Post Traumatic Growth | 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

Support your fellow writer:

https://ko-fi.com/elizabe69245484

Photo Credit: Unsplash

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Why “I Can’t Talk About It”, is Rich Information

Steve Rothwell — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0000

When a person dealing with trauma says to their therapist, “I can’t talk about it,” this is not a dead end. It’s not blocking therapy.

Far from it. It is the beginning of the work; it shows exactly where it needs to start.

“I can’t talk about it” is not resistance. It is information. It tells us that one or more barriers are in place. These barriers need to be identified, brought into the open, and presented to the client for consideration.

In short, “I can’t talk about it” contains enough information to guide the next phase of therapy, if its internal logic is made explicit.

Discovering Disclosure Barriers Is Therapy Gold

Finding these barriers is not a preliminary step. It is a vital part of the therapy.

The position of “I can’t talk about it” is itself a Stuck Point – one of those rigid, distressing thoughts and beliefs that feel impossible to move beyond.

Stuck points are often the mind’s default response to unprocessed trauma. They are not random. They are structured attempts to make sense of overwhelming experience.

What Sits Behind “I Can’t Talk About It?”

In therapy, it is often enough for now to talk about why you can’t talk about it. That is not avoidance. That is a large part of the work.

Like a form of emotional echo-location, we can begin to map the terrain indirectly.

By exploring the barriers and ‘exemptions’, we begin to understand:

The shape of the trauma
Its weight
Its personal meaning

We may not be talking about the event itself yet, but we are getting very close to it.

Stuck Points Rarely Come Alone

Stuck points tend to multiply across time. The original traumas often give rise to unhelpful beliefs that harden into stuck points.

By exploring a person’s:

View of the past
View of the trauma(s)
View of the time between trauma and now
Experience of the present
Expectations of the future

we can build a Timeline of Stuck Points, as shown in the diagram below.

Note how for each Timeline Key Moment, there are emotions/feelings attached.
Then, in each of the red boxes there are Stuck Point Statements.

Seeing the System Can Change Everything

You see now how we have a lot more information to work with.

We now know a lot more fixed beliefs and mental loops: Stuck Point Statements. What emerges is not a single belief, but a network of fixed positions, and how the person feels about them.

For many people, this is the first time they see the full picture. Thoughts that once felt chaotic and intrusive are now named, organised and contained.

Damaging thoughts that came into consciousness; caused harm and faded away, only to loop around repeatedly, now become known, visible and accounted for.

What once swirled unpredictably now has coherence, shape and boundaries.
That alone has therapeutic value.

When people see how many stuck points they are carrying, something often shifts.

There is often a moment of recognition, even shock. The realisation comes,

“All this has been running my thinking.”

In many cases, the person has already begun opening up, without realising it.

By describing their beliefs across time, they have revealed:

How the trauma shaped their identity
How it influenced their interpretations
How it continues to operate

From here, some stuck points can begin to loosen.

For example:
“The old me is gone” may soften when examined more closely. It may be that the past is being viewed through a rose-coloured nostalgic lens, and that in truth, there were significant life difficulties before the main trauma event(s) occurred.

This does not dismantle the belief entirely. But it creates a small opening.
And sometimes, that is enough.

From Mapping to Movement

Through a combination of:

Recognising the cumulative weight of multiple stuck points
Gently re-examining less rigid beliefs

The conversation can begin to shift.

The trauma, once avoided, sometimes becomes:

Something that can be approached
Something that has edges
Something that can be worked with

From there, deeper phases of therapy may become possible.

But It Is Not Always That Straightforward

In many cases, the barriers are more entrenched.

This is where a deeper understanding becomes necessary.

‘I Can’t Talk About It’ and Stacked Disclosure Barriers

“I can’t talk about it” stuck points do not always operate in isolation.
They can combine. They can reinforce each other.

This is what we will call Stacked Disclosure Barriers.

A person might reveal:

Disclosure Barrier 1: “There’s no point talking about it.” (Futility)
Disclosure Barrier 2: “I don’t want to burden anyone.” (Moral)

This creates a closed system:

It won’t help
It’s not safe

No action feels possible.
No action feels justified.

Until each position is understood, the system holds.

Please see below for a diagram: Timeline of Stuck Points with Stacked Disclosure Barriers.

Where to From Here?

At this point, the therapist has something extremely valuable.

The client has revealed not just their distress, but the logic that sustains it.

This is where the work becomes precise:

Futility blocks everything downstream
Moral beliefs can mask deeper positions

Therapists tend to work with the barrier that makes all other work feel pointless or unsafe.

For the purposes of this article, we will begin with the disclosure barrier of futility.

Example 1: Futility Thinking – “There’s No Point”

“There’s no point talking about it. What happened can’t be undone.”

At first glance, this seems reasonable. And in one sense, it is true.

But beneath this statement sit deeper beliefs:

“I am uniquely broken.”
“My suffering is irredeemable.”
“Nothing can change how I feel.”

From this position, not talking is logical.

The Unifying Principle of Futility Thinking

People do not open up simply because they feel understood.

They open up when they believe something useful can happen.

The barrier is often not:

“This hurts too much”

It is:

“This won’t help”

Understanding Futility Thinking

Futility thinking sounds rational:

“Talking won’t change anything.”
“Nothing will fix this.”

But the mind has shifted from:

“It won’t undo the past”
to
“Nothing can change how I experience it now”

That is the critical shift.

Why This Thinking Exists

Futility protects:

You don’t have to try
You don’t risk disappointment
You don’t re-enter the pain

But it assumes the only purpose of talking is to fix the past.

What Therapy Actually Does

Therapy does not change what happened.

It changes what happens next.

It changes:

How the experience is held
How it is interpreted
How it moves through you

A gap begins to form between:

The painful event
The belief it can never ease

A skilled therapist will explain and demonstrate that the (1) The painful event and (2) The belief that the hurt can never be reduced, are two different things.

From here:

Rumination loosens
Memories move toward acceptance
The “negative future mirror” begins to weaken (the belief that the future will be as bad as or worse than today.)

The hurtful event still happened, and the memory of it will always be there, but the strongly felt relationship with the trauma can begin to ease, by degrees, until the previously all-consuming pain can be viewed through a lens of greater emotional comfort, and distance.

Eventually it becomes possible to walk alongside the memories, contextualising them as events that happened, but which do not have to interrupt one’s sense of journeying through life in pursuit of personally valuable goals.

Example 2: Moral Barrier – “I Don’t Want to Burden Anyone”

“I don’t want to put this on anyone.”

This is often strength, misapplied.

People are trying to:

Protect others
Avoid harm
Carry their own weight

But the belief shifts from:

“I don’t want to harm others”
to
“My pain harms others”

When Silence Feels Right

From the outside, it looks like avoidance.
From the inside, it feels like integrity.

“I don’t want to put this onto other people.”

This aligns with values:

I protect others
I don’t hurt people
I carry my own weight

Silence becomes loyalty to those values.

Why This Is Hard to Shift

When a belief attaches to identity, it feels like truth.

Therapy then looks like harm transfer.
Speaking feels like:

Burdening
Contaminating
Imposing

So silence feels right.

