She hears the voice of the five-year-old shamed for being overly rambunctious, the 12-year-old who struggles to make friends, the 16-year-old who actively fantasizes about death, the 22-year-old who has no idea what to “do with her life,” the 30-year-old who is too depressed to get out of bed, the 35-year-old mother who can’t seem to find joy in every moment of motherhood, the 41-year-old who erupts into tears during a dental procedure, and on and on. They all chime in.

This person in the mirror itemizes every mistake that she has made throughout her life. She criticizes her inability to form and maintain deep relationships. She nitpicks her physical “shortcomings” and catalogs all the ways she is simultaneously “too much” and “not enough.” Unable to answer the question, she carries these shackles of self-deprecation as “proof” of all that is “wrong” with her.

A part of me, however, stands beside her and sees a survivor. I see that there is nothing wrong with her, but rather the situations she faced. I see a five-year-old child who was just being a kid, her noise and frenetic energy not compatible with my young mother’s exhausted and overwhelmed nervous system. I see a 12-year-old entering my third school in as many years, not seeing a point in making new friends. Besides, I was pretty sure my “peers” couldn’t relate to a parent almost intentionally killing them during the first week of school. I see a 16-year-old hunted by a predator in my own home.

As if that wasn’t enough, that year I felt survivor’s guilt for being able to walk while my then-boyfriend lay hospitalized after becoming paralyzed in a car accident months earlier. I see a 22-year-old who, against all odds, graduated from college but didn’t feel “worthy” of a “real job” or healthy relationships. How could I possibly have known what to do, how to be, in those “normal” contexts?

I tried to be “normal,” but couldn’t define it, and only now do I understand that it is because “normal” doesn’t exist.

I didn’t understand it then, though…I only saw someone who felt “wrong.” It would be another decade before I saw beyond the flaws. Within that old lens, I see a 30-year-old who still didn’t know “what to do with my life.” My shame around this only grew under the unforgiving lens of my mother’s criticism, which she unloaded all at once in an argument. Under the influence of a substantial amount of alcohol, she held nothing back in her assessment of all the ways I’d failed.

Apparently, I have crappy taste in men, and my recent attempt to prove my worth by earning another degree had backfired. Mom berated me for supposedly thinking I’m “smarter than everyone.” I didn’t think that, but her words momentarily stole my will to participate in life, which, according to her, I was failing anyway.

A half-decade later, I see an overwhelmed 35-year-old mother of a one-year-old. They say it takes a village to raise a child; unfortunately, that didn’t apply to me in my mid-thirties because help didn’t exist in places where one might expect it, and I simply didn’t know how to ask for it. That word wasn’t in my vocabulary. Little did I know, I would have one more child, and I was only in the dawn of the exhaustion that is now second-nature. It would be another seven years before I had my first and only 48-hour break from motherhood.

The overwhelm and fatigue, along with an overpowering love for my children, is what finally encouraged me to make some changes in my early 40s. Those changes came with some stark realizations and interesting experiences, like having a breakdown in a dental chair at 41 years old when I couldn’t hold my crap together for another second. As my startled dentist tried to soothe his suddenly sobbing middle-aged patient, I asked myself the same question I always ask myself: “What is wrong with you?” (Sometimes I use other words like “Why am I like this?” and “Would the world be better off without me in it?”)

The problem is, all this time, no matter how I phrased it, I’ve been asking myself the wrong question. There’s nothing “wrong” with me. There’s plenty wrong with the circumstances I’ve faced. The real question should have been, “What is happening to and around you to make you feel this way?”

That question, however, was not written into the original script. Five-year-olds who grow up in healthy, supportive environments don’t ask themselves, “What’s wrong with me?” Ironically, those words often first come from the person or people responsible for providing a supportive and secure environment for that child. Having failed to do that and instead of taking responsibility for their shortcomings, these people sometimes direct the blame to the child.

Over time, their voice(s) mingle with ours, and the question that should have never been asked imprisons us in insecurity. We find ways to justify the question. We stockpile our “failures” and can give you a grand tour of places we went wrong. It’s easy to showcase our faults.

What happens if we turn that logic outward? Think about someone you love. Imagine them internalizing the message that something is wrong with them. How do you feel? This piece, inspired by someone dear to me, was born in my anger at her being held prisoner by the very words that are as present in my head as stars in a night sky. Her self-defacing mantra was also planted by a parent and then reinforced by her own inner voices for decades. I look at her and see bravery, humility, and strength. I don’t see anything “wrong” with her. Instead, my focus narrowed to a person I’ve never met. A part of me fought the urge to deliver an unsolicited, unfiltered piece of my mind to her mother.

How dare she say something so awful to this person who brings so much light to the world? I wrestled with how I could remove the sting of these words from my friend’s heart. How could I possibly convince her that there is nothing wrong with her? How could she believe something so ridiculous about herself?

And then…I silently acknowledged that I’d swallowed the same poison. It was not until I heard those words within the context of a loved one’s internal narrative that I so blatantly questioned them in myself. I, too, had been asked that question by my mother. I, too, believed that since she asked the question (repeatedly), there must surely be something “wrong” with me. I have spent much of my life searching for the answer to that question. I’ve identified a slew of potential candidates, but nothing has felt solidly “right.”

Well…at 43 years old, I finally found the answer to the question “What is wrong with you?” Ready for it? It’s a real nail-biter.

Here it is: not a damn thing. Do I have flaws? Areas for improvement? Weaknesses? Yes, of course. We all do. But there’s nothing “wrong” with me. It is “wrong” that my mother ever demanded an answer to such a ridiculous question. It would be easy to get angry at her the way I did at my friend’s mother. In thinking about it, however, I suspect that they, too, have stood in front of mirrors and asked: “What’s wrong with you?”

