CPTSD | CPTSDfoundation.org

Amplifying Hope

Lauren Dwight — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 17:00:00 +0000

Surviving the invisible epidemic of emotional and psychological abuse

On November 19th 2023, I answered a call from an unknown female who, in 30 minutes, would blindside and obliterate the family my children and I knew.

On that call, she divulged an abundance of facts, including that the last 7 years of my marriage and family with the defendant had been a complete scam. He was leading a double life filled with multiple avenues and types of adultery, manipulation, betrayal, and additionally had another family. That female caller happened to be his stay-at-home fiancée & common law wife in Texas, where he was and is still living as a bigamist and apparently called “Dad” by 5 of her children. She knew all about me, our life, my immediate family, and our children, but I knew nothing of her.

My life took an immediate left turn that November day. I was stunned and emotionally frozen. I had no words.

But as you can imagine, the soon-to-be defendant and I spoke shortly after that call. The conversation seemed to go on for hours. And at one point, I asked, “How has no one at your employer questioned you about her or me? I am your wife, on the health insurance, company’s tobacco license, your emergency contact, W-2 deduction, and so forth, but you parade her around and have hidden your real family.” He quickly snipped back, “Who is going to stop me? I am the F’ing president of a Fortune 50 company!“ I was simply speechless. Nowhere to go with that bold statement; however, that tone, arrogance, and defiance would set the stage for our divorce process.

Over the next 22 months, this divorce case would be well documented. What I read, saw, heard, and learned described the most degenerate human behavior and revealed a husband whom I did not know.

At the final hearing, you could hear a pin drop in the courtroom as I finished describing that November call. I stopped. I needed a moment to reflect and fight the tears. The reality was hitting me.

This was about to be my moment, perhaps the bravest moment of my life. I was facing this charlatan, my abuser, my children’s abuser, in an open courtroom, under oath and on official record. I had worked for weeks on what I wanted to communicate. So after all these months of my required divorce silence, the defendant would finally hear from me directly and what I truly thought.

I took a deep breath, looked at the judge, and continued:

“For 7 years, he made the CHOICE to defraud our children and me with an innumerable quantity of lies – directly through personal interactions and texts, and additionally – through covert and subtle manipulation filled with fake promises and scenarios including a severe illness.

For 7 years, he orchestrated the complete isolation and triangulation of our children and me from his parents to the point of no contact.

And for 7 years, he knowingly, willfully, and without my consent, jeopardized my health with his high-risk sexual activities.

These actions were not a mistake. They were calculated choices, destabilizing our reality, and perpetrating emotional and psychological abuse on our children and me. The state where he currently resides recognizes his behavior as domestic and child abuse.

He controlled the finances, and the basic facts were never in question, but he promised that he would make this a long and very expensive divorce. He was successful in his delay tactics, obstruction, and costs.

If you can cheat on your spouse, you WILL cheat in every other aspect of business, life, and relationships. For our case, this statement is no longer speculation. It is a verifiable fact on public record.”

I then sat back in my chair, released my breath, and looked over at the defendant’s table.

The defendant’s attorney did not object to anything during my impact statement and then declined to cross-examine me when offered. It was all official record now. The judge released me from the stand. My attorney smiled and nodded. She knew what I had just accomplished. She was proud of me, but more importantly, I was so proud of myself. I stood up to my abuser.

His horrific betrayal altered my life’s reality, but reawakened confidence that could change my future. He still had his narrative but no longer had control. The court documents spoke loudly. However, I do believe that he felt like he won that day – hidden finances, no trial, and kept his executive job and false narratives intact. I left money on the mediation table as a deliberate statement, as it wasn’t about the finances for me; it was about accountability and formal documentation of the truth.

A divorce changes your future, but prolonged betrayal trauma changes your past as well.

I am not naive. I know there is no promise of complete healing or a quick fix. I have replayed every conversation, scenario, and interaction seeking the logic of it all. There is none.

Coercive control and covert domestic abuse are so subtle that they fly under the radar to those people outside the home. The half-truths or the “don’t say anything, but…” plant the seeds of triangulation and manipulation. These deceptive tools slowly and softly introduce the abuse to erode your character, self-worth, and how others view and perceive you.

We saw this type of emotional and psychological abuse play out with the Johnny Depp case, Gabby Petito, and various others. Just media hype, right? Wrong. You never think in a million years that would be you one day – Until it is.

It is an invisible epidemic, and way more common than one might think. Personality disorder, lack of moral compass, or just malevolence, that is for someone else to decide. That is not my focus.

So why share this story?

I share to help others feel less alone. I had no peers who could truly understand.
I share to advocate for active laws surrounding emotional and psychological abuse. Many states do not even recognize it, and if they do, they make it hard to prosecute.
I share to give a voice to covert abuse that occurs regardless of your job, social status, or education. This abuse does not discriminate.

We live in a world today where we only project what we want others to see. Image is everything. Emotional and psychological abuse are easy to hide. It’s subtle triangulation and manipulation. It’s behind closed doors and hard for the outside world to recognize and decipher. However, just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

But I do know that we are stronger together. Knowledge and understanding create empathy and compassion. Empathy and compassion grow the voice of emotional and psychological abuse. And when that voice grows, people pay attention, and change begins to happen – Amplifying Hope.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

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

When Over-Explaining Is a Trauma Response

Dr. Mozelle Martin — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Some people cannot answer a simple question with a simple answer. They deliver the fact, then the context, then the reason, then the exception, and, finally, the disclaimer meant to head off any possible misinterpretation or misunderstanding. They hear the extra layers stacking up. They may dislike the sound of their own voice doing it, but the words still come because, inside the body, stopping feels like stepping into a mine field.

Outside observers usually spot the verbal behavior quickly.

In a workplace, it reads as defensiveness.
In a relationship, it gets filed under guilt.
In casual conversation, it draws the blunt verdict that has hardened into cultural shorthand: too much detail means deception.

The belief circulates everywhere now: comment threads, true-crime forums, workplace disputes, family texts, amateur body-language breakdowns. People treat extra information as a tell, the way they once treated averted eyes or fidgeting hands. A clarifying sentence becomes evidence. A motive offered in advance becomes proof of something to hide.

That equation may be tidy, but it is incomplete.

Sometimes a person who is lying does overbuild a story. A fabricated account may come with too much scaffolding because the speaker is trying to make it hold weight under pressure. But the same behavior can come from a very different internal process.

In forensic interviews, trauma therapy, and behavioral analysis, the pattern appears often enough that it deserves more care than the public usually gives or accepts. For many people carrying complex trauma, over-explaining is not an attempt to obscure truth. Rather, it is an attempt to make truth survivable when it enters another person’s ears.

The behavior takes shape in environments where misunderstanding carried weight. Not mild social friction, but tangible consequence: punishment, withdrawal of care, public ridicule, sudden abandonment, or hours of emotional interrogation.

A child learns that “I didn’t do it” is rarely enough.
A partner learns that a straight answer still invites tone analysis.
An employee learns that clarifying a decision still earns the label “difficult.”
A patient learns that describing symptoms carefully can still end in being treated as dramatic, drug-seeking, exaggerating, or unstable.

After enough cycles, the nervous system stops treating a question as neutral information-seeking. It treats the question as the opening of an assessment that could end badly. Explanation becomes preemptive architecture: motive, timeline, disclaimer, evidence, emotional calibration, all delivered before the listener finishes forming the charge.

This is not poor communication skill; it is a learned defense embedded in everyday speech. The speaker is not only conveying what happened, but they are also trying to steer the listener away from the wrong attribution: wrong intent, wrong attitude, and wrong character judgment. The nervous system that once experienced misreading as a threat still scans for the same threat in the present day. A short answer feels under-defended, and silence feels like an invitation for the other person to fill the gap with their own conclusion. The body keeps talking because it has been trained that brevity once left it exposed, and that it backfired.

The pattern overlaps with actual deception in surface appearance only.

A fabricator may pile on detail to make a story feel solid under pressure.
A trauma survivor may pile on details to keep the truth from being dismantled.

The external behavior can look similar: rehearsed cadence, layered qualifiers, anxious precision. The internal function may run in opposite directions. One protects a lie, while the other protects a self that has been rewritten by others too many times before.

