I’d like you to take a moment to think of a time when you were being shamed by someone in your family. Ask yourself: how does that memory feel in the body? What stories come up? How was this message delivered? Looking back, was it really your shame? Or was it theirs? It’s important to be gentle with yourself and remember that, in shame-based families, parents dump their shame onto their children so they don’t have to feel or deal with it.

I’ve had clients that, no matter what, any chore they did was never done well enough to the unrealistic standards of the parent. They were shamed, criticized, and nagged. Most importantly, there was no teaching, guidance, or support to improve. This left my clients feeling anxious and defeated. Later on, when it came time to run their own household, they developed learned helplessness.

When we work together, they are able to experience a non-judgemental and supportive relationship, allowing them to release the shame and gain the confidence and skills they need. The traumatic experience stopped them from approaching or even noticing that they needed to address their physical spaces. Now, they are able to stand in their power and embrace new skills, and live in clean, organized homes they feel comfortable and proud in. 🙂

Five characteristics of shame-based family systems

There are over 10 different characteristics of shame-based family systems. In Lori Herberts article, she provides a very extensive look at four, while Paul Dunion gives a wide scope of the different components of shame-based families along with great case examples. I recommend checking out both articles.

1. Too Much Control

The need to control everything is the most dominant characteristic of a shame-based family. These types of families usually consist of two roles: the perpetrator and the dependent.

Perpetuator

• Exert power, control, and influence through financial & emotional means
• Only care about themselves and are not empathetic
• They want to dominate ,and there is no space for others to exist freely
• Privileges and rights are dictated rather than negotiated
• Name-calling is used to keep others down

Dependent

• Relies on the perpetrator for approval
• Gets stuck in extreme people pleasing and looses connection with their own needs and feelings
• Their self-worth is deeply affected
• Feels unsafe and the need to walk on eggshells

Examples of what you might hear:

• “You’re too young to know any better”
• “It’s your fault for making that choice”
• “How dare you….”
• “It’s your fault I feel this way”
• “It’s my way or the highway”

This kind of gaslighting, control, and psychological mind-warping causes the dependent to second guess their actions. In order to survive, they create inaccurate narratives that match the narratives of the perpetrator. Overall, this control means that you can never disagree with the perpetrator, and if you do, there are severe consequences. So, you learn to mold yourself into a pretzel to stay safe.

2. Poor Openness and Interpersonal Communication

Communication in shame-based families usually consists of silent treatment, yelling, interrupting, teasing, nagging, name-calling, and good old sarcasm. This is coupled with little or no emotional support, lacking the ability to coregulate and attune to others’ feelings, in other words, no empathy. When seen in a vulnerable state, the perpetrator will take advantage of this and belittle the dependent into feeling even more shame. It makes it almost impossible to be authentic and express one’s emotions, causing family members to be silenced “or else”.

This dynamic also creates a need to be perfect and meet the ever-changing ideal set by the perpetrator. There is always something wrong, so this ideal can never be met; the dependent is always in fear mode. It also means that an individual does not have the skills, support, or space to process negative emotions. If these negative emotions are shown then the perpetrator sees this as undermining their authority and the dependent is shamed into silence.

Shaming communication often looks like putting the blame onto others. This creates a web of deflecting, gas-lighting, and lack of accountability, and at the end of the day, everyone feels horrible. Maybe growing up you heard things like:

• “Don’t tell your father!”
• “Why didn’t you do what he said?”
• “It’s your fault your mother is upset.”
• “You’re overreacting!”

You probably felt like everything was your fault and still do. It’s likely you are afraid that even the cashier at the grocery store is mad at you when they are having a tough day. To be afraid all the time is exhausting and prevents you from living in a place of peace and power, which is exactly what the perpetrator wants.

3. Self-esteem depends on the family’s approval

Nothing is ever good enough, no matter how hard you try, no matter what you accomplish, there is criticism and personal jabs. Instead of wanting to create and grow as an individual, you focus all your energy on either avoiding failure or covering up perceived failure. This can look like not making life choices you want because they counter the families ideals and values.

These patterns continue into adulthood with relationships outside of the nuclear family. Whether it’s with your kids, friends, colleagues or romantic partners, you always feel the need to have their approval instead of standing in a strong sense of yourself, values and essence. It also means that people sense this low self-esteem and you are easily taken advantage of. If I know you want to please me I’ll see what I can get from it. And likely these individuals are perpetrators just like those in your family of origin.

As you gain some freedom in adulthood it becomes a weird catch 22: you can make decisions for yourself, however, you have lost connection to your sense of self and may not even know what you want. You never had the practice to speak up and you end up in similar situations of people pleasing and putting yourself last. Remember that, although there is this sense that there is something wrong with you, there isn’t! What you feel is a result of growing up in a shame-based family and you can heal from the effects and change how you feel about yourself.

4. Selective Personal Accountability

This is a very classic dynamic of dysfunctional and shame-based families: “It’s ok for me, but not for you!” There is a sense that “I can do whatever I want and change the rules at any time, but you must oblige at all times.” To maintain this dynamic, the perpetrator uses blame, criticism, and shame to suppress the dependent into paying the price for their actions, even when it’s not their fault or responsibility.

For example, if you yell at someone who is calling you names, it’s not ok. But if I yell at you, it’s because you made me do it. In a healthy family, everyone is accountable for their actions and not shamed for when they don’t uphold them. After all, everyone makes mistakes! Rather, there will be discussions around understanding what happened, how everyone is feeling, and how things can be improved in the future. Parents also take responsibility for their actions when they’ve made a mistake and model how to apologize.

Another aspect of accountability is that when the perpetrator is abusing a family member, they will take no responsibility for it. This permanently causes you to think that there is something wrong with you and that it’s your fault the bad behaviour happened. You might have never experienced this, but know that you are worthy of respectful and restorative dialogue.

5. Denial of the Five Freedoms

The perpetrator ensures that it’s their way or the highway. In other words, you cannot think, feel, perceive, desire or imagine anything other than what they dictate. This takes away your freedom to be you. It’s a must that you are perfect, an ideal that is unreachable, causing significant harm to one’s sense of self and inner spirit.

When you are not free to be you, you will inherently become depressed. One definition of depression is suppressed expression. Because you are always on guard, people pleasing and being silenced, you are unable to develop a sense of self and know what you like or need. This blocks your voice and ability to speak up. All these trapped emotions cause stress, illness, and unhealthy coping mechanisms. I’ve often seen clients develop forms of unhealthy control since they couldn’t control or have a say in their home environment growing up. Some of these forms create unrealistic home environments that are not sustainable. For example, there is a need to keep all reusable containers in order to be eco-friendly. The need to do something “right” takes over and then the space becomes unmanageable.

6. Boundary Violation

Since there is no empathy, understanding, or inclusion in a shame-based family, your needs come last, and since you are unable to speak up, you are likely being violated regularly. Respect for others’ needs is not considered, and you feel pressured to do things, even though they may be unethical, against your own values and need for safety. You end up doing things you don’t want to do, and this continuous boundary violation means that outside of the home, you are likely also a target for being bullied and violated.

As adults, if we don’t address our pasts, we end up creating relationships that are similar to those we grew up in because they are familiar and “normal”. As I’ve mentioned before, what is familiar feels safe even though it’s harmful., It’s predictable, and the unknown is even scarier. Growing up in a family where there are no boundaries means you don’t develop a sense of self and autonomy.

How shame-based families create clutter

As you can guess, the perpetrator dumps all of their shame and responsibilities onto others. Someone’s home in this situation could be neat, tidy, and organized; however, it’s being maintained out of sheer fear. Other times, the perpetrator is literally a slob, and others can’t keep up. They struggle with being in dorsal and feeling overwhelmed so again nothing gets done. People in a shame-based family are likely living in a sympathetic state (fight or flight) or in a dorsal (freeze or fawn). This means they cannot act from a place of problem-solving, connection, or groundedness. Being in these states causes people to dissociate, where they literally can’t see the mess and are unable to figure out what to do with it when they do notice it.

How to release the cycle of shame

The good news is there are ways to heal from shame and break the family cycle. Below are five ways that can help you begin to release the shame and learn new ways to love yourself and set boundaries.

Name the shame!

For most of my life, I didn’t understand that what I was feeling was shame. I would only know that I feel horrible about particular situations. Many can relate to this, and making a connection to this feeling and why it’s there is a key first step to being able to release what’s not yours. It’s important that your adult self understands that what happened to you is not a shameful thing. All those times you were shamed for something, it most likely had nothing to do with you. Now it’s time to let it go and release it!

Getting to know how it feels in the body when you feel shame is helpful because it connects with the physical sensation, which allows you to address it before the thoughts, stories, and inner critic come crashing in. By knowing these sensations, you can pause, take a deep breath, breathe into those parts, and release the energy that is still trapped from the trauma. You can also do different exercises with a therapist and use the emotion code and other energy work to help you release and complete the cycle of trauma.

2. Boundaries

Setting boundaries can be very challenging, especially if you grew up in a home where speaking up meant severe consequences. Your nervous system remembers these situations and thus makes an association with speaking up as dangerous. It takes time to retrain your nervous system to be safe and doing calming exercises is one way to rebuild it.

Another aspect of boundaries is the ability to say no and take up space. This can be through healthier relationships and with the support of a therapist or trauma coach. It’s a great start to practice in a safe space. Taking tiny steps towards knowing your needs and then being able to communicate them will take time, so be gentle with yourself as you develop this new skill.

