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Anger: Is It the Poison Slowly Killing You, or the Antidote That Can Save You?

Ellen Tift — Wed, 06 May 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Tobie’s Story

Tobie sat in their car, knuckles white against the steering wheel, jaw clenched so tight their teeth might crack. They had just left yet another family gathering where their boundaries were trampled, their feelings dismissed, and their experiences minimized. The familiar heat rose in their chest, spreading up their neck, making their ears burn.

“Stop it,” they whispered to themselves. “Just let it go. You’re overreacting.”

But the anger wouldn’t subside. Instead, it swirled inside Tobie like a storm gathering strength. They’d learned early that anger wasn’t welcome in their childhood home. “Don’t you dare raise your voice.” “Stop being so sensitive.” “You have nothing to be angry about.” These messages had been hammered into them since before they could remember.

And yet here it was again—this overwhelming force that felt too big for their body. Tobie didn’t know what to do with it. Sometimes they’d push it down until it became a hard, cold stone in their stomach. Other times, it would erupt unexpectedly, leaving damaged relationships and crushing shame in its wake.

As they sat there trying to breathe, tears of frustration welling up, Tobie wondered: Was this anger poisoning them from within? Or was it trying to tell them something important—something they needed to hear?

Understanding Anger: What It Really Is

Anger is one of our primary emotions—as natural and necessary as joy, sadness, or fear. At its core, anger is information. It’s your mind and body’s alert system telling you that something isn’t right, that a boundary has been crossed, or that you or someone you care about may be in danger.

Physically, anger is an energy surge designed to prepare you for action. Your heart rate increases, muscles tense, breathing quickens, and stress hormones flood your system. This physical response evolved to help us survive threats. When we perceive an injustice or threat, our bodies prepare us to protect ourselves.

But for survivors of narcissistic abuse and complex trauma, anger becomes complicated. When you’ve grown up in an environment where expressions of anger were punished, where your emotional needs were invalidated, or where anger was wielded as a weapon against you, your relationship with this emotion becomes distorted.

Many survivors learned early that anger was:

Forbidden (“Nice people don’t get angry”)

Dangerous (“If I show anger, I’ll be abandoned or punished”)

Sinful (“Anger is a sin that separates you from God”)

Unproductive (“Anger doesn’t solve anything”)

A weakness (“You’re too sensitive/emotional”)

These messages create a deep confusion. Your anger arises naturally in response to mistreatment, yet you’ve been taught it’s wrong to feel it. This contradiction creates internal conflict that can last decades.Subscribed

A Roadmap for This Journey

In this article, we’ll explore the complex relationship between trauma and anger, looking at when anger acts as a poison in our lives and when it serves as a much-needed antidote. We’ll examine different types of anger, how it affects our bodies and brains, and practical ways to work with this powerful emotion rather than against it.

If you’re feeling shame about your anger or hopelessness about ever having a healthy relationship with it, know that this article offers concrete tools and perspectives that can help. Many trauma survivors have transformed their relationship with anger from one of fear and avoidance to one of respect and partnership. You can too.

We’ll move from understanding anger at the individual level to examining how it functions in broader contexts like communities and systems. Throughout, we’ll return to our central question: Is anger the poison that’s making you sick, or is it the antidote to what’s actually poisoning you?

The Many Faces of Anger

Anger, like a fluid, takes different forms depending on its container and circumstances. For trauma survivors, it may show up in various ways:

Righteous Anger: The pure, clean anger that rises when witnessing injustice—either against yourself or others. This form of anger has propelled social movements, inspired change, and protected the vulnerable. It’s the anger that says, “This is wrong, and it needs to stop.”

Protective Anger: The fierce energy that rises to defend yourself or loved ones. For many survivors, they can access anger on behalf of others long before they can feel it for themselves. “How dare they treat my friend that way?” often comes more easily than “How dare they treat ME that way?”

Repressed Anger: Anger that’s been pushed down and denied, often resurfacing as depression, anxiety, or physical ailments. Many trauma survivors become experts at swallowing their anger, not even recognizing it as such.

Internalized Anger: When anger turns inward, becoming self-criticism, self-harm, or self-sabotage. “I hate myself for letting this happen” is internalized anger that’s lost its true direction.

Chronic Rage: A constant state of anger that becomes a baseline emotion, coloring all experiences. This often happens when there’s been no safe outlet or validation for legitimate anger over a long period.

Vengeful Anger: The desire to make perpetrators suffer as you have suffered. While a natural response to significant harm, this form of anger can become consuming if not addressed.

Coercive Anger: Using anger as a tool to control others, much like abusers do. Some survivors unconsciously adopt this pattern after seeing it modeled.

Displacement: Directing anger at safer targets rather than its true source. Snapping at a cashier when you’re really angry at your abusive parent is displacement.

Understanding which form your anger takes is the first step toward working with it rather than against it.

Anger in the Body: How It Feels When You’ve Been Disconnected

Many trauma survivors have become so accustomed to pushing anger away that they no longer recognize its physical signatures. Reconnecting with how anger feels in your body can help you identify and work with this emotion before it becomes overwhelming.

Anger might show up as:

A tightness or heat in your chest or throat

Clenched jaw or teeth grinding

Tension in your shoulders, neck, or fists

A knot or churning in your stomach

Shallow, rapid breathing

Feeling flushed or hot in your face and neck

Restlessness or the need to move/pace

Headaches or pressure behind your eyes

A surge of energy through your arms and legs

Difficulty concentrating on anything else

Unexpected tears or crying when trying to express yourself strongly

A feeling of pressure that seems to need release

For those who’ve disconnected from anger, these sensations might be misinterpreted as anxiety, panic, or even illness. Learning to name these feelings as anger is an important step toward healing.

For many people, especially those socialized as female, anger often comes out as tears—which can be incredibly frustrating when you want to appear strong or be taken seriously. If this happens to you, know that it’s a common physiological response, not a sign of weakness. Some people find that acknowledging this pattern out loud (“I’m not sad, I’m angry, and my body expresses anger through tears”) can help others understand what’s really happening.

The Neurobiology of Anger After Trauma

Understanding what happens in your brain and body when you experience anger can help normalize and manage these intense feelings.

When you experience a trigger, your brain’s alarm system (the amygdala) activates, sending signals that prepare your body for fight or flight. For trauma survivors, this system is often oversensitive due to past danger, meaning you might have stronger, faster anger responses even to minor threats.

At the same time, trauma can impact the part of your brain responsible for logical thinking and impulse control (the prefrontal cortex). This can make it harder to “think through” your anger in the moment.

“Flooding” occurs when your nervous system becomes overwhelmed with stress hormones, effectively shutting down your ability to think clearly. This explains why you might say or do things in anger that you later regret—your rational brain becomes less accessible during extreme emotional activation.

For those with complex trauma, the nervous system often operates from a place of chronic hyperarousal. Your baseline anxiety level is already high, so it takes much less to push you into anger or rage. This isn’t a character flaw—it’s your brain and body trying to protect you based on past experiences.

When Your Reaction Seems “Too Big”

Have you ever felt embarrassed by how strongly you reacted to something that seemed small? There’s a saying in trauma therapy: “If it’s hysterical, it’s historical.” This means that when your reaction seems disproportionate to the current situation, it might be connected to your history of trauma.

For example, a simple comment from a friend might trigger an intense anger response not because the comment itself was so terrible, but because it echoed similar comments from years of emotional abuse. Your nervous system doesn’t distinguish between past and present threats—it just recognizes a familiar pattern and sounds the alarm.

