I spent over 10 years with my first psychiatrist. She thought my biggest issue was depression, and medicated me for it. Then, I spent almost 10 years with my second. He felt depression was still present, but there was anxiety as well, which meant more meds. And now I was with my third. We’d only been together about a year. She agreed with all prior diagnoses and prescriptions, but felt there were mood issues too. She added even more meds. 

If the reason I switched doctors was that I felt like my diagnosis was wrong and the medication was wrong, why did they just keep adding a new diagnosis and more pills? Isn’t that wrong? In my high school years, I was a science nerd, so I’m familiar with the scientific method. Mrs. Martone would have certainly failed us if we designed an experiment like that! As a doctor, how can you ever know whether you’ve fixed the original problem with the first pill, if you just keep adding more pills?

By the time the third psychiatrist wrote another prescription, I was fed up with the bad science. I finally said to her, “You can’t possibly know what’s wrong with me. What are we even treating anymore? I’m on like six different pills! My side effects have side effects.” 

And here’s what she replied, “But you need the pills to be happy.”

I laughed. Snarfed. Probably scoffed. And then, the hysterics. Once I could take a breath, I offered this, “I adamantly believe that I don’t need your pills. They make me miserable. I need to understand who I am and what my issues are without taking any meds.” 

“But Denise, you can’t just stop taking your meds.” 

And she was right. I had already done my research and designed a week-by-week plan to step down off everything safely. And I wasn’t going to go it alone. I was going to step down with my psychologist by my side. The one who I actually trusted. The one who actually knew how to listen. The one who eventually diagnosed me correctly: I had PTSD.

Because in all those years of seeing psychiatrists and getting medicated for things like depression, anxiety, and mood issues what they all missed was the problem wasn’t me, but my marriage. No one gets PTSD—particularly not chronic PTSD—from a happy marriage.

As my brain started to heal from all the over-medicated madness and my mind was becoming my own again, I noticed strange things about my marital memories. 

First, after the PTSD diagnosis—as I was doing intensive work with my psychologist—I’d bring up newly surfacing memories. She’d respond: “You never told me that.” It was as though certain marital memories had gotten lost in my brain somewhere. As though the memory storage got messed up–and now they were all coming back.

Now, I hear what you’re thinking. Perhaps I have a wild imagination. Maybe I’m lying. But my experience matches what the research says: some patients report memory issues after long-term use of antidepressants. We are also starting to see more memoirs about reclaiming ourselves and our memories after long-term psychiatric drug use. Obviously, I’m not alone. 

Also notable about my newly remembered memories—they were the kind you really don’t want to remember. Blocking out bad memories is just a run-of-the-mill psychological defense mechanism. Those symptoms of depression, anxiety, and mood issues that I’d presented to psychiatrists over the years are all common signs of emotional abuse. I was grateful to have my psychologist to help me handle my difficult past that I hadn’t even realized was derailing my present.

Sadly, when memory storage and processing are messed up by medication, we can’t even react properly to the events we’re experiencing. Recently, I’ve been recounting some tough memories with my mom ranging from: 

• Small things like I was never allowed to buy a new bike even though I’ve been an avid cyclist my whole life
• To larger things like I did not spend my daughter’s first birthday with her because “someone” and his mother took my daughter away on an unnecessary trip
• To completely life-altering stuff–like I wasn’t allowed to move anywhere in pursuit of my academic career.

Now that my mom and I can be truly honest about my marriage, she says, “I never understood why you just let those things happen, and didn’t consider leaving him.” 

Honestly, I blame the meds.

Thanks to those meds, I spent my marriage blissfully unaware of what I was enduring. On the day my psychologist diagnosed me with PTSD from just one marital memory, I thought I was in a loving marriage to a loving man and that I had a beautiful life. But my newly resurfaced memories reveal that I was with someone who did not know how to listen, support my career, or acknowledge and address my emotional needs. I’m sorry, but that’s not true love.

My psychologist even believes I was dissociated most of my marriage. According to Mental Health America, dissociation is when a person loses connection to their thoughts, their memories, and their sense of identity. It’s a coping mechanism for chronic stress. That would explain how I developed chronic posttraumatic stress disorder while thinking I was in a loving marriage. 

In terms of healing from my symptoms of C-PTSD, I’ve taken a non-prescription approach. My supplements include:

• ashwagandha to reduce stress
• magnesium to aid sleep and ease anxiety
• Omega 3 to increase blood flow to my brain and expedite healing
• and L-Theanine to calm my mind at night and promote sleep.

Sure, some days are hard and I feel “down.” But as my close friends now know, I have my own way of powering through. Maybe I’ll write an angry poem. Maybe I stomp around my kitchen to an angry song. But I’ll never again take a med that numbs me to my own emotions, memories, or reactions. That’s dangerous. I’d rather use my own resilience. That’s my superpower.

My chronic PTSD diagnosis forced me to wake up from my manufactured reality like Neo in The Matrix. The “reality” of my marriage was a medicated illusion. And when I woke up from my Matrix—it wasn’t pretty. 

At the time of my diagnosis, I was blissfully unaware of many things about my life. So just like Neo, I took an arduous journey of personal transformation. Now, I’m blissfully aware and ready for whatever the future may hold—provided it’s prescription-free. 

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

That wording problem can follow a trauma survivor for years. Once a person is labeled angry, people often stop looking for the condition underneath the reaction. They hear irritation and assume hostility. They see impatience and assume aggression. They watch someone go from calm to overwhelmed in seconds and decide the person has a temper, when the clinical picture may be far more specific.

Frustration usually begins with obstruction. Something is in the way. A plan fails. A task will not work. A person is trying to get through the day and another delay, demand, noise, or correction lands in the middle of already limited tolerance. The reaction may be sharp, but the center of it is blocked movement. The person is not necessarily trying to attack anyone, they are trying to get past something they do not have the internal room to handle well.

That low tolerance can come from many places: poor sleep, chronic pain, depression, neurological fatigue, untreated anxiety, trauma load, financial stress, caregiving demands, sensory overload, or too many years of functioning without enough recovery. A person who becomes frustrated quickly may need accountability for how they speak, but the first clinical question should be what their system is already carrying before the obstacle appears.

Irritability works differently–It is not always tied to one blocked goal. Rather, it is a lowered threshold across the person’s whole nervous system. The sound is too much, the question is too much, the repeated interruption is too much, the harmless delay feels intrusive, and the minor inconvenience lands with more force than necessary. In trauma work, irritability often sits close to hyperarousal. The person is not resting in the room because their body is scanning it. Small changes get registered as possible trouble–a tone of voice, a slammed cabinet, an unexpected touch, a crowded store, a slow driver, a vague text message, or someone standing too close. By the time the person explains the reaction, the reaction has already happened.

That is one reason behaviors of trauma survivors are often misinterpreted. The outside world sees the edge, hears the bite in the sentence, and sees the face change. It may never see the body underneath it trying to manage threat, fatigue, shame, noise, memory, and fear in the same instant. From the outside, irritability can look like contempt. From the inside, it may feel like being crowded by life.

Anger has a different force behind it. Usually, anger carries the perception of harm, threat, insult, violation, betrayal, injustice, or danger. It has a push in it–it wants correction, distance, protection, confrontation, or relief. Anger can be appropriate when feeling abused, exploited, lied to, cornered, or harmed. A complete lack of anger in the face of violation is not health–it’s often shutdown wearing a peace mask. The problem comes when anger becomes intimidation, punishment, cruelty, verbal aggression, physical aggression, or emotional control. Trauma may explain how the person got there, but it does not excuse staying there. A trauma history can help identify the route into the reaction, but it cannot make other people responsible for absorbing the damage.