Likely, long ago, someone carelessly hurled that very question at them. I think asking that question of another person is a sign of something unbalanced or emotional malnourishment within. I feel compassion for anyone who has asked this question of another, for I know it is born in insecurity.

That’s not to say that I’m not mad. This ridiculous question made my blood boil when my friend acknowledged it as an internal mantra. When I internally admitted that I shared this mantra, I decided I’m not buying it anymore. The fact that these words live within me only renews my commitment to healing. I will not ask this question of my children, and I will do my very best to ensure that their environment does not create inner chaos.

Furthermore, though this question can sweep in at the drop of a hat for me, I will be conscious of its roots. I will rephrase the question. Instead of demanding to know what is wrong with me, I will ask myself what was wrong with the circumstances that created these feelings.

So many of us have been asked this question that shouldn’t be asked. Even worse, it has often been asked by the people we looked to for love. Instead of searching for answers we will never find, let’s reframe the question and consider who asked it and why. When we consider the source and motivation for this question and reword it to explore what was wrong with what we faced, we infuse it with what was missing all along: compassion. There was never anything wrong with us.

We simply did our best to handle things we shouldn’t have had to experience. It’s time to stop trying to answer the question that should not have been asked. So, if you, too, have been asked this ridiculous question, please remind yourself that you finally found the answer: not a damn thing.

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

Heather Jurvelin

Finally feeling truly alive for the first time in my life, I am writing from a place of gradual healing with an eye to the future and a hope of connecting with others on similar paths. Forced to withhold a tsunami of emotions deemed irrelevant under the roof of my childhood “home,” the blank white pages of my notebooks invited my raw reflections without judgment. Writing allowed me to free the burdens of my soul, but at some point, I muzzled myself. My pen lay dormant for years until, at 41 years old, I experienced a traumatic flashback during an everyday activity that shook me to the core. Five days later, I started writing about the things I had long withheld. I couldn’t stop. Written words have once again become my refuge. I now recognize that these words, resurrected from the ashes of my pain, may have the power to help others. Above all, I want to magnify and share the messages that I have most treasured on my journey: we are not alone and we don’t ever have to go back. This is where we live now and the future is ours.

In trauma science, moral exhaustion differs from fatigue or depression. It isn’t physical depletion; it’s ethical depletion. The empathic system has been overdrawn for too long without replenishment. The brain, especially in individuals with prior trauma histories, internalizes witnessed harm as a personal moral debt. Over time, the nervous system equates continued participation with betrayal of conscience.

Professionals in trauma-dense environments—first responders, crisis clinicians, homicide investigators, social workers, environmental advocates—live inside an endless exposure loop. Every day brings another case, another loss, another systemic failure. Training demands composure, but composure isn’t immunity. Eventually, the human drive to repair collides with evidence that repair may not be possible. That collision marks the beginning of moral exhaustion.

Those with early trauma histories reach this threshold faster. Childhood harm teaches the brain that control equals safety. When confronted with systemic cruelty, injustice, or ecological destruction, the nervous system recognizes the same helplessness it once survived. The result is ethical hypervigilance—a relentless drive to prevent harm paired with the conviction that nothing one does will ever be enough.

Behaviorally, moral exhaustion can resemble depression, but its tone is distinct. It sounds like:
“I’m not sad—I’m done.”
“I still care, but I can’t care this much anymore.”
“I don’t hate humanity. I just don’t trust it.”

These aren’t signs of weakness. They’re signs of saturation. The brain is conserving empathy by rationing it. Left unrecognized, this state can slide into withdrawal, cynicism, or what forensic psychologists call preventive morality—the belief that the only ethical way to stop harm is to stop participating in creation, caregiving, or advocacy altogether.

For trauma-exposed professionals, awareness becomes the first form of intervention. Recognizing moral exhaustion requires blunt honesty about what the work has taken. It means admitting that the same empathy that once fueled competence can become corrosive when unbalanced by restoration.

Supervisors and colleagues should learn to identify the early markers:

• Persistent sense of futility or disillusionment despite competence

• Emotional numbness paired with rigid moral judgment (“right” vs. “wrong” thinking)

• Withdrawal from peers or formerly meaningful work

• Physical symptoms triggered by exposure reminders—racing heart, nausea, dread before routine tasks

Addressing moral exhaustion is not about “more self-care.” It requires moral recalibration—a structured reflection that restores coherence between values and capacity. This may involve consultation with trauma-informed peers, spiritual mentors, or ethics boards—not as discipline, but as containment. The goal isn’t to erase despair; it’s to normalize it as a signal of conscience doing its job too well for too long.

In forensic and environmental fields, recalibration often means redefining success. Instead of measuring worth by eradicated harm, success becomes measured by sustained integrity. For clinicians, it may involve temporarily stepping away from front-line roles to teach, mentor, or write—positions that still serve justice but allow the empathic system to breathe.

Moral exhaustion is not failure. It is the mind’s plea for congruence. Those who have seen too much of the world’s cruelty are not broken; they’re running on moral credit that has yet to be repaid. The work ahead is not to toughen but to rebalance—to remember that compassion was never meant to be a lifetime without rest, only a practice done in shifts.