The Hidden Assumption

“If I speak, others will feel what I felt.”

Trauma makes this feel true.
But therapy works differently.

A therapist:

Contains
Regulates
Structures

They are not harmed by the material.

Why It Still Feels Unsafe

Many people have learned:

Disclosure leads to dismissal
Or overwhelm

So the nervous system says: “Be careful.”

Safety builds through experience, not reassurance.

Often the first step is the articulation of the disclosure barrier:

“I feel like if I talk about this, I’ll hurt you.”

Then:

The belief becomes visible, and can be discussed
The therapist invites small ‘test’ disclosures (sometimes framing them as ‘5%’ disclosures)
The feared outcome does not occur

This begins to loosen the equation:

“If I speak, I cause harm.”

Final Position

“I can’t talk about it” is not a wall. It is a doorway.

Not into the trauma itself, not yet. But into the system of beliefs around it.

Once that system is:

Visible
Organised
Understood

It can be worked with.
It can be questioned.
It can begin to loosen.

That is where movement starts.

Not all at once. Not completely.
But enough.

And often, enough is where everything begins.

Courtesy of www.reliefandhope.com

Important Caveat:
Some “I can’t talk about it” is not belief-driven. It is state-dependent:

Freeze
Shutdown
Dissociation

Not all barriers are cognitive. Some are physiological constraints.

Evidence-Based Citations:

1. “I can’t talk about it” as information, not resistance

Principle: Client avoidance or silence contains clinically meaningful data rather than being obstruction.

Judith Herman (1992). Trauma and Recovery.
→ Establishes that avoidance and silence are core trauma responses and meaningful indicators of psychological state.
Bessel van der Kolk (2014). The Body Keeps the Score.
→ Describes how trauma is encoded non-verbally and why clients may be unable, not unwilling, to speak.
Edna Foa & Kozak, M. (1986). Emotional processing of fear. Psychological Bulletin.
→ Avoidance is part of the fear structure and signals where therapeutic work is needed.

2. “Stuck points” as structured beliefs

Principle: Trauma-related beliefs are organised, not random, and maintain distress.

Patricia Resick et al. (2017). Cognitive Processing Therapy for PTSD.
→ Defines “stuck points” as rigid maladaptive beliefs that maintain PTSD.
Resick, P. A., & Schnicke, M. K. (1992). Cognitive processing therapy. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.
→ Introduces the structured nature of trauma-related cognitions.
Aaron Beck (1976). Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders.
→ Foundational work on cognitive schemas shaping emotional responses.

3. Indirect processing (“talking about why you can’t talk”)

Principle: Approaching trauma indirectly is still therapeutic work.

Marylene Cloitre et al. (2012). STAIR model.
→ Emphasises phased treatment and indirect engagement before trauma processing.
Herman (1992)
→ Phase-oriented trauma therapy: safety → remembrance → reconnection.
Pierre Janet (1907/modern interpretations)
→ Early work on dissociation and the need for gradual integration.

4. Mapping beliefs across time (timeline work)

Principle: Trauma impacts past, present, and future meaning-making.

Janoff-Bulman (1992). Shattered Assumptions.
→ Trauma disrupts core beliefs about self, world, and future.
Ehlers & Clark, D. (2000). Cognitive model of PTSD. Behaviour Research and Therapy.
→ Persistent threat arises from maladaptive appraisals over time.
Donald Meichenbaum (1994). A Clinical Handbook.
→ Emphasises narrative reconstruction and meaning across timelines.

5. Making implicit systems visible

Principle: Naming and organising internal experiences reduces distress.

Daniel Siegel (2010). Mindsight.
→ “Name it to tame it” concept, linking awareness to regulation.
James Pennebaker (1997). Expressive writing research.
→ Structuring emotional experience improves psychological outcomes.
Karl Weick (1995). Sensemaking in Organizations.
→ Coherence reduces chaos and improves functioning.

6. Belief loosening through cognitive reappraisal

Principle: Small shifts in rigid beliefs create therapeutic movement.

Beck (1976)
→ Cognitive restructuring as core mechanism of change.
David Clark & Beck, A. (2010). Cognitive Therapy of Anxiety Disorders.
→ Examining beliefs reduces emotional intensity.
Ehlers & Clark (2000)
→ Updating trauma appraisals reduces PTSD symptoms.

7. “Stacked” or interacting barriers

Principle: Multiple beliefs interact to maintain avoidance.

Steven Hayes et al. (1999). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
→ Cognitive fusion and experiential avoidance as interacting systems.
Marsha Linehan (1993). CBT for Borderline Personality Disorder.
→ Multiple reinforcing belief systems maintain behavioural patterns.
Paul Salkovskis (1996).
→ Safety behaviours and beliefs form self-reinforcing loops.

8. Futility thinking (“this won’t help”)

Principle: Engagement depends on perceived utility, not just distress tolerance.

Albert Bandura (1977). Self-efficacy theory.
→ Behaviour depends on belief that action will produce results.
Irvin Yalom (2002). The Gift of Therapy.
→ Hope and perceived usefulness are central to engagement.
Frank & Frank (1991). Persuasion and Healing.
→ Therapy works partly by restoring expectation of benefit.

9. Therapy changes relationship to the past, not the past itself

Principle: Distress reduction comes from reprocessing, not erasing events.

Edna Foa et al. (2007). Prolonged Exposure Therapy.
→ Emotional processing reduces distress without changing the event.
van der Kolk (2014)
→ Trauma memory integration changes lived experience.
Francine Shapiro (2001). EMDR.
→ Reprocessing alters emotional intensity and meaning.

10. Moral barriers and identity-linked beliefs

Principle: Values can reinforce avoidance when misapplied.

Kristin Neff (2003). Self-compassion research.
→ Harsh self-standards often mask as morality.
Hayes et al. (1999)
→ Values can both guide and rigidify behaviour.
Brene Brown (2012). Daring Greatly.
→ Shame and fear of burdening others inhibit disclosure.

11. Gradual exposure and “test disclosures”

Principle: Safety is built through experience, not reassurance.

Foa et al. (2007)
→ Gradual exposure reduces fear response.
Joseph Wolpe (1958). Systematic desensitisation.
→ Incremental exposure reduces anxiety.
Cloitre et al. (2012)
→ Skills + gradual disclosure improves outcomes.

12. Final principle: “The system becomes workable once visible”

Principle: Insight plus structure enables change.

Siegel (2010)
Pennebaker (1997)
Ehlers & Clark (2000)

All converge on the same mechanism:
awareness → organisation → reappraisal → reduced distress

Photo Credit: Unsplash

The Rock and the Hard Place

Mari Stewart — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0000

I only found the “language” surrounding CPTSD very late in my life. Learning the reason for my decades of dysfunction and brokenness was my fiftieth birthday present from the universe–a genuine revelation. And long overdue.

Like so many people who finally “discover” what is wrong with them, I embarked on a program to “fix” myself. I was determined to overcome the earlier portion of life that had hampered and shaped me. For the last near decade, I struggled to find help that was qualified, knowledgeable, affordable, reachable, and available. It’s a set of problems that most folks with CPTSD (at least here in the U.S.) commonly have to fight their way through.