This doesn’t mean your feelings aren’t valid. They absolutely are. But understanding the connection between past wounds and present triggers can help you navigate these intense emotions with more self-compassion. It’s not that you’re “overreacting”—it’s that you’re responding to the cumulative weight of many similar experiences, not just the current one.

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When Anger Becomes Poison

Like any powerful medicine, anger can heal or harm depending on how it’s used. Anger becomes poisonous when:

It’s chronic and unprocessed: Anger that remains unaddressed over time creates a state of constant stress. Your body stays flooded with stress hormones, wearing down your immune system, heart, and other vital functions. Chronic anger has been linked to heart disease, digestive problems, weakened immunity, and shorter lifespans.

It consumes your thoughts: When angry thoughts play on endless loop, they steal your present moment and your peace. This rumination keeps wounds fresh and prevents healing.

It becomes your primary identity: When “angry victim” becomes your main way of seeing yourself, it can keep you stuck in pain rather than moving toward healing.

It leads to harmful behaviors: Using anger to justify hurting yourself or others perpetuates cycles of harm rather than breaking them.

It prevents connection: When unmanaged anger becomes a wall between you and potential support, it isolates you when you most need connection.

It blinds you to nuance: Anger can sometimes create black-and-white thinking that oversimplifies complex situations and people.

It masks deeper emotions: Sometimes anger serves as a cover for more vulnerable feelings that may be harder to access or express. When we only experience the surface anger without recognizing what’s beneath it—like hurt, fear, disappointment, grief, or shame—we miss important information about our needs and experiences.

When Anger Is the Antidote

For many trauma survivors, accessing healthy anger is actually a crucial part of healing. Anger can be the antidote when:

It helps you recognize mistreatment: For those gaslit into doubting their perceptions, anger often emerges as the first clear signal that something is wrong. That surge of “No, this isn’t right!” can be the beginning of trusting yourself again.

It provides motivation to change: Anger can be the fuel that powers you out of harmful situations and into better ones. Many survivors report that anger was what finally gave them the strength to leave abusive relationships or set firm boundaries.

It restores your sense of worth: Feeling angry about mistreatment implies that you deserved better—a revolutionary concept for many trauma survivors. Anger says, “I matter enough to be treated well.”

It reconnects you with your power: Anger reminds you that you can take action and effect change. For those who’ve felt helpless, this reconnection with personal power is healing.

It validates your experience: Allowing yourself to feel angry about abuse confirms that what happened to you was wrong. This counteracts the minimization and denial that often accompany trauma.

It provides an exoskeleton: Anger can sometimes function as an exoskeleton—a hard outer shell that keeps you functioning when otherwise you might collapse. While not a permanent solution, this protective function of anger can be necessary during certain phases of healing.

It sets necessary boundaries: Healthy anger helps you establish and maintain the boundaries needed for your well-being, often for the first time.

It counteracts toxic shame: For many trauma survivors, existential shame—the false belief that there is something inherently wrong with you—acts as a poison in the psyche. Healthy anger can be the antidote to this shame, asserting “What happened to me was wrong” instead of “I am wrong.”

It cuts through numbness: When trauma has caused emotional numbing or dissociation, anger can sometimes be the first emotion strong enough to break through, reconnecting you with your capacity to feel.

Strategic Anger: The Medicine Cabinet

For some trauma survivors, especially those still in harmful relationships, anger can serve a critical purpose—not as poison hurting you now, but as a medicine you keep ready for when you need it.

When Holding Onto Anger Serves a Purpose

Malina’s relationship followed a painful cycle—criticism and control, followed by tearful apologies and promises to change. Each time, she felt her anger rise, but then questioned herself: “Maybe this time is different. Maybe I’m overreacting.” She forgave, her anger faded, and the cycle began again.

Over time, Malina realized that without her anger, she couldn’t maintain the resolve to leave. Each time she forgave, she lost the emotional fuel that almost propelled her to safety. So she chose to hold onto her anger—not out of spite, but as a resource. She wasn’t being vindictive; she was preserving medicine she knew she’d need.

This isn’t bitterness or rumination. It’s a conscious choice. In harmful situations—where leaving is constrained by finances, custody, health, or safety—anger can be a vital fuel for self-protection and eventual escape.

Anger as Protection Against Premature Vulnerability

“I can’t afford to let go of my anger yet,” Devon told his therapist. “If I do, I’ll start believing things are fine and drop my guard.” Devon’s anger wasn’t stubbornness—it was a shield, protecting him from vulnerability with someone who had repeatedly broken his trust.

In unsafe situations, releasing anger too soon can leave you exposed. It keeps you alert to patterns you might otherwise dismiss and guards you against the pull of gaslighting.

When Anger Preservation Happens Unconsciously

Sometimes, anger is preserved without conscious effort. Your nervous system, attuned to danger from past experiences, might maintain a level of protective anger without your deliberate effort. You might pick fights, remember past hurts seemingly “out of nowhere,” or feel irritable around someone who has harmed you—even when things seem fine.

Rather than judging this as “holding onto the past,” consider that your body might be protecting you in the most effective way it knows. Tobie, who we met at the beginning of this article, later realized their anger after family gatherings wasn’t just about what had happened that day—it was a safeguard rooted in a lifetime of boundary violations.

Timing Matters

Long-term, the goal is to process anger in ways that free you from its weight. But sometimes, the wisest choice is to say, “I’m not ready to release this anger yet. It’s keeping me safe.”

To use anger strategically, consider:

Containing it temporarily so it doesn’t overwhelm your daily life. You might visualize placing it in a secure container you can open when needed.

Distinguishing between strategic anger and harmful rumination. Are you maintaining awareness of critical truths, or endlessly recycling pain?

Acknowledging that this is a temporary strategy. In time, developing other protective skills will allow for fuller healing.

Being compassionate with yourself. Preserving anger for safety is an adaptive choice—not a failure.

Anger, when recognized as medicine rather than poison, becomes a resource—protecting you until you’re ready to create lasting safety and healing.

Processing Anger: From Poison to Antidote

The goal isn’t to eliminate anger but to transform it from a destructive force into a constructive one. Here are some approaches to begin this transformation:

Name it to tame it

Simply acknowledging “I am feeling angry right now” begins to engage your thinking brain and reduces alarm system activation. This simple act creates a tiny bit of space between you and the emotion, making it more manageable.

Practice: Next time you notice anger rising, pause and say (aloud or to yourself): “I am feeling angry right now. This is anger moving through my body.” Notice if this creates even a small shift in your experience.

Find the message in your anger

Anger always carries information. It might be telling you about:

A boundary that’s been crossed

A need that isn’t being met

A value that’s been violated

An old wound that’s been triggered

An injustice that needs addressing

Find more clarity by writing the following:

What specifically triggered my anger? (Describe the situation)

What boundary of mine might have been crossed?

What need of mine isn’t being met?

Does this remind me of something from my past?

What would need to change for me to feel better?

If you’re having trouble identifying what’s beneath your anger, it can help to complete this sentence: “I’m angry because I didn’t get/have/receive _______.” or “I’m angry because _______ happened and it wasn’t fair/right/acceptable.”

Breaking the Rumination Cycle

When anger becomes repetitive thoughts that play on endless loop—replaying offenses or imagining confrontations—it can transform from a protective force into a drain on your well-being. This rumination keeps wounds fresh and steals your present moment.

For trauma survivors, rumination often serves a purpose: it can help identify patterns in abusive behavior and validate your experiences when you’ve been gaslighted. This is why simply telling yourself to “stop thinking about it” rarely works. Part of you may rightfully sense that this thinking process, painful as it is, serves a protective function.