Sources:

American Psychological Association — Moral Injury and Secondary Trauma in Helping Professions (2023)
National Center for PTSD — Ethical Fatigue in Trauma-Exposed Occupations
Figley, C.R. — Compassion Fatigue: Coping With Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder in Those Who Treat the Traumatized (1995)
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology — Empathy Regulation and Moral Depletion in Caregiving Roles
Oxford Handbook of Forensic Psychology — Preventive Morality and Systemic Burnout

Dr. Mozelle Martin

Dr. Mozelle Martin is a retired trauma therapist and former Clinical Director of a trauma center, with extensive experience in forensic psychology, criminology, and applied ethics. A survivor of childhood and young adulthood trauma, Dr. Martin has dedicated decades to understanding the psychological and ethical complexities of trauma, crime, and accountability. Her career began as a volunteer in a women’s domestic violence shelter, then as a SA hospital advocate, later becoming a Crisis Therapist working alongside law enforcement on the streets of Phoenix. She went on to earn an AS in Psychology, a BS in Forensic Psychology, an MA in Criminology, and a PhD in Applied Ethics, ultimately working extensively in forensic mental health—providing psychological assessments, intervention, and rehabilitative support with inmates and in the community. A published author and lifelong student of life, she continues to explore the relationship and crossovers of forensic science, mental health, and ethical accountability in both historical and modern contexts.

www.InkProfiler.com

Life doesn’t need to crash completely for you to feel “down on your luck.” A failed promotion, a work project that didn’t go as planned, or a missed opportunity can set you back months.

Maybe the boss is riding you each day for quicker results? Sometimes you just feel undervalued, and you want to throw in the towel.

When things at work feel tense, it’s hard to keep going, and you feel stuck. Sometimes your personal life blows up at the same time. Your husband might have a fall at work and earn himself an expensive trip to the ER.

Your kid breaks an arm at the wrong time of the month, and the insurance deductibles ramp up your spending. Anything can happen to turn a rainy day into a tropical storm.

The saying, “When life gives you lemons — make lemonade,” can leave a nasty aftertaste in your mouth. It’s easier said than done.

Many people live paycheck to paycheck, and it’s not easy to change jobs or routines when money is the driver behind our actions. There is no financial flexibility.

If something doesn’t feel right–then it probably isn’t. That nagging feeling inside tells us we need a change.

Are you paying attention to what your mind is telling you?

Think about your life, and what’s going on.

Are you happy at work? If the answer is no, consider your skills.

What are your strengths? Are you good with numbers, computers, people, or animals? Where do you see yourself in five years?

Think about your ideal job.

What would you like to do for a living?

If your mind is telling you something different from where you work, then maybe you need to start looking for new opportunities.

Pause–Take a mental health day and relax. Where does your mind go when you allow yourself to daydream?

Breathe — deep breathing and yoga are fantastic for regulating your nervous system and unwinding.

Ponder–Think about what you want from your career. Where is your mind taking you?

Choose–Look for job openings and new opportunities. Research a business loan if you are considering starting up your own company.

Do–If you believe it, then you will achieve it. Go for it.

I’m an MFA student, and I will graduate this spring. I should have graduated last summer, but I was forced to delay due to life/work commitments. It turns out that I’m not superwoman, and working full-time while supporting my family is not conducive to studying as much as I want. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day if I want to sleep at some point. Other people in my MFA program can devote more time to their thesis research because they don’t work as much as I do. Some weeks, I’ve struggled to read everything on the reading lists and turn in weekly assignments. I’ve gotten good grades, but I wanted to do more.

Do you ever feel like you want more?

The turning point for me came a few months ago when someone on the program realized that I was under pressure, and asked me the questions that I posed at the beginning of this article.

How are you doing? How is life treating you at the moment? Where do you see yourself in five years?

Imagining yourself in your dream job can do miracles for your mental health. If you can believe that you can achieve your dreams, then you are halfway there. The first step is to believe that you can.

Just one small step.

Once you see a clear step towards your goal, the day-to-day doesn’t seem as demanding.

You can handle everything better because you know that “right now” is not forever.

Your mind is your greatest friend when you think positively about your life. If you start thinking negatively, your mind turns against you, and everything starts to feel very hard and challenging.

Keep your chin up. and think of your goals and dreams.

Where do you want to be in five years? What’s holding you back?

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

Here are a few links to my articles:

Looking for a Change?

https://medium.com/activated-thinker/looking-for-a-change-f391e85abbd7

A Search for Identity

https://medium.com/beyond-lines/a-search-for-identity-893df7c970c2

Are You Searching for Peace?

https://medium.com/illumination/are-you-searching-for-peace-cd54d76231c8

Are You Dealing With Burnout?

https://medium.com/illumination/are-you-dealing-with-burnout-374f774141b4

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

Elizabeth Woods

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

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

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

www.elizabethwoodsauthor.com/

EXISTENCE WITHOUT TASK / ORIENTATION BEFORE ACTION

How Authentic Coordinates Allow Natural Integration to Proceed
(Walking Through the Door, and Back Again: An Enchanted Evergreen Winter’s Welcome–A Threshold Tale)

This is not a journey; it is a placement. It is the slow recognition of safe conditions and coordinates that allow you to move across thresholds—and to return—without ever being lost.

Nothing is being asked of you here. Nothing needs to be fixed or figured out.

“Integration” refers to the natural coordination that occurs when conditions become uninhabitable.

Under chronic threat, human systems naturally adapt by developing extraordinary sensitivity to danger. This adaptation activates involuntary survival states governed by the autonomic nervous system. These states are not responses; they are sequential protective reactions that occur when response is unavailable, prioritizing static survival over variable integration and, when prolonged, contributing to persistent system strain.

Crucially, while the capacity for natural integration is never lost, access to natural passage conditions is unavailable in static survival states. Response—by definition—requires safety, orientational coordinates, motion, and variable neural integration. Without these conditions, the system can only react—because reaction is all that is available.

What are often labeled “trauma responses” are more accurately understood as reactions arising from constrained and uninhabitable environmental conditions.

What appears as incoherence is not failure. It is a brilliant, adaptive, and predictable natural reaction to impossible conditions.

Recognition of these patterns does not indicate failure or something that requires correction.

