The invisible wound

When people think about childhood trauma, they might imagine bruises from physical abuse, scars on skin that remain red and thick, stories of children left alone to fend for themselves without food or comfort, or various forms of sexual assault.

Many children grow up in homes where their basic needs are met, and they aren’t beaten or sexually assaulted, but they grow up with chronic belittling, nit-picking, and criticism. For those parents, nothing is ever quite good enough, and the child is reminded of it regularly. When the young one tries to achieve or perform to please the parent, it’s followed by a parental judgment or correction. The parent reminds the child of what they missed, lack, or didn’t do right.

As a child, I learned at a very young age that I was not measuring up to my mother’s expectations. When I was younger, it started out with my physical appearance. My mother was born a small person, with small bone structure, which kept her petite all her life. While I was short, I had a very different structure. It seemed to me like my creator was confused, thinking I needed to be built like a linebacker as a 5-foot 4-inch female.

That difference displeased my mother, and I could not measure up to her physical expectations of me. For her, grades and academic performance were irrelevant compared to how I looked or behaved, because what other people thought meant more than my own achievements outside of having a “perfect” body.

As I aged, I was reminded even more regularly that my body just did not measure up, and her expectations (outside of academics) were that I took care of all household chores. Even when I was working two jobs and going to school, while earning good grades, if the house wasn’t spic and span, I was punished. My brother had no expectations laid upon him. I consistently disappointed my mother, and nothing I could do could earn her praise, except the time that I lost 30 pounds. Her praise then was endless, albeit temporary, as the weight came back.

Over time, the child learns a valuable but painful lesson: “I am only as valuable as my performance,” or “I am only valuable if I meet the expectations my parents have of me.”  For many adults living with complex trauma, the wound isn’t what the parent did to them; it was what the parent repeatedly said.

What does an overly critical parent look like?

A healthy parent teaches their children. They use constructive criticism and redirection if the child needs it, and do so with the goal of helping and nurturing the child’s growth. On the contrary, overly critical parents do not teach; they evaluate. They judge.

Common patterns look like: constant fault-finding, unrealistically high expectations, rare or non-existent praise or acknowledgment, comparing a child to their siblings, dismissing emotions or shutting down the child’s emotions, labeling their children (lazy, dramatic, difficult, ungrateful), and focusing on mistakes and overlooking successes and efforts to please the parent. The message is explicit or implied: “You could have done better.”

Why chronic criticism is so harmful

Children develop their sense of self through their relationship with their caregivers. When their caregivers repeatedly communicate disappointment, rejection, or conditional acceptance, children often internalize those messages as truths about themselves.

Research suggests that persistent parental criticism can contribute to negative self-image, depression, anxiety, and difficulty with emotional regulation (Spinazzola et al., 2014). Harsh and rejecting parental behaviors are also linked to increased psychological distress and poorer mental health outcomes (Cruz, et al., 2022). Children aren’t simply hearing criticism–they are building their identities around it.

The adult child’s hidden beliefs

Many adults raised by highly critical parents continue carrying harmful, unconscious beliefs like: I must earn love; my worth depends on what I do or accomplish; mistakes are dangerous; other people’s needs matter more than mine; I am responsible for maintaining my family’s peace; if I just try harder, I will finally be enough.

When criticism becomes trauma

Trauma is shaped by what happened to someone repeatedly. Developmental trauma research suggests that chronic interpersonal stressors in caregiving relationships can alter the way people handle their emotions, their self-concept, attachment patterns, and social functioning. Psychological maltreatment, which is what chronic criticism is, has been associated with depression, anxiety, shame, dissociation and relationship difficulties (Lippard & Nemeroff, 2020).

Chronic parental criticism, emotional abuse, and harsh parenting are also associated with increased risk for emotional distress, adverse childhood experiences, and substance use problems. For some people who grow up in this environment, alcohol or drugs become a way to cope with the pain of feeling perpetually inadequate, rejected, or unseen (Felitti et al., 1998).

Sometimes trauma looks less like a single event and more like thousands of moments that communicate to the child, “who you are is not enough.”

