This is where you come from, this is who you are, and don’t you forget it. Let’s cut you (and whatever semblances of confidence and self-esteem you have scraped together since last we met) down to a devourable size. Then let’s be having you, again and again and again.

Just like old times. Only you’re no longer little. What makes this even more fun is that you are all grown up now, and back here out of your own free will. Things can’t have been so very terrible, can they, if you keep rocking up for more of the same, and to play happy families for all to see. For you are in your prime now, and potentially so very powerful.

There are no victims, only volunteers; my dear, dare I say you are asking for it?

Like the best torturers, we never left any marks (and will not have to answer to any court) but there is the danger of you realising your strength, and of you finding the words for what we have done, and for what we are. The truth to us is a like a red rag to a bull, and to keep it at bay we have to keep you discombobulated and uncertain of yourself at all times while with us: trapped in that painfully familiar, utterly false childhood self – lying, self-denying, desperately trying to please us, accepting that truth, love, confidence and happiness are unthinkable and unspeakable in this house.

You are what we want you to be, a nothing, a joke, a tool to be used at our convenience.

We will do whatever it takes. Words for us are deadly blades in this, your first home. Even after all these years, we can still take your breath away with our unfettered sadism and creative callousness. But we are getting on, and as we grow old and frail, we use your stupid morality against you: you would not want to upset someone weaker than yourself, would you?

Well, that’s a good one coming from unrepentant child abusers, but in this as in other matters, we take great delight in duping you. The past, of course, is for us to rewrite as we see fit. Go there at your own peril – we will call you a liar, a fantasist, a lunatic, whatever it takes to shut you up, and more.

Why go? Why yank your inner child back to the place it worked so hard to escape – they might have crippled you for life, but hey, it’s a holiday or a special family event, that somehow is reason enough?

You likely go because you need the approval and validation of the world in a primal, desperate way, and thus want to do right by its standards. You hunger for a healthy normality, but the thought of having a family of your own scares you senseless, as does the thought of a Christmas all by yourself.

And while the world out there pays lip service to the protection of children, it is all out of sympathy when it comes to adult survivors of child abuse – how bad can it have been, you turned out alright, be grateful, forgive … anything other than the truth will do, on this much of the world concurs with the predators. 

And yet, fortunately, the world has also begun to change over the last decade or so. 2025 saw the release of Eamon Dolan’s excellent book, The Power of Parting, Finding Peace and Freedom through Family Estrangement – one of many powerful experiential and academic contributions to a thriving field focused on legitimising cutting abusers out of one’s life.

Alice Segell is a pseudonym. The author is a wife, researcher, writer and survivor.

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

Alice Segell

Alice Segell is a pseudonym. The author is a wife, researcher, writer and survivor.

I have spent years struggling in Schools, from elementary to middle school, high school, and finally, many, far too many years at two-year colleges. I have several degrees from those junior colleges, so I am not an ignoramus, nor am I an intellectual; yet I often sit and notice that I frequently feel empty of intelligence. It is as if I experience the moment as a man who is just empty of thought. In those moments, I feel as though I know nothing whatsoever. If you asked me a question, I’d be void of the answer. I could have a doctorate, I imagine, and I’d feel the same void of knowledge in these moments in time. How is knowledge necessary to my ‘identity’ if I sit empty-headed in the moment?

I mentioned I struggled throughout my school years. What do I mean by that? Daydreaming, inability to concentrate or focus, impulsive to be the clown, seeking attention, and thus getting the paddle frequently from the principal (in middle school, it was the vice-principal who performed the ‘imperative’ corrective punishment). Something was wrong with me; something was wrong in my family; something was wrong in society. Back in the 1960s, when I was in elementary school, I was threatened with being held back on several occasions; Yet, I was somehow pushed forward to the higher grades. Perhaps with a hope I would mature, and/or snap out of “it.”

However, I think I was probably looked upon as simply being “willful,” exercising my free will and “choosing” unacceptable behavior. Where were the school psychologists back then, to take notice of a struggling, disturbed child? Passed through the system, like a badge of honor to the schools for having taught me what I was supposed to have learned. I barely managed grades good enough for high school graduation. I most likely didn’t. Yet they allowed me a diploma. Probably to get rid of me, out of the system, and let themselves shine for not having ‘failed’ that one.

Where were the psychologists in my high school? Maybe they were there, but I was unreachable… I look back and know that now. What a sad journey for a troubled child. I hope it is better for children today, especially those who are troubled. 

Suddenly, it dawns on me that this may be a form of dissociation, characterized by a sense of empty-headedness from the moment, a blanking out. Why did I begin a paper on my state of feeling empty of knowledge? For one thing, it just struck me as “bizarre.” The experience almost makes it seem as if education is unimportant to who we are in the moment, and certainly unimportant to who I am anyway. My sense of feeling loved, experiencing anxiety, trying to remember what happiness felt like, feeling the biting arrows of bullying, criticism, or rejection from others, all float within, inside/outside the bounds of knowledge.

Life, it seems, exists in the realm of the emotional, not the intellectual or the reasoning. Not to belittle reason, the more knowledge we gain, the wider the paths and opportunities for problem-solving, but then there is the self. Is my identity tied up, anchored to having achieved knowledge? He asks himself. If I have an educational title to my name, do I anchor my sense of pride to that label, wearing it like a badge of honor, of “self”? Am I my title of accomplishments? Indeed, one should be proud of earning degrees and awards that bring societal recognition to their achievements. Still, I’m back to that emptiness and the realization that the emotional experience of being seems determined to be who we are.

Then there is the next day; today I’m feeling, in a quiet moment, the old, internalized pangs of feeling ostracized, unacceptable, or unloved; the ‘emotional’ experience that reeks of an abusive childhood, a painful, disturbing reality of having lived intense trauma in the moment; far too many moments. Complex PTSD is a living, yet buried monument to a troubled childhood. Those emotional reactions to physical and emotional abuse from a disturbed mother fill my senses.

The living internalized experience of prolonged, unrelenting traumatic abuse and emotional neglect fills my moments. It consumes me, not allowing me to focus on much else, “coping.” It leaves me staggered, perpetually seeking an escape from life’s ongoing moments. I’m driven to escape into the world of “distractions,” drugs, alcoholism, and impulsive behaviors that ruin my life, but I can’t help it. The Moment is just too disorienting and painful to endure without intoxicating distractions. Free will is often just a blank, lost, or magical thought that far too many seem to insist is the only thing that energizes human behavior.

If “self-love” is my recipe for change and healing from the internalized, overpowering, and unconscious relics of trauma: how do I ‘engage’ with the same level of emotional strength that trauma and unmet infantile needs invaded my being with intense dramatic ‘shock?’ 

I was bathed in icky, toxic, living emotional states of basic rejection and deeply shamed by a ‘false’ childhood interpretation that “it is me”, I am unlovable! Something is wrong with me; otherwise, I’d be loved and comforted. “That” is toxic shame. That is what I experience in my usual quiet moments, a toxic experience of being an irredeemably flawed being. The experience of being ridiculed, bullied, and laughed at is waiting for me around the next turn in my life; even my next moment, as my mind sees it, it conjures and feels the terror of reliving the past.

The concept of ‘self-love’ strikes me as simply something I don’t fully understand.

Suppose the intense emotional impact of an unbearable traumatic event consumes my being with a living regurgitation of those old, terrifying reactions. Doesn’t it make sense that an equally powerful, emotional ‘experience’ would be needed to counteract such internalized past experiences? Sitting in that ‘empty’ moment, which started this paper, was a moment free of the Toxic state of Shame.

On one hand, the toxic, painful, debilitating childhood emotional experiences need to be expelled from the system. Working to become aware of the buried and repressed pain leads to ridding those emotions from the system. Feel it and allow yourself to weep deeply, in tune with the pain that lives within you. That isn’t easy because of the numbed-out life we’ve led. Trying to ‘hide’ desperately from what we need to see, feel, and deeply weep will not help us heal. I can’t imagine how else to work through that block to living openly, as fully as we can learn to be. It is a lifelong battle and journey to overcome the prolonged, severe trauma. For God’s sake, be thoughtful when you administer ‘punishment’ upon your children! Ask yourself, is this right or necessary for me to whip my kids? Listen to what your gut is telling you; I love my child; I don’t want to do this. Then please stop it!

Fulfilling sick and unexamined cultural expectations of “appropriate punishment” can damage a child’s psyche, leaving them perpetually unable to trust others. This drives us to seek the experience of being accepted, safe, and welcomed by a friend or an understanding and accepting therapist. This is all in the hopes of finding the actual ‘existential’ reality that “I am OK,” “It was not my fault what happened to me,” a tragic victim of trauma (CPTSD). It is a struggle for some of us to see and feel that we are lovable, though we are. Just because I think and/or fear I am not, doesn’t mean I am not. It means I’m afraid I am not, and I feel I am not.

Perhaps the powerful ‘emotional’ experiences I’m looking for, or that I conceive as necessary for an impactful change within one’s heart and soul, need to be in a social group setting. To feel and see a group of people ‘welcoming you,’ accepting you into the group; a person or people who authentically miss you if you don’t show up to the group meeting. A place where you can learn to be expressive and find that you are not radically shamed and abused for ‘being’ open and authentically expressive.

That expression of self may be consumed, in an uncontrollable state of hypervigilance, as your moment-to-moment social experience is now; however, with time, patience, and persistence, that can change.

Acutely self-aware of your new behavior, daring for once to begin to express, openly, honestly, and authentically. This sounds like the beginning of learning to become one’s authentic self. That is, being expressive without the toxic, abusive trauma that drove your inner little child scurrying for safety under the proverbial bed. Perhaps the ‘individual’ experience of an intimate friend or therapist, before moving out into the world of a therapy group, when the time is right.

Others who share the same issues that have held you back seek a similar path from a life that was filled with toxic shame, self-blame, intense psychic pain, feeling indescribably ‘different’ from others – alienated. In other words, we are not alone if we reach out and risk connecting, taking baby steps at first.

I’ve known the depths of alienation. You are not alone. You have to ‘risk’ reaching out, risk being vulnerable, and find the courage and guidance toward seeking out a therapist. Before we seek, we must learn how and what it is we are seeking —change, freedom?

That is where knowledge comes into “the play.”  Act 1 is stepping out and risking self-change…

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

Jesse Donahue

*Copyright notice. All writings copyrighted and registered with the Library of Congress.