“Maybe now,” I think, “maybe now I’ll have time to finally heal.”

And then I wonder, is it worth it?

I suspect some readers will give that sentence the side-eye.
It sounds kind of unintuitive to my mind, too. But here is the thinking behind the idea…

I’ve written before about the crushing sense of lost time that overshadows me. As you might guess, as I’ve gotten older, that sense of the end is nigh is only looming larger in my thoughts. I really don’t have time to waste.

So, am I calling the attempt to “heal” from CPTSD a waste? No, I’m not (although, yes, I might be, a little). And there stands a spectacular example of the near-terminal ambivalence that can accompany folks sporting this lovely set of letters. Let me try to explain. It goes like this:

Healing takes time. That’s a given. There is no pill, no magic word, no ritual that can reshape me into a whole and functional human in an instant (pity that). So healing takes time and work. Don’t forget the work!

It also takes money and access to resources, both of which are in short supply in my life at the moment.

Let’s limit the scope of this question to just one aspect: time. I have limited time on this rock–that’s also a given. Modern medicine might extend my life, but I want functional years. And I want them now, while I can still function.

So instead of growing, I became small. I learned to do without. I learned to stop wanting. Then I stopped dreaming. I remember in high school frustrating a teacher to no end because I couldn’t answer the question, “Where do I want to be in ten years?” I had no way to even frame the question in my mind. Answering was impossible.

Fifty years on, I finally have an answer. I want to write. I want to tell stories and be remembered for them.

Finally, after treading water for decades and floundering in some pretty heavy seas for nearly another decade, I have a direction.

And I have no time.

That’s the part that feels cruelest.

There is, associated with CPTSD, a form of pain in knowing that you aren’t living. And, once you discover the reason behind the problem, that ushers in a new challenge of doing the work to birth yourself, years later. And finally, when you know, or at least have a pretty good inkling of who you are, you find that you have no time to become that person.

Obstacles that folks faced with support (and while they had youth on their side and a “the future ahead of them”) I am facing now, well over half-way through my expected years.

So, here’s the reality I’m wrestling with: I can function to an extent day to day. Pursuing healing, the messy de- and then reconstruction would take time and resources I don’t have. What I do have is a direction. After flailing for over fifty years, I have a direction. And, I have limited time.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

In Fight Mode: When Survival Looks Like Defiance

Angela Solic — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0000

Trigger Warning: This post contains references to traumatic childhood experiences, including recalled memories of abuse and descriptions of the author’s trauma responses. Please take care while reading.

I’m surprised I wasn’t born wearing a tiny pair of boxing gloves. That would have been appropriate, given the kind of life I would be leading as a kid.

For people like me who grew up with complex trauma, our nervous systems helped us survive through trauma responses. Way back in the early 20th century, an old guy named Walter Bradford Cannon coined the ‘fight or flight’ responses in his 1915 book titled Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear, and Rage. This work is grounded in physiology, though, the way the body responds–not psychology or trauma theory.

“Freeze” was added later by trauma researchers, and Complex PTSD expert Pete Walker added “fawn” in his 2013 book Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving. Fight, flight, and freeze are biologically ancient reactions in animals and humans, while fawning is innately human, rooted in relational trauma. When people “fawn” as a trauma response, their nervous system is helping them survive in a socially unequal power struggle. Generally, those who fawn in a situation will attempt to appease or please their abuser as a response to abuse.

I was not made to fawn. That doesn’t make me any better than someone who fawns, or freezes, or flees; this is just how I am made, deep within the biology of my cells. Because of this, I have a hard time understanding that response because I have witnessed chronically abused children, first-hand, and I just wanted to scream, “STAND UP FOR YOURSELF FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!” Or, “why are you letting her manipulate you like that? You see this is about control, right?”

Perhaps I had to be a fighter in order to thrive after the traumas I experienced as a child and young adult, I don’t know for certain. I am working on being more understanding and accepting that not everyone is made the way I am, and that for some people, standing up for themselves could feel like a death sentence.

I hated watching these children being raised by an emotionally abusive mother, and then their brother was added as an abuser, as well. It was heart-wrenching to see how their response was to fawn. The times they did try to fight, before puberty, their mother put them in their place very quickly; she threatened to kill herself, and they were terrified of her. Even though they’re young adults now, they are still drinking the Kool-Aid, and I mourn the kind of lives they could have had if they didn’t grow up that way.

My life might have been easier if I just fawned over my mother’s demands, her insults, her constant criticisms, and her blatant and excessive coddling of my brother–who was only 15 months younger than I was.

If I fawned instead of fought, I probably wouldn’t have been institutionalized in a mental hospital on my 13th birthday because she just couldn’t handle me. I probably wouldn’t have been constantly grounded for nonsense, including taking away my ability to get to work.

The truth is, I fought her constantly with logic, with reason, with common sense. But emotional abusers are anything but logical and reasonable, especially emotional abusers with personality disorders like borderline, narcissistic personality disorder, and bipolar disorder. I was fighting a battle that I would never win as a minor–but I fought anyway.

By the time I left for college (which I did 100% on my own, without support), I was battle-scarred and seeping from so many wounds–but no one could see them. I was exhausted from the fight, which had gone on for eight years straight. Distance helped immensely and because I was not connected to my abuser in any way, especially emotionally, removing myself nearly completely helped me feel just a little bit closer to normal.

We fighters are very misunderstood because our survival strategy violates social expectations about how pain, fear, vulnerability, and self-advocacy are “supposed” to look. The other trauma responses retreat, appease, or disappear, but we fighters move toward the threat, and that makes people uncomfortable–especially the abusers. However, some abusers, like mine, used it to their advantage.

A fight trauma response looks like a raised voice, firm boundaries, anger, confrontation, or refusal to back down. On the outside looking in, these appear deliberate, like the person fighting is choosing conflict. In reality, this fight response is automatic nervous system mobilization. Our body detects danger, so it prepares to push back in order to survive. In my personal situation, my abuser used it as evidence that I was “difficult,” “impossible,” and “defiant”.

People assume, “that person could control it if they wanted to”, or “they just seem to enjoy conflict” because responses look active rather than passive. We humans are much more comfortable recognizing trauma when it looks like collapse compared to when it looks like resistance.

Anger is one of the least tolerated emotions, especially when it’s expressed by women, children, and marginalized people. When trauma shows up as anger, it gets moralized instead of medicalized. Rather than asking, “What threat taught you to respond in this manner?” people ask:

Why are you so aggressive?

Why can’t you calm down?

What’s wrong with you?

This fight response is misread as a character flaw instead of a complex learned survival skill.

Fighters disrupt people’s comfort and their need for control–especially emotional abusers. Freeze and fawn responses make the other person feel needed, calm, unchallenged, and in charge, whereas fight responses do the exact opposite. Fighters will question authority and push back against unfairness; they refuse to emotionally disappear when mistreated, and will make tension visible and uncomfortable for those in the room.

Systems like families, workplaces, and relationships that rely on silence and compliance are threatened by those who have a fight response. It’s easier to label the fighter as the problem than to examine the environment that required the fight response to begin with.