3. Building a sense of trust for others

Building an accurate sense of trust for others can be very challenging. It’s important to know that trust is something that develops over time. When growing up in dysfunctional families, people often swing from trusting people completely and blindly to not trusting at all. The skill of discernment allows you to slowly assess a situation and get to know someone from a place of observation. When observing, instead of reacting, you are able to see patterns of behaviour that indicate whether or not you can trust someone. Do they respect the boundaries that you set? Are they honest, reliable, and empathetic? Do you feel safe when you are with this person? Are you able to express yourself authentically?

Relational healing is very powerful. For some, the first person they are able to do it with is a therapist, and then slowly, they find other people to develop healthy and trusting relationships with. Connecting with your own inner strength and trust is also a key component to developing a sense of trust for others. If you don’t trust yourself, how can you trust your discernment of others?

4. Accountability

Even if you were the dependent in your family, it’s likely that you now participate in shaming behaviours yourself, because they were learned and a survival mechanism. Now you have the chance to own your part in your past and current actions. You can learn new ways to communicate your needs that don’t blame, shame or put others or yourself down. This means getting to know what matters to you, how to stand in your power and learning how to speak up for yourself. This takes time, practice and compassion!

5. Reconnect with your Intuition

When we grow up in dysfunctional and shame-based families, we lose connection to that inner knowing that we had at a young age. For many, it never left but we doubt that it’s true out of fear of making a mistake or that it counters what is expected in the family unit.

One way that I strengthen my inner knowing is through meditation. I  connect with my heart and work on expanding the energy there. This can be as simple as closing your eyes and placing your hand on your heart. Doing this is also great for calming your nervous system, so it’s a win-win. While having your eyes closed, you can imagine things that make you smile, things and people that you love, or even just a sense of peace and love. Then, once you have this sense, slowly remove your hands from your heart and pretend you are holding the energy of this love between them like a ball. Slowly expand your arms out and feel this energy expand with it until you have an immense amount of love, joy, and uplifting energy all around you. It’s a very powerful practice and a wonderful way to start your day!

Shame doesn’t just show up in our homes when we grow up. It’s everywhere. It’s used in marketing to convince you there is something “wrong” with you so you need this product to fix it. It’s in our workplaces when there are toxic relationships, gossip, and dysfunctional systems. Committing to yourself that you will put the time, energy and effort into breaking the cycle of shame will have a ripple effect not just in your family but in the world at large!

Tonia Cordi

Tonia Cordi is a decluttering trauma coach and teacher who works with people who want to change, grow, and heal. Her five-step process allows individuals to declutter their lives, reconnect with themselves and their life purpose, and heal from trauma. You can learn more about her approach on her website or YouTube channel.

Understanding the Impact of CPTSD on Personality

Trauma fundamentally changes how individuals view themselves, others, and the world around them. In CPTSD, the effects are often pervasive, shaping emotions, beliefs, and behaviours. Common personality changes may include hypervigilance, where individuals are constantly alert to potential danger, and persistent low self-worth, driven by feelings of guilt or shame. Many people with CPTSD also experience emotional dysregulation, where they struggle to manage intense emotions, often cycling through anger, sadness, or anxiety. These changes are survival mechanisms developed during periods of trauma but tend to persist, disrupting relationships and everyday life even when danger has passed.

How CPTSD Impacts Trust

Trust is one of the most significant casualties of prolonged trauma. The very essence of CPTSD involves a betrayal of safety, which creates deep-seated mistrust in people, systems, and even oneself.

For individuals with CPTSD, trusting others often feels unsafe or even dangerous. Relationships may be approached with suspicion, skepticism, or outright avoidance, as they constantly anticipate betrayal. Conversely, some survivors may overextend trust to gain approval or prevent rejection, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation or re-traumatisation.

Trust issues also extend inward. Many survivors struggle with self-doubt, questioning their own perceptions, decisions, or worth. This internalised mistrust can feel paralysing, preventing individuals from confidently navigating relationships or decisions. Furthermore, fear of intimacy often develops, as the vulnerability required for deep connections triggers reminders of past betrayals, leading to emotional walls and isolation.

Personality Changes Over Time

The cumulative impact of trust issues and trauma responses often leads to significant long-term personality changes. While not universal, many people with CPTSD experience heightened sensitivity to rejection. This can cause intense emotional reactions to perceived slights, even if unintentional.

Defensive behaviours are also common, such as isolating from others or relying on perfectionism as a means of control and protection. These coping mechanisms, while initially protective, can prevent individuals from forming meaningful connections or embracing growth.

Chronic guilt or shame also becomes a dominant trait for many. Survivors of prolonged trauma often internalise their experiences, believing they are fundamentally flawed or to blame for their suffering. These beliefs shape identity and self-esteem, making it difficult to engage confidently with the world.

Lastly, relationships may oscillate between extremes of closeness and distancing as survivors struggle to balance the fear of abandonment with the need for connection. This dynamic can lead to cycles of idealisation and devaluation, further complicating personal and social interactions.

The Path to Healing and Growth

While CPTSD creates significant challenges, healing and growth are attainable with the right tools and support. Rebuilding trust and addressing personality changes involves small, intentional steps and a willingness to confront past wounds.

• Seek Trauma-Informed Therapy: Approaches like EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), or Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) are highly effective in addressing trauma’s root causes and teaching new coping mechanisms.
• Rebuild Trust Gradually: Begin by trusting yourself through small commitments and achievable goals. Surround yourself with safe individuals who demonstrate reliability and respect.
• Practice Self-Compassion: Healing guilt and shame starts with kindness toward yourself. Techniques like mindfulness, journaling, and affirmations can challenge negative beliefs and reinforce your worth.
• Develop Healthy Boundaries: Learn to set and maintain boundaries in relationships, protecting your emotional and mental space while fostering mutual respect.

Engage in Support Networks: Whether through support groups, friends, or community resources, connecting with others who understand your journey can provide strength and validation.

A Journey of Transformation

The effects of CPTSD on trust and personality are deeply ingrained but not insurmountable. Healing requires patience, persistence, and support from trusted professionals and networks. Through intentional effort, survivors can begin to rebuild their sense of self, reclaim their resilience, and foster healthier, more fulfilling relationships.

While the road to recovery may be challenging, it also offers opportunities for profound transformation. By addressing the wounds of the past, individuals with CPTSD can step into a future defined not by their trauma but by their strength, growth, and renewed ability to trust.

If you have been impacted by betrayal, you might like to check out my blog, Betrayal Trauma & CPTSD. https://cptsdfoundation.org/2022/09/22/betrayal-trauma-cptsd/

Photo from Unsplash: timo-stern-EvcUtLF12XQ-unsplash.jpg

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.

Tracy Guy

Tracy Guy is a published author and a proud guest writer for the C-PTSD Foundation. Professionally, Tracy has experience in mental health and muti-trauma nursing and is now a full-time registered counsellor working with people struggling with complex trauma, anxiety, and grief. Her passion for writing, unwavering instinct to help others, and professional and lived experience drives Tracy to support and advocate for those suffering from debilitating traumatic experiences and C-PTSD. Tracy hopes to raise understanding and awareness of C-PTSD, more specifically, the association of C-PTSD with abusive relationships.

Do you avoid having people over because of the intense shame you feel about the state of your home?

Shame shows up in many ways and is a direct result of childhood and life experiences. It’s an emotion that comes up automatically when you’ve experienced trauma. The intensity, how long it lasts, and your ability to transform it depend on many factors. Because it’s such a big topic, I’ll be writing about it for the next few months.

Over the years, I’ve seen shame come up in all of my clients. Sometimes, just having me in their home triggers so much shame that they struggle with having me back. The embarrassment and the sheer, intense vulnerability of being seen are just too much. When you go out and see friends or allow yourself to be vulnerable to a trauma coach, they won’t see your home. That part of you can stay hidden. Being in someone’s home is highly personal, and seeing their physical space adds another visible layer of the effects trauma has had.

What is Shame?

There are many definitions, each describing the emotion as being intensely painful and uncomfortable. Brene Brown states that “shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.” It comes up when we are seen in a way that we don’t want to be seen.

Shame is a primary response to a traumatic event (too much, too soon, too fast, too intense, for too long, or not enough). It can dissipate with love, care, and support. It can also turn into toxic shame if we continue to go out of our way to hide instead of changing or continuously having others make us feel bad about it.   Our inner critic becomes even stronger around the unwanted parts, and this constant protection puts you on high alert,  getting stuck in sympathetic mode (fight or flight) or dorsal (freeze or fawn).  Reconnecting to your body and breathing and decoupling from your mind are the first steps to taking your power back and dissolving the toxic shame that lies within you.

What does it look like?

There are common patterns that show up with shame: feeling like you are not good enough or not worthy. Brene Brown reminds us that “shame drives two big tapes in your mind: ‘Never good enough’ and ‘Who do you think you are?’” These inner voices are a direct result of being shamed for your behaviour, feeling shame because of a traumatic experience that has happened to you, or both. The effects trauma has on someone often outweigh the traumatic experience itself.  The role of shame is to protect, however, when it turns into toxic shame it ends up making you feel like there is something inherently wrong with you.

When this cycle begins at a young age, because of family or community dynamics, you can’t express yourself authentically because it’s not safe. If you do you will be critized, shamed, punished or scapegoated. This then creates another level of shame because you learn to  shame yourself on top of being shamed by others (the inner critic).

Our emotions create feelings that are then followed by actions, beliefs, stories, and behaviours. What usually follows is hiding out and making ourselves small. It binds to other positive emotions and dulls their intensity s. Fear and anxiety increase, creating a wall of protection. For some, this looks like being chronically defensive, emotionally unavailable, or developing harmful coping mechanisms like drinking, drugs, binge-watching TV, emotional eating, and shopping.

Oh my, this is a lot to carry! Luckily, there are ways to release shame and transform it into healthy shame and empowerment. I will explore this a bit in this blog and go deeper in next month’s blog.