Therapy has helped improve my self-understanding as well as writing skills through journaling and essays. Although this writing journey began in later years, it has led to 70+ essays oriented around issues with CPTSD – a trauma disorder.

My writings, which include therapy notes, poems, novels (unpublished), and essays, are all a part of my ongoing personal therapy. Initially, the essays, intended for my therapist’s eyes only, began with exposing my thoughts, fears, and feelings, or the lack of, onto paper, a journal of therapy notes. Then, with fear overcome and via a personal decision, I shared them with the readers. *My thanks to Paul Michael Marinello, the editor of the CPTSD Foundation. My intent is to encourage readers to recognize traits in themselves and find (if desired) a therapist when they are willing and ready for that step. For some of us, it can be a long and challenging process, over extensive periods, to awaken to the unconscious issues that cause us to act out in life. Our behavior may seem like dancing to a buried, invisible cause we cannot directly see or confront. It is my sincere hope that my insights will assist the reader in the process toward reaching a deeper self-understanding.

Bringing the unconscious out into the light of self-awareness, understanding, and acceptance fosters self-love and the process of change.

 Jesse B. Donahue

*Type a keyword into the foundations search engine. (Jesse, Heart, Personal, Twelve, Bugaboo, etc.) Or, Type Jesse Donahue at The CPTSD Foundation on a Google search.

Published with the CPTSD foundation. Top 10 essays in order of number of views:

1.  ** Personal Honor, Integrity, Dignity, Honesty
2.  ** The Heart of the Matter
3.  * The Smoldering Embers of C-PTSD
4.  * The Hidden Bugaboo (Parts 1-4 of 4)
5.  Twelve Days Without Coffee
6.  Learned Helplessness
7.  Cast Out of Eden by Toxic Shame
8.  *Codependency – Overriding the Monster of Self-Hate
9.  The Emptiness of Yesterday
10.  Surfing the Light Through the Darkness

What is Alexithymia?

According to Medical News Today, Alexithymia is not a mental disorder. It’s important to recognize that Alexithymia is a personality trait, although it can co-occur with various conditions. It has links to cPTSD as well as various other disorders. It is when a person has difficulty experiencing, identifying, and expressing emotions and is more common in males than females.

People with alexithymia have:

• problems with introspection or observing their own mental and emotional processes
• experience confusion around bodily sensations connected to emotions
• struggle to communicate their emotions to others

Discovering and Coping With Conditions

I learned I had this condition when my therapist would ask me to tell him where I was experiencing emotions in my body. After all, feelings are in the body and not our thoughts. I was confused by that question because I didn’t feel them; I just knew I felt a certain way. It was uncomfortable to be put on the spot like that and at first I would respond with a “I’m fine”. I simply was unable to communicate what I felt at any given time.

For most of my life, I thought not feeling any emotions was normal, when in fact it wasn’t. It was a defense mechanism that I subconsciously would fall into.

It took time and my willingness to work on my healing even when I felt uncomfortable. I was asked to start making notes whenever I noticed any new sensation. Soon I quickly realized that whenever my body was showing any sensation, it meant I was in fact feeling a certain emotion. I learned that the tightness and tingling in my right calf and left arm were not just my body’s way of telling me I was feeling anxious; it was showing me.

After what felt like a momentous breakthrough, my therapy sessions would begin with being asked how I was feeling. Some time was spent during the hour-long sessions to describe, sit with, and feel sensations. I want to give shapes, colors, and even names to foreign entities within my body. In doing that, it helped me get to know these emotions and feel them in a healthy way.

Having a breakthrough brought relief

To understand what it is I was experiencing and working on allowing myself to feel them at a healthy level consistently instead of suppressing them and being numbed out and dissociated; they didn’t feel so overwhelming when they hit all at once. And let me tell you when the faucet was turned on, they began free-flowing, and for the first time in my life, I felt normal. That there wasn’t something fundamentally wrong with me. That I wasn’t broken. I had spent years of living in survival mode with no room for introspection, and it was coming to an end.

As the weeks progressed and more work was put in to helping me cope with all these new found feelings and emotions. I started to work on expressing myself and communicating. To discover that it wasn’t that I didn’t feel anything; I actually felt too much, and it was my body’s way of shutting down to protect myself. Becoming more in tune with our emotions and learning how to react to them is a huge part of recovery.

I still have my moments when I don’t put what I have learned into practice, and I can easily numb out, but I just as quickly recognize what it is I am doing and correct myself. I make a conscious effort to communicate, even if it takes a minute, and I need time to sit with my thoughts. It’s why I am a big advocate for communication: I know if I don’t have it, I will feed off what the other person is giving me, and I will shut down.

Finding the right therapist is key

People with childhood trauma often favor survival over authenticity in order to survive as children; at least, that was true for me, and it took four attempts to find a therapist I could trust and feel I could be open and honest with. I was just about to give up when I found the therapist I am with today. He was the game changer.

I was taught that repressing/fighting and creating a narrative around feelings is what keeps them feeling heavy for so long. Working on your breathing and focusing on your grounding tool helps fight off the urge to swallow up all and any emotion. Of course, it is easier said than done and takes lots of practice.

I’ve gained emotional competence by sitting with my feelings and exploring them. I now see that all emotions are messages from our bodies telling us that something needs to be addressed.

It’s not always easy to understand how any of us relate to the world, but with self-compassion, patience, and understanding, we can heal in ways that can give us true happiness, and that’s really what any of us are looking for. And like the old saying goes, the best time to start is yesterday; the second best time to start is today. Just don’t remain stagnant and know that healing is a gift and a wonderful thing.

Photo by Guillaume Bleyer on Unsplash

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

Jack Brody

Born and raised in Boston, Jack Brody has called New York City home for over 30 years. He’s a proud father to a teenage daughter, a survivor of childhood abuse, and someone who knows firsthand what it means to live with Complex PTSD.

Diagnosed six years ago, Jack has been on a deep healing journey, one marked by therapy, growth, hard truths, and unexpected resilience. As a men’s mental health advocate, he shares his story to remind others that they’re not broken, not alone, and never beyond hope.

Whether through his writing, podcast, or quiet conversations with fellow survivors, Jack’s mission is simple: to speak honestly about the hard stuff, and to show that healing out loud is not only possible, it’s powerful.

aboutthatjack.com/

Dissociation runs on a continuum from road hypnosis, daydreaming and losing yourself in a good book to Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and then to the extreme of Dissociative Identity Disorder.

The experience is normal when you are lost in something you enjoy or bored on a long drive and suddenly arrive at your destination with no idea how you got there. The mind, emotions, and body are not in the same place at the same time. In trauma, it can be the “freeze” in fight, flight, freeze.

It is normal for children to dissociate and when faced with severe trauma they have to escape somehow, so they go away mentally and emotionally to protect themselves.

What Does the Experience of Trauma Dissociation Feel Like?

Note: The following poem is copyright protected:

Dissociation

Through the window
out the door,
round and round the ceiling,
never falling off the floor
seldom truly feeling.

Living with dissociation is like stepping through the Looking Glass. Time, space, memory, and sense of self become distorted. What is real? What is not?

Trauma that happens when a child is dissociated can cause memories that feel like dreams. As an adult you may feel like you are out of your body watching yourself. Or, as though you are acting in a dream. Things seem unreal.

A person with alters may watch themselves say or do something they have no control over which can be very disconcerting. People may tell them things that they said or did that they deny because they actually lost time.

How Dissociation Works in CPTSD and D.I.D.

The act of dissociating is a coping skill to prevent a child from going crazy or dying. Unfortunately, when a child with severe developmental trauma continues to rely on this coping skill as an adult it can cause problems. It initially helps with survival and can give an adult a much-needed break from stress so that they can function. When used exclusively though it can interfere with having a normal life.

Not being aware of what is happening in your feelings or in your body can protect against triggers but it limits the person’s experience. It can also cause problems in jobs and relationships because the person isn’t fully present.

How Can You Heal and Move Forward?

The only way out is through. Moving forward to heal further involves being brave enough to look inside yourself. Coping skills will only get you so far and may act as a band-aid unless you work on healing. Starting an internal dialogue, possibly through journaling can be a step toward inner communication.

Questions to ask yourself can be: What do I need? What do I feel? What do I want? How can I start trusting myself and listen to the answers?

It can be very hard for survivors to look inside and be honest enough to reconnect. The whole idea of dissociation is to disconnect from pain and fear. This is where coping skills can help so that you can decide how much work to do at one time, where and when.

Learning to stop dissociating and deal with reality is much like learning to cope without addictions. It can be very scary and difficult but worth the effort. It is essential to have supports in this and to be your own best friend and advocate.

A Few Skills That Can Help:

A. Grounding: Sit down and press your feet on the floor, hands on your knees, breathe deeply and slowly and look around. Ask yourself 5 things you see, hear, and can touch. Also ask yourself what you see that couldn’t possibly have been there when the trauma happened. This can reorient you.

B. Choosing a quiet time and safe space to journal: If you have alters possibly ask the Little Ones if they want to decorate a journal and of course any part can help. You might want to have separate notebooks for each where they can communicate with you and each other. If you don’t have alters, one journal may be enough unless you also want to have a separate journal for your inner child.

C. Containment: You can use visualization to do this activity. Note: People who dissociate tend to be very good at visualization. Visualize a box or trunk or whatever you like so that you can put the memories or feelings in it until you can deal with it. You may want to lock it and put it somewhere safe inside yourself. You can also use a real box like a shoebox, decorate it and write or draw what is bothering you. Then put it in the box and set it aside until you are ready to work on it.

D. If you have alters, ask an older part or a getting on with life part to come out.

E. Safe room or safe house: This can be very helpful for a person with alters but also works for people who dissociate but don’t have alters. Write in detail a description of a safe room (for D.I.D. a safe house with separate rooms for each). Be sure to write as many details as possible so that it seems real. Will it have doors, windows, curtains, angels, animals, food? What colors will it be? How big or small? Will there be toys, music etc. You are only limited by your imagination. You can then practice going inside for brief periods to find respite. The more that you learn to control the dissociation, the less you will have to rely on it.

A Word of Hope:

Holistically we heal top to bottom, inside to out, newer things heal more quickly and older things take longer. Sometimes too things come back for healing on a deeper level.

Like a spiral staircase, you are always up a level.

Sometimes on the healing journey, people feel stuck and afraid that the pain will never end. But, remember the spiral staircase. Feeling like you are back at the beginning is part of the process. You’re never back at the beginning. Trying to love yourself through it and giving yourself credit for what you do, can make all the difference!

