I Have Something To Say

Trauma survivors seem to worry more than most that they are being 'lazy' when they aren't 100% productive. Let's expose that lie, shall we? The traumatized brain is anything but lazy. In fact, it is over-worked, over-stimulated, over-active, and over-stressed. Trauma survivors have an enlarged amygdala, which triggers the fight-or-flight response. In a survivor, this response goes haywire. It cannot perceive between something that happened in the past with what's in the present. The brain remembers trauma in the form of flashbacks that constantly re-create the experience. A traumatized brain is always on alert. Hypervigilance is constantly running in the background, assessing the situation and trying to report back to the rational brain what it finds. In order to keep up with everyday situations, it often must work hotter and harder than a brain without trauma. Say a non-traumatized person wants to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. No sweat, right? I...

A couple years ago, I hit a serious wall.  I was emotionally and physically exhausted, but didn't understand why. Sure, I was a mom, wife, graduate student, and ran a business, but this exhaustion went much deeper than my chronic state of busyness and hypervigilance. Sure, I knew I had a rough childhood and had gone no contact with my parents ten years prior. I got on with my life. I made many positive and deliberate changes so I didn't repeat their patterns, but I hadn't fully unpacked just how vast that black hole of childhood trauma was. For me, awakening to the impact of my childhood trauma has happened over many years, with thousands of tiny steps toward recovery. But one day, the truth of it hit me so hard, I had to drop everything to process it. I had no choice because my body and brain simply gave out. I had to grow or succumb. I chose to grow. I threw myself headlong into the task of really looking at my issues. You could say I was hypervigilant about trauma ...

Healing can be a long process, especially from complex trauma. There is an entire lifetime of coping mechanisms that survivors must unravel before they can decide what to keep and what to toss out. The process of becoming who you really are is tough for anyone, but for those who survived childhood abuse, it means learning fundamental aspects of development that were previously denied. When a baby learns that their caretaker is unreliable, it is extremely difficult to expect others to be reliable throughout their whole life. This deficit creates a whole host of coping mechanisms in survivors. Some become combative and antisocial. Others go to the opposite end of the spectrum. I am the kind of survivor who learned to cope by being extremely self-sufficient. I hid behind the masks of "I'm fine" and "That's okay." I never required much from my relationships because it was reinforced enough times for me to know on a visceral level that I would be let down. I...

I am one of many who struggle with the loud pops and bangs of the Fourth of July. I am not a veteran, but I have been through a domestic war. The other day my kid was excited to have a new friend over. They were happily playing a hide-and-seek-type game when the child suddenly, out of nowhere, let out a piercing scream. My kids, knowing what loud noises do to me, immediately looked at me to see if I was OK. I wasn't, but I did manage to very calmly let the child know that we can't have screaming in this house before I excused myself to my room. I was hyperventilating and my blood pressure was through the roof. I texted the kid's mom with a half-legitimate excuse for picking her kid up early. What I didn't tell her was that I have complex PTSD. I wish my body didn't freak out like this. I wish my kids didn't have to look at me with concern whenever I'm surprised by loud noises. I wish I didn't need to think ahead about having a strategy to survive...

I mentor a group of young adults, and was recently handling a situation where another mentor systematically tore down much of the esteem I had spent several weeks helping them build up. Her reasoning for doing this was to "toughen them up" and get them ready for "the real world." When asked her why she would purposely disparage young people just starting to grasp on to their own ideas, her response was, "Well, that's just the way the world is." No. That's the way narcissistic abuse is. Fear-based tactics do not work, and they especially have no place in any sort of system where one person holds authority over another. When a mentor shoots down the ideas of a mentee, it creates a false dependence on the mentor's "right" ideas. The mentee then feels a false insecurity about their own "wrong" ideas. Not only is this terrible teaching, this is extremely dangerous territory for anyone who has experienced narcissistic abuse...

I've always been a daydreamer. As a kid, I spent hours in my own created worlds, whether it was swirling around in an inner tube on the lake, or staring out the car window, lost in some internal medieval landscape with fairies and unicorns. In fact, all of my "good" memories of my childhood are the dreamy ones. As an adult, I formed a career around the those worlds I created. Most of my friends are creative types who live in their own worlds, too. When I need to unwind from a long day, I can get lost for hours thinking about what it's like to live in other places and times. When I'm driving, I'm never actually on the freeway. I'm composing stories to be written until somehow I arrive at home. You could say I have an active imagination. You could say I live a creative life. You could also say that I dissociate. Dissociation is a coping mechanism, common among abuse survivors. When someone experiences an intense threat, the brain splits off from trauma...

A couple weeks ago, my daughter had a medical emergency. I was four hours away. My husband and I had just hiked in to a remote location, eager to spend a few days in silence and contemplation. It was also much-needed chance to re-connect with each other. The last few weeks had been especially busy, and my C-PTSD brain was barely hanging on as it was. I was exhausted in every way, and this trip was the carrot I had been dangling to make it to the holiday. I knew after a few days of recharging, I would get the rest I needed. It was a healthy gift to myself and to us as a couple. I had one bar on my phone, which was enough to push the message through that our daughter was in the hospital and they planned to operate in the morning. So, we packed up, threw on some snow shoes, and hiked out in the dark. I was straining to not think about the mountain lion I encountered on my last trek in. After a driving on narrow highways full of oncoming high beams piercing my migraine, we arrived at ...