That is where the language has to be exact. “I am frustrated” usually means something is blocking me. “I am irritable” usually means my threshold is low and too many things are hitting too hard. “I am angry” usually means I perceive harm, threat, injustice, or violation. Those states can overlap, but they are not the same clinical event, and they should not be treated as if they are.

The common claim that “real anger only lasts seven seconds” is too neat for human behavior. The first physiological spike may be brief because the body can surge quickly and begin to settle if the threat passes. But anger can last when the person keeps mentally returning to the injury, when the source of the injury remains present, when shame has turned defensive, when fear has not been named, or when the person has learned over years that escalation is the only way to get a response. Many people are not walking around in pure anger–they are walking around with fear under armor, grief with a voice, shame sharpened into defense, or exhaustion that has lost its manners.

For trauma survivors, better language can interrupt years of self-mislabeling. A person who says, “I am angry all the time,” may discover they are frustrated by repeated obstruction, irritable from chronic hyperarousal, and angry only when a real or perceived violation occurs. That difference can change the work because it can move the person from self-condemnation into self-examination without removing responsibility for repair.

For families, friends, and clinicians, the same precision can slow down lazy judgment. Not every sharp response is rage, not every impatient sentence is hostility, and not every withdrawal is contempt. Sometimes the person is overloaded, not cruel. Sometimes they are frightened, not defiant. Sometimes they are trying to stay present while the body is already preparing to leave, fight, freeze, or disappear.

None of that gives trauma the right to run the household, the therapy room, the workplace, or the relationship. People living with trauma still have to learn how their reactions land on others, they still have to apologize when they wound someone, and they still have to build enough self-awareness to say, “I am overloaded,” instead of making the room pay for an old injury.

But the people around them have a duty, too, especially in clinical and caregiving settings. They need to stop using “angry” as a catch-all word for every uncomfortable emotional display. Mislabeling does not calm anyone down. It usually drives the person further into defense because now they are not only dysregulated; they are being inaccurately described while trying to regain control. A better vocabulary will not heal trauma, repair a nervous system, erase history, or excuse bad conduct, but it does give everyone a more honest place to begin. Frustration asks what is blocked. Irritability asks what is overloaded. Anger asks what has been threatened or violated.

Once the wrong word is used, the wrong story usually follows. In trauma work, the wrong story can keep a person trapped inside a label that was never clinically accurate in the first place.

Sources

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

American Psychological Association. (2017). Clinical practice guideline for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in adults. American Psychological Association.

National Institute of Mental Health. (2024). Post-traumatic stress disorder. National Institute of Mental Health.

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, National Center for PTSD. (2025). Anger and trauma. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

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

World Health Organization. (2024). International classification of diseases for mortality and morbidity statistics (11th rev.). World Health Organization.

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

Toxic Positivity- Ew!

Snark Warning: This post has a satisfying amount of snark. It is intended to feel cathartic for frustrated recipients of shallow platitudes. For those who are well meaning and have said these things in ignorance, there is no true malice in this post. Just some light hearted sass and enlightenment. Carry on.

You’re sitting across from someone—maybe a friend, a family member, or even a therapist who should know better—and you’ve just shared a fragment of your trauma story. The room fills with that uncomfortable silence that survivors know all too well. Then it comes: “Well, you know what they say, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” And just like that, your complex, painful, ongoing reality has been reduced to a bumper sticker slogan.

If you’ve survived narcissistic abuse, complex trauma, or any form of prolonged trauma, you’ve likely heard a collection of these dismissive platitudes. They often come from well-meaning people who genuinely think they’re helping, which somehow makes it even worse. Not only are you dealing with your trauma, but now you’re also burdened with managing someone else’s discomfort with your pain—smiling politely while screaming internally.

How It Feels to Be on the Receiving End

When someone responds to your vulnerability with a platitude, the effect is immediate and visceral. Your chest tightens. Your throat constricts. That brief moment of connection you thought you were having vanishes.

In that instant, you’re faced with an impossible choice: Do you nod and smile to preserve the relationship, knowing you’ve just been fundamentally misunderstood? Do you summon the energy to educate them, when you’re already depleted from carrying your trauma? Or do you express genuine frustration, risking being labeled as “too sensitive” or “negative”?

Many survivors describe feeling instantly isolated when these comments come—like they’ve been pushed back into a box of acceptable suffering. There’s a special kind of loneliness in being told, essentially, that your pain should be more manageable, more meaningful, or more temporary than it actually is.

Physically, your body might respond as if to a threat (because invalidation is threatening to someone healing from trauma). Your heart rate increases. Your thoughts race. The very nervous system you’ve been working so hard to regulate is now dysregulated again—all because someone couldn’t sit with discomfort long enough to offer genuine support.

Let’s rip the band-aid off these toxic positivity statements and examine why they’re not just unhelpful, but actively harmful to trauma survivors.

1. “What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger”

Let’s start with the heavyweight champion of terrible advice. This saying suggests that trauma is somehow a character-building exercise, a cosmic gym membership you never signed up for.

Here’s the truth: Trauma doesn’t make you stronger; it depletes you. It taxes your nervous system, rewires your brain for constant danger, and drains the emotional resources you need for everyday functioning. Survivors aren’t “stronger” for having endured abuse—they’re working with damaged neural pathways, hypervigilance, and often a profound sense of disconnection from themselves and others.

Survivors aren’t “strong”—they’re exhausted from carrying weights others never had to lift. They’re functioning despite the burden of invisible triggers, flashbacks, and somatic responses that the average person never has to manage.

What survivors develop isn’t “strength” but survival adaptations—many of which actually make life more difficult once the danger has passed. That hyper-awareness of others’ moods that kept you safe around an unpredictable abuser? It now exhausts you in normal social situations. That ability to dissociate when things get overwhelming? It now makes it hard to stay present during important moments.

Trauma survivors aren’t stronger. They’re working overtime just to achieve what might come naturally to others, like feeling safe in a relationship or not panicking at unexpected sounds.

2. “Everything Happens for a Reason”

This platitude suggests that your trauma was somehow part of a grand cosmic plan—that the abuse you endured was somehow necessary or purposeful.

Let’s be crystal clear: There is no “reason” good enough to justify abuse. None. Zero. Full stop.

This statement is a classic example of spiritual bypassing—using spiritual explanations to avoid confronting the uncomfortable reality of suffering. It’s easier to believe in a universe where everything has meaning than to acknowledge that sometimes terrible things happen randomly to good people. But packaging abuse as “part of the plan” or a “lesson you needed to learn” is not only false—it’s cruel.

When someone suggests your trauma “happened for a reason,” they’re unwittingly asking you to find meaning in your suffering to make them more comfortable with the random cruelty of the world. It places the burden on you to extract some profound lesson from your pain, rather than acknowledging the simple truth: what happened to you was wrong, and you deserved better.

It also subtly suggests that if you can’t find this mythical “reason,” you’re somehow failing at processing your trauma correctly. As if recovery means reframing abuse as a blessing in disguise rather than recognizing it as the injustice it was.

3. “God Doesn’t Give You More Than You Can Handle”

This faith-based variation of “everything happens for a reason” adds a particularly painful layer for many survivors. It suggests not only that your trauma was intentional, but that it was calibrated specifically for your capacity—that some divine entity looked at you and decided you were strong enough to endure abuse.

