Category: Complex Trauma

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Trauma & releasing shame

Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change. ~Brene Brown,I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame

Shame is a soul eating emotion. ~Carl Gustav Jung

So often survivors have had their experiences denied, trivialized, or distorted. Writing is an important avenue for healing because it gives you the opportunity to define your own reality. You can say: This did happen to me. It was that bad. It was the fault & responsibility of the adult. I was—and am—innocent. ~Ellen Bass, The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse

One of the ironies of trauma, is that for those of us who have experienced it, particularly relational trauma, we feel shame.  We, the victims, the survivors, the ones who were harmed, feel the shame of the experience.  We carry the burden of being “tainted” or “damaged” or “broken.”  

This shame often leads us to silencing ourselves, even if the perpetrator didn’t specifically tell us not to talk about what happened.  We don’t tell when the abuse is happening or immediately after the assault occurred.  We don’t tell the story because we are afraid of what people will think, what they will say, how they will respond.

We don’t tell because we somehow think what happened was our fault.  That we somehow encouraged the other person to harm us, that if only we’d done x or hadn’t done y.

When we are living in shame, and unable to share our stories, we are also unable to deeply connect with others.  We don’t allow ourselves to be truly
seen and so intimacy, deep emotional intimacy, isn’t possible.  

Sometimes though, it’s not only others that we can’t share our stories with.  Sometimes we can’t admit our own stories to ourselves.  Or we can admit parts of them, but not others.  Or we can acknowledge the stories but are unable to examine them, explore them, become curious about the ways these events from our lives are still impacting us today. 

The events from our past do impact us in our present, and will continue to, until we are able to dig into our own unconscious and automatic reactions, including the stories we have about being too much and not enough.  

Shame runs rampant in those stories.  I think most of us can make a long list of all the ways we aren’t enough (not smart enough, not pretty enough, not vocal enough, not articulate enough, not successful enough…) as well as all the ways we are too much (too loud, too sexual, too smart, too large, too picky…).  We are never “right;” there is always something “wrong” with us, something that needs to be “fixed.”

Trauma does this to us.  Our culture does this to us.  And often times, intentionally or now, our families of origin do this to us.  Unearthing, unraveling, examining these stories is no easy feat.  And doing it while remaining present in our bodies can be even more complex.

Shame comes with trauma.  Releasing the shame takes intention, time, practice and requires us to come into our bodies, examining our histories and our stories and seeing how they impacted us, and how that isn’t our fault.

Because what was done to us, what happened to us was not, and is not, our fault.

And.

Changing patterns, cycles, and harmful behaviors we have because of these experiences is our responsibility so we do not continue to pass trauma on to future generations.

/../

This essay was originally published to my weekly(ish) newsletter on January 14, 2019. It has been revised and edited for publication here. To receive my most recent essays you can subscribe to my newsletter here.

We will be exploring our stories of being too much, not enough, and the shame that comes with all that in the seven week program Embodied Writing :: Too Much, Not Enough, & Shame. We begin on Monday, January 27, 2020. There is a sliding scale fee. Learn more and register here.

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Plans, resilience, & trauma

Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans. ~Allen Saunders

Only when a child’s authenticity is threatened do they develop unhealthy behaviors, distorted reality perceptions, and emotional difficulties. When you force a child to do what they don’t want to do, feel what they don’t feel, and think what they don’t think, their authentic self becomes damaged. ~Darius Cikanavicius, Human Development and Trauma

Those of us who have trauma living within us, and especially childhood/development/relational trauma, like plans.  We like to plan.  To have a plan.  To know what is going to happen when and where it is all happening.

We aren’t so good at surprises.

I used to fall apart if a plan needed to change. By fall apart I mean become non-functioning to the point of crying non-stop, not eating, and at the worst of times going on a suicidal ideation bender.  I could not deal with plans changing.  Even small ones.  If a friend got sick and needed to cancel a date we had it was the end of the freaking world and I would literally spend hours to days flipping out and disparaging said friend to other friends (They are so unreliable.  They are always so flaky.  You can’t trust them at all.)

My late 20s and 30s were all about learning to adapt to plans needing to change.  What this looked like was I had plans A, B, C, D, E all the way to ZZZ.  This way if one plan failed I had another to fall back on and if that failed then there was still another.

I still always had a plan this way, and also it created some space for my friends to get sick without my entire universe imploding.