Thank you for taking the time to read this article.

Susan Pollard, MS

https://www.facebook.com/susanpollardlifecoach   susanp113@gmail.com

Photo by Joeyy Lee on Unsplash

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

Susan Pollard

We, as people, have forgotten who we really are

We live in a complex world. Our society is fast-paced and almost devoid of feeling in the internet era and incessant conference calls between continents. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, our lives have become even more insular as our workforce now has the choice to work from home. We may be talking to people worldwide every day for work, but what do those conversations really mean? Everything we say and do seems meaningless and work-focused. We used to be social creatures who depended on one another for comfort and survival. We, as people, have forgotten who we really are.

No one is listening anymore, and because of miscommunication and deep conflicts, unrest has built and developed into wars and despair in many places around the world. Many people out there are desperate and suffering. It is almost incomprehensible for us who are not living in a war zone or countries with cruel dictatorships and political turmoil. We do not understand each other.

Our world was not always fractured like this. It is only in the last one hundred or so years that our world has changed to be almost unrecognizable. Our world used to be slower. People lived off the land, and communities were forced to rely on each other to survive. Everyone knew each other and supported one another at times of unrest. Who can really claim to even have that kind of connection now to the people who live in the house next door or the apartment above?

Do you know who your neighbors are? What do they do, and where did they come from? What is their life story? Do you know anything about them at all other than their names?

This distance creates a deep rift in the very essence of our society

The simple truth is that we do not know each other anymore, and this distance creates a deep rift in the very essence of our society. We have allowed ourselves to become fragmented. We do not know the people we live amongst. In fact, in most bigger cities, people can live alone in an apartment complex full of people. We live our lives alone amid the masses; all we see of our neighbors is when they enter their apartments. We might give them a nod in the hallway, but most people do not stop to chat. The suburbs are different because people live in bigger houses that are spread apart by big yards and parks. Here, people need to drive past neighboring houses to get to their homes. We see people arrive home and park in their driveway, and we may even stop to chat over the picket fences that separate our yards. Our kids may play together in the streets, which creates connections between families.

Where do you live? Do you have people who support you in your apartment complex or neighborhood? Who can you turn to when you need someone to lean on?

The simple truth is that not everyone has a support network. Many people feel marginalized and live alone. These people may be survivors of some kind of trauma or horrific event. We hear of soldiers returning home from war zones and not coping with readjusting to our world. Decorated war heroes become homeless and sleep on our streets at night in the cold and rain.

No one chooses this life – to be completely alone. We are social creatures

There are always reasons that are complex and painful, but those reasons make us pull away from people and live alone. Why doesn’t anyone care anymore? What has happened to us to allow this to happen?  You only have to enter one of our big cities, and you find homeless people sleeping in the subways, doorways, and park benches. These people entered this world in the same way we did. They may be alone right now, but they were once the product of love. Of two people creating a new human being. What happened to them? How did our world become so disengaged and unfeeling?

As a survivor of trauma and abuse, I look around and see all the despair and pain in our world. I feel it intensely like so many of you who are abuse survivors. I grew up like many kids in a big city in a large apartment block filled with strangers who didn’t know me or my family. Nowadays, you only have to turn on the news, and you have a front seat to the horrors that are happening everywhere. I see people’s pain just from how they are walking or by looking into their eyes. I know that pain myself, only too well. Eyes are incredibly powerful windows into how an individual is feeling. I can tell from just a look if someone is in pain. I just know.

I wish the world was a better place rather than in so much pain. I wish I could help the man I passed in the subway just this morning on my way to work. He looked hungry and destitute and had pleading, hollow eyes. His eyes were of a haunted man who had seen too much. I never carry cash anymore, so I left him the coffee that I was carrying in my hand. I just set it in front of him, and our eyes met briefly. It was enough for me, and I left him with tears pooling in my eyes. I couldn’t bear the situation as I caught my ride to work. I’m sure you have all seen people like him in our cities. They are everywhere, and each one of them is lost. It should not be this way.

They told me that I was worthless and brainwashed

I consider myself lucky. I left an impossible childhood filled with abuse and trauma behind me, and somehow, I landed on my feet and not out on the street. As a teenager, I managed to keep a steady paycheck and get myself through college and graduate school with a roof above my head. I made it despite my pain. Maybe I should say instead that I made it because of my pain. I was driven to succeed because I had seen worse. I know that not everyone can do it. It is not easy, and I have felt despair more times in my years, struggling through work and night school, living paycheck to paycheck. It is a life that so many people live. I was lost, just like the man I met on the subway, but I chose not to give up. I chose to live and seek my revenge on the people who hurt me by making something of myself. I grew up, and with every year I survived, I surpassed the expectation that I would die if I left. My abusers were always telling me that I would never be able to support myself in the world and be miserable trying. They told me that I was worthless and brainwashed. Those words have haunted me for years. I am not miserable – far from it. I know now that my abusers would have said and done anything to keep hurting me. As a child, I had no reason not to believe them. If I didn’t do what they asked, I wouldn’t have eaten that day. It was as simple as that. I got busy living by the only way I knew, which was by dissociating. I shut out my emotions and lived inside my own head. I shut the pain and emotions out completely and became a robot, and it worked for me while growing up.

Many survivors live this way

Living without feeling is not a life worth living. It simply exists, and I know many survivors live this way. It took me years after I left my abusers to feel again, and it was a gradual process. I started to appreciate things, but those feelings were alien to me. I started seeing color in the world. A simple smile from a kind stranger or the laughter from a child enjoying her ice cream on the beach. Wherever I went, I saw people who were not in pain. I started seeing that there really was life after trauma, and I wanted it really bad. I reached for it and grabbed it. I started to have hope, and I started replacing my nightmares with happiness. I was beginning to heal.

Everyone has feelings and thoughts. It is what makes us human beings. We live our lives, and we feel things. We can’t help it, but as trauma survivors, we try to ignore those glimmers of happiness. We do not always allow ourselves to feel or let people in because we cannot bear more pain. Our senses affect us wherever we go or whoever we meet. We cannot help feeling. As a trauma survivor, feelings have always equaled indescribable pain, but as I grew more distant from my past, I discovered that all I had to do was open my heart and let people in. This is not easy to do, and trust me, it takes time to let go of that awful, heavy, deep pain inside and trust that life can be good.

You are what you sow and reap. If you wake up drinking and shutting yourself away from people, you are not trying. If you wake up each day with an open mindset to try to smile and be positive, your day will be easier. I guarantee it. I have lived it, and yes, it took me many days when I just couldn’t smile and be positive, but I was determined to try. I threw myself into situations that forced me to carry on. I wanted to live, and I craved happiness. I used my strength and willpower to go out and take my shot at life. I told myself that I was never going back and I would never be like them. The pain I was feeling would end with me, and I promised myself that I would be happy one day. I made myself believe that not all people are abusers. It took some time, and it may sound crazy to those of you reading this who have not suffered trauma. If you have only ever experienced abuse and pain, it is difficult at first to trust people because you do not want to be hurt more. It can take years to open up for the first time and feel because those feelings have only been painful so far.

Life after trauma and abuse is not easy. We live in a very difficult, complex, and fast-paced world. People are so used to seeing horrific events and actions that trauma has almost become a way of life. It happens everywhere, and people are almost desensitized by it. It shouldn’t be, but it is. A trauma survivor does not get a pass at life. We live life the same way as others, but because of our pasts, we feel so much more. Situations that most people shrug off affect us in a deep and profound way because of what we have lived through. Life is worth it, despite the pain and those pesky feelings. Feelings are there for us to make sense of our world. We need them to live.

If you are a trauma survivor like me, I want you to practice saying yes to life. Hold your head up high and believe that things will get better in your life. It will get easier to go out and meet people. Embrace new situations and open your heart to the fact that there is more. There is so much more out there than trauma and suffering. You have to believe it. Life is worth living, and this change in mindset starts with you. The seasons are changing in the northern hemisphere. Our days are getting longer and we have warmer days coming. Go out there and meet with people. Try and get out of your own comfort zone and have a go at something new. Take a class or join the gym. I guarantee you will meet new people on the way who have similar interests as you.

You have been through so much and all you need to do is be open to life. Don’t let anyone stand in your way anymore. You are strong. Say yes to life!

I enjoy listening to music, and I find that it helps lift my mood if I have a bad day. There is a song I listen to when I am down and need a little help to motivate me. It is by Rachel Platten called “Fight Song”. Have a listen and see if it helps you. Trust your instincts and go out there. Fight for your right to life. Say yes!

Fight Song by Rachel Platten.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6dEX5H5jLI

Photo by Kier in Sight Archives on Unsplash

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

Elizabeth Woods

For more about me: https://www.elizabethwoodsauthor.com

Elizabeth Woods grew up in a world of brutal sex offenders, murderers, and inconceivably neglectful adults. Elizabeth is passionate about spreading awareness of what it is like to survive after trauma. She is the author of several books and has written her memoir, telling her childhood story: The Sex-Offender’s Daughter: A True Story of Survival Against All Odds, available on Amazon Kindle and paperback.

Elizabeth is also the author of “Living with Complex PTSD” and the Cedar’s Port Fiction series: “Saving Joshua”, “Protecting Sarah”, “Guarding Noah” and “Bringing Back Faith,” and “Restoring Hope,” available here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0BCBZQN7L/allbooks?ingress=0&visitId=7e223b5b-1a29-45f0-ad9d-e9c8fdb59e9c&ref_=ap_rdr&ccs_id=931f96e2-c220-4765-acc8-cc99bb95e8bd

www.elizabethwoodsauthor.com/

I recommend that anyone who experiences flashbacks has loved ones who experience flashbacks or treats people with flashbacks, reads this chapter.

What Happens in the Brain During Flashbacks

“Harvard Medical School was and is at the forefront of the neuroscience revolution, and in 1994 a young psychiatrist, Scott Rauch, was appointed as the first director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Neuroimaging Laboratory. After considering the most relevant questions that this new technology could answer and reading some articles I had written, Scott asked me whether I thought we could study what happens in the brains of people who have flashbacks.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

After some of van der Kolk’s patients had told him about their flashbacks and “how upsetting it was to be suddenly hijacked by images, feelings, and sounds from the past,” he and his research team took brain scans of people while they were experiencing a flashback. And compared them to brain scans of the same people when they were feeling safe.

This research was done at Harvard Medical School. Their programs and research when it comes to neurobiology and the brain are hailed world-wide.