CPTSD Systemic Design (Constrained / Dis-Oriented)

Uninhabitable Consciousness Load-Bearing Conditions: These are not personal traits. They are environmentally induced system states:
–Compensatory
–Compulsive
–Uncoordinated
–Obstructive
–Containment & Control Patterns
–Non-distributed incoherent integrations
–Punitive subconscious existential-jurisdiction architectures
–Autonomic survival operating systems
–Separation-perception boundary perspectives
–Habitual isolation-maintenance reflexes
–Survival subroutine autocompletions
–Containment overreaction systems
–Closed-circuit circulation monitoring
–Distortion & Interference Patterns
–False-feelings psychic payloads
–Soma-overruling navigational overrides
–Labyrinthine interference patterning
–Overcorrecting emergency substitutions
–Compensatory distortion instability
–Trauma-sequencing shortcuts
–Context-bound survival rules
–Obstructed-reality protective measures
–Fragmentation & Collapse Patterns
–Defensive hypervigilance bracing routines
–Defensive distortion thought processes
–Misattributed role fragmentations
–Coercively collapsed witness-awareness
–Dissociative false-footing reactive stances
–Recursive mortality threat activation

When a natural environmental intelligence-field structure is present, rather than external coercion, instinct aligns into resonant coherence without force. Natural responses become possible without trust ever needing to be invoked at any coordinated systemic point.

NATURAL Systemic Design (Integrated / Oriented)

These are descriptive conditions, not goals or tasks:

–Habitable Consciousness Load-Bearing Conditions
–Fully Coordinated Body-Mind-Being-Awareness
–Safety
–Authenticity
–Coordination
–Continuity
–Unobstruction
–Self-maintenance
–Distribution
–Coherence
–Resonance
–Alignment
–Integration
–Orientation
–Accumulation
–Unobstructed Living.

Evergreen Enchantment

Unobstructed reality. What reality feels like when it no longer has to route itself around trauma, but instead walks through the door and says:

“Welcome back!”

Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash

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

Danette True

Danette True is a writer and systems-thinker focused on trauma-informed healing, embodiment, and humane approaches to individual and collective well-being. Her work explores how safety, structure, and lived experience shape recovery across the lifespan.

In trauma psychology, this mindset rarely stems from hopelessness. It comes from self-protection. Those who have lived or worked in prolonged contact with harm—survivors, investigators, clinicians, first responders—carry nervous systems engineered for surveillance. The brain starts to equate control with safety. When it cannot stop cruelty, it tries to stop proximity to it. The belief that no one should have to be born into this becomes a boundary, not a breakdown.

From a philosophical standpoint, antinatalism questions whether existence is a gift or a burden. From a forensic-behavioral one, it signals moral exhaustion—the collapse of conscience under sustained exposure to suffering. Individuals embedded in trauma-dense fields such as criminal justice, environmental protection, animal welfare, and emergency medicine encounter daily proof that harm often outpaces help. Over the years, empathy mutates into vigilance. Love of life becomes defensive instead of creative.

Neuroscience describes this shift as threat generalization. After repeated exposure to distress, the brain’s filtering system broadens its definition of danger until nearly everything feels risky. Under that bias, birth can register not as renewal but as the start of another preventable tragedy. Abstention then appears logical—an act of cognition shielding the heart.

From there, another thought often follows: that there are simply too many people in the world already. For those in the antinatalist mindset, overpopulation isn’t about statistics or environmental math—it’s about psychological crowding. When empathy is hyperactive, every human becomes another potential vector of suffering. Too many people mean too many needs, too many failures, too many witnesses to harm.

The perception isn’t rooted in misanthropy; it’s a defensive reading of reality. The mind sees the global population not as life thriving, but as pain multiplying faster than it can be managed. Each birth feels like another weight added to a scale that has already tipped. From a behavioral standpoint, this isn’t judgment—it’s triage. The nervous system concludes that the planet’s emotional ecosystem is over capacity, and that moral restraint is the only remaining form of stewardship.

To outsiders, the reasoning looks bleak. Inside the trauma-conditioned mind, it sounds merciful: I can’t stop the world’s pain, but I can stop adding to it. For some, this belief settles into permanence; for others, it functions as a warning light that empathy has reached its physiological limit and requires recalibration before it can serve again.

For those who have spent decades absorbing pain that can’t be undone, the question isn’t “Why live?” It’s “Why replicate exposure?” In forensic terms, this isn’t nihilism. It’s moral exhaustion wearing an intellectual disguise. The belief that no one should have to be born into this isn’t despair—it’s the psyche’s last act of ethical control.

What looks like cynicism from the outside often feels like mercy from within. It’s empathy trying to protect itself from another century of heartbreak. When compassion finally reaches its limit, philosophy steps in to guard it.

Forensic psychology sometimes calls this preventive morality—the instinct to halt potential harm before it begins, even if that means halting creation itself. It appears frequently among professionals whose compassion training has taught them to anticipate catastrophe rather than possibility.

Viewed through that lens, antinatalism is not cynicism. It is conscience under pressure. It is empathy wearing armor. When compassion becomes unsustainable, the psyche constructs philosophy to contain it. Recognizing this pattern matters because it reframes exhaustion as a signal, not a defect. The worldview isn’t broken—it’s tired. And tired can heal.

Every crisis-driven profession collects quiet philosophers: the paramedic who stops believing in rescue, the advocate who doubts reform, the therapist who questions whether the world wants to heal. Their logic may sound grim, yet beneath it lies integrity struggling to survive itself.

Antinatalism, understood through trauma science, is not an argument against life. It is an argument for rest. It is the nervous system declaring, Enough harm has been witnessed for now. When that message is acknowledged rather than pathologized, empathy restores itself. And when empathy returns, morality follows.

