What I did was something that came from a place of love and support.

I wanted to comfort.
I wanted to soothe.
I wanted to heal.

What I did was prolong a child’s fear.

Fear from the past that was the present for my wife’s child alter.

The Cry I Will Never Forget

She would wake up in a night terror. I will never forget the cry that I would hear in the night as she lived through her nightmare. This cry was different. There was something haunting about it, something primal. It was not just fear and pain. It sounded like both at the same time. The cry stretched on until her voice became ragged and weak. It faded not because whatever she was experiencing had passed, but because she no longer had the strength.

She would roll over and hold me so tight. Terrified of memories I did not know, but she was reliving.

I knew her life was full of terror, but only by living through that scream did I truly know just what she experienced. What her Little mind could not survive if she lived it. What was walled off to save her. Save her from the terror that she lived through but thankfully could not remember thanks to her powerful mind. No child should have endured it. I am thankful for her unique mind. For her dissociative ability. For her complete and thorough amnesia, which allowed her to survive.

She simply doesn’t remember, but her Little does.

Trying to Pull Her Into Now

I tried to hold her. To tell her she is safe. To reassure her of my love for her. To try and convince her that she is in the now and not the past. That she is safe.

But night after night the scream persisted.

I would wake her. And ask her questions that she answered in her childlike voice.

I asked her the things I would ask an adult to pull her into the now.

“Tell me something that you see or hear that makes you know that you are in the now and not the past.”

“I am married,” she would say as she shook. Even though she would slightly giggle since she knows she is my wife but is five years old.

She would repeat over and over again, “It’s the now, not the past. I am safe. It’s the now, not the past. I am safe.”

But the terror was still there.

I could feel it through her shaking.
 I could hear it in her voice.
 I could see it in her tears.

How was I failing her? Why was this missing the mark so completely? How can I keep her safe?

Safe from a time that wasn’t mine and she wasn’t in. Safe from horrors that she was actively living, separated by 40 years?

She would finally sleep from the exhaustion. I would hold her as she still shook in her sleep. And I would lie there for the rest of the night awake. Awake in the shame and guilt I felt for not being able to comfort my wife and all of her parts.

They are all my wife. They are all not my wife. Both of those things are true at the same time.

The Revelation

I don’t know when the thought occurred. Sometimes things creep into your mind in the strangest places. Wherever it was, it hit me like thoughts normally do for me. All at once and with complete understanding. Like a revelation.

I knew I was wrong instantly. That I was approaching the issue completely backwards. I was not to bring her into my time. I was to give her what she required in hers.

The comfort.
 The empathy.
 The safety she needed to give room for the love to hold space.

How do you soothe a child?

Give her what a child needs.
Comfort her like a scared child.
Keep her safe like a child would want to be kept safe.

My wife once spoke of a stuffed animal that she slept with as a child. It was a pink stuffed elephant with flowers in her ears. It was a token of comfort and safety in a life at an age where terror visited her in the night.

Monsters were real in the dark of her life.

I could not find that exact elephant. But I found another one, soft and furry, with a crooked trunk raised over a playful pink mouth, and I knew it was the one.

I hid him under my side of the bed and hoped.

Meeting Brandon

We went to sleep that night, and hours later the terror came. She rolled to me and grabbed me in fear. I held her until she caught her breath.

I woke her in the same way I had in the past.

“Hello, Little One. I love you, and you are safe.”

But this time I added, “And I have a present for you.”

I handed her the elephant. I told her that it was special and it would watch over her at night. That she would always be safe with him around.

“This is for me! He is so cute! I am going to name him Brandon.”

Brandon was the dog on her favorite show, Punky Brewster.

She grabbed him in a way that she could move Brandon’s arms and head like a puppet. She moved her fingers to make Brandon’s arm wave. She made him walk across the bed and give me a kiss. She turned on the light to inspect him better. She saw Brandon’s little pink mouth and ruffled the hair on top of Brandon’s head. She rubbed the furry ears and pulled on his tail.

And she beamed.
She smiled like any child.

She was not there to hold years of unspeakable trauma.

She was just a child.

She giggled and laughed and curled up with Brandon under her chin. She looked up at me, smiling.

“Thank you, Scott David Beach. I love you.” (Her Little always uses my full name).

And she drifted off to sleep.

I have not seen her since that night. I have not been awakened by the screams.

Since the night that I didn’t try to pull her into the now, but met her in her past.

I accepted her in her time and comforted her by meeting her where she was. Even when that was a child stuck in her trauma time of 1985.

They are all my wife. They are all not my wife. Both of those things are true at the same time.

I held her and watched my wife as she slept. Feeling like I had been given a life that I did not deserve.

Photo Credit: LeadWithSafety.com

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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

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 requesting a Discover Your Genuine Self Session.

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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

I know this challenge firsthand. For years, I worried that asking for accommodations would mean revealing my diagnosis, and potentially facing judgment or misunderstanding from colleagues who couldn’t see my disability.

Workplace adjustments can help a staff member manage these challenges while continuing to perform their roles effectively. However, some may feel uncomfortable sharing a specific diagnosis with managers or co-workers, preferring to keep personal health information private.

Disclosure When Requesting Accommodations

Workers can discuss the challenges affecting their work without necessarily revealing a specific mental health diagnosis. When I first needed accommodations, I learned I could frame my request around functional limitations, such as “I need a quieter workspace to concentrate effectively”, rather than diagnostic labels. For example, an employee might explain that a health condition affects concentration or makes a quieter workspace necessary. This distinction can matter in many workplaces. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, more than 20% of U.S. adults have a mental health condition, making it likely that most employers have at least one affected team member.

The good news is that many accommodation conversations go smoothly, especially when you come prepared with specific, work-focused requests. However, accommodation processes and disclosure requirements vary by location, applicable laws and individual workplace policies. A manager may sometimes request medical documentation to support an accommodation, even when an employee wants to limit diagnostic details. Understanding your company’s procedures and your legal protections can help you approach the conversation with confidence rather than anxiety.

Workplace Accommodations That May Help

Appropriate workplace accommodations can vary according to a worker’s symptoms, job responsibilities and working environment. Flexible start and finish times or more frequent short breaks may help a staff member manage periods of heightened stress. When job duties allow, remote or hybrid arrangements can also provide greater control over the working environment.

Other options include temporary workload adjustments or access to a quieter workspace. Noise-reducing headphones may help some employees limit distracting or triggering sounds, although comfort should factor into the choice of equipment. Tight headsets or invasive earplugs can contribute to prolonged ear discomfort or damage and trigger extended migraines for some people. I discovered this the hard way after wearing poorly fitted noise-canceling headphones for weeks, thinking I had to make them work. 