As much as it pains me to admit this, fight is related to fear and is rarely recognized as such. As humans, we are taught that fear looks like crying, avoidance, withdrawal, and panic, but for fighters, fear looks like increased energy, argument, defensiveness, and readiness, along with a “bring-it-on” attitude. Because fear is hidden inside these other, more aggressive emotions, it’s missed and replaced with incorrect assumptions about hostility and ego. In truth, fight is fear with momentum.

Many fighters grew up where fight was the only protection they had in emotionally abusive, chaotic, or unsafe environments because freeze wasn’t safe–it meant they would be the target. Fawn didn’t work–their needs weren’t respected, nor were their efforts to be nice/good/useful recognized. Flight wasn’t possible because they couldn’t leave and had nowhere to go. So, fight was the only way to maintain dignity, boundaries, or a sense of self.

I want to share a brief story.

When I was 11 years old, my father was out of the house because his heroin habit took over his life. One bitterly cold night, there was a knock at the door. Usually, my mother was working, but she was home that night. My father came to the door asking for food and a blanket. He pawned his leather jacket and was homeless.

I heard his plea and got up from watching my TV program to make him some Campbell’s Chicken Noodle soup, spread some butter on white bread, and take my blanket off my bed, which was gifted to me by my neighbor, Mary. I carefully took these through the living room and was blocked by my mother, who threatened me, belittled me, and cursed me, but I fought back with everything I had to get to the door and give my father food and warmth.

Writing this still fills me with difficult emotions. The trauma of that night is woven into the fibers of who I am. She would not keep me from helping my father without a fight, and, in the end, he had the soup, and I let him keep the blanket.

Culturally, we seem to prefer trauma survivors who are quiet, forgiving, insightful without being threatening, and resilient–but in soft, palatable ways. Fighters complicate the story because we’re not always gentle; we may hold on to anger longer; we may not rush to forgive (or may not forgive at all); we may insist things were wrong and, at least at first, demand retribution if not at least some form of acknowledgment of the wrongdoing done to us. All of this makes us fighters hard to celebrate and easier to dismiss.

If you’re a fighter, I stand in solidarity with you. Fighters are misunderstood because our trauma response looks like aggression instead of fear, choice instead of instinctual reflex, and defiance instead of personal protection. This makes it so much easier to blame us than to recognize the threats we had to deal with every day, and how we learned to survive them.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

Resources

Cole, P. M., Martin, S. E., & Dennis, T. A. (2004). Emotion regulation as a scientific construct. Child Development, 75(2), 317–333. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2004.00675.x (article)

Marshburn, C. K., Cochran, K. J., Flynn, E., & Levine, L. J. (2020). Workplace anger costs women irrespective of race. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 579884. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.579884 (article)

Perry, Bruce. (2021). What Happened to You? (book)

Riggs, S. A. (2010). Childhood emotional abuse and the attachment system across the life cycle: What theory and research tell us. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 19(1), 5–51. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926770903475968 (article)

Walker, Pete. (2013). Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving (book)

Xu, M. (2025). Reconsider the anger of marginalized communities. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 51(2), e70018. https://doi.org/10.1111/jmft.70018 (article)

There is Life After Hidden Abuse

Natalie Rose — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Writer’s Note: I previously wrote about my experience being a victim of psychological abuse. Two years from my first writing, I find myself in a much better place in my recovery, and I want to share new insights. I also want to recommend a book by Shannon Thomas that greatly impacted my life.

I’d had enough of the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles and decided it was time to escape to a simpler place to clear my mind. With a long weekend approaching, I booked a shipping container on a farm in California’s wine country. As I drove through the rolling hills and sun-soaked vineyards of Central California, I finally started to relax. This weekend was for me and me alone.

At the top of my weekend to-do list was unpacking an Amazon package containing a book I had been itching to read: Healing from Hidden Abuse by Shannon Thomas. I had read dozens of other books in search of clarity regarding a specific trauma from high school and college that still inhabited my body, but none had provided the understanding I was seeking. Little did I know that within this little package lay the answers I had been desperately searching for.

What is psychological abuse?

Psychological abuse is a sophisticated form of brainwashing, stalking, and mind control. The perpetrator(s) deliberately selects a target and employs subtle and strategic methods of coercion, intimidation, and manipulation, gradually wearing down the victim’s mental state without leaving any evidence. Due to its covert nature, when the victim speaks up to ask for help, she is often not believed and is labeled to be the “crazy” one. Meanwhile, the abusers walk away with no blood on their hands.

Psychological abuse is not limited to romantic relationships or parent-child dynamics. I didn’t seek it out, nor did I cause it. It didn’t happen in my home, and it wasn’t the result of a silly conflict with a boyfriend. It happened at school, where I became the target of covert bullying by two individuals–twin sisters. They used me as a measuring stick for their academic success, believing that if they could extinguish my bright light, it would make them appear more successful in comparison.

My abusers were deranged. They had a sick obsession with identifying my internal weaknesses, insecurities, and fears. They weaponized this information against me, attacking me where it hurt the most. Over time, they eroded everything that mattered in my life: my relationships with family and friends, my love for learning, my sense of safety, and my innate zest for life as an empath. And they did it all in a way where not a single soul would notice. Except for me.

A silent murder: no words to describe the pain

To explain what psychological abuse feels like to someone who has never experienced it, I would compare it to what the prisoners endured in the Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971. It felt as though I was curled up into a tight ball, starving in a solitary confinement cell of my own mind, body, psyche, and soul. My abusers and their “flying monkeys” would occasionally pass by my cell, gawk at my suffering through the narrow window slit with smirks on their faces, and dangle a carrot in front of me to taunt me. I would crawl closer and closer to the carrot with my trembling hand extended, but at the last second, they would rip it back through the window slit and walk away laughing, leaving me to starve again in the darkness.

Though I had seemingly more significant traumas to recover from, I wrestled for years with post-traumatic stress symptoms related to these bullies. My abusers took over my mind uncontrollably. I couldn’t clearly describe what they had done to me. My reality had been distorted. Even after they were long gone, they continued to dictate what I did, said, and thought. I was utterly terrified of them. I avoided anyone and anything that might remind me of them or trigger flashbacks related to their abuse. This avoidance grew exponentially over the years, and I ultimately lost everything from my hometown because of them. I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I couldn’t even trust myself.

Misdiagnosed, misunderstood, and revictimized

It takes someone who has survived psychological abuse to truly understand its impact on the mind, body, psyche, and soul. Throughout their time tormenting me, my abusers caused me to end up in the hospital numerous times. I learned the hard way that most mental health professionals do not understand psychological abuse and mind control, which can lead to further gaslighting of the victim. The medical providers labeled me with schizophrenic and psychotic diagnoses and injected various anti-psychotics to calm me down. While these short-term treatments numbed and tranquilized me, the long-term effects of the abrupt medication changes only created more side effects after each discharge.

I didn’t see any improvement with a therapeutic approach either. The fact that my experience stemmed from school bullying, rather than in a romantic or familial context, made mental health professionals take it even less seriously. I was laughed at, misdiagnosed, and dismissed as overthinking, paranoid, hysterical, even obsessed.