With time, age, and a lot of really great therapy, I can now say that while I still like to have a plan, it’s not always necessary.  When a plan does fall apart, I don’t fall apart too.  I’ve learned to adapt, really adapt.  To allow for change and surprise and create space for my own problem solving outside of the box when it’s needed.

 There are even times when I don’t have any plan at all, just go with the flow of whatever is happening.  

It’s been a big shift for me in my ways of thinking and being over the last several years.  My level of resilience has increased exponentially and I have gotten to the point where the small stuff (like a friend getting sick and needing to cancel our plans) is no big deal.

The big stuff still has its impacts, for certain, and even with that I do seem to be able to come back from a major upset relatively quickly.

A thing about growing resilience though, is that life seems to give you plenty of opportunities to continue to build that muscle.

Life has a way of doing its own thing, regardless of our plans or intentions or actions or even odds and statistics.

My family received a really big shock in the early spring of 2018.  The kind of shock that would have lasting reverberations for us no matter what we did in the moment or how we chose to move forward.

The shock was one of those things that we never in a million years expected.  In fact, all our previous experience as a family would tell us that it was impossible.  

Yet, there we were.

We sat in the space of processing the news, and honestly in a bit of denial for a bit.  

The denial was part of the process for certain, and also it’s not a place where we could have sat forever.  Decisions needed to be made and plans needed to be figured out.  

A thing is though, that sometimes, (and really even in this case), we can sit in that denial place.  For a very long time.  Life will still go on.  Not making a decision is a decision in and of itself.  Allowing “fate” to have its way is one thing that happens when we sit in that denial space.  And sometimes “fate” can make things a whole lot worse.

A note: Denial isn’t always or only trying to claim that something that is fact is not fact.  Denial is also when we simply don’t want to deal with reality or the facts.  When the facts feel too big or overwhelming or terrifying.  Or when the facts cause too much cognitive dissonance within us. 

Sometimes we need to accept facts that don’t make sense.  Or seem impossible.  Or don’t fit with our own worldview.  Because regardless of whether they make sense or seem possible or fit into the ways we see the world, they are still true, reality still is what it is. 

When we live with unprocessed trauma, allowing what is to be what it is, is a pretty foreign concept.  Most of us who had childhood trauma, have so much cognitive dissonance about the people who were (supposed to be) our caregivers, that we need absolutes.  We need definites. We need Sure Things.  We need things to fit into our worldview and to not break The Rules (whatever those rules may be at the time).

Childhood trauma creates its own form of gaslighting.  We are often told to keep secrets, or not talk about, or worse if we dare talk about what has happened or is happening to us, we are told that couldn’t possibly be true.  Our own sense of reality and what is true and what can be true gets skewed.

So when we make plans, and life throws us a curve-ball… well we tend to fall apart.  Because our grip on the here and now can be pretty tenuous at times, and every little disturbance to our plans and worldview, can lead us to a very dark place.

And.

We don’t have to continue living like this.

There are many ways to process our trauma.  There are multiple avenues to find help.

We don’t need to live in constant overwhelm or denial. 

We can learn to adapt.  We can learn resilience.  We can learn that things don’t have to make sense; that the impossible can actually be possible; and that sometimes our personal worldview isn’t the be all end all truth.

(Yay neuro-plasticity!!)

It takes time.  It requires learning self-compassion.  It depends on having safe-enough relationships where we can explore and experiment and be wrong and shift and grow.  

And.  

It is necessary for us to move out of living in constant overwhelm, to start experiencing moments of calm, peace, and even joy.

Plans aren’t everything.  Sometimes when they fall apart something more amazing happens.  Not always.  And sometimes.  Learning to be open to that possibility has been such a personal shift for me over the last five years.  

I wish this shift for you too.  

/../

This essay was originally published in my weekly(ish) newsletter on March 18, 2018. It has been edited and revised for publication here. To receive my most recent essays you can subscribe here.

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Safeness & settling into the in-between

The In-Between somehow makes you feel grimy, like all those sights and sounds and sensations and smells have stuck to you, like you’ve been rolling around in a preschool art class’s trash can. ~Michael Reaves, Mallory Reaves, The Silver Dream

The In-Between place, what I have often referred to as The Goo, can be a very messy, very uncomfortable place. It a place of unknowns.  A place that is familiar in some ways and yet filled with the unfamiliar.  