However, when rumination becomes constant, it can keep you stuck in a state of heightened stress without moving you toward healing. Finding balance is key. Here are a few approaches that honor rumination’s protective intent while creating more space in your life:

Set boundaries around rumination: Rather than ruminating throughout the day, designate specific times to process these thoughts. “I’ll think about this during my 30-minute walk, but not while I’m with my children.” This contains the process without dismissing its importance.

Capture the insights: Keep a journal where you record patterns and realizations that emerge from your anger-based rumination. This validates that your mental work has purpose and creates a record you can refer to instead of needing to constantly keep the thoughts active.

Interrupt the physical cycle: When rumination feels overwhelming, change your physical state. Stand up, stretch, splash cold water on your face, or engage in brief intense exercise. This physical pattern-break can momentarily disrupt the thought cycle.

Engage your senses: Ground yourself in the present moment by naming five things you can see, four you can touch, three you can hear, two you can smell, and one you can taste. This simple practice activates different neural pathways and provides temporary relief.

Remember that becoming skilled at managing rumination takes practice. Each time you gently redirect your thinking, you’re creating more choice about when and how to process your anger—even if the rumination returns minutes later. With consistent practice, you can develop more control over when you engage with these thoughts rather than having them control you.

Address the physical energy of anger

Anger creates a surge of energy meant for action. Finding safe ways to discharge this energy can prevent it from getting stuck in your body. If physical exercise feels overwhelming due to exhaustion from CPTSD or other health issues, even small movements can help:

Gentle options: Slowly squeezing and releasing your hands, shoulder rolls, gentle swaying, humming or making sounds, taking a short walk, rocking back and forth

Moderate options: Tearing paper, kneading dough or clay, gentle stretching, measured breathing

More vigorous options: Dancing, walking briskly, cleaning, gardening

High intensity options: Running, swimming, martial arts, screaming in a private space

Even if your anger feels hard-wired into your nervous system and too overwhelming to discharge, starting with just 30 seconds of one of these activities can begin to shift the physical experience.Subscribed

Express it appropriately

Learning to voice your anger in ways that aren’t destructive is a crucial skill. In situations where it’s safe to express your feelings directly:

Instead of: “You always ignore me, you’re so selfish!” Try: “I feel hurt and angry when my needs aren’t acknowledged.”

If you’re dealing with someone who might weaponize your “I feel” statements or use them against you, you might need more direct communication: “That doesn’t work for me.” “I’m not available for this conversation right now.” “I need to step away.” “This behavior is unacceptable.”

Remember that appropriate expression doesn’t always mean saying something in the moment. Sometimes writing a letter you never send or speaking your truth to a trusted friend is the safest way to express your feelings.

Look beneath the anger

Often, what appears as anger on the surface is actually masking more vulnerable emotions that might feel unsafe to express directly. Once the immediate intensity of anger subsides, ask yourself what else you might be feeling.

Common emotions beneath anger include:

Hurt: “I’m hurt that my needs weren’t considered.”

Fear: “I’m afraid this means I don’t matter.”

Disappointment: “I expected to be treated with respect.”

Grief: “I’m sad about what this relationship isn’t.”

Shame: “I feel exposed or humiliated.”

Helplessness: “I can’t control what’s happening.”

Write it out

Journaling about your anger—especially in uncensored, unfiltered ways that you don’t share with others—can help process the emotion without causing harm. Try writing a letter to the person you’re angry with that you don’t send, or simply dump all your thoughts onto paper without filtering.

Channel it constructively

Many survivors transform their anger into advocacy, creativity, or service that helps others. This doesn’t mean toxic “turning lemons into lemonade” thinking, but rather finding meaning that emerges organically from your experience.

Remember that anger’s visit is temporary

Even though it can feel eternal in the moment, anger, like all emotions, will naturally rise and fall if you don’t cling to it or push it away. If you’ve been angry for as long as you can remember, this might be hard to believe—but even chronic anger has waves and fluctuations. Noticing when your anger is even slightly less intense can help you recognize that it isn’t a permanent state, even if it’s been with you for a very long time.

If any of these approaches feel overwhelming or out of reach right now, that’s completely understandable. Trauma can make working with strong emotions particularly challenging. Keep reading for guidance on what to do when anger feels unresolvable.

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

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

This article is in the first book of Ellen’s series “There’s A Word for That”. Order on paperback or Kindle here https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FKJ8YJ2F

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

Ellen Tift

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

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

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

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

www.ellentift.com

Letter of Encouragement

Jeanne Jess — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Dear One,

You’ve walked through storms that tested every part of you, and you stood back up, with courage in your heart.

PTSD may have shaped part of your story, but it does not define who you are. You are still whole, still capable, and your light and strength are still in your heart — they have only been waiting for you to see them again.

On this path of recovery, there will be moments of grief, anger, and pain. Let’s not push these feelings away or keep them bottled up. At such times, it helps to sit together, speak with compassion, and support one another.

Despite the past, I want you to believe in yourself. The strength that carried you through the darkness is the same strength that can now guide you toward healing. You have the power to begin anew, to rebuild your life piece by piece into something peaceful, meaningful, and filled with joy.

There is no rush, healing moves at the pace of kindness. Just breathe. Take one small step, then another. Trust that each moment of courage counts, and every gentle choice you make for yourself is a quiet victory.

Leave the pain where it belongs, in yesterday. Open your heart to the possibility that tomorrow can feel lighter. You deserve happiness, love, and a life that feels like home.

You’ve survived the hardest parts already. Now, it’s time to live again: freely, bravely, and filled with hope. The future is yours to create, and it can be beautiful beyond measure.

You are now becoming whole in new and beautiful ways. Gently step into your own light, and trust that every day holds a chance for renewal. You deserve peace. You deserve love. You deserve the good life you’ve always dreamed of: because it’s still waiting for you.

I want you to know that I understand because I’ve walked that path too. You’re not alone in this journey. If you ever need someone to talk to, a voice that listens and truly believes in your courage — I’m here. Always.

With Love and Light,
Jeanne💗

Feature Photo Credit: UnSplash

Graphic Credit: Author Owned

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

Jeanne Jess

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

www.janehealingangels.com/

Not Driving Home for Holidays

Alice Segell — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Christmas, or other types of family reunions, can be tricky in the best of families. For survivors of childhood abuse, trekking home for the holidays is nothing short of a draining and re-traumatising return to the scene of the crime. It’s an exercise in appeasement and self-abasement that will leave them feeling besmirched, dazed, and detached as well as so much smaller, so much younger – reduced to size, for the predator is wont to have its pound of flesh. Whatever growth, accomplishment and healing have taken place need to be decimated.

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

Alice Segell

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

Not Another Year of Pushing

Rachel Grant — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 14:09:18 +0000

As we step into a new year, I’ve been reflecting a lot on what it truly means to heal–not just from trauma, but from the related patterns of pushing, proving, and overriding ourselves in the name of productivity, success, or even “purpose.”

Recently, I reconnected with Christa, a graduate of my Beyond Surviving program. We originally connected around the meaningful work she does as a coach, and we talked about sharing more about that journey here. But in our latest conversation, something even more honest and powerful emerged.

Christa shared that she had decided to take a break from her coaching business this year. Not because the work isn’t meaningful, but because it is emotionally taxing–and she is choosing to honor her capacity, her intuition, and her need for balance. When she told me this, my response was immediate and wholehearted: this is a big win.

This kind of choice doesn’t come from avoidance or failure. It comes from healing. It is the result of learning how to listen to your body, your nervous system, and your inner knowing. It means trusting yourself enough to say no–even to things that once felt like the “right” path.

I invited Christa, only if it felt aligned for her, to write about this pivot as a New Year’s reflection. Not another year of pressing, forcing, and depleting ourselves–but a year oriented toward peace, alignment, and flow.

