Seeing Without Blaming
For a long time, I thought I’d already faced my childhood. My father was an alcoholic. There was chaos, unpredictability, and some violence. I witnessed things no child should have to witness. My mother and father were both emotionally remote, unavailable in ways I didn’t yet know how to name. Those were the obvious wounds […]
How Survival Patterns Take Root
No one chooses their patterns.We don’t sit down one day and decide to become hypervigilant, controlling, avoidant, or numb.Our systems simply learn what keeps us safe — and then they don’t stop doing it. That’s how survival becomes structure.It’s not dramatic or sudden. It’s subtle, steady, and deeply intelligent.The body, mind, and spirit adapt to […]
Trauma Assessment Tools: Checklists
Checklists can bring a sense of comfort. But they also have limits. There’s something reassuring about a checklist. When life has felt confusing, unpredictable, or painful, a list of boxes to tick can feel like order. It gives form to something that has lived too long in the shadows—an experience that never quite made sense. […]
Regulation First: Building a Stable Baseline
Before deep work, give your body something it can trust every day. Not a marathon—a steady setting you can return to. When your system is “calm enough,” everything else works better: sleep, digestion, focus, boundaries, therapy, conversations. Regulation isn’t the finish line; it’s the ground you stand on. Why baseline beats breakthroughs Big cathartic moments […]
Cognitive & Identity Disruptions: When the Story Turns Against You
There’s a particular kind of conflict many trauma survivors know well — the split between what you know and what you feel.You might know you’re not to blame for what happened. Yet some quiet part of you still believes you are. You might understand, logically, that you deserve love — but still feel unworthy when […]
Relational & Attachment Disruptions: When Connection Feels Unsafe
Some people long for closeness their entire lives but can never quite relax into it. Others keep their distance, even from the ones who love them most. Some cling too tightly, terrified of being left. Others vanish the moment things start to feel real. All of these patterns come from the same place: an early […]
How Personality Forms — and How Trauma Alters the Process
Most of us grow up assuming that our “personality” is simply who we are — a collection of traits, preferences, and habits that make us unique. But personality isn’t something we’re born with. It’s something that develops. It’s the shape our life energy takes as it learns to move through the world — a form […]
Understanding the Six Core Barriers (and the Many Faces They Take)
Even when we want to heal, something inside often pushes back.It might sound like doubt, resistance, distraction, or fatigue.Sometimes it’s quiet; other times it’s loud.But it always serves the same purpose—protection. Healing isn’t just about learning new tools. It’s also about understanding the forces that hold us back from using them. The six barriers explored […]
Why These Five: The Core Impact Areas of Childhood Complex Trauma
When I first started trying to make sense of childhood complex trauma—really make sense of it, not just as theory but as something that explains the shape of real lives—I ran into a problem. The problem was scope. Trauma touches everything. It affects how we feel, how we relate, how we think, how we cope, […]
Understanding the Downward Arc: How Survival Becomes Structure
Most trauma models describe what trauma does to us — how it dysregulates our nervous system, distorts our beliefs, or shapes our relationships. Others explain why healing is difficult — the fears, defenses, and resistances that arise when we begin to change. But few describe the process that happens in between: the slow, invisible transformation […]