The family dynamics of shame

Often, families with unresolved trauma and dysfunctional ways of coping become shame-based family systems. Shame is meant to control others in the family through blaming. Making a family member the black sheep makes it easier to draw attention away from oneself. It’s a way for someone to deny their own shame. When this happens often to a family member, they begin to attack themselves and develop an inner critic.

This toxic shame never goes away. It’s not like other flash emotions (like anger) that come and go quickly,and that signal the need for a behavioural shift. Instead, it lives inside your head and your heart, dictating every move out of fear because if you are not on guard, then you are likely to be attacked. This pattern of protection and the inner critic cause you to disconnect from yourself, others, and the world. This bridge between our interpersonal world and the outside world is lost, and you are left alone on an island of protection. This bridge can be rebuilt through setting boundaries, healing from the pain, and learning how to love yourself.

What is healthy shame? Healthy shame stands on guard instead. It makes us feel bad when we have made a mistake and encourages us to seek responsibility and repair.  As normal human emotions, shame is short-lived and less intense. You recognize the harmful behaviour, but don’t judge your entire personality. There is no longer an inner critic that dominates. It becomes ok not to be perfect. We can own up to our shortcomings versus going out of our way to hide them at all costs. Rather, the feeling of shame becomes a small nudge to pay attention and to check in if you are in alignment with your values.

How does it create clutter in your life?

The different ways shame shows up also play a role in the clutter it creates in your life.

Fawn/Cling

As innate social beings, we have a strong desire to belong, be valued, and be accepted by others. As children, our survival depends on it. If our basic needs of love, boundaries, and safety are not met, we develop unhealthy coping mechanisms as adults. This looks like being frozen and withdrawn in anger because expressing it was unsafe. There isn’t a sense of inner strength that you can do things on your own, meaning clinging to others no matter how bad it is.

With people pleasing and any other form of unhealthy coping, you don’t focus on what you need for yourself. Anger is an emotion that tells you someone is crossing your boundary. If you ignore this and constantly focus on others instead of yourself, things get left aside and build up. Everything from your health, personal finances, your career, and even your belongings. Taking the time to keep yourself in order is last on the list because, most likely, you are also enabling someone else’s irresponsibility. Reconnecting to yourself, your power to say no, and getting to know your needs are the first steps to shifting this pattern.

Attack Self

This is where the strong inner critic comes in and demands that everything you do is “perfect”.  It’s a sense that there is something “wrong” with you and that you’re not good enough, others know better than you, you are bad and you deserve it when something bad happens to you.

What does this look like when we are talking about a cluttered life? For one, way too many products or items to fit a very specific purpose. For example, having a significant amount of cleaning products each basically doing the same thing..  This perfectionism can also look like having an extremely clean home where everything perfectly placed but when you open up the cupboards they are crammed with every item possible to appear perfect or to fill the void that you feel inside of you.

Withdrawing

Often if you attack self and tend to fawn, it’s likely that it’s paired with withdrawing. Here you go within and feel sorry for yourself and spend a lot of time ruminating. This creates a lifestyle of isolating and distrust. From this isolation, lack of connection and support you then lose faith and hope.

Not being present for yourself also means not being present in your spaces. Like with most coping strategies, things pile up. Here, it’s because you literally can’t because you go so within that likely you are in dorsal and frozen, making it hard to get anything done. Guilt and shame then take over, creating a vicious cycle of wanting to get things done but being frozen with shame and fear of not doing it perfectly; you do nothing.

Getting support from someone you trust and slowly rebuilding your sense of self so that you can trust others is a wonderful way to slowly disarm the inner critic.

Denial

If you live in denial, then you are disconnected from yourself and your spaces. There is a sense of numbness, and this often leads to addictions. All to keep that numbness going because to feel is too much. It also means pretending that nothing happened or downplaying it, whether it was something that happened to you or something you did to someone else that caused harm.

This disconnection causes you to literally not see the mess. I’ve had many clients who don’t notice how cluttered and chaotic things are until we’ve cleared and organized things, and they are able to see the difference. Often, they are used to having things all over the place, having grown up in homes similar to theirs. I know for myself that sometimes it’s hard to see how bad things are until I’m removed from a situation or I experience something totally different.

Learning how to connect to yourself, others and your spaces allows you to take ownership of what has happened and what is happening in the present moment.

Attacking others

Instead of going within to attack, lashing out allows a person to not take responsibility and also means denying that anything needs to be addressed. Often, this is paired with rage, violence, contempt, and gaslighting. Being disconnected in a way that you are constantly playing the victim and everyone is against you.

This outward deflection creates chaos in your life and an avoidance of dealing with anything. Likely, you have someone who cleans up the mess after you, literally and figuratively, meaning you don’t have a true sense of your responsibility and someone else’s. You also don’t see the chaos and clutter you create because someone else is taking care of it for you. It’s time for a wake-up call and drastic steps to calm your inner anger and soothe your possibly broken heart. Getting support to release anger in a healthy way is a wonderful first step to shifting your energy to a more loving, responsible way of being.

First Steps to Releasing and Shifting Shame

1. Take some time to identify the areas where you feel shame in your everyday life.
2. See if you can make the connection to the experience of where it started.
3. What shame reaction did you develop from that experience?
4. How does this shame reaction affect:
   1. Your relationships
   2. Your spaces
   3. How you spend your time
   4. Your ability to create the life you want
5. Who can you unpack this shame and coping mechanisms with?
6. What part can you let go of?
7. How can you transform the emotion into empowerment and also change the story of what you think and feel about yourself?
8. What activities, hobbies, practices, books, and exercises can you do to build your sense of self and your worth and be more connected to your power?
9. Now, is that story true of what someone said about you? Or was it them dumping their shame on you?
10. What do you want to tell yourself now?
11. Celebrate the changes you’ve made!

Releasing shame takes time, and with it, you can also release the clutter in all areas of your life, making life flow with ease, joy, and grace.

Photo by Romario Roges on Unsplash

Tonia Cordi is a transformational life coach and teacher who works with people who want to change, grow and heal. Her 5 step process allows individuals to declutter their life, reconnect with themselves, their life purpose and heal from trauma. You can learn more about her approach on website or youtube channel.

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.

Tonia Cordi

Tonia Cordi is a decluttering trauma coach and teacher who works with people who want to change, grow, and heal. Her five-step process allows individuals to declutter their lives, reconnect with themselves and their life purpose, and heal from trauma. You can learn more about her approach on her website or YouTube channel.

Even now, I miss you with a fierceness that makes me want to jump into the afterlife and beat the crap out of you for leaving

Rational? No.

No, but if there is one thing I’ve learned, grief isn’t rational or delicate. It’s snot-slinging, messy, headache and heartache, forgetting to eat, not caring about anything through a painful moment of years that binds trauma and emotions to… well, everything.

When the cancer was first diagnosed, I felt like it was a big joke; someone would jump out from behind the proverbial curtain and say, “Ha! Just kidding. I won’t take her. She’s too precious to many people. Her light can’t be dimmed. It’s just the way it is. She is so much more than this stupid disease.”

Watching you waste away eight years ago with double pneumonia — as a result of chemo — and on a ventilator made no sense. Four days after you got off the ventilator, my family moved across the country. I will never forget standing in your parents’ driveway, tears streaming down both of us, your Dad and my son, prying our grasping arms apart from each other.

And then you beat it.

After watching the chemo almost take you first, a clean bill of health seemed like a win that could be revoked at any second. We celebrated quietly at first, like oh, don’t get comfortable here, but as time went on, we became more and more set in the space of “it’s gone,” we can relax.

And we did. Little did we realize the clock was still ticking.

We returned to being the best kind of besties: supportive, loving, you-are-my-person besties. We took vacations together, made the trek across the country to visit, talked, and texted all the time, and each time we saw each other, it was as if no time had passed; we knew all was right with our world. When one had a work issue, or a friend issue, or a boy issue, any issue, it was worked through by communicating to that one person who was so completely safe and protective. It was just that way with us from the minute we met decades ago.

The parking lot was pretty full, I’d never eaten here, but meeting friends for a coffee, late 90’s time-frame. Unfolding from the car, stretching after a long drive, the first weekend ever where I left my kids with my mother-in-law, and while I was nervous, I knew I needed a break. Walking in, the bored hostess greeted me, and I waved past her as I saw my group sitting in a cracked booth. I walked up, enveloped in hugs, and saw a woman smiling at me. Something energetic and profound passed between us. I sat across from her, and we introduced ourselves. It was like a cheesy romance novel only on a bestie plane: we instantly connected, and those bonds never faded. I can still see your smile and hear your laughter.

It’s strange as I sift through the thousands of memories of your ready smile, warm hugs, and generous heart that when we met through mutual friends all those years ago, it was like no one else existed. We sat at the table at a coffee and donuts place and felt like we had come home.

You used to say frequently that we would outlive the men in our lives and be little old ladies, cussing up a storm, sitting on the porch in rockers at night, looking out at the mountains, cackling at the stars over inside jokes.

Remember that time when I was heartbroken because my ex cheated, leaving me with two little ones to raise, and you were ready to commit murder and instead opted to concoct a plan to put cranberry juice in the gas tank of his motorcycle? And, when we got to the house where he was living with my ex-friend, we suddenly couldn’t do it, the dictates of your sobriety, decades strong, said “Turn around and think about this.” And you said, “Dammit! I’d have to make amends.” I recovered, of course, from that broken heart with your support, but I love that story because it’s the crux of who you were. Even though you were so angry and protective and watching me barely hold it together, you couldn’t harm him. You held me as I sobbed, and you said, “There is life after him.” Once again, you were right.