Context collapses when observers treat the behavior as a universal signal. In forensic psychology and law enforcement investigations, the individual’s behavioral baseline, history, and relationship to the listener are important. A person who grew up under volatile authority, emotional immaturity, chronic accusation, addiction in the household, family secrecy, unpredictable discipline, religious control, domestic violence, or repeated medical dismissal does not enter conversation with the same assumptions others do.

They enter it having learned that facts alone rarely protected them. Accuracy had to be performed convincingly enough for the person holding power to accept it. When that lesson hardens into nervous-system habit, ordinary questions can trigger the past experiences quickly.

“Why were you late?”

“What did you mean?”

“Where were you?”

“Are you sure it happened that way?”

“Why didn’t you answer?”

In a safe relationship, those questions may be ordinary. In a trauma-shaped body, they can activate the old machinery: explain fast, explain fully, explain before the mood shifts.

The cost lands heaviest on the person carrying the habit. While they speak, they are doing several tasks at once: answering the stated question, proving absence of harmful intent, softening potential irritation, preventing abandonment or contempt, and demonstrating enough self-awareness to block accusations.

The surface topic may be trivial, maybe a decision that took ten seconds, but the nervous system is responding to every earlier moment when a small decision became evidence against them. Scanning the listener’s face, tone, posture, silence, and reply latency becomes automatic. Editing happens in real time as the speaker searches for the precise point where suspicion eases. That labor consumes cognitive and emotional resources most people never notice.

Worse, the strategy can backfire. The very intensity meant to eliminate misunderstanding can actually create it. Listeners who lack trauma context read the volume of detail as evasion, neediness, control, or guilt. The survivor senses the shift, feels the old danger rising, and explains more. A survival behavior begins manufacturing the very social consequence it was built to prevent.

The loop is cruel because both parties believe the evidence supports their side.

The listener sees continued explanation as concealment.
The survivor sees continued suspicion as proof that danger is still present.

Conversation stops being exchange and becomes reenactment.

None of this means trauma renders someone incapable of lying. People with trauma histories can deceive like anyone else. The point is more precise: over-explaining, by itself, is not diagnostic of deception or honesty. It is a safety behavior, a patterned action designed to lower the probability of feared or perceived harm.

Like checking locks, rehearsing conversations, or monitoring facial micro-expressions, it brings short-term relief while the deeper fear remains alive. The behavior does not disappear simply because someone says, “You don’t have to explain.” To a nervous system calibrated to threat, that sentence can sound like a trapdoor.

If I stop here, what will you assume?
If I leave space, what story will you write in its place?

One of the less visible injuries beneath over-explaining is the experience of having motives rewritten. Many survivors were not only punished for what they did, but also for what someone decided their behavior meant. Exhaustion was called laziness. Fear was called drama. A boundary was called disrespect. Pain was called attention-seeking. A mistake was called manipulation. Eventually, the person learns that the fact itself is not the whole problem. The interpretation of the fact is where danger lives. It’s not just our fellow humans we misread, we do it to animals too, also with devastating outcomes.

That is why over-explaining often sounds like more than an answer. It sounds like an attempt to keep the speaker’s character from being edited by someone else. The person is not only saying what happened, they are trying to prevent a false story from being attached to them.

Recovery does not begin with a command to stop; it begins with making the function visible. The useful question is not “Why do you explain so much?” It is “What are you trying to prevent right now?” Blame? Disbelief? Rejection? Being seen as selfish for having a need? Being labeled dramatic for naming exhaustion?

Once the feared outcome stands in plain view, the behavior can be addressed without shame. The goal is not to strip away protection, but to give the nervous system repeated, lived evidence that the old defense is no longer required in every present-day conversation.

That evidence accumulates slowly through deliberate practice with people who have earned the right to it: pausing before the second layer of explanation, noticing the urge without judgment, separating the clean answer from the defense that follows it, testing one-sentence statements in safer relationships first. The nervous system learns not by being scolded into brevity but by discovering, again and again, that the sentence can end and the self can still exist afterward.

Some relationships will still demand excessive justification. Some people use feigned confusion as a control tool. Discernment is just as important as regulation. Healing is not explaining less to everyone indiscriminately. It is learning who deserves the full architecture, who deserves clean clarity, and who deserves distance instead of labor. The survivor begins to choose rather than reflexively defend.

The quietest shift is usually internal. After years of over-explaining, a person can lose track of their own first honest position. The original thought disappears under layers of management. They walk away from conversations having convinced the other party but no longer certain what they themselves meant before fear entered the room. Survival behavior becomes mistaken for personality: “I’m just long-winded,” “I overthink everything,” “I make everything too complicated.”

The deeper wound is the belief that ordinary personhood requires documentation, and that a boundary, a need, or a simple refusal must arrive with receipts.

Sources

American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed., text rev.). American Psychiatric Association Publishing.

American Psychological Association. (2024). Trauma. American Psychological Association.

Blakey, S. M., Kirby, A. C., McClure, K. E., Elbogen, E. B., Beckham, J. C., Watkins, L. L., & Clapp, J. D. (2020). Posttraumatic safety behaviors: Characteristics and associations with symptom severity in two samples. Traumatology, 26(1), 74–83.

DePaulo, B. M., Lindsay, J. J., Malone, B. E., Muhlenbruck, L., Charlton, K., & Cooper, H. (2003). Cues to deception. Psychological Bulletin, 129(1), 74–118.

Herman, J. L. (2015). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence from domestic abuse to political terror. Basic Books.

National Research Council. (2003). The polygraph and lie detection. The National Academies Press.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2014). Trauma-informed care in behavioral health services. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, National Center for PTSD. (2024). Avoidance. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Vrij, A., Fisher, R. P., & Blank, H. (2017). A cognitive approach to lie detection: A meta-analysis. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 22(1), 1–21.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

How can love feel like home?

Rachel Grant — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0000

I recently had the great joy of connecting with Robyn Vogel. She is the author of the book Come Back to Love: A Path to Healing and host of the syndicated radio show of the same name! She has spent more than two decades helping individuals and couples heal emotional wounds, release shame, and experience deeper, safer, more fulfilling love–within themselves and in relationship.

You all are in for such a treat! Her work carries warmth, depth, and grounded wisdom, and I’m so glad to be sharing her here with you.

————-

RACHEL: What inspired you to start writing about and exploring this topic?

ROBYN: Healing from the death of my mom when I was 10 years old, and then losing my dad early and my partner at 40, led me to dive deeply into what it takes to HEAL and love again….to have the courage. How to keep opening my heart, even if I feel afraid.

RACHEL: What key insights or lessons have you learned through your experiences with this subject?

ROBYN: One of the most important lessons I’ve learned through Come Back to Love is that love doesn’t disappear because we’re broken or “too much;” it fades when our nervous system learns that closeness isn’t safe. Most people I work with are intelligent, self-aware, and deeply caring. They understand their patterns, have done years of personal growth, and yet still find themselves repeating the same dynamics in relationships. What I’ve learned is that insight alone isn’t enough. Real change happens when we work with the body, the heart, and the protective strategies that once kept us safe.

Come Back to Love taught me, and continues to teach me, that healing isn’t about forcing openness or trying harder. It means slowing down, building internal safety, and gently renegotiating our relationship with vulnerability.

When we do that, love doesn’t feel like a risk–it feels like home.

RACHEL: What challenges do you think people face when dealing with this topic, and how can they overcome them?

ROBYN: One of the biggest challenges people face around love and intimacy is the gap between what they know and what they can actually live.

Many people understand their patterns intellectually. They can name their attachment style, see how their childhood or past relationships shaped them, and recognize what isn’t working. And yet, in real moments of closeness, conflict, or vulnerability, their system reacts before their insight can help.

Another challenge is that self-protection often masquerades as independence, strength, or emotional maturity. People may appear “together” on the outside while feeling guarded, lonely, or disconnected on the inside–and they don’t always realize how much armor they’re carrying until they try to let someone in.

There’s also deep shame around needing love at all. Many people believe they should be over it, healed by now, or able “to do it alone.” That shame can keep them stuck, cycling between longing and withdrawal.

People struggle because most approaches to healing focus on fixing rather than creating the safety required for real emotional change. Without that safety, the heart stays cautious–and love remains always just out of reach.

RACHEL: Are there any common myths or misunderstandings about this topic that you’d like to address?

ROBYN: One of the most common misconceptions about love and healing is that awareness alone should be enough to change our patterns. We often believe that once we “know better,” we should automatically “do better.”