What’s particularly frustrating about this platitude is that it’s based on a misinterpretation of scripture. The verse commonly referenced is 1 Corinthians 10:13, which actually states: “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

This passage is specifically about temptation—not trauma, suffering, or abuse. It’s about God providing a way to resist moral or spiritual challenges, not about God deliberately giving people suffering to test their strength. The misapplication of this scripture to trauma situations completely distorts its original meaning.

While this phrase originates from a Christian context, similar ideas exist across many faith traditions—and when misapplied, they share the same harm: recasting abuse as divine will. Whether it’s karma, fate, or providence, the suggestion that suffering was somehow divinely ordained can compound trauma with spiritual distress.

What this platitude fails to acknowledge is that many people don’t “handle” trauma—they are broken by it. They develop debilitating mental health conditions, turn to substance abuse to cope, or even take their own lives. Were these people simply given “more than they could handle”? The logic quickly falls apart.

For survivors with spiritual or religious beliefs, this statement can create a spiritual crisis on top of trauma. It portrays God as someone who deliberately inflicts or allows suffering as a test, instead of portraying God as a source of comfort and healing.

Even for those who find comfort in faith, healing often comes from understanding that trauma wasn’t part of a divine plan, but rather the result of human choices, random chance, or systemic failures—and that divine support can also come in the form of healing resources, supportive people, and inner strength to begin recovery.

4. “God Helps Those Who Help Themselves”

Ah yes, the favorite platitude of people who’ve never actually read the Bible but love to weaponize religion against those who are suffering. Let’s get this straight: this phrase appears exactly zero times in scripture. Not once. It’s as biblical as “cleanliness is next to godliness” or “money is the root of all evil” (it’s actually “the LOVE of money is a root of all kinds of evil”) —which is to say, not biblical at all.

The saying actually traces back to Aesop’s fable about a wagoner whose cart gets stuck in mud. When the driver prays to Hercules for help without trying to push his cart first, Hercules essentially tells him to put his own shoulder to the wheel before asking for divine intervention. So unless you’re worshipping the Greek demigod Hercules instead of the God of the Bible, you might want to reconsider this theological hot take. Benjamin Franklin later popularized the phrase, and somehow this advice about muddy cart wheels became the go-to spiritual weapon against trauma survivors who can’t just “bootstrap” their way through PTSD.

When directed at trauma survivors, this platitude becomes particularly toxic. It suggests that if you’re still struggling, you simply haven’t “earned” divine help yet. Still having flashbacks? Clearly you’re not praying hard enough or doing enough spiritual pushups to deserve God’s assistance. Having trouble functioning after abuse? Well, God’s waiting in the wings with healing, but first you need to prove you’re worthy by magically fixing yourself.

The cruel irony is that this saying completely inverts the central message of grace found throughout actual scripture. The Bible repeatedly shows God helping precisely those who cannot help themselves—the vulnerable, the broken, the traumatized. Psalms 34:18 explicitly states, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Not “The Lord is close to those who have their act together enough to deserve his attention.”

When someone drops this spiritual grenade in your lap, they’re essentially saying: “Your continued suffering is evidence of your spiritual failure.” It’s victim-blaming dressed up in religious language, suggesting that healing is a simple matter of effort rather than a complex neurobiological process that requires appropriate support and resources.

When faced with this particular gem of invalidation, you might respond:

“Fascinating how that phrase isn’t actually in the Bible.”

“I prefer to focus on the parts of scripture that talk about compassion for the suffering.”

“My trauma therapist and my understanding of faith don’t quite align with that view.”

Or my personal favorite: “Actually, the Bible repeatedly shows God helping those who precisely cannot help themselves. But thanks for your theological input.”

The truth is that trauma recovery often begins at exactly the point where self-help fails—when we acknowledge that we cannot heal alone and need support, whether divine or human. There’s no spiritual merit badge for suffering in silence, despite what these platitude-pushers might have you believe.

5. “Just Let It Go and Move On”

If trauma survivors could simply “let go” of their experiences, don’t you think they would have done so already? Nobody earnestly trying to heal “chooses suffering,” as some uninformed outsiders might claim. This statement fundamentally misunderstands how trauma operates in the brain and body.

Trauma isn’t stored as a normal memory that you can choose to forget. It’s encoded differently—often as fragmented sensory experiences that can be triggered without warning. Your body remembers trauma even when your conscious mind is trying to forget. That’s why unexpected triggers can cause such overwhelming physical and emotional responses.

Trauma isn’t a thought you can simply “drop”—it’s a physiological imprint that requires specific tools to reprocess. This is why body-based therapies like somatic experiencing, EMDR, and sensorimotor psychotherapy are often essential components of trauma recovery. These approaches acknowledge that trauma lives in the body and nervous system, not just in conscious thoughts that can be willfully dismissed.

“Moving on” isn’t a decision; it’s a complex neurobiological process that takes time, support, and often professional help. When people tell you to “just let it go,” they’re essentially asking why you don’t simply press the delete button on your trauma—as if such a button exists.

6. “Time Heals All Wounds”

Time alone doesn’t heal trauma. Unaddressed trauma doesn’t fade—it festers, manifests in physical symptoms, relationship patterns, and mental health challenges. In fact, trauma that isn’t actively processed often develops into complex PTSD over time, with symptoms becoming more entrenched rather than magically disappearing.

What actually helps heal trauma is targeted work: therapy with trauma-informed professionals, building a support network, learning to regulate your nervous system, and gradually processing traumatic memories in a safe environment. Time is only helpful insofar as it gives you space to do this difficult work.

The idea that you can passively wait for healing perpetuates the harmful notion that recovery is something that happens to you rather than something you actively participate in. It also invalidates the very real ongoing struggle many survivors face years or even decades after the traumatic events.

7. “You Should Forgive Them for Your Own Peace”

Forgiveness has somehow become the expected final chapter in every trauma story. But mandatory forgiveness places an additional burden on survivors who are already carrying so much.

Here’s what’s rarely acknowledged: You can heal completely without ever forgiving your abuser. Forgiveness may be helpful for some survivors, but it’s not a prerequisite for healing, and suggesting otherwise creates unnecessary pressure and potential shame.

What’s more important than forgiveness is understanding that what happened wasn’t your fault, setting boundaries to protect yourself, and reconnecting with your own needs and values. If forgiveness naturally emerges from that process, fine. If it doesn’t, that’s equally valid.

8. “You’re So Resilient!”

At first glance, this might not seem like a harmful statement. After all, isn’t resilience a positive quality? But for many trauma survivors, being called “resilient” can feel like pressure to perform strength when they’re barely holding it together.

When “you’re so resilient” is used to gloss over suffering, it becomes another way to deny survivors the space to be vulnerable or struggling. It can feel like being told, “I prefer to see you as strong rather than wounded, so please keep performing that strength for my comfort.”

This comment often comes with an unspoken expectation that you should continue to endure without complaint. Worse, it can make you feel guilty for the times when you don’t feel resilient at all—when you’re breaking down, struggling with basic functions, or unable to keep up the appearance of having it all together.

Resilience isn’t the absence of struggle—it’s the presence of struggle and persistence. Real support acknowledges both your capacity for resilience and your need to sometimes fall apart. Being resilient doesn’t mean you’re never affected by trauma—it means you continue despite being affected by it, and that continuing takes an enormous toll.

9. “I’m Sure They Did Their Best” or “They Didn’t Mean It That Way”

This may be the most insidious platitude because it sounds compassionate while actually invalidating your experience. It prioritizes the abuser’s intentions over the impact of their actions, effectively asking you to empathize with someone who harmed you.