When my Mom died by suicide, when your ex also cheated when your Dad passed, when I went back to school in my 40s and started on a new career trajectory, when we lost multiple fur babies, when other friends faded, when when, when… We’ve been together through all the barbed wire, high-tree-sitting, confrontational, horrifying, appalling, bloody, joyous, traumatic, complex moments, years, and lifetimes for and with each other.

When I needed to sober up after my mom died, you told me that I was skating on the edge of the pond and pretty soon I was going to fall through the ice and that if I didn’t stop it, I stood to lose everything I’d worked for. You walked through the insanity of early recovery, helped me, bit your tongue, and never gave up on me. Every year on my dry date, you would blow up my phone, badly sing “Happy Birthday,” and say, “I’m so proud of you.”

You would remember, even when I would forget and judge myself, how hard it was for me as a child growing up in the dysfunction and abuse. When my career turned in this direction to help others, you were my biggest cheerleader and support. When you decided to quit corporate and work with animals, we walked through what that looked like, and I held your hand and sat in fear. You were so freaking strong, and you didn’t always know it. I told you every chance I got.

You had this amazing humility and humor. You were there for and with my kids every birthday, every milestone, and every hug. One Christmas Eve when they were little and my son was worried that Santa wouldn’t be able to get to our Christmas tree because we didn’t have a fireplace, you stood outside their bedroom window and rang bells on a freezing cold night, and when they didn’t wake up to hear them but snored through it, you kept ringing those bells until you were frozen through. We laughed and put baby powder and boot prints on the floor next to the laundry chute to simulate Santa stomping around: “Plan B,” you said.

Our master plan was this: my son finishes college and we move to the mountains, have houses next door to each other, and we live out our days, you helping animals and me helping other developmental trauma survivors. We hike and bike and see live music. Dance with our hearts. “That’s my Bestie!” you would always chime. We were two halves of the same whole.

My heart is heavy with my pain. There are so many layers, complicated, nuanced, HARD pieces, and I’ve barely scratched the surface. All the people you touched in your sobriety and helped on that journey. All the families whose beloved fur babies you helped transition. All the goofy things we did, all the laughter. Your joy when I talked you into kayaking the first time, and you loved it, just like I do, skimming the surface of the water, splashing me, your laughter echoing and racing away. Those moments were the best.

How many times did we hike mountains in Colorado, on vacation from our lives? Standing on the peak, knowing all was right in the world just because we were each other’s foundation. You would always joke and say it was too bad we were heterosexual, as we would have been the most amazing couple. I would respond that we were in love with each other’s souls.

That isn’t to say we didn’t argue; we most certainly did. When you have two stubborn, independent women who may get stuck in an agenda, it happens. The great thing about it, though, was that after a time out, we would come back and talk it out, usually ending up teasing each other and laughing.

In October of last year, when I was super-stressed with work and had taken on too much, you said, “Okay, that’s it. I’m getting on a flight: my Bestie is too stressed.” You came for five days, and it was like it always was. Little did we know it would be the last time you would feel good. You got back and had a scan, and they found a tumor next to your spine. You would never call my phone during the work day, so my heart dropped to my feet when it rang.

It was back. It progressed and raged like a forest fire through your body.

After getting a call from your oncologist nurse on a Wednesday in early December, saying you were having brain surgery on Friday and that your spinal fluid was filled with cancer cells and saturating your brain, I caught a flight on Friday. I walked into the hospital room Saturday morning with my son. You opened your eyes and said “Hi,” like we had just seen you the day before, and then you realized you hadn’t. With a squeak, you held out your hands, gripping my cold ones, and tears rolled from your beautiful brown eyes.

After seeing you in December, after the brain surgery, when the doctors said you couldn’t beat this, after my denial period was over, my inner mantra very quickly became “Please take her sooner rather than later, she’s suffering so much.” It’s beyond painful to watch someone you love, now a shell of their former vibrant self tormented in physical misery.

In January, we went up to see you again.

You were so skinny. Everything hurt and it was hard for you to hold a conversation, you’d fade in and out. I sat by your bed and held your hand, fed you, and brushed your teeth while I talked endlessly about our lives, how entwined we were, and how much love we had.

The powerlessness I felt watching you navigate the cancer, the pain you were in, the harsh drugs, and all of the bi-products of pouring poison into the body will forever be etched on my heart. Holding your head up so you could take a sip of water, you said once, “You didn’t sign up for this,” and I said, “Yes, I did.” Didn’t matter what was needed, whatever light and love I could give you, it was my honor to do it.

Your humor never left. At one point, someone passed gas, and you opened one eye and said, “Ewww… whoever did that needs a toilet.” My son and I cracked up and I heard your laughter one last time.

Leaving to come home from that trip was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, knowing that I wouldn’t be back before you passed.

You slipped away peacefully in your sleep; we weren’t there with you, and I know you wanted that—a beautiful butterfly flitting into the next realm.

When our important people pass, it feels like the world should stop and take a moment, but that doesn’t happen. People get up, go to work, write articles, and live their lives. Part of me just wanted to yell, “STOP! You don’t get it, she’s gone; how does this thing called life even work now?”

My pain comes in waves: it’s tangible, suffocating, and overwhelming. And yet, I would do it all again, knowing the outcome. I wouldn’t give up one second of being your Bestie. I will be immobile in my heart, trying to shake off the concrete shoes of this grief for a long time.

That’s okay. It sucks to feel this way, to miss you so much. I can’t breathe sometimes, and I honor that in myself. It means I’ve loved with my whole heart, and unexpected love is such a rare, true gift.

So! Bestie, if you are listening today, know I’m continuing with our plan, moving to the mountains, and helping others. My son is graduating college this year and is coming with me. I’m fulfilling our dream.

It doesn’t mean it’s easy to go on without you. You imprinted yourself upon me in a way no other relationship ever has. Your unwavering courage in the face of such a horrible disease and treatment is a lesson I will never take for granted. Missing you — missing us — is part of my heartbeat today.

But you’d be the first to say, “You have to keep going, move on, take our dream, and run with it. Keep helping others, staying authentic, bring yourself to the table, no matter whose table you are eating at.”

So I am. Some days are easier than others. Grief has a way of expanding your soul to encompass the intensity and break down any barriers and expectations you think you have as a human being.

I’ll see you on the hikes, Bestie, and around the porch in the evenings.

Jennifer Kindera

As a Certified Trauma Recovery Coach Supervisor and Certified Healing Shame Practitioner, my focus at Jennifer Kindera Coaching is to help clients navigate their potential traumas which may be holding them back from living life to their fullest capacity. Trauma recovery coaching and healing shame takes time, but with an honest, inclusive, and compassionate space for the unfolding of your life journey, you can work to unravel the binds of trauma and shame to promote your capacity for healing and growth.

www.jenniferkindera.com

There was no blood, just a strong gas smell from the lawnmower. A tarp is placed strategically on the concrete floor. Maybe it was covering up the blood? But she was lying on top of it. Where was the blood where?! The gun was next to her stiff form; her fingers curled up grotesquely, sparkly rings flashing merrily in the artificial light, but no blood. I could just see her face, frozen in her last moments; her makeup looked painted on. The magenta fabric bunched up in derisive ruffles. The air was so heavy in the room and oppressive as if it were July instead of October. I could smell the taint of something rancid, and when I realized it was my own vomit on my favorite pair of shoes, I felt surprised, shocked even because I didn’t remember throwing up.

Once upon a time, a little girl tried to be everything her Mama wanted her to be: perfect in her dresses, pristine, and calm. But she could never get it right. She was always making mistakes, climbing a tree and ripping her dress or laughing too loud.

Her Mama said she had to be punished, and so it began…a cycle of emotional, physical, and narcissistic abuse that would last her whole life until her Mama decided she’d had enough of this world and ended it all one rainy night.

After the final act is completed, there are so many questions, so much grief, so much shame, could I have done more, how did I not see it had escalated to this? Did I see it and ignore the signs? What kind of monster am I not to save her? I didn’t know how to feel; she was so abusive, but she was my Mom.

So many unanswered loops played on auto-repeat. The grief when an abuser dies is unlike any other. There is a missing, but not of the person; more of a core knowledge of any chance for repair is completely obliterated. I didn’t know how to feel, and what I felt seemed false and wrong.

For me, my Mom’s suicide was the culmination of years of enduring painful emotional abuse and narcissism. She lived her life like a steamroller, flattening anyone in her path who got in her way, including her children and especially her daughter.

The trauma of her suicide was two-fold: the actual event of the shooting and the subsequent love-hate shame & grief bind, which fractured my hard-earned sense of self.

I wanted to say so many things. Everything was trapped inside, within a voiceless soul. Why wouldn’t you get help? The shame was magnified by the realization that my life was easier with her gone. Then there was the shame of why I hadn’t acted more strongly, forcing her to get evaluated. Was it my fault? Layer upon layer of blame, grief, shame, and hurt.

Breathe. In. Out. Feel your lungs expand and hold. The walls aren’t really closing in. Breathe slowly out as if you are exhaling through a straw. The heavy weight of the stares of the other people in the room watching you fall apart, they don’t matter. It’s okay. At least they aren’t mocking you, right? That’s what she did when someone was suffering. Maybe they think it’s my fault too. I still can’t see any blood, but I do see the gun shot wound, it’s smaller than I think it should be. I mean, if it takes someone from alive one minute to dead the next, shouldn’t it be huge, a monumental hole that took life away?

People act differently with suicide. Plastic pauses and judgment. Human beings want to be able to help someone in heavy grief, and when it’s natural causes, there is nothing that really can be said to comfort them, but they try.

When someone dies by suicide, there are lots of side-eye glances, statements of ‘I don’t know what to say,’ which is actually better than people who say, ‘well at least she’s out of pain now,’ or ‘she’s in a better place.’