When old reactions or attachments resurface, we judge themselves as failing. In truth, insight doesn’t regulate the nervous system–safety, attunement, and lived relational experiences do.

Another myth is that the right partner will make everything feel easy. Many people assume that healthy love won’t activate old wounds. Yet authentic intimacy often brings our unhealed parts to the surface–not because something is wrong, but because something is ready to be healed.

There’s also a widespread belief that needing support means you’re weak or not healed enough. This keeps people trying to fix relational wounds alone, even though most attachment injuries were created in a relationship, and are healed most effectively in a relationship.

Many people assume healing means eliminating fear, pain, or protective behaviors. In my work, healing isn’t about getting rid of parts of yourself. It’s about understanding them, softening toward them, and allowing your truest, most grounded self to lead–so love becomes a place of safety rather than survival.

RACHEL: What resources, tools, or next steps would you recommend for readers who want to dive deeper into this topic?

ROBYN: I recommend resources that support both insight and lived integration–tools that help people not only understand their patterns, but gently shift them in real time.

At the core of this work is my book, Come Back to Love: A Path to Healing, which offers a clear, compassionate framework for understanding why we repeat certain relationship patterns and how to change them. The book guides readers through my Four Gates Approach, blending Internal Family Systems (IFS), nervous system attunement, somatic awareness, and heart-centered reflection. Each chapter includes practical exercises and questions that invite readers into an experiential healing process, not just an intellectual one.

I also have my program Ready for Love, which takes people on a journey from fear, anxiety, and a lack of confidence in love to knowing they are lovable and have the confidence to choose a healthy relationship going forward! You can learn more about that here: https://www.comebacktolove.com/heal-your-heart

Use the coupon code RACHEL500 at checkout to get a special discount!

Beyond the book, I often encourage practices that support nervous system regulation and self-connection–such as journaling, mindful embodiment, breath awareness, and relational reflection. I also recommend working with trauma-informed practitioners or communities where healing can happen safely in a relationship.

Ultimately, the most powerful “tool” is learning how to listen to your inner world with curiosity and compassion. When your system feels safe, love becomes something you can choose and sustain, rather than chase or endure.

—

What I really take from Robyn’s work is this reminder that love is not just something we learn to understand--it’s something we learn to feel safe enough to stay open to. There’s something so powerful in the way she brings it back to the nervous system and the body, not as a concept to master, but as an experience to slowly, gently rebuild.

So many people think they are “bad at relationships,” “too much,” or “not ready yet,” when what’s actually happening is their system is doing exactly what it learned to do to survive. Her work offers a compassionate reframe: nothing is broken, it’s all protective, and it can be met with care instead of shame.

I really appreciate how she brings people back to the idea that love is not something we force ourselves into. It’s something we return to when safety starts to grow again.

To love,

Rachel

P.S. If you’re ready to take the next step in healing from abuse and would like to explore enrolling in the Beyond Surviving program, start by applying for a Discover Your Genuine Self Session.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

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

How Collaging Brings Me Peace, Confidence, and Empowerment

Ruthann Alexander — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0000

It’s a gloomy winter evening, my seasonal depression is at its worst, and I’ve just finished a difficult day at work. What’s keeping me together? Ripping, cutting, arranging, and gluing pieces of textured paper down on a page in my art journal. My mind goes from vibrating with nervous energy to melting into safety mode as my hands work to rearrange scraps of paper on the page.

I browse an old magazine, flip through some patterned papers, tear off some tissue paper, and imagine how these pieces fall into place. I go from feeling as though I have no control over anything to feeling complete as though I have complete agency over my actions. Now words are needed to express or to analyze how I am feeling. This is a nonverbal process that allows me to experience my emotions in a structured and safe way.

When words fail me in a journal, collage becomes my way of communication and processing without collapsing. The words come later when I am feeling more articulate and centered.

Collaging a little bit every day has been beneficial to my mind, bringing peace to my nervous system. The activity of crafting gets me out of my head as someone who overthinks and easily becomes stuck in a creative block. When my brain becomes too blocked up with thoughts about perfection, the anxiety makes it harder to create.

Collaging gives me the freedom to glue anything I want to paper without overthinking. Additionally, when the stress from vulnerability factors throughout the day puts me in freeze mode, a creative practice, especially collaging, helps me get out of that freeze.

For the days when I’m so stuck in freeze that I can’t seem to find inspiration to collage, I find that watching YouTube videos of other people making art inspires me. In that situation, I sit with the video playing in the background while I make art. It’s as though I am making art with another person in the room.

In fact, if I can, I like to have friends over for crafting. Establishing a sense of community while making collage art is also one way that I ground my anxieties, dread, depression, and trauma symptoms.

Collage also has the benefit of slowing me down when I’m overstimulated. If I sit down at my crafting space, take some slow deep breaths, and put on some slow music in the background, I am telling my body that it’s safe to slow down now. I may stare at a pile of paper scraps, slowly letting my fingers pass along the texture of each one, noticing the colors and patterns. Letting some ink, glue, or paint get on my fingers is extremely satisfying in the process, as well. This slowing-down process detangles my thoughts from mental constipation, opening up my creativity.

As someone who struggles to name my strengths, I find collage an empowering tool that builds confidence in my artistic abilities.

I have a lot of trauma from my formative years in school, as I was a child who struggled academically early on. Teachers expressed disappointment, and my peers called me stupid. I even had one teacher call me stupid. So ever since then, I’ve carried these experiences with me into adulthood.

Recently, I’ve found collage to be a tool that empowers me to look at my work and feel good about it. It gives me the confidence to keep working in other creative outlets, such as painting, drawing, and writing.

Being able to piece together a whole new image from a bunch of ripped-up images is like putting myself together after falling apart. It’s not only satisfying to rip, cut, glue, touch, and smell the materials. The tactile experience is both internal and external. When I come home from work feeling dysregulated, sitting down with a blank art journal page to create a collage creates a sense of warmth and safety within me.

In making collage, I am communicating with myself, externalizing my inner experiences so they don’t create more wounds.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

A Feeling Like No Other… Believe it, then achieve it.

Elizabeth Woods — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0000

It’s official, my MFA is in the bag.

I did it! I have achieved a Master’s degree in Writing. It’s a dream come true for me. Something I could only dream about over the years.

My dream started when I was about four or five years old. I was living a nightmare childhood. The kind that no child should ever have to endure, riddled with horrific trauma and perpetual child abuse. I started expressing my feelings in a diary. I wrote in code at first, using impossible metaphors that the adults around me couldn’t understand.

My writing evolved over the years, and as an adult, I eventually became brave enough to publish my memoir:

Of course, once I published my memoir, I couldn’t stop writing. It was like my writing had burst its creative banks, and I published five more books.

Yes, you read that right.

I have published six books, and I have a new novel coming this spring.

I couldn’t keep silent anymore. I needed to write for those who have no voice due to trauma.

Have you ever dreamed about wanting something that you felt was out of reach?

My Master’s degree felt like that to me — for decades. I wanted to be a better writer.

I longed for it for years. Then I started doubting that I could do it, and I eventually stopped dreaming with every rejection landing in my inbox.

I kept telling myself that I couldn’t afford to head back to college. (I’m still paying for my college tuition from my teaching degree).

Does this kind of excuse sound familiar? You stop dreaming because it feels unreachable, and those negative thoughts from childhood rears their ugly heads.

Something happened when I was in this phase of thinking that my dream of writing was unreachable. Someone asked me why…

Why do you stop dreaming because of money? Why have you stopped dreaming because you’re an adult?

Everyone pays for college.

You only live once, so why not live the life you want?

I applied for my Master’s that same day, but I never thought I’d get in since it was late. I was wrong and got accepted after three weeks. I don’t know how I pulled it off, but I did. It was like it was meant to be.

When you’re in high school, your whole life is ahead of you. Students have the choice of what they want to study, or do for the rest of their lives.

How do you know what your future holds when you’re a teenager?

How can you know what career you want without any life experience? How can you know, without even trying out a job for a single day?

It’s impossible to choose. Yet some students do, going with their interests and heading to college.

After completing a degree, you start a career.

Years go by, and life experiences change you.

Some people choose to settle down in the suburbs, get married, and have kids.

You become someone that people depend on at home and at work. You have responsibilities.

You get a new perspective on life, but it doesn’t mean you become boring. It makes you start dreaming again. Dreaming of more.

What is more for you?

What would it feel like to get more?