What she wrote is honest and deeply resonant. I’m so grateful she was willing to share it here:

When I started my journey into healing my digestive issues in my early twenties, I was eager to learn everything I could about health, well-being, and personal development. What began as a personal search for answers slowly turned into something else: I started taking certification courses, not just to understand myself better, but to help others, as well. After completing my Ayurveda certification almost two decades later, I stepped into the role of health counsellor, ready and excited to work with clients.

Looking back now, years later, I can see much more clearly what happened.

What I truly wanted was simple: to help people. I wanted to understand them, support them, guide them in breaking patterns, and help them heal–just as I had done. But very quickly, my days filled up with other things. Creating programs. Building websites. Writing yet another landing page. Designing freebies. Posting on social media. Learning marketing strategies. Trying to “grow my audience.”

This was all well-meant advice from the various business coaches I worked with–and it wasn’t necessarily wrong. But it slowly drained the life out of me.

It was stressful and time-consuming, and the painful irony was that I was hardly coaching anyone. I spent more time thinking about clever Instagram captions than sitting with real people, listening deeply, and doing the work I was actually trained for and loved.

Without really choosing it, I had become a creator-based entrepreneur–something I never aspired to be. At the same time, I was struggling financially, while being promised six-figure outcomes if I just tried harder, created more, and optimized better.

Over those six years, I created program after program. I hired more business coaches. I followed strategies that didn’t fit me, and watched them fail. The process depleted me, chipped away at my confidence, and eventually left me questioning whether I wanted to keep coaching at all.

But I am not quitting coaching.

What I am quitting are fancy program names, endless landing pages, constant posting on Instagram, and the pressure to produce more content, more materials, and more “proof.” I’m quitting doing things just for the gram. I’m quitting the all-consuming stress. I never wanted that life.

This pivot I’m making now–moving away from being a creator-based entrepreneur and back to simply being a coach–isn’t a step backwards. It’s a return–a remembering. This is a choice to honor how I actually work best, not how the industry says I should.

And maybe this journey was never really about building something external at all. Maybe it was my own healing path: a slow return home to myself. Moving through trauma, hardship, and old patterns of pushing, I was finally ready to listen, trust, and honor my own rhythm.

As we move into a new year, I’m not setting intentions around bigger goals or more output. I’m choosing a different orientation, even though I don’t yet know exactly how it will unfold.

Less pressing.
Less forcing.
Less building from depletion.

More listening.
More honesty.
More choosing ease.

I don’t have this all figured out. I’m not claiming that choosing peace automatically makes things easy or clear. What I am doing is experimenting–noticing what feels aligned and what doesn’t, and allowing myself to respond, instead of overriding.

This pivot isn’t a final destination. It’s a practice–one I’m committed to trying and trusting.

Christa is a non-diet Ayurveda health counsellor, intuitive eating coach, and body image coach. With her approach, she helps women release stress, guilt, and anxiety around food and helps them to trust their body’s cues again with compassion and confidence. Originally from the Netherlands, she resides in Vancouver with her wife and two cats and is a graduate of “Beyond Surviving.”

If you are interested in learning more about her work, reach out to her at christa@sageandsaintsayurveda.com.

I hope her words invite you to pause and gently ask: what would it look like to honor yourself more this year?

To flow instead of force!
Rachel

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

Photo by Peter Trones 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.

Rachel Grant

Rachel Grant is the owner and founder of Rachel Grant Coaching and is a Sexual Abuse Recovery Coach and M.A. in Counseling Psychology. She is also the author of Beyond Surviving: The Final Stage in Recovery from Sexual Abuse. Based on her educational training, study of neuroscience, and lessons learned from her own journey, she has successfully used the Beyond Surviving Program since 2007 to help survivors of childhood sexual abuse who are beyond sick and tired of feeling broken and unfixable break free from the pain of abuse and finally move on with their lives.

www.rachelgrantcoaching.com

Why Being an Ally to the LGBTQ+ Community Matters — Especially in Mental Health

Robyn Brickel — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 09:38:00 +0000

At our therapy practice, we believe that everyone deserves to feel seen, safe, and supported—exactly as they are. As therapists, we have the honor of walking alongside people in their most vulnerable moments. For LGBTQ+ individuals, that vulnerability is often compounded by societal stigma, rejection, and discrimination. This is why allyship is not just a buzzword—it’s a vital part of creating a world and a therapeutic environment where healing is truly possible.

What Does It Mean to Be an Ally?

Being an ally means more than expressing support—it means actively standing with and advocating for LGBTQ+ individuals in a way that uplifts, protects, and respects their identities. In the context of therapy and mental health, allyship also means creating affirming spaces where people of all gender identities and sexual orientations feel welcomed and understood.

Mental Health Disparities in the LGBTQ+ Community

LGBTQ+ individuals face significantly higher rates of mental health challenges, including depression, anxiety, PTSD, and suicidality. According to The Trevor Project, 41% of LGBTQ+ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year. These aren’t just statistics—they’re reflections of the real-world pain that stems from marginalization, bullying, family rejection, and lack of access to affirming care.

Being an ally can help disrupt these harmful patterns.

Why Allyship Matters in Therapy

Therapists hold a unique responsibility—and opportunity—to foster trust and safety. For LGBTQ+ clients, a validating therapist can be life-changing. Affirming care can reduce mental health risks, increase self-acceptance, and build resilience. On the flip side, experiences with non-affirming professionals can retraumatize clients or push them away from seeking care altogether.

This means being an ally in therapy isn’t just “nice to have”—it’s necessary.

Here are a few ways allyship shows up in therapeutic settings:

Using inclusive language and asking for (and respecting) pronouns.
Educating ourselves continuously about LGBTQ+ issues, terminology, and lived experiences.
Challenging biases, both our own and those present in systems or structures that affect our clients.
Creating a safe and welcoming physical space, including visible signs of support like inclusive literature, Pride symbols, or nondiscrimination policies.

How Everyone Can Be an Ally

Allyship isn’t only for therapists or mental health professionals. Friends, family, coworkers, and community members all have a role to play. Here are some simple but powerful actions:

Listen without judgment and believe people when they share their identity with you.
Speak up against anti-LGBTQ+ comments, jokes, or policies—even when it’s uncomfortable.
Support LGBTQ+ rights through advocacy, education, and voting.
Celebrate LGBTQ+ joy, not just struggle.

A Commitment to Inclusive Care

At Brickel and Associates, we are committed to providing inclusive, trauma-informed care for LGBTQ+ individuals and families. Whether you’re seeking support as an individual, a couple, or a parent navigating questions around identity, you are welcome here. Our team continues to learn, grow, and advocate—because allyship is not a destination. It’s an ongoing practice rooted in compassion, humility, and action.

We see you. We support you. And we’re honored to walk with you.

If you’re looking for affirming therapy or would like to learn more about our approach to inclusive care, reach out to our team. We’re here to help.

Photo by Cecilie Bomstad on Unsplash

Robyn Brickel

Robyn is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with 20+ years of experience providing psychotherapy, as well as the founder and clinical director of a private practice, Brickel and Associates, LLC in Old Town, Alexandria, Virginia. She and her team bring a strengths-based, trauma-informed, systems approach to the treatment of individuals (adolescents and adults), couples and families. She specializes in trauma (including attachment trauma) and the use of dissociative mechanisms; such as: self-harm, eating disorders and addictions. She also approaches treatment of perinatal mental health from a trauma-informed lens.