The hard truth is that some people are genuinely malicious, and others are so self-absorbed that they never consider how their actions affect others. Narcissistic abusers, in particular, often know exactly what they’re doing—the harm isn’t accidental but strategic.

Even if someone “didn’t mean it that way,” the damage is still real. Your pain isn’t less valid because someone didn’t intend to cause it. You don’t owe understanding to those who hurt you, especially when they’ve made no effort to understand the damaging impact of their actions.

10. Cultural Variations: “But They’re Family” and Other Pressure Points

Platitudes often take culturally specific forms that add layers of shame and obligation to trauma. “Blood is thicker than water” or “family is everything” can become weapons that pressure survivors to maintain relationships with abusive family members.

In some communities, sayings like “what happens in this house stays in this house” explicitly discourage seeking outside help. Other cultural messages might emphasize endurance as virtue (“grin and bear it”), minimize male accountability (“boys will be boys”), or prioritize appearance over well-being (“we don’t air our dirty laundry”).

These sayings aren’t just words—they’re social contracts that prioritize harmony over healing. They function as unwritten rules that maintain the status quo at the expense of individual wellbeing.

These cultural variations share a common thread: they place the burden on the survivor to protect the status quo rather than heal themselves. They leverage cultural identity and belonging against the fundamental need for safety and authenticity. And sadly, our wiring often leads us to choose attachment over authenticity.

Recognizing these cultural dimensions doesn’t mean rejecting your cultural heritage—rather, it means distinguishing between cultural values that support wholeness and those that were designed to maintain systems where abuse can flourish unchallenged.

11. The Infinite Variations of “At Least…”

A special category of invalidating statements deserves its own mention: the seemingly endless variations of “at least…” These comparative statements attempt to minimize your trauma by contrasting it with hypothetical worse scenarios:

“At least they didn’t hit you.” “At least you’re not still with them.” “At least you have a roof over your head.” “At least you learned something from the experience.” “At least you have other family members who care about you.” “At least you’re strong enough to handle it.”

These statements are particularly insidious because they masquerade as gratitude prompts or perspective checks. But what they actually do is invalidate the very real pain you’re experiencing by suggesting you should be grateful it wasn’t worse.

The “at least” approach creates a false hierarchy of suffering where only the absolute worst-case scenario deserves full acknowledgment. It suggests that because others might have it worse, your pain deserves less attention, less support, and less validation. This competitive approach to trauma is not only unhelpful but actively harmful—leaving survivors feeling guilty for their completely appropriate responses to abuse.

When You’ve Become Your Own Worst Critic: Self-Platitudes

Perhaps the most painful platitudes are the ones we tell ourselves. After hearing these messages enough times from others, survivors often internalize them:

“I should be over this by now.” “Other people have it worse—I need to stop complaining.” “If I were stronger, this wouldn’t still affect me.” “I must have done something to deserve this.”

These self-directed platitudes can be even more damaging than those from others because they come from within, attacking us in our most vulnerable moments. They create a cycle where normal trauma responses become evidence of personal failure, leading to shame, which further complicates recovery. Instead of supporting ourselves when we’re struggling, we come down harder ourselves, assuming the role of our own abuser.

Breaking this cycle requires profound self-compassion—the willingness to treat yourself with the same kindness and understanding you would offer a beloved friend in your situation. It means recognizing that healing isn’t linear, that having bad days doesn’t mean you’re failing at recovery, and that your pain doesn’t need to be “the worst” to deserve care and attention.

The next time you catch yourself thinking one of these self-platitudes, try to pause and ask: “Would I say this to another survivor? Is this actually true, or is it a message I’ve absorbed from others who didn’t understand trauma?” If you wouldn’t weaponize another survivor’s pain, why weaponize your own?

Why People Say These Things (And Why It’s Not Your Job to Educate Them)

Understanding why people offer these platitudes doesn’t make them less harmful, but it might help you feel less personally invalidated when you hear them.

Most people are deeply uncomfortable with the idea that terrible things happen randomly to good people. It threatens their sense of safety and justice in the world. Platitudes offer a quick way to restore that sense of order: if trauma makes you stronger, happens for a reason, or can be overcome through forgiveness, then the world still makes sense.

Some people resort to these statements because they genuinely don’t know what else to say. They haven’t been taught how to sit with someone else’s pain without trying to fix it. Our culture doesn’t model compassionate witness very well—instead, we’re taught to problem-solve, silver-line, or distract.

Others may be triggered by your trauma because it resonates with their own unprocessed experiences. Their platitudes might actually be self-soothing mechanisms, attempts to convince themselves that their own trauma wasn’t so bad or had some greater purpose.

And sometimes, people just repeat what they’ve heard without ever examining whether it’s actually helpful or true. Pop culture is saturated with these oversimplified narratives about trauma and recovery.

Here’s the important part: It is not your responsibility to educate these people. You’re not obligated to explain why their comment was hurtful, especially when you’re already managing your own trauma responses. You don’t owe anyone a polite smile or a patient explanation when they’ve just invalidated your experience.

What Trauma Survivors Actually Need to Hear

Instead of platitudes, trauma survivors need validation, compassion, and humble presence. Simple statements like:

“I believe you.” “That sounds incredibly difficult.” “I’m here with you.” “Your feelings make sense.” “This wasn’t your fault.”

These acknowledgments don’t try to solve, reframe, or minimize trauma. They simply recognize it as real and significant.

Ready-to-Use Responses (for When You’re Too Exhausted to Educate)

Sometimes you simply don’t have the bandwidth to explain why a platitude is harmful, especially when you’re already managing trauma symptoms. Here are some brief, low-conflict responses that neither accept the platitude as truth nor place you in the exhausting position of educator:

When someone says “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”:

• “I’ve found healing is more complicated than that.”
• “My therapist and I are working through a different perspective on trauma.”
• “That hasn’t been my experience, but I appreciate your concern.”

For “Everything happens for a reason”:

• “I’m still working on making sense of my experiences in my own way.”
• “I find it more helpful to focus on healing than reasons right now.”
• “I respect that that perspective works for some people.”

When faced with “Just let it go”:

• “Trauma recovery works differently than most people realize.”
• “I’m working through it at the pace that’s healthiest for me.”
• “My healing journey looks a bit different than that.”

For “Time heals all wounds”:

• “I’m finding that healing takes active work, not just time.”
• “That’s a comforting thought, but trauma is more complex.”
• “I’m focused on the present steps of my recovery rather than waiting.”

When confronted with forgiveness pressure:

• “I’m prioritizing other aspects of healing right now.”
• “My therapist suggests focusing on self-compassion first.”
• “Everyone’s healing journey looks different.”

For “They did their best/didn’t mean it”:

• “Impact matters regardless of intent.”
• “I need to honor my experience right now.”
• “I’m focusing on my healing more than their intentions.”

And for any “At least…” statement:

• “Comparing traumas hasn’t been helpful for my healing.”
• “I’m working on acknowledging my experience without comparison.”
• “My therapist encourages me to validate my own experience fully.”

These responses create a gentle boundary without requiring you to take on the exhausting role of educator. They acknowledge the comment without endorsing it and redirect without confrontation. Most importantly, they protect your energy for what really matters: your healing.

True support for trauma survivors means being willing to sit in the discomfort without reaching for tidy explanations or forced silver linings. It means respecting that recovery isn’t linear, forgiveness isn’t mandatory, and meaning-making is personal.

