An honest child will pay a significant price in a family or home where truths are hidden.

There’s nothing normal about expecting family members to be in the same room when one has abused the other. This is abnormal. This is harmful. This is perpetuating more abusive patterns. When you elevate family traditions over protecting the abused, you are re-creating the abuse

You will be disrespected by people who envy your ability to be authentic. You will be dismissed by people who fear your strength in how you address your pain. You will be critiqued by oppressors as you find the things that set you free. It’s your life. Don’t slow down for them.

The scapegoat is often the empath or highly sensitive person who expresses an authentic hunger for better treatment, truth, and/or change. This is the most threatening temperament to a toxic system-familial or other.

I hope you heal from all the things your family denied happening to you.

To those who've felt unlovable: This is often a painful aftermath of not having support when you needed it most. I hope you find ways to love all parts of you, but especially the parts that felt rejected or like they they didn't belong.

Be kind to people-pleasers. Many of them were taught the only way to be accepted was to give others what they want without getting anything back. They were taught this by people that were supposed to keep them safe and teach them about love. Seriously, be kind.

There are people that would rather lose you than be honest about what they’ve done to you. Let them go.

A haunted house for people with cPTSD, but it's just a room full of people saying "Everything happens for a reason."

cPTSD is a result of not having the freedom (or access) to acknowledge and process trauma. The complex part is because the trauma was ongoing. PTSD represents specific traumatic memories. Complex PTSD presents those memories and experiences having no end.

Abuse survivors are heavily triggered by dishonest people. When you’ve sacrificed your time and security in order to figure out the truth, people who lack truth will feel like they’re pulling you back to your darkest days.

“Family is everything.” No, healing is. And if the family is who caused the trauma, they don’t always get to participate in the healing.

An enabler will listen to you share the most harmful things someone has done to you, and then tell you you’re misunderstanding what happened. When I say enablers are just as dangerous as perpetrators, this is what I’m talking about.

We’re too quick to tell a traumatized person that it’s their responsibility to heal without considering what has been taken from them.

When a person chooses their dysfunction and denial over a healthy connection, they’re helping you make choices too.

“But forgiveness is for you!” So is justice. So is accountability for those who hurt them. So is the anger that must be heard for them to find peace. Stop using forgiveness to shame people for healing on their own terms. If it’s for them, let them decide. Stay out of their way.

People have a hard time detecting red flags when they grow up being taught to normalize the way they were being hurt by people who were supposed to protect them.

When you hear someone over-explaining, know one (or all) of these is true: 1). They’ve often had their reality denied. 2). They've been hurt in unpredictable ways & believe it was because they didn't explain better. 3). They've grown up being ignored. Please be patient.

Pay close attention to any person who has issue with you wanting to live life on your own terms. Terms that don’t hurt other people. Terms that give you security and peace. Pay very close attention.

You are supposed to be triggered when someone mistreats, lies to, or disrespects you. You can heal to lessen the intensity of that trigger, but having a reaction to poor treatment means your body is alive, alert, and reminding you that you deserve better.

People don't understand what a big deal it is for a childhood trauma survivor to depend on others, & god forbid, ask for help. When you've had to be dependent on people who hurt you, you try to not need people. If you know someone like this please be patient, clear, & kind.

When you lose the respect of an empathetic person, it’s permanent. Not because they’re bitter, but because they’re wise.

A person who is not changed by you telling them how their actions are hurting you, is a person you need to move away from.

No one will tell you to stop dwelling on the past quicker than a person who doesn’t want you to remember the things they’ve never apologized for.

A traumatized child is not resilient-they’re hypervigilant. What they did to get by was not from strength, but from being faced with a world that felt like a threat. Suggesting traumatized children are resilient is dismissing the severity of what never should’ve happened to them.

People with cPTSD have difficulty explaining why things feel so intense. Think of a person in pain who was always denied help with past pain & imagine what they’ve had to do all those years to get by. The c in cPTSD is complex. A life built in survival mode is not easy to explain

Forgiveness isn’t the cure for injustice. Justice is.

There is still much unknown about cPTSD because it’s the result of things people were never meant to endure.

Being shamed for your anger by a person who has taken advantage of you is them taking further advantage of you. That shit makes you feel crazy. You have every right to be mad.

The older I get the more I appreciate the people who make it safe to be sensitive in their presence.

I’m glad you’re here! 🫶

When the people who are meant to protect you, become the people who hurt you, you don't stop wanting protection-you stop wanting people.

There is no one who will dismiss your growth more than the people who are mad you did work they aren’t willing to do.

Stop telling people who've been abused in relationships that they attracted it. Please stop.

People don’t choose estrangement to hurt others. They choose estrangement to stop getting hurt.

The person who is always afraid someone’s mad at them has often grown up focusing on others needs being met out of their survival. They were shamed for needing help. They got the silent treatment with no warning. They’re on high alert, hoping not to get hurt like that again.

Often times when someone is criticizing you by saying “you’re too sensitive” or “you’re too much” their subconscious is saying “this is too honest” and “I’m scared of this truth.”

Highly sensitive can also be linked to highly intuitive and let me tell you there’s a reason people don’t like that. Sensitivity is often criticized, but it’s the intuitive part that scares people who have stuff to hide.

Under no circumstances, or at any time, should you ever say “But they’re your family” to a person who does not have contact with their family.

Sending peace to every person who is trying to break the cycle that tried to break them.

When someone realizes they can’t manipulate you, they make up stories about you to others and then manipulates whoever believes that story.

Never tell a person they need to get over circumstances they didn’t ask for. You have no idea the ways they’ve paid for that.

Share less with people who aren’t rooting for you. As simple as that sounds, you know who wants you to succeed. Do not explain yourself, or ask for approval/guidance from those who aren’t invested in you finding peace and growth as well as a good life for yourself.

If they support the people who’ve traumatized you, they don’t need to know anything about your life. Let them guess.

Relationships are not something you’re supposed to have to recover from.

Telling a traumatized person “You need to let it go” dismisses the reality of their nervous system and body. No one wants to relive traumatic experiences on an ongoing basis. People are triggered by past trauma because they’re traumatized, not because they’re unwilling to let go.

Not all hurt people, hurt people. Some of them remember how much it cost them and couldn’t imagine putting someone else through that.

I wish people saw how often someone is overexplaining because they grew up constantly being criticized when they were trying to be understood.

I have never experienced abuse that made me stronger. It made me fearful, confused, dysregulated, afraid, detached, addicted, shameful, and apologetic to people who were hurting me. Surviving it did not make me strong. It made me tired.

A person in their darkest hours doesn't need a pep talk. They need to know someone else sees and understands the darkness.