Trauma-Informed Blog
New content weekly! Survivor Stories, Research Articles, Poetry, and more written by clinicians, coaches, survivors, and mental health professionals.
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What if I am Damaged for Good?
What if I will never heal from trauma? What if my nervous system is so damaged from childhood trauma that no amount of therapy and practice will reteach it a sense of safety in places and...
8 Ways to Emotionally Support Yourself When No One Else Does
What can you do when no one is giving you closure, safety, or nurturing? Here are 8 needs trauma survivors have and what you can do to meet them yourself. Becoming Your Own First Responder Quinn sat...
Blind Cruelty
How do we perceive, interpret, or process the reality of human behavior that goes on around us? The best answer is: “very carefully.” When another’s presence approaches our self-imposed safety...
Amplifying Hope
Surviving the invisible epidemic of emotional and psychological abuse On November 19th 2023, I answered a call from an unknown female who, in 30 minutes, would blindside and obliterate the family my...
Trauma Can Make You Feel Broken: Understanding CPTSD and Why You Feel This Way.
“Why do I feel so broken?”
For years, that quiet question followed me. I felt uneasy in safe places, drawn to familiar pain, and disconnected from people who genuinely cared. I didn’t understand it then, but I do now.
Trauma can make you feel broken, but the truth is, you are not broken. You are responding to the effects of long-term emotional pain, what we now understand as CPTSD.
This piece explores how trauma reshapes your nervous system, distorts your sense of safety and love, and plants deep self-blame, and more importantly, how healing begins when you stop asking “What is wrong with me?” and start asking, “What happened to me?
Developmental Trauma Series: 3 – Why Insight Alone Does Not Heal Developmental Trauma
There I was standing in the hallway of the emergency room after my mother’s latest suicide attempt. This time, she had taken a knife up and down her arms, and for good measure, jumped into my...
Continued: Trauma and its Effect on the Brain: Beyond Fight, Flight and Freeze States…
My name’s Lizzy, and I’m a trauma survivor. I write to spread awareness of what it feels like to live after traumatic events and abuse. I know because I’m living this life. A life after enduring...
Looking Back: Mother’s Day Hurts
This post looks back at the recent US Holiday, "Mothers Day", and the challenges it creates for survivors of trauma with a mother wound. How are you feeling today? Do you have a complex relationship...
When Over-Explaining Is a Trauma Response
Over-explaining is often mistaken for dishonesty, guilt, or defensiveness. For many trauma survivors, it is a learned safety behavior formed in environments where being misunderstood carried real consequences.
Body Memory: How Trauma Rewires You—And How to Reclaim Your Physical Wellbeing
Do you smell different after trauma? We'll discuss the physiological changes one might experience, healing approaches, practitioners to find, tests to request, and scripts for medical conversations....
Why “I Can’t Talk About It”, is Rich Information
When a person dealing with trauma says to their therapist, “I can’t talk about it,” this is not a dead end. It’s not blocking therapy. Far from it. It is the beginning of the work; it shows exactly...
Feelings Aren’t Insects
Just when I thought I couldn’t feel any worse, my mom’s accusatory words cut into my soul like shrapnel. Her words embedded themselves in my heart and mind: "You don't know how to be happy.”...
What is Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?
“Complex PTSD comes in response to chronic traumatization over the course of months or, more often, years. This can include emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuses, domestic violence, living in a war zone, being held captive, human trafficking, and other organized rings of abuse, and more. While there are exceptional circumstances where adults develop C-PTSD, it is most often seen in those whose trauma occurred in childhood”.
