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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8 Things Survivors Need to Stop Apologizing For | Part 1 | Needing Rest (video)
So many survivors learned that rest was laziness or weakness. But when your nervous system has spent years surviving, rest is repair. What's your relationship with rest right now? Click to watch:...
Christmas in July – Redecorating My Heart for a Season of Healing
This project began with a piece of wood. In 2 days, I will send my two teen sons off to summer camp for a week. I will have the entire place to myself for 6 nights. I have decided to use the time to...
The Bridge You Thought Was Gone
There is a particular kind of quiet that follows trauma. Not the peaceful kind or the kind you choose. But the kind that settles in when something inside you has gone still… or far away. And in that...
Peace at your own pace this summer
Summer can bring great weather, vacations, and gatherings. Though for many living with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) it can also induce, or bring with it, emotional exhaustion,...
The abuse without bruises: How emotional harm in childhood is overlooked
In August of 1992 I ran from my home on East Goldsborough Street to the local police station. I arrived sweating, panting, my face red with fury and with the oppressive Northwest Indiana heat. I was...
The Trauma Survivor Who Can Handle Crisis but Not Rest
Some trauma survivors look strongest during emergencies and most unsettled when life gets quiet. That is not contradiction. It is conditioning.
Not normal but typical. Four words that guided my healing from CPTSD.
For most of my life, I described my childhood as merely difficult. It was a sanitizing word, one that painted over abuse, neglect, and chaos with a veneer of normalcy. To the outside...
Survival Mode & Perimenopause
I’m sharing this not only as a practitioner, but as a woman who has lived this. As someone with a history of trauma—and someone who has committed deeply to her own inner work—I recognize these...
Who Taught You To Carry All Of This?
Some children become adults before anyone notices they were children. They learn early how to pay attention. They notice tension before anyone speaks about it. They become skilled at reading the...
Clinical Observations from an Estrangement Clinician: Observation #4
I am an estrangement clinician primarily working with parents who are estranged from their adult sons and/or daughters. Estrangement is a unique phenomenon requiring a specialized...
When Adults Talk Children Out of Themselves
Some children were never lost. They were corrected, managed, discouraged, or shamed until their own instincts became harder to hear.
Behaviors Caused By Trauma
You Can’t Run Away From Your Own Head Human beings are like an iceberg. We go through life sharing only the pieces of ourselves that we want people to see. But there’s so much more going on...
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”.
