The only thing to be done with some people is to make every effort to forget that they exist. They add nothing to your life, & even accidentally stumbling upon their words will only destabilize you & distract from your goals. Go cold turkey. Grey rock. They are not a thing.

There are few betrayals as common or hurtful as the familial expectation that you be polite to & engage with people who abused you.

You're not being "difficult" or "resistant" if emotional regulation strategies that worked for others don't fit for you. All it means is what it means: those tools & your nervous system don't click. No judgment; no shame. Yes, it's frustrating. But it's not your "failure."

Something we learn in CPTSD recovery is that "bravery" isn't always about "pushing through" a situation no matter the damage we're sustaining; it's often more about sitting w/ feelings & memories we hate or don't understand without denying, disowning, or dissociating them.

Complex trauma has a way of making us feel like we're already dead. That the version of us who was "supposed" to exist & live died, & we're just a husk. What got left behind. It's not true. If you are alive to read these words, your journey is not over. Breathe. Blink. Focus.

Trauma Brain is going to try to trick us into jumping from "realistically assessing & taking responsibility for our role in our current struggles" to "blaming ourselves for our symptoms, vulnerability, & abuse." Don't let it get away with that sh*t. They're not the same.

Do not let Trauma Brain or the Addiction Beast trick you into abandoning your recovery because your options are imperfect at the moment. Your options may suck right now-- but you still deserve safety, stability, support, & recovery.

Extend yourself grace, even when healing isn't graceful. Nobody's judging or ranking or scoring our recovery (nobody who matters, anyway). The success of our recovery is its effectiveness in keeping us alive & supporting our functioning-- not how good or cinematic it looks.

Maybe today you have Trauma Brain whispering-- or screaming-- in you ear there's no possible way to create or sustain a life worth living. That happens. Take that as a sign that today is not for making big decisions; breathe; & focus on the next recovery supporting micro choice.

Nobody else saves us. The person who saves us is the version of ourselves we develop in recovery. We're not just looking to heal our trauma wounds or our addiction patterns here. We're working to become a person less vulnerable to them & more skillful at managing them.

The fact you made the best decision you could to serve your safety, stability, & recovery, doesn't mean you won't doubt or second guess it. Decisions in recovery often aren't obvious-- & very often our options suck. Easy does it. Just do your best w/ the information you have.

Abusers don't abuse everyone. They look like very nice people to many. They do this so they can keep abusing the people at home "Undetected". It's manipulation, gaslighting. Abusers think👇 "If everyone thinks I'm a good person out in public, then I'll still be able to abuse my targets in private."

Trauma Brain is going to present you w/ "facts" that "feel" very "true." Which is your cue to remember that trauma conditioning makes things "feel" "true" that can't possibly BE true-- such as you, as a child, being to blame for the behavior of adults. (No. You weren't.)

Abuser’s will claim to not remember things they’ve done to you. The victim will never forget. (Exceptions for the part of the brain protecting itself from memories -) However, a casual night of abuse could be nothing to an abuser and forever in the mind of the abused.

There are several groups of people seeking shelter under the "neurodiversity" umbrella, too. Cluster-B personality disorders (narcissists, psychopaths, sociopaths) for example, are starting to refer to themselves as neurodiverse. Wondering if it'll catch on. "Affect deficit disorder", too.

I've yet to encounter a scenario where confronting a narcissist is worth it, and frankly I don't believe one exists. Narcissistic tendencies, markedly their marrow-deep apathy, implies the existence of much darker tendencies that I'd rather not know about.

The fact that you are exhausted and/or in pain does not reflect negatively on you as a person. It is not evidence of "failure." It is not evidence of "laziness." And it is absolutely not evidence that you are "unworthy" or morally "bad." Repeat as necessary. Put it on a loop.

Narcissists love to see you afraid. They don't feel empathy. They love to see you lose, fail, suffer. They pray for this shit. They cause this shit. Found on: No more abuse (IG) 👇

Dissociative Identity Disorder is real. Dissociative amnesia ("repressed"/recovered memory) happens. And trauma responses aren't "choices."

Understanding trauma & neuroscience & hormones is important-- but not as important as communicating to our nervous system, our "parts," & our inner child that we will not attack, shame, or abandon them. That we're on their side. That we have their back-- come what may.

Connecting with our "fight" trauma response is not a bad thing. Trauma recovery is fueled by us leveraging our "fight" response, actually. Leveraging it, claiming it, learning to make it a tool instead of a reflex. To me, the "fight" trauma response is a beautiful thing.

This is going to sound condescending af but I promise it's not. If you need help, even if the resources are sparse, ask for resources and get as much help as you can. Local libraries can get you going and provide a place for you to charge your phone, free narcan, etc.

Borderline personality traits linked to lowered empathy sciencedaily.com/releases/201... It's a cluster B personality disorder.

Something many people in your world aren't going to understand is how expensive it is to exist w/ a disability in our culture. The financial stress of functioning, let alone trying to work a recovery, while disabled is a very real layer of trauma that is rarely acknowledged.

