how to handle anger, grief, disappointment, and shame in healthy ways. Instead of saying to you, “I’m angry with my parents,” they say, “why are you making such a big deal out of this?” Understand that your partner’s frustration might be understandable, but that doesn’t make it something you must inherently accept.

Because of the environment in which the adult child grew up, healthy partners may see the unhealthy relationship patterns when they participate in family events. That healthy partner will notice how the adult child is treated by seeing and likely mentioning the criticism, double standards, manipulation, and lack of appreciation. A healthy partner will want the adult child to be treated differently.

The adult child, when confronted with this information, will feel conflicted because part of them will agree with what the partner sees, but part of them feels strongly compelled to protect their parents. This can create tension because the partner sees and hears harm while the adult child feels the need to remain loyal to their family and defensive of those unhealthy family dynamics.

Healthy and unhealthy conflict

The healthy partner might model healthy arguments and quick attempts to repair after a fight. In unhealthy households, disagreements don’t get discussed. Feelings run high and hot, but efforts to repair are not done. The adult child does not learn how to disagree in a healthy way. The adult child has not had modeling of emotional maturity, so they might struggle with the skills needed for healthy discussions, especially around disagreements or hurt feelings.

What also tends to happen in this dynamic is the overly criticized, unappreciated adult child takes their frustrations out on their partner. The partner might think, “your parents are the ones criticizing you all the time, but why do you seem angry with me?” From the adult child’s perspective, a lot is happening under the surface. The real reason is often this: his parents feel unsafe to confront.

For someone who grew up with chronic criticism, challenging the parent might feel emotionally dangerous, even in adulthood. Their nervous system learned not to argue, not to upset them, not to challenge them, and keep the peace. Unfortunately, those hurt feelings will often get redirected towards their partners. This is not because the partner deserves it, but because they’re the person least likely to abandon them (Finzi-Dottan & Abadi, 2024).

Healthy partners understand that conflict is just a part of being in a relationship. Relationships require work and sometimes compromise. Adult children of unhealthy family dynamics may not have the skills they need to participate in healthy conflict resolution and tend to be afraid of rejection and fear they won’t ever get true acceptance (Finzi-Dottan & Abadi, 2024). This is not a put-down for these people. It’s reality. Growing up in emotionally immature environments and then having potential relationships with emotionally immature people does not equip these people with the skills needed for healthy discussions and arguments.

In healthy relationships, disagreements can happen without the relationship being threatened. Many people who grew up in the unhealthy dynamics tend to result in insecure attachments to romantic partners (Riggs & Kaminski, 2010). A healthy partner should be able to have constructive conversations that might be difficult, without fearing the other person will shut down and threaten them to leave. Someone raised by highly critical parents may unconsciously expect rejection, withdrawal, punishment or humiliation and because of that, a simple disagreement can trigger intense anxiety because their nervous system learned long ago that conflict equals danger.

A thinking myth might be at play here and that is the healthy partner believes that the person they’re dealing with is their present-day partner. However, if this partner is in the family environment that is filled with emotional dysregulation and criticism, or in moments of high stress, they may actually be encountering old survival strategies that were formed decades before. The partner that becomes defensive, shuts down, redirects anger, blames the healthy partner, or chases parental approval is not consciously choosing the childhood patters, but reverting to those strategies that once helped them survive.

Understanding this does not excuse the behavior and, if the adult child wants to improve their relationships, they need to first recognize what they’re doing, forgive themselves for that, and learn how to behave and respond differently to preserve or create a healthy partnership.

You do not have to keep engaging in these disrespectful interactions

If you are the criticized adult partner, it is your responsibility to recognize it and stop it, and if you cannot stop it, then you learn how to function in that dynamic by learning new ways of responding to parental criticism without internalizing it and processing difficult emotions. The technical word for this is learning emotional regulation and if you grew up in the chronic criticism, then you grew up in an emotionally dysregulated environment (Riggs, 2010).

Learning HOW to regulate emotions might require reading about it and seeking therapy. I know, I know… so many people say therapy is the answer, but this is something serious and severe that needs someone outside of you to help navigate and learn coping skills. Therapy does not mean you are broken. It does not mean you are weak. It does not mean your relationship with your partner is breaking apart. It means you’re taking ownership of your situation and trying to improve it for you, your partner, your current or future children, and, what’s even better, every single generation after them. Your partner will be very grateful and likely even help you in that process with a generous and loving heart.

