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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Denial – A Sign of a Toxic Family System
Denial was a key component of my toxic family system. I could feel that big fat elephant in the middle of the living room. Most often, I chose to tip-toe around it. As an empath, I could clearly...
Lost & Found: (Re) Claiming Emotional Vibrancy Lost with CPTSD
In adapting to the circumstances of growing up with relational trauma, most of us had to give up our innate sense of personal power or sovereignty Generally, this meant having to forfeit our...
Obedience to the Light – Bombs or Love
Obedience to the light, the authentic self-image felt from deep within, a calling. It is set against an illuminating seductive “delusion” developing, in a lifelong desperate striving to succeed,...
Breaking Up With Lazy
In the therapy room, there's a four-letter word that creates unease in my nervous system every time I hear it: "lazy." Working with trauma survivors, I witness the fallout of abusive and...
Don’t Talk, Don’t Think, Don’t Feel
What does CPTSD feel like? Although Complex PTSD is different for everyone, these are some examples of what it feels like when having a flashback: Imagine jumping out of bed screaming at 3 AM,...
Clinical Observations from an Estrangement Clinician
I am an estrangement clinician primarily working with parents who are estranged from their adult sons or daughters. My lived experience as an estranged parent is a far greater credential than my...
Avoiding Loneliness
“I'm lonely. And I'm lonely in some horribly deep way and for a flash of an instant, I can see just how lonely, and how deep this feeling runs. And it scares the shit out of me to be this lonely...
How Trauma Survivors Can Conquer Insomnia
The good news is that trauma survivors can conquer insomnia. The bad news: it takes time. I’ve had insomnia for nearly fifty years. Habits that have gone on that long aren’t going to change...
Symphony of Self-Discovery: Nurturing Core Beingness in the Tapestry of Healing
In the quiet corridors of our souls, where echoes of forgotten laughter and the whispers of untold stories reside, lies the essence of our being—our core being. It is a treasure chest...
Mistakes and Magnification: A CPTSD Love Story
A few weeks ago, I left one job to take on a new full-time job, which didn't work out. Simultaneously, I finished a series of graduate education courses I'd been taking. This combination of...
Why Trauma-Informed Care Needs Widespread Practice
I recently gave a keynote talk at the 6th Annual Medical Symposium on Human Trafficking, a combined effort by the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine and ImPACT Virginia, a...
The Easter Season
Easter is one of the most important celebrations of the Christian faith and other faiths celebrate their own traditions and celebrations during this time too. If you are a Christian, Easter isn't...
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”.