Why adult children keep trying to earn approval and what happens later

One of the most painful realities for children who grow up with chronic criticism is that the pursuit of parental approval carries long into adulthood. These children grow up to be high achievers, caregivers, helpers, people-pleasers, and perfectionists. They hope that enough success, sacrifice, and service will finally produce the validation they long for, yet many discover that the goalposts continue to move.

Adults who are raised by chronically critical parents might find themselves in relationships with people who do the same thing to them, because it feels like home. It’s familiar. They go from one unhealthy environment into another and maintaining a healthy relationship is difficult when they choose unhealthy partners (Vaillancourt-Morel et al., 2024).

The adult child might struggle with perfectionism, fear of failure, self-doubt, difficulty setting boundaries (especially with the parents), anxiety, depression, sensitivity to criticism (overreacting to it), and relationship problems (Kuo et al., 2011).

They may keep trying to prove their worth                     

One of the most common patterns is over-functioning that looks like becoming: the helper, the fixer, the provider, and/or the caretaker. This happens not because their partner demands it, but because that’s what the adult child learned:  contribution is how they secure connection. However, their healthy partner might say, “you do not have to earn your place here,” but the adult child doesn’t know how not to do that.

The adult child might have difficulty needing anything from their partner because receiving feels vulnerable. If their healthy partner offers comfort, support, or help, they might feel guilty, indebted, weak, or exposed. The adult child might react strongly, in a negative way, becoming defensive or even angry because they learned early that needing someone felt dangerous.

References

Cruz, D., Lichten, M., Berg, K., & George, P. (2022). Developmental trauma: Conceptual framework, associated risks and comorbidities, and evaluation and treatment. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13, Article 800687. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.800687

Felitti, Vincent J., Anda, Robert F., Nordenberg, D., Williamson, D. F., Spitz, A. M., Edwards, V., Koss, M. P., & Marks, J. S. (1998). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245–258. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0749-3797(98)00017-8

Kuo, J. R., Goldin, P. R., Werner, K., Heimberg, R. G., & Gross, J. J. (2011). Childhood trauma and current psychological functioning in adults with social anxiety disorder. Journal of anxiety disorders, 25(4), 467–473. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2010.11.011

Lippard, E. T. C., & Nemeroff, C. B. (2020). The Devastating Clinical Consequences of Child Abuse and Neglect: Increased Disease Vulnerability and Poor Treatment Response in Mood Disorders. The American journal of psychiatry, 177(1), 20–36. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2019.19010020

Vaillancourt-Morel, M.-P., Godbout, N., Bigras, N., Sabourin, S., & Bergeron, S. (2024). Partner effects of childhood maltreatment: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 25(2), 1323–1343. https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380231173427

Photo Credit: Unsplash

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

A child can be loved and still be mishandled, fed and still be diminished, and protected from one danger while being trained to mistrust the instincts that might have kept them whole. Much of this damage accumulates without a single courtroom moment or obvious villain. Instead, it’s built through years of correction, dismissal, warning, sarcasm, comparison, discouragement, and adult anxiety presented as wisdom.

The child learns through repetition.

You are too sensitive.
You think too much.
You talk too much.
You want too much.
You are too confident.
You are too different.
You are embarrassing me.
You need to be realistic.
You need to stop acting like you know who you are.

Some adults say these things because they are afraid for the child. Some say them because the child’s clarity unsettles them. Some say them because they confuse obedience with health. Some say them because a child who shines in the wrong direction threatens the family script.

The child may have known something before the adults started spewing corrections. Not everything, of course – children need adults. They need protection, teaching, restraint, accountability, and reality, so romanticizing childhood helps nobody. Children can be impulsive, limited, misinformed, and vulnerable to fantasy in the way children are. A normal childhood carries a cost when adults intervene with various motives. Sometimes with love, sometimes panic, sometimes faith or hope, sometimes with social class fear, and sometimes with jealousy they would deny until their last breath.