For survivors reading this: Your trauma did not make you stronger—in fact, you might feel anything but strong. You might feel broken, exhausted, or barely functioning. That’s a valid and common experience after trauma. What’s remarkable isn’t some mythical “strength” you’ve gained, but rather your resilience—your ability to survive despite everything you’ve endured. That resilience isn’t a gift from your trauma; it’s evidence of your fundamental humanity continuing to exist despite attempts to break it.

The endless internal work you do every day—work that most people will never see or understand—isn’t about becoming stronger than before. It’s about reclaiming pieces of yourself, finding moments of safety, and sometimes just making it through another day. There’s profound dignity in that journey, whether you feel “strong” or not.

Healing starts when we trade bumper-sticker wisdom for uncomfortable truths: that trauma isn’t a lesson, strength isn’t owed, and survival—however it looks—is always enough.

Your healing journey belongs to you, not to the expectations or comfort levels of others. And you are absolutely entitled to roll your eyes (internally or externally) the next time someone offers you a platitude instead of genuine support.

The truth isn’t always comfortable, especially for those who haven’t experienced complex trauma. But comfort was never the point. Healing is—and healing starts with honesty, not with pretty lies wrapped in inspirational fonts.

A Note on Neurodivergent Trauma Survivors

Neurodivergent individuals—those with autism, ADHD, sensory processing differences, and other neurological variations—often face unique layers of invalidation when processing trauma. Their natural responses to both trauma and healing may be pathologized or dismissed with statements like:

“You’re just overreacting because of your autism.” “If you could focus better, you’d get over this.” “Your sensory issues are making you too sensitive to what happened.” “You’re just fixating on this because of your OCD.”

These statements compound trauma by using a person’s neurotype against them, suggesting their perception of harm isn’t valid but rather a symptom to be dismissed. For neurodivergent survivors, healing often involves the additional work of separating legitimate trauma responses from the stigma surrounding their neurological differences.

If you’re a neurodivergent trauma survivor, know that your experiences are valid, your perceptions are real, and your unique neurological makeup doesn’t make your trauma any less significant. In fact, the intersection of trauma and neurodivergence deserves specialized understanding and support, not dismissal.

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

Photo Credit: Author, Substack

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

Review: What is Developmental Trauma?

Developmental trauma is different. It is not one event. It is not even a series of events. It is the result of growing up inside danger itself—when the entire atmosphere of the home is threatening and every waking moment is spent trying to survive. Developmental trauma is embedded in an abusive family system that continues on into adulthood. 

This type of trauma can involve many forms, such s physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, emotional abuse, or chronic instability. While the details differ, the focus of this series is the common thread running through them all: the things a child must do in order to survive.

What is a Home with Developmental Trauma like?

A home governed by silent rules where belonging requires self-betrayal. A home where a child’s perceptions, emotions, and instincts become dangerous because they threaten the system. What is true becomes less important than what is permitted.

What is the Child’s Deepest Fear?

Beneath all of this lies the deepest fear a child can experience: being completely alone. To a child, attachment is survival. The cost of preserving that attachment is enormous. What is sacrificed is not merely truth, but the child’s sense of self.

My home was this way, and at the age of 63, I am still dealing with the aftermath.

Healing Trauma

For most of my life, healing meant understanding. I studied trauma. I went to therapy. I processed memories. I slowly began separating truth from the lies. But then in later life, something unexpected happened. Instead of feeling better, buried emotions began to surface. Old fears intensified. Grief appeared where numbness had once existed. Parts of myself that had been silent for decades suddenly demanded attention.

Why Does Healing Feel Harder Before it Feels Better?

It feels harder because healing is not simply the process of understanding what happened. It is the process of reconnecting with the parts of ourselves that were sacrificed in order to survive. And that is where the terror lives. When long-buried wounds begin to surface, what was once hidden must finally be felt.

Why Are Long-Buried Wounds So Scary?

Long-buried wounds contain the terror we learned not to feel. The grief we could not afford to touch. The anger we buried. The needs we denied. The lies we accepted about ourselves and the world. For years, these wounds remained hidden beneath layers of adaptation and conditioning. But healing has a way of bringing them back into view. Not to punish us, but to be acknowledged. Not to overwhelm us, but to finally be felt. Silence begins to find its voice, and the self that was sacrificed for survival slowly begins to emerge—and it feels scary. 

The Early Process of Healing

For a long time, healing felt like progress.

Understanding brought relief. Insight created clarity. Things that once felt confusing began to make sense. There was movement. There was direction. There was even hope.

I began to feel less suicidal. I started to think I might be able to “do life.” I felt better, I slept better. I started to believe reality instead of the lies. But there came a point at which all the processing and understanding was over, and I was still left with the deeper layer of damage. Now, thinking through it, reading about it, and processing it weren’t enough. 

The Deeper Layers Emerge

Instead of continuing to feel better, it began to feel harder.

Not all at once. But steadily.

Emotions that had been quiet began to rise. Reactions felt stronger, not weaker. Old pain surfaced in ways that were difficult to contain or explain.

It can feel like something is going wrong. Like you are regressing. Like all the work you’ve done is unraveling. But what is actually happening is something very different.

In Developmental Trauma, Parts of the Self Never Had the Chance to Exist

In developmental trauma, there are parts of the self that never had the chance to fully exist. Not because they weren’t there, but because they were not safe.

Terror and fear had to be suppressed. Anger had to be contained. Grief had no place to go. Needs had to be ignored.

In order to survive, the system reorganized itself around protection. Some parts became highly functional—capable, responsible, productive, and adapted to the environment. Other parts were pushed out of awareness entirely.

Not erased.

But waiting.

The Process of Healing

Healing does not begin with those buried parts. It begins with understanding. With small moments of safety. With the gradual realization that the danger is no longer present.

And as the nervous system slowly begins to register that something is different, it starts to loosen its grip.

This is where something unexpected happens. The parts that were held back begin to surface. Not because something is wrong. But because it is finally safe enough for them to be felt.

When those parts emerge, they do not come quietly. They carry everything that was never processed at the time: terror, grief, anger, confusion, helplessness, and loss. And because those experiences were originally overwhelming, they can still feel overwhelming when they return.

This is Why Healing Can Feel Harder

When it “feels harder,” it is not because you are “getting worse.”

It happens like this because you are finally feeling what was always there.

What once had to stay hidden is now visible. What once had to be suppressed is now being allowed.

This Stage is Often Misunderstood

Many survivors find themselves wondering, “I was doing better before I started this work.” Or, “Why does everything feel worse now?”

But what looked like stability before was often containment. The system was holding things in place. Holding things down. Holding things together. Now that containment is loosening. And what was buried underneath is beginning to move.

This is Not Regression

It is exposure.

The nervous system is not breaking down. It is completing something.

Earlier in life, there was no safe way to process what was happening. The system did what it had to do. It stored the pain. It contained the emotions. It kept you functioning. Now, under different conditions, it is attempting to resolve what was left unfinished. This is why emotions can feel disproportionate. Why reactions can seem confusing. Why the intensity may not match the present moment.

The body is not reacting to now.

It is releasing what was never allowed then.

At this stage, insight is still helpful—but it is no longer the primary tool. Understanding what is happening matters. But trying to think your way through it will not move it through.

What is needed here is different.

Patience.

Space.

Safety.

The ability to stay present without shutting the experience down or running from it.

This is not about forcing resolution.

It is about allowing completion.

If healing feels harder right now—if emotions are surfacing in ways that feel unfamiliar or overwhelming—it does not mean you are doing it wrong.