Sources:

David Benatar — Better Never to Have Been (Oxford University Press, 2006)
American Psychological Association — Moral Injury and Trauma Exposure (2023)
National Center for PTSD — Threat Generalization in Chronic Stress
Journal of Moral Psychology — Preventive Morality in Trauma-Exposed Professionals
Oxford Handbook of Forensic Psychology — Cognitive Containment and Empathy Regulation

Photo by Ephraim Mayrena on Unsplash

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

Dr. Mozelle Martin

Dr. Mozelle Martin is a retired trauma therapist and former Clinical Director of a trauma center, with extensive experience in forensic psychology, criminology, and applied ethics. A survivor of childhood and young adulthood trauma, Dr. Martin has dedicated decades to understanding the psychological and ethical complexities of trauma, crime, and accountability. Her career began as a volunteer in a women’s domestic violence shelter, then as a SA hospital advocate, later becoming a Crisis Therapist working alongside law enforcement on the streets of Phoenix. She went on to earn an AS in Psychology, a BS in Forensic Psychology, an MA in Criminology, and a PhD in Applied Ethics, ultimately working extensively in forensic mental health—providing psychological assessments, intervention, and rehabilitative support with inmates and in the community. A published author and lifelong student of life, she continues to explore the relationship and crossovers of forensic science, mental health, and ethical accountability in both historical and modern contexts.

www.InkProfiler.com

Have you taken some time for yourself today?

If you are a trauma survivor, the answer is probably not. As survivors, the last person we think about is ourselves because we have spent years being suppressed into believing that we don’t exist, that we are nothing, and that we deserve nothing.

An abuser asserts control over us by intimidation and fear. The damage from hearing that we are nothing and we have no voice is deeply ingrained in us. It doesn’t matter if decades have passed since you left home; that core self-image was shattered well before your personality had taken form.

This is why we never stop to think about ourselves.

In this article, I want to address the issue of self-image after suffering child abuse and how this deep wound is difficult to heal.

Let’s start with an exercise:

Look in a full-length mirror where you can see your whole body. If you don’t have one at home, plenty of stores have them. I want you to linger in front of the mirror and look at yourself.

What do you see?

Who do you see?

What does your face look like?

Are you smiling, or do you have a sad face?

What does this tell you about the image in the mirror? Who is this person in the mirror? Where have you been today?

As trauma survivors, we rarely stop and look at ourselves.

Next, look at your body.

What do you see?

What are you wearing?

Why did you wear those clothes today?

How do they make you feel?

When we have a disconnect between ourselves and the world, we don’t always pause to think about what we look like.

Now, back to my first question: How are you feeling today?

Did you find those questions difficult to answer? Why do you think that is?

In our busy world, we rarely take the time to pause and simply be for a while. We’re so busy that we often eat our lunch at our desks; heck, we might even work through lunch. Our calendars are so full that we cannot afford to stop, and it is no wonder that we get sick from stress.

Taking time to notice how we feel is so far down our agenda that we forget to “feel.” It is no wonder that if we cannot “feel,” we also forget who we are.

I want you to look into that mirror one more time. This time, look into your eyes. Someone once told me that eyes are like windows into the soul. I agree with them. Eyes do tell stories about someone, if you look.

What do you see in your eyes? Can you see the emotional pain that you are in?

If you can see it, then maybe you can start to understand that the pain is there. You were deeply hurt, but your life is not over; far from it.

You matter, and you still have many sunrises to discover.

There is so much that your face can tell you, and if you look even closer at your image, there is a road map laid out in front of you.

Every bruise, scar, blemish, and wrinkle has a story. They matter, every single one matters because they are yours.

They tell the exact truth of how much you have had to endure in the past. How brave you were to overcome your trauma; to stand here in this moment, and look at yourself.

My therapist asked me; who do I see when I look in the mirror? I found myself not being able to answer. Then she changed the question and asked me to tell me how other people saw me.

It took me a while to answer because I never really think about myself.

Do you take time to think about yourself?

Who are you?

My therapist had to break it down for me into labels to help me answer her question. I was like a child having their food cut up into bite-sized pieces. But in this case, the food was a simple question of: who are you?

We eventually agreed that I was a wife, mom, author, teacher, etc. Those are all true facts, but I still couldn’t find the words to name them.

If you are finding it tricky to think of who you are, then turn it around and think about how other people see you.

Who are you to others around you? How do they see you?

Think about everything that you have achieved so far, and be proud of every stepping stone it took to get there. I’m not just talking about academics here, but anything you have achieved, no matter how small, is still something.

Where have you been, and what kind of people did you meet along the way?

How did those experiences and people teach you and shape you to who you are today?

You should feel proud of who you are, wherever your life is in this moment. You survived, and your body is your story.

From now on, you have a choice of where you want to go next. You are free to make that choice, and nobody can tell you what to do and how to do it. You are free.

I know these words are hard to read because if you are anything like me, you don’t believe in yourself. It’s hard to feel proud of anything when it doesn’t come naturally.

What do we say to our kids when they cannot do something at first? Well, we ask them to try again, and again, and again. We tell them that by practicing something, eventually they will get better and succeed.

So, take another look in that mirror and practice telling yourself that you matter, and you should feel proud of who you are.

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

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

For more about me: www.elizabethwoodsauthor.com

Support your fellow writer:

https://ko-fi.com/elizabe69245484

Photo by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash

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

Elizabeth Woods

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

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

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

www.elizabethwoodsauthor.com/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But I am not quitting coaching.

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

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

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

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

Less pressing.
Less forcing.
Less building from depletion.

More listening.
More honesty.
More choosing ease. 