Some professionals took things even further. Being upfront about my Stockholm Syndrome reactions to the abuse, including suicidal ideation, got me in trouble. Multiple professionals diagnosed me with Borderline Personality Disorder and ordered me to be institutionalized. Another diagnosed me with Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder), suggesting that my perpetrators were one of my “alters.” He convinced me that my abusers weren’t real people but rather figments of my imagination, and then spent three months brainwashing me into communicating with numerous other alters he fabricated. If the psychological abuse hadn’t already done enough crazymaking, these medical providers, who groomed me to fulfill their own sick agendas, made me feel even more insane.

Topo Chicos and Central California cafés

Sitting at a quaint café in Paso Robles, California, I was at my wit’s end. My body couldn’t take it anymore. I ordered a Topo Chico, poured it over a glass of ice, and began reading Healing from Hidden Abuse.

I had only planned to read the first couple of chapters and then get on with my day, but three Topo Chicos and a multitude of tears later, I had finished the book cover to cover.

I sat there in awe. I did not know this woman, and she certainly didn’t know me. But she understood me. It was like she had written the book specifically for me. In that moment, she was sitting across the coffee table, holding my hand and wiping away my tears, reassuring me that one day everything would be okay.

This was in the summer of 2022. Over the next two years, I reread the book four times and listened to the audiobook on repeat during long drives. At the time, I was still living in California, but I noticed in Shannon’s bio at the end of the book that she was a counselor in the metroplex of my hometown. I knew in my heart that one day, I would meet the woman who validated what I had been through.

Deprogramming and recalibration

Fast forward to 2024, and I found myself living on the outskirts of my hometown. I reached out to Shannon and was accepted as her client.

Meeting with Shannon was my saving grace. As I stepped into her office, I was terrified to face yet another mental health professional who might revictimize me. But the moment I entered her office, I felt a warmth that I hadn’t experienced in any therapist’s office before. The Christmas decorations filled me with a childlike joy, and the Diet Coke from the mini-fridge was so refreshing.

In her book, Shannon guides readers through the six stages of recovery from psychological abuse. It’s safe to say that I had been stuck in Stage 1–the Despair stage–for many years. When therapy began, I could barely articulate what had been done to me. I was dissociated, overmedicated, and sleep-deprived.

Additionally, I was still concerned I might be The Girl Who Cried Wolf. In a world where the words narcissist, sociopath, and psychopath are thrown around carelessly, I felt guilty for calling myself a victim. Was I no different from all the tone-deaf TikTokers who sling these labels onto the slightest person who annoys them?

From despair to restoration

Shannon assured me I wasn’t overthinking anything and that my pain was valid. With patience and empathy, she began walking me through the stages of recovery.

At that time, I was still meeting with several other therapists and psychiatrists across different parts of the state, along with multiple hospital visits, including what would become my final suicide hold of my life. In environments where my suffering continued to be pathologized, Shannon listened with open ears and didn’t add fuel to the fire.

My recovery process from psychological abuse, both in therapy and on my own, felt like I was deprogramming from a cult. My body had to recalibrate itself, and my mind needed to register that I was no longer in danger. But I didn’t want to spend any more time rehashing and ruminating about what had been done to me; I had already endured enough of that in my head for years. While I did some of this with Shannon, and it was necessary at first, the real work was in reclaiming my power.

What Shannon did so well in our work together was fast-track my healing to what she identifies as the Restoration phase (Stage 6) of recovery. I took active steps to begin rebuilding a life of peace and contentment. She encouraged me to get colorful decorations for my blank apartment walls, take on part-time jobs to have social interaction during my recovery, and get a little bit of exercise each day. Therapy became an opportunity to create a beautiful painting from a blank canvas.

Taking my power back

The panic attacks, crying spells, and paramedic visits are long gone. I no longer have emotions attached to the abuse. The only things that remain are the visual and auditory remnants of the trauma, in the form of flashbacks, and I won’t stop until they are eradicated as well.

Because of what the twins did to me, I have unlocked an internal strength I didn’t know I had. During my healing process, I discovered that my abusers were ten thousand times more afraid of me than I ever was of them. I was not targeted because I am weak; I was targeted because of my strengths. I was targeted because I possess the very qualities that my abusers never will. While they had me fooled for quite some time, with a clearer head and a restored subconscious, I can finally see them for the con artists they truly are.

It is possible to recover from the crazymaking

Survivors, if no mental health professional has given you this validation, I hope you can hear it from me: You are not crazy; you were just damaged by crazy. You are not sick; you were just injured by truly sick people. You do not have a personality disorder or any other extreme diagnosis as a result of what you’ve experienced; you are a trauma survivor who had healthy reactions to being violated. You are not broken beyond repair; you are simply a survivor of an insidious form of hidden abuse that is widely misunderstood by both mental health professionals and laypeople.

Rest easy and know this: You are normal. You are healthy. You are human. You have survived pure evil, and you just need to be listened to.

Baby steps to a beautiful post-abuse life

I hope my story encourages survivors that healing is possible. Over the past two years, after receiving proper support regarding the reality of what I experienced, I have worked tirelessly to rebuild what my bullies robbed from me. Slowly but surely, I am restoring my life to a sense of normalcy.

My work with Shannon has shown me that there is life, freedom, joy, and peace after psychological abuse. Each time I left Shannon’s office, I felt a renewed sense of hope that it would be possible to return to the “me” I once knew. In both her writing and in the therapy room, Shannon leads with compassion, empathy, and a tender heart for survivors of psychological abuse. In Shannon, I have gained a lifelong confidant and therapeutic relationship that I know is 100% safe to return to if I ever need it.

For those seeking clarity on their suffering, I encourage you to curl up with a cozy blanket and read Healing from Hidden Abuse. Please visit www.shannonthomas.com for more information.

Featured Post Photo by Oscar Keyson Unsplash

Quote attributed to Tracy Malone. Graphic created by post author.

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.

Finding Freedom in My Individuality and Overcoming the Fear of Not Being Liked

Natalie Rose — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 13:44:12 +0000

I still remember the name of their exclusive club: CHABELCK.

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

My Skin Knows I’m a Survivor

Natalie Rose — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 12:51:55 +0000

One sweltering July when I was fifteen, I was camped out on a shaded picnic bench at nerd camp. While furiously pushing the buttons on my calculator and drilling exercises for my upcoming exam, I heard rustling in the grass ahead of me. When I looked up, I saw a small army of dudes wearing backwards hats marching toward me.

Oh, it’s Brad. I rolled my eyes, wondering what he wanted this time.

Brad stood, arms crossed, at the head of his minions. (Brad had the illustrious role of the most popular guy at nerd camp. And, please, take that with a grain of salt… because it was still nerd camp!) In perfect formation behind Brad were two of his posse members. Let’s just call them both Chad.

With an intimidating demeanor, they stopped in front of the picnic table. Brad looked me in the eyes and blurted out:

“I’ve got to tell you something, Natalie. You’d be so pretty if it weren’t for your skin.”

With that, Brad and his Chads turned around and walked away laughing. I buried my head, and the symbols, notations, and numbers in my textbook became indistinguishable from my sea of tears.