References

Finzi-Dottan, R., & Abadi, H. (2024). From Emotional Abuse to a Fear of Intimacy: A Preliminary Study of the Mediating Role of Attachment Styles and Rejection Sensitivity. International journal of environmental research and public health, 21(12), 1679. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph21121679

Maleck S., Papp L. M. (2015). Childhood risky family environments and romantic relationship functioning among young adult dating couples. Journal of Family Issues, 36(5), 567–588. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513×13491749

Riggs, S. A. (2010). Childhood Emotional Abuse and the Attachment System Across the Life Cycle: What Theory and Research Tell Us. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 19(1), 5–51. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926770903475968

Riggs, S. A., Cusimano, A. M., & Benson, K. M. (2011). Childhood emotional abuse and attachment processes in the dyadic adjustment of dating couples. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 58(1), 126–138. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021319

Riggs, S. A., & Kaminski, P. (2010). Childhood Emotional Abuse, Adult Attachment, and Depression as Predictors of Relational Adjustment and Psychological Aggression. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 19(1), 75–104. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926770903475976

Vaillancourt-Morel, M.-P., Godbout, N., Bigras, N., Sabourin, S., & Bergeron, S. (2024). Partner effects of childhood maltreatment: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 25(2), 1323–1343. https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380231173427

Photo Credit: Unsplash

When Safety Feels Like a Trap

Dr. Mozelle Martin — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 10:00:00 +0000

There is a strange thing that can happen when a trauma survivor finally reaches a quieter life. They do not relax; they wait. They wait for the phone call, the slammed door, the accusation, the shift in someone’s tone, the bill they forgot, the person who seemed fine yesterday but may turn cold today. They wait for the next threat, even when nothing in the room says a threat is present. The body is not being dramatic. It is running an old survival program that once helped that person stay alive, stay prepared, stay watchful, or stay out of the way.

That is one of the crueler parts of trauma recovery. Safety may arrive before the nervous system believes it. A person can be out of the violent home, away from the abusive partner, years removed from the childhood environment, and still feel uneasy when nothing bad is happening. Sometimes the uneasiness gets worse when nothing bad is happening. Calm can feel staged. Quiet can feel temporary. Stability can feel like the pause before someone changes the rules. Kindness can feel like the first move in a longer game.

People who have not lived this often misunderstand it. They may say, “You’re safe now,” as if the survivor missed an obvious fact. They may think reassurance should work quickly because the danger is no longer visible. Some even become hurt or annoyed when the survivor cannot receive peace the way they expected.

But trauma does not train the nervous system through reassurance. It trains through repetition, shock, betrayal, threat, helplessness, and consequence. If safety once disappeared without warning, the body may not trust safety just because the room is quiet.

Safety Is More Than the Absence of Danger

Most people think safety means danger is gone. For trauma survivors, that definition is too thin. Safety is not only the absence of yelling. It is not only the absence of violence, manipulation, chaos, humiliation, addiction, neglect, sexual threat, emotional punishment, or household unpredictability. Those absences are necessary. No one heals well while the injury is still being repeated.

But safety also has to become recognizable inside the body, and this is where many survivors get blindsided. A survivor may enter a genuinely safer environment and still carry an internal alarm system calibrated to the old one. The body may scan for changes in tone. It may track footsteps. It may notice silence that lasts too long. It may read a delayed reply as rejection, facial neutrality as contempt, ordinary conflict as abandonment, or someone else’s mood as an incoming threat.

This is often misperceived a weakness but, in reality, it is conditioning. The nervous system learned that small cues could mean trouble. Sometimes they did. In a dangerous home, the shift from ordinary to unsafe can happen fast. A look across the room may tell a child whether to disappear. A pause in a conversation may tell a partner whether an explosion is coming. A change in breathing may tell someone whether to leave, freeze, flatter, explain, comply, or brace.

Then later, in safer adult life, those same detection systems keep firing. Sure, the danger has changed, but the body has not caught up yet.

Temporary Calm Trains the Body to Wait

One reason safety can feel like a trap is that many trauma survivors did not grow up with steady calm. They grew up with temporary calm and temporary calm is very different.

Temporary calm is the quiet before someone starts drinking again. The soft voice before the accusation, the good day before the withdrawal, the apology before the next incident, the holiday where everyone performs normal life for visitors, the clean kitchen before the screaming starts, and the calm adult who stays calm only until the child makes one wrong sound.