It may mean you are finally safe enough to feel what you could not feel before.

This is not the end of healing.

It is a deeper layer of it.

And it will not stay this intense forever.

Defy Trauma, Embrace Joy—even if it takes a little while

To receive a free monthly newsletter and more Trauma Informed Blogs, go to:https://rebekahlaynebrown.com/deftrauma

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

I’m Embarrassed That I Exist

Carter’s Story

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Understanding Existential Humiliation: The Tripping Metaphor

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

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

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

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

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

The Anatomy of Existential Humiliation

Existential humiliation has several distinguishing characteristics:

1. Intentional targeting of core identity

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

2. The social witness component

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

3. Plausible deniability by the perpetrator

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

4. The fawn response and forced performance of emotional labor

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

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

5. Long-term identity destabilization

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

The Neurobiological Impact

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

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

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

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

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

Families and the Normalization of Humiliation

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo Credit: Author – Additional Terms and disclaimers for images used in my posts on CPTSD Foundation.

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

What has your anger taught you?

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

During that stay my psychologist tried to get me to hug my mother during a session. I was sitting in my sparsely furnished room, on top of my bed with the reversable pink and blue comforter, and I was gripping the fabric so tight in my fists that my knuckles went white.

I told the psychologist, “I can’t remember the last time anyone hugged me.” Facts. I never did hug my mother, even though the psychologist kept insisting, session after session. My mother was putting on a show for the clinician, and I saw right through it.

Some kids grow up surrounded by physical affection and closeness, but some don’t. I was one of those children. My paternal grandmother showered me with love and I was addicted to it. That feeling was stripped from me when we moved 5 hours away to Northwest Indiana.

I don’t think any of my teachers had a clue in what type of environment I was getting raised. I don’t think any alarm bells were going off for anyone because no one notices what happens to a child who never gets tucked in or kissed on the forehead. No one notices what happens when a child grows up without getting hugged or consoled when they’re hurt. No one notices because nothing visible happens to that child.

What happens is the child’s body notices. The child’s body keeps notes. The nervous system is keenly aware of what’s going on. Long before we have words for loneliness, we learn what comfort feels like or what it doesn’t feel like.

We are wired for touch

Touch is not a luxury, it is a developmental need. Attachment theory demonstrates that children rely on caregivers for the basic life necessities like shelter and food, but they also rely on caregivers for emotional and physical comfort.

Harry Harlow’s famous monkey studies showed that infant monkeys consistently preferred a soft, comforting ‘mother’ over a wire mother that just provided food. Modern research continues to demonstrate that affectionate touch supports emotional regulation, social development, attachment security and overall well-being. Children who long for touch are not needy; they are responding to a basic human need.

When affection is missing

Children will often adapt to what is available to them, to what their environment provides, rather that recognizing that something’s missing, or what they’re experiencing is wrong. They may grow up thinking that parents weren’t supposed to provide anything other that what is needed for basic survival. They may not understand that their parent was emotionally distant until they have the exposure to families that are different, and it will cause a great deal of confusion for children from families where affection was absent.

As a child you cannot miss what you never knew existed, but your nervous system still knows that something’s absent that you developmentally require. The absence of affection is generally an invisible loss because, to these children, it just feels normal.

Research suggests that experiences of affectionate touch during childhood are associated with specific attachment styles and comfort with touch later in life.

Looking for love in all the wrong places

Children who grow up emotionally and/or physically deprived often become adults who hunger for connection. This might manifest itself in various ways, like becoming attached too quickly to people who show you the kind of affection you did not experience as a child. Sometimes those people aren’t the best people from whom to receive the affection.

Sometimes the energy we have attracts people who feel comfortable, familiar, and if your childhood environment was traumatic, filled with emotional instability and abuse, you might be attracting someone who behaves the same way, even though initially the attention received feels good.

Emotionally neglected people will feel intensely attracted to people who give them warmth and validation, even though that person might be emotionally immature and even abusive. The unprotected adult survivor might ignore relationship red flags.  Doing so is not evidence of weakness; it’s evidence that you’re trying to fill an unmet need. When you’re starving, receiving crumbs can even feel like a feast.

When touch becomes entangled with pain

For some people, love and sometimes friendships can arrive wrapped inside emotionally abusive packages. The person might ‘love bomb’ you, might give you validation and affection that’s followed with criticism, their safe and loving touch might end up conditional over time and emotional abuse might reside alongside physical affection.

Over time, choosing someone who feels familiar and comfortable might become someone who is not emotionally safe. Once that occurs too often, your body will perceive the person as a threat, and the closeness with that person that used to feel wonderful becomes dangerous and your body knows before your mind does because it recognizes a familiar pattern it has felt before.

Studies on attachment and childhood emotional maltreatment indicate that early neglect and later harmful relationships can affect future relationship quality, trust, and emotional regulation.

From Touch-Starved to Touch-Afraid

The heartbreaking twist is that many people who once desperately wanted affection might recoil from it later because the body senses danger. The reaction becomes instantaneous, even if the mind doesn’t want to, even if the relationship partner doesn’t like it and you fight about it, repeatedly. An unsafe partner that you are committed to stay with will undoubtedly affect your nervous system’s ability to accept touch and intimacy without fear.

Over time, touch with your partner will feel uncomfortable. Without even thinking, you might flinch when the partner reaches for physical connection because you are now uncomfortable with affection from someone your nervous system knows to be unsafe. You might become hypervigilant about emotional and physical attention with your partner. Your inner child that once craved affection and attention becomes the adult who no longer trusts it.

Avoiding touch isn’t always about not wanting closeness. Sometimes it’s about not feeling safe enough to receive it.

Learning That Safe Touch Exists

Healing often begins when affection is no longer tied to conditions, manipulation, or performance. It is vitally important to remove yourself from unhealthy relationships. That might be very difficult because if you have children, that becomes complicated. If your unhealthy partner recognizes his or her contribution to your distrust in them, and is willing to work on their abusive tendencies, then there might be hope to maintain the relationship.

However, your nervous system will not be duped. It will take a great deal of time and work on both sides. Your partner must work on their abusive tendencies and become consistently safe. You need to set boundaries to what you will accept and what you will not and you must hold your partner to those boundaries. They must experience consequences of breaking those boundaries. This healing work will be very painful; I’m not going to sugar coat it.

What to strive for

Adult survivors of emotional abuse and complex trauma need to find relationships (romantic and otherwise) with people who are consistently safe. The partners need to know, on an intimate level, the trauma you experienced so they know how to encourage connection, affection, and intimacy in ways that feel safe to your nervous system. If you’ve been in unsafe adult relationships previously, your nervous system will be skeptical and distrustful like a dog that has been chronically beaten by a previous owner.

The goal is not becoming more affectionate. The goal is feeling safe enough to choose it. Small steps, small efforts, and micro affections will help, but your partner must feel safe to your nervous system. Be kind to yourself because your nervous system wants the best for you. Sometimes healing looks like allowing yourself to lean into a hug instead of bracing for what comes next and having a partner who is informed and patient is paramount to your comfort level with touch.

Some children grow up hungry for touch, and some adults spend years searching for it. Sometimes adults spend years learning to trust touch again. Beneath these experiences is the same truth: we were never designed to survive without connection. The part of you that still longs to be held in safe, familiar, and comfortable arms is not broken, it’s just part of being human.