Robyn also guides clients and clinicians who wish to better understand the impact of trauma on mental health and relationships. She has a wide range of post graduate trauma and addictions education and is trained in numerous relational models of practice, including Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFT), the Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy (PACT), and Imago therapy. She is a trained Sensorimotor Psychotherapist and is a Certified EMDRIA therapist and Approved Consultant. Utilizing all of these tools, along with mindfulness and ego state work to provide the best care to her clients. She prides herself in always learning and expanding her knowledge on a daily basis about the intricacies of treating complex trauma and trauma’s impact on perinatal distress.

She frequently shares insights, resources and links to mental health news on Facebook and Twitter as well as in her blog at BrickelandAssociates.com

To contact Robyn directly:

Robyn@RobynBrickel.com

www.BrickelandAssociates.com

brickelandassociates.com/

The Loudest Things: Why Speaking Up Matters When Life is Not Feeling Right

Elizabeth Woods — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 10:28:00 +0000

Imagine that it’s late in the day, and you are still at the office. You’re stuck in a meeting that has dragged on for hours, and your boss is giving a boring presentation on budgets and project deadlines. What he is promoting, you already know, will not work. The figures are all wrong, and yet everyone in the room is listening and staring at him, quiet.

Can’t anyone see the errors?

Your mind starts to drift beyond the meeting. Your kids are waiting patiently for you to come home, and you can’t wait to see their young faces light up as you walk through the door.

One of your co-workers coughs and sets down a half-filled glass of water on the table. He makes noise doing so, and mumbles an apology.

The presentation carries on, but the numbers and profit margins only get worse. Things just don’t add up. You sigh and inwardly cringe at the errors in the data. Something is not right.

Do you speak up and risk the room and your boss resenting you for pointing out the mistakes? Or do you let it go? After all, you just want to go home.

The answer is not always a definitive “yes.” There are many reasons why we don’t speak up in meetings and in work settings. We fear being ridiculed and laughed at, or even worse–being completely ignored.

I usually speak up in situations like these, but reactions from colleagues have not always been welcomed. The truth can sting even the most stubborn of people. We have to find the right way to tell the truth. One way is to sugar-coat the obvious by buttering up our boss first in order to not offend, and then gently break down their useless presentation.

Why do we have to so carefully protect the egos of our colleagues? Why not just tell the truth?

The answer is that most people take criticism badly, even if you are right. There is a silent etiquette at play in the work environment, and sometimes we get it wrong. If not done carefully, helping might even be taken as offensive.

I’ve worked in several different offices before returning to work in an elementary school. It’s interesting to see the office/work politics happening between colleagues. Basically, it’s a microcosm of all kinds of people doing projects who would otherwise never mix outside of work. Of course, everyone is professional, but there is a tension caused by the politics that hangs in the air of our workspaces.

As a trauma survivor, I see the subtle shifts in body language like silent alarms. It’s interesting how human beings communicate with their bodies (and facial expressions) without saying a single word. I can tell if someone is not being truthful or holding something back, and I wonder why they choose not to speak their mind. Why can’t we be more honest with each other?

These same traits exist in the school environment, as well. The teacher’s lounge can be a toxic place, and sometimes I choose to be outside with my students instead of indoors with colleagues. Other times I need a break, and stay in my classroom pretending to organize. Truth is, I just need ten minutes to organize my thoughts without anyone else’s interference or opinions.

What do you do in your work environment when something is not right? Do you speak up, or do you let it slide?

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

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

For more about me: www.elizabethwoodsauthor.com

Support your fellow writer:

https://ko-fi.com/elizabe69245484

Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

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/

A Dragonfly Mosaic: My Journey from Fear to Love

Grace Mattoli — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 10:14:00 +0000

My Story in Brief

A Dragonfly Mosaic: My Journey from Fear to Love is the working title of the memoir I’m currently writing. It chronicles a lifetime shaped by complex trauma and my ongoing path toward healing. The sudden death of my mother when I was fifteen was the primary event that fractured my sense of safety, but it was not the only one. I grew up in a chaotic household dominated by my father’s severe alcoholism. Over time, I also experienced the premature deaths of my brother, sister, and longtime best friend. My life included domestic violence, police brutality, being struck by a truck while crossing the street, and a near-fatal reaction to medication. Of all these experiences, profound loss and abandonment cut the deepest.

I was eventually diagnosed with complex PTSD. For years, I lived with symptoms that shaped every aspect of my life: nightmares so intense that I had to scream myself awake, panic attacks, intrusive thoughts, and severe depression that led to suicidal ideation. I lived in a constant state of hypervigilance, plagued by anxiety and somatic symptoms, particularly digestive issues. I never felt safe.

The pain I carried felt unbearable. When it tried to surface, I did everything I could to suppress or escape it. Fantasy, emotional withdrawal, and constant movement became my coping strategies. Throughout my twenties and early thirties, I moved from place to place, believing that if I just kept going, I could outrun what lived inside me. Fear kept my pain alive, and fear kept me running. Even after I eventually settled down, the struggle continued. I tried to escape my pain by leaning heavily on others—calling, crying, seeking relief outside myself. Over the years, I explored a wide range of therapeutic approaches, both conventional and alternative. Slowly and often painfully, I moved from a life ruled by fear, addiction, and suicidal ideation toward learning how to sit with pain, integrate it, and ultimately meet it with compassion and love.

What Didn’t Work

Along the way, I tried many healing modalities that did not help me. These included energy-based practices, such as Reiki, which aim to balance the body’s energy centers. I tried homeopathy, based on the idea that “like heals like” through highly diluted substances. I tried Rolfing, a bodywork approach that attempts to release trauma through manipulation of the body’s fascia. While these practices may help others, they were ineffective for me. Some talk therapy experiences were also unhelpful, particularly those with counselors who were not trained in trauma-informed care. I spent years talking about my pain without learning how to process it. I also explored Internal Family Systems (IFS), which views the psyche as a system of “parts” guided by a core, compassionate Self. While this framework gave me valuable insight and language for understanding myself, it did not reduce my trauma symptoms. Each unsuccessful attempt left me more discouraged, reinforcing the belief that I was broken or beyond repair.

What Worked

One therapy that made a meaningful difference was EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). EMDR involves processing traumatic memories through guided eye movements, allowing the brain to refile them in a less distressing way. I was able to enter the altered, almost hypnotic state this therapy requires with relative ease. During sessions, my mind would move fluidly between memories, linking past experiences in unexpected ways. Often, an older, wiser version of myself would appear, offering comfort and re-parenting the younger me. In this sense, EMDR allowed me to retell my life story. While EMDR helped me significantly over time, in the short term, my symptoms intensified, especially my nightmares. Healing, I learned, is rarely linear. Another form of therapy that has helped—and that I continue to use—is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). ACT taught me something I had never learned before: how to stop fighting my pain. Instead of trying to eliminate difficult thoughts and emotions, ACT encourages acceptance while committing to a life guided by values. What I love about ACT is its practicality. It gave me concrete tools to sit with pain rather than flee from it. Over time, this approach freed me from relying on others for emotional regulation. I became more grounded, more independent, and more compassionate toward myself.

Medication was another critical piece of my healing, though I resisted it for years. Doctors, friends, and family members encouraged me to try antidepressants, but I was in deep denial about needing them. When I finally started Prozac at twenty-nine, it made a profound difference. It quieted my relentless mental loops and helped me to feel a sense of calm and clarity. I was fortunate not to experience significant side effects. Of the medications I’ve tried, Zoloft—the only SSRI FDA-approved for PTSD—has been the most effective for me. In more recent years, I participated in a guided psilocybin journey that helped me in ways that feel almost beyond language. It softened a deep, pervasive fear that had lived in my body for decades. Importantly, this experience did not replace my medication; it complemented the foundation I had already built.