A nervous system raised around temporary calm does not automatically experience quiet as relief – instead, it’s more like a countdown.

That survivor may become more tense when things are peaceful. They may create tasks, problems, plans, or mental noise because stillness leaves too much room for waiting. They may over-prepare, over-check, over-explain, over-clean, or over-function. They may feel restless in healthy relationships because nobody is making them earn their place every few minutes.

Then the shame comes in. They know they “should” enjoy the calm yet may feel guilty for not enjoying it. They may tell themselves they are ungrateful, damaged, difficult, or impossible to satisfy. And that kind of self-attack does not help the nervous system learn safety. In reality, it adds another layer of pressure.

The Body May Associate Safety With Exposure

For some survivors, danger did not arrive when they were already guarded. It arrived when they trusted, slept, disclosed, hoped, loved, laughed, needed, rested, or believed someone. And that personal history leaves a mark.

If vulnerability was punished, the body may treat peace as exposure.
If tenderness was followed by betrayal, kindness may feel suspicious. If rest was interrupted by chaos, sleep may feel unsafe.
If asking for help led to ridicule or punishment, dependence may feel humiliating.
If happiness drew jealousy, mockery, sabotage, or control, joy may feel risky.

This is why a survivor may seem calm during crisis but uneasy during intimacy.

Crisis is familiar and gives the body a job. The survivor knows how to assess, act, manage, scan, solve, or endure. Quiet safety asks for something much more difficult. It asks the survivor to lower the shield without knowing, at first, whether lowering it is a wise or safe move. For someone who survived repeated harm, the fear is not always danger itself. Sometimes the fear is being unprepared for danger. Vigilance can feel like participation while trust can feel like standing still in a room where the exits have not been checked.

That is a large request for a nervous system that learned survival by staying ready.

Why Safer Life Can Feel Worse at First

From the outside, mistrust of safety can look confusing. A survivor may pull away from stable people and may become irritable when life improves. They may feel emotionally flat after good news, mistrust a partner who is consistent, and feel more anxious after leaving the unsafe situation than they felt while inside it. That last one especially confuses people, but it happens.

During active survival, the body often stays organized around immediate demands. Get through the day, keep the peace, watch the mood, protect the children or pets, hide the evidence, make the money, say the right thing, avoid the explosion, and by all means, do not collapse… yet.

Once the survivor gets out, the body may finally begin releasing what it had to hold. And that release can feel like deterioration when it is delayed impact. The survivor may think they are feeling worse because distance gives the system room to reveal the damage. That does not mean the safer life is wrong. It means the nervous system needs time, repetition, and evidence. Not one peaceful day, not one kind conversation, not one safe person making promises, but repeated evidence for your body and mind. In other words, safety has to stop being an idea and become lived experience.

Rebuilding Safety Is Often Repetitive Work

Real safety recovery is not usually a sudden breakthrough where the survivor announces they are healed and then moves through life regulated forever. Instead, it may look like noticing that someone disagreed without punishing you, going to sleep and waking up without crisis, asking a simple question and receiving a simple answer, a partner staying steady during inconvenience, a friend respecting a boundary without sulking, a therapist not rushing interpretation, or the survivor leaving a room and realizing no one chased them, mocked them, or made them pay for it later.

Small evidence counts because trauma was often built from small evidence too. The nervous system did not learn danger only from major events, it learned from the repeated signals surrounding those events. Tone, timing, facial shifts, silence, footsteps, doorways, names called from another room, text messages, late arrivals, alcohol breath, forced smiles, and the false calm before punishment.

So recovery often requires a new body record. Consistency is not glamorous, but it can be corrective.

Safe People Do Not Demand Instant Trust

One of the cleanest ways to assess safety is to watch how people respond to a survivor’s pace. Unsafe people often demand trust as proof of loyalty. They rush disclosure, punish hesitation, frame boundaries as rejection, become offended when the survivor needs time, and may say, “After everything I’ve done for you, you still don’t trust me?”

That is not safety, it’s pressure with better manners. Safe people do not need instant access and do not treat a trauma survivor’s caution as an insult. They understand that trust built under pressure is compliance, not trust. This does not mean survivors should never challenge their fear. Avoidance can shrink a life until the person is technically protected but emotionally imprisoned. Healing does require risk, practice, and contact with situations that are uncomfortable but not actually dangerous.