Those statements from well-meaning friends and family slew my rawness. How could suicide be better than staying here and dealing with your trauma, shame, and pain? Why are we so afraid to say, ‘I’m messed up?’ We would rather take the most drastic action of suicide, rather than face our own emotional chaos.

As sick and dysfunctional as it was, I realized in a frozen moment of time that I had no one. I began to sleep less, drink more, and work harder not to feel my feelings. I was still a Mom, even though I didn’t have one. I had to work and support and smile through homework questions and teeth-brushing. The tremendous weight of the loss was a dark cloak that shifted my lens of perspective from I’m working to be the better version of me to Nothing matters anymore, my hope was stripped away, and I was, once again, invisible.

It was a total reset, as I had spent two decades finding my voice and working in therapy, several stints of EMDR, and reading books on emotional, physical, and narcissistic abuse, but none of the healing I had worked so hard on seemed evident anymore. Traumas revitalized, and I was on top of the roller coaster again.

Oh god, I woke myself up again screaming and crying; the nightmares are so vivid. Drowning in the sheets, someone is dragging hot pokers across my whimpering skin, I can’t stop shaking, panting. Just a dream, not real. It’s the same one, I’m standing in the garage and she stands up, holding her bright blouse to her chest and saying, it’s your fault, you did this to me. I try to talk, scream, yell, but I can’t. I put my fingers on my lips, except I have no mouth, nothing to open to let the words escape. I sink to my knees and onto the frigid floor as she stands over me laughing…you will never forget now, will you, she says. She is right.

I was at ground zero, everything I had learned didn’t apply because every day the loop was on repeat: I let my Mom die. The sound of my heart breaking was not actually a sonic boom, it was more like a gentle plink of glass splintering, the devastating cracks created gaping holes.

The services were a joke. These people didn’t know her, crying and sobbing about what a beautiful, loving person she was. What a crock. She was mean and foul on a good day. She only acted like she loved you when she wanted something. I held my son on my lap, and my daughter clung to my hand. Never would I do this to them. They didn’t even know her; she hadn’t wanted to spend time with them when she was alive. How could she do it? She wrote my name and number on a Post-it note and left it on the kitchen table before calling 911. I listened to the tape of her call, she sounded so calm, detached. Her decision was final.

During the years of heavy grief and shame, my heart felt awkward in my chest. Its shriveled form sharply didn’t fit anymore. Grief is hard enough to navigate when you love someone who passes. In the death event of your biggest abuser, the grief is so complicated and murky that you can feel like you are literally drowning in emotions.

Fragments of shame, loss, and bleakness filled my heart and mind. I truly felt I was responsible. Her suicide had made the already long struggle of dealing with my abuse into a vast and empty wasteland where nothing ever felt right. I missed her, I didn’t. I hated her for how she had treated me, but I loved her and wanted her love. It was a spiraling quagmire of despair, laden with questioning my worth with no end in sight, and the vision of her lying on the cold concrete was bleached into my mind.

She loved the holidays. Our house always looked like something out of a Christmas card, with carols playing in the background. She wrapped up empty presents and placed them under the tree with care. Once, when my son was little, and we were invited over, he saw them and yelled, ‘Santa came!’ and took off running. She screamed at him to stop and I’ll never forget the look on his face, the beautiful, kissable cheeks as tears welled up in his eyes, I don’t think anyone had ever screamed at him like that before. She said, ‘The presents are empty, they are just for show, get away from them!’ We stared at her, and all I could think was what a metaphor for her life.

I had someone say to me once, almost a year after it happened, you just have to let it go. It happened; how long are you going to hold onto it? I was enraged. How can you judge when you haven’t walked in my shoes? I didn’t have an answer; I just knew that if anything were going to change, it would not be on a timeline I could dictate. I was so tired of feeling like I had the wrong emotions.

People start to steer clear of you when you have grieved for ‘too long.’ Shame surfaced again and again, as I couldn’t just ‘get over it,’ I knew it was more than just her death; it was also the chaos and pain because of a million unresolved splinters of trauma from my childhood, as well as her final act. I kept asking my therapist, how do I not go under with this? How do I survive? Her answer is one foot in front of the other, and when you can’t move anymore, stop for the day. It will take time, but you will survive. You have all along.

It was a joke, I think. Not sure who I was listening to or if I caught part, as I was back to dissociating constantly. It’s one of those not-really-funny moments that just seem so funny. Someone said a play on words, maybe a cheese pun and I felt it in my chest, a little flutter and it was directly connected to my face, it had to have been, because I smiled. I smiled a real smile for the first time in I don’t know how long. Thought rushed in, the shame roared instantly, do I deserve to smile? My inner critic said no. My kind inner coach, who was growing louder all the time due to my therapist, who kept pounding home that this wasn’t my fault, said YES.

Today, as I reflect back, I can’t pinpoint exactly when I laughed again or didn’t end the day in tears. I just know that a little burbling of laughter bubbled up one day. It was unexpected, and I felt like I wanted to turn around and say who did that? Who made that sound?

And it was me.

The healing started to glimmer through the fissures in my heart in fits and starts. I began to heal through other people who cared, held space with me, saw me, and didn’t walk away when I couldn’t ‘just let go.’ My beautiful, shattered heart began to beat again.

Healing after the loss was agonizingly slow. Watching the rest of the world continue on felt unfair. I would look at others talking about their problems and feel angry—what does this matter? Don’t you know how fast it can all go? Why are you worrying about trivial things?

The healing of a grief & shame bind is complicated, there are a million moments when sadness overwhelms and shame rushes to the surface. Navigating the rocky terrain, holding onto hope when you have none, and just going through the motions of daily life feels so futile. It feels wrong somehow, to still be standing, breathing, functioning, in the face of such despair.

As I kept trudging the long road of mending a fragmented heart, regulating my nervous system, which was in a state of constant hypervigilance, and learning to love myself, relief from the pain was incremental. It was minute pieces at a time; my inner critic was loud, demanding, and boisterous.

I would stop when my head was spinning, look at the thoughts, and say, ‘That is a lie and not who I am.’ Little shifts were happening inside of me when I would have success, even if no one else termed it as that. I would smile inwardly and feel my heart expand. Sometimes, I could take a deep breath. I got a taste of empowerment and wanted more. My strength was starting to shiver up through the cracks in my heart, and the darkness was slowly receding.

I planted tulips for years in the fall, around the anniversary of her death. They were a tribute to a life unfulfilled, mental illness, and hope. They were a celebration of mine, and I survived. They are such happy flowers, the bright colors resonating. I hope she is at peace.

I wasn’t to blame for her choices or her undiagnosed mental illness. There was no shame in not being the perfect daughter of a narcissist. The thought is laughable, I could never have lived up to her ever-changing expectations of perfection. I wasn’t alone, even though I felt alone. I mattered, even when it didn’t occur to me to think I should. The grief was overwhelming until it released a little at a time. The shame could tank me, take me down for days.

Today, I think of my Mom and feel sadness for her, the nature of her mental illness, a never-ending whirl of emotions. I feel sadness for myself, too; I couldn’t have done it any differently than I did, coming out of my family with toxic/pervasive shame, addiction, and codependency as the safeguards of protection my brain used. Giving in and going numb was my response to the threat. I don’t live in shame or blame myself as much. The question of whether I miss her in my life is a complicated one. I remember times when she was happy and seemed to like me and her life, but those are limited, surreal memories. Mostly, I know how I could never please her and how often it usually ended in pain.

The transformation from a toxic, pervasive shame bind with grief is tremendously liberating and hard freaking work. The nature of shame is to hide and be invisible, and I believe it saved my life today. Its agenda is to protect, and it doesn’t care if my feelings get hurt in the process. The inner critic is the voice of toxic shame, but it is a process that grows with us.

For me, it mirrored the things my parents and brother said and did to me, especially my Mom, and became internalized quickly, so it felt like who I was as an adult. But because shame is the master emotion, and it binds with other primary emotions, I was an adult with multiple shame binds. The toxicity gave no compassion for the standards the binds demanded, and it was my baseline.

In my case, shame turned toxic because of chronic abuse and emotional neglect. My protection was self-abandonment. If I didn’t talk back, just agreed with what was going on, then maybe it wouldn’t escalate even more. The solution then became the problem, as I believed their version of me. When she died by suicide, of course it was my fault, there was no other explanation. But I couldn’t have done it any differently.

The beautiful differences between toxic/pervasive shame and healthy shame can show us that we are not at fault for everything happening around us. It helps me to accept limitations and know that I’m good at some things and not good at others, and that’s okay. Healthy shame is always going to be a ‘work-in-process’ for me because, with the death of a primary caregiver who was abusive and the tragic way she died, it’s layer upon layer, like the preverbal onion peeling back.

I can have healthy sadness, healthy anger, and healthy grief; we had a complex relationship, but the grief is not bound up in shame, for the most part. The help I received from professionals, the caring, attunement, and understanding without judgment, holding a safe container for me to walk through all my emotions, was intrinsic to the healing I’ve done. Without the help of professionals and the caring tribe of friends I have, I don’t think I would be in the place I am today.

And that is truly one of the finest gifts I’ve ever earned as a human being struggling to do the best I can.

Each day is a place I’ve never been before. The nightmare comes every so often, the thoughts of ‘what if…’ but I don’t stay there as long. I have dedicated myself to helping other trauma survivors deal with the hand they were dealt. Aside from my children, there is nothing more rewarding in my life. We get to look through the lies abuse teaches us, through the blame others project onto us while taking responsibility for ourselves. I am able to look in the mirror today and know I am a worthy human being who survived terrible atrocities and lived to advocate for other invisible ones. There is absolutely no shame in what was done to us. I see you every time I look in that mirror, and your heart is beautiful, too. Please don’t go under like I thought I would. You can do this: survive and thrive, give and receive. I believe in you.