Workers should identify accommodations that address their specific workplace barriers rather than assume the same solution will work for everyone.

Strategies for Requesting Accommodations Without Disclosure

A staff member can request workplace support while limiting how much personal medical information they share. A clear approach can help them explain their needs, connect accommodations to workplace barriers and protect their privacy throughout the process.

1. Focus on How Symptoms Affect Work Responsibilities

Early in my career, I struggled with how to explain my needs without sharing my trauma history. Employees can focus on the workplace limitations they experience rather than naming PTSD or CPTSD. For example, a worker might explain that a health condition makes it difficult to concentrate in noisy environments and request a quieter workspace.

The request should also connect the proposed adjustment to work performance. Explaining how an accommodation could improve concentration, productivity or task completion helps keep the conversation focused on practical workplace needs.

2. Use General Medical Language When Appropriate

You have more control over disclosure than you might think. Employees can use broader terms, such as “medical condition,” “health condition” or “disability,” when a specific diagnosis does not need to be entered into the conversation. With one in three Americans making mental health resolutions, conversations about emotional wellness are becoming more common.

You can protect your privacy by sharing only what’s relevant to the workplace impact. However, privacy does not mean withholding information that a manager may lawfully require to evaluate a formal accommodation request. Think of it as drawing boundaries, not building walls. You’re providing enough context for your employer to help you, but without sharing your full medical or trauma history.

3. Clearly Describe the Workplace Accommodation Needed

Workers can make accommodation requests specific and practical without providing unnecessary personal or medical history. Recognizing personal triggers can help them identify workplace situations that create difficulties and determine which adjustments may provide meaningful support.

Working with a treatment provider can also help an employee develop an active coping plan for managing stress reactions. From there, the staff member can explain the changes that would address those barriers, such as written instructions or access to a quieter workspace.

4. Ask HR About Documentation and Confidentiality Requirements

Employees who feel uncomfortable discussing medical information with a direct supervisor can contact HR or the organization’s designated accommodations representative instead. They can ask what documentation the organization requires, how the information will be handled and who may access it.

Keeping clear records can also help workers handle the accommodation process. Copies of written requests and supporting documents provide a useful record of what was requested, submitted and discussed.

Responding to Employer Requests for Medical Documentation

If your employer requests documentation, this doesn’t mean they’re doubting you — they may simply need something for their records or to satisfy legal requirements. Documentation requirements can vary by workplace policy and whether the need for an accommodation is already clear. You don’t have to hand over your complete medical records. Instead, you can ask what specific information the employer needs to evaluate the request.

Your healthcare provider can be a valuable ally here. A qualified healthcare professional may help document functional limitations and recommend appropriate adjustments without including unnecessary personal information. Depending on applicable laws and circumstances, documentation may describe the condition generally, such as stating that a worker has an “anxiety disorder,” rather than identifying a specific diagnosis. Many providers are familiar with writing these letters and understand how to balance medical accuracy with your privacy.

Protecting Employee Privacy While Accessing Workplace Support

Asking for accommodations felt overwhelming the first time I did it. And honestly, it still requires courage each time circumstances change. Requesting workplace accommodations can focus on specific barriers and practical solutions. Preparing examples of how adjustments could help employees manage challenges and perform essential job duties can be effective. 

You deserve support that allows you to do your best work, and asking for that support is not a weakness. Understanding workplace policies and applicable disability protections can also help staff members approach accommodation discussions with greater confidence.

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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

What adjustments actually do

Work modifications reliably improve the thing they were designed to improve, which is work functioning. What I almost never see is the underlying picture resolving because the workload changed.

The shape is consistent enough to predict. Things improve for a stretch. Everyone is relieved and concludes the problem has been handled. The improvement flattens. And somewhere in the second year the same conversation happens again, usually with noticeably less goodwill available the second time and a manager who now believes the person has already been accommodated.

Why cognitive symptoms get read as workload

Mood and anxiety conditions produce functional effects that look exactly like being overworked, which is how they end up filed under scheduling.

• Impaired concentration reads as too many meetings
• Indecision reads as a complicated portfolio
• Slowed processing reads as tiredness
• Irritability reads as a difficult team
• Exhaustion that sleep does not touch reads as a busy quarter

Every one of those has a plausible environmental explanation, and the environmental explanation is usually partly true, which is exactly what makes the misattribution so durable. Indecision and impaired concentration are diagnostic features. They are not incidental consequences of a heavy schedule.

The inversion that separates load from disorder

One pattern is worth asking about directly, and it distinguishes the two far better than any question about hours worked.

Under genuine overload, decisions slow down across the board and recover with rest. In a mood or anxiety picture, something stranger happens: cheap reversible choices get deferred for weeks while expensive irreversible ones get made quickly, because sitting with an open question has become more uncomfortable than closing it wrongly. People experience that as decisiveness and get praised for it. It is much closer to what chronic indecision actually looks like from the inside.

The second distinguishing question is about timing across the day. Degradation that builds through a working day and clears by morning points toward load. Difficulty deciding from the moment of waking points somewhere else entirely.

Judgment goes before output does

Output holds long after judgment has started slipping, which is the whole reason this goes unaddressed for so long.

Nothing visible fails. The reports still go out. The meetings still happen. What degrades is the quality of the calls nobody is reviewing, and by the time a number reflects a bad decision the decision is eighteen months old. In CEREVITY’s own survey work, 62 percent of high achievers reported making worse decisions while concealing strain. That is self-report and should be read as such, but it matches almost exactly what people describe in the room once the concealing stops.

Anyone waiting for performance to signal distress is waiting for a lagging indicator of a lagging indicator.

What to do with an adjustment offer

Take it, and refuse to let it close the question. Capacity is exactly what someone needs in order to begin treatment, rather than a substitute for beginning it.

The failure mode I see repeatedly is a reduced workload that removes just enough pressure to make everything tolerable. At that point the assessment never happens, nobody is worried any more, and the underlying picture continues quietly for another two years until something forces the issue in a less convenient way.

These are composites drawn from patterns I see repeatedly, not from any individual client.

The twelve-week question

If an adjustment is the only intervention in place, book a review for twelve weeks out and ask exactly one thing: has anything changed on a day off? Work functioning improving while days off stay identical is the clearest possible signal that the adjustment is doing what adjustments do, and nothing more.

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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

She did not arrive with that figure. I asked the question, and she worked it out in the room, moving backward through two moves, a job change, and one hospital stay, until she found a date. Then she said, with no particular feeling, that it had never occurred to her to count.