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

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

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

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

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

To flow instead of force!
Rachel


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

Photo by Peter Trones on Unsplash

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

Rachel Grant

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

www.rachelgrantcoaching.com

In seventh grade, the children at my middle school traded their Nintendos and Polly Pocket dolls for iPhones and Barbie dolls–in the form of minions for their social cliques. Soon after the school year began, CHABELCK was established, and the name might as well have been trademarked.

So, what was CHABELCK? It was the official name of the “friend group” composed of all the popular girls in our class. I look back and chuckle at the name. They could have worked harder to come up with something catchier; to me, it sounds like the remnants of something a dog threw up! They simply took the initials of their first names and combined them into one word. Almost immediately after the group was created, the term CHABELCK and the girls who held that title loomed over the school, feared by all who encountered them. I took an observer’s perspective, watching in bewilderment as many of my innocent friends neglected our friendship to join CHABELCK–and consequently morphed into power-hungry monsters. 

CHABELCK’s presence at school was boisterous. The group’s name was plastered on binders, folders, and whiteboards. They took over online forums, cyberbullying other students whom they deemed unworthy of a spot in their cool kids’ club. A few members of CHABELCK were ultimately expelled from school, while others were disciplined. 

Groupthink, peer pressure, and tribalism throughout human history

I’ll never forget CHABELCK. It was my first exposure to the aggressive presence of tribalism and groupthink in our society. 

Why does the cacophony of the groups I’ve encountered throughout my life ring louder than the whisper of my own conscience? Humans are social creatures, and tribalism originated as a survival mechanism. We hunted and gathered to protect our own. He who strayed from the tribe vanished into the jaws of the enemy. To be excluded was to die. 

The battle between my internal desires and external expectations

Although tribalism is ingrained in my human DNA, I’m very much a free spirit. From a young age, conformity felt like an internal death sentence. I fought a daily battle between my disdain for Western civilization’s obsession with fortune and fame and my desire to escape into solitude. In environments filled with materialism and superficiality, I felt pressured to be someone I was not in order to be liked and accepted. The seduction of the herd was enticing. 

With every group I tried to join, I was eventually ostracized or, in some cases, viciously bullied out of them. Starting at a new school when I was thirteen, I quickly became the target of a situation of large-group interpersonal cruelty–the first of several such instances. This was the first time I came home from school expressing to my parents that I had thoughts of suicide. I switched schools, but the bullying continued as I navigated new peer environments. I tried hard to fit in, so that I wouldn’t be seen as an antisocial loser. Some mental health providers even pathologized the fact that I didn’t have friends. 

But even if I disregarded others’ opinions, I didn’t need a tyrant to criminalize me as a friendless outcast. Whenever I changed myself to fit in, I became my own jailer. Even when I was initially accepted into social groups, I felt like I had betrayed myself. I hated being like everyone else. The tug-of-war between my authentic self and my desire for acceptance was more painful than the rejection from those whose approval I craved. 

The anatomy of groupthink

I have developed intellectual friendships with social psychologists and philosophers like Arthur Schopenhauer and Solomon Asch, whose research and observations suggest that societal expectations of conformity can strip individuals of their freedom. As I reflected on my personal experiences with groupthink, I noticed some recurring patterns.

While these groups seemed powerful at the time (there is power in numbers, as they say!), they were actually quite weak. Much like the structure of a cult, these groups typically had a leader (or multiple leaders), with followers obediently trailing behind and idolizing them. When I interacted with these group members on an individual level, I noticed they were often insecure and relied on the group for validation. They frequently spoke poorly of other group members and revealed their secrets to me, indicating that their friendships were not genuine and that the group was performative. I recognized that if they spoke about their “friends” in this way to me, they were likely doing the same thing to me behind my back. 

My final straw before rejecting it all

I’ve learned the hard way that the petty high school behavior doesn’t stop after high school. When I moved to the countryside to begin my healing journey, I found myself isolated in a retirement town in the middle of nowhere, with a population of 1,942. I got to know a group of friends there, and was initially invited to their breakfasts and bonfires. I thought I had finally found my people. 

From the get-go, I had an internal inkling that, like with past groups, I would eventually be kicked to the curb. I found myself trying very hard to gain their approval. I changed my personality and overextended my generosity, spending money I didn’t even have in order to remain relevant to them. 

Unfortunately, my gut instincts turned out to be right. After the initial “love-bombing” phase, I was soon deemed unworthy of being in their presence. Around town, they went out of their way to make me feel inferior–snubbing me, humiliating me in front of others, and playing mind games with hot-and-cold behavior. It was bizarre! For months, I ruminated, trying to figure out what I could do to be good enough for this group and to coexist with them in the tiny town without tension. But nothing I did was good enough. 

After a few months of continuous rejection and their attempts to stifle success in my healing, the stress finally took its toll on me. One night, I woke up with itchy legs. My entire body had broken out in hives! Over the next two weeks, I visited the emergency room four times. Each time the ER managed to control the hives, they returned again within 48 hours. I wondered if I had an allergy, and ended up driving to the big city to consult with an allergist. 

Facing the pain of rejection and uncovering subconscious memories

There was no allergy: the hives were stress-related. Yes, the rejection stung (and itched!) that deeply. The rejection didn’t hurt because these people were particularly special; in truth, they barely took the time to get to know me before they discarded me. If it had been strangers behaving this way, I would have brushed it off immediately, reminding myself that their actions stemmed from their own misery and insecurity. However, because I had met these people at the beginning of my cabin journey, they became my final hope of solidifying a friend group I could rely on for the rest of my life. When I was rejected, they became the symbol of all the interpersonal cruelty I had faced during my formative years.