The Limbic Area & the Amygdala

“Our study clearly showed that when traumatized people are presented with images, sounds, or thoughts related to their particular experience, the amygdala reacts with alarm—even […] years after the event. Activation of this fear center triggers the cascade of stress hormones and nerve impulses that drive up blood pressure, heart rate, and oxygen intake—preparing the body for fight or flight.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

The limbic area is what is known as the emotional brain. It’s an area that is activated by intense emotion. Within this area is also the amygdala. The area of the brain that “warn[s] us of impending danger and to activate the body’s stress response.”

Broca’s area – The Speech Center

“Our most surprising finding was a white spot in the left frontal lobe of the cortex, in a region called Broca’s area. In this case the change in color meant that there was a significant decrease in that part of the brain. Broca’s area is one of the speech centers of the brain, which is often affected in stroke patients when the blood supply to that region is cut off. Without a functioning Broca’s area, you cannot put your thoughts and feelings into words. Our scans showed that Broca’s area went offline whenever a flashback was triggered. In other words, we had visual proof that the effects of trauma are not necessarily different from—and can overlap with—the effects of physical lesions like strokes.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

I clearly remember sitting next to a therapist in the passenger seat of his car as part of exposure therapy. I was experiencing a terrible flashback. All he did was constantly ask me to tell him what was going on. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t put it into words. His frustration grew until he finally said “if you won’t talk to me, I can’t help you.” These words haunt me to this day.

Later, when I tried to explain to him what happened, he completely dismissed me and that I couldn’t speak at that time. It was all me. I was refusing to cooperate, so there was no point in treating me.

Brodman’s Area 19 – The Visual Cortex

“When words fail, haunting images capture the experience and return as nightmares and flashbacks. In contrast to the deactivation of Broca’s area, another region, Brodmann’s area 19, lit up in our participants. This is a region in the visual cortex that registers images when they first enter the brain. We were surprised to see brain activation in this area so long after the original experience of the trauma. Under ordinary conditions raw images registered in area 19 are rapidly diffused to other brain areas that interpret the meaning of what has been seen. Once again, we were witnessing a brain region rekindled as if the trauma were actually occurring.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

I have no words to accurately describe this. I usually wake up every few hours from nightmares. It’s been like this for more than 8 years now. The frequency of my flashbacks has diminished, but a few years ago they were almost constant.

It’s terrifying. A tiny part of me knows that what I’m re-experiencing is in the past. But that doesn’t help in stopping the flashback from overwhelming me in the here and now.

Deactivation of the Left Side of the Brain During a Flashback

“[…] our scans clearly showed that images of past trauma activate the right hemisphere of the brain and deactivate the left.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

I think this part affected me the most. I cannot begin to express the feeling of absolute loss of rationality during a flashback. To now realize that half of my brain is deactivated during flashbacks is still hard. Rationally I understand, but my body, my feelings scream in denial. It’s a war. In my core I don’t want to accept this. Even if my brain knows perfectly well that it’s based on research. They’re facts.

“Deactivation of the left hemisphere has a direct impact on the capacity to organize experience into logical sequences and to translate our shifting feelings and perceptions into words. (Broca’s area, which blacks out during flashbacks, is on the left side.) Without sequencing we can’t identify cause and effect, grasp the long-term effects of our actions, or create coherent plans for the future. People who are very upset sometimes say they are “losing their minds.” In technical terms they are experiencing the loss of executive functioning.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

When I’m not in a flashback, I am perfectly capable of logic and reasoning, and I can easily put perceptions into words. When I’m triggered, I lose this ability. Yet my environment expects me to still be able to do what I can’t. And honestly, I expect it of myself too. Asking my environment to lower their expectations of me has proven impossible. But I can lower my own expectations of myself.

Denial: the Silent Killer

“We now know that there is another possible response to threat, which our scans aren’t yet capable of measuring. Some people simply go into denial: Their bodies register the threat, but their conscious minds go on as if nothing has happened. However, even though the mind may learn to ignore the messages from the emotional brain, the alarm signals don’t stop. The emotional brain keeps working, and stress hormones keep sending signals to the muscles to tense for action or immobilize in collapse. The physical effects on the organs go on unabated until they demand notice when they are expressed as illness. Medications, drugs, and alcohol can also temporarily dull or obliterate unbearable sensations and feelings. But the body continues to keep the score.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

This. Just this. I was not in denial of acute and chronic traumas in my past. The treatment I received for those worked well, and I still put the lessons I learned then into practice. But I was in denial about my root trauma. Until I collapsed spectacularly about 5 years ago. But the effects of denial started long before that.

Going Against a Hundred Years of Literature

“For a hundred years or more, every textbook of psychology and psychotherapy has advised that some method of talking about distressing feelings can resolve them. However, as we’ve seen, the experience of trauma itself gets in the way of being able to do that. No matter how much insight and understanding we develop, the rational brain is basically impotent to talk the emotional brain out of its own reality. “

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

I’ve been trying to explain this to therapists and my environment for as long as I can remember. The assumption that because I can talk about distressing feelings and situations, and can rationally analyze what happens to me when I’m not in a flashback or unhealthy survival mode, has been a hinder.

I wonder why this is so difficult for people to accept. This is my reality. Yet over and over again I’m offered more talk therapy. And then given more diagnoses to try and explain why the talk therapy isn’t working. My greatest breakthroughs in recovering from acute trauma were during somatic therapies.

What Happens in the Brain During Flashbacks

“Harvard Medical School was and is at the forefront of the neuroscience revolution, and in 1994 a young psychiatrist, Scott Rauch, was appointed as the first director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Neuroimaging Laboratory. After considering the most relevant questions that this new technology could answer and reading some articles I had written, Scott asked me whether I thought we could study what happens in the brains of people who have flashbacks.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

After some of van der Kolk’s patients had told him about their flashbacks and “how upsetting it was to be suddenly hijacked by images, feelings, and sounds from the past,” he and his research team took brain scans of people while they were experiencing a flashback. And compared them to brain scans of the same people when they were feeling safe.

This research was done at Harvard Medical School. Their programs and research when it comes to neurobiology and the brain are hailed world-wide.

The Limbic Area & the Amygdala

“Our study clearly showed that when traumatized people are presented with images, sounds, or thoughts related to their particular experience, the amygdala reacts with alarm—even […] years after the event. Activation of this fear center triggers the cascade of stress hormones and nerve impulses that drive up blood pressure, heart rate, and oxygen intake—preparing the body for fight or flight.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

The limbic area is what is known as the emotional brain. It’s an area that is activated by intense emotion. Within this area is also the amygdala. The area of the brain that “warn[s] us of impending danger and to activate the body’s stress response.”

I have written before that trauma can affect people physically. “Exposure to complex trauma in early childhood leads to structural and functional brain changes. […] Proven structural changes include enlargement of the amygdala, the alarm center of the brain.”

Broca’s area – The Speech Center

“Our most surprising finding was a white spot in the left frontal lobe of the cortex, in a region called Broca’s area. In this case the change in color meant that there was a significant decrease in that part of the brain. Broca’s area is one of the speech centers of the brain, which is often affected in stroke patients when the blood supply to that region is cut off. Without a functioning Broca’s area, you cannot put your thoughts and feelings into words. Our scans showed that Broca’s area went offline whenever a flashback was triggered. In other words, we had visual proof that the effects of trauma are not necessarily different from—and can overlap with—the effects of physical lesions like strokes.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

I remember clearly sitting next to a therapist in the passenger seat of his car as part of exposure therapy. I was experiencing a terrible flashback. All he did was constantly ask me to tell him what was going on. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t put it into words. His frustration grew until he finally said “If you won’t talk to me, I can’t help you.” These words haunt me to this day.

Later, when I tried to explain to him what happened, he completely dismissed me and that I couldn’t speak at that time. It was all me. I was refusing to cooperate, so there was no point in treating me.

“Even years later traumatized people often have enormous difficulty telling other people what has happened to them. Their bodies reexperience terror, rage, and helplessness, as well as the impulse to fight or flee, but these feelings are almost impossible to articulate. Trauma by nature drives us to the edge of comprehension, cutting us off from language based on common experience or an imaginable past.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

I can talk about what happened to me. What was done to me? But in order to do that I need to shut off all feeling. Which is triggering in itself. It turns out I’m not alone in this. It’s called denial and comes up a little later in this chapter.

Brodman’s Area 19 – The Visual Cortex

“When words fail, haunting images capture the experience and return as nightmares and flashbacks. In contrast to the deactivation of Broca’s area, another region, Brodmann’s area 19, lit up in our participants. This is a region in the visual cortex that registers images when they first enter the brain. We were surprised to see brain activation in this area so long after the original experience of the trauma. Under ordinary conditions raw images registered in area 19 are rapidly diffused to other brain areas that interpret the meaning of what has been seen. Once again, we were witnessing a brain region rekindled as if the trauma were actually occurring.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

I have no words to accurately describe this. I usually wake up every few hours from nightmares. It’s been like this for more than 8 years now. The frequency of my flashbacks has diminished, but a few years ago they were almost constant.

It’s terrifying. A tiny part of me knows that what I’m re-experiencing is in the past. But that doesn’t help me in stopping the flashback from overwhelming me in the here and now.

“Similar sensations often trigger a flashback that brings them back into consciousness, apparently unmodified by the passage of time.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

Since I was a little kid it was explained to me that I would experience things that would scare me or make me nervous. I was told and believed that this would go away with the passage of time. Mostly they never did.

Deactivation of the Left Side of the Brain During a Flashback

“[…] our scans clearly showed that images of past trauma activate the right hemisphere of the brain and deactivate the left.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

I think this part affected me the most. I cannot begin to express the feeling of absolute loss of rationality during a flashback. To now realize that half of my brain is deactivated during flashbacks is still hard. Rationally I understand, but my body, my feelings scream in denial. It’s a war. In my core I don’t want to accept this. Even if my brain knows perfectly well that it’s based on research. They’re facts.

“Deactivation of the left hemisphere has a direct impact on the capacity to organize experience into logical sequences and to translate our shifting feelings and perceptions into words. (Broca’s area, which blacks out during flashbacks, is on the left side.) Without sequencing we can’t identify cause and effect, grasp the long-term effects of our actions, or create coherent plans for the future. People who are very upset sometimes say they are “losing their minds.” In technical terms they are experiencing the loss of executive functioning.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

When I’m not in a flashback, I am perfectly capable of logic and reasoning, and I can easily put perceptions into words. When I’m triggered, I lose this ability. Yet my environment expects me to still be able to do what I can’t. And honestly, I expect it of myself too. Asking my environment to lower their expectations of me has proven impossible. But I can lower my own expectations of myself.