My skin condition develops

I wasn’t born with severe acne and rosacea. I went through the usual phase of adolescent acne, which cleared up as I went through puberty. However, during my first year of high school (and coinciding with the onset of my CPTSD), my skin began to deteriorate. At the time, I didn’t understand what these flashbacks were or why they were triggering such intense emotions in me. Nevertheless, at age fourteen, I began a more than ten-year battle with both cystic acne and rosacea.

Endless criticism and mockery

Brad and his Chads definitely weren’t the only ones who shamed me about my skin. For years, not a day went by without someone mocking it or, at the very least, pointing it out for me – as if I wasn’t already aware of it.

I wanted to scream back at them: “I’m not stupid! I know it’s there. It’s literally burning right now. Please, be my guest and touch it! Make it burn even more!”

But I kept quiet and internalized the pain. Nightly, I writhed in bed, haunted by traumatic memories. I screamed agonizingly into my pillow as my akathisia made me restless and agitated. Through it all, my skin burned and burned.

No filters and unsolicited advice

Some people have no chill. The comments I received were ruthless, with kids being the harshest. I can’t blame them – they say exactly what they think. Even more biting than the blunt munchkins were the elderly Southern women with no tact who offered me unsolicited advice in that condescending “awww, bless your heart!” kind of way.

One woman told me she believed Jesus had the power to heal my skin and asked if she could pray for me. She grabbed my hand, bowed her head, and asked Jesus for a miracle. Another woman interrupted a Zoom call I was taking outside a coffee shop, sat down at my table uninvited, and gave me a five-minute pep talk, telling me to “keep fighting and stay strong.”

While much of the criticism was petty, belittling, or condescending “help,” some people were just downright cruel. I’d like to award silver, bronze, and gold medals to the most creative names that hateful adults called me over the years: “Girl on Fire,” “Tomato Face,” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

(I admire your creativity, but please, find your humanity!)

Regardless of their approach, they would always conclude their condescending remarks with a “positive” reminder like: “Don’t worry, you’re still so beautiful” or “Keep smiling, though. Your personality makes up for it.”

I’d wait until I got back to my car to let the tears flow, their saltiness making my rosacea burn even more.

Frantically searching for a cure

If these tone-deaf women were right about one thing, it’s that I kept a smile on my face regardless. Each time I moved my facial muscles to smile, though, every centimeter of my skin would burn in agony. I didn’t wear makeup because it only accentuated the redness and intensified the pain.

For years, I tried all sorts of dermatological treatments to eradicate my Tomato Face. I took antibiotics that ranged from mild to the most potent available. I underwent laser and microneedling treatments. I even went through multiple rounds of ActiveFX surgery, where I was put under anesthesia and had to recover for an entire week indoors, avoiding sunlight as the blisters healed. I tried everything, but nothing dermatology offered could make my face the same color as my body.

The reality of my condition

It wasn’t until embarking on my healing journey and rejecting the narratives of mainstream medicine that I realized my skin condition wasn’t strictly dermatological. Once I quieted the outside world, I realized my skin condition was emotional. Although I couldn’t articulate this understanding until over a decade after its onset, my heart conveyed what autoimmune blood tests, Dr. Google, and dermatologists’ confusing opinions could never validate: the redness stemmed from the repressed emotions linked to my trauma.

My skin knows what I’ve survived

While the outside world may have only seen my Tomato Face for its fiery color, my skin understood what I was enduring better than anyone.

My skin believed me and listened to me when no one else would.

My rosacea comprehended the traumas I was enduring during a time when I desperately sought answers from “specialists” and “experts” who dismissed me as mentally ill and suggested I was worthy of institutionalization.

My rosacea reflected the pain of the blood-curdling screams that erupted when I was alone in my apartment, tormented by the flashbacks I had no idea how to exorcise from my mind, body, psyche, and soul.

My rosacea was the barrier for all the times I wanted to lash out at my perpetrators, scream in their faces, and give voice to the pain they caused me. Instead, I kept silent and went home to scream at myself in the mirror.

My skin reflected the red flashing lights of all the ambulances that arrived at my apartment in the middle of the night because of panic attacks, hallucinations, and akathisia.

My skin was a billboard, screaming my inner turmoil even when the world assumed I was in control.

A love letter to my skin

My skin is far from perfect today, but I’ve made incredible progress since discovering the root cause of its issues: my bottled-up emotions. I wrote a love letter to my skin and hung it on my mirror so I can read it aloud every morning.

To my precious skin,

How are you doing? Really, how are you? Has anyone asked you that lately? If not, I want to be the first to do so.

You’ve been through so much pain. I’m truly sorry for all the ways you’ve been violated over the years. I know the comments from outsiders don’t make it any easier. Sometimes, people mock you. Other times, they stare in horror, disgust, or bewilderment. Or they offer unsolicited advice on who you “need” to be to be considered perfect.

I believe you are already perfect, and I love you very much. I never intentionally harmed you. I have been doing everything I can to nurture you and protect you. I am working hard to give you the life you deserve. One day, you will be completely restored, just as I will be fully restored to who I always was. The flashbacks will be gone.

I will never give up on you. Thank you for never giving up on me. Thank you for showing the world that I am a trauma survivor. Thank you for believing me, seeing me, hearing me, listening to me, and understanding me. Thank you for being one of the most beautiful aspects of me. Thank you for making me… me.

Take all the time you need to heal. You are perfect just the way that you are.

With love,

Natalie

All the progress I’ve made

Recently, I was sitting at a picnic table in a local park, enjoying the sun. Two little girls, around the ages of four and six, pranced up to me from another picnic table. They began climbing all over me, showering me with compliments.

“I love your earrings! I love your shirt! You’re so pretty! Can you be our big sister?”

I braced myself, anticipating the moment they would stop being so sweet and start laughing at my skin. I followed their eyes, expecting them to linger on one of the bulging cysts on my chin. However, their gazes never went where I thought they would. They were focused on me, the whole Natalie.

I was filled with an overwhelming sense of love, reminding me how much I look forward to becoming a mother one day. I fought back tears, realizing for the first time in a long time that children no longer see my skin that’s the color of a firetruck. They see me. I’ve made so much progress in my recovery.

They turned back to their mom, shouting across the way, “Mama! Can she be our new sister?”

My skin makes me… me.

My skin is a symbol of my strength. I am confident that one day my skin will fully heal. However, no matter how much I desire its complete restoration, I will never expect perfection. Even if traces of my past skin condition remain, I won’t fret. I will forever cherish the scars that stay with me. They are the souvenirs of everything I’ve survived.

Photo by El S on Unsplash

What Losing All My Files Taught Me About Letting Go

Natalie Rose — Mon, 24 Nov 2025 10:16:06 +0000

The scene: a quiet Sunday evening at home. I was doing a routine password change on my online accounts. The first password to change was for my email and its cloud backup. This is where I store my entire digital life.

My attempt to change the password threw an unknown error. I went back to the login page, clicked “forgot password,” and followed the prompts.

Done!

A little later, I went to access my Drive to view something completely unrelated. A banner in bold, bright red font loomed over the page:

“Your files are no longer accessible due to a password reset. Re-upload the old encryption key to regain access.”