Alongside professional support, I developed personal practices that continue to sustain me: meditation, prayer, exercise—especially yoga—time in nature, and nourishing my body with whole foods. I learned to see food as medicine, cut out alcohol and caffeine, limit sugar, and listen to what my body truly needed.

My Insights

My healing truly began when I stopped searching for one magical answer. I let go of the fantasy that there was a single cure, healer, or method that would make me whole. Instead, I accepted that healing from complex trauma is complex—it requires many tools, used together, over time. I stopped viewing conventional and alternative approaches as opposing camps and began embracing whatever genuinely helped. Even as psilocybin brought profound insight and relief, and as I continue to do occasional self-guided psilocybin journeys, I chose to remain on Zoloft, resisting the cultural pressure to abandon medication. Healing, I learned, does not have to follow someone else’s ideology.

For a long time, I believed I needed to be fixed. I was chasing perfection, a common trait among those with CPTSD. I wanted my pain to disappear, as if a magician could erase it and leave me unscarred. Eventually, I realized that my pain was not a defect—it was a part of me shaped by survival. I no longer demonize my pain or run from it in fear. I meet it. I sit with it. I listen to it. I love it. In doing so, I’ve become more whole—not by erasing the broken pieces, but by assembling them into something meaningful. I see myself now as a mosaic: fragments once shattered, carefully pieced together into a work of art that symbolizes resilience, growth, and transformation. A dragonfly mosaic. Healing is no longer something I’m trying to “get over with.” It’s an ongoing, living process—one I’ve learned to honor and even cherish.

Closing

I hope this post has offered comfort, insight, or a sense of companionship on your own journey. If you’d like to explore further, please visit my website, where you can read my latest post on the therapeutic value of Siddhartha and Slaughterhouse-Five for those living with CPTSD. You can also sign up for my newsletter to be notified when A Dragonfly Mosaic: My Journey from Fear to Love is released.

Biography
Grace Mattioli is the author of three novels: “Olive Branches Don’t Grow on Trees,” “Discovery of an Eagle,” and “The Bird that Sang in Color.” She is currently working on a memoir, “A Dragonfly Mosaic: My Journey from Fear to Love,” and several short stories. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and her cats. Her books are available from all major online book sellers, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple Books.

Photo by Rohan Makhecha on Unsplash

Grace Mattoli

How Writing Helped a Survivor Heal – and Find Joy!

Rachel Grant — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 10:53:56 +0000

Give yourself the pleasure of a functional life filled with people who believe you, who trust you, love you, and who accept the beauty and the wonder that is your strength.

I recently connected with Alle C. Hall, a sought-after author, speaker, writing instructor, and incest survivor known for her profound and compassionate insights into the joy, challenges, and successes that come from harnessing the creativity that heals trauma.

She and I had a great conversation about the power of stories to heal and reclaim joy, and I’m so glad to introduce you to this powerhouse woman!
—
RACHEL: What inspired you to start writing about/exploring this topic?

ALLE: I began writing professionally only a few months prior to uncovering a true willingness to accept the trauma that defined my childhood. Prior to that, I didn’t think about being abused; it was as complex and as simple as that. I survived well enough, given that I did not know how to love or be loved. Although I didn’t understand so at the time, it was as if having my work published gave my inner child that last little boost she needed to come forth and say, “Heal me. Now.”

In my healing process, I spent seven, maybe eight years in recovery from an eating disorder, alcoholism, and PTSD related to surviving childhood trauma before it occurred to me that my story could be altered in this fun (for me) way–and become a good book. Until the idea dawned, I found being a journalist completely satisfying.

I often wrote about women’s issues: topics such as female genital mutilation and sexism in the workplace. S*xual assault. My favorite piece to date was supposed to be a review of the musical Miss Saigon, but the day the copy was due, news broke that an Asian woman had been murdered by her husband. This white guy had (as I refer to in the article) “purchased” her through the magazine Cherry Blossoms. Claiming he was physically abusive, she was filing for divorce. She was in the actual courthouse when he walked up to her and shot her dead. She was pregnant.

I couldn’t help but see the overlap between magazines that marketed young, beautiful Asian women to white men in the States and the issues presented in Miss Saigon: denying female autonomy, the objectification of young Asian women, the insistence that they be beautiful, and the imperialistic dynamic often present in relationships between white men and Asian women. Suffice it to say, the show did not come across well in my review.

These such stories of women and girls have been critical to me. I remember when I first realized that the way girls were shaped by society was inequitable, unbearable, and just plain nonsensical. As soon as I started dedicating myself to writing about these things, I experienced a great sense of freedom from seeing sexism and misogyny right there in print. It gave me great purpose to be able to use my creativity to nail patriarchy and its toxic offshoots.

One afternoon at work, I had the entire outline for a book pop into my head: a girl is being abused, steals money to run away, comes into contact with a Lonely Planet guidebook, and decides to go to Asia. She gets to Asia and fucks up entirely due to the fact that she’s brought her own history in her backpack with her. I come across Tai chi and many generous and caring people who practice Tai chi.

There was never a question that the main character would find Tai chi. It wasn’t an element of the novel I weighed or debated. This detail existed from the moment the story popped into my head. My own practice led to choices about life that wouldn’t have happened had I not pursued the light and the positive circles that Tai chi offers.

It felt as though the story had been inside of me already for years: Asia, incest, pain, Tai chi, freedom, and learning to thrive. As I came to writing, it was only a matter of time until a novel based loosely on my childhood was going to come out.

Why write a novel? I published a number of first-person essays describing elements of my childhood and how I got through them. For some reason, the story in As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back just had to come out as a novel.

Why?

When I figure that out, I will be accepting my Nobel for Science.

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

ALLE: I’ll start with something many of your readers already know: most abuse is not snatch-her-off-the-street. Most abuse is perpetrated by family and/or other trusted adults. Every survivor I come in contact with struggles with wanting to have their family, particularly the perpetrator, admit to the abuse and apologize. There is, sometimes unspoken, often subconscious–an idea that getting them to apologize is the key to healing.

Don’t wait for anyone else’s acknowledgment before you let yourself heal. Believe in yourself and move into your recovery program. Give yourself the pleasure of a functional life filled with people who believe you, who trust you, love you, and who accept the beauty and the wonder that is your strength.

And be open to miracles. You never know who in your family or community is going to come out in support of you.

Secondly, I would stress that financial independence is really critical.

I’m not saying you need to be rich. I’m saying you need to know you can take care of yourself.

It is very hard to experience healing when those who caused the damage are partially or in full your source of income–even paying for your recovery processes.

For two years, I made between $6.50 and $8.50 an hour as a receptionist. It was the only job I could handle while in the initial stages of getting my head together. But I got by. I was really proud of supporting myself despite every person in my childhood who told me I couldn’t. I had always been dependent on my family. Slowly, step by reasonable step, I built a career writing and teaching about surviving trauma through harnessing creative expression.

Which brings me to my final point: unresolved trauma sits like a blanket, wet and heavy over the hippocampus, which is a part of the brain primary to holding the different facets of trauma: the physical, the spiritual, the emotional, the sexual, and the intellectual. The hippocampus can file images of the abuse separate from the memory of it, and separate from the emotions locked there: anger, shame, pain, guilt, and loneliness.

The hippocampus is also the seat of our creativity. Anyone can work to harness whatever form of creativity they enjoy to physically push the trauma out of their body. I know people who discover they are visual artists, chefs, potters, or great storytellers. Or maybe they make quilts, or parent in the most amazing way imaginable. It doesn’t matter what you do to express yourself. As long as it doesn’t involve damaging or illegal behavior, you can harness that creativity to flush the trauma and generate still more creative expression, flushing out still more trauma.

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

ALLE: I’ll start with that last part, because it’s the easiest to formulate sentences about–though perhaps the hardest to commit to: you just cannot give up.