Trauma Interferes with Awareness

When something reminds traumatized people of the past, their right brain reacts as if the traumatic event were happening in the present. But because their left brain is not working very well, they may not be aware that they are reexperiencing and reenacting the past—they are just furious, terrified, enraged, ashamed, or frozen. After the emotional storm passes, they may look for something or somebody to blame for it. They behaved the way they did because you were ten minutes late, or because you burned the potatoes, or because you “never listen to me.” Of course, most of us have done this from time to time, but when we cool down, we hopefully can admit our mistake. Trauma interferes with this kind of awareness, and, over time, our research demonstrated why.

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

I REALLY want to skip ahead and read the research into this. Not just for myself. By now I’m fairly aware of my reactions and behavior. I still can’t always stop it from happening, but I have always tried to go back and explain my reactions. These days the people closest to me accept this of me. And when they experience it themselves, have started to reciprocate. It’s a process. One that is incredibly helpful to me.

The Essence Does Not Equal Integration

“I am continually impressed by how difficult it is for people who have gone through the unspeakable to convey the essence of their experience. It is so much easier for them to talk about what has been done to them—to tell a story of victimization and revenge—than to notice, feel, and put into words the reality of their internal experience. Our scans had revealed how their dread persisted and could be triggered by multiple aspects of daily experience. They had not integrated their experience into the ongoing stream of their life. They continued to be “there” and did not know how to be “here”—fully alive in the present.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

I can’t adequately explain the impact of this on me. I can convey the essence of my experience. So in that sense I’m much further along than some. Yet when I do convey the essence, it’s treated as though it’s nothing. Reading that an expert in the field of trauma is impressed by people who can is ambiguous. Maybe because I trivialize myself in this. I don’t find it impressive at all; it is a basic necessity in order to survive for me.

The Personal

I objectively have experienced complex trauma and chronic trauma since early childhood.

Yet whenever I have tried to talk to my environment about the possibility that this might have affected my brain physically, I am ignored or asked not to consider it until it’s proven by an actual brain scan of my brain. And mental health care professionals here in Aruba have refused to even discuss these possibilities with me, except as a sign of another disorder.

I am told they work according to evidence-based approaches, yet when I show evidence, by world-renowned scientists and research institutes such as Harvard, it’s still not enough. What will it take?

And even if there would be irrefutable proof, what then?

Being Asked to Provide Evidence, Then Promptly Ignoring the Evidence

This is particularly triggering to me for a rather bizarre reason. I come from a family where law is heavily respected and a large part of my family have studied law. And the other side of my family comes from generations of people who have studied at University. So logic and proof were par for the course from both sides of my family.

Since childhood, I learned a very important lesson, that I still haven’t completely unlearned. If I can’t prove something, it can’t be true. That’s fine in legal professions or in academic circles. But not when it comes to dealing with children and their emotions and reactions.

A Plea to Anyone Who Deals With Traumatized People

Most people don’t react differently for no reason. I beg of anyone, whether you’re a parent or a partner or even a therapist, to please stop putting the burden of proof on the person who’s traumatized. They’re traumatized; that’s all the proof you need in order to support them in their journey to find the proof they need to resolve their experiences.

And if along the way you help them find proof that can be used in a court of law, or to help them get therapies that actually work, that’s just a bonus.

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In a little over a week, I and the (mental) health director of the Jeffry Stijn Foundation for Mental Health and Patient Advocacy, will be attending the 34th Annual Boston International Trauma Conference virtually. A few days ago I decided to read Bessel van der Kolk‘s “The Body Keeps the Score” and journal as I read.

I was planning on writing a summary post after I was done. But Chapter 3: Looking into the Brain. The Neuroscience Revolution, demanded immediate attention.

Here’s an excerpt from the original post.

Chapter 3: Looking into the Brain. The Neuroscience Revolution

People have physical reactions during Flashbacks. Heart rate and blood pressure go up. The fear center of the brain gets activated. Being able to speak goes out the window. Images flash by as if they are happening here and now. Not in the past. It feels like losing one’s mind.

There are brain scans made 30 years ago at Harvard University that show why this is.

I recommend that anyone who experiences flashbacks has loved ones who experience flashbacks or treats people with flashbacks, reads this chapter.

What Happens in the Brain During Flashbacks

“Harvard Medical School was and is at the forefront of the neuroscience revolution, and in 1994 a young psychiatrist, Scott Rauch, was appointed as the first director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Neuroimaging Laboratory. After considering the most relevant questions that this new technology could answer and reading some articles I had written, Scott asked me whether I thought we could study what happens in the brains of people who have flashbacks.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

After some of van der Kolk’s patients had told him about their flashbacks and “how upsetting it was to be suddenly hijacked by images, feelings, and sounds from the past,” he and his research team took brain scans of people while they were experiencing a flashback. And compared them to brain scans of the same people when they were feeling safe.

This research was done at Harvard Medical School. Their programs and research when it comes to neurobiology and the brain are hailed world-wide.

The Limbic Area & the Amygdala

“Our study clearly showed that when traumatized people are presented with images, sounds, or thoughts related to their particular experience, the amygdala reacts with alarm—even […] years after the event. Activation of this fear center triggers the cascade of stress hormones and nerve impulses that drive up blood pressure, heart rate, and oxygen intake—preparing the body for fight or flight.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

The limbic area is what is known as the emotional brain. It’s an area that is activated by intense emotion. Within this area is also the amygdala. The area of the brain that “warn[s] us of impending danger and to activate the body’s stress response.”

Broca’s area – The Speech Center

“Our most surprising finding was a white spot in the left frontal lobe of the cortex, in a region called Broca’s area. In this case the change in color meant that there was a significant decrease in that part of the brain. Broca’s area is one of the speech centers of the brain, which is often affected in stroke patients when the blood supply to that region is cut off. Without a functioning Broca’s area, you cannot put your thoughts and feelings into words. Our scans showed that Broca’s area went offline whenever a flashback was triggered. In other words, we had visual proof that the effects of trauma are not necessarily different from—and can overlap with—the effects of physical lesions like strokes.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

I clearly remember sitting next to a therapist in the passenger seat of his car as part of exposure therapy. I was experiencing a terrible flashback. All he did was constantly ask me to tell him what was going on. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t put it into words. His frustration grew until he finally said “if you won’t talk to me, I can’t help you.” These words haunt me to this day.

Later, when I tried to explain to him what happened, he completely dismissed me and that I couldn’t speak at that time. It was all me. I was refusing to cooperate, so there was no point in treating me.

Brodman’s Area 19 – The Visual Cortex

“When words fail, haunting images capture the experience and return as nightmares and flashbacks. In contrast to the deactivation of Broca’s area, another region, Brodmann’s area 19, lit up in our participants. This is a region in the visual cortex that registers images when they first enter the brain. We were surprised to see brain activation in this area so long after the original experience of the trauma. Under ordinary conditions raw images registered in area 19 are rapidly diffused to other brain areas that interpret the meaning of what has been seen. Once again, we were witnessing a brain region rekindled as if the trauma were actually occurring.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

I have no words to accurately describe this. I usually wake up every few hours from nightmares. It’s been like this for more than 8 years now. The frequency of my flashbacks has diminished, but a few years ago they were almost constant.

It’s terrifying. A tiny part of me knows that what I’m re-experiencing is in the past. But that doesn’t help in stopping the flashback from overwhelming me in the here and now.

Deactivation of the Left Side of the Brain During a Flashback

“[…] our scans clearly showed that images of past trauma activate the right hemisphere of the brain and deactivate the left.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

I think this part affected me the most. I cannot begin to express the feeling of absolute loss of rationality during a flashback. To now realize that half of my brain is deactivated during flashbacks is still hard. Rationally I understand, but my body, my feelings scream in denial. It’s a war. In my core I don’t want to accept this. Even if my brain knows perfectly well that it’s based on research. They’re facts.

“Deactivation of the left hemisphere has a direct impact on the capacity to organize experience into logical sequences and to translate our shifting feelings and perceptions into words. (Broca’s area, which blacks out during flashbacks, is on the left side.) Without sequencing we can’t identify cause and effect, grasp the long-term effects of our actions, or create coherent plans for the future. People who are very upset sometimes say they are “losing their minds.” In technical terms they are experiencing the loss of executive functioning.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

When I’m not in a flashback, I am perfectly capable of logic and reasoning, and I can easily put perceptions into words. When I’m triggered, I lose this ability. Yet my environment expects me to still be able to do what I can’t. And honestly, I expect it of myself too. Asking my environment to lower their expectations of me has proven impossible. But I can lower my own expectations of myself.

Denial: the Silent Killer

“We now know that there is another possible response to threat, which our scans aren’t yet capable of measuring. Some people simply go into denial: Their bodies register the threat, but their conscious minds go on as if nothing has happened. However, even though the mind may learn to ignore the messages from the emotional brain, the alarm signals don’t stop. The emotional brain keeps working, and stress hormones keep sending signals to the muscles to tense for action or immobilize in collapse. The physical effects on the organs go on unabated until they demand notice when they are expressed as illness. Medications, drugs, and alcohol can also temporarily dull or obliterate unbearable sensations and feelings. But the body continues to keep the score.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

This. Just this. I was not in denial of acute and chronic traumas in my past. The treatment I received for those worked well, and I still put the lessons I learned then into practice. But I was in denial about my root trauma. Until I collapsed spectacularly about 5 years ago. But the effects of denial started long before that.

Going Against a Hundred Years of Literature

“For a hundred years or more, every textbook of psychology and psychotherapy has advised that some method of talking about distressing feelings can resolve them. However, as we’ve seen, the experience of trauma itself gets in the way of being able to do that. No matter how much insight and understanding we develop, the rational brain is basically impotent to talk the emotional brain out of its own reality. “

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

I’ve been trying to explain this to therapists and my environment for as long as I can remember. The assumption that because I can talk about distressing feelings and situations, and can rationally analyze what happens to me when I’m not in a flashback or unhealthy survival mode, has been a hinder.

I wonder why this is so difficult for people to accept. This is my reality. Yet over and over again I’m offered more talk therapy. And then given more diagnoses to try and explain why the talk therapy isn’t working. My greatest breakthroughs in recovering from acute trauma were during somatic therapies.