Imagine yourself there. If you believe it, then you can achieve it.

Never lose sight of your true dreams.

I chose my own path to happiness when I was a teenager. I got away from my family, and everything I knew, and I started again. But I still wanted more and put myself through night school, working several jobs.

I believed in myself, and I got accepted into teaching college. My life didn’t end there. I’m still me and always hungry for more.

I spent my childhood living under strict rules about everything I said and did. When I started my life again, I decided to follow my heart.

Now I’m a mom, a teacher, and I have two degrees.

None of it was easy, but it started with me — believing.

You can do it too. Start believing in yourself.

It’s never too late to start something new.

I’m in my forties, I work all week, and I have two kids. I still went to college because I decided to follow my dream to write better.

I was in the MFA program with talented people, ranging from their seventies to fresh twenty-something graduates. They were all incredible people, and everyone had a story to tell. We all shared the love of writing.

I found my crowd, and I loved being in this environment.

What’s stopping you from getting more? What’s stopping you from finding your crowd?

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

Photo Credit: Unsplash

“I’ve Forgotten How to Live a Normal Life”: Understanding Functional Freeze After Trauma

Ellen Tift — Tue, 26 May 2026 10:00:00 +0000

When basic tasks drain all your energy and what seems easy for others feels impossible for you, this isn’t weakness. It’s your nervous system protecting you. Here’s why it happens and how to heal.

When Trauma Leaves You In Hibernation Mode

Have you withdrawn from the world, feeling disconnected, like you don’t know how to live a “normal” life? Watching everything happen from behind glass? Does stepping back outside and re-engaging feel impossible? You’re not alone. Many trauma survivors experience “functional freeze”—a protective shutdown affecting nearly every aspect of life.

Luis Goes Into Hibernation: A Story

Luis used to be known for his energy – always the first to suggest a weekend hike, quick to laugh, and passionate about his work as a school counselor.

What others didn’t see was how Luis had spent his childhood walking on eggshells around an unpredictable parent with addiction issues. He’d learned early to be hyper-aware of others’ emotions, to make himself useful, to prevent conflict. He’d worked hard to overcome these patterns as an adult, building a life where he felt relatively safe and valued. In this season, he found stability by spending time with his closest friend since childhood, Steven. And Luis was saving up to buy an engagement ring for his long time partner Francesca.

Then began the harsh winds. First, the cold front arrived with the systematic undermining by a new principal who questioned his every decision and took credit for Luis’s programs. Around the same time, Steven moved across the country, leaving Luis without their regular workouts, pool nights, and belly laughs.

Then, bringing the first hard frost, Francesca dumped Luis for a younger guitar player. And as winter truly set in, Luis was mugged while walking to clear his head in a quiet park he’d always come to for peace – an event his sister dismissed with “at least they didn’t hurt you.” His roommate Marco, while not unkind, was emotionally distant and uncomfortable with vulnerable conversations.

As temperatures plunged outside, Luis felt winter spreading within him too.

First came the fatigue – bone-deep and unrelenting. He started declining social invitations, his body too heavy to move beyond necessary tasks. “Just busy,” he’d text, watching the chat bubbles fade as friends eventually stopped asking.

By mid-winter, Luis’s apartment became his cave – a place of necessary retreat. His entire system powered down. The dirty dishes didn’t register. The unwashed laundry didn’t matter. Marco’s comments about “pulling your weight around here” barely penetrated the protective numbness.

When absolutely required to leave for work, Luis would muster everything he had to get by – then return to collapse in exhaustion. At night, he’d stare blankly at his phone for hours, scrolling past images of former friends at concerts and dinners, feeling a hollow ache but lacking the energy to even name the feeling.

His sister kept telling Luis to go on antidepressants, but she didn’t understand. This wasn’t depression. This was survival.

Spring arrived outside, but not within. Luis remained in his protective cave. He couldn’t remember what spring felt like anymore, couldn’t imagine ever wanting to feel the sun again.

In the depth of his hibernation, Luis couldn’t see that beneath the frozen surface, something was still alive, waiting for conditions to become safe enough to emerge. He just wanted to sleep and couldn’t even think about waking up.

Understanding Functional Freeze

What Luis is experiencing has a name in trauma psychology: functional freeze. Like hibernation in the natural world, functional freeze is a protective response to threatening conditions – not a character flaw or personal failing, but a natural adaptation when the environment becomes too harsh to navigate normally.

Functional freeze happens when your nervous system shifts into a state of profound shutdown (what therapists call a “dorsal vagal state”) to protect you from perceived threats that feel inescapable. It’s your body’s way of saying, “I can’t fight this danger, I can’t run from it, so I’ll preserve energy and disappear.”

This isn’t a conscious choice – it’s a neurobiological response controlled by your autonomic nervous system, specifically the oldest part of your vagus nerve. You didn’t decide to enter this state of withdrawal. Your body made this choice for you based on what it learned was necessary for survival.

A former marketing executive describes her experience: “After years of psychological abuse from my boss, I found myself unable to do the simplest things. I’d stare at my phone, knowing I should call friends back, but it felt like trying to lift a thousand pounds. Even making dinner decisions became overwhelming. I wasn’t depressed exactly – it was like my whole system had just… powered down.”

The Freeze Response Spectrum: From Fluctuating to Complete Shutdown

It’s important to understand that freeze responses exist on a spectrum, with several distinct forms that vary in intensity and impact on functioning. Understanding where you fall on this spectrum can help in recognizing your patterns and developing appropriate support strategies.

Fluctuating Freeze

Many trauma survivors experience fluctuating levels of freeze, moving between:

Periods of greater engagement and capacity
Episodes of deeper withdrawal and shutdown
Cycles that may be affected by stress, triggers, or physical health

Partial or Situational Freeze

Some people experience freeze responses that are triggered only in specific situations or contexts:

Freezing in social situations while functioning well alone
Freezing at work but being more engaged at home
Experiencing freeze only when confronted with specific triggers

Functional Freeze

The form of freeze described throughout this article is “functional freeze” – a state where the person maintains some minimal functioning while still experiencing profound shutdown in many areas of life. In functional freeze, a person can:

Maintain basic survival needs, though often with difficulty
Perform certain required tasks (like going to work) while collapsing afterward
Engage in limited necessary interactions
Appear “normal” to casual observers for brief periods

Complete Freeze and Tonic Immobility

At the most severe end of the spectrum is what might be called “non-functional freeze” or “complete freeze.” In this state, a person may be:

Unable to maintain even basic self-care
Physically immobilized for extended periods
Completely withdrawn from all social contact
Unable to work or engage in any productive activity
In need of immediate intervention and help

This profound shutdown may require hospitalization or intensive support, as the person cannot meet their basic needs. It often occurs during or immediately after acute trauma.

In its most extreme manifestation, the freeze response can progress to complete physical shutdown – literally making it impossible to move, speak, or react. This is your body’s ancient “playing dead” response (what scientists call “tonic immobility”).

Just as certain animals become completely still when trapped by a predator, humans can experience this profound immobilization in moments of overwhelming threat. Someone experiencing tonic immobility might feel physically unable to move despite wanting to, be unable to call out or speak, remain conscious but unable to control their body, experience a sensation of heaviness or paralysis, or have difficulty breathing normally

Although this response is most common during acute traumatic events, some survivors experience episodes of tonic immobility even years later when faced with triggers that remind them of past trauma. This isn’t a conscious choice or “freezing up” from fear – it’s a primitive survival mechanism activating at a neurological level.

Like a hibernating animal whose bodily functions slow to near standstill during the deepest winter, tonic immobility represents the most profound conservation of resources in the face of perceived inescapable threat.

The spectrum is not fixed – many people move through different points as their healing progresses, sometimes experiencing improvements followed by temporary regressions. If you’re experiencing complete freeze or tonic immobility, please seek immediate professional help, as this state can become dangerous to your physical health and safety.

The Foundational Impact of Childhood Trauma

For many people experiencing functional freeze, the roots extend back to childhood experiences. When childhood trauma or neglect occurs, the developing nervous system learns early that the world isn’t safe, creating a foundation for freeze responses later in life.