For those of us with unprocessed trauma living within us, unknowns can be uncomfortable to say the least and at times downright terrifying.  I know in the past I have been a planner.  Well, I still am a planner, but to much less of a degree.  In the past I would have plans A through ZZZ, thinking through all the possible scenarios and back up plans for each scenario or possible derailment to the previous plan.  It was exhausting, and yet it gave me a sense of (not real) safeness.  It gave me a sense of (not real) control.  It gave me space to breathe and not completely freak out if plan A, B, C, or DDD, didn’t work out.

I understand why I was the way I was.  The chaos of my childhood left me in desperate need of stability, consistency, and knowing what the hell was going to happen next in every moment.  I wasn’t one for “surprises” and when plans had to suddenly, unexpectedly change, it would send me into a fight/flight/freeze meltdown.  

I don’t react quite so strongly anymore to changes.  I still have my feelings and depending on what the change is sometimes my complex trauma stuff comes up.  But I don’t need a million fall back plans anymore and I can actually sit in the in-between spaces of not really knowing what will be happening in the next days, months, or years with relative comfort.  Or when there’s not relative comfort I can tolerate the discomfort without freaking the eff out.

I didn’t get to this place by chance.  It has taken a lot of hard work, intention, and a ton of self-compassion. 

Being able to sit in a space of discomfort is no simple task.  It requires us to be able to be present – in our bodies, in the moment, in our environment, with the people around us.  When we have complex trauma coursing through us, all of these things are almost impossible.

Almost.

We can do it.  

And.

It takes practice, commitment, self-compassion, and time.  These shifts don’t happen over night.  It can take months for small shifts to happen.  It can take years for bigger shifts.

And it can happen.  We can do it.

Learning to regulate ourselves, to calm our nervous systems, takes time and energy.  Most of us didn’t learn life-long helpful ways to self-regulate.  When we were children we did what we needed to do to survive – both physically and psychologically.  That generally meant for most of us leaving our bodies, leaving the present, living in our heads.  As we grew older we may have found ourselves constantly stuck in the past or future or both, but rarely if ever in the here and now.  Being in our bodies, being present to our physical sensations was too overwhelming and activating.  

This is not our fault.  We each did the best we could with what we had.  

And this disconnection from our bodies, from the present moment, from our whole Self, can also leave us feeling empty, lonely, and disconnected.  Our relationships, with ourselves and others, don’t go overly deep.  We have our walls and armor that prevents others from getting too close.  

This works for us until it doesn’t.  And when it doesn’t work for us anymore we are left not knowing what to do or how to shift things or wondering if we even are capable of shifting things, of being in the world differently.

We can.  Again, it takes work, intention, compassion, and time.  It takes all of these in combination.  Not one part alone will allow things to shift.  All the time in the world won’t process our trauma or teach us to self regulate if we aren’t doing the work, if we don’t have the intention to do different, if we don’t cultivate some self-compassion.  Because we will mess up, we will fall back on old patterns and cycles; on old ways of being that served us so well for some many years (until they didn’t anymore).  

And.

With work, intention, compassion, and time we will fall back on those old ways of being less and less.  We will find our ways to self-regulation.  We will learn where we end and others begin (a.k.a. boundaries).  We will find our ways to center and ground.  We will begin to understand we are not alone (a.k.a. internal and external resources).  

All things come to an end.  All things shift and evolve.  Whether we want them to or not.  How we respond to the shifting and evolving is ultimately up to us.  We certainly have the choice to remain in our activated states, to remain hyper-alert, to resist and avoid to our heart’s content.  

We can also choose to the do the hard work.  To make the commitment to find some peace for ourselves.  To learn to self-regulate.  To come home into our bodies and the present.  To accept the shifts and changes and evolutions as they come and do our own work within and outside of them to continue our own shifting and evolving.

It’s not easy.  Often it’s not fun.  Often it is messy.  And as I have said many times before and will likely say many more times again, I believe it is deeply worth it.

/../

This essay was originally written for my weekly(ish) newsletter on July 22, 2018. It has been edited and revised for publication here. To receive my most recent essays you can subscribe here.