If you are struggling with suicide loss, I encourage reaching out, even when it hurts so much you don’t know if you can breathe one more second. Lean on others who love and support you, and discern who is safe. Find what tools work for you, manage the shame spirals, and hold onto them fiercely.

My heart is heavy for anyone in the place of utter desolate despair. There are no words sometimes. It took me over two years to write and finish this article, the layers are so deep, the grief so keening and the healing so profound. Please know some days are harder than others, but there are others who have been there too, and you aren’t alone. You matter.

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Jennifer Kindera

As a Certified Trauma Recovery Coach Supervisor and Certified Healing Shame Practitioner, my focus at Jennifer Kindera Coaching is to help clients navigate their potential traumas which may be holding them back from living life to their fullest capacity. Trauma recovery coaching and healing shame takes time, but with an honest, inclusive, and compassionate space for the unfolding of your life journey, you can work to unravel the binds of trauma and shame to promote your capacity for healing and growth.

www.jenniferkindera.com

***

I recently read an essay by Melissa Febos, “The Heart-Work: Writing About Trauma as a Subversive Act,” from 2017, which was later expanded and now appears as the first chapter, entitled “In Praise of Navel Gazing” in her 2022 collection of essays “Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative.” I read the original article on my laptop as I ate comfort food at a wooden picnic table near the lake. I had run away for the afternoon, taking time with myself, sorting through some uncomfortable emotions, and feeling raw. As I absorbed her story, tears appeared on the horizon. I was moved both by her compelling arguments about the transformative power of the truth but also by another layer of realization of my own hard stories pulsing in my veins, chanting in the half-darkness, waiting in the wings for their moment in the sun.

***

“This is the way adults love each other.”

“This is a grown-up secret, just between you and me.”

***

I’m seventeen, and I’ve agreed to check into Long Beach Memorial Hospital for a substance abuse treatment program for teens. I see the gray melamine meal tray, complete with a wooden spork and green Jello, in my mind’s eye. I am filling out a questionnaire. “Have you ever been sexually abused?” I mark the yes box. I feel defiant and strong. I am finally telling the truth. Do I understand the true freeing power of honesty at that time? It’s not how I do today, but somewhere in me, I am so tired of keeping secrets. My adult cousin had molested me when I was about 3 or 4.

I hadn’t thought that checkmark all the way through to the avalanche effect it was about to have. I was underage. My parents had to be told. Was it going to have to be reported?

Big surprise, they weren’t surprised. They already knew. Apparently, I had told them when it happened. Why did I still feel so betrayed? What could a young child have possibly told them anyway? Did they know to ask the right questions? Why was nothing ever done? Why did I still feel so unsafe? Why was my dad still buddy-buddy with this man who did what he did to me? Why did I feel like it was my fault?

***

“Men will only ever want one thing from you.”

***

My dad told me this multiple times, starting in junior high school. There was always a “look” and a “tone” that went along with this. I assume he thought he was protecting me. In high school, he told me I looked like a prostitute once and made me change my clothes.

My dad also repeatedly told friends and family the story about the summer I was developing, and he saw me in the rear-view mirror but hadn’t seen my face, just my body, and found himself gawking at me. Internally, I cowered in shame. Why was he proud of this fact? Why did I feel so dirty? What did I do wrong?

***

“If you really knew me and all my secrets, you wouldn’t want me, love me.

You’d run screaming in the other direction.”

***

The point in my life when I finally stood in the face of the truth at last and looked eye to eye with my own alcoholism and destructive patterns, my own Jekyll and Hyde, the wasteland of my tattered soul, was the same timeframe I started writing again. Among other things, writing saved my life and resurrected my sanity. The true transformation took root; my pen and ink were soil and water. With guidance, I began to look with clear eyes at myself and question who and what I was and what the hell was I doing in my life, not to mention asking and answering the questions starting with why. I dismantled secrets, washed clean the lies (including those I told myself of what was and wasn’t ok), and turned the clean laundry back right-side-out. I had lived in an inverted reality and didn’t even know it. The shame rode so deep in me. I couldn’t look you in the eye. I most certainly couldn’t even hold my own gaze in the mirror. I was dead inside. Too many secrets. Too many lies. For far too long.

***

“I had to walk back through my most mystifying choices and excavate events for which I had been numb on the first go-round.” – Melissa Febos

***

As I laid myself bare on the table, ink drained from me like blood. I felt like I was in a detective movie, making one of those link charts of stories and suspects, causes and conditions, trying to unravel an unruly ball of tangled yarn. I spoke of all my personal unspeakables, first on paper, then out loud to another. I told the stories and mistakes. I told how I hid and lied and cheated. I told things I could barely understand the meaning or implication of at the time. I recounted what I experienced, what had been done to me, and how each unhealed trauma had deepened my predisposition for the next, how I had become so broken and bent that I didn’t and couldn’t attract anything else. I had come this far and understood at a deep and visceral level that if nothing changed, nothing would change – that if I didn’t bring absolutely everything into the sunlight, then the simple truth was that I may not be able to move forward. And I already knew what backward looked like. No longer acceptable. Hope only lay ahead, in the unknown, in the light of day.

What happened next appeared gradually, like an acorn transmuting into a sapling, eventually growing into a mighty oak. Or maybe the better analogy is the beautiful lotus flower rising up out of the muck and mud at the bottom of the pond. I no longer have secrets. I may choose to keep something private, but the chains of silence no longer bind me. There is nothing that I have experienced, thought, said, or done that at least one other human being knows about. And there is sheer freedom and joy in this. I no longer feel the need to hide. I meet my own gaze in the mirror, and I know that someday, my stories of transforming my lived experience will help others transform theirs as well. No mud, no lotus.

***

“I say that refusing to write your story can make you into a monster. Or perhaps more accurately, we are already monsters. And to deny the monstrous is to deny its beauty, its meaning, its necessary devastation.”  — Melissa Febos

***

I began to feel grateful for pieces of my story. My escape into alcohol and, later, drugs may have been killing me, but it also medicated me and kept me alive in some ways. The pain that I endured both at the hands of others as well as at my own is a touchstone to growth. I don’t necessarily want to purge my past. Purify, transform, transmute, yes, but my battle scars are well-earned and, at times, even treasured. This is the rich and fertile soil that can help others transform their own.

. ***

“Navel-gazing is not for the faint of heart. The risk of honest self-appraisal requires bravery. To place our flawed selves in the context of this magnificent, broken world is the opposite of narcissism, which is building a self-image that pleases you. For many years, I kept a quote from Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet tacked over my desk: ‘The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.’ ”  — Melissa Febos

Photo by Suzanne D. Williams on Unsplash

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

Adina Lynn LeCompte

Adina Lynn LeCompte is a sixth-generation Californian. After having lived in varying parts of the US and abroad in Florence, Italy, she has come home to roost, splitting her time between the Central Coast and the Foothills of Yosemite. She holds her Bachelors of Arts from UCLA (Language & Linguistics), her Master of Arts from Middlebury College School Abroad / Universita’ di Firenze (Language & Literature), and studied 4 years in the MDiv program at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. Over the years, she founded several successful local businesses and worked as an interfaith hospital and hospice chaplain.

Adina is a working writer, an award-winning poet, and is working on her upcoming book “Spilling Ink: Write Your Way Into Healing”. Additionally, she has designed an interactive transformative workshop by the same name that uses writing as a tool for healing from trauma, especially abuse and grief. She is also co-author of several compilations of poetry with her husband, John LeCompte, who is also a writer. (“With These Words, I Thee Wed: Love Poetry” was published in 2023.)

Her most recent exciting endeavor is being a part of the Bay Path Univeristy’s MFA program in Creative Nonfiction, with an emphasis in Narrative Medicine.

writeyourwayintohealing.com

When this new schedule of mine started two weeks ago, I was very nervous about having so much free time. However, since I have some savings in the bank and am well aware of my past pattern of avoiding having any free time at all in my constant quest to shore up my fragile ego, I didn’t immediately start looking for another job. I thought that having a less structured day to play with would be good practice for me. I have plenty to catch up on around the house, many tasks that I have put off lately, and I also realized that this would provide an excellent exposure to that scary feeling of “not enough to do”.

I found myself panicking over rthe thought “I am alone right now and have nothing to do that makes me feel worthwhile”

I had joined a local fitness club and I started going more often. When I was there working out or in an exercise class, I simultaneously felt wonderful and also lost and alone. I wrote a list of things I needed and wanted to do over the coming weeks, and since I’ve learned to relax about things like that, I started slowly working my way through the list. I did a lot of conscious breathing, particularly whenever I found myself panicking over the thought, “I am alone right now and have nothing to do that makes me feel worthwhile”. I began to marvel at how much progress I’ve made with the CPTSD because I was actually staying fairly relaxed around the house, still able to get out, not being overwhelmed by the creeping sense that my house is the only safe place in my life and all those big scary thoughts that seem so fantastically important when you grow up frightened and alone all of the time.

Due to the circumstances outlined at the start of this story, I have just three clients right now, and I see them one or two times a week for an hour or 30 minutes. I’m being very exact here.  Out of 168 hours in a week, I need to show up and be responsible for about three of those hours. Simple, right?

This is particularly excruciating because I advertise myself partly as an executive functioning coach. Yes, I teach people tools and techniques so they can be on time, never forget a meeting, and as well as organizational skills. Last week, I managed to forget my 7 pm, 30-minute meeting with a student. When I opened my email while watching TV, I was astounded and shocked to see a message from the parents asking if I was going to be on Zoom soon. I made an excuse and asked if they wanted to reschedule. They were very nice but did not want to reschedule, so they said we would just meet again next week. Inexplicitly, last night, which was a Monday night, I managed to forget it again.