Resources

Book: Running on Empty by Jonice Webb

Book: The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

Book: Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller

Book: Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson

References

Beltrán, M. I., Harrison, N. A., & O’Brien, J. T. (2020). Affective touch experiences across the lifespan: Developmental and individual differences. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 118, 659–669. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2020.08.018

Narvaez, D., Wang, L., Gleason, T., Cheng, Y., & Lefever, J. B. (2019). The importance of early life touch for psychosocial and moral development. Psychology, 10(11), 1443–1466.

Packheiser, J., et al. (2024). A systematic review and multivariate meta-analysis of the effects of touch interventions. Nature Human Behaviour, 8, 1060–1077.

Simpson, J. A., & Rholes, W. S. (2017). Adult attachment, stress, and romantic relationships. Current Opinion in Psychology, 13, 19–24.

Tejada, A. H., Dunbar, R. I. M., & Montero, M. (2020). Physical contact and loneliness: Being touched reduces perceptions of loneliness. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, 6, 292–306.

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

During all those years before I finally got the right diagnosis of PTSD and AuDHD, chronic failure was a painful part of my life, both privately and at work. I often lost my jobs and I struggled in relationships, all of this without knowing why.

Living in a society where everybody is always so fast and harsh judging you based on your professional career and performance, chronic failure without knowing why can break you. I spent years feeling ashamed of myself, until finally a doctor took the time to do the right tests. Hearing the words, ‘None of it was ever your fault,’ was more than a big relief for me.

This is my personal reflection and what I learned about ADHD, Trauma, and the Path to Recovery:

For those living with both ADHD and PTSD, understanding the connection between the two can be a powerful step toward healing. Here is a brief overview of how these experiences often overlap. While a majority of individuals with ADHD may eventually adapt to adversity, they remain at a higher risk for more severe outcomes following traumatic events.

Some of the Key Reasons for Increased Vulnerability:

• Higher Risk of PTSD: People with ADHD who experience a traumatic event are roughly four times more likely to develop Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) than their peers without ADHD.
• Intensified Symptoms: ADHD and trauma affect similar regions of the brain, such as the prefrontal cortex, which governs emotional regulation and impulse control. When both are present, they can multiply, rather than just add together, worsening symptoms like inattention, emotional dysregulation, and hypervigilance.
• Sensitive Nervous Systems: Emerging research indicates that the nervous systems of those with ADHD may be more sensitive, making them more likely to experience a stressful event as traumatic compared to non-ADHD individuals.
• Executive Functioning Gaps: Core ADHD traits, such as difficulty with self-regulation and problem-solving, can make it harder for individuals to use constructive coping skills after a crisis. 

🌿 There is often a symptom overlap:
Because trauma symptoms like restlessness and distraction often mimic ADHD, it can be difficult for clinicians to distinguish between the two. Traditional ADHD therapy is “top-down,” using the brain to control the body. Trauma therapy often works “bottom-up,” using the body to calm the brain. 

This is why meeting with doctors who specialize in both of these fields can truly support the path of recovery. From my own experience, I know that finding the right doctors demands perseverance. In our country, the waiting lists for appointments are very long these days. However, please remember that it is worth the wait; and if possible, ask your local medical center to guide you toward the right specialists.

🌿 Being diagnosed later in life: 
When a person carries ‘hidden’ trauma for decades while living with ADHD, they often spend those years in a state of chronic exhaustion. This is because their brain has been working overtime to manage two different ‘storms’ at once: the executive dysfunction of ADHD and the survival instincts of trauma.

Individuals navigating this hidden toll often wear a high-functioning mask that lets them appear successful and capable in the workplace, meeting every expectation with quiet strength. Yet the moment they step into the safety of home, that energy simply vanishes, leaving them to collapse in exhaustion.

Because the deeper trauma remained unseen and unspoken for so long, they turned the blame inward, whispering to themselves that they were lazy, stupid, or simply not trying hard enough; in truth, their tender hearts were carrying an immense, invisible weight no one else could see.

That self-blame slowly deepened into a profound shame, quietly inviting chronic anxiety, depression, and the aching embrace of burnout. If this pattern echoes in your own life, please hold this truth close: you were never lazy, never broken, and never failing. You were surviving something extraordinarily heavy with every ounce of courage you had, and your heart has always deserved gentle, loving compassion, especially from yourself.

Understanding these connections is the first step toward reclaiming your well-being. Working alongside a certified medical doctor specializing in trauma therapy is an important part of the healing journey.

I see you. You have carried so much for so long; it’s okay to let the storms settle and finally step into the peace you deserve. Healing begins the moment you realize your survival was a quiet strength, and peace is finally within your reach. May you now allow yourself to breathe in the stillness of this new beginning, where your only task is to be kind to your own heart.

You don’t have to have all the answers right now; just focus on being a little more gentle with yourself today, and trust that you have the resilience to take this next part of your journey one step at a time.

Fill your days with the small things that bring your heart genuine joy, whether that is finding a creative hobby, spending time in the quiet of nature, or meeting with like-minded souls who truly understand you. New and more loving habits can open unexpected doors, helping you create the meaningful life you have always deserved.

It is in these simple, everyday moments of kindness to yourself that your world begins to feel whole again. By choosing what nourishes your heart, you are filling your daily life with more love right now.

And if you ever need someone to talk to, I am here for you.

With Love and Light,
Jeanne

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

In 2 days, I will send my two teen sons off to summer camp for a week. I will have the entire place to myself for 6 nights. I have decided to use the time to revamp my Christmas ornaments, which are an amalgam of inherited color schemes, mismatched design motifs, and competing textile finishes. I have collected an array of spray paints, foliage to preserve for garlands and wreaths, and inexpensive pool noodles to use as topiary bases.

The last 12 months have been heavy. My mother passed away. My dog died. My older son was hit by a car (he’s ok), lawsuits, small claims court, family court, a very ill ex-husband, 2 surgeries for me, and more. This was in addition to dealing with a few family members who continue to attack me for telling the truth about child sexual abuse by my grandfather.

In the midst of this heaviness last year, I decorated the house early for Christmas, a few days before Thanksgiving. As always, I was dismayed by the lack of coordination in ornaments and decor unlike my living area, which is awash in harvest vineyard colors.

Then a week later when I picked my older son up from woodshop, he was hiding something behind his back. I wasn’t allowed to see it. Later that day, a wrapped Christmas present showed up under the tree.

“It’s for you, mom. I made it in woodshop just for you,” my son said.

My excitement was boundless. As a single mom, Christmas had become just for the kids. There was never a present for me under the tree. 

On Christmas morning, the living room became a hurricane of flying wrapping paper ripped from packages as the boys opened their gifts. Finally, It was my turn. 

I opened my one Christmas present. It was a piece of wood 4 inches wide, 16 inches long, and 1 inch deep.

“It’s a piece of wood.”

“No, mom, it’s a cutting board.”

“No cutting board is 4 inches wide.”

“It’s portable. You can take it camping.”

“Oh, great! Then it has a dual purpose right? If a bear comes along, I can hit it over the head with my portable cutting board.”

Despite my disappointment, the silliness of it all became the predominant mood. Suddenly, the heaviness of the year lightened immeasurably. 

And this has led to my upcoming project to redo the Christmas decorations, to bring them in line with the rest of my decor. And this has become a metaphor for redecorating my heart in preparation for the holiday season of 2026.

Christmas trees often become collections of memories:

• the handmade ornament,
• the kindergarten reindeer,
• Grandma’s angel,
• the souvenir from Disneyland,
• the ugly ornament Aunt Martha loved.

Most of those memories are pleasant. But some are painful. Still they are a record of life. And now my kids are teenagers.