Most people bring me a problem they want solved. She brought one she had already solved, many times, alone, and she was in my office because the solution had finally stopped working.

The One Nobody Interrupts

Complex trauma produces a small set of recognizable adaptations, and three of the four eventually get you into trouble.

Fight gets you disciplined. Flight earns you a reputation. Freeze surfaces at your performance review. Fawn gets you used, and sooner or later somebody says so out loud.

Hyper-independence gets you promoted.

It is the only one the world actively rewards, and that single fact explains most of what makes it so difficult to treat. The person who overfunctions is relied on at work, leaned on at home, and described by everyone who knows them as strong. No friend has ever sat someone down, concern on their face, to say they had noticed you never ask for anything. From the outside, it does not read as a symptom. It reads as character.

So it runs unchallenged for decades. And every year it goes uncorrected is another year of evidence that it works.

What It Actually Is

Hyper-independence is rigid self-reliance that continues well past the point where accepting help would be safer, faster or kinder.

The rigidity is the clinical feature. Self-reliance on its own is not a problem and never was. Healthy autonomy keeps both doors open: you can carry it, or you can hand it to someone, and you choose based on what is actually in front of you. Hyper-independence closes the second door and then explains the closure as a personality trait.

Clients describe it in exactly that register. I am just independent. I have always been the responsible one. I would rather do it myself. Each of those is offered as biography, the way you would mention being left-handed, and each is in fact a description of a door that no longer opens.

Where It Starts

Children do not decide to be independent. They become independent when depending on someone did not work.

That failure is frequently undramatic, which is part of why it goes unrecognized for so long. A parent who was loving and unpredictable in roughly equal measure. A caregiver who was in the room and somewhere else at the same time. A household where a child’s needs were met with irritation often enough that the child quietly stopped producing them. None of that meets the threshold for anything nameable, and it produces the adaptation about as reliably as things that do. It is the ordinary texture of growing up with a parent who was not available for the job, and it leaves almost no story behind.

Which is why so many of these clients open with a version of the same sentence. Nothing really happened to me.

What the child concluded was not that people are bad. It was something more economical. Needing is expensive. Better not to need.

That was an intelligent conclusion. It was correct for the environment it was formed in, and I say so out loud in session, because clients arrive braced for me to treat it as a defect. The difficulty is not that the strategy was wrong. The difficulty is that it never expired.

The Shame Underneath

The usual explanation is attachment, and that is partly right and incomplete. Plenty of these clients have warm marriages and friendships going back thirty years. What they are avoiding is not closeness. It is exposure.

The distinction that matters here is between guilt and shame. Guilt says I did something bad, and guilt has an exit: you apologize, you repair, you carry on. Shame says I am something bad. There is no exit from that, so people build a life that never requires them to test the claim.

Recent research supports the split, and does it in the precise language of complex trauma. A 2025 study in Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, co-authored by Thanos Karatzias and Mark Shevlin, whose work sits underneath the ICD-11 complex trauma criteria, tested both emotions as mediators between trauma exposure and symptoms in 160 young adults. Guilt carried the strongest effect on PTSD symptoms. Shame carried the strongest effect on Disturbances in Self-Organisation, the cluster that distinguishes complex PTSD from PTSD.

Put plainly: if needing something reveals that you are a person who has needs, and you learned early that having needs made you a burden, then every request is a small confession. The cheapest way never to confess is never to need.

What It Is Not

Three lines worth drawing, because they blur easily and the treatment implications differ.

• Not healthy autonomy. Autonomy is situational and reversible. The autonomous person declines help because they do not need it today. The hyper-independent person declines because declining is the only move available.
• Not avoidant personality. That involves fear of criticism and rejection driving withdrawal from relationships. These clients often sustain long, close relationships. They simply occupy one role inside all of them.
• Not introversion. Introversion concerns where a person’s energy comes from. Hyper independence concerns what a person believes it costs to be seen needing something. An extrovert can be profoundly hyper-independent, and will usually hide it better.

One question separates all three: what happens when help is offered and genuinely available. Relief points one way. Discomfort, deflection, or a fast counter-offer to help the helper points the other.

The Tell

What follows is a composite drawn from patterns I see repeatedly, not from any individual client.

A woman comes in for what she calls a sleep problem. When I ask who she leans on, she names four people without hesitating, and every one of them is someone who leans on her. When I ask again, more precisely, she goes quiet for a while and then says she is not sure she would know how to answer honestly.

Three sessions later she mentions in passing that she drove herself home from a colonoscopy. She is not bragging. She does not register it as unusual.

That is the tell. Not the behavior. The absence of any sense that the behavior was remarkable.

The rest of what I listen for:

• Offers of help producing discomfort rather than relief
• Fluency about plans, paired with real difficulty naming a want
• Every relationship converted into one where they are the competent party
• Symptoms that arrive on holiday rather than during the crisis
• Pride in never having burdened anyone, held slightly too tightly

That last one separates hyper-independence from ordinary isolation. This person is not alone by accident or bad luck. They built it, they maintain it, and if approached directly, they will defend it with some heat.

The holiday one surprises people, so it is worth stating plainly. For a nervous system mobilized for years, time off does not deliver relief. It brings everything that was being outrun. Somewhere around the third day, the adrenaline drops and what surfaces is not rest but dread, which is why so many capable people are more miserable on holiday than they are at work, and why another week off almost never fixes it.

Why Insight Does Not Move It

Nearly every hyper-independent client I have worked with can already explain the pattern, often in more detail than I can, and trace it to its origin without any help from me. Explaining it back to them accomplishes nothing at all. They have been explaining it to themselves for twenty years, and it has never once loosened its grip. And a fair amount of what passes for reflection in this group is self-criticism wearing the costume of self-awareness. The two feel identical from the inside and produce opposite results.

What moves it is repeated, tolerable experience of depending on someone and having it turn out fine.

If shame is the engine, then the work is not about learning to ask. It is about surviving having asked. In small doses, many times, until the nervous system revises its estimate of what asking costs. Nervous systems are not persuaded by argument. They are persuaded by repetition.

A concrete place to begin, if you want one. Use the smallest viable request. Pick something you could comfortably do yourself, ask someone to do it anyway, and then pay attention to what happens in your body in the ten seconds after you ask. That sensation is the thing being treated, not the outcome. Most people are surprised by how much shows up over something as small as asking a colleague to send a file.

Then do it again next week. The goal is not to become someone who needs help. It is to become someone for whom asking is available again, so that self-reliance goes back to being a choice rather than the only door in the room.