But the pace has to make sense because a survivor needs enough challenge to grow and enough control to stay present. Too little challenge can keep life small but too much challenge can recreate helplessness. That middle ground is where real trauma work often lives.

The Goal Is Accurate Response, Not Constant Calm

A healthy nervous system does not feel safe every second. That’s a good thing because that would not be realistic or useful. The goal is accuracy. An accurate response.

A recovering trauma survivor learns, slowly, to tell the difference between old danger and current risk. Between discomfort and threat. Between disappointment and abandonment. Between someone’s bad mood and personal danger. Between a pause and rejection. Between privacy and secrecy. Between conflict and catastrophe.

That takes work because trauma compresses categories and teaches the body to treat many different signals as one warning: harm is coming. Recovery begins separating those signals again.

That process is not always smooth especially when survivors overcorrect. They may trust too fast in one season and trust no one in the next, mistake boredom for safety or intensity for connection, and may confuse predictability with emotional deadness because chaos once felt like proof that something serious was happening.

This is where patience has to be practical rather than sentimental and that’s why the nervous system needs new data, and new data takes time.

When Safety Starts to Feel Real

Safety begins to feel real when the body stops waiting for every calm moment to turn. It may happen quietly. For examples, a survivor realizes they did not flinch when the phone rang, did not rehearse 12 explanations before answering a message, have finally slept through the night, allowed someone to be mildly disappointed without rushing to fix it, and accepted kindness without immediately searching for the catch.

For a trauma survivor, these are not minor moments – they often signal steps in a major nervous-system correction. Safety does not become real because someone announces it. It only becomes real when the survivor’s body has enough repeated evidence to stop treating peace as a setup.

That is why telling themselves “you’re safe now” can feel hollow when it is said too soon. Instead, saying “my body may need time to believe what my life is trying to show it” is more accurate. It also accurately reflects the work. Not forced trust, not denial, and not pretending the past is over because the address changed, the relationship ended, or the crisis passed. The work is teaching the body, through repeated reality, that calm does not always mean danger is waiting behind the door.

Sometimes calm is just calm and, for many survivors, believing that is not the beginning of recovery – it is one of the hardest-earned outcomes.

Sources

Courtois, C. A., & Ford, J. D. (2016). Treatment of complex trauma: A sequenced, relationship-based approach. Guilford Press.

Herman, J. L. (1992). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence from domestic abuse to political terror. Basic Books.

National Institute of Mental Health. (2025). Post-traumatic stress disorder. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2014). SAMHSA’s concept of trauma and guidance for a trauma-informed approach. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, National Center for PTSD. (2025). Complex PTSD. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

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“Can’t You Take A Joke?” How Small Things Can Lead to Existential Humiliation

Ellen Tift — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Have you ever found yourself suddenly humiliated, yet forced to pretend otherwise in front of people? How covert narcissists intentionally do this to their targets while appearing perfectly innocent.

I’m Embarrassed That I Exist

Carter’s Story

Carter had been looking forward to his trip home. After being financially independent since he was 18 and nearly depleting his savings during his first years of graduate school, he needed the film equipment his family had promised to help purchase for his final thesis project. “Make sure to leave room in your suitcase,” his parents had reminded him repeatedly before his visit. “You’ll need space to bring back your birthday gifts.”

The day before his birthday party—the first his family had thrown for him in almost 20 years—Carter and his brother Samuel went to lunch. “After tomorrow, you’ll have everything you need for your film thesis,” Samuel assured him with a smile. Carter felt a mixture of gratitude and unease; his family had never shown much interest in his filmmaking aspirations before.

Samuel ran a non-profit food bank and was father to five children. Within the family and their community, he was universally admired for his selflessness and service. Carter, by contrast, had always struggled to be taken seriously. No one ever asked what kinds of films he wanted to make; they simply assumed his work was shallow entertainment. The family had developed a habit of calling him “Hollywood” and “Mr. Big Shot”—nicknames that carried more dismissal than affection.

On the day of the party, extended family members crowded the local park. When gift-opening time arrived, Samuel saved his present for last. The box was the perfect size for the vital camera equipment Carter needed. As everyone watched, Carter opened it to find a bright orange 1970s-style tuxedo with comically wide lapels. There was nothing else in the box.