Some children carry early signals that deserve care rather than automatic correction: temperament, sensitivity, curiosity, talent, moral discomfort, preference, dislike, a strange sense of calling, a refusal to accept what the family accepts, an ability to notice what nobody else wants named.

• Some know they are artists before anyone calls art impractical.
• Some children know they are mechanically gifted before school labels them inattentive.
• Some children know they are observant before adults call them nosy.
• Some children know they are leaders before someone turns that into bossiness.
• Some children know they are tender before someone teaches them to confuse tenderness with weakness.
• Some children know the household story is crooked before they have adult language for abuse, addiction, emotional neglect, or control.

Good guidance helps a child become more skillful without making the child ashamed of existing.

• A decent adult can tell a child they need practice without telling the child they are foolish for wanting the thing in the first place.
• A decent adult can say a choice has consequences without making the child afraid of wanting anything at all.
• A decent adult can correct conduct without attacking temperament, teach manners without demanding emotional erasure, and warn about the world without teaching the child that the safest life is the smallest one.

Control often borrows the language of guidance. It uses words like protection, discipline, humility, respect, faith, realism, tradition, family, maturity, and concern. Those words can be honorable, sure, but they can also serve as cover for adult fear.

• A parent who never chased their own work may call a child’s ambition unrealistic.
• A bitter adult may call confidence arrogance.
• A frightened adult may call curiosity dangerous.
• A rigid adult may call difference rebellion.
• A jealous adult may call a gifted child difficult because difficulty is easier to admit than envy.

The child may not understand the adult’s motive because children usually cannot audit adult psychology while they are busy surviving it. So, they adjust to the feedback, and learn which parts of themselves bring warmth and which parts bring tension into the room. That is how self-abandonment often begins… with tiny edits. Maybe it’s a little less honesty, a little less volume, a little less joy, a little less visible talent, a little less asking, a little less reaching, or a little less trust in their inner sense of self. After years of that, the adult survivor may call themselves lost and spend half a life searching for an identity that was never absent – it was buried under accommodation.

Adults often call their fear experience and sometimes experience deserves respect. A parent who has survived poverty, abuse, racism, exploitation, addiction, humiliation, violence, or institutional cruelty may carry warnings earned through pain. They may know hazards the child cannot yet understand and their caution may come from real injury, not cruelty. Even then, fear can deform the message.

• A parent afraid of failure may train a child to avoid risk entirely.
• A parent afraid of ridicule may teach a child to hide anything unusual.
• A parent afraid of poverty may mock creative work instead of teaching practical planning.
• A parent afraid of men, women, outsiders, authority, sexuality, religion, success, visibility, or independence may pass that fear down as if it were moral instruction.

The child receives the tone before the explanation. A warning can teach skill – and shame. It depends on whether the adult is helping the child carry reality or forcing the child to carry the adult’s unresolved alarm. This is where childhood injury can become hard to locate later. The adult survivor remembers being warned, corrected, restrained, talked down, talked over, redirected, and protected. They may also remember love, and that mix can make the injury feel disloyal. But love and injury have never required each other’s absence and families demonstrate that every day.

• The parent may have meant to protect the child from disappointment, but child learned to distrust desire.
• The teacher may have meant to enforce order, but the child learned attention was safer than expression.
• The church may have meant to teach humility, but the child learned confidence was sinful.
• The family may have meant to preserve respectability, but the child learned that truth had to be edited for public comfort.

In other words, intent belongs to the adult and impact lives in the child.

Adult jealousy toward children is ugly enough that people prefer softer the narrative: concern, personality conflict, different generations, miscommunication, discipline, the child was difficult, the parent was stressed. Some of that may be accurate but it still leaves out the uncomfortable truths.

• Some adults are threatened by a child’s aliveness.
• A child’s beauty can threaten an insecure mother.
• A child’s talent can irritate a father who gave up too early.
• A child’s intelligence can expose the limits of adults who need to remain superior.
• A child’s moral clarity can make a compromised family feel accused.
• A child’s confidence can offend adults who were trained to hate their own.