To whoever recognized themselves somewhere in the first three paragraphs: self-sufficiency is not your enemy. It was an intelligent answer to a situation in which depending on someone genuinely did not work, and it deserves more respect than most people will give it. It is simply still running at a scale the situation no longer requires.

Setting part of it down will not cost you the part that is actually yours.

If You Want to Keep Reading

Three pieces on the part that comes next, which is the part most people find hardest.

• The most common therapy fears, and why they are normal. The six worries that keep capable people out of the room, and what is actually true about each one.
• 14 things clients apologize for in therapy. If you recognized yourself in the apologizing, this is the list, and almost none of it warrants an apology.
• Is my therapist judging me. Written for the specific fear that the shame will finally be confirmed by someone whose job is to look closely.

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

By adulthood, many trauma survivors no longer recognize the difference between who they are and who they had to become.

Complex PTSD is often discussed through clinical symptoms: emotional dysregulation, negative self-concept, relationship difficulty, avoidance, hypervigilance, intrusive memory, shame, dissociation, and impaired trust. That is important because it gives clinicians a shared vocabulary and helps researchers measure what prolonged trauma can do to the nervous system, the body, the self, and the capacity for connection.

In real life though, survivors speak a different language.

“I was always the responsible one.”
“I kept everyone calm.”
“I never asked for anything.”
“I had to be perfect.”
“I knew when to disappear.”
“I raised myself.”
“I became whoever they needed me to be.”

Those statements are not diagnoses – they are field notes from childhood.

The roles below are descriptive rather than clinical categories, so they will not appear in a diagnostic manual as formal types. During my years as a trauma therapist, I learned early that people rarely organize themselves into neat categories. As a trauma survivor, I learned the same thing from the inside. We may carry three or four of these roles at once, depending on the room, the relationship, the threat, and the age at which the role first became necessary.

The same person can be the overachiever at school, the peacemaker at home, the silent one during conflict, and the abandoned one in intimate relationships. Trauma rarely assigns a single role because it teaches a child to become whatever survival requires at that time.

1. The Loyal Child

The loyal child protects the family from the truth. This is the child who explains, excuses, minimizes, defends, covers, and absorbs. They may grow up inside a home where loyalty is demanded, honesty is punished, and family reputation sits above the child’s welfare. The child learns that naming harm creates more danger than enduring it. Later, this survivor may still feel disloyal when speaking accurately about what happened. They may try to sugarcoat every account with disclaimers. They may make excuses for the parent saying she or he “had a rough life,” “did the best they could,” or “wasn’t always bad,” even when the harm was severe enough to alter the course of the child’s life.

There can be truth in those statements because harmful people can also be funny, generous, charming, wounded, ill, overworked, or beloved by others. That mixed record is often why survivors struggle to tell the story at all. The loyal child learned that love required editing the facts. In adulthood, the loyal child may need years to understand that accuracy is not cruelty, speaking about harm is not revenge, and refusing to protect an abusive family system is not the same as abandoning the family. A child who had to preserve the family image may later have to learn how to preserve the self.

2. The Peacemaker

The peacemaker becomes fluent in emotional weather. This child notices everything: the sound of keys in the door, the pace of footsteps, the set of a jaw, the change in breathing, the bottle level, the sudden silence, the kind of laugh that means trouble is being disguised. They may not have the vocabulary for threat assessment, but their body learns it anyway. The peacemaker interrupts conflict before it erupts, change the subject, soothe the angry parent, distract the unstable sibling, make jokes, clean the kitchen, apologize for things they did not do, and try to lower the temperature of a room they were never responsible for heating.

Adults often praise this child as mature, sensitive, helpful, easy, and wise beyond their years but that praise can hide the cost associated with it. Many peacemakers grow into adults who feel panic when someone is displeased. They may mistake tension for danger and disagreement for abandonment, and believe they are responsible for every mood in the room because childhood trained them to act before the explosion. The adult work is not becoming cold or uncaring – it’s learning that another person’s anger does not automatically create an assignment. Peace that requires self-erasure is only another form of control.

3. The Perfectionist

The perfectionist learned that mistakes were unsafe. This role often forms in homes where children were criticized, mocked, compared, overcorrected, punished, or loved most reliably when they performed well. The child learns to scan for flaws before anyone else finds them. Homework, appearance, chores, tone, grades, obedience, athletic performance, religious behavior, manners — anything can become a site of inspection. Perfection gives the child a false sense of control. If nothing is wrong, maybe no one will yell. If the grade is high enough, maybe someone will notice. If the room is clean enough, maybe the parent will stay calm. If the child becomes impressive enough, maybe love will feel less conditional.

The adult perfectionist can look very functional and be respected, productive, credentialed, organized, and reliable. Inside, they may live under a private audit that never closes. A perfectionist does not always fear failure because they are vain, often, they fear the emotional consequences attached to failure before they had any power to defend themselves. Healing requires more than “letting go” but that is difficult for a nervous system trained by humiliation, punishment, or conditional affection.

4. The Abandoned One

The abandoned child carries the injury of being left alone with too much. Sometimes abandonment is visible. A parent leaves, dies, disappears, chooses addiction, is incarcerated, starts another family, or fails to protect the child from a known threat. Other forms are quieter and often more confusing. A parent may remain physically present while emotionally absent, the child is fed but not known, housed but not protected, corrected but not comforted, watched but not understood, and the parent may be depressed, intoxicated, self-absorbed, volatile, chronically ill, dissociated, immature, or so consumed by their own trauma that the child’s inner life never enters the room.

The abandoned one may grow into an adult who expects people to leave. They may scan text messages for tone, panic over delayed replies, overattach to unavailable people, or end relationships early to avoid being left first. They may feel ashamed of their own need for reassurance because childhood taught them that need was either ignored or used against them. Some abandoned survivors cling, some detach, and some alternate between the two. Their relationship behavior is an old survival injury trying to prevent a repeat wound. The abandoned one does not need to be shamed for needing consistency. They need relationships where care is not a performance, attention is not rationed as a reward, and leaving is not used as a weapon.

5. The People Pleaser

The people pleaser learned that agreement could reduce danger. This child becomes skilled at reading what others want and delivering it quickly. They say yes before they know what they feel, apologize before blame is assigned, laugh at jokes that hurt, and accept treatment they dislike because refusal once carried consequences. People pleasing can be mistaken for kindness because many survivors are deeply compassionate, generous, and socially aware. The injury begins when kindness requires the survivor to disappear in order to keep connection, avoid conflict, or remain acceptable. A child trained this way may grow into an adult who struggles with preference. Where do you want to eat? What do you want to do? Are you comfortable with this? Simple questions can feel strangely loaded because wanting something once created risk. Wanting could inconvenience someone and inconveniencing someone could lead to anger. Anger could then lead to rejection, punishment, ridicule, or violence.

