Highly Sensitive | CPTSDfoundation.org

Continued: Trauma and its Effect on the Brain: Beyond Fight, Flight and Freeze States…

Elizabeth Woods — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0000

My name’s Lizzy, and I’m a trauma survivor. I write to spread awareness of what it feels like to live after traumatic events and abuse.

I know because I’m living this life. A life after enduring more than a human being should be able to survive.

The five F’s of Trauma Reactions

(No, I’m not writing about the swear word here.)

When a person is exposed to trauma through either threats or dangerous situations, the body releases stress hormones that make physiological changes to protect us.

These changes keep us alert so that we can react to a traumatic situation.

Yesterday, I wrote about the fight/flight and freeze states because those are the three most common ways of responding to traumatic events. I touched on emotional shutdown, too, but I didn’t label it.

We’ve all seen the anger, the inconsolable sadness, and the shutdown in people. These behaviors are sadly part of our everyday lives. I see it in the food market, the mall, the park, and in school.

Trauma is part of our community, our towns and cities, and our world, whether we like it or not. Many of us are still suffering from events that happened years ago, like Hurricane Katrina, and more recently, Helene.

When you are in danger, your body chooses how you react in the moment to keep you alive. It’s instinctive like a survival mechanism.

Do you choose fight, flight, freeze, fawn or flop when you face danger?

A quick recap on the three F’s from yesterday’s article:

Fight State is when you choose to confront whatever is happening to you or around you.

Flight State — Is when you choose to escape to run away from the threat or situation.

Freeze State — Is when you feel paralyzed / frozen and unable to respond in any way.

The Fawn and Flop Reactions to Traumatic Events

There are two more ways that a person can react in response to traumatic events. They are Fawn and Flop states.

The Fawn State is when a person submits to the danger. They become people-pleasing and appeasing their abusers to the detriment of their own needs.

Some traits of fawning include:

Neglecting your personal needs and boundaries
Complimenting excessively, even if it is not authentic
Can’t say “no” and grants every wish and demand of others.
Being a people pleaser
Having no sense of personal identity
Hypervigilance and awareness of others moods and emotions
Neglecting or not knowing your own emotions and feelings
Turns to others to know how the feel or “should” feel
Makes themselves a servant to others like being as helpful and useful as possible
Feeling guilty when not being helpful

The Flop State — This is the state that not many professionals have heard of. I know it well because I used this response when I was very young and I still remember it decades later because of how I felt.

The flop state is the most extreme reaction to traumatic events. It can happen because you are being violently attacked like a child being physically or sexually abused. It can also happen to torture victims when the pain is so severe that you “tune out.”

The Flop state is an involuntary, instinctual reaction to overwhelming terror where the body shuts down, causing physical collapse, fainting, or total mental unresponsiveness.

Some traits of the Flop state include:

Total body collapse

Playing Dead

Mental and physical unawareness — when the traumatized person dissociates and becomes disengaged, disoriented, and emotionally turned off.

Loss of body control — You’re intensely scared and lose control of your bodily functions.

So, what happens inside the brain to cause these physiological reactions to a person?

The role of Cortisol

There’s so much more that happens inside a trauma brain to cause the Fight / Flight/ Freeze / Fawn and Flop states.

When an individual is traumatized, and I mean scared to death, we produce a stress hormone called, Cortisol.

Cortisol is a steroid hormone(nicknamed the stress hormone) that is produced in the adrenal glands just above the kidneys. The function of Cortisol is to regulate stress in our bodies, but it has other jobs too.

Cortisol regulates how your body uses Glucose (sugar) for energy. It regulates your blood pressure and reduces inflammation in the body. Cortisol also helps control your sleep and wake rhythm.

The human body needs Cortisol to regulate and keep us going.

Increased Cortisol Levels wreak havoc in the brain and body

When our Cortisol levels are either too high or too low, we start to feel unwell.

High levels of Cortisol can develop into high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and make us gain weight around the stomach and face. We can also notice muscle weakness in our arms and legs.

Low levels of Cortisol can cause extreme fatigue, weight loss and no appetite as well as low blood pressure.

Increased levels of Cortisol is fine for short periods to get our bodies ready for action, but in a trauma brain, Cortisol levels stay high. This is because your body releases more Cortisol as a response to stress in harmful situations:

Acute Stress — Short-term stress, like an accident.