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Feeling our feelings

We try so hard to hide everything we’re really feeling from those who probably need to know our true feelings the most. People try to bottle up their emotions, as if it’s somehow wrong to have natural reactions to life. ~Colleen Hoover, Maybe Someday

To feel intensely is not a symptom of weakness, it is the trademark of the truly alive and compassionate. It is not the empath who is broken, it is society that has become dysfunctional and emotionally disabled. There is no shame in expressing your authentic feelings. Those who are at times described as being a ‘hot mess’ or having ‘too many issues’ are the very fabric of what keeps the dream alive for a more caring, humane world. Never be ashamed to let your tears shine a light in this world. ~Anthon St. Maarten

For those of us living with trauma, we have spent a majority of our lives dissociated.  Meaning, we didn’t really feel our feelings (until perhaps we had no choice and couldn’t ignore or stuff down anymore).  We weren’t aware of our bodies.  We lived in our heads and outside of ourselves.  

And when we did feel our feelings, we never, ever, under any circumstances shared them or expressed them (except maybe anger).  Those of us living with complex trauma learned early on not to express our emotions, or at least we never learned how to express them in any sort of constructive or helpful way.

So when we start to come to this work of coming into our bodies and processing the traumas that live within us, we all have so much to learn and unlearn.

It is a painstakingly slow process that generally involves many almost imperceptible baby steps mixed with a lot of falling back into old patterns and cycles and finding our ways back out again.

I can say that it does get… less challenging… in time.  With practice, with patience, with self compassion.

Learning to sit in our uncomfortable feelings (and really for those of us who dissociate, all our emotions are uncomfortable, all body sensations can feel like too much) is not easy or fun.  And once we have learned how to tolerate our own feelings, well, now we get to actually feel those feelings and let me tell you I wouldn’t exactly call that fun either.

So if this embodiment stuff isn’t easy and isn’t fun and has us sitting in our uncomfortable stuff, what the heck is the point to it??

I actually used to ask myself this question at least once a week.  I’m not even kidding.

I have many answers for myself (and for you!).  Ultimately, for me, it is all about relationships, and having real, deep, meaningful ones; with myself, with those I’m intimate with, both sexually and not, with my children, with my friends and family.

If we not attuned to our feelings (emotions and bodily sensations), then it is very unlikely we are present in the moment, in our environment, or with the person we are interacting with.  If we are unable to be present with another person, then we are unable to connect with them on a more than a superficial level.  If we are only connecting with folks on a superficial level we feel lonely and isolated and we are also unable to tune into what is happening with the other person on a deeper level.

If we can’t tolerate to feel our own feelings then how can we tolerate to feel another’s?  And isn’t part of being in deep and meaningful relationship being able to hold space and be supportive of and to those who matter most to us?

That’s part one of my answer.

Part two of my answer has to do with our reactions and actions, which also impact our relationships. If we aren’t noticing our little “tells” that we are at the very early states of feeling overwhelmed, flooded, or triggered, then we are unable to do anything to soothe ourselves in those early moments.  If we are unable to soothe ourselves in those early moments, then those feelings build and build.  They may build over weeks, but still with every interaction that activates our sympathetic nervous system that we are unable to reset our system from, then the next trigger feels more intense.  This build up continues until we explode in one way or another.

That explosion can look like yelling and screaming and “losing our shit.”  Generally speaking when this happens we aren’t our best selves and have a tendency to lash out and cause harm to the other person (be that actual physical harm, or emotional or psychological harm may depend on any number of factors).  

That explosion can also look like illness.  Chronic infections, chronic pain, autoimmune issues, chronic colds or flus.  

That explosion can look like self harm, which includes over spending for “retail therapy,” over eating foods that ultimately don’t make us feel good, using drugs or alcohol to numb, and of course what we usually think of as self harm: cutting, binging and purging, suicide attempts, etc.

That explosion can also look like self isolation coupled with extreme amounts of shame and shoulding on ourselves (which can then lead to self harm or illness or “losing our shit”).

That explosion can look like any combination of the above.

None of these explosions are ultimately helpful for us or for our relationships.  

As a species, we humans need each other.  We were never meant to live in isolation or do this thing called Life alone, without any support or help. We are meant to live in community and in relationship.  We are meant to have deep and meaningful relationships where we are accepted by each other (even our uncomfortable feelings), supported by each other, held by each other, and lovingly pushed by each other.

Trauma, and specifically being dissociated, prevents us from being in community and in relationships.

And so.

Becoming embodied helps us relearn what to experience being fully human.

Being fully human has some very messy and uncomfortable parts to it, as well as some amazing and joyous parts, and everything in-between.