Childhood trauma can include:

Overt abuse – Physical, sexual, verbal, or emotional abuse from caregivers
Neglect – When basic physical or emotional needs aren’t met, whether intentionally or unintentionally. This includes parents who were physically present but emotionally absent, or who couldn’t provide consistent care due to their own struggles
Witnessing violence or conflict – Seeing abuse or intense conflict between family members, in the neighborhood, or at school, even when not directly targeted. This can include repeated exposure to frightening or age-inappropriate media content, especially when there’s no adult support to process these experiences
Attachment disruptions – Inconsistent caregiving, frequent separations, or abandonment, starting from birth
Emotional invalidation – When feelings are consistently ignored, dismissed, minimized, or punished. This includes being told you’re “too sensitive” or that your experiences aren’t real
Unrecognized traumas – Experiences society often normalizes: severe bullying, medical procedures without adequate support, being forced to suppress your identity, or growing up in a home with addiction or mental illness

Even when caregivers weren’t intentionally harmful, their own trauma, mental health struggles, addiction, or inability to provide consistent emotional support can create lasting impacts on a child’s developing nervous system. As in Luis’s case, many adults with functional freeze have childhood histories where they learned to always scan for danger in others’ emotions, suppress their own needs and feelings, take responsibility for others’ emotional states, or see the world as fundamentally unsafe.

These early patterns create nervous system pathways that make the person more susceptible to freeze responses when trauma occurs in adulthood. What might seem like an “overreaction” to others (like Luis’s response to being mugged, according to his sister) makes perfect sense when understood as a reactivation of early survival patterns.

When childhood trauma exists, there may be no clear “pre-trauma” self to return to – but there is still the possibility of creating new patterns of safety, connection, and aliveness.

The Physical Reality and Biology of Functional Freeze

Functional freeze isn’t just a psychological state – it creates profound physiological changes in your body. Understanding these biological aspects helps explain why willpower alone isn’t enough to overcome freeze.

How Your Body Changes in Freeze

When your nervous system enters protective shutdown, significant biological changes occur:

Energy conservation – Your body drastically reduces energy available for “non-essential” functions. Physical activities, social engagement, creative thinking, planning for the future, and even basic self-care become nearly impossible as your body diverts limited resources toward basic survival functions.
Hormone dysregulation – Particularly stress hormones like cortisol, which affect every system in your body from metabolism to immune function to sleep regulation
Immune changes – Leading to increased inflammation and vulnerability to illness, as your body prioritizes immediate survival over long-term health maintenance
Sleep disruption – Even when sleeping more hours than normal, trauma can prevent the deep, restorative sleep cycles your body needs, leading to persistent fatigue despite seemingly adequate or even excessive rest
Digestive issues – Creating gut problems such as irritable bowel, inflammation, or stress-related digestive disturbances that further limit activity and well-being
Appetite dysregulation – Either loss of appetite or emotional/comfort eating as the body’s attempt to regulate through food
Diminished awareness – Feeling “numb,” “foggy,” or “not really here” as the brain protects itself from overwhelming emotions, including becoming blind to environmental disorder or clutter
Minimal movement – Feeling “stuck” or “paralyzed,” struggling to initiate even basic tasks that require planning or sustained effort
Reduced engagement with pleasurable activities – Diminished interest in previously enjoyable activities and withdrawal from things that once brought joy (a state known as “anhedonia”)
Energy depletion at the cellular level – Affecting mitochondrial function and creating profound, bone-deep fatigue

These physical effects create a confusing reality – you have legitimate physical limitations while simultaneously experiencing psychological withdrawal. This makes it difficult to know: “Am I too tired because I’m physically ill, or is this my trauma response?”

The answer is often both, as these systems interconnect in complex ways. Your physical symptoms aren’t “just in your head” – they’re real physiological responses to trauma that require both physical and psychological healing approaches.

When Trauma Speaks Through Your Body

One of the most misunderstood aspects of functional freeze is how trauma manifests physically. Many survivors develop very real physical symptoms that doctors struggle to explain through conventional testing.

Unlike the outdated concept of “psychosomatic illness” which suggested symptoms were somehow imaginary or “all in your head,” we now understand that trauma creates genuine physiological changes that result in real physical symptoms:

Chronic pain without clear structural causes
Digestive disorders and gut inflammation
Immune system dysfunction and increased susceptibility to illness
Migraines and tension headaches
Skin conditions that flare with stress
Chronic fatigue and sleep disturbances
Unexplained dizziness or balance problems

These conditions aren’t simply your mind “creating” symptoms – they’re the result of real changes in how your nervous system, immune system, and endocrine system function after trauma. Your body remembers your trauma, even when it’s not in your conscious thoughts.

Many trauma survivors find themselves caught in a frustrating cycle of medical appointments, inconclusive tests, and providers who suggest their symptoms might be “just stress” or “anxiety.” This minimizing experience can itself become traumatizing.

When addressing physical symptoms during functional freeze, the most effective approach typically combines holistic care for the whole body, trauma-informed therapeutic approaches, nervous system regulation practices, and gentle physical movement that respects your current limitations.

Just as a hibernating animal experiences profound physiological changes – altered metabolism, immune function, and healing processes – a person in trauma-induced functional freeze experiences genuine biological changes that require both physical and psychological healing approaches.

Signs You May Be in Functional Freeze

This protective state can manifest in many ways that affect every aspect of life:

Physical and Behavioral Signs

Deep fatigue that rest doesn’t seem to touch – Your body’s energy systems remain in conservation mode regardless of how much you sleep
Mindless numbing activities – Endless scrolling, binge-watching shows you barely remember, or playing mobile games for hours without enjoyment
Sleep pattern changes – Either excessive sleeping as escape or disrupted sleep despite exhaustion
Body disconnection – Profound alienation from your physical self, beyond just neglect of appearance
Physical symptoms in social settings – Headaches, stomach issues, or feeling faint when attempting to engage with others

Social and Environmental Signs

Avoiding social contact – Even with people you once enjoyed, because interactions require energy your system is conserving for survival
Preferring isolation – Feeling safest behind locked doors, even when loneliness is painful
Missing social cues or forgetting social skills – What one could call “social atrophy” – the weakening of social muscles through disuse
Experiencing pain seeing others’ lives – Feeling shame, grief, or envy when seeing social media posts of others living seemingly normal lives
Environmental blindness – Not seeing clutter, mess, or disorder in your living space
Inability to meet basic responsibilities – Struggling with tasks like cleaning or self-care, which others might label as “laziness”
Procrastination until deadlines – Waiting until the last minute to complete necessary tasks, as the stress of an immediate deadline provides the activation energy needed to overcome freeze

Mental and Emotional Signs

Decision paralysis – Even small choices become overwhelming, from what to eat to which route to drive
Time perception distortions – Days blur together while individual moments can feel endless
Persistent mortality awareness – Frequent, non-distressing thoughts about death (your own or loved ones’)
Diminished life aspirations – Inability to envision or plan for your future
Shame cycles – Feeling ashamed about your withdrawal, which triggers deeper withdrawal, creating more shame
Feeling like you’re “performing” in conversations – Either sharing too much (trauma dumping) or maintaining a painful facade of normalcy

The most confusing part? You may recognize you’re not truly living but feel oddly resistant to changing this pattern because on some level, it feels safer than the alternative.

Read the rest of this article in Ellen’s first book of her “There’s A Word for That” series: https://a.co/d/02U7m1gT

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. 😊

This article is part of Ellen’s first book.Order on paperback or Kindle.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

Who Do You Look Up To? The Importance of Role Models for Survivors of Child Abuse

Elizabeth Woods — Mon, 25 May 2026 10:00:00 +0000

My name is Elizabeth, and I am a survivor of sexual abuse and trauma. I endured things, terrible things when I was growing up. I was just a young sprout, but my lack of years and stature failed to tell everyone what I had already lived through and seen with my young eyes.

Who listens to children? Who hears them and acts on the truth in a helpful way? Who chooses to walk away?

The truth is, not many adults act when they should, and the cost to abused children is too much. They are ignored by those who have the power to help, and they carry on being abused.

I was the child who was ignored despite my pleas for help. I wasn’t just ignored by my bio-family, but teachers and doctors too.

All child abuse survivors have felt this betrayal by those who hurt them and failed to take care of their basic needs. They don’t need further betrayal from those who could help — yet, they are.

That deep betrayal lives in me and in all other child abuse survivors.

Survivors’ experiences are different, but there is one thing that we all feel, and that is loneliness.

Abuse and trauma within a family almost always comes with deep-seated betrayal of trust, neglect, abandonment, and lies.

Survivors feel alone in the world, and that burden is like a choking desolation.