Chronic Stress — Long-term stress from a demanding job, dysfunctional family life, living in poverty, and having a chronic illness.

Traumatic Stress — Situations that are exceptionally threatening, dangerous and sometimes catastrophic.

Delving Deeper into Traumatic Stress

Traumatic stress is what causes high levels of Cortisol in the body, and because this type of stress doesn’t go away, the body keeps producing the hormone.

Traumatic Stress comes from:

Direct exposure to a horrific situation or event like abuse or torture.

Witnessing people or someone being abused or tortured.

Indirect exposure — Learning of a loved one being abused or tortured.

Occupation — Professions like serving in the Navy / Army / Coast Guard, Police and fire fighters seeing or being assaulted in war and conflicts. Doctors and body guards handling crisis situations.

Seeing a traumatic event on social media like YouTube doesn’t cause the type of stress I’m describing, unless a person works in these situations.

Living with Chronic stress can have a big impact on your life through your overall health, your sleep patterns and your mood.

What can you do to reduce your Cortisol levels if you have been exposed to traumatic stress?

The first and best way to reduce Cortisol is to get good sleep. I mean quality sleep without nightmares and waking up every five minutes. That’s not easy for someone who is affected by traumatic stress.

Exercising and moving your body is another way to remove Cortisol or any excess hormones from the body.

Breath work through deep breathing and yoga can greatly help someone who is feeling stressed.

Socialize with friends and family who make you feel good. Go out and enjoy yourself and laugh deep belly laughs.

Distance yourself from those who don’t make you happy.

I’ve lived through trauma and come out the other side. This is what it feels like to live with trauma for years and sometimes decades after the events. Now, you will recognize these traits and behaviors in your world.

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

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Embracing My Superpowers as an Empath and Highly Sensitive Person

Natalie Rose — Tue, 07 Oct 2025 11:06:42 +0000

Recently, while I was waiting at a crowded restaurant, I found myself interacting with a toddler and his mother. I smiled, played peek-a-boo, and gave him a playful “Hello!” At first, he hid behind his mother’s legs, peeking out at me every few seconds. Suddenly, he ran to me and wrapped his arms around my calves, refusing to let go.

It was the sweetest thing! His mother laughed a little and apologized, but I wasn’t mad. This is normal for me. It served as another reminder that the pure-hearted can sense my motherly energy. I knelt down, reciprocated his embrace, and felt empathy connecting us.

What is an empath?

Do you often find yourself to be overly generous and highly sensitive to your surroundings? Do you prioritize experiences over material possessions? Do you crave solitude? If so, you may be an empath.

While many people are capable of feeling empathy, being a true empath involves a deeper level of emotional intelligence. With proper discernment, empaths can understand and appreciate the suffering of others without directly experiencing it themselves. Dr. Judith Orloff has a helpful list of twenty traits that characterize empaths, which I found valuable in confirming my own empathic nature—I checked “yes” to every single one of them!

Empaths are curious about strangers, exhibit more interest in others than in themselves, and are less likely to hold to social stereotypes. Unfortunately, their authenticity may come across as disingenuous to some. Empaths may find it challenging to fit in, and relationships or social events can be draining. We can also be very forgiving, which can make us appear weak or naïve.

Scientific research on empathy has shown that only a tiny fraction of the population consists of true empaths. Dr. Michael Banissy and Dr. Natalie Bowling at Goldsmiths University of London conducted years of research on empathy. Their findings concluded that mirror-touch synesthesia—the phenomenon of mirroring and feeling the emotions of others—is present in only about 1-2% of humans with hypersensitive mirror neurons.

My own empathy

I’ve often heard others remark that I’m an empath. I must admit: I wear my heart on my sleeve.

I’m an emotional creature and a deep thinker; I feel the emotions of others as if they are my own. Pain, happiness, joy, anxiety, fear, sadness—I absorb them. It can be overwhelming.

In the past, I jokingly responded, “It’s a blessing and a curse! Mostly a curse!”

The empath’s “curse”

I once cursed my empathy. The ability to feel another’s pain meant that I absorbed it without being able to distinguish it from my own. My body reacted in visceral ways, and I wanted to be able to release the stimuli that had violated my inner peace.