What Happens in the Brain During Flashbacks

“Harvard Medical School was and is at the forefront of the neuroscience revolution, and in 1994 a young psychiatrist, Scott Rauch, was appointed as the first director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Neuroimaging Laboratory. After considering the most relevant questions that this new technology could answer and reading some articles I had written, Scott asked me whether I thought we could study what happens in the brains of people who have flashbacks.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

After some of van der Kolk’s patients had told him about their flashbacks and “how upsetting it was to be suddenly hijacked by images, feelings, and sounds from the past,” he and his research team took brain scans of people while they were experiencing a flashback. And compared them to brain scans of the same people when they were feeling safe.

This research was done at Harvard Medical School. Their programs and research when it comes to neurobiology and the brain are hailed world-wide.

The Limbic Area & the Amygdala

“Our study clearly showed that when traumatized people are presented with images, sounds, or thoughts related to their particular experience, the amygdala reacts with alarm—even […] years after the event. Activation of this fear center triggers the cascade of stress hormones and nerve impulses that drive up blood pressure, heart rate, and oxygen intake—preparing the body for fight or flight.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

The limbic area is what is known as the emotional brain. It’s an area that is activated by intense emotion. Within this area is also the amygdala. The area of the brain that “warn[s] us of impending danger and to activate the body’s stress response.”

I have written before that trauma can affect people physically. “Exposure to complex trauma in early childhood leads to structural and functional brain changes. […] Proven structural changes include enlargement of the amygdala, the alarm center of the brain.”

Broca’s area – The Speech Center

“Our most surprising finding was a white spot in the left frontal lobe of the cortex, in a region called Broca’s area. In this case the change in color meant that there was a significant decrease in that part of the brain. Broca’s area is one of the speech centers of the brain, which is often affected in stroke patients when the blood supply to that region is cut off. Without a functioning Broca’s area, you cannot put your thoughts and feelings into words. Our scans showed that Broca’s area went offline whenever a flashback was triggered. In other words, we had visual proof that the effects of trauma are not necessarily different from—and can overlap with—the effects of physical lesions like strokes.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

I remember clearly sitting next to a therapist in the passenger seat of his car as part of exposure therapy. I was experiencing a terrible flashback. All he did was constantly ask me to tell him what was going on. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t put it into words. His frustration grew until he finally said “If you won’t talk to me, I can’t help you.” These words haunt me to this day.

Later, when I tried to explain to him what happened, he completely dismissed me and that I couldn’t speak at that time. It was all me. I was refusing to cooperate, so there was no point in treating me.

“Even years later traumatized people often have enormous difficulty telling other people what has happened to them. Their bodies reexperience terror, rage, and helplessness, as well as the impulse to fight or flee, but these feelings are almost impossible to articulate. Trauma by nature drives us to the edge of comprehension, cutting us off from language based on common experience or an imaginable past.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

I can talk about what happened to me. What was done to me? But in order to do that I need to shut off all feeling. Which is triggering in itself. It turns out I’m not alone in this. It’s called denial and comes up a little later in this chapter.

Brodman’s Area 19 – The Visual Cortex

“When words fail, haunting images capture the experience and return as nightmares and flashbacks. In contrast to the deactivation of Broca’s area, another region, Brodmann’s area 19, lit up in our participants. This is a region in the visual cortex that registers images when they first enter the brain. We were surprised to see brain activation in this area so long after the original experience of the trauma. Under ordinary conditions raw images registered in area 19 are rapidly diffused to other brain areas that interpret the meaning of what has been seen. Once again, we were witnessing a brain region rekindled as if the trauma were actually occurring.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

I have no words to accurately describe this. I usually wake up every few hours from nightmares. It’s been like this for more than 8 years now. The frequency of my flashbacks has diminished, but a few years ago they were almost constant.

It’s terrifying. A tiny part of me knows that what I’m re-experiencing is in the past. But that doesn’t help me in stopping the flashback from overwhelming me in the here and now.

“Similar sensations often trigger a flashback that brings them back into consciousness, apparently unmodified by the passage of time.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

Since I was a little kid it was explained to me that I would experience things that would scare me or make me nervous. I was told and believed that this would go away with the passage of time. Mostly they never did.

Deactivation of the Left Side of the Brain During a Flashback

“[…] our scans clearly showed that images of past trauma activate the right hemisphere of the brain and deactivate the left.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

I think this part affected me the most. I cannot begin to express the feeling of absolute loss of rationality during a flashback. To now realize that half of my brain is deactivated during flashbacks is still hard. Rationally I understand, but my body, my feelings scream in denial. It’s a war. In my core I don’t want to accept this. Even if my brain knows perfectly well that it’s based on research. They’re facts.

“Deactivation of the left hemisphere has a direct impact on the capacity to organize experience into logical sequences and to translate our shifting feelings and perceptions into words. (Broca’s area, which blacks out during flashbacks, is on the left side.) Without sequencing we can’t identify cause and effect, grasp the long-term effects of our actions, or create coherent plans for the future. People who are very upset sometimes say they are “losing their minds.” In technical terms they are experiencing the loss of executive functioning.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

When I’m not in a flashback, I am perfectly capable of logic and reasoning, and I can easily put perceptions into words. When I’m triggered, I lose this ability. Yet my environment expects me to still be able to do what I can’t. And honestly, I expect it of myself too. Asking my environment to lower their expectations of me has proven impossible. But I can lower my own expectations of myself.

Trauma Interferes with Awareness

When something reminds traumatized people of the past, their right brain reacts as if the traumatic event were happening in the present. But because their left brain is not working very well, they may not be aware that they are reexperiencing and reenacting the past—they are just furious, terrified, enraged, ashamed, or frozen. After the emotional storm passes, they may look for something or somebody to blame for it. They behaved the way they did because you were ten minutes late, or because you burned the potatoes, or because you “never listen to me.” Of course, most of us have done this from time to time, but when we cool down, we hopefully can admit our mistake. Trauma interferes with this kind of awareness, and, over time, our research demonstrated why.

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

I REALLY want to skip ahead and read the research into this. Not just for myself. By now I’m fairly aware of my reactions and behavior. I still can’t always stop it from happening, but I have always tried to go back and explain my reactions. These days the people closest to me accept this of me. And when they experience it themselves, have started to reciprocate. It’s a process. One that is incredibly helpful to me.

The Essence Does Not Equal Integration

“I am continually impressed by how difficult it is for people who have gone through the unspeakable to convey the essence of their experience. It is so much easier for them to talk about what has been done to them—to tell a story of victimization and revenge—than to notice, feel, and put into words the reality of their internal experience. Our scans had revealed how their dread persisted and could be triggered by multiple aspects of daily experience. They had not integrated their experience into the ongoing stream of their life. They continued to be “there” and did not know how to be “here”—fully alive in the present.”

“The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma” by Bessel van der Kolk

I can’t adequately explain the impact of this on me. I can convey the essence of my experience. So in that sense I’m much further along than some. Yet when I do convey the essence, it’s treated as though it’s nothing. Reading that an expert in the field of trauma is impressed by people who can is ambiguous. Maybe because I trivialize myself in this. I don’t find it impressive at all; it is a basic necessity in order to survive for me.

The Personal

I objectively have experienced complex trauma and chronic trauma since early childhood.

Yet whenever I have tried to talk to my environment about the possibility that this might have affected my brain physically, I am ignored or asked not to consider it until it’s proven by an actual brain scan of my brain. And mental health care professionals here in Aruba have refused to even discuss these possibilities with me, except as a sign of another disorder.

I am told they work according to evidence-based approaches, yet when I show evidence, by world-renowned scientists and research institutes such as Harvard, it’s still not enough. What will it take?

And even if there would be irrefutable proof, what then?

Being Asked to Provide Evidence, Then Promptly Ignoring the Evidence

This is particularly triggering to me for a rather bizarre reason. I come from a family where law is heavily respected and a large part of my family have studied law. And the other side of my family comes from generations of people who have studied at University. So logic and proof were par for the course from both sides of my family.

Since childhood, I learned a very important lesson, that I still haven’t completely unlearned. If I can’t prove something, it can’t be true. That’s fine in legal professions or in academic circles. But not when it comes to dealing with children and their emotions and reactions.

A Plea to Anyone Who Deals With Traumatized People

Most people don’t react differently for no reason. I beg of anyone, whether you’re a parent or a partner or even a therapist, to please stop putting the burden of proof on the person who’s traumatized. They’re traumatized; that’s all the proof you need in order to support them in their journey to find the proof they need to resolve their experiences.

And if along the way you help them find proof that can be used in a court of law, or to help them get therapies that actually work, that’s just a bonus.

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Julie Faruba

Julie is a renaissance woman. Mental health patient advocate. Certified compliance professional. Avid reader. Amateur writer. Passionate dancer. Animal friend. Life-long student. Free speech proponent. Human rights champion. Devil’s advocate debater. Complex Trauma Experience Expert.

jsfaruba.com

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

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

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

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

Let’s take my story and apply AI.

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

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

Resilient
Fighter
Overcomer
Thriver
Endurer
Conqueror
Champion
Escaper
Sustainer
Surmounter

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

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

Sufferer
Target
Prey
Casualty
Martyr
Subject
Recipient
Quarry
Fall guy
Mark

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

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

Chronic pain
Sleep disturbances
Sexual dysfunction
Substance abuse
Eating disorders

That’s pretty accurate, but not comprehensive.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wendy Hoke

Wendy Hoke is the author of The Bishop’s Cross: A Journey to the Truth and co-author of The Church of Gomorrah: When Sexual Abusers Remain in the Church. Her grandfather was a pedophile who preyed on little girls in his own family. The Bishop’s Cross looks into the family dynamics that enable a child molester to continue unabated.

She has been successfully writing for others for many years, first in the financial industry and now as a content curator and ghost blogger. She has finally put pen to paper to tell her own story. You can contact her directly through her website, wendyhoke.com.

wendyhoke.com/

Lost in the Woods: An Inside Look at the Fractured Experience of Trauma (as published in The Friday Edition of HeartBalm Healing at https://heartbalm.substack.com)

INTRODUCTION: In the previous Friday Editon, I wrote about The Downward Spiral of Flashbacks & Dissociative Episodes which is very relevant to this writing and why I wanted to give this brief introduction on today’s offering. As I looked back on when “Lost in the Woods” was written it is apparent that I was still in a dissociative state because of its recent date, subject, tone, and my faint memory of it. I highlight this to showcase how even in the grips of reliving complex trauma, we still move forward, keep creating, continue moving through life, and survive amidst the chaos, fog, fear, worry, and depression that come with flashbacks and dissociating. Because I write for a larger audience to help heal and bring understanding to subjects and experiences related to living with a condition like CPTSD I want to offer this personal experience. This is a deep dive into the experience of reliving the trauma, of facing our fractured parts, watching how they operate and exist, and the intense struggle, profound pain, and creative and herculean healing efforts that come with healing complex trauma.