Instead of all new ornaments, I will transform them. I will repurpose them, just as I repurpose memories both pleasant and painful. 

When my boys were young, a cohesive color palette was unnecessary. They didn’t care. It was simply an abundant tree. Yet, I saw too much visual noise, too much incoherence.

Recovery isn’t about accumulating more. It’s making decisions about which memories deserve a prominent place in my home, on my tree of abundance. It’s choosing what truly belongs.

Every year we unpack boxes filled with memories.

Some still make us smile.

Some we keep out of obligation.

Some we haven’t looked at in years.

Healing asks a simple question:

Which memories deserve another season?

I have spent the last 12 months editing my life.

Not deleting it.

Editing it.

Keeping:

• relationships that nourish
• traditions that still fit
• colors that bring peace

Releasing:

• visual clutter
• emotional clutter
• obligations
• inherited expectations

My ornaments reflect my identity, and not every ornament belongs on the tree. Some can remain packed away. Not every part of my history deserves equal prominence. Not because I’m in denial. Quite the opposite. I took those memories out, looked at them, analyzed their significance, and put them back in the box. 

The boys will head off to camp in a couple of days, leaving me with six quiet nights and a garage full of spray paint, ribbons, preserved greenery, and bins of Christmas ornaments waiting for their makeover. By the time Thanksgiving arrives, I hope the burgundies, deep plums, sapphire blues, timber greens, and antique brass finishes will finally feel like they belong together.

But I already know the most important part of the project won’t be the colors.

It will be the decisions.

Some ornaments will receive fresh paint. Others will stay exactly as they are because they already tell the story I want them to tell. A few may quietly return to the storage box for another year. None of those decisions erase the past. I choose which ornaments to display.

Recovery has never asked me to forget.

It has asked me to choose.

To choose which relationships nourish me.

Which traditions still fit.

Which expectations no longer belong to me.

Which memories deserve to remain on display, and which can be gently wrapped in tissue paper and placed back in the box—not because they are unimportant, but because they no longer define the room.

When people talk about healing from complex trauma, they often imagine becoming someone entirely new.

That has not been my experience.

Healing has felt much more like decorating a Christmas tree.

The ornaments are still mine.

The memories are still mine.

Even the painful ones helped shape the person I have become.

But today I get to decide where they hang.

And then there is one object that will never need repainting or repurposing.

The little “portable cutting board.”

The piece of wood that made me laugh after one of the heaviest years of my life.

The epic prank of a teen boy on his mother.

I still tell him that one day I’m going to mount it on a walnut plaque with a brass plate underneath.

The engraving will read:

Piece of Wood. Christmas 2025.

He rolls his eyes every time I say it.

I laugh every time.

And perhaps that is the greatest gift of healing.

Not that every ornament finally matches.

Not that every painful memory disappears.

But that after years of surviving, there is once again room for laughter beneath the Christmas tree.

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

You Can’t Run Away From Your Own Head

Human beings are like an iceberg. We go through life sharing only the pieces of ourselves that we want people to see. But there’s so much more going on inside.

Isaac Newton’s third law states that: “for every action (force) in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction.” I think that this “law of motion” can be applied to human beings too.

Think about it.

For everything we say, think, or do, there is a corresponding reaction. In terms of Stress on the body, this is true. When something traumatic happens to us or to someone near us, we react to defend ourselves.

It’s a defense mechanism to protect us from harm.

In victims of traumatic stress, there is a physiological change that happens inside our bodies.

I described the five F’s of behavior in response to traumatic events in my last two articles. Today, I want to explain what those behaviors are like in real life.

There’s always going to be a difference between academic study of trauma and for those who live with PTSD or Complex-PTSD every single day.

I fall under the second category, and I can help other survivors because I have lived with Complex PTSD for most of my life.

It’s far from easy, but as time goes by, things have gotten easier.

I often feel like I have an anchor holding me back on a bad day or night. I want to keep going, ignore whatever’s eating me, but I can’t.

Sometimes, you have to face what’s eating you, and it usually means to stop whatever it is you’re doing and listen to your body.

The world keeps spinning whether you want it to or not when you’re struggling. It’s worth having a few coping techniques stowed away for a trigger day.

I have these triggers all the time, but even my closest colleagues have no idea that I’m falling apart some days.

I’ve gotten very good at hiding how I really feel.

Living with Traumatic Stress

Traumatic events change the way you look at yourself and the world. Your brain can go into overdrive, and it can make you hyper-aware of everything around you.

This can cause some big changes in your behavior.

Living with trauma can feel like your world has been ripped away from under your feet. Nothing feels the same anymore, and you are plunged into a world of constant fear, anxiety, and overwhelming situations.

Living with trauma can feel like a constant battle to function. Some days, it’s hard to get out of bed. Taking a shower and eating can become a huge battle because self-care is the last thing on your mind.

It’s hard to face your friends and go out when the stress from trauma is clouding your thoughts and motivation.

Holding down a job can become impossible when constant nightmares and trauma memories happen, destroying your focus and memory.

Imagine if you had an epic nightmare of being murdered or tortured. Your brain is reliving parts of your past, which is showing a 4D movie without a pause button.

How could you function at work the next day?

Imagine a friend is waving a knife around while talking animatedly over a kid’s birthday cake. It’s an exciting event with kids running around the room and adults having fun talking to each other, but you’re frozen staring at that knife as the room dulls. The voices disappear, and you’re pulled back in time to a trauma memory, hijacked by your own brain.

As you come out of the flashback, it’s hard not to react without causing a scene.

You can suffer from brain fog, mood swings, and find change difficult.

Some days, you want to conquer everything all at once, and you feel fantastic, like the bad days never existed.

It’s confusing, right? It’s no wonder people call trauma survivors mentally ill, but it’s far from the truth. Trauma survivors have been hurt in the most profound way, and that hurt has to come out eventually.

Some survivors can flip between hyper-vigilance and dissociation in a few minutes. Imagine living like that every single day?

Everyone reacts differently to traumatic events because of life experience, resilience, and if you have a support system or not.

It’s important to understand that everyone’s healing journey is different. Some survivors heal quickly, but others can struggle all their lives.

Behaviors Caused by Traumatic Stress

Feeling on edge and scanning your surroundings for threats and danger.

Irritability, anger and withdrawing from people.

Avoiding situations that are too painful because they trigger memories.

Feeling worthless, ashamed and distorting our opinions of ourselves and others.

Social situations and cues can feel fragmented and cause problems in forming and keeping friendships.

Anxiety and vulnerability

Depression

Mixed emotions that lead to confusion in situations.

Trust issues because of the fear of being exposed to more pain.

What Help is Available for Trauma survivors?

Therapy — Seeing a therapist can help you find the tools to handle triggers and take control back through coping mechanisms.

Support network — Having a strong network of friends around you.

Self-care – is important to live a healthy life. Things like exercising, mindfulness, relaxation and yoga, and doing a hobby can do wonders to reduce your stress levels.

Medication — Can be helpful for people who are struggling to sleep and those who suffer from anxiety.

Education — Learning about Trauma and how it can affect you enables you to take charge of your healing journey.

Change — Be willing to heal the root cause of your trauma to move forward in your life.

Living with trauma affects every aspect of your life. You’re hurting in the most profound way, and you can’t ignore it forever. It’s time you put yourself first.

I did.

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

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

For more about me: www.elizabethwoodsauthor.com

Support your fellow writer:

https://ko-fi.com/elizabe69245484

Photo Credit: Unsplash

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