Children are not supposed to carry adult envy, but many do. They feel the room tighten when they succeed, learn to report good news carefully, become skilled at shrinking joy so nobody feels challenged by it, and  hide awards, sugarcoat opinions, sabotage themselves, or pretend not to care. They may become adults who instinctively lower their light around certain people before realizing they are doing it. This is not always conscious on the adult’s part but consciousness is not the only way harm travels. A jealous adult may genuinely believe they are humbling the child or preventing arrogance, fantasy, rebellion, or future pain. That only allows the adult to avoid the more humiliating possibility that the child had something the adult could not tolerate seeing.

A child develops self-trust through repeated confirmation that their perceptions, preferences, discomfort, and gifts are allowed to exist. Self-trust does not require adults to agree with every child impulse. It requires adults to treat the child’s inner life as real enough to engage, guide, and protect without ridicule. When that does not happen, the child may begin outsourcing reality. They look to the adult’s face before deciding whether their own reaction is acceptable. They wait for permission to like what they like, they laugh when something hurts because the room expects laughter, they say yes when the body says no, and they choose what brings approval, then later wonder why the achievement feels hollow.

In trauma therapy this often appears as a fractured relationship with preference. The adult survivor may struggle with simple questions:

• What do you want?
• What do you like?
• What feels safe?
• What feels wrong?
• What did you want before everyone told you what made sense?

Those questions can feel strangely threatening because preference once had consequences. Wanting created ridicule, disagreement created withdrawal, talent created pressure, sensitivity created contempt, confidence created correction, and refusal created punishment. The person may become highly skilled at reading others while remaining unfamiliar to themselves. That is the residue of living too long under other people’s edits.

A forensic dimension appears when adults repeatedly override a child’s evidence of their own life. Children may not understand motives, pathology, family systems, coercive control, addiction, or sexual boundary violations with clinical precision. They may still know when something feels wrong. They may know who changes when the door closes, they may know which adult is unsafe, they may know which praise has a hook in it, and they may know when the story being told to outsiders is false.

When adults repeatedly override that evidence, the child learns to distrust observation. They hear that they misunderstood, are exaggerating, that it never happened, that the person did not mean it, that they are being dramatic, that they should be grateful, or that they always make things about themselves. Over time the child may stop arguing with the adult and start arguing with themselves. That inner split can become one of the most damaging leftovers. The child – and later, adult version of themselves – sees something, feels something, knows something, and immediately cross-examines their own perception as if loyalty requires self-doubt. Adults who do this may think they are preserving family peace when they really may be preserving the adult version of events at the child’s expense. The cost shows up later as chronic indecision, over-explaining, excessive apology, difficulty choosing partners, tolerance of mistreatment, fear of being misread, and the strange loneliness of no longer knowing which part of the self to trust. A child talked out of themselves may become an adult who can document everyone else’s behavior but still needs permission to believe their own.

No survivor gets the original self back untouched. Time happened, adaptations happened, and loss happened. Some gifts went underground, some turned into symptoms, some became workarounds, and some were abandoned so long that reclaiming them feels awkward, even embarrassing. Recovery is not an attempt to become the child again. It is the work of sorting inheritance from identity.

• What did I choose?
• What was chosen for me?
• What did I surrender because it was wise?
• What did I surrender because someone was afraid?
• What did I call maturity because I had no room left for desire?
• What part of my personality began as protection?

Those questions require patience because the answers do not arrive grouped nicely together. The survivor may have to test small preferences before naming large ones, may have to notice envy, grief, relief, irritation, and longing without immediately making those feelings wrong, and they may have to revisit old interests without demanding that every lost gift become a career, a mission, or a redemption project.

Sometimes recovery looks almost unimpressive from the outside. Taking the class, wearing the make-up or clothing, saying the honest no, letting the laugh come out unedited, admitting dislike, and trying again at something once mocked. Saying, “I used to love this,” and allowing the sentence to sit there without apology. These acts can look small but they are often places where the original inner signal starts waking up.

