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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Brain Inflammation and Its Connection to Severe Mental Illness
In the last article, we began discussing how brain inflammation is indicated in the formation of severe mental illnesses. Today we are going to explore two major mental illnesses, major...
Inflammation and the Brain Changes Observed in Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Formerly I stated this series would be split into two parts. However, due to the enormous amount of information available, I have decided to offer four articles instead. In our previous article,...
The New Research about Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
There have been some truly remarkable research papers written about complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) in the past few decades. Some of the research focuses exclusively on CPTSD while...
The Outer Critic, Self-Parenting and the Thirteen Steps of Healing
This series of articles has focused on emotional flashbacks. We’ve discussed how they feel, what causes them, and the turmoil they bring into relationships and lives. In this article, we will...
The Connection Between Emotional Flashbacks and the Inner Critic
It was Pete Walker, an M.A. in psychoanalysis, who first coined the phrase emotional flashback to describe the gut-wrenching experience of reliving the helplessness and dissociation caused by...
The Living Hell of Emotional Flashbacks
In our last article, we discussed the differences between post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD). One of these dissimilarities involves the...
The History of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and an Introduction to Emotional Flashbacks
Our brains are hardwired to react viscerally to traumatic events. They then store those emotions in our central nervous, so that when we feel and experience similar future events, we will be...
Discovering Your Abilities and Preparing for Your Ideal Employment
Finding a job that you enjoy can be difficult if you live with a mental health condition like complex post-traumatic disorder. This is especially true when you need to drop out of the workforce...
Working with a Mental Health Disorder and The Americans with Disabilities Act
On July 26, 1990, President George H. W. Bush signed into law the American with Disabilities Act (ADA). This law was a huge leap towards helping people of the United States, facing mobility and...
Finding A Career Despite Living With a Disability
There is no doubt that working has many benefits to those of us diagnosed with a mental health issue. Being among people and socializing rather than relegating ourselves to lying on the couch...
Finding Self-Respect Whether You are Employed or Not
Humans acquire their self-worth from many sources. Beginning in childhood, our parents should be the first to show us both verbally and non-verbally that we are worthwhile and valuable. However,...
The Influence and Neuroscience Behind Hypervigilance and Its Influence Over Forming Healthy Relationships
Hypervigilance has been a painful part of my life since I was able to form an independent thought. If you have never experienced this phenomenon, then you do not understand how hypervigilance...
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”.

