Trauma

Public service announcement: Time does not automatically heal all wounds.* *Terms and conditions apply Things that make time LESS likely to heal: If you already have mental health issues How much previous trauma you’ve experienced If you don’t have healthy coping skills If you already…

In Patricia DeYoung’s Understanding and Treating Chronic Shame she writes, “Perfectionists, procrastinators and pleasers are often hiding chronic shame.” Perfectionism, procrastination and people pleasing are all attempts to cope with, fix or mask shame. This strategy often develops early in neglectful, toxic, shaming home environments…

Having PTSD or lingering effects of trauma is not a failure on the part of the person who was traumatized, but is often a failure of their culture, their community, and/or their family to offer the proper care and support. Your body and mind are…

Attachment trauma teaches us to feel profound shame. This shame may hide under a thin veneer of what we know on a cognitive, rational level. That does not mean that our bodies, our hearts, or our nervous systms have gotten the memo. That is why…

I recently finished this beautiful fantasy book, Strange the Dreamer, by Laini Taylor. And in this book was this quote, “He looked him right in the eyes and saw a man who was great and good and human, who had done extraordinary things and terrible…

In the work that I do with traumatized folks, I find that there is often a fear of conflict. I think this is something that we learn in our American culture, and that gets heavily reinforced in toxic families. This makes sense, in unhealthy families…