At some stage the original adult voices become internal voices. The parent leaves the room, but the correction stays. The teacher is long gone, but the shame remains available. The family no longer has daily access, but the survivor keeps managing an invisible audience. That is how old control survives without supervision. The survivor may dismiss their own interest before anyone else can, they may call themselves ridiculous before someone else does, and they may avoid visibility, softness, ambition, faith, humor, grief, desire, or talent because the old messaging is still on repeat.

Some children were never confused in the way adults later claimed – they were interrupted, steered away from the music, the science, the animals, the writing, the machines, the ministry, the stage, the quiet, the sensitivity, the leadership, the questions, the no, the yes, and the strange little gift that made them feel alive before anyone taught them to be embarrassed by it. They became adults who could function, achieve, parent, serve, work, and survive while still carrying the old suspicion that their unedited self was somehow too much.

Finding the way back is usually a slow process, like removing one old mental soundbite at a time and asking whether it ever belonged to the survivor in the first place. Some people were not born lost – they were talked out of themselves, so the return to the authentic self begins when the adult survivor stops treating that old interruption as wisdom.

Sources 

Bowlby, J. (1988). A secure base: Parent-child attachment and healthy human development. Basic Books.

Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. W. W. Norton & Company.

Herman, J. L. (1992). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence from domestic abuse to political terror. Basic Books.

Miller, A. (1997). The drama of the gifted child: The search for the true self (Rev. ed.). Basic Books.

Perry, B. D., & Szalavitz, M. (2006). The boy who was raised as a dog: And other stories from a child psychiatrist’s notebook. Basic Books.

Winnicott, D. W. (1965). The maturational processes and the facilitating environment: Studies in the theory of emotional development. International Universities Press.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

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

What actually gets passed down

Trauma can alter the expression of genes. That is epigenetics. Stress, famine, displacement, and chronic fear can leave biochemical markers on DNA packaging that change gene function without changing the genetic code. What parents and grandparents endured not only shapes family habits. It can shape how a nervous system responds to threat, attachment, and safety many decades later. In a landmark study of Holocaust families, researchers documented shifts in methylation of FKBP5, a regulator of the cortisol system, in survivors and in their children who did not live through the original events. Comparable patterns show up in other contexts as well, including families affected by war, genocide, severe discrimination, natural disasters, and refugee flight. The point is simple. When people say trauma runs in a family, it is not just a figure of speech.

Inherited trauma rarely looks like a story

What passes forward is not always a narrative or a flashback. It often looks like a survival strategy that does not match the current environment. A child grows up in a safe home, yet cannot sleep unless every curtain is closed and every door is checked. A teenager treats disagreement like a death sentence, even in a respectful household. An adult keeps pushing away secure partners because the body has learned that calm usually comes before danger. These are not quirks. They are trained reflexes. They stay invisible until someone starts asking the right questions.

You do not inherit a diagnosis. You inherit the coping

CPTSD is not handed down like eye color. Defense patterns are. Silence is. Emotional constriction is. When trauma is not processed, it leaks into parenting through control, through chaos, or through inconsistency that leaves a child sensing danger without language to name it. Children repeat what works, even if it only worked in the old house. They pass it on not because they are broken, but because they were trained by example.

When pain gets ritualized

Trauma does not always announce itself. Sometimes it hides inside rules that are treated as virtues. Do not talk about feelings. Stay productive no matter what. Outsiders cannot be trusted. Keep the family’s business inside the house. Loyalty above all. The same mechanism hides domestic violence that nobody names. It hides animal abuse that neighbors avoid reporting. It hides generational child abuse that gets rebranded as strict parenting. In some families, stints in jail become a rite of passage rather than a warning sign. From the inside, these patterns sound like culture or tradition. Trace them backward and you usually find war, forced moves, addiction, shame, betrayal, or plain neglect. When trauma is not processed, it gets ritualized. It is repackaged as rules, reinforced as identity, and handed down as survival even when the danger is long gone. Dysfunction is often inherited pain on autopilot.