Reflecting on my years of anxiety, chronic fatigue, panic attacks, and autoimmune symptoms, I see that these signs were a direct result of my tendency to internalize the pain of others. To stop viewing my empathy as a curse, I learned how to better control it. I taught myself to differentiate my own emotions from those of others so I wouldn’t be overwhelmed by what I now consider my superpowers. Today, I am grateful and will never again curse my empathy.

Feeling overwhelmed and overstimulated as a child

From a young age, I was easily overstimulated, but I struggled to articulate how “different” I felt compared to the other children. I wanted to fit in, but I just couldn’t. While my classmates effortlessly went to football games, concerts, and busy public places, I found these environments overwhelming. Sitting in the crowd of a large stadium was not exciting for me–it was torturous. The bright lights were blinding, the billboard graphics pierced my amygdala, and the crowd hooping and hollering brought me to tears. I wondered what was so wrong with me.

As I got older, the overstimulation persisted. In college, I spent countless nights tossing and turning in bed, disturbed by the sensorial overwhelm of sounds from the city below me. Why couldn’t I find the peace I so desperately craved? All I wanted was to retreat, escape to the middle of nowhere, take a bubble bath, binge Gilmore Girls, and forget about the outside world.

The innate beauty of high sensitivity and empathy

In the past, I wasn’t certain about identifying as an empath or a highly sensitive person. The only descriptors that I came into contact with were the dehumanizing and inaccurate diagnoses I received from healthcare providers. The opposing narrative of what medicine labeled me had me feeling like an imposter. I was told I had a kind of “problem,” so that I felt guilty for even possessing such beautiful qualities associated with empathy and high-sensitivity.

How I embraced my own inner empathy

Recently, I have grown confident in calling myself an empath and highly sensitive person. Embracing my true gifts isn’t pathological; I had to look beyond the DSM to find confidence in my superpowers.

#1: I studied different personality types and accepted that not everyone reasons, thinks, and feels as I do

It was difficult for me to accept that some people blatantly lack empathy and do not have small egos. Encountering Machiavellian personality types—people who prey on compassionate individuals like empaths—led me to being exploited numerous times in the past. I poured my heart into many relationships in a desperate attempt to have friends, but to them, I was nothing other than a source of supply for their own gain.

I have too much respect for myself to continue to go on with energy vampires and emotional barnacles. It took me a while to identify who in my life genuinely supports me and is safe to trust. One of the greatest gifts from my healing journey is that I now know who those individuals are.

#2: I stopped trying to “fix” things external to me and overcame my people-pleasing tendencies

Realizing that not everyone is an empath, I learned to manage my empathy more effectively. In the past, when someone violated my trust, I would forgive them and empathize with them, trying to justify that their actions stemmed from their own pain. I often felt the need to get on their level and “help” their issues out of the goodness of my heart. This approach backfired; I unintentionally made myself easy prey for sick people.

I used to believe that it was my obligation to use my gifts to make the world a better place. However, I eventually came to realize that my people-pleasing tendencies put my health and safety at risk. I learned that my authenticity can’t change deceitful people, my kindness can’t soften hardened hearts, and that the only person I can change is myself.

#3. I slowed down, adopted a quieter life, and put my healing first

For years, I lived in a big city while wrestling with Complex PTSD symptoms. To kickstart my healing, I moved to a rural area, where the pace of life is slower. My only regret was not packing my bags sooner!

After about 18 months in the countryside, I felt replenished, and I was ready to return to the suburbs. I took all the tools I perfected in my cabin in the woods and implemented them as I moved to a new environment. After giving my psyche the time it needed to repair itself, I am now able to handle the stimulation of the city. The difference is that I know my needs and boundaries, and seek balance for a lifestyle that is mindful and consistent.

#4 I stopped blaming myself and developed self-compassion.

Looking back on all the ways I used to react to the trauma I endured, I have so much compassion for myself. That wasn’t the real Natalie; she was an overmedicated and dissociated caricature of me who was doing her best to survive. But rather than allowing medical providers to pathologize my sensitivity, I realized that I was someone who had normal reactions to abnormal situations. This means that I am a healthy person–not weird, incapable, or unhealthy. There is nothing to be ashamed of; in fact, I would feel ashamed of myself if I didn’t react to injustice with so much heart.