What on earth? My eyes darted around the page, and I gasped in horror. My heart stopped as I saw a completely blank drive. A wave of panic swept over me, and my knees went weak. I clicked on the banner. It asked me to type in a previous encryption key or an old password.

I rummaged through the old passwords in my password booklet. I found the most recent one and translated my own secret morse code from the paper to my screen. (My passwords on paper aren’t the exact passwords; I change them up according to a pattern I’ve memorized, and those are the real passwords.)

“Zero keys reactivated.”

More panic.

Let me try my password from two weeks ago…

Even with five or six old passwords, the same message kept popping up.

I must have set an encryption key when I set up this email. Where would I have kept it?

Nope. I never set one up.

Why didn’t you take five seconds to set up an encryption key, Natalie? You’re so lazy.

Panic had given way to full-blown self-punishment.

Losing my entire life

I paced frantically. I couldn’t even begin to catalogue everything I lost. I kept everything there–my photos, documents, all the notes from my healing journey for the book I was going to write one day, medical records, college transcripts, data projects, my tax returns, etc. I hadn’t backed up my files since forever because I hadn’t made the time to do so. I was so mad at myself.

This can’t be happening.

I submitted a contact form to the support team. The subject line: “PLEASE HELP!”

C’mon now, Natalie, there’s no need to scream at them. It’s not that serious.

But it is serious. I NEED these files!

I calmed myself down and erased the all-caps.

Pouring my desperation out, I told them how important it was I get these files back.

Ping! My email sang at me a few minutes later.

Woop! They responded.

“Thank you for contacting us. We’ve received your support request. We’ve assigned the request to our appropriate team, they will get back to you as soon as possible.”

But I need you to contact me RIGHT NOW!

Just breathe, Natalie. Everything is going to be just fine. You’ll get your files back, and all will be right in the world.

Tossing and turning

I went to bed preparing for the worst-case scenario. I began rationalizing the reasons why everything would be fine, even dandy, if all my files disappeared permanently.

There’s nothing super important on there. I barely had any photos from the past because I was living in seclusion. I deleted most of them because they reminded me of too much pain. Even in the ones I wanted to keep, my smile was so forced, and I looked so sad. I don’t want to remember what Natalie looked like. She was overmedicated, dissociated, terrified, and pretending to be someone she was not. Maybe it’s a good thing those photos vanished into the ether.

The notes for the book I was going to write one day? I started writing those a year ago when I was locked in the depths of my despair. That’s not the place I want to share my story from. I still had so many emotions I hadn’t worked through. I still couldn’t fathom what had been done to me, and my mind was disjointed. Things that were so “big” back then are minuscule and even non-existent today. Maybe it’s better that I don’t remember where my head was during that time.

All my medical records? I don’t want to rehash the past anymore. My recovery is progressing so well that I’m nearly to the point where trauma and survival aren’t full-time focus anymore. Why should I continue to wallow? Most of the records were riddled with lies anyway, crafted from biases of the providers who thought they knew me better than I know myself. If I really need these medical records in the future, I can always request them.

What if I need my tax forms from previous years for the next time I file taxes? I can do without those. Who cares about taxes, anyway?

The next morning

I woke up the next morning to an email from the support team. The customer service rep had just copied and pasted a standard answer that I had already found on a web forum.

Frustrated, I responded quickly, “I’ve already tried all this. There’s really not anything you can do to restore my files?”

The next response was what I expected–because the entire email service is encrypted, and I had not set up an encryption key yet. Bottom line: there was nothing they could do.

A test of acceptance

There was no point in trying anymore. My files were gone.

Had this happened even a year ago, I would have obsessed about this for a painfully long time, punishing myself for a lack of foresight. However, once I got the final answer that there was truly nothing the support team could do, I felt an almost immediate wave of acceptance wash over me.

To tell the truth, I felt liberated. Not everything on my Drive was replaceable, yet I realized that I didn’t actually want to replace them. Everything on the Drive was a remnant of my old life.

Starting fresh

This loss was a chance to start fresh. It was time to begin a new life, build new memories, take new photos, and write my story from a place of healing and wisdom gained from all I’ve survived. Everything I need has always been within me, is still within me, and will always be within me. My Drive echoed with outside voices–medical providers, friends who never were worthy of the title, and even the person I used to be. There was no need to hold on to how others wrote my story. I know what I’ve survived. I know the lengths I’ve traveled to find answers.

Losing my Drive was a metaphor of how much progress I’ve made. During my recovery, I have worked tirelessly to shed 99% of my past and move toward the future. Perhaps my own technology, through its sneaky schemes, was trying to whisper something in my ear:

“There’s no need to continue to dwell in the past. You don’t live there anymore. Your life now is the life you always deserved.”

Moving forward fearlessly

To heal, I had to confront my demons, stare down the memories that violated me, and learn to hear my own voice again. I refuse to wallow. For a while, I put everything on pause and moved to a cabin in the woods in the middle of nowhere, which gave me the opportunity to slow down and mindfully decide my future path. Losing my files was the push I needed to completely move forward.

As I write this, it’s been a few weeks since my files were lost. Today, I feel liberated. I can’t believe how concerned I was about getting every single file back. I don’t want to remember who that Natalie was. She wasn’t the real Natalie. With each passing day, I immerse myself deeper into the freedom that I have today, living my new life. I’m feeling wonderful, and the hard work has paid off. The real Natalie is back. I’m almost completely “graduated” from therapy. Any remnants of my old life don’t belong in my subconscious or on my computer screen. The past is over. It doesn’t haunt me any longer–nor do I need to hold on to computer files.

I no longer look back at the past to grieve, hurt, or regret. I only look back to reflect on all the progress I’ve made and to feel proud of my perseverance. I always knew I had it in me. I am excited to start fresh with a new Drive and fill it with files that reflect the peaceful, free, and joyous me.

Photo by Norbert Levajsics on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/apple-imac-on-wooden-desk-near-window-BMYQaySauY0

Photo by Ilya Pavlov on Unsplash

With Patience and Perseverance: Renewing My Faith On My Terms

Natalie Rose — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 13:08:00 +0000

Writer’s Note: This article discusses topics related to spiritual abuse. My purpose in sharing my story is not to single out any specific faith. While my negative experiences occurred within Christianity, it is important to recognize that religious abuse can happen in any belief system.

“You shouldn’t have done that, Natalie. That’s hypocrisy. And hypocrisy is the yeast of the Pharisees and teachers of the Law. Pretty soon, the Christians will be separated into the sheep and the goats. You don’t want to be a goat, do you?” Another member of the congregation admonished me, referencing the parable of Matthew 25:31-46.

I always knew I’d be a goat. I was never going to be good enough for God and make it into heaven.

Spiritual abuse at the hands of my eternal “family”

What “sin” had I committed? After years of suffering in silence, I finally stood up for myself against my church group leader, who made a habit of humiliating me in front of the congregation. I politely asked her to stop mistreating me, and that she and her superiors stop meddling in my private life, including their demands to oversee my medical decisions.

I knew that any church member who pushed back against the leaders faced strict discipline, accompanied by Bible verses thrown in their face as a reprimand, but I was at wit’s end. The congregation had exerted control over my life–dictating who I could talk to, what I could wear, who I could date, what I could read, and even my access to the Internet. But their demand that I surrender control over my medical care was intolerable. Once I set this boundary, I was shunned and excluded from participating in church activities.