This is where the fawn response gives useful language. I’ve written about fawning before. Fawning is appeasement under perceived threat – the nervous system trying to stay safe by becoming agreeable, useful, flattering, compliant, or emotionally low-maintenance. The adult people pleaser often has to learn that honesty is not aggression, saying no is not cruelty, disappointing someone is not the same as harming them, and needing to be liked by everyone is a poor substitute for being safe with the right people.

6. The Overachiever

The overachiever tries to outrun the wound. This child may discover that achievement brings the closest thing to safety available. Good grades, awards, trophies, leadership roles, scholarships, credentials, promotions, public praise — these become proof that the child has value. Achievement becomes armor, and armor can become identity. The overachiever is often admired. They are the one who “made something” of themselves. They may be the first in the family to graduate, the dependable worker, the high performer, the professional who never drops the ball, the person everyone assumes is fine because their résumé looks intact. Yet, the private cost can be severe. Rest may feel like laziness, mistakes may feel like exposure, and a quiet weekend may bring dread because productivity has been regulating the nervous system for years. Achievement can become a socially rewarded flight response, with the survivor running from shame while everyone applauds the pace.

The overachiever should not stop achieving because some achievements are earned and worth keeping. The injury appears when accomplishment becomes the only permitted form of worth and when identity is tied to a professional title or workload. A survivor can build an extraordinary life and still be operating under childhood terms: prove yourself, stay useful, do not slow down, do not need anything, do not become a burden. Those terms need to be renegotiated in adulthood, preferably before the body starts enforcing the much-needed rest the survivor refused to take.

7. The Strong One

The strong one learned there was no reliable rescue. This child may have protected siblings, defended a parent, endured violence, managed crises, kept secrets, handled adult responsibilities, or survived in a home where vulnerability attracted contempt. They learned not to cry where anyone could see, and to fight, endure, carry, and keep moving forward. People often admire the strong one without asking what created that strength. Strength is real but often, it is forced adaptation. A child who had no safe place to fall may become an adult who cannot receive care without suspicion. Help feels dangerous, dependence feels humiliating, and softness feels like an exposed artery.

The strong one may become protective, blunt, capable, and hard to intimidate. They may also be exhausted in ways nobody sees because everyone assumes they can handle more. Families often keep loading the strongest person because that person has a history of surviving the load. Healing does not require the strong one to become fragile, it requires access to care without contempt attached to it.

8. The Silent One

The silent child learned that speaking made things worse. Maybe they were mocked, punished, or told they were lying, dramatic, disrespectful, ungrateful, too sensitive, or confused. Maybe every attempt to tell the truth was turned back on them, and maybe the adults in the home preferred denial because denial kept the house functioning. So the child stopped speaking. Silence can look passive from the outside, but it is often highly active inside. The silent child studies the room, tracks contradictions, stores details, and become witnesses without a courtroom, and historians without permission. They are children carrying testimony that nobody is willing to hear.

In adulthood, silence may appear during conflict, grief, intimacy, therapy, medical appointments, legal settings, or family confrontation. The survivor may know exactly what happened and still feel their throat close when asked to say it. The body remembers that speech once made danger worse. The silent one does not need to become loud to heal — volume is not the goal, ownership is. The voice can be quiet and still belong fully to the survivor.

9. The Parentified Child

The parentified child became the adult before childhood was finished. I’ve written about this too. This child manages what adults fail to manage. They care for siblings, soothe a parent, monitor bills, cook meals, mediate fights, translate adult emotions, keep secrets, or become the emotional partner of a lonely, unstable, addicted, overwhelmed, or immature caregiver. People may call this child mature, and he child may even feel proud of being trusted. That pride can coexist with injury because a child can be competent and still be burdened beyond their developmental capacity. Parentification often creates adults who feel responsible for everyone. They may become rescuers, therapists without a license in their own families, managers of chaos, unpaid emotional staff, or the person everyone calls during crisis but nobody checks on afterward.

They may also resent the very role they keep performing. That resentment can bring guilt because caretaking became tied to identity and love. If they stop carrying everyone, who are they? If they let someone fail, are they cruel? If they ask for help, will anyone come? The parentified child needs more than rest, they need the right to be younger than their responsibilities made them. Sometimes that means play, sometimes grief, sometimes anger, and sometimes learning to let other adults experience the consequences of their own choices.

10. The Scapegoat

The scapegoat becomes the container for the family’s denied problems. In many dysfunctional homes, the child who reacts to dysfunction is treated as more troublesome than the dysfunction itself. The child who refuses the family lie becomes “difficult.” The child who names abuse becomes “dramatic.” The child who resists control becomes “rebellious.” The child who shows symptoms becomes the identified problem. The scapegoat may be punished for seeing too much. This role can follow a survivor for decades. They may enter adulthood already carrying a false file: selfish, unstable, angry, disrespectful, impossible, ungrateful. Once a family assigns that role, every reaction can be used to confirm it. If the survivor cries, they are manipulative. If they get angry, they are abusive. If they leave, they are abandoning the family. If they speak calmly, they are cold.

The scapegoat often has a complicated relationship with anger. Their anger may be valid, but it has also been used against them so often that they distrust it or overuse it. Some become defensive before anyone attacks. Some expect to be blamed even in safe rooms. Some keep trying to prove their goodness to people invested in their guilt. The adult work begins with separating accusation from identity. Being blamed is an event — not a complete biography.

11. The Invisible Child

The invisible child survived by needing almost nothing. This child learned not to interrupt, not to ask, not to cry too loudly, not to want too much, not to take up space. They may have lived in a house dominated by addiction, violence, illness, poverty, marital conflict, a favored sibling, a high-needs sibling, or an adult who took all available emotional oxygen. The invisible child may have been praised for being “no trouble.” In some homes, “no trouble” means neglected in a socially acceptable way.

Adults who carried this role may feel uncomfortable being noticed. Compliments may feel suspicious, attention may feel like exposure, and asking for help may bring shame. They may enter rooms already assuming they are forgettable, then choose relationships that confirm the old expectation. Invisibility can become a skill. The survivor may be observant, low-maintenance, independent, and careful. Those traits can serve them well until they become a prison. A child who survived by disappearing may have to learn, slowly and awkwardly, how to occupy space without apologizing for the square footage.