This is a pattern of error that might be indicative of some real increasing lack of responsibility and even some mysterious degeneration

It is difficult when you have CPTSD to deal with a mistake. One mistake: I can get over that, I can make an excuse, I can offer a redo. However, in my mind, this is a pattern of error that might be indicative of some real increasing lack of responsibility and even some mysterious degeneration. Naturally, in my CPTSD mindset, this is now a bit of a catastrophe. This is real. I have failed twice which means there’s a pattern of badness that seems to be out of my control. Who knows what I might do next? Plus, there are the parents to consider. I’ll bet they hate me now or at the very least, think that I’m an idiot. This is a big problem since I base most of my feelings about myself on how I perceive other people’s feelings about me at any given moment.

This is starting to feel like a five-alarm fire

I know this all gets exaggerated in my head. I can deal with this. It’s not a big deal. I won’t let this turn into grinding anxiety. I won’t start obsessing about it. I’m going to see it as a passing thing. I have plenty of memories of my responsible actions from the past. I can do this.

At four a.m. the next morning, it turned into a thing. I woke up and instantly started thinking about what I had done, and my body was flooded with fear. I felt the grinding of heavy metal gears in my stomach, and I felt the sensation that everything was wrong, there was danger, and anything could happen right now. I am aware enough to know that I can’t block the thought of my horrible “mistake” so I try the tactic of thinking about it even more, saying over and over in my head, ” I made a mistake, I made. mistake” which sounds counter-intuitive but just like any word that you repeat over and over to yourself, this can eventually cause it to lose all meaning and seem like nonsense. I did deep breathing, turned on a Kabat Zinn meditation video, petted my dogs, and buried my hand in their fur, but sadly, nothing really worked.

Finally, around 6 a.m., I staggered out of bed. The dogs were so tired they didn’t want to go outside for their business in the backyard. I was so tired, I could barely move. It was still completely dark outside. Slowly, I started my routine. Wash my hands, run the hot water for the dishes in the sink, start the eggs frying, let the sink fill up with soapy water, eat breakfast while watching a TV show, take my vitamins, brush my teeth, wash the dishes and do my exercise routine int he basement. My gargantuan “mistake” (maybe I should more accurately call it my “crime”) began to fade slowly, only popping periodically into my conscience as opposed to metaphorically whacking me in the face every second. I continue to feel like I’ve done some terrible thing, but I’m starting to be able to push back into reality. Maybe the parents hate me, maybe they don’t. Maybe I’m a stupid failure, maybe I’m not. Maybe I’ll lose this client, maybe I won’t. It doesn’t actually matter to me financially since I make a miniscule amount for their business, in fact, I don’t really feel like I’m needed by this kid at all, which might be part of the root of the problem.

My CPTSD means I need to be needed, or I feel isolated, lost, and alone, two and a half years old again and back at my drunken uncle’s home. However, reality is starting to reassert itself; my “grievous sin” will continue to haunt me today, but I also know that it will gradually lose its power. I have come a long way with this overwhelming issue in the past year. The fact that I’m 64 and that I have suffered from this issue for 62 ½ years with no relief until recently makes me sad for myself sometimes, but I also realize that I could have gone on this way forever with no end in sight. I tell myself that all those years of top therapists who failed to identify this issue shouldn’t make me feel so agonizingly angry at times, but I also realize that for thousands of years, people with epilepsy were told they were infected with devils, and there wasn’t any treatment until the twentieth century. I guess it’s all part of learning to hold two contradictory emotions in my head and being okay with that, anger that I was never properly diagnosed balanced by my thanks that now that the problem has been identified at long last, effective treatments exist. It is a blessing.

The nice thing is that I know this feeling of being a perverted criminal will end, that I have tools and techniques to lessen its severity, and most importantly, that I have a rock-solid belief that this feeling will end, that I will continue to grow from this type of exposure, and that my life will continue to improve. That’s pretty amazing right there.

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.

Annette Greenberg

One of the first things that pops into my head when I hear the word “shame” is Pumbaa from The Lion King lamenting, “Oh the shame! Thought of changin’ my name!”

A lot of us who carry deep shame from childhood trauma have probably also considered changing our names or inventing a new life somewhere else with plucky sidekicks. If no one knew our story, maybe we wouldn’t be so ashamed of who we are or what we did to survive. If only it were as easy as changing your name, running away, or adopting the Hakuna Matata philosophy.

Why is it necessary to confront shame in order to be a real adult?

Shame keeps our world small and lonely. We struggle to engage in the world and with others. You may be existing, but are you really living when shame has such a grip on you? Without examining and releasing your shame, it will be impossible to be a real adult who can emotionally regulate, have self-compassion, stick to your boundaries, and have strong self-worth. Shame will get in the way every time.

Identifying Shame

Many of us bury our shame so deeply we don’t even recognize that’s what it is. The longer you live with shame and develop defenses, the more toxic it becomes and the less conscious you are of how it manifests.

Shame will appear in your head, body, and behavior. It will be the most obvious in your body, and that’s where it will begin. A sensation in the body will activate the thoughts and behavior. Shame is physiological. Our bodies are telling us, “Uh oh. I have done something that threatens my membership in the group. I have to fix it to belong and stay safe.” Long ago, we needed a tribe to survive physically; we still need the community to survive psychologically. Being socially outcast in any form either by community (family, friends, society, etc.) will induce severe shame. Any time we’re reminded of that in a similar but not identical incident, our bodies will remember the original shame and react accordingly.

Here’s what to look for to identify if you’re feeling shame:

Bodily sensations: trouble taking deep breaths, feeling immobilized/frozen, inability to make eye contact

Behavior: blaming, numbing out/distracting self, isolating/withdrawing

Thoughts: self-critical; negative; black and white thinking that gets progressively worse; bringing out the laundry list of every shameful thing you’ve said, done, or experienced

Get Curious About Your Thoughts

Most trauma survivors exist primarily in their heads. Tolerating being in the body is too much initially. If this sounds like you, try getting curious about your thoughts when you experience a small shame episode. When the shame is from something small, it is easier to step back and become an observer of your thoughts. Write down the thoughts that come up. Is there a theme to your thoughts? What else do you notice about the content of your thoughts? The sentence structure or tone? Perhaps each sentence starts with “I.” The tone might be angry or hopeless. Practice this a few times over the course of a week, and see what you notice about your thoughts in response to shame.

That’s all you have to do right now. Notice. Get adept at identifying when you’re experiencing shame and what thoughts come up.

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.

Leah Erickson

Leah Erickson is a certified Martha Beck Wayfinder Life Coach.  Through her coaching practice, Becoming Real Life Coaching, Leah helps childhood trauma survivors release shame, get unstuck, and successfully “adult.”  She believes it’s never too late to become real and begin to thrive. You can find her on Instagram @becoming_real_coaching or on her website becomingrealcoaching.com which features more of her writing and tools to become your real adult self.

“Shame is the feeling of humiliating disgrace of having been violated. Shame tells you that you are bad.” (from Shelter from the Storm)

It becomes challenging to correct for shame because it is rooted in a negative belief. For example, “I am unlovable, because [fill in the blank – we all have different experiences that can lead us to this false belief].” Dysfunctional shame is, essentially, the belief that you are bad. It becomes a deep-rooted way of being that very much impacts our view of ourselves.

Additionally, I see dysfunctional shame as being born out of taking responsibility for something you have “no cause” in. In other words, dysfunctional shame is feeling bad because someone falls down; you feel responsible even though you didn’t trip them.

I think of it like a little equation: No Cause + Taking Responsibility = False Guilt/Shame

This is a defense mechanism. By blaming ourselves, we can deal with the fact that someone we trusted and adored is also capable of harming us. We long to protect the image and idea of the other person, and so blaming ourselves for something we did not cause is easier. However, if we continue to shame and judge ourselves we are guaranteeing that our lives will be mired in self-abuse, lack of joy, distrust, and lack of freedom.

Now, if your way of being is “the shameful one,” then you tend towards reinforcing the false beliefs that lead you to feel shame. As with any false belief, we will find the evidence to support our way of being. We will adopt the shameful message that we are worthless and, no surprise, we will interpret situations or, worse, find abusive people to help reinforce this attitude.

If you’d like to learn a bit about how to break out of these patterns of thought, be sure to join us for next month’s Thrive Tribe on Shame.

“Guilt is the feeling that you did something wrong.” (from Shelter from the Storm)

Guilt is related to you being “at cause” for what happened. Guilt is tripping someone and then feeling bad about it. You can correct an action or behavior that leads to guilt. For example, you can apologize for tripping the person.

The equation goes like this: At Cause + Responsibility = Guilt

Guilt is a tricky beast. In its best form, it spurs us on to transform and change our behavior. In its worst, it can be used as a way to avoid facing reality. One of the payoffs of feeling guilty – of taking responsibility for abuse or unpleasant things that happen – is that we don’t have to face the fact that we were powerless and then face the grief that follows.

If your way of being is “the guilty one,” then you are constantly looking to reinforce the false beliefs that lead you to feel guilt or blame yourself. In any situation, you make yourself responsible for all that has occurred and fail to see the behaviors and choices of others that play a role in causing discord, upset, or breakdowns. More importantly, those around you very quickly learn that this is the role you will play, and so there is little incentive for them to evaluate their own behavior or make any corrections. By being the guilty one, you are essentially letting those around you off the hook and bearing the burden of responsibility on your shoulders alone. While there may be times when you truly are the only one at fault, if you have a deeply engrained belief that you are at fault all the time, you won’t be able to recognize when this isn’t the case. 