Something that helped me was taking one of my difficult experiences and imagining if it happened to someone I cared about. A daily ritual during my healing journey was to take a situation that was still contributing to my inner critic and envision how I would compassionately counsel my future daughter about it. I would look in the mirror and pour my heart out to her. Once I got over the initial awkwardness of doing this, it became a habit, and I developed true self-compassion.

#5 I stopped consuming media and began communing with nature

As humans, we are not designed to be confined to a desk, hunched over a computer. There came a point when I had grown exhausted with staring into a computer screen for ten hours each day. My attention span had become so short, and I had lost touch with my true home: Mother Earth. I made a point to spend more and more time outside and, now, I crave it daily. To regulate my circadian rhythm, I start each morning with my bare feet in the grass while the sun is rising. I also try to get as much mid-day sun as I possibly can. I hang out with any animal pals who want to join me for my grounding sessions—ducks, deer, lizards—and relish in the colors and textures of the leaves on the trees. Nature really is an empath’s refuge.

Learning self-compassion

I am proud to have finally grown out of survival mode. I have worked so hard, both in therapy and on my own, essentially making healing my full-time job. I have learned that with the right tools, I can release emotions and stimuli that do not belong to me. I once thought it was impossible to let go of the damaging emotions I took in (that kept my inner critic on infinite loop). Today, I am proud to say that the emotions I absorbed from my perpetrators are now disconnected from my flashbacks. What remains are the visual and auditory remnants of my trauma–but with no emotions attached. I am now beginning a thorough brain-retraining process, and I will not give up until every last little bit of flashback is eradicated forever. I am not afraid anymore.

My commitment to working on myself has paid off. I have developed a deep sense of empathy for myself (touché!) and my subconscious has been renewed. Ultimately, I want to experience high levels of sensitivity across the spectrum, rather than be someone who feels very little–or nothing at all. I choose to focus on empathy as a gift that has positives, rather than punishing myself for feeling or caring too much. Of course, this takes self-knowledge and patience. Today, I pride myself in my ability to make a difference in the world by simply slowing down, listening to myself and others, and being in tune with my surroundings.

I am proud to be an empath

Growing up, some teachers and mental health professionals misunderstood and shamed my gifts. However, I now know that being different is a good thing. My sensitivity is an integral part of who I am, and the world needs as much empathy as it can get. I am no longer worried about fitting into other people’s standards, and don’t hold myself to their false narratives. This newfound confidence has helped me persevere through difficult experiences and even shielded me from others taking advantage of me. By listening to myself and nurturing my empathy and sensitivity, I have become wiser, stronger, and better prepared for the future. Now, my greatest challenge is how to use my gifts to impact the world around me.

I have always felt a little different from others–and I still do. And that’s a good thing! I will never again curse my superpowers.

Here are some books that helped me understand being an empath and highly sensitive person:

The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine N. Aron
The Empath’s Survival Guide by Judith Orloff
Highly Sensitive People in an Insensitive World by Ilse Sand

Featured Photo by Satit Wongsampan on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/woman-in-white-long-sleeve-dress-standing-on-green-grass-field-during-sunset-vG46wEciGSg

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.

Highly Sensitive People and CPTSD

Caroline Rena — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 08:22:08 +0000

What Have I Learned?

I have been on my healing journey for over 30 years. Trauma and Complex PTSD have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.

I have known for a long time that I am a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), with 26 out of the 27 traits listed on Dr. Elaine Aron’s website, www.hsperson.com, and 15-20% of the population lives with this trait.

Incredibly, most people don’t understand what an HSP is. Sometimes, we, as HSPs don’t understand it ourselves. We tend to beat ourselves up about it and don’t know why. Something can occur in our lives where we will judge ourselves harshly because we have been judged about “being too sensitive.”

What is High Sensitivity?

HSPs have a nervous system that is already more aware of the subtleties in the environment and with other people. The HSP brain processes things and information differently, we reflect on it more deeply and we notice more.

This trait is innate and not new, but most people have the wrong impression about those with high sensitivity.

Some think we are shy, but not all of us are. In fact, about 30% are extroverts, and I am one, however, we have been mislabeled as introverted. All HSPs are different, just like all humans are different. The expectation that we are all in one category is not correct.

One of the most important things I have realized about being an HSP is that there isn’t anything wrong with me. By not understanding myself or the traits of an HSP and with the belief that there was something wrong with me, it ended up adding to the traumas that I experienced in my life.