Often my healing process is to move closer to the pain, see what is playing out, the characters that are present, allowing it all to be there even the horrifying parts and pieces of it. I am then able to try and bring in a non-judgmental, loving, and benevolent part of myself to begin the process of saying “enough” to the inner critical part. This entire technique is not easy, and I do not always have the strength or energy for it but I must have had enough frustration and wherewithal on this occasion, and thankfully captured it on paper.

I feel scared, humbled, and grateful to be able to share this with you and hopefully give insight and understanding of the trauma experience as it is unfolding. And, to urge everyone to write, journal, and befriend your frightened inner child(ren) and yourself, and to see the story playing out in order to bring wisdom, love, and understanding to its unfolding narrative.

This speaks to the inner battles that rage within us as we try and live life. We may be conscious or semi-conscious of them, or totally oblivious and unconscious of these internal wars. These inner battles bring fear, shame, blame, and devastation that can spill out into our daily lives and retraumatize us, and wreak more havoc. I had to find a different way and this is part of my ongoing process for I must meet them over and over again until they are resolved, loved enough to heal or dissolve of their own accord. There should be no shame or guilt in being a trauma survivor when it is known how difficult life can be for those that must live with the aftershocks of trauma, abuse, and neglect, and heal from it with little help and resources.

Lost in the Woods: An Inside Look at the Fractured Experience of Trauma

Lost in the woods she reverts to her survivalist nature of hypervigilance and hyper-attunement. She becomes highly sensitive to all sounds, sights, others, tastes, and sensations. Her only knowledge now is walking the tightrope that is her world in this moment. She is trapped in the darkness of her surroundings and wounds where no parent comes to support her, help her, or save her. Even as an adult she reverts to her old role of mother to herself – a child mother trying to navigate a terrifying world.

I cry for her – I yearn to hold her and help her – give her all of the things she needs – all of the things as an adult I would offer a wounded, scared, desperate child. Yet, I can’t always reach her in the deep dark jungle where she wanders alone. Her focus becomes a terrorized march to figure out the map that she is lost in – yet there is nothing there to map and no direction that offers respite. She grasps and reaches for knowledge, and understanding – curious about this sparkle of light, or that change in the storm. She reaches for anything that might give her a sense of how to survive this place and how to find solid ground again.

Her mind rages at the injustice. Her heart aches and closes down in defiance of letting anyone else in that could upset and ignite the inferno that sits in embers ready to alight at a moment’s notice. She loses patience for herself – unable to work out which way to go and how to be safe. Her anger is total. Angry at those that would leave her lost in this no-woman’s land, searingly judgmental of her own failures to find resolution and understand this hellish existence, seeing her own finger pointing back at herself in blame, shame, and anger. There is only this place of emptiness – no heart, exhausted, drained, and failing body, a mind emptied of options, and a hopeless bid that there is anyone left in the world to exorcise her from this land of demons and lift her back to the light of Love’s embrace, and freedom.

The flood of thoughts and feelings of this child-mother have overtaken all reason, all mechanisms, and sense of being from the adulting being and threatens to obliterate everything – pointing to the finality of burning it all down to stop the pain, the loss, the war within that stirs the wars without. There is no peace in her being – no peace for herself except for the sliver of light that never leaves and gently expresses and shares its ceaseless love. It is an opening to remember herself again. To step away from the role she has taken on of mothering her own self that sounds equal to her own mother abuser.

A gentler voice beckons to stop and look again. Look again at the innocent child that feels lost and at war with herself and the world. To see herself again as found, loved, loving and loveable, adored, grounded, safe, and protected. To feel the truth of these things rather than the hellish beliefs put on her by others and accepted as her responsibility to own and therefore become. She is asked to find peace with her own feelings instead of beating and berating herself for having any. She has had to be her own maternal source using the language of hatred, withholding, judgment, severe criticism, shame, blame, guilt, and manipulative maneuvers learned from the mother abuser – and now using it against herself. The child was only able to go as far as the parents would allow. Her stubbornness and creativity kept a small sliver of light in view but so often overwhelmed by swaths of darkness that blotted out all light that tried to find her.

She is drowning in her own wounds. Losing consciousness and life as she succumbs to the travesty of believing that as her own family tried to destroy her for so many years it would have been better if they had. Left to her own devices, her own fractured mind and thoughts, her own darkening world of lost and alone, and not having enough strength to find herself again – she wanes. She lets go and sees the futility of fighting. The enormous cost to mind, body, heart, and soul with each falls back into the abyss to find the way back is beyond herself – beyond comprehension, logic, and reason.

It is here that her limp psyche is lifted to a higher view. She can see the infinite jungle below – thick and impassable – with no vantage points to gain insight or find clarity to take the next step. She can see the point in the middle of it all where she is lost – and high above the enormity of finding her way out looks impossible and never-ending. Her place in the deep forest is a ruse to keep her in the game. A ruse to keep her small, feeling unsafe, and not risk getting close to anyone or holding onto hope of something better.

Her mind, like the jungle, is so tangled, overwhelmed, and intent on creating more complicated twists and turns that even with an overview of clarity it is still impossible to find an open space to be still and find rest. This maze of loss and seeking a way out, exhaustion, and terror holds her body in debt and draws on her strength, energy, and health. Even with light and lucidity offering their hand the toll of her yearning for survival and righting feels out of reach. Giving over her hand to the light is surrendering her life; a life even in tatters, shredded, and in chaos, her body ripped, stabbed, and bloodied is still hers. She has given a fight of a lifetime to have her own life, her own way, and be free of those who used her to blame, hurt, exploit, shame, manipulate, judge, and silence her so they didn’t have to feel their own anger, shame, and hatred. A sacrificial lamb grown into what?

She is ready to give over. Ready to accept the hand of found, of love, of freedom and being. Yet, her own maternal terrorizer still holds her back. She can feel the deep intensity of this force. The flailing, screaming, angry one that still hangs on to her with both hands. If she accepts this force dies. This powerful place of pasts lifesaving remedy has turned jailor and tyrannical protector. It is strong. It is vicious. It is determined. The beauty lies in its intent to keep her safe, protected, and alive but not its mother-abuser tactics of harassment and hate. She is no longer willing to be bullied by the angry voice of herself as child-mother. She is ready to let her go and find peace within herself.

She reaches out and accepts the loving hand of light – the offer to let go and allow herself to melt into the flow of life even if that means letting go and death of her fractured self. She feels her world opening up and growing brighter. There is a lightness in this place of submission. She is never hopeful but curious about embracing Now as the only place that exists and allowing the threads of the past still tied tightly to her ankles to drop away and never find her again.

She is learning to find peace in herself and her feelings. To accept, love, and nurture her own wild, creative, singular self with Love as mother and guide, and accept her own hand to hold in the infinite space of Now.

From the perspective of Presence, you do not heal ‘from’ trauma. Rather, you simply reconnect with that Sacred Place ‘in’ yourself that was never traumatized, never broken, never damaged in the first place; your true Self, absolute and ever-present, uncorrupted and free. Is not a destination; it is You, alive and awake in the safety of the Present Moment. Never truly broken, and utterly Unbreakable…

_Jeff Foster, “The Way of Rest: Finding The Courage to Hold Everything in Love”

For other helpful articles, tools, and topics visit the HeartBalm Archives, and for healing-guided meditations please visit the HeartBalm Meditation Toolbox on the home page. To subscribe or to find out more information go to the HeartBalm website.

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

Sunny Lynn, OMC

Sunny Lynn, OMC is a spiritual counselor, writer, poet, photographer, meditator, and nature lover on a mission of transmuting complex trauma through self-love, healing, and bringing balm to hearts everywhere. She has a blog and podcast – HeartBalm at heartbalm.substack.com that speaks on the topic of self-care and self-love, mindfulness and healing while living with CPTSD.

www.heartbalmhealing.com

Recently, a very painful and triggering event dropped me into a deep hole of flashbacks and dissociation. Over the next few months, a series of other events threw me into more flashbacks, deep dissociative states, and depression. Like being tossed and rolled endlessly in the raging waves and surf of a stormy, violent sea you can never find a quick escape because you are never sure which way is up or down. And, even in the moments when you think you have found the way up and out, you are slammed again by another ferocious breaker that leaves you stunned and pushes you back down into the deep, dark abyss.

Having gone through this many times it seems like it would be an easy thing to know the landscape and the road back out of a flashback. But like being born anew – the understanding of reality, knowledge, reason, and essential functioning are wiped clean in these states. Amnesia-like experiences are common here so believing that you can recreate an old route back to safety and the land of the living is a pipe dream. Coming back to what you knew previously as “your life” is a hellscape of roiling, crashing waves – taking you under – spinning you around over and over again. It is a waiting game while being tossed around like a rag doll.

The traumatic event itself, however horrendous, had a beginning, a middle, and an end, but I now saw that flashbacks could be even worse. You never know when you will be assaulted by them again and you have no way of telling when they will stop.

_Bessel van der Kolk, “The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma”

When I finally found an opening to come back I found myself numb, my eyes unable to focus, having trouble thinking and breathing; almost feeling like I was being suffocated. I was deep in a dissociative state. But even there while my worldview seemed familiar, my mindset was of an alien looking out through my own eyes. There was some knowledge that I was myself but everything was skewed in some way that made the world seem surreal, darkened, unsafe, and unnavigable. I felt like a zombie – a dead woman walking; functioning as best as I could to the outside world but completely shattered and confused within – held together in a deep freeze of numb detachment.

There are so many who know this feeling, and I am sorry for it. When complex trauma takes hold life becomes a downward spiral to other worlds, other times and spaces, the inability to discern up from down, other dissociative and emotionally adverse conditions take hold, and reaching for harmful remedies and actions to try to find wholeness overtake all else. Additionally, during these times we often try to employ superhuman efforts and abilities created to continue normal functioning, at a job or in a relationship, for example, and to just simply survive another day. But as we are not superhuman these over-achieving actions and efforts, while in a state of being mentally and physically depleted and compromised takes a toll, and comes at a high price to mind, body, and soul. Sometimes the only reason to keep trying for the surface is simply the habituated and mere fact that the body is still breathing, and the strained hope that the storm clouds will part and bring light back into our world again, and refocus our eyes and senses – so we keep trying.