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

My experience is that overcoming trauma and abuse comes down to accepting that while it was bad and horrible and wrong, it did happen. I learned to accept that it happened without condoning it.

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

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

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

ALLE: What a timely question, given how we are focused on the women abused as girls (and older) by Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and all those powerful, rich men. It wasn’t until a month or so ago that we started hearing the women referred to as survivors. They are generally called victims.

The public at large needs to be shown that while abuse survivors were victimized, we are no longer victims. We live with joy in conjunction with an awareness of–and despite–the world being what it is.

Another misconception is that the survivors are at fault. The truth is: we didn’t hurt anyone. We didn’t commit crimes. Child abuse is a crime.

In addition, there is the idea that we’re supposed to be weak–perhaps kept in bed, and fed soup.

Of course, people are shocked and horrified when they hear what I went through, and that is fair. But too many people lack the understanding of how strong someone has to be to survive childhood trauma, and sexual trauma. We are so strong.

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

ALLE: It is of primary importance to accept that you need help getting through this. While you might have been alone when the abuse took place, you aren’t alone now. There are so many amazing people with wisdom to share about surviving, healing, and thriving, and they want to listen and help. There are great worlds of joy to experience, and they are waiting for you.

As I’ve said, and will reiterate here: 12-Step programs.

Additionally, there is a wonderful national non-profit organization called She Recovers. They have local groups and online communities that meet regularly.

I have a small, private Facebook group called Reading and Writing Trauma. I’d love you to join us–especially if you like reading books about surviving trauma. Also, if you’re interested in writing and even publishing your stories, we’re a great place to get that information.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/587401290619506

—I wholeheartedly echo everything Alle has shared here. If you’re on a journey of healing or exploring how creativity can help you move forward, I encourage you to check out her work, her novel, and the wonderful resources she offers for insight, encouragement, and inspiration.

To Joy!

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

Photo by x ) on Unsplash

Rachel Grant

www.rachelgrantcoaching.com

Cassandra’s Legacy: A Brief History of Gaslighting

Sophia Rehmus — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 09:38:10 +0000

Cassandra, the Prophetess of Troy, whose name in Greek means “she who entangles men,” rejected the sexual advances of the god Apollo in his temple. As punishment, Apollo invalidated Cassandra’s gift of prophecy: henceforth, no one would believe her, even when her prophesies were true.[1] Contemporary psychology coined the term “The Cassandra Effect” to describe the neurotic state of women like Cassandra who, by being repeatedly disbelieved by society and by their communities, descend into madness.[2]

Centuries later, the myth of Cassandra lives on in contemporary culture not as legend, but as the very real phenomenon of gaslighting. Gaslighting, a term that developed from Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 play, Gas Light,is a form of emotional and psychological abuse that manipulates victims into doubting their thoughts, perceptions, feelings, and memories.[3] Like Apollo, abusers use gaslighting to “undermine self‐confidence” and “cause victims to doubt their sense of reality and/or sanity.”[4] In particular, abusers use gaslighting to cause their victims to “back down, withdraw complaints, and assume responsibility for conflicts in the relationship.”[5] In Cassandra’s case, Apollo undermined her right to bodily autonomy (and moreover, her right to assert that right) by discrediting her ability to tell the truth and be believed. In doing so, he stripped away her power and her integrity. Ultimately, by driving her to madness, he turned her against herself.

If this dynamic sounds familiar, it’s because gaslighting is an ancient method of manipulation used not only by individuals, but by oppressive systems like patriarchy, racism, and capitalism (though that is by no means an exhaustive list). It is a darkly brilliant one–what better way to control people than by making them question their own self-preservation instincts? What evil genius, to make them believe there’s something wrong with them if they advocate for themselves!

The phenomena of gaslighting and, therefore, cognitive dissonance are especially present in pathological love relationships

Philosophy professor Cynthia A. Stark, in her article “Gaslighting, Misogyny, and Psychological Oppression,” remarks on gaslighting in the context of patriarchy: “[m]isogyny is enacted…primarily through the displacement component of gaslighting: men who are credibly accused of abuse by women (or the allies of those men) punish women for those accusations by ascribing defects to them to ‘explain’ their accusations…the stronger the evidence of abuse…the more sinister is the attribution of the defect.”[6]

She goes on to say that “gaslighters adopt the plainly immoral assumption that a female victim of grievous harm has no right to complain if the perpetrator is a high-status male.”[7] Today, this tactic remains effective and pervasive. People are willing to have opinions as to the reasons for why women come forward with alleged abuse (they’re needy, mentally ill, selfish, etc.). Other, that is, than the obvious one: they’re telling the truth.

With regard to racism, examples of cultural and collective gaslighting are equally infinite. Consider the psychiatric diagnosis drapetomania, or runaway slave syndrome, which was used to diagnose and pathologize runaway slaves in the Antebellum period, or the fact that psychiatrists in the Civil Rights Era used the concept of schizophrenia to portray Black Americans as “violent, hostile, and paranoid” (to this day, Black and African American people are diagnosed with schizophrenia more than White people).[8] These “diagnoses” represent just one of many efforts to pathologize and stigmatize the very appropriate fight or flight responses–the righteous anger and desire for freedom–that ensure black people’s survival in a racist society.

And then there is capitalism, which is “the biggest gaslighter of them all,” according to the science, psychiatry, and social justice journal Mad in America. In their article “Capitalism and Coercive Control,” they write that “most people recognize that the system is unfair and brutal, but authority figures of various sorts keep telling us how great it is, how lucky we are to have a job and how free we are.”[9] Personally, I have tried to opt out of the rat race as much as my circumstances allow–partly because of lifestyle preferences, and partly because my C-PSTD brain simply can’t take it. I am easily overwhelmed by highly competitive atmospheres, harsh or unforgiving communication styles, any real or perceived violation of personal boundaries, and authoritarian bosses who make me walk on eggshells. As such, I have chosen an untraditional, lesser-paying career path to protect my peace and mental health. This is a choice I often have to remind myself is the best choice for me.

In short, we as a global society feel the effects of structural gaslighting through oppressive systems like racism, capitalism, and patriarchy. But how are we affected on a personal level? What does the experience of being gaslit actually feel like? How does gaslighting occur in relationships? Why exactly is it so damaging?

In short, we as a global society feel the effects of structural gaslighting through oppressive systems like racism, capitalism, and patriarchy.

The most overarching answer to these questions lies in the term cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance occurs when one is faced with two sets of competing and dichotomous relationship experiences, memories, and opinions and/or emotions.[10] When an abuser gaslights their victim, they are causing that person to feel cognitive dissonance–a sense of deep, often surreal, inner conflict of contrasting perceptions about the partner, the relationship, and themselves.[11] This inner confusion and conflict, if ongoing, can lead to severe impairments to a victim’s functioning, including chronic second‐guessing and doubting one’s decisions, overthinking and analysis paralysis, extreme guilt about setting boundaries, and rigid expectations of self and others.[12]

The phenomena of gaslighting and, therefore, cognitive dissonance are especially present in pathological love relationships. The Institute for Relational Harm Reduction and Public Pathology Education revealed in their 2007 Aftermath Symptom Survey that cognitive dissonance is the number one symptom survivors feel after a relationship with a pathological abuser. Narcissists and psychopaths, who have naturally dichotomous Jekyll-and-Hyde personalities, force their victims to navigate their inherently contradictory and crazy-making behavior. In turn, survivors experience their pathological partners as sources of both immense validation and extreme punishment, of generosity and encouragement yet horrible degradation and cruelty, and of both the best and absolute worst experiences of their lives.[13] Victims come to expect extremes in a relationship, and often view themselves in similarly extreme and contradictory ways.