12. The Caretaker / Rescuer

The caretaker learned that love meant saving people. This survivor may be drawn to people in crisis: addicted, wounded, volatile, dependent, unavailable, self-destructive, chronically victimized, or emotionally immature. They may confuse being needed with being loved because childhood taught them that usefulness was the safest form of attachment. Caretakers often have real empathy because they can sense pain in others quickly. They know how to step in, organize, calm, advise, pay, drive, defend, explain, and rescue. Many become excellent helpers in professional settings because they learned crisis response early.

The danger comes when compassion for others turns into self-abandonment. The caretaker may remain in harmful relationships because leaving feels like cruelty, may believe their love can heal someone who refuses responsibility, and may keep giving chances because they understand the person’s trauma, addiction, childhood, diagnosis, fear, grief, or shame. Understanding someone’s wound does not obligate a survivor to live under the behavior that comes from it. Caretakers often need to learn a form of compassion that includes limits, consequences, and self-protection. Otherwise, the rescue mission continues until the rescuer becomes another casualty.

13. The Performer

The performer learned to manage the room. This child may become funny, charming, talented, entertaining, impressive, seductive, dramatic in presentation, or emotionally useful. Performance becomes a way to control risk. If people are laughing, maybe they are not fighting. If adults are impressed, maybe they are less likely to reject. If the child can become interesting enough, maybe someone will stay engaged. The performer may grow into an adult who knows how to hold attention but struggles to feel known. People may know the stories, the jokes, the achievements, the persona, the timing, the public confidence, but they may not know the fear underneath all that competence.

Performance can be adaptive, humor can save a life, talent can create opportunity, and charm can help a child move through rooms that might otherwise be hostile. The injury begins when the survivor feels lovable only while entertaining, impressive, attractive, productive, or emotionally convenient. Healing requires private spaces where the survivor can stop managing the room and still remain connected. No applause, no act, and no costume — just presence without having to earn it every few minutes.

14. The Rebel

The rebel survived by refusing submission. This child pushes back, questions rules, challenges hypocrisy or authority, and refuses to comply with control disguised as discipline. In an abusive home, rebellion may be the only remaining evidence that the child still has a self. Adults may label this child defiant, oppositional, disrespectful, difficult, or unmanageable. Obviously some of that behavior can create real consequences, but the label often misses the surrounding conditions. A child resisting domination is not the same as a child rejecting healthy authority. The rebel role can preserve dignity, but it also keeps the nervous system on permanent alert.

The adult rebel may experience every request as control, every correction as humiliation, every rule as a threat, and every authority figure as an enemy waiting to be exposed. The work is discernment, not submission. Some limits are abusive, and some are healthy. Some authority figures are dangerous, and some are competent. Some conflicts require refusal, and some require negotiation. Trauma can make all of those feel the same at first. The rebel does not need to surrender their fire, they need enough safety and discernment to decide where that fire belongs.

15. The Numb One

The numb survivor learned to disconnect. When escape is impossible and pain exceeds capacity, the mind may create distance. This can look like emotional detachment, memory gaps, dissociation, chronic distraction, shutdown, or the sense of watching life through glass. Other people may misread this as indifference and that misread can add another layer of harm. A survivor may already feel broken because they did not react the way they think a victim is supposed to react. They may ask why they did not scream, fight, cry, leave, tell, or remember everything in order. The body’s emergency responses are not moral choices. Numbness can be the nervous system’s way of reducing injury when no better option exists. It may allow the child to sit at the dinner table, go to school, answer questions, survive the next day, and keep functioning inside circumstances that should never have been required of them.

In adulthood, numbness may interfere with intimacy, pleasure, grief, sexuality, parenting, friendship, faith, work, and self-recognition. The survivor may know something was terrible and still feel detached while saying it. That detachment deserves care, not contempt. It was once protection, but now it may need patient and skilled help so the survivor can return to the body at a tolerable pace.

16. The Watcher

The watcher learned that observation could prevent harm. This child studies people, learns micro-changes in mood, posture, pacing, language, volume, and silence. They may sit near exits, track who has been drinking, monitor who is irritated, and notice details other people miss. The watcher can grow into a highly perceptive adult. In some professions, this becomes useful: forensics, investigation, therapy, law enforcement, emergency work, advocacy, crisis response, teaching, medicine, journalism, behavioral analysis. The same skill that once protected the child can later serve real work even though hyper-observation also extracts a cost.

The watcher may struggle to relax because the room always feels unfinished. They may scan faces during conversations, read threat into ambiguity, and feel responsible for predicting what others will do next. Quiet environments may not feel peaceful. They may feel like the pause before impact. The watcher’s skill is real. but so is the exhaustion. Healing may involve learning when observation is needed and when the room can simply be a room.

17. The Fixer

The fixer learned to repair what adults kept breaking. This child steps into practical problems. They clean up messes, calm arguments, solve logistics, cover for adults, smooth over embarrassment, manage younger children, or repair emotional damage after someone else loses control. The fixer becomes useful because usefulness reduces danger and sometimes brings praise. In adulthood, the fixer may respond to pain with action. Someone mentions a problem, and the fixer begins solving. Someone cries, and the fixer searches for the cause. Someone is upset, and the fixer tries to make it stop. They may struggle to sit with discomfort because childhood taught them that unresolved discomfort meant danger was still active.

Fixers often become competent people. They know how to make calls, file forms, organize chaos, handle emergencies, and get things done while others are still processing. That competence has value in the everyday world. The injury appears when the fixer cannot stop fixing, especially when nobody asked or when the problem belongs to someone else. They may feel anxious around grief, anger, illness, or silence because those states cannot always be repaired on command. Some pain needs witnessing before intervention, some people need responsibility more than rescue, and some situations are not the survivor’s job, even if they know exactly how to handle them.

18. The Lost Child

The lost child escapes inward. This child may retreat into books, animals, fantasy, music, nature, religion, school, imaginary worlds, online spaces, private rituals, or long periods alone. Withdrawal becomes safer than engagement. If the family is chaotic, the inner world may be the only place with order. The lost child is sometimes confused with the invisible child, but the emphasis is different. The invisible child tries not to take up space. The lost child relocates the self somewhere else. This role can create creativity, depth, spiritual sensitivity, intellectual independence, and an unusual capacity for solitude.

It can also leave the adult survivor feeling detached from social life, unsure how to belong, and more comfortable observing connection than participating in it. The lost child may have learned to expect little from people and a great deal from private worlds. That adaptation may have saved them, but it may also leave them lonely in adulthood, especially when the old escape routes no longer provide enough relief. Healing may begin with safe return, not forced social performance or sudden exposure. A gradual return to selected people, selected rooms, selected forms of connection where the survivor does not have to abandon the inner world in order to join the outer one.