Leaving religion

It’s been over two years since I’ve been involved in any religious communities or surrounded by the people I once considered my spiritual family. I grew tired of feeling insecure, inadequate, humiliated, uncomfortable, unworthy, and terrified around other Christians. Was it too much to ask that my “brothers and sisters in Christ” treat me better? After all, they had promised me that they loved me far more than my friends and family did and that we would spend eternity in heaven together once our physical bodies were united with the spirit and perfected in Christ.

The doctrine of eternal life gave me immense hope. It connected Bible verses in a way that promised that one day everyone—including those whose physical bodies had already died—would all live together in a beautiful heaven on earth with God.

Previously, I wrestled with the idea that this same loving God would send some people to hell. I didn’t want that to happen to anyone. My new understanding of the Book of Revelation was the hope I had been searching for. I longed to be in heaven with everyone I knew, in a world with no more death, mourning, crying, or pain. The church continued to reassure me that things would get better; it was just a slow healing process to cleanse the world of sin. In the meantime, I needed to work hard to help God by sacrificing my health, sleep, career, relationships, and sanity. I clung desperately to this hope as I continued to struggle with my anxiety, flashbacks, and suicidal thoughts, not understanding why I still wanted to die.

Eventually, I woke up to the fact that my pure heart had been manipulated. I was flabbergasted that I had ever believed these people truly loved me, preached the only correct doctrine, and had the right to control every aspect of my life. I needed to completely remove myself from the grasp of all religious communities I had been connected to. I packed my bags and trekked to a small town across the country to be closer to home.

I changed all my contact information to prevent congregants from harassing me. This may sound extreme, but it wasn’t. These people habitually showed up at members’ workplaces and homes, reminding them of the consequences of leaving. If members choose to abandon the flock, they were labeled betrayers, akin to the beast with seven heads and ten horns described in the Book of Revelation. Biblical plagues were wished upon them, and they were excluded from heaven. At this point, I was officially a “betrayer” in their eyes.

My “pagan” life

Losing my eternal hope—the very thing that kept me going—was a type of anguish I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I couldn’t believe in God anymore. I wish I could say that after escaping those people and starting a new life in a tiny town, it was just God and me. But it wasn’t. It was just me.

For the first two months of my pagan life, I genuinely thought I was going to burn in hell. My suicidal thoughts peaked, and I was bedridden in terror and guilt.

One frenzied night, I finally carried out my fantasy of destroying my Bible. I grabbed it, threw it on the floor repeatedly, stomped on it, ripped out its pages, and smeared leftover pizza grease all over it. I tossed every remnant of it into a bag and watched it fall down the trash chute of my apartment.

Picking up the pieces

I could write volumes about the effort I invested in going down Internet rabbit holes, listening to podcasts, and meeting with theologians to seek answers to my questions. However, it’s best to focus on the positivity that emerged from my despair, with the hope of encouraging other survivors that it is possible to restore their faith in a healthy and meaningful way–only if it feels right for them.

I still hold profound hope for meaning beyond my physical body. Throughout my healing journey, I have worked hard to let go of the false narratives others instilled in me about what my faith should look like. I define my faith on my terms. While I still have many unanswered questions, I am at peace with my faith. I accept that I don’t have all the answers, yet I can still hold onto hope for something greater than this life.

Practical ways I restored my faith during my healing journey

There was a time when I never thought I could utter or hear the word “God” again without experiencing a trauma response in my body. However, I have gradually reached a point where I can listen to discussions about religious topics and read faith-based literature. Here are some practical ways I’ve grown in my recovery:

#1: I prioritized my recovery from Complex PTSD and put my search for spiritual answers on pause

In the past, I wanted answers. And I wanted them now. I accepted that I could never find those answers while I was still grieving, dissociated, and going through intense medication withdrawal.

I took the time and space I needed to heal all aspects of myself. I mourned the years I lost while living under the control of others who falsely positioned themselves as religious authorities. Pausing my faith was not a sign of weakness or a lack of belief; it was a mature choice, with the understanding that rebuilding my life of peace, safety, and contentment must take precedence over everything else.

#2: I recognized that my religious trauma was not my fault and allowed myself to feel the emotions I had internalized for years

I now understand that I didn’t deserve the spiritual abuse I experienced. I no longer blame myself for failing to recognize it as abuse. I allowed myself to be angry about the unfairness of having to work through years of indoctrination that violated me, all to release emotions that weren’t truly mine. I processed these feelings in therapy, and as a result, I no longer have any emotional attachment to my religious experiences.

#3. I stopped pressuring myself to attend a physical church and looked within my heart

After leaving religion, the thought of stepping into a church again made my heart race. Embracing small-town life in its truest form, I began working with an equine therapist on her farm. Who would have thought that horses could calm the nervous system?!

My equine therapist kindly offered that, when I felt ready, I could join her at church, sitting in the back, and we could leave the minute I felt uncomfortable. I appreciated her gracious offer, but my pounding heart told me I still wasn’t ready.

Letting go of the pressure to find a new church community was incredibly liberating for me. I no longer believe that I need to be around others to grow in my faith. My faith is private and personal; it resides within me.

#4 I focus on a faith that promotes positivity, love, and non-judgment

Currently, I engage exclusively with faith-based topics that emphasize love, acceptance, and personal growth, rather than fire and brimstone. I read what aligns with my heart’s current state. I don’t pressure myself to delve into complex theological works that dredge up painful memories and stall my personal growth. I do not subscribe to any doctrines that lift one group of people above another.

#5 I set boundaries with those who use their religious beliefs to judge and criticize me

I only discuss faith with those who don’t pressure me to conform to their personal beliefs. I set boundaries with many people in my life who tend to correct, criticize, or analyze me through the lens of their own religious beliefs. I no longer consider religion to be a safe topic of conversation with them and prefer to focus on other subjects instead.

It is possible to recover

If my story inspires anyone wrestling with their recovery from spiritual abuse, I want to emphasize that it is possible to experience tremendous growth and healing—both within yourself and in your faith—beyond what you could have ever imagined, despite everything you’ve been through. I am truly sorry that you have been hurt by those you placed your trust in. Remember that you always had good intentions. It is possible to find peace as you separate yourself from the lies of what you endured under the guise of love, salvation, edification, sanctification, and charity. There are no requirements for the future. Your faith is on your terms.

Making my faith my own

My faith helped me navigate my struggles long before anyone else became involved. It was other people’s motives that corrupted my genuine desire for answers and community. I always set out with good intentions, extending my time, love, energy, money, possessions, and friendship without expecting anything in return.

Although my autonomy, voice, and strength were stolen from me in the past, I no longer carry any guilt or blame. Today, I am stronger than I have ever been. I no longer let the lies others try to plant in my mind about who I am affect my beliefs and my relationship with my faith. I will never again allow another person, group, or institution to extinguish the flame of my eternal hope.

Featured Photo by Guilherme Stecanella on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/closeup-photography-of-woman-wearing-floral-skirt-holding-red-gas-lantern-at-brown-grass-field-smCn7Cbhk_c

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