Breaking a pattern requires recognition, not avoidance

Moving on without naming the pattern does not change the pattern. It extends it. Real change starts with accurate labels. Name what happened in the family line, even if it was not your direct experience. Notice the default settings that make no sense in your current life. Choose deliberate counter-moves. Rest when the old rule says grind. Set a boundary where the old rule says keep secrets. Speak where the old rule says stay quiet. This is demanding work because you are not only adjusting your mood. You are rerouting generations of survival programming. That is heavy labor, not a slogan. It is also where the leverage sits. You are not obligated to carry the pain forward because it was handed to you. The future of the pattern is not fixed.

Final thoughts

If you feel like you were born carrying grief that did not start with you, or fear that does not match your lived history, you are not defective. You may be the first one who chose to hold up the mirror. You get to decide what continues and what ends.

References

Yehuda R, Daskalakis NP, et al. Holocaust exposure induced intergenerational effects on FKBP5 methylation. Biological Psychiatry. 2016;80(5):372-380.
Dias BG, Ressler KJ. Parental olfactory experience influences behavior and neural structure in subsequent generations. Nature Neuroscience. 2014;17(1):89-96.
Serpeloni F, Radtke KM, et al. Does prenatal stress shape postnatal resilience? Epigenetics and behavior in war-exposed Syrian refugees. Translational Psychiatry. 2017;7(7):e1185.

Photo by Sangharsh Lohakare 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.

How do I not repeat the mistakes of my parents?

One of the most common questions I get is, “Rachel, how do I not repeat the mistakes of my parents?”

My first answer is always, “Well, you are already breaking old patterns just by asking that question and being curious about what you can do differently. We can build on that!” Parenting, while also navigating PTSD and other trauma symptoms, can sometimes overshadow the joy, love, and growth that comes with parenthood. There are unique challenges. Yet, despite the obstacles, many individuals with PTSD navigate parenthood with grace, resilience, and unwavering love.

Understanding PTSD is crucial in comprehending its effects on parenting. PTSD can manifest in a myriad of ways, such as intrusive memories, hypervigilance, avoidance behaviors, and mood swings. These symptoms can significantly influence a parent’s ability to connect with their children, manage stress, and maintain a sense of stability within the family dynamic.

One of the most significant challenges parents with PTSD face is managing triggers

One of the most significant challenges parents with PTSD face is managing triggers. Triggers are stimuli that evoke memories or emotions related to the traumatic event. For a parent with PTSD, triggers can arise unexpectedly, sometimes during routine interactions with their children. These triggers may lead to emotional distress, anxiety, or even dissociation, making it challenging to provide consistent and nurturing care to their children.

Furthermore, parenting with PTSD often involves navigating feelings of guilt and shame. Parents may feel guilty for being unable to fully engage with their children or for displaying symptoms of PTSD in front of them. They may also experience shame for not living up to societal standards of what constitutes “good” parenting. It’s essential for parents with PTSD to recognize that their condition does not diminish their worth as parents. Seeking support and practicing self-compassion are crucial steps in overcoming feelings of guilt and shame.

Building a support network is paramount for parents with PTSD. Whether it’s through coaching, support groups, or trusted friends and family members, having a support system can provide validation, empathy, and practical assistance. 

Communication is another key aspect of parenting with PTSD. Being open and honest with their children about their condition in an age-appropriate manner can foster understanding and empathy within the family. Moreover, establishing clear boundaries and routines can help create a sense of safety and predictability for both the parent and the child.

Self-care is not selfish; it’s essential for parents with PTSD. Engaging in activities that promote relaxation, such as mindfulness, exercise, or creative expression, can help alleviate stress and improve overall well-being. Prioritizing self-care allows parents to recharge and better meet the demands of parenting.

Despite the challenges, parenting with PTSD can also be a source of strength and growth. Many parents find that their experiences with PTSD instill them with empathy, resilience, and a deeper appreciation for the present moment. By embracing their journey and seeking support when needed, parents with PTSD can create loving and nurturing environments where their children can thrive.

To pattern breaking!

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 James Wheeler 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.