Every day takes figuring out all over again how to f***ing live.

_Calamity Jane, the HBO series “Deadwood”

Having experienced flashbacks, dissociation, and the varied states of Cptsd, I am so much more aware of these episodes, in hindsight. What was enlightening about these recent consecutive occurrences and the fallout, especially physically for me, was the added stressors and triggers in my life, along with the holiday season. These all happened in close proximity to the initial cataclysmic occurrence and seemed to create a slow but steady downward spiral. Each flashback, dissociation, and fallout of emotional and physical repercussions had its own unpredictability, order of events, unfolding timeline, and lingering effects of being malevolent and stealthy in how it hijacked me each time. It seemed that this domino effect of triggers, and my continued state from one flashback to another, and overlapping dissociation was made easier by already being hampered by the initial flashback. Since I was not fully out of the initial episode I was already sitting in a primed and conditioned state to succumb to additional occurrences of post-traumatic stress.

To read more about CPTSD please see my article at HeartBalm titled, “Courage, Self Love, and CPTSD.”

I cannot say for sure if these more recent stressful events would have pushed me or triggered me into a full-blown flashback if I was in a more healthy and balanced space and time in my life. I do believe, however, that the initial event began the downward spiral, and due also to its severity and strength, made it much easier for me to slide back into traumatic responses due to stressful and triggering events. Even after the events, thinking that I was feeling more stable and grounded there was a moment, out of the blue, when I felt like I had just woken up from being somewhere else. In that moment, I sadly realized I had still been in a dissociative state. Like the movie “Inception,” there are levels of reality where you can become lost in thinking and believing you are back in reality when in fact you are not even close. It is a surreal feeling to be awake, yet wake again to the moment and wonder where you have been. Wasn’t I experiencing reality before – where was I when I thought reality was happening – there is little to recall or remember. It is in the period of coming out of dissociative states that you may begin to feel back to normal – only to find yourself awakening to the moment and realizing that you haven’t been fully present. It is maddening, frustrating, and unsettling to realize how fractured you really are, and that you are never quite assured that you are whole, grounded, and awake in the present moment. It is another traumatic event and another breach of trust by your own mind and body that you must face, find compassion for, and contend with.

The long-term damage, hijacking, and slow demise of mind and body by abusers, narcissistic others, and their enablers is total, and for most goes unpunished. For those with Cptsd it is a never-ending walk through life of trauma management, physical and mental triage and maintenance, and sifting through the shattered remains of the past unraveling in the present to find hope, love, and meaning – as the only remedy and reason to get up again and continue on.

We have learned that trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body. This imprint has ongoing consequences for how the human organism manages to survive in the present. Trauma results in a fundamental reorganization of the way mind and brain manage perceptions. It changes not only how we think and what we think about, but also our very capacity to think.

_Bessel van der Kolk, “The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma”

When the body is already in a state of fight/flight it takes a long time to bring it back into balance, especially for women with the added challenges of a more complex endocrine system. The endocrine system does everything in its power to address the threats perceived and experienced. Yet, with adrenaline and cortisol taking over and attempting to right the sinking ship it can get stuck in this response and take a long time to come back to homeostasis. The fallout from this is widespread – affecting our minds, body, and soul. I will be digging deeper into these areas, the physical repercussions of fight/flight, and how our endocrine system works to support us during times of trauma, perceived threats, triggers, and flashbacks in upcoming editions.

To the outside world, and even to my friends and family I may look put together, and without fractures yet if you stand back and look at the inhibited and truncated arc of my life you can see the profound impact of complex trauma, and the unrelenting onslaught and the broad swath of destruction it has wreaked on my mind, body, and soul, and my life. Those of us that live with Cptsd work hard and creatively to make ourselves and our lives work and look presentable. It is all we can do. I work hard to understand what happened, to understand the world itself, and how it all works, how to heal, to love. I work diligently to release old wounds and transmute and integrate all that is arising and unraveling from the multi-layered onion that is my life as the unwitting victim of childhood abuse and neglect, and the ongoing abuses that continue into adulthood.

Inadvertently, and another subject I will dive into more in a future edition is that the ride of Cptsd is also a course in subconscious manifesting and the reason why things, conditions, and events continue to recur. The energy patterns of trauma stored so long ago, hidden, and pushed deep down so as to protect, as best as can be achieved, are in fact still active and holding sway in the energetic patterns of present-day life, as triggers and new abuses are encountered. Reality was the bedrock of time in which trauma was experienced and from which the mind tries to make sense of this thing called life. The cognitive dissonance and sheer nonsensical nature of life as a child in an abusive and neglectful household is mind-, body-, and soul-altering. The word complex in complex trauma and complex post-traumatic stress disorder is an understatement but denotes the conditions of living life that are constantly unknowable, chaotic, fraught with terror, unreliable, and uncertain in nature.

Unlike other forms of psychological disorders, the core issue in trauma is reality.

_Bessel van der Kolk, “The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma”

For those of us that live in and out of the deep crevasses and contrasts of life, we can find the tiny gems, the bright lights in the darkness, and the love that never leaves us and finds us even in the deepest depths of the abyss. Somehow, somewhere light and love is always there in a pet, loved one, or cherished friend. I want to acknowledge the wonderful friends I have found and who have found me over the years. Those special few that have never questioned my sporadic existence, nor judged me for my inner turmoil, my stints of elusive departures and long silences at times, my opinionated and sometimes aggressive stance towards injustices, especially as they relate to women and children, nor have they stood in hope or expectation that I be any different than who I am. My friends have accepted me as is and loved me when I had little love for myself. They are the bright stars in my sky – the lights that guide me home when I am lost and walking dead amongst the masses of this world. Their love is what gives me the strength to keep believing in myself, and strengthens my belief in love, friendship, and life rather than crumbling to the hatred that bore and raised me. They breathe love and acceptance into me so that I can write to help others understand; to see themselves as loved, loveable, and loving beings on this planet, and worthy of living a blessed life even as they struggle to heal and become more of who they are along the way because, in the end, you are never alone!

When I stand back and look at my life so far, it is evident that the journey truly is the destination, and how you buckle yourself in while on the ride, and who sits next to you – is how you make this journey a life.

For other helpful articles, tools, and topics visit the HeartBalm Archives, and for healing-guided meditations please visit the HeartBalm Meditation Toolbox on the home page. To subscribe or to find out more information go to the HeartBalm website.

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

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Sunny Lynn, OMC

Sunny Lynn, OMC is a spiritual counselor, writer, poet, photographer, meditator, and nature lover on a mission of transmuting complex trauma through self-love, healing, and bringing balm to hearts everywhere. She has a blog and podcast – HeartBalm at heartbalm.substack.com that speaks on the topic of self-care and self-love, mindfulness and healing while living with CPTSD.

www.heartbalmhealing.com

Why are the holidays so difficult for survivors of trauma? Because holidays bring up all of the helpless, paralyzing, vulnerable feelings of the family we have struggled with all our lives. Goaded by themes of gathering at Thanksgiving, heartbreak comes to the surface. Overwhelmed by the sugar plum fairy music blaring over the intercoms, we feel shouted at by the store displays and windows. And more than anything else—we feel left out.  

For survivors, the only thing our family gatherings and celebrations ever brought was pain. The many vivid images of happy togetherness glistening around us are only stark reminders of all the things we do not have and all the pain we have endured. 

I thought I would die from The Dread in the pit of my stomach as my husband and I and our two small children drove up the driveway to my parent’s home. I did not know it at the time, but it would be the last Christmas my parents and I would ever be in the same room together. I retreated to my usual place of dissociation and watched the goings on from a distance. True to form, my parents were angry at one another. My mother thought the tree wasn’t right. My father was sick of doing errands. Nobody even noticed it was a holiday. The same thing happened at Thanksgiving. I wondered why we even went through the motions at all. Fear, obligation, and guilt were why. It coerced me home holiday after an agonizing holiday. 

At least we had the distraction of the kids opening a few presents. My mother broke through her depression for a few moments and handed each of my young sons a rectangle-shaped box wrapped in paper only—no ribbon. I knew the paper had probably been in her basement for at least a decade. It was saggy, damp, and slightly torn. Ribbons were too much trouble for my mother. The unsaid communication was always the same. “I hate the holidays almost as much as I hate you. Celebrate? What is there to celebrate? I can’t make the effort. Life is horrible.”

I looked at the sad little boxes. The same shape and weight of a school box commonly seen in the stores around September, I had to wonder what in the world was inside. I didn’t have long to wait. The kids eagerly tore the paper shaking the damp mess from their fingers. Opening the lid, they looked inside and then up at me in confusion. They had each received a box of rocks. Literally. My mother had purchased a box of labeled rock specimens for a four and five-year-old. I encouraged them to say thank you and hastily put the rocks away. Glumly, I thought of Charlie Brown in “It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.” Poor old Charlie Brown. All he got in his Halloween treat bag was a rock—and all my mother could think of to buy for her grandsons was a whole box of them. It didn’t get any more pathetic.

For me, holidays were the worst kind of stress. Mixed messages were never louder. An obligation was never more suffocating and safety never felt more threatened. I spent the entire time reading the room, running interference, placating, and trying to please unappeasable people. Trying…trying…trying…until the holidays were finally over and I could collapse in a heap and begin to dread the next year’s go around. Celebrate? There was no celebrating. There was only surviving. 

No wonder holidays were such a source of stress. And it is this way in some shape or form for every survivor I have ever met. It will continue to be this way until we intervene on our behalf of ourselves. In this series of blogs leading up to Christmas, I’d like to talk about the holidays and suggest ways this year can be different. For most of my life, all the celebration and joy that holidays represent was co-opted by trauma. But I’m not dead—yet, and neither are you. Like Ebenezer Scrooge in the Charles Dickens classic, perhaps we have awakened just in time. Time to say no to the abusive Ebenezer Scrooge’s of our past. Time to stop letting Ebenezer Scrooge dictate our present. We’re going to take back what was taken. I can hardly wait! Let’s take this journey together as we defy trauma and embrace joy!

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

Rebekah Brown

Rebekah Brown, a native of the south, now resides in the Great American West. Surviving a complicated and abusive family system makes her unique writing style insightful as well as uplifting. Rebekah is the proud mother of two and grandmother of four.