As trauma survivors, we can become fierce advocates for others who struggle & suffer in the world-- & also resent the fact that we had to become such fierce advocates, as well as hate that such advocacy is necessary in a world that superficially claims to value human life.

The person that you say "NO", will hang around and kiss your ass trying to get a "YES". Manipulate the situation as if to say, "you didn't mean that "NO". You didn't mean "Me". No is a speedbump to a "Yes" to them. For you, "No" is a boundary, a complete sentence. www.marriage.com/advice/menta...

"It's a mind-F*ck of epic proportions. Psychological Violence on steroids."- Shahida Arabi

Narcissists deflect, project, gaslight. They don't want the accountability for the bad things they say and do. They would rather play the victim and spin their web of lies.

You are not "weak" or "immature" for wishing all of this was easier. I wish all of this was easier, too. It tends to get easier, as we work our recovery w/ humility & patience & self-compassion-- but it's very human & normal to be just, you know, over all of this. No shame.

In the course of your trauma & addiction recovery, you absolutely will, in fact, evolve into a person very different than some (or maybe many!) people in your life remember. Remember: that's the good news. They may struggle to see that way, but it is.

There will absolutely be people who try to leverage trauma survivors' empathy, emotional intelligence, & habit of assuming everything is our fault & responsibility to try to outsource their emotional labor to us. Stay sharp. The first step is just noticing when it's happening.

Our worth does not fluctuate based on whether someone specific wants or needs what we're able to offer today-- or whether what we can offer today is as much as it was yesterday. We are not "worthless" when we're depleted. That is old programming designed to keep us servile.

As long as we think about feelings as these wild, unpredictable things that have the capacity to overpower & control us, we're going to avoid & fear them. Learning to think about feelings as valid, supportive, important dashboard lights can be a game changing shift.

The life we create in trauma & addiction recovery may or may not look like the life we thought we were going to live. Mine doesn't. But it'll be a life we choose, rather than one that was chosen for us by our bullies, abusers, environment, or past-- and that makes it priceless.

For a long time, I struggled w/ the reality that I could not "process" an emotion I was unwilling to pause & notice w/o judgment. Trauma wants us judging the sh*t out of every feeling & reflex we have, which prevents us from asking compassionate, meaningful questions about them.

#cPTSD #AbuseSurvivor #ice #psychopaths www.facebook.com/share/r/1AzY...

Meaningful progress in trauma or addiction recovery is almost always accompanied by grief & anger. Feeling grief & anger does not mean you're doing it wrong. It means you're growing out of a past version of you, & have raised your standards for what you deserve & will tolerate.

Easy does it. The goal is to make the mental & behavioral choices we realistically can today to support feeling & functioning in ways we choose-- not ways conditioned in us by our bullies & abusers. Don't overcomplicate it-- just breathe & focus on the next micro choice.

Hey. It's just a day. Breathe; blink; focus; and work your recovery. That's all that's on your plate today. Anything else is gravy.

Developmental tasks we didn't have the safety or support to handle when we were kids don't just go away. We don't just get to "skip" them. Trauma recovery involves revisiting those developmental stages-- without shame or self-blame-- & giving ourselves now what we needed then.

You get to miss & grieve the chaotic, toxic people & situations you are no longer a match for now that you're working your recovery & committed to realistically managing your vulnerability. I miss aspects of the chaos, too. Recovery is lifesaving-- but undeniably bittersweet.

There is nothing wrong w/ making access to you-- physical, emotional, or spiritual-- selective & arduous. You are under no obligation to be an open book, & maybe expending some effort isn't unreasonable to ask of anyone who says they want to be close to you.

Feeling "seen" in our close relationships isn't worth much if we don't also feel valued & loved. Many of us had the experience of feeling plenty "seen" in certain personal or professional relationships-- & that visibility made us a target. We'd often rather have been invisible.

Many trauma survivors will do mental & emotional backflips to avoid accepting the truth that the people who should have loved us-- who often said they loved us-- did not behave toward us in any way that could be described as "loving." And that discrepancy wasn't about us.

"Them" having a preference for how you "should" think, feel, or behave, does not constitute an emergency or command to you-- & it's real important you (gently, compassionately, patently) remind your nervous system of this on the daily.

Many survivors assume the "basic life stuff" we struggle w/ has little nor nothing to do w/ our trauma-- but you need to know that you're not "incompetent" or "immature" for struggling w/ hygiene, organization, or time management. Those are often trauma responses in disguise.

Have our own back-- even when you f*ck up. Be on your own side-- even if you don't love the last choice you made. Be honest & compassionate & realistic & patient w/ yourself-- even (especially!) when trauma conditioning is trying to trick or coerce you into punishing yourself.

Trauma conditioning immerses us in fake "accountability" that has us beating the sh*t out ourselves in the name of "taking responsibility." Recovery is about actual accountability-- which is only ever compassionate, realistic, & opposite of what our bullies & abusers did to us.

Micromanagement in any relationship, personal or professional, tends to be a giant trigger for many trauma survivors-- & trying to set limits w/ micromanagement can scrape up all kinds of feelings of unworthiness & overwhelm. None of that is your fault-- or a recovery dead end.