Understanding the Impact of Trauma

I'm not a doctor and cannot claim to cure cPTSD. Honestly, no one can claim to heal someone else.

 

Each person travels their healing journey. YOU heal yourself. That's true physically, and it's also true emotionally and mentally. You have the power even if you don't feel like you do and don't believe it's possible. With God all things are possible, and with the right tools, you can do it.

 

I share my healing journey, how I healed personally, what living a life in constant fight/flight looked like and what cPTSD felt like. I share how I moved forward toward emotional balance and healed myself. What I share lights a path and forms a roadmap for you. It took me years, and I share so others can shortcut their healing journey. As someone trauma-informed and intimately familiar with cPTSD, I offer a system and program that guides your healing journey. 

Healing cPTSD is very different from PTSD. Two completely different healing paths are required. The goal of healing PTSD is to return to the "normal" one had before the trauma. Healing cPTSD requires creating one's "normal" from scratch while healing. "Normal" never existed or is long forgotten for someone with cPTSD. 

PTSD – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a psychiatric disorder that may occur in people who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event.

cPTSD – Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a condition that results from chronic or long-term exposure to emotional trauma over which a victim has little or no control and from which there is little or no hope of escape.

"Traumatic stress includes events, experiences, and exposures that greatly exceed the individual's capacity to control, cope with, or withstand and that compromise the individual's psychophysiological equilibrium or stasis…. they pose an imminent threat or actuality of death, or through other means cause fundamental and life-altering psychophysiological harm" (Ford & Courtois, 2020, p. 4)

Life in this system is designed to create trauma. Some experience more or deeper trauma. Life affects everyone differently. 

First, the concept of "post" traumatic implies that the trauma has passed. With complex trauma, the trauma is often very much in the present. The people and situations causing the trauma often remain close and intimately integrated into daily life, so the trauma is ongoing and continuous. There is no "post" to the trauma because it hasn't ended. There's also likely no end in sight.

Second, even if the situation or person is gone, the trauma often lives on in the form of an internal voice (or inner critic) that continues the emotional abuse. The negative self-talk and internal bully are very much alive and active. Daily. Constantly. Incessantly. Relentless.

Third, it's entirely possible what is happening isn't even seen as trauma or abuse. Emotional and mental abuse can become so "normal" that one knows things no other way. One may not even recognize what is happening is trauma. This is especially true if trauma begins in childhood and continues throughout life. It's just accepted as normal that humans speak and treat one another that way. It's always been that way so that is considered acceptable and isn't even seen as abuse or trauma.

Please message me if you'd like to chat more about where you are in your healing journey and your next best steps. Let me know that you read this post and you are seeking information for cPTSD.

My Level UP System is how I present my healing roadmap to you. It maps out what I learned and created to help me heal. Here's a summary of how it works together:

My Emotional Balance Course and Calm Your Inner Critic Course are designed to accelerate healing, while my Gentle Boundaries Course is focused on minimizing the incoming damage. These three courses work together to accelerate your healing. 

In 2021 I discovered Aroma Freedom Technique which is healing my traumatic memories. This specific aromatherapy technique was developed by Dr. Benjamin Perkus, a clinical psychologist. Using this technique, I let go of medical and food trauma and all the associated physical issues trauma had locked in my body

I am a trauma-informed Certified Aroma Freedom Technique Practitioner and you can work with me one on one. During your session you do not share your memories or specific details of your trauma. This is not talk therapy and is way beyond what talk therapy can offer you. 

1. Emotional Balance focuses on noticing current emotions and situations. I teach you how to back up and pay attention sooner before our nervous system is in the high gear upper levels of fight/flight. I had to learn this on my own through bits and pieces, trial and error.

2. Calm Your Inner Critic focuses on turning our inner critic Into an inner voice that is supportive and compassionate. Our inner critic is additional incoming damage we have control over eliminating. It's old voices and stories that do not serve us. 

3. Gentle Boundaries focuses on gently doing boundaries. It was how I managed to do boundaries true to my peaceful nature and do my best to be kind. It was a way to protect myself while still showing love for others. I read lots about boundaries and couldn't do them the way others taught them. Being assertive was going to cause me more damage. I created gentle boundaries to minimize damage to myself and others.

4. Fully Claim Your Life creates yourself now that you have some emotional healing so can do gentle boundaries and your inner critic has surrendered its grip. We create your “normal” from scratch. 

My Level UP program is available at various price points and I meet you where you are. 

Our nervous system is designed to protect us but is stuck in overdrive. Without emotional balance, we can't do gentle boundaries because our nervous system and emotions are heightened to an extreme degree. There's no way at that point to have boundaries or be gentle. If we try to speak up in that state, we're bound to cause ourselves and others damage. Eventually, we tip over, shut down and check out because we're beyond coping. 

Nothing out there taught these things from a perspective of cPTSD and amid ongoing trauma. I built my roadmap, and now I share it. Rarely do I use words like cPTSD or trauma because, as stated above, many don't even realize that's what's happening. Most only know what their day-to-day life feels like, just trying to survive.

Realizing something isn't right feels like finding yourself in a thicket of thorn bushes. Maybe you headed in for some tasty raspberries. Suddenly you realize you're in the middle of the patch and full of scratches. If you move, you get scratched more, so maybe you stand still while figuring out what's happening. Carefully, you assess your situation. It's not possible to stay there. You've run out of food, are growing weak and getting dark. You realize, quite possibly, your very life is at stake unless you get out. However, attempting to exit the thicket means you will probably get scratched more, but you have no choice. At this point, it means your life. So you start to carefully look for the best path out, resulting in the least damage. Imagine, at that very moment, someone outside the thicket reaches back to let you know they made it out with minimal damage. They're willing to share how they got out and their path.

Here's what cPTSD looks like and feels like. View List