When the Role Outlives the Danger

Survival roles are intelligent — they form for reasons.

The loyal child protected attachment.
The peacemaker reduced conflict.
The perfectionist lowered criticism.
The abandoned one prepared for loss.
The people pleaser avoided retaliation.
The overachiever built escape routes.
The strong one endured what nobody stopped.
The silent one preserved truth internally when truth was unsafe externally.
The parentified child kept the household functioning.
The scapegoat carried what the family refused to face.
The invisible child avoided becoming a target.
The caretaker maintained connection through usefulness.
The performer controlled attention.
The rebel protected dignity.
The numb one reduced overwhelm.
The watcher tracked threat.
The fixer repaired instability.
The lost child found refuge inside.

A survivor may leave the abusive home and still live as if every room has the same rules. They may marry, work, parent, lead, advocate, study, teach, investigate, heal others, and still carry the old assignment underneath. Be useful. Be quiet. Be perfect. Be entertaining. Be loyal. Be strong. Be invisible. Be ready.

Complex trauma often turns adaptation into identity. The survivor may believe they are “just like this,” as if the role was temperament rather than training. Some of it may have become temperament by now. Repetition changes people, but learning how something formed gives the adult more room to choose what stays. Healing does not require contempt for the role, that role helped the child survive. The deeper task is reviewing the old assignment with adult authority.

The loyal child may keep devotion but release secrecy.
The peacemaker may keep sensitivity but stop absorbing every conflict.
The perfectionist may keep excellence but release terror of mistakes.
The abandoned one may keep tenderness without expecting every love to leave.
The people pleaser may keep kindness with an honest no available.
The overachiever may keep ambition without using achievement as anesthesia.
The strong one may keep endurance while learning to receive help.
The silent one may keep observation while reclaiming speech.
The parentified child may keep competence without raising every adult in the room.
The scapegoat may keep truth-telling without carrying assigned shame.
The invisible child may keep privacy without disappearing.
The caretaker may keep compassion without volunteering for collapse.
The performer may keep humor and talent without earning every connection.
The rebel may keep fire with better aim.
The numb one may keep pacing while returning to feeling gradually.
The watcher may keep perception without living on patrol.
The fixer may keep skill without repairing what others refuse to own.
The lost child may keep the inner world while allowing carefully chosen people near the door.

None of this happens because somebody reads a list and decides to be different by Tuesday.

These roles are held in the body, in relational memory, in the stress response, in shame, in family training, in spiritual injury, in grief, and in the private bargains children make when they have no power. Good therapy can help. So can stable relationships, trauma-informed medical care, recovery communities, writing, faith, animals, movement, grief work, and the slow practice of telling the truth without collapsing afterward.

A numbered list cannot heal complex trauma, but it can give a survivor a map of the rooms they keep entering. For some, the first step is recognizing the role. For others, it is grieving the age at which the role began. And for many, it is finally asking a question childhood never allowed: Who was I before survival assigned me a role?

The answer may not arrive quickly. It may come in fragments — a preference, a memory, a refusal, a new tolerance for rest, a sentence spoken without apology, a relationship that does not require performance, a day when the body finally believes the old danger is no longer in the room.

The role did its job — the adult is allowed to review the assignment now.

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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

Sources

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

Brewin, C. R., Cloitre, M., Hyland, P., Shevlin, M., Maercker, A., Bryant, R. A., Humayun, A., Jones, L. M., Kagee, A., Rousseau, C., Somasundaram, D., Suzuki, Y., Wessely, S., van Ommeren, M., & Reed, G. M. (2017). A review of current evidence regarding the ICD-11 proposals for diagnosing PTSD and complex PTSD. Clinical Psychology Review, 58, 1–15.

Cloitre, M., Hyland, P., Bisson, J. I., Brewin, C. R., Roberts, N. P., Karatzias, T., & Shevlin, M. (2019). ICD-11 posttraumatic stress disorder and complex posttraumatic stress disorder in the United States: A population-based study. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 32(6), 833–842.

Herman, J. L. (1992). Complex PTSD: A syndrome in survivors of prolonged and repeated trauma. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 5(3), 377–391.

Herman, J. L. (2015). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence—from domestic abuse to political terror (2nd ed.). Basic Books.

Karatzias, T., Shevlin, M., Fyvie, C., Hyland, P., Efthymiadou, E., Wilson, D., Roberts, N., Bisson, J. I., Brewin, C. R., & Cloitre, M. (2017). Evidence of distinct profiles of posttraumatic stress disorder and complex posttraumatic stress disorder based on the new ICD-11 trauma questionnaire. Journal of Affective Disorders, 207, 181–187.

Larsen, S. E. (2025). Complex PTSD: History and definitions. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, National Center for PTSD.

World Health Organization. (2026). International classification of diseases for mortality and morbidity statistics (11th rev.). World Health Organization.

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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

Recently, he asked me what principle I live by. He gave his own principle as an example:

“If you are behind me, I will protect you.

If you are beside me, I will respect you.

If you are in front of me, no mercy.”

Then as teenagers sometimes do, he quickly launched a ballistic missile at me: “but you’re Christian, so you will just say let God handle everything.”

We had a brief, productive conversation that included my experience that Christianity doesn’t expect us to ignore evil but to use wisdom and discernment. We acknowledge its existence. It teaches us to forgive, but it doesn’t require us to forget. And forgiveness means not pursuing vengeance on your own and allowing it to consume you. We have the justice system for that.

It was a nice mother/son moment, which has left me pondering the issue of evil, or if you are not religiously minded, criminality, abuse, harm to others, disregard for others, whatever you want to call it.

I could take this discussion towards theology, philosophy, or other disciplines.

But, I want to keep this practical.

My son is asking many questions, and some of those questions have been asked for millennia without satisfying answers. 

One thing he is wrestling with it whether he is “different” because of his father’s actions.

This has me thinking about the phrase “damaged goods,” which many victims of abuse grapple with, and I think it is partly because society overall has difficulty pointing fingers at multiple perpetrators. If a father sexually abuses his child, and the mother doesn’t take action to protect her child, she becomes an enabler, an accomplice. Who points the finger at her? Dysfunctional family systems ignore this. Society as a whole ignores this.

Why does society call the victim damaged goods? And it does happen. It has happened to me.

Calling the victim damaged goods is in many ways blaming the victim. Society prefers the narrative of the ‘flawed victim’ because it lets us keep believing that most families are safe and most parents are inherently protective. Naming the perpetrator and the enabler shatters that comforting illusion. It accepts appearances rather than substance.

Look at the linguistics surrounding these topics.