…

The myth of Cassandra parallels the gaslighting that oppressed and abused people face. However, there is a hopeful difference between the myth and reality. While Cassandra was never believed (her accurate predictions of the fall of Troy and the death of the Greek king, Agamemnon, went unheeded), victims of gaslighting can take comfort in the knowledge that, even when they feel most insane and alone, there is always someone who believes and understands. And sometimes it only takes one person to pull us out of the fog.

I recently finished Shari Franke’s memoir, The House of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom, which chronicles her adverse childhood under the control of her vlogger mom, Ruby Franke. In it, she describes one of these “being pulled out of the fog” moments. For the first time, an adult in her life, her therapist, tells her that her mom is emotionally abusive. The word “abusive” at first feels exaggerated and extreme to Shari, and she can hear her mother’s disdainful voice in her head telling her she’s being dramatic. But then…

“It felt like I was waking up from a long, hazy dream. The fog was lifting, and in its place was a blinding, brilliant truth: It wasn’t me. It had never been me. The dysfunction, the chaos…it was all Ruby. It always had been.”[14]

Shari’s epiphany in this moment mirrors my own experience, when my therapist became the first person to call my father’s behavior abusive, and when I finally realized that there was never anything wrong with me. When I started to distance myself from the lie that was causing me so much pain and suffering. It touched me that in both stories, one person had such an immense impact in relieving our gaslighting symptoms.

In her essay, “Testimonial Injustice,” Miranda Fricker defines testimonial injustice, a similar concept to gaslighting, as “a kind of injustice in which someone is wronged specifically in her capacity as a knower.”[15] I wish for every survivor that they can break free from the influences of gaslighting and testimonial injustice, and rebuild, with the help of those who believe them–their capacity as knowers.

[1] Rajan, V. G. Julie, and Sanja Bahun-Radunović. Myth and Violence in the Contemporary Female Text: New Cassandras. (Routledge, 2016), 1.

[2] Ibid., 1.

[3] Marlow-MaCoy, Amy. “Narcissistic Abuse for Therapists Empower Clients to Break Free and Recover from Gaslighting, Emotional Manipulation and Coercion.” (PESI), 22.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Stark, Cynthia A. “Gaslighting, misogyny, and psychological oppression.” (The Monist, vol. 102, no. 2, 9 Mar. 2019), 227.

[7] Ibid., 229

[8] Dr. Corey Williams, opinion contributor. “Black Americans Don’t Trust Our Healthcare System – Here’s Why.” The Hill, 25 Aug. 2017.

[9] “Capitalism and Coercive Control.” Mad in America: Science, Psychiatry, and Social Justice, 10 Aug. 2022.

[10] Brown, Sandra L. “Narcissistic and Psychopathic Abuse: Clinical Tools, Techniques, and Trauma-Informed Treatment Protocols.” (PESI), 23.

[11] Ibid., 26.

[12] Marlow-MaCoy, Amy. “Narcissistic Abuse for Therapists Empower Clients to Break Free and Recover from Gaslighting, Emotional Manipulation and Coercion,” 63.

[13] Ibid., 24

[14] Franke, Shari. The House of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom. (Gallery Books, 2025), 258.

[15] Fricker, Miranda. “Testimonial Injustice.” Epistemic Justice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing (2007), 20.

Photo by Taras Chernus on Unsplash

Sophia Rehmus

Meeting the Bear: What Nervous-System Healing Looks Like in Real Time

Wendy Hoke — Thu, 01 Jan 2026 16:13:52 +0000

I am a mountain climber at heart, and I live in California, home to the Sierra Nevadas. I’ve spent much of my life moving through the backcountry with a pack on my shoulders. Over time, I learned to bring only what truly matters for survival. The lack of comforts never felt like loss. If anything, it sharpened my sense of peace—walking through open meadows, beside alpine lakes, and beneath vast, silent peaks.

Many years ago, while hiking out from Thousand Island Lake, I rounded a sharp bend in the trail and nearly walked straight into a bear sitting in the middle of it. We were no more than four feet apart. For a brief moment, we simply stared at each other.

Then something interesting happened.

Before fear could take over, there was a pause. The bear assessed me. I assessed the bear. Two nervous systems met, gathered information, and decided what level of response was necessary.

My first conscious thought was practical and immediate: ditch the backpack!

If the bear wanted my food, it could have it. And if I needed to run, carrying a fifty-pound pack would make that impossible. In the same moment, the bear stood up, stepped calmly off the trail, turned around, and sat down—watching me.

I adjusted my pack and kept walking. When I looked back, the bear was still there, seated, alert, and unmoving.

Nothing dramatic followed. And yet, that moment stayed with me.

What Nervous-System Literacy Really Means

Years later, I understand why.

Nervous-system literacy isn’t about eliminating fear. Fear is not the enemy. Fear is information. What matters is whether our nervous system has enough capacity to use that information rather than be overwhelmed by it.

For those of us living with PTSD, this distinction is crucial. Trauma conditions the nervous system to react quickly and intensely—often for good reason. Hypervigilance, rapid threat detection, and strong survival responses once kept us safe. But when those responses remain locked on high, even in the absence of present danger, they can pull us into patterns of overengagement, collapse, or reenactment.

Healing doesn’t mean never feeling fear again. It means creating enough internal space to pause.

That pause—sometimes only a second long—is where choice lives.

Regulation Is Often Quiet

In popular culture, recovery is often portrayed as dramatic or visibly triumphant. But real nervous-system regulation is usually subtle. No one watching my encounter with the bear would have known that anything significant had occurred. There was no display of courage or mastery.

I didn’t dominate the moment.

I didn’t flee it.

I stayed present.

That presence wasn’t accidental. It was the result of a nervous system that had lived through trauma and was slowly learning to distinguish between current danger and remembered threat.

This is what lived recovery often looks like. Quiet. Unremarkable. Effective.

Applying Nervous-System Literacy to Human Relationships

The same principles apply far beyond the wilderness.

Many PTSD survivors find themselves repeatedly drawn into intense emotional dynamics with people who are dysregulated, time-collapsed, or reliving unresolved trauma. When another person is operating from a past emotional reality, their urgency can feel contagious. Our nervous system may register it as danger, compelling us to explain, fix, defend, or contain.

But engagement is not always required.

Just as with the bear, not every perceived threat calls for confrontation or escape. Sometimes the most regulated response is continued forward motion—staying grounded in the present and refusing to carry more than is ours.

Nervous-system literacy allows us to ask different questions:

Is this a present-moment threat, or an echo from the past?
What response is proportionate to what’s actually happening now?
Am I being pulled into someone else’s survival state?

These questions don’t arise from intellect alone. They come from embodied awareness.

Carrying Only What Is Yours

In the mountains, you learn quickly that carrying unnecessary weight is dangerous. The same is true emotionally.

For PTSD survivors, there is often a long history of carrying what did not belong to us—other people’s emotions, responsibilities, or crises. Recovery involves relearning where we end, and others begin.

Sometimes that means being willing to drop the pack if necessary.

Not because we don’t care, but because survival requires discernment.

Recovery as Integration

Looking back, the most striking part of that encounter wasn’t the bear. It was the pause. Two nervous systems met, assessed, and adjusted without escalation.

That pause is the fruit of healing.

Recovery from trauma is not about becoming fearless or unreactive. It is about restoring enough internal safety to remain present—to recognize danger accurately, respond proportionately, and move forward without reenacting the past.

Sometimes recovery looks dramatic.

Often, it looks like nothing at all.

And that is how you know it’s working.

Photo by Becca on Unsplash

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.

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