One year ago today, I created my very first post, I Have Something To Say.  This was a huge milestone in my recovery for a few reasons. Because of the type of abuse I experienced, I had a huge mental and physical block about speaking up publicly. The knots in my stomach, lumps in my throat and overall panic came from a very real history and experience of being punished for telling the truth. When someone has been silenced and de-humanized from a time before they could even speak, it creates seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Ironically, I have spent much of my adult life learning how to write and express myself in creative ways. And yet, giving a voice to the parts of me that were abused were so blocked, I couldn't admit out loud what happened, let alone write about it directly. Too much misplaced guilt and shame prevented me from integrating my identity as an abuse survivor into my professional life. Sure, bits and pieces leaked out. I would casually mention to friends I tru...

Before EMDR therapy, I previously did not consider myself a fearful person. If I felt threatened, I would quickly push those thoughts out of my mind and focus on more practical, productive things. I learned to do this as a very young child who had no other option for coping with a cruel, punishing father, and an emotionally neglectful mother. While pushing impulses away can be a decent coping strategy short term, the long term effect of shutting down feelings of fear for me has meant lifelong chronic migraines and toxic stress. For much of my childhood and young adulthood, I didn't feel much fear, but it turns out, the bulk of my terror was repressed. I detached so much from what had initially been bothering me that I no longer saw the rather obvious connection between repressed trauma and chronic pain.  Today, in order to heal, I am committed to the oh-so-fun task of feeling my feelings, especially the ones that were previously off limits. Today, my entire body is on high ale...

I have a life-long habit of going unnoticed, even to myself. I am so busy getting things done, I rarely ever make time to acknowledge my own accomplishments. It struck me the other day, just how much I am managing while also making space in my life to grieve my past and heal from trauma. I felt a rare sense of pride, and then another wave of sadness, as feeling proud of who I am in spite (and because) of abuse is so fleeting. You see, when I feel proud of myself, I also feel how lonely it is to be standing in this empty space, unseen, unheard, and unacknowledged by others. Sometimes, I hide on purpose. As someone who has survived narcissists, a spotlight on me means I am an easy target for abusers. It makes me feel uncomfortable, not because I don't want to be noticed, but because I fear retaliation for taking up space. As a form of self-protection, I tend to blend into the background, making sure everything runs smoothly. I am so good at this it is common for others to just a...

It's been nearly twelve years since I went no contact with my covert narcissist mother, thirteen for my malignant narcissist father. After a lifetime of trying to reason and cope with the abuse, I made a choice to leave in order to survive them. I am now a voluntary orphan. It's been the hardest and best decision of and for my life. Being human, there is nothing that makes no contact with both biological parents easy. It goes against all of my biological, physiological, and social programming. I am perpetually broken-hearted. I long for connection and understanding from my narcissistic parents, past, present and future. Alas, there was never, is not, and never shall be. I ache for the child in me who missed out on not having loving, safe, supportive parents. I ache for the adolescent and young adult who had no positive parental example, no guidance, no support of any kind. I ache for the grown woman with kids of her own who struggles forward, hoping to carve a better pat...

I have often been labeled a "quiet" person, which always takes me by surprise. My mind runs so loud and fast, I sometimes forget that the constant clatter in my brain is not what others hear. It's true that I often don't often call attention to myself, though it's never because I am without thoughts, ideas, or opinions. For a number of reasons, I am usually more likely to opt out than speak up. Here's a few. Sometimes, I'm too traumatized to speak. When a new memory reveals itself, I often go numb. Usually this happens when something that was buried in my subconscious makes its way to the forefront of my mind. While all trauma gets stored in a part of the brain that doesn't have access to language, many of my traumatic memories are from a time before I could speak. It's especially difficult to put these feelings and experiences into words. Instead of fight or flight, I freeze. I am stuck in my body, fully aware but trapped in a protective shel...

My husband came home late last night to find me curled up in my favorite furry blanket, staring at the wall. He has found me like this many times before, often on days like this one, where I process a new traumatic memory in therapy. "Can I get you anything?" he asks. "A better childhood," I reply. He nods and sits next to me. He knows I want him near, but I don't necessarily want to talk about it. It's exhausting to explain trauma to someone else when it's raw, and besides, it's not so much the event itself but the fallout from it that needs care. At the moment, that means I'm tapped into a deep well of sadness for the child in me who was neglected, terrorized, and so unloved. This is a productive sadness. It's progress. I have earned enough breakthroughs in recovery to know how important it is for me to fully feel this sadness. The old me probably would feel shame for being upset about something that happened so long ago. The old...