Nobody wants us, and no one around us knows or wants to know what is happening, even if we tell or act it out. ( I tried) That truth is crushing for a young child.

Imagine never having a loving parent tucking you in at night when you might be scared of the dark.

An abused child is deeply traumatized by the dark and agonizes about it every day because when that darkness arrives, so does the pain.

The Importance of Role-Models

Children growing up need role models to help them make sense of the world. Role models give children an idol, someone to count on and guide them through life’s ups and downs.

A child growing up in a loving family will learn to love and treat others.

If a child has never had a positive role model, they will grow up to be at a disadvantage in many developmental milestones, especially social skills.

If your parents never hugged you, how can you know what a hug feels like?

If your parents never talked to you, how can you develop speech patterns and convey meaning in language?

An abused child misses out on so much.

Teachers are great role models and open up a world of education and experiences that these children cannot get from home. School trips are fun, and classrooms come alive in color and models during those early Pre-K to elementary years.

Where else can you be better submerged in a community aside from an elementary school?

Kids are great role models and can show their peers what to do. We learn a lot from one another.

I realized that I could have more freedom when I disappeared.

The media and TV have an abundance of role models as well. We are immersed in the internet and social media culture, and everything trickles down to our kids.

Not all children are lucky to have access to the internet and media at home, but they will get exposure in school.

Music and videos are playing in malls, on billboards, and in advertisements all around us. We cannot help knowing what is happening because information is everywhere in the suburban world.

I realized that I could have more freedom when I disappeared from my bio-family.

As soon as I could get away, I would be out on the streets looking for role models who might want me. At that time, I was completely vulnerable. I met a lot of different people on the streets, but I was smart too and learned to watch my six and not trust adults.

I never found a magic family that wanted to adopt me. Instead, I got taken back to my house every single time I stayed out too long.

As an adolescent from an abusive home, I was the perfect target for drug dealers. I had already seen what drugs and alcohol did to people and wanted no part of that life.

Many adolescent abuse survivors turn to drugs and alcohol to fit in and get an escape from reality.

I preferred to stay hungry rather than break the law. I needed to get away permanently from my bio-family, not be thrown into jail.

Seeking comfort in strangers

I chose my role models based on the person I saw myself becoming one day.

I saw how the young lady always smiled at her customers at the food market, and how it affected her sales.

Grumpy Gus selling potatoes in monosyllabic grunts never attracted customers to linger and talk.

These people helped me decide who I wanted to be. I took notice of people and picked the attributes that I liked.

Those role models helped me put together my identity because I refused to be like the people who hurt me.

The need for role models doesn’t stop in childhood. It follows you throughout life.

You want to be around family during the holidays. I spent them alone.

You want your family at your wedding and college graduation. (I had none, and I felt it)

When you find out you are expecting a baby, it’s scary and brings up tons of stuff. You want to ask your parents about it. (I couldn’t)

There are many moments in life when you want your family to stand behind you. A survivor simply doesn’t have that bond with family, and it hurts.

This article has given you an insight into what it is like to grow up as an abused child. The importance of role models follows survivors into adulthood and beyond.

Most of the time, survivors need hope and love. Hope that not everyone in this world is a monster, and that we are worthy of being loved.

This is the world we need to show kids. A world that is wonderful and exciting. A world where everyone matters because we do. We matter, and we all have a voice.

Nobody should be ignored and alone.

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

Photo Credit: Unsplash

What does it actually mean to be safe?

Rachel Grant — Thu, 21 May 2026 10:00:00 +0000

I recently had the great joy of connecting with Stacey Fitzgerald. She is a Certified Nutritionist, Somatic Breathwork Practitioner, Trauma-Informed horse trainer, Singer/Songwriter, Wife, Mother, and Creator of Becoming Safe–an online course and community for healing through all forms of betrayal trauma.

As soon as we started talking, I just knew I had to introduce you to her. I even had the chance to attend her amazing breathwork workshop, which was soothing, healing, and eye-opening!

RACHEL: What inspired you to start writing about/exploring this topic?

STACEY: In February 2021, I had what I call my Breakdown/Breakthrough, which was a resurfacing of unhealed and undiagnosed Complex PTSD. I was so rocked in my body, especially because I had done a lot of study and had a reasonably deep head knowledge of what I thought it was to “be well.”

I realized, through my own experience, even though I had processed it in my mind, was still stored in my body and had been coming out through my songwriting for decades!

And it was showing itself through severe panic attacks and debilitating physical symptoms.

I began a deeper study of all things nervous system and trauma, adding to my head knowledge, and then really finding and DOING the things for my body that helped to move the needle from knowing to being.

RACHEL: What key insights or lessons have you learned through your experiences with this subject?

STACEY: One of the questions I heard posed early on from an expert I was listening to was, “When in life have you FELT SAFE?” I found myself feeling stunned–I wasn’t really sure what was meant by “safe,” and I was quite certain that I had never really felt that way!

A key insight from that point was how we needed to REGULATE our nervous system before we process trauma. I realized I had been processing in my head, but not regulating my body. Regulation before processing is key!

The other key insight has been that our nervous system is not our enemy, even when it feels like it is! It is actually doing exactly what it was designed to do, which is keep us alive, and alert us that it needs our attention. We are not broken, rather, we are functioning exactly as intended.

The missing piece was understanding the language of the nervous system, and how to listen and respond to it.

Our body knows the way home, and when we learn to listen, and become friends with our nervous system, the way back to our true self becomes much clearer.

RACHEL: What might you tell someone who is just beginning to work on healing trauma?

STACEY: It’s easy to say, but perhaps the hardest to commit to: you just cannot give up.

No matter what life throws at you, no matter what kind of break you might take from your healing, and whatever trouble you might get into because of that break, you have to come back to pursuing personal joy and ultimate peace.

My experience is that overcoming trauma and abuse comes down to accepting that while it was bad and horrible and wrong,it did happen. I learned to accept that it happened withoutcondoning that it happened.

So, how does a person do that? I think that one’s addictions are the easiest place to begin because there’s a free, accessible process: 12-step programs. These days, many good books you’ll come in contact with while working the steps include addressing childhood trauma. The best one I’ve reads is called Iron Legacy by Dr. Donna J. Bevan-Lee.

If you want to learn about recovery through written exercises and reading personal essays, get Iron Legacy. If you want to learn about it via story, get my book!

RACHEL: What challenges or misconceptions do you think people face when dealing with this topic, and how can they overcome them?

STACEY: I think many people feel like something is “wrong” with them–that they are alone, crazy, and broken. This misconception can lead to utter hopelessness, depression, or anxiety, and can cause serious health issues among many other uncomfortable and debilitating effects.

Knowing that the answer is closer than they realize brings hope and a sense of security to someone who may have been feeling really lost for a long time.

Another challenge is that others in their life may not understand what they are going through, so their efforts to “help” can often be more harmful than supportive, and lead to further disconnect, loneliness, and confusion.

Connecting with a program, a person, or a community that gets them (someone who understands what they’re going through, and how to take steps back to feeling safe) can be a lifeline in a sea of chaos!

RACHEL: Are there any common myths or misunderstandings about this topic that you’d like to address?

STACEY: The word itself–SAFE–can have multiple meanings and implications. For instance, “playing it safe” can infer that someone is hiding or holding back. And feeling “unsafe” can mistakenly be attributed only to physically dangerous situations, circumstances, and people.

When I refer to BEING SAFE, I’m talking about a felt sense of being at home in your own body, able to be calm and alert at the same time, and having a nervous system that can handle the stresses of life and then return to a restful state when needed. It’s about having CHOICE and not being STUCK in patterns of disfunction.

When I say that you can BE SAFE, I use the letters as an acronym to describe how it feels: Secure & Stabile, Awake/Aware/Alive, Free from…and Free to… (fill in the blanks), and Expansive–able to grow, learn, explore, and step into the fullness of what it means to be YOU!

Now who doesn’t want to be SAFE when viewed in that light!?

RACHEL: What resources, tools, or next steps would you recommend for readers who want to dive deeper into this topic?

STACEY: I highly recommend learning about how your nervous system functions and what it’s doing for you. This means developing a regular practice of working with your body (physiology & nervous system), soul (mind/thought, emotions/feelings, will/choices), and spirit (your breath and connection to Breath/Spirit).

I offer an online course and community that contains all of that called Becoming Safe, as well as a rich resource section with connections to other people and sources like the work Rachel does.