It was painful to be ostracized by the people who promised me they would be on the other side of my success. Still, there was a silver lining: with each instance of being belittled by this group, I brought my feelings to my therapist. Together, we worked through the physical sensations I felt in response to these moments using a technique called brainspotting. During each session, subconscious memories connected to these emotions resurfaced–memories of the hurt I had experienced from groups in my peer environments and religious communities. Through brainspotting work, those buried memories were processed and healed. 

I will no longer participate in it

After years of chasing a dangling carrot held by various groups, I grew tired of hearing, “If you just do this… then you can finally sit with us.” I decided to stop trying to prove that I am “good enough” for these groups and instead realized that I am too good to participate in their infantile behavior. 

My entire life, I had questioned whether these kinds of people wanted to be friends with me. But things changed when I learned to ask myself, “Do I even want to be friends with them?” 

I refuse to march around in aggressive cults and pretend to have disdain for people and groups whose stories I know nothing about. I do not feel superior by making others feel inferior. I find no satisfaction in mocking or intimidating innocent people. I don’t enjoy latching onto narratives or rumors based on hearsay. I cannot bow in submission while my heart screams in protest. I refuse to trade my authenticity for acceptance. 

My path to true freedom

In a world where the crowd roars with confidence, my solitude felt like madness. But when I quieted my mind in the countryside, I discovered that my greatest fear as a radical nonconformist was not the herd itself: it was becoming like the herd. 

Today, I’m not a part of any friend groups, and I don’t want to be. I do almost everything alone, and I actually prefer it that way. Despite how medical providers pathologized my introversion in the past, I now know there is nothing wrong with wanting to be alone. Once I found freedom in my individuality, I no longer needed the approval of those I had previously put on a false pedestal. I’ve built authentic and easygoing friendships with people who have no agenda and do not require me to participate in activities that conflict with my values. 

I will not pretend to be someone I’m not just to feel like I belong. To me, true belonging means being at home within my own soul. I will continue to stand strong on my own two feet and keep my head held high, never surrendering to the crowd.  

Photo by Dibya Jyoti Ghosh on Unsplash

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

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

Natalie Rose

My name is Natalie, and I am a survivor of about 13 years of absolute psychological torture from Complex PTSD symptoms. For the longest time, I thought I was inherently sick and broken beyond repair. I spent over a decade running around in circles in the medical system trying to figure out what was “wrong” with me and how to “fix” it.

♡ What is Complex PTSD? ♡

Complex PTSD symptoms come from severe, prolonged, and numerous incidents of trauma, typically of a relational nature. Symptoms can come from any type of trauma, though, and the trauma doesn’t necessarily have to stem from childhood — adults can develop CPTSD as well. Trauma can damage the brain and shrink the hippocampus, causing many of the symptoms of CPTSD. I decided to go public with my story to be a voice for the voiceless. There are too many survivors being told CPTSD is a lifelong sentence, and they are not being given the tools they need to overcome their symptoms.

♡ My Story ♡

I endured multiple types of traumas starting at around age thirteen, including numerous situations of both individual and large-group interpersonal cruelty. Some of these situations forced me to switch environments. My body couldn’t fathom what was happening, and my nervous system shut down. I saw danger everywhere, operated in a panicked survival mode, and lived in fear, anxiety, and isolation. I did my best to appear “normal” on the outside, keep a smile on my face, and control what was happening on the inside, distracting myself with extreme workaholism and doing nice things for others. I took active steps to keep branching out in confidence again, but these traumas kept piling onto each other and overlapping. I wasn’t ready to give up yet, though, because I knew my family and friends would be distraught if I did. The most difficult and heartbreaking part of my story is that the two communities I set out to seek healing in—religion and the medical system itself—caused further trauma when some religious leaders, congregation members, and medical professionals chose to take advantage of my vulnerability for their own motives. In most of these situations, I didn’t even realize I was a victim until outsiders pointed it out for me and that my vulnerability made me a target of malicious people. Each future situation of being targeted was just salt on the wound of the original incident.

♡ My Struggles to Find Answers ♡

What I went through all those years was so severe, and my symptoms and physical body reactions as a result were so excruciating that I went as far as to see a neurologist, concerned that my symptoms were the result of some sort of nervous system disorder. However, he returned with no paperwork in his hands to inform me that there was nothing wrong with me but that I was simply completely traumatized, and my body reacted accordingly. I finally realized that my symptoms were not the result of an inherent mental or physical illness and began to take a trauma-based approach to my healing after many years of believing that I was “sick” for the rest of my life. My true progress began when I finally rejected the lies that were told to me that I would have to manage my symptoms for the rest of my life and made the decision to believe that I was fully capable of healing from my excruciating pain.

♡ Finding My Own Healing ♡

I am excited to share tips for natural, somatic, and holistic healing that have helped me overcome things like dissociation, flashbacks, sleep challenges, anxiety, hypervigilance, and more. I began to pursue unique methods of healing after many years of not seeing much progress through westernized care, and this was the catalyst for fast-tracking my healing. I aim to help survivors overcome their feelings of self-guilt, blame, and humiliation and help them realize that their bodies had normal reactions to abnormal situations.

I’m so glad I didn’t give up when my pain felt unbearable. I know what I’ve survived. I know the work I’ve put in to overcome it. I am finally living a life of consistent peace and contentment, and I am sharing my story from the other side. I hope to encourage other survivors that there was never anything wrong with them to begin with and that they are capable of living healthy, happy, and fulfilled lives. I aim to live my life in love of both others and myself, understanding that everyone has a story of their own. I am grateful to the CPTSD Foundation for giving me an opportunity to share my story.