So, my short answer to my question above of why I do this whole embodiment thing, and why I support others in their own journeys to embodiment, is so I can be in deep and meaningful relationships with others and with myself and so I can experience all that living as a human has to offer.

It is a conscious choice.  It is made multiple times a day.  It is not a one and done.  

I am so much more embodied and present in my environment, relationships, and Self than I have been at any other point in my life.  Even so, I still fall into those old no longer needed survival skills of dissociation and isolation.  Even so sometimes my feelings sneak up on me when I’m not paying attention.  Even so I cause harm in my relationships, even though that is the last thing I ever want to do.

And.  I am also able to express my emotions to others, often without exploding.  My relationships have grown deeper and more meaningful.  Those closest to me see more of me than they have before.  I am able to get past defensive anger and get to some of the deeper emotions that are bringing up my armor relatively quickly.  I am able to laugh more freely and also cry more freely.  I understand myself so much more.  

I am able to receive love. To be seen. To see that others accept and adore me as I am.

And I have developed a deep compassion for myself and others that wasn’t there five years ago.

This work is not easy.  It is not generally speaking fun.  

And even so, I believe it is so deeply worth it.

/../

This essay was originally published in my weeklyish newsletter on April 15, 2018. It has been revised and edited for publication here. To read my most recent essays you can subscribe here.

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Dysregulation, compassion, & finding equilibrium

When you have a persistent sense of heartbreak and gutwrench, the physical sensations become intolerable and we will do anything to make those feelings disappear. And that is really the origin of what happens in human pathology. People take drugs to make it disappear, and they cut themselves to make it disappear, and they starve themselves to make it disappear, and they have sex with anyone who comes along to make it disappear and once you have these horrible sensations in your body, you’ll do anything to make it go away.
~Bessel A. van der Kolk

The only consistent thing about living as a human being is that change is inevitable.

Sometimes the changes that come our way are out of our control.  

Sometimes the changes that come our way we do not consent to.

Sometimes the changes that come our way stem from our own choices.

Sometimes the changes that come our way are our own choice, and still we may wish they didn’t happen.

Life is complex and rarely stagnant.

When big changes come our way, they can throw us off kilter.  Our systems may become dysregulated. Our old traumas may be triggered.  The change itself could be traumatic in its own way. This can happen even when a change is of our own conscious choosing.  

I have witnessed that basic human response to change, sometimes even to changes of our own choosing, is to fight like hell to return to the status quo – the way things were before the change.  This fight is almost always a losing battle.

The dysregulation our systems experience when change happens is inevitable.  Systems theory confirms that when a change happens within a system, the parts of the system will do all they can to find equilibrium again.  Sometimes we call this “finding our new normal” when it comes to the changes that come into our lives.  Until we find this equilibrium however, our systems, including our nervous systems, will be agitated. 

Change happens.  Dysregulation happens.  It is how we move through the changes, how we find our ways back to equilibrium, or our new normals, that matters.  How we do this is up to us and frankly is unique to each person and each situation.

And.

What I would love all of us to remember, including myself, is to have some compassion for the dysregulation that is an inevitable part of being human.  To have compassion for ourselves as we find our ways to the new normal of each new change in our lives.  To have some compassion for trying things and feeling like failing and trying different things until we are able to figure out what works for us. 

This is true even when the changes we experience are of our own choosing, are welcome, perhaps even wanted. It will still take time for us to find our feet again, to find that “new normal,” to get back to our equilibrium. 

Reminding ourselves that we are trying to find our way back to a “steady state” as we shift through a major or even minor life change is important, and is part of where our self-compassion comes in.  Giving ourselves the grace of knowing we are doing the best we can with the resources we have.  Slowing down to allow ourselves to feel the myriad of emotions that may be coming forward, some possibly expected and some probably not.  

We are all complex beings, and our life experiences are complex.  Sometimes change is welcome, and even in this welcoming for a short period the change will cause some amount of chaos and dysregulation.  Remember to be gentle with you.  Remember to give yourself time and space to breathe and feel all the feelings you are having.  Remember to be patient with yourself.  And most importantly remember to have compassion for yourself as you stumble along finding your ways to your own new normal. 

/../

This was originally written for my weekly(ish) newsletter on July 15, 2018. It has been revised and edited for publication here. To receive my most recent essays you can subscribe here.