I also offer a 90 Day daily somatic practice journey called “The Doing,” which is a great way to gently work with your nervous system and learn it’s language, developing a trusting friendship that serves you daily, as well as Somatic Breathwork Sessions designed to do the “deep” cleaning of clearing out what no longer serves us, and re-wiring into how we want to feel and show up.

Both of those offerings, as well as links to my Facebook pages and YouTube channels can be found on my website: onpurposeinternational.org

—

To your healing,

Rachel

P.S. If you’re ready to take the next step in healing from abuse and would like to explore enrolling in the Beyond Surviving program, start by applying for a Discover Your Genuine Self Session.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

I Am Not Afraid To Fall Asleep

Natalie Rose — Wed, 20 May 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Driving home, I couldn’t contain my excitement.

Tonight, I told myself, I’m going to have the best sleep of my life.

I had saved up a few hundred bucks to purchase a singing bowl. I had heard they’re miracle workers for people with sleep issues, and I just knew I had to give it the ol’ college try.

I blocked out a Saturday afternoon to drive to a metaphysical store in the big city to pick out the perfect singing bowl. I spent about an hour testing dozens of bowls, allowing my body to feel the frequency of each sound to determine which one was the right fit. After completing my rounds, there was one that kept calling my name. I grazed the mallet around the bowl one last time. It felt like music to my ears.

That night, the only thing on my bedtime agenda was to relax. I put away all my screens and spent the evening cooking, cleaning, painting, and reading to calm my nervous system. I concluded the night with some restorative yoga poses. I fought back trauma responses to the flashbacks, but they were manageable.

My singing bowl symphony

It was time to begin my bedtime symphony in hopes that tonight would be the first time in ten years I would sleep more than three hours without sleep paralysis or night terrors.

I turned the lights down low, lit a candle, folded my fuzzy blanket onto the floor, and got comfy, straddling the singing bowl between my thighs. I lifted the mallet with my right hand and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.

I tapped the mallet on the side of the bowl and began to circle it around the rim gently, allowing the healing frequency to seep into every pore of my body. What had initially sounded like music to my ears at the metaphysical store was starting to feel a little intense as the flashbacks began to rile up. Still, I decided to sit with it.

You spent three hundred bucks on this thing, Natalie. See it through, I reminded myself.

I continued to play softly, but the flashbacks weren’t having it. They began to scream louder than the bowl could sing, and my body began pulsing with rage. The soothing sounds of the singing bowl must have been too beautiful for the flashbacks to handle, and they got jealous. They clearly weren’t going down without a fight.

I screamed in agony as I battled the trauma responses festering in my body. Finally, I had had enough. My body impulsively carried out one final jolt: my right arm darted forward with a violent, uncontrollable punch, like I was chopping a tree stump in half with an axe. The mallet struck the edge of the bowl, shattering it into a million pieces.

The mess I made

I sat dumbfounded at the mosaic I had created between my crotch and my feet. After about fifteen seconds of pure shock, the wave of self-punishment began. I hurled obscenities at myself, scolded myself for my lack of control, and listed all the other things I could have spent those three hundred bucks on.

The flashbacks now lay on the floor, transformed into tiny glass particles sparkling before my eyes. With each glimmer of light, I felt them mocking me. I could hear their taunting laughter and see their evil eyes in the shards, reminding me that I would never be free of them, no matter how hard I tried.

I gingerly picked up one of the miniscule particles and caressed it between my thumb and index finger. A tear fell onto it, and I tossed it back into the sea of mockery and hopelessness.

“You win again, flashbacks,” I muttered.

Picking up the pieces

With trembling hands, I managed to push myself up, but I quickly lost my balance. My thigh scraped against the glass, and dozens of shards embedded themselves in the fabric of my leggings. I screamed again.

I trudged to the bathroom to grab my tweezers, but after just a few steps, I realized that more glass was stuck in the soles of my feet. I screamed once more and collapsed onto my hands and knees, crawling on all fours until I reached the toilet. The sensory overload was unbearable. I puked out my only meal of the day.

Finally feeling a release, I spent the next hour on the bathroom floor, tweezing out the microscopic glass particles from my feet as tears flooded the floor around me.

The next morning

The first thing on my to-do list the next morning was to purchase a sack of potatoes at the farmer’s market.

When I got home, I sliced each potato in half, got down on my hands and knees, and rubbed the mushy side of the potato against the cabin floor, picking up every glass shard, no matter how small. As I vacuumed and mopped, I felt bummed. It was time to go back to the drawing board.

The painful sleep that comes with CPTSD

As a child, I never had any sleep issues. However, when my CPTSD symptoms began around age 13, my sleep started to deteriorate. For over a decade, I battled severe sleep issues: insomnia, sleep paralysis, night terrors, and narcolepsy. I absolutely dreaded going to bed each night. In fact, I hated sleeping more than I hated being awake.

My trauma manifested in extreme ways during my sleep, often worse than the flashbacks I experienced at every second of the day. I managed to get through my waking hours by drinking eight cups of coffee, which only skyrocketed my anxiety. Even after episodes of sleep paralysis, I would eventually wake up and try to go back to sleep, but the cycle would continue. At one point, my night terrors were so intense that I had to set a 15-minute alarm to wake myself up, reset it, and then try to sleep again, terrified of the next round of torture. This cycle kept my nervous system in a constant state of hypervigilance during a time when I should have found refuge from the world.

Over the years, I consulted numerous sleep doctors and psychiatrists in my quest to restore my sleep to its natural state. I begged my doctors for answers, asking why the meds weren’t working. They had no answers. Deep down, I knew that I would have to take control of my sleep on my own. During my East Texas cabin journey, I took active steps to learn how to sleep independently while working through withdrawal from high doses of Prazosin and Trazodone.

Back to the basics

At the beginning of my cabin journey, I was gifted a book called “How to Break Up With Your Phone” by Catherine Price. With an open mind and a willingness to confront my digital habits, I read the entire book in one day. In it, Price highlights the detrimental effects that our addictive handheld devices have on our sleep. I had never considered that using my phone right before bedtime could affect my sleep, or that even leaving it on my nightstand as an alarm clock could send signals to my brain while I slept. Price challenges readers to go on a phone detox for 1 hour a day to reclaim their power.

I’ve always been a “go big or go home” kind of girl. One hour a day? Pssh.

That’s too easy. So, I decided to embark on my first-ever 7-day complete tech detox. While Price didn’t suggest anywhere near this level of commitment, my sleep was poor enough that I was willing to do whatever it took to turn my bedroom into my sanctuary.

Sitting with my own mind and setting intentions

My transformative week of being unplugged will be the subject of a future blog, but it served as the catalyst for figuring out my sleep issues. My goal was to fall asleep each night during those seven days without relying on Trazodone.

I knew that the first step in falling asleep was to overcome my fear of getting in my bed. Each day, I went to my climbing gym and sat in the sauna. I did some deep breathing exercises and focused on setting positive intentions throughout the day to prepare for nighttime: “I am not afraid to fall asleep.”

I repeated this statement out loud over and over again, (sometimes even screaming it!) through agonizing physiological pain. I must have said it hundreds of times. I also voiced numerous other mantras, such as:

My sleep is peaceful.
I will 100% be at rest tonight.
My sleep is transformative, lucid, and creative.
Nothing is allowed to interfere with my sleep.

Five in, five out

That night, as I lay in bed, I practiced a breathing technique I had learned. I placed one hand on my heart and the other on my stomach. Breathe in for five seconds, breathe out for five seconds. Fighting back flashbacks, I repeated this exercise over and over. I screamed in agony. Rolled around. Punched my pillow. Reset myself again. Five in. Five out. Just as I had been taught.

After six hours of this, I finally drifted off to sleep. The next morning, when I glanced at the clock, a tear trickled down my cheek. I had only slept three hours, and I still had sleep paralysis, but I had done it without my Trazodone. I felt so proud of myself.

My new favorite part of the day

During my first tech detox, I established a consistent sleep routine. I maintained this routine, among other habits, over the next year. On February 6, 2025, I had my first ever 7-hour night of sleep without experiencing sleep paralysis or night terrors since I was a teenager. It took about a year of persistent daily practice to reach this point, but I finally got there. Now, in 2026, this has become my norm every single night.