♡ Personal Blog ♡

To learn more about my healing journey, please visit my personal blog, “Little Cabin Life,” at:
littlecabinlife.com

I wrote this poem a few months ago, drawing from the well of ancient, long-buried feelings about the first time my mom forced my mouth open and poured Dawn dish soap into it. I was four. Although I had received spankings with a variety of objects over the last year (when her new partner introduced physical child abuse to the mix), this was new. As I choked on the pungent combination of soap, snot, and tears, I grappled with confusion and fear. Soapy bubbles of snot popped around my face, and I struggled to breathe. The soap burned my throat and nostrils. My mom, who had never done anything this cruel, tightly gripped the insides of my elbows, screaming at me to stop crying. 

To this day, I am only half sure what I “did” to bring on that previously foreign punishment. I only have a flash of a memory and clues from what came after to guide me in making deductions about what motivated her to unleash a new brand of assault. It was the first time of many. Washing our mouths with soap became a go-to when a hard smack across the face or tightly gripping our cheeks didn’t suffice after we “said something we shouldn’t have.” Sometimes it was a curse word; other times, an opinion. The times when my mom suffocated my opinions stung the most. 

There’s a little part of me that thinks that the first time I “got the soap,” it may have been after I shared my thoughts about her new partner; I didn’t like him and didn’t want him there. I solidly remember saying such while living in the house where I first choked on soap; whether that statement led to my oral “baptism” or not, I will never really know. I only know that time and time again, my words fell silent. The person who should have listened to me and heard me instead again and again gagged me. Had she asked me why I didn’t like him, it may have saved me from nearly a decade and a half of the sexual abuse and mental abuse that he initiated as early as he did the beatings. 

She didn’t ask, though. Instead, she silenced me. I learned to shut myself up, closing off my thoughts and feelings from the world. I sewed them up tightly within, and over the years, I only allowed them to escape when safely veiled beneath the mask of my poetry. 

I learned to suppress the truth of my reality, even from myself. For the next three and a half decades, I downplayed the cruelty of some of the things I experienced. That’s not to say there weren’t parts of me that knew many of those things weren’t right…that they were downright abusive. Of course, I KNEW that. I just couldn’t allow myself to FEEL it for a very, very long time. If you’re reading this from a place of trauma yourself, I suspect you know exactly what I’m saying.

I didn’t want to feel these things for a simple reason: I love my mom. Despite the cruelty of what I just described, I want to emphasize that she’s not a horrible person. She did, however, do some very bad things. Sometimes, even worse, she didn’t always do the things she should have done to protect her kids…like listen to us when we needed her to hear us the most. I have a lot of very strong feelings around those things. Only in recent years have I allowed myself to acknowledge and truly embrace those hard feelings. Those feelings come across strongly in the poem above. There are parts of me that take issue with some of the lines that erupted from me because they feel too binary. I’ve come to learn that life truly is not and does not have to live on a pendulum of sharp swings from one extreme to another. And…despite my hesitation around this “black and white” perspective, I’m keeping those uncomfortable lines in the poem. Those uncomfortable lines are a part of my truth. I need to feel them just as they are so that I can finally work through them and move forward.  

For me, a key part of moving forward lies in putting words to my experiences and accepting my story for what it is. Sometimes I wonder where my ability to string words into powerful phrases originated. I think that maybe it comes from that place within that was time and time again suppressed, choked, and gagged. When I write, I experience a ferocity of feeling, both freeing and terrifying in its ability to help me find meaning in the meaningless. Again and again throughout my life, I have returned to the refuge of my words. Fortunately, there were some things within me that simply couldn’t be silenced. I clung to the life raft of the words no one could take from me. I disguised my feelings in the poetry I wrote relentlessly as a child and teenager, and even sporadically throughout my adulthood, until a year ago when the floodgates opened, and it ALL began pouring out in a river of emotions. These days, I have again begun to write poetry, and I am learning to write my story in a much more direct kind of way. I’m taking ownership of my words and story. We ALL deserve to reclaim the words and the feelings that were taken from us. 

Scrubbed Innocence

You lit a lava fire that blazes in my throat
Its flames engulf me in fear 
They rage, burning the broken bridges
Between then and here 

In silencing my words, you murdered my trust in you
Violent echoes of the past
Color my eyes in lonely shades of blue
Your mutilation of motherhood 
Cast my world in shadows
A violation of my childhood
left me alone, bearing too much to handle

You suffocated my sense of safety
Left me drowning in my tears
Instead of saving me from my hell
You trapped me in yours

Your cruelty choked my confidence
The scorch of my tears ran through rivers of snot 
You scrubbed away my innocence
Nightmares bubbling to the top

You stood center of some of my darkest hours
You were supposed to be my soft place
You were supposed to be my mother
Instead, I’m left with smoldering embers of an unnamed guilt
The parts of you that loved me
No longer felt

I’m still choking on your brutality
Buried beneath suffering remembered
Your conscience stands empty
After all that I endured, after all the pain you rendered

Photo by Alex Shute on Unsplash

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

Heather Jurvelin

Finally feeling truly alive for the first time in my life, I am writing from a place of gradual healing with an eye to the future and a hope of connecting with others on similar paths. Forced to withhold a tsunami of emotions deemed irrelevant under the roof of my childhood “home,” the blank white pages of my notebooks invited my raw reflections without judgment. Writing allowed me to free the burdens of my soul, but at some point, I muzzled myself. My pen lay dormant for years until, at 41 years old, I experienced a traumatic flashback during an everyday activity that shook me to the core. Five days later, I started writing about the things I had long withheld. I couldn’t stop. Written words have once again become my refuge. I now recognize that these words, resurrected from the ashes of my pain, may have the power to help others. Above all, I want to magnify and share the messages that I have most treasured on my journey: we are not alone and we don’t ever have to go back. This is where we live now and the future is ours.