A victim of child sexual abuse is called mentally ill, defective, damaged, broken, scarred, delusional, liar.

A perpetrator of child sexual abuse is called troubled, sick, complicated, misunderstood, or worst of all…the victim of lies.

The language to describe a perpetrator almost begs you to be sympathetic towards the perp.

It took me many years to ask these questions. Just because my grandfather was a child molester and I his victim, why does that make me the damaged one?

Isn’t he the damaged human being, the one committing crimes, the one inflicting harm? If he has the capability to be cruel, why isn’t he defective? If my mother failed to protect me, why isn’t she “different” from animal mothers who have robust maternal instincts to protect against a direct attack by a predator. 

Frequently, I run across an anecdote on social media that goes like this:

“My therapist said, people who need therapy don’t come to us, their victims do.”

We need to reject the idea that we are damaged goods. We aren’t on the clearance rack because of some defect. As victims, we need to assertively embrace this concept, internalize it, and speak out about it. 

Back to my son:

His dad has not been physically abusive. He developed a rare form of dementia when our son was young, and this dementia caused psychosis. We separated when our son was 6 years old. His dad disappeared for years. Then suddenly, he reappeared a couple of years ago. He still had parental rights and wanted to visit with our son. At first, things went well. They had fun. Then little by little, I could tell the relationship was turning south.

One day, my son came home from a visit and announced he never wants to see his dad again. He didn’t want to tell his dad directly, thus putting me in the middle. Dad filed a motion in court for custody. Our son is old enough to have his voice heard in court, so he told the family court mediator, then he spoke directly to the judge. My son got what he wanted, and dad lost all of his rights.

Trying to deal with a person literally out of touch with reality can be extremely disorienting. And it can be extremely emotionally abusive. It doesn’t matter if his dad can’t control it or isn’t responsible for his illness. The effect is the same on our son.

When my son asked me if he is being cruel to his dad by going no contact, my response was, “I think you are being honest with your feelings.”

My son isn’t responsible for his father’s illness. He isn’t responsible for his father’s choices. He isn’t responsible for fixing a relationship that has become unsafe for him.

He is responsible only for being honest about what he experiences.

That may be one of the hardest lessons for victims of abuse to learn.

We are not broken; we are witnesses. We are not defective; we are people who learned survival strategies that once kept us alive and now can be updated.

Honesty is not cruelty.

Setting boundaries is not cruelty.

Speaking truth is not cruelty.

Being harmed does not make you damaged goods.

It means someone else caused harm.

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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

About a month ago, I had a dream about staying at a serene ocean resort, where I could look out over seafoam-colored water reflecting bright sunlight. Then I was down on an otherwise empty beach, with only a mother and a little boy sitting nearby. I started collecting shells and was thrilled to find a perfectly shaped conch shell. A little boy exclaimed, “Oh, that’s intact!” I smiled, feeling proud as I placed it in a plastic bag with other small shells. I wanted to keep collecting, but I felt pressed for time. I had to return to my hotel room to gather my belongings before boarding a bus where the group was already waiting. I set the bag down in the lobby, intending to retrieve it later, but when I returned, I couldn’t find it. Reluctantly, I boarded the bus without it.

When I woke up, I looked up the meaning of the conch shell and was struck by how closely it aligned with what I was feeling.

The shell symbolizes awakening, divine communication, and ultimate truth. Its spiral shape mirrors the inward journey of the soul, pointing toward deep listening, intuition, and self-reflection.

The dream seemed to reflect the tension I was experiencing between my former identity as an author-to-be and the emerging part of me that wants to move beyond the competitive writing and publishing world that was so taxing on my nervous system, and toward advocacy, outreach, and healing communities. That in-between space is unsettling, especially for someone living with complex trauma.

As I sat with the dream, I recognized something else: being rushed to board the bus with a group mirrored a familiar feeling from growing up in Japan hurried and harried all the time. I knew what it was like to move through systems that felt rigid, competitive, and out of sync with myself. That same feeling resurfaced during the long process of publishing my book, with its hierarchy, metrics, and constant comparison. It stirred up old survival patterns in me.

And yet, the book seems to be landing where I had hoped it would land. It is finding its path through public and academic libraries, receiving warm responses from readers, and continuing to reach new audiences months after publication. While I am still restless, I am beginning to trust the process.

After attending Richard Schwartz’s session at the 37th Boston International Trauma Conference, which I joined virtually from Seattle, I wanted to learn more about his Internal Family Systems framework. I enrolled in his webinar, An IFS Approach to Secure Internal Attachment and Regulation. As I listened, I found myself thinking again about the conch shell dream.

I was already familiar with the idea that we contain different parts, but Schwartz’s perspective felt especially resonant because it does not pathologize any of them. His concept of the Self also sounded familiar to me, like the “Higher Self” I learned in Freefall writing retreats, where we were taught to write from a place beyond the reach of ego. I still remember the first time I shared my childhood stories with a small group there in 2007. Seeing others moved—some even weeping and reaching for Kleenex—was heart-opening and filled me with gratitude. I felt truly seen, heard, and valued for who I was and what I had gone through. That experience showed me how powerful and healing it is to be witnessed and validated.

Schwartz explained that people with attachment wounds often look outward for soothing and validation.

Healing, he stressed, requires unburdening our parts and turning inward to access the wise, adult Self for insight and reassurance. That is not easy for me. I grew up with attachment wounds and internalized cultural conditioning that emphasized comparison and external validation. I have carried that burden for most of my life, so its roots run deep.

Looking back at the conch shell dream, I can now see the heaviness in my body and my reluctance to board the bus as a kind of warning. It felt as though my body and Self were telling me that if I forced myself back into that misaligned rhythm, I might lose touch with the part of me I worked so hard to preserve. The dream reminded me to listen inward and honor my own boundaries. I am done with hustle culture. I no longer want to go where I feel pulled simply because others are going.

I wrote a memoir about childhood emotional neglect. Part of the healing came from allowing the neglected parts of me to retrieve that intact conch shell and give voice to its history. But now, relief and grief are intertwined. When the dream ended, I realized it had not truly resolved; I was still left at a crossroads. So I rewrote the ending in my mind. I went back to the lobby, found that once-lost plastic bag containing the conch shell, and chose not to board the bus. Instead, I remained on the peaceful beach.

Processing the completion of such an enormous creative project has taken a heavier toll on my psyche than I expected—perhaps even more than writing the book itself. But it is time for all my parts to come home together and mark this achievement. I later ordered a conch shell from Etsy as a reminder that, even though the dream was jarring and I am still processing it, I get to choose how it ends.

My memoir: The Pond Beyond the Forest

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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

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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