With the traumas stacked, I became more confused and lost in my life and finally began to learn about CPTSD, which helped me to understand why I wasn’t having visual flashbacks, but rather emotional ones.

More recently, I decided to take a deeper into being an HSP.

This Is a Journey, not a Destination

Just this past weekend, I decided to go to the beach. There was an area with picnic tables where I wanted to sit and record a video for my YouTube Channel, “Caroline Rena and The Ride of My Life.”

The Ride of My Life is my healing journey, and I love to chronicle my process with others there. Whether I travel to places around the US or locally, I find a way to share what I do and the tools I use to heal.

This particular Sunday was challenging. We were at the tail end of the full moon/lunar eclipse cycle and I could feel the energies of everyone around me.

I was overstimulated because the energy around me was so chaotic

I was starting to get overwhelmed and antsy. There were a lot of people there. I moved three times to get away from the energy I was feeling. Parents were yelling, kids were screaming and screeching. I just wanted to finish my video, and I started to judge myself for not being more patient or just dealing with it.

Interestingly, I was there to do an oracle reading with a deck that I love to use that helps me to connect with my higher self and build my intuition. The card I pulled – “Free from Judgment, Free to Love.” This deck never fails me.

I was overstimulated because the energy around me was so chaotic. I forced myself to stay there and get it done, so I could move into the next thing in my day. (This was another thing I learned later; to take care of myself and not force things or do too much).

Finally, I finished that part of the recording and was ready to walk on the beach. I had to walk through a massive amount of people to get to a place on the beach that was less inhabited. I needed to breathe.

I used two of the tools I had learned to release these intense feelings. I walked fast and breathed deeply.

After walking in that area of the beach, I began to feel more relaxed. My body let go of the shaky energies; my mind began to clear.

Nature is such a healer for me. I believe now that nature for an HSP is a gift.

I live in the United States. In this country, being sensitive or feeling our feelings has not been accepted or valued. Every time I was told I was “too sensitive,” I felt there was something wrong with me; I felt not good enough.

The Most Important Thing I Learned About Being Highly Sensitive

I am digging in more in my research on what being an HSP means and how I can live my life as one.

We can’t change the color of our eyes; we can’t change the trait of being highly sensitive. However, we can learn the truth of who we are, how to live our lives, and how we can help others understand what to do.

In my own experience, I have concluded that I think so far outside the box that I’m not even in the box, to begin with. I am part of an amazing group, HSPs, with this trait, and I choose to learn how to live with it.

What Can We Do?

The traumas I grew up with, and those that occurred throughout my life, built upon each other, year after year.

Some of the most important work you will ever do is to go inside your soul, to find inner peace by finding the truth of who you are.

Here are 3 things that I feel are important ways to accomplish this:

Keep doing the work to heal. Healing has no destination, it is a journey, and as an HSP, I have found this to be imperative. Trauma teaches us that we aren’t good enough. From that, we create Protective Mechanisms that don’t serve us. These include codependency, addiction, anxiety, depression, etc. The list goes on.

The trauma I am referring to includes unfinished business, grief, anger, issues with identity, abandonment issues, and mother wounds. It makes life for an HSP, who already has a sensitive nervous system, more difficult to progress through the challenges that come up in our daily lives. Until I began to dig deep and work on my traumas to release these energies from my nervous system first, I could not meditate. Meditation is essential, I believe to connect to our true selves.

Learning to find our true identity. As we move through this process, we finally become who we are. What this means to me is that I know I am still Caroline Rena, but I feel different. Not from the person that is Caroline, but from the energies that were stuck in my nervous system that caused me to feel like I was someone else entirely. This work continues to free me from who I thought I was.
Having command over our traits. Working on not taking on the emotions/feelings of others will go a long way in becoming our own being. Jumping in to help people just because we can feel what they are going through, will not help anyone. We become bound to one another when we carry their feelings and their problems.

When we continue to be persistent, consistent, and committed to ourselves and our journey, beautiful things begin to emerge. It’s like a butterfly spreading its wings after coming out of the chrysalis.

Be willing. Be courageous. Be FREE! You can do this.

If you are feeling anxious and need clarity on what to do next, join me in my Introductory – Immediate Support Discovery Call. Click HERE.

All information related to HSPs comes from www.hsperson.com.