I never needed any external aids to help me sleep. I had spent years experimenting with sound machines, sleep trinkets, prescription meds, over-the-counter drugs, and home remedies like herbal teas. Ultimately, I realized that in order to restore my sleep to its natural state, I needed to reclaim my power through somatic methods. How could my sleep ever be truly restorative if I relied on synthetic substances to induce an artificial state of rest? Nothing worked as well as setting aside all distractions, allowing the sounds and sensations of my own breath to fill my body with complete tranquility, and letting my subconscious take over.

What was once the most dreaded part of my day has now become my favorite. I love going to sleep. Every night, I fall asleep within 10 seconds of lying down. I no longer have a sleep routine because I remain consistently calm throughout the day. I no longer experience sleep paralysis or night terrors. Instead, I build my dreams and fly through alternate worlds that I create with my subconscious mind. I wake up feeling refreshed and rejuvenated, and I don’t need daytime naps. Oh! And I haven’t had a sip of caffeine in two years. I used to think none of this was possible.

Never give up on conquering insomnia, sleep paralysis, night terrors, or narcolepsy

To any survivors struggling with sleep, I encourage you to be patient with yourself. Your sleep will ebb and flow during your recovery as the trauma is released from your body. But once you reach a more stable phase in your healing process, you’ll find that sleep becomes easier. Don’t give up. Explore different options that work for you, whether they are medications, natural remedies, or other methods. Remember, what works for one person may not work for another. Everybody and every body is different! You have the power to cultivate control of your sleep.

My sleep is my refuge. It is my creative canvas and my slice of heaven. I am no longer afraid to fall asleep.

Photo by Sherin on Pexels

To my readers who have been following my journey: I am excited to share that I have created a personal blog called “Little Cabin Life.” This blog chronicles my healing journey, where I share my experiences and the things I am doing to support my recovery. You’ll also find tips that have been helpful to me along the way. If you’re interested in following my story, please feel free to visit www.littlecabinlife.com.

When Sobriety Exposes Trauma

Dr. Mozelle Martin — Tue, 19 May 2026 10:00:00 +0000

People do not always hold onto what harms them because they are irrational. A lot of the time, they hold onto it because they know what is waiting underneath. That is the part public talk about addiction still gets wrong. It treats the substance as the whole problem, then acts confused when removal alone does not bring relief.

For trauma survivors, that confusion can do real damage.

The body can be detoxed. The alcohol can leave the bloodstream. The pills can stop. The drug screen can turn clean. None of that, by itself, settles a nervous system shaped by fear, chaos, betrayal, chronic stress, or long exposure to emotional instability. If the substance had been muting panic, softening body memories, dulling grief, slowing intrusive thoughts, or creating a few hours of internal quiet, then taking it away may leave the survivor more exposed, not less.

That does not mean sobriety is the problem. It means the pain was there before the substance, and removing the substance does not remove the pain.

Not Every Survivor Numbs the Same Way

This part needs to be said plainly because people love crude formulas. Growing up around addiction does not sentence a child to become a drinker or a drug user. That is not how real human adaptation works. One person raised around 2 functioning alcoholics may grow up to drink heavily. Another may never become a drinker at all. Another may avoid every chemical escape route and build a life around control, overwork, hypervigilance, caretaking, food restriction, compulsive productivity, or emotional shutdown.

The injury field can be similar. The adaptation can look very different.

I have seen people flatten this into a lazy story about repetition, as if trauma always reproduces itself in the same visible form. It does not. Some survivors numb with substances. Some numb with performance. Some numb with distance. Some become so overcontrolled that they look stable from the outside while living in a near-constant state of internal bracing.

That is why survivor-centered writing has to stay accurate. Trauma does not produce one fixed behavioral outcome. It produces survival strategies. Addiction is one of them. It is not the only one.

What Detox Can Do

Detox has a place. In alcohol withdrawal and in withdrawal from certain sedatives, it can be medically necessary and sometimes lifesaving. The body has to be stabilized first. No serious clinician disputes that. But detox is not trauma treatment, and calling it treatment in the broad sense creates false expectations that many survivors later pay for.

Detox addresses acute physiological withdrawal. It manages the immediate medical event. It helps the body get through the short-range crisis. That is real work. It can lower danger. It can create a starting point. What it does not do is repair the nervous system, process trauma, treat attachment injury, resolve chronic shame, restore sleep architecture, or teach a survivor how to live without the thing that had been buffering reality.

A person can complete detox and still be in psychic free fall. That sentence should not shock anybody, yet families, institutions, and sometimes even treatment programs keep behaving as if a chemically cleared body should produce a settled life. It does not work that way.

What The Substance Was Doing

A substance usually acquires power because it is doing a job. Sometimes it is reducing social fear. Sometimes it is making sleep possible. Sometimes it is slowing body alarm. Sometimes it is muting grief. Sometimes it is producing enough numbness for a person to get through dinner, bedtime, a memory trigger, a night alone, or a work shift without falling apart.

That functional role is what many treatment conversations skip over.

If a survivor used alcohol to blunt hyperarousal, or opioids to mute both physical and emotional pain, or sedatives to stop internal overdrive, then simple abstinence language is too thin to carry the case. It asks the person to surrender the only tool that has been reliably changing their state without giving equal attention to what will replace it. That is not strength-building. That is exposure without cover.

The same logic applies to survivors who never become drinkers. The behavior can change while the function stays the same. A person may never touch alcohol and still live by rigid control because control is what quiets fear. Another may overfunction for everyone in the room because usefulness feels safer than need. Another may stay emotionally flat because intensity feels dangerous. Remove the adaptation before treating the underlying distress and the system often destabilizes.

Why The Return Happens

When people cycle through detox, rehab, relapse, detox, rehab, relapse, the usual language is refusal, denial, noncompliance, poor choices. Some of that language is lazy and some of it is dishonest. A lot of repeated treatment failure is a mismatch between the layer being treated and the layer actually driving the behavior.

If the body is stabilized but the survivor goes back to the same triggers, same relationship, same insomnia, same grief, same panic, same body memories, same housing instability, same court pressure, same loneliness, then the return to the old coping method is not mysterious. The original conditions are still intact. In many cases they are sharper because the chemical cover is gone.

Early sobriety can feel worse before it feels better. That is not proof that sobriety is harmful. It is often proof that untreated trauma has become more visible. Survivors can find themselves face to face with symptoms that had been chemically muffled for years. Sleep gets thinner. Fear gets louder. Shame gets more immediate. Old material comes back without sedation sitting on top of it.

This is where public judgment does its worst work. People see the return and assume the person wanted the substance more than healing. In many cases the more accurate reading is that the person had not yet been given a durable way to survive what sobriety exposed.

What Survivor-Centered Care Has To Reach

Care has to go below the behavior. It has to ask what the substance, compulsion, or control pattern was regulating. Then it has to treat that layer with something stronger than slogans.

For some survivors, that means medication for substance use disorder. For others, it means trauma-informed therapy paced slowly enough not to flood the system. It may mean treatment for PTSD, depression, panic, dissociation, chronic insomnia, or chronic pain. It may mean safer housing, better case management, distance from predatory relationships, and practical stabilization before deep trauma work. It may also mean naming that a survivor who never drank at all may still be living under the same old architecture of fear.

That last point belongs in the record. Survival adaptation should not be measured only by whether a person used a substance. Some survivors swallow pain with alcohol. Some swallow it with silence. The body can be cleared before the mind is ready. The symptom can stop before the injury is treated. Sobriety can be necessary and still feel brutal when it strips away the thing that had been managing the unbearable. That is where the real work starts. Not at the point where the substance is gone, but at the point where pain is still there.

Record note: ASAM states that alcohol withdrawal management alone is not an effective treatment for alcohol use disorder and should be part of initiating and engaging patients in ongoing care. SAMHSA reports that 21.2 million adults had co-occurring mental illness and substance use disorder in the 2024 NSDUH. NIDA notes that many people diagnosed with PTSD also have a substance use disorder, and NIAAA-supported literature warns against making broad assumptions about any specific child of an alcoholic based on family history alone.

Sources

American Society of Addiction Medicine. (2020). The ASAM clinical practice guideline on alcohol withdrawal management.

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. (n.d.). Understanding alcohol use disorder.

National Institute on Drug Abuse. (2024, February 6). Trauma and stress.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2025, December 22). Co-occurring disorders and other health conditions.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2025, July). Key substance use and mental health indicators in the United States: Results from the 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Photo Credit: Unsplash