“This is your outfit for when you go to the Oscars!” Samuel announced, prompting laughter from the gathered relatives.

In that moment, Carter felt his stomach drop—hurt by the deception, confused by why they would deliberately set up false expectations, and desperately worried about how he would now buy what he needed for his thesis. But years of conditioning kicked in. He smiled broadly, stood up, and modeled the ridiculous outfit for everyone’s amusement. The laughter that followed masked his internal collapse. No one acknowledged his disappointment, not even privately.

When Carter finally gathered the courage to express his hurt to his family the next day, Samuel’s eyes welled with tears. “I wanted to get you the equipment, but I just couldn’t afford it with the kids and everything. I thought the tuxedo would show that I believe in you—that I know you’ll make it to the Oscars someday.”

Carter found himself comforting his brother instead of addressing his own feelings. He left feeling guilty for even thinking Samuel would ever be able to afford giving him that gift. But something nagged at Carter: just one day before the party, Samuel had explicitly told him he would have everything he needed for his thesis after the birthday celebration, fully aware of the prank.

It took Carter decades to recognize the pattern of covert narcissism in his brother’s behavior. Even longer to reflect on that birthday party as an act of intentional humiliation. Only after going no contact with Samuel could Carter see how odd it was that his brother had orchestrated a birthday party when no one had thrown him one in nearly two decades—and how the public gift-opening had been crafted as a spectacle with Carter as the unwitting entertainment.

Understanding Existential Humiliation: The Tripping Metaphor

While existential shame involves internal beliefs about one’s inherent wrongness that develop over time, existential humiliation represents something different—and in many ways, more insidious.

Imagine walking confidently through a crowded room when someone deliberately trips you. As you fall, there’s that unmistakable moment of physical disequilibrium followed by the searing heat of embarrassment as all eyes turn to you. Your cheeks burn, your heart races, and you feel a desperate urge to disappear. Though you may have sustained real injuries—scrapes, bruises, even broken bones—others may only see your awkward tumble and assume you’re naturally clumsy or weren’t paying attention.

What makes this experience particularly devastating is that no one saw the person who tripped you. They maintain complete deniability while you’re left picking yourself up from the floor. If you try to explain what really happened, you risk appearing paranoid or like you’re making excuses. Over time, these experiences fundamentally change how you move through the world—you become hypervigilant, constantly scanning for potential hazards, never fully relaxed in public spaces. You may never walk with the same confidence again.

This is existential humiliation—a deliberate attack on your dignity and belonging that others either don’t recognize or actively deny. And like being tripped, we can never fully prevent others from attempting to humiliate us. What we can develop are strategies for catching ourselves more quickly when we start to fall, building networks of people who will help us up, and recognizing that these falls say nothing about our inherent worth or right to walk freely through the world.

With this metaphor in mind, let’s explore the specific characteristics that make humiliation so damaging, especially when it becomes existential in nature.

The Anatomy of Existential Humiliation

Existential humiliation has several distinguishing characteristics:

1. Intentional targeting of core identity

Unlike shame, which may develop without anyone’s deliberate action, humiliation involves someone intentionally targeting aspects of who you are. In Carter’s case, his identity as a serious filmmaker worthy of support was undermined, reinforcing a family narrative that positioned his educational pursuits as frivolous indulgences.

2. The social witness component

Humiliation almost always involves a social component—the real or perceived presence of witnesses. Carter’s humiliation was magnified by the extended family members watching as he opened the purposely misleading gift. The public nature of humiliation adds layers of damage, as it threatens one’s standing in the community.

3. Plausible deniability by the perpetrator

Perhaps most damaging is the common element of plausible deniability that often accompanies acts of existential humiliation. Samuel maintained an image of selflessness that made it impossible for Carter to call out the manipulation without seeming ungrateful or petty. The claim that the orange tuxedo was meant as encouragement for Carter’s future success provided perfect cover for what was actually a humiliating gesture.

4. The fawn response and forced performance of emotional labor

Victims of existential humiliation often find themselves engaging in a “fawn” response—a trauma response (alongside fight, flight, and freeze) where a person accommodates, appeases, and focuses on others’ needs while suppressing their own emotions. This manifests as performing emotional labor to manage the situation—comforting their abusers, putting on brave faces, or acting as though everything is fine.