Since writing more about the abuse I experienced and its subsequent long-term effects, friends and acquaintances tend to respond in a couple of ways. Some will comment on my "braveness." Speaking up is a life-changing milestone in my healing and recovery. It requires a lot of courage to do so, for a wide range of reasons. But I don't feel courage. I feel terror. Yes, I chose to make the leap, but I also knew that I had to. I  leapt from a collapsing building. Out of necessity, I am doing this grand experiment of deprogramming everything I learned from my abusers and reprogramming my subconscious thoughts. I can no longer live with those old thoughts. They've infested me for too long. Now that I am committed to the task, I make new daily discoveries of the extensive damage. The more progress I make, the more I realize how much farther I have to go. Yaaay.  It's like living with termites. Your house can go infested for years, until one day, poof! The support ...

It seems the deeper I journey into the healing and recovery process, the more I find that much of our cultural and conventional wisdom does not help trauma survivors. All the trite platitudes and sayings that might help someone having a garden-variety bad day can actually become giant triggers for someone living with trauma. Let's assume everyone wants to live a healthy, pain-free, abundant, and productive life. There are hundreds of motivational books and centered on "fake it til you make it" principles, which encourage people to think positive, let it go, don't sweat the small stuff, etc. They may have helped some people. Judging by book sales, they have probably helped many. Yet, for many trauma survivors searching for relief, these books and motivational coaches don't help. In fact, many, like me, feel more depressed, broken, and impossibly disconnected after reading them. Here's why. Trauma survivors are often highly motivated people. Many are cond...

I've been living with the effects of complex trauma for a long time, but for many years I didn't know what it was. Off and on throughout my life, I've struggled with what I thought was anxiety and depression. Or rather, In addition to being traumatized, I was anxious and depressed.  All mental health is a serious matter, and should never be minimized. If you are feeling anxious or depressed, it's important and urgent to find the right support for you. No one gets a prize for "worst" depression, anxiety, trauma or any other combination of terrible things to deal with, and no one should suffer alone. With that in mind, there is a difference between what someone who has CPTSD feels and what someone with generalized anxiety or mild to moderate depression feels. For someone dealing with complex trauma, the anxiety they feel does not come from some mysterious unknown source or obsessing about what could happen. For many, the anxiety they feel is not rational...

As a trauma survivor, some days are more manageable than others. I am learning the long, slow process of better recognizing ways to prevent overwhelm and ways to better care for myself when I am overwhelmed. Even so, sometimes it comes on so fast, I can't deescalate. For me, feelings of stress and anxiety can quickly morph into panic, sometimes without an obvious trigger. It could be triggered from the gradual build up of a stressful week, or it could be triggered simply walking into a noisy room. Sometimes, just the general sense of overwhelm itself can be the trigger to an even more intense emotional flashback. Part of the reason for this is that therapy causes the goal posts to keep moving. I have made a lot of progress. I am re-wiring my brain. I don't relate in the same way to things that previously bothered me. This is all great news, but the reality is that this process of taking all the fuses out of my mental fuse box and rewiring them means there is still much to ...

I've been thinking a lot lately about how we think. I have always been one to challenge the status quo, a habit I picked up from not going along with my abusers' bullshit. I've always been able to see situations from different perspectives, another trait developed as a result of abuse. In my critical thinking classes in college, I wanted to shout "Amen!" after every lecture. My favorite word to insert into every one of my English essays was "fallacy." I've fought back against brainwashing since birth, so sometimes it surprises me when someone falls for a glaringly obvious lie. Take "fake news," for example. It's the quintessential manipulative bait and switch of our time.  Yes, there is "fake news" and it is a problem, but the ones purposely generating it are also the ones who coined the term and projected it onto the legitimate news outlets. I mentioned to someone recently how the most important classes students can take...

It's New Year's Eve, and I'm spending it deep cleaning my house. I've been working on "good enough" instead of "perfect" all year, my kitchen and bathroom certainly reflect the achievement. I usually have a Sisyphean outlook about cleaning, given that I have three kids and lack the assistance of Alice from The Brady Bunch.  But I love a good metaphor, and what better metaphor is a thorough house cleaning on the last day of the year? So, this year has been... interesting. I'm not one of those people who declares the whole year to be great nor terrible. I mean, how is that defined, anyway? By fate or free will? I am neither looking forward to 2018 in fear and dread, nor giddy anticipation. There were ups and downs in 2017 and there will be ups and downs in 2018. But on the whole, I felt this was a year of progress. There is something that feels complete about it, other than the date. Perhaps because I feel like this was a year where I met my g...

Writing about the nature of abuse along with my own personal experience of it has been an extremely helpful tool for me to better integrate who I am. For a long time, I distracted myself from going there, knowing full well that when I did, it would be intense. Eventually, that strategy failed and I was left with no other healthy alternative than to face the big, hairy, purple monster head on. When I did face it head on, guess what? It was intense. I had to do a lot of interior work to get to a place where I could be fully honest and present with the full impact of what happened and the damage that was done. In this full embrace I finally allowed myself to grieve on a level I previously thought was "too selfish" (my abusers' words, not mine) to do. I allowed myself to fully acknowledge a range and depth of feeling that was previously inaccessible. The paradox of pain and relief that go with this sort of work often overwhelms me in a way that requires literally all I h...