Now, let me be clear, I’m not saying we should never feel guilt or shame! Each of them has its proper place and exists, in part, to spur us on to better ourselves and to hold others around us accountable. I do want there to be a distinction though between feeling guilt or shame when the situation calls for it and defining oneself as the guilty or shameful one. The former brings about transformation, the latter only causes us to stay stuck in patterns of thought and behavior that keep us from living fulfilling, authentic lives.


To healing,

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

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

Rachel Grant

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

www.rachelgrantcoaching.com

What is Toxic Positivity, and how does it apply to Self-Care and Shame?

Toxic positivity is the expectation, either by one’s self, others, and/or culturally, that even though a person’s emotional pain or difficult situation is overwhelming and/or uncomfortable, they should only have a positive attitude.

Toxic positivity is a deeply embedded part of our culture, and it can come from external sources, such as from articles that are titled “Five Things You Must Do to Be Happy,” or from a friend responding to your pain with invalidating statements of “you should look on the bright side,” and this cultural toxic positivity can infiltrate into our mindset and affect our emotional and relational self-care.

And, of course, toxic positivity can trigger shame because we can’t cognitively change the unconscious reactions in our body, aka, our emotions.

Externally, toxic positivity can look like the family member who censures you for disclosing irritation instead of listening to why you are frustrated. It can be phrases like, “Choose happiness,” “be grateful for what you have,” “Don’t think about it; stay positive,” “Positive vibes only,” or “Power through.”

Toxic positivity can be your feelings and thoughts that you shouldn’t focus on emotions of sadness, shame, depression, anger, anxiety, loneliness, or fear. Because negative emotions feel uncomfortable, they are seen as “bad,” and when we compare ourselves to others, shame rises up because we assume, often erroneously, that no one else feels those “negative” emotions, so we feel different (and not in a good way).

Positivity and happiness are the expectation, and other human emotional experiences are not only not welcome, they are denied, minimized, and overruled. This affects our emotional well-being, and can bring up feelings like it’s wrong when you have emotions rise up that aren’t “happy,” which can then be internalized in a broken core belief that you are lacking or weak because you don’t feel or react the way ‘everyone’ else does, and in the shame world, that translates unconsciously as you are unworthy of taking care of yourself in a beautiful way.

Why should this matter? Everyone wants to feel the pleasurable emotions, right?

It matters because it’s a setup.

As human beings we have lots of emotions, all the time, they originate in the brain, and we then have a physiological response in the body, and it’s impossible as a human being to only feel certain ones, or to do away with the ones we don’t favor. So when we have an unconscious reaction in the body, in response to an external event, and our reaction doesn’t fit with the “happy” emotions, shame will rise up: “why can’t I just always be happy,” we may ask ourselves, “ something must be wrong with me,” etc. Often, people will look at others and think the others have it all together, and compare themselves to those others. Shame rises up when we feel like we are doing things wrong, or like we’re not doing things well enough, because we don’t think that we “have it all together.”

Some may argue that positivity keeps us striving to be our best, but when we struggle with a self-love deficit, as trauma survivors often do, such incessant positivity becomes toxic because shame isn’t a sustainable motivator and because minimizing our true emotions is never an authentic place. Instead, self-compassion, gentleness, and taking care of ourselves is.

Signs we may be assimilating toxic positivity can include:

Invalidation of negative emotions: All emotions have value: they are signals, communication that starts in the brain, then go into the body and back to the brain, where we cognitively label them, and are an indicator of how we feel at any given time. When we bypass, blunt, stuff, deny, or numb the negative ones, the energy of the negative emotions can’t be released. I love Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor’s work on the “90-second emotions rule,” as it explains the science behind that “rule.” When people invalidate our negative emotions, it can lead us to believe that our emotions are “wrong,” and because we can’t just ‘change how we feel’ in the body, that can make us bypass and stuff down the energy of our own emotions.

Overemphasizing positive thinking: Pressuring ourselves and others to always focus on the positive causes us to ignore the complexity of emotions. The cultural emphasis on positivity can lead us to ignore our own emotions and delay or prevent our healing.

Avoidance of negative topics: Unwillingness to discuss or address challenges, or insisting that we, or others, maintain a façade of positivity is the mask people wear when disconnected from emotions! Behaving as if there is nothing “negative” in the world or, at the very least, not permitting others to talk about anything viewed as “negative,” can cause emotional isolation and more pain.

Minimization of struggles: Downplaying or minimizing real difficulties and challenges instead of acknowledging and addressing them, along with downplaying or minimizing the emotional responses in the body disconnects us from emotions. Having our emotions or experiences minimized can cause us to doubt ourselves and can also lead to social isolation, and of course…more shame.

Forced positivity: Encouraging individuals to suppress or deny their true feelings in favor of a cheerful exterior teaches us to suppress our emotions. The whole “look on the bright side” attitude that we are culturally encouraged to favor does this. Then again, if we don’t look on this “bright side” and we instead sit in the emotions that maybe aren’t pretty, we are told (or it is implied) that we are doing things “wrong,” that we are not doing things well enough, not trying hard enough, or that we are in “victim” mentality. (A question I ask clients a lot is, what if it’s not “victim” thoughts or behaviors, but grief?) Insisting that we — or others — be “positive” no matter what has happened or is happening in our lives disconnects us from our own emotions and makes us feel more inadequate.

Blame for negativity: Projecting blame onto individuals for their “negative” emotions (like anger, grief, frustration, loneliness, etc.) when we can’t control emotions in the body is an implication that individuals are responsible for their unhappiness (anger, grief, etc.) and are doing something wrong if they are feeling that way. Toxic positivity adds blame and shame to someone’s emotional disconnect by attempting to force them to “control” or suppress any of their less-than-positive emotions. This is Survivor Shaming!

Lack of compassion: Not being able to be with our own or with someone else’s struggles and pain, while offering only minimizing “positive” solutions without understanding the context is like slapping a Band-Aid over the top of the serious wound: it is not accessing our authenticity or being nurturing (to ourselves or to others). People can be uncomfortable with their pain as well as with another person’s, but toxic positivity, instead of encouraging human connection through understanding struggles and difficulties, exacerbates pain through a lack of compassion.

Comparison and judgment: Comparing someone’s journey to that of others by either insinuating or by saying outright things like, “oh, but so-and-so had THIS happen, that’s so much worse,” or “you are lucky that’s all that happened to you,” is telling another person that, in essence, they shouldn’t feel bad because others have it worse. These kind of statements, where the comparison is loaded with (explicit or implicit) judgment, invalidate someone’s feelings and their perceptions of their own experiences.

Glossing over or dismissing realistic concerns: Not allowing valid concerns that have emotions attached to be discussed or felt, usually along with the overriding “everything will be fine” without addressing what is actually going on, is gaslighting (coined from a 1938 play-turned-film). Gaslighting is psychological manipulation, and it can cause people to question their own thoughts, memories, and/or perception of reality. Glossing over or dismissing realistic concerns, our own and others, can lead to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, and sometimes to mental health issues. Gaslighting, by any name, is always abusive.

Pressure to just get over it: Wanting people to quickly “move on” from challenges without allowing them the necessary time to process and heal, and especially to grieve a situation, is a common form of toxic positivity. For a lot of people, other people’s pain is uncomfortable (and shame rises up), so the insistence on just getting over it becomes a shaming tactic, as if someone isn’t looking at at their own life experience through the “correct” lens. Because we need to feel our emotions, hash out the challenges or experiences, and come to a place of understanding for ourselves, any pressure to “move on,” invalidates our experiences and emotions.

So what about self-care? In the culture of toxic positivity, proposed self-care activities are often somewhat superficial: taking a bubble bath, lighting candles, and reciting positive affirmations. Self-care can include these things, but it is also functional, relational, physical, emotional, and internal. Sometimes, taking the time for self-care looks selfish and unnecessary, because even if you are experiencing burnout, you are “supposed” to be looking for the “positive” in your situation. When trauma survivors can’t find the “positive” in their current or past experiences and are struggling to keep emotions contained or suppressed, survivors will once again turn everything inward and keep pushing through to try to be “happy,” invalidating themselves and experiencing toxic shame at not being able to achieve happiness no matter how trying the circumstances.

The key to emotional self-care is self-compassion, gentleness, reassessment, and curiosity about why we are feeling the way we are, reminding ourselves that it’s okay to not be okay, setting attainable plans/goals, and reorganizing expectations when we need to. Self-care is sitting in all our emotions and not trying to change them, not trying to “force” our emotions to be “positive.” Self-care is, for example, waiting to respond to an invitation to see if it’s something you want to do. Setting boundaries. Getting rest when we are tired. Listen to your somatic clues in terms of your self-care: your body will tell you — through your emotions — what is right for you now. Remember, too, that it is possible to hold two contradictory emotions simultaneously, and both are completely acceptable. We do ourselves a disservice when we don’t allow ourselves to feel all our emotions.

Take care of yourself by learning how to feel your feelings: emotions are messengers from the body to the brain, and all emotions are valid and worth your loving kindness.

Hoping you are taking good care of all your parts today, especially those with toxic shame. You deserve healing and nurturing.

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.

Jennifer Kindera

As a Certified Trauma Recovery Coach Supervisor and Certified Healing Shame Practitioner, my focus at Jennifer Kindera Coaching is to help clients navigate their potential traumas which may be holding them back from living life to their fullest capacity. Trauma recovery coaching and healing shame takes time, but with an honest, inclusive, and compassionate space for the unfolding of your life journey, you can work to unravel the binds of trauma and shame to promote your capacity for healing and growth.

www.jenniferkindera.com