Carter’s impromptu “fashion show” and later comforting of his brother exemplify this fawn response. This wasn’t merely people-pleasing but a survival strategy developed in environments where expressing authentic negative emotions was punished or dismissed. The fawn response serves multiple purposes: managing others’ emotions, staying personally safe, and preserving one’s social standing when more authentic responses might lead to further rejection or humiliation.

5. Long-term identity destabilization

What transforms a humiliating incident into existential humiliation is its power to destabilize one’s fundamental sense of self and place in the world. For Carter, this incident reinforced a lifetime of subtle messages that his pursuits were less valuable than his brother’s, his needs less important, and his feelings less valid.

The Neurobiological Impact

Neurobiological research has shown that experiences of humiliation activate the same brain regions as physical pain. When someone experiences existential humiliation, their brain processes it as a threat not just to their social standing but to their very survival. The fight-flight-freeze-fawn response activates, but in situations like Carter’s, social constraints eliminated the fight option (confronting Samuel would only reinforce the “ungrateful” narrative), the flight option (walking away would appear rude and dramatic), and even the freeze option (sitting silently would be interpreted as sulking). This left only the fawn response as viable—performing emotional labor to appease others while suppressing his authentic reaction.

This biological response helps explain why memories of humiliation can remain painfully vivid decades later. The brain flags these experiences as significant survival threats, encoding them with heightened emotional intensity. For survivors, the body may still carry the physiological signature of these experiences long after the events themselves.

What makes existential humiliation particularly insidious is that it often occurs right under the noses of witnesses who remain oblivious to what’s happening. The covert nature of these interactions—small, subtle acts with plausible deniability—means the target often stands alone in recognizing the deliberate nature of the humiliation. Examples of these subtle humiliations include:

A family member “accidentally” revealing an embarrassing story at a gathering, then saying “Oh, I thought everyone knew that already”
A colleague praising your work but attributing the best parts to someone else
Someone repeatedly mispronouncing your name despite corrections, then laughing it off as “just so difficult”
Being interrupted repeatedly in meetings, then told you’re “not assertive enough” when you mention it
Having your dietary restrictions or health needs dismissed as “picky” or “high-maintenance”

When these experiences form a pattern, the damage compounds in ways that exceed simple addition. Each new incident reactivates and deepens previous wounds, creating a snowball effect where neural pathways become increasingly sensitive with repeated activation. The harm isn’t linear but exponential; ten small humiliations don’t create ten units of harm but rather multiply in impact, with each incident magnifying the effect of all previous ones. This explains why targets of repeated humiliation often appear to ‘overreact’ to what others perceive as minor incidents—they’re experiencing the cumulative weight of the entire pattern.

Families and the Normalization of Humiliation

One particularly damaging context for existential humiliation is within families, where harmful dynamics can be dismissed as normal or expected. When humiliating interactions are labeled as “just sibling rivalry” or “that’s how brothers are,” the target’s pain becomes invalidated before it can even be fully acknowledged.

Carter’s experience illustrates this pattern perfectly. His family had normalized the dynamic where his pursuits were treated as less valuable than his brother’s. The nicknames “Hollywood” and “Mr. Big Shot” weren’t seen as problematic but as harmless teasing. This normalization made it nearly impossible for Carter to recognize his experience as humiliation rather than just “how families are.”

The “can’t take a joke” defense is particularly common in family settings. When someone expresses hurt at humiliating treatment, they’re often told they’re “too sensitive” or “can’t take a joke,” effectively gaslighting them about their right to feel hurt. This invalidation becomes a second layer of humiliation—not only was the original experience painful, but their pain itself is framed as evidence of personal deficiency.

For children growing up in such environments, these normalized patterns of humiliation can become foundational to their sense of self and place in the world. A child who is regularly the butt of family jokes may develop a deep belief that they are somehow less worthy of dignity than others, even without being able to articulate this belief. The fact that these dynamics often occur within loving families where other needs are well met makes them particularly confusing to identify and heal.

Read the rest of this article with steps toward healing is in Ellen’s first book of her “There’s A Word for That” series: https://a.co/d/07i5yn1Q

Copyright Notice: This excerpt is from my 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 – Additional Terms and disclaimers for images used in my posts on CPTSD Foundation.

8 Things Survivors Need to Stop Apologizing For | Part 4 | Changing

Rachel Grant — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Healing changes your tolerance, relationships, and what you’re willing to accept. Growth is not betrayal.

How have you changed through healing?

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