Articles on Trauma and Relationships
What Control Costs Us in Relationships
Controlling behaviors in intimate relationships often come from childhood. But control is the opposite of intimacy, and here's what it actually costs us.
How to Heal CPTSD Over the Holidays
The holidays don't have to mean white-knuckling through flashbacks. Learn a 5-step process to navigate CPTSD flashbacks and turn the holidays into healing.
Masking Complex Trauma (CPTSD) and the Holidays
Masking CPTSD keeps you performing instead of connecting. Learn why high-performers hide behind cheerful compliance and how to start letting the people you love actually see you.
Trauma and Responsibility (when Healing CPTSD)
What happened to you isn't your fault, but healing is your responsibility. Learn how to stop letting unresolved trauma damage the relationships you care about most.
When Close Isn't Safe
You long for closeness but push it away the moment it arrives. Learn why complex trauma makes intimacy feel dangerous and how to start making connection feel safe.
Perfect is the Enemy of Safe
Perfectionism isn't ambition. It's a survival strategy from childhood that destroys your relationships. Learn where it comes from and how to keep your standards without the suffering.
Cultural Complicity and Complex Trauma
Society teaches us to dismiss childhood trauma and protect our parents from the truth. Learn why cultural silence perpetuates CPTSD and why speaking up is how we heal.
Managing CPTSD During Holiday Family Gatherings: 5 Essential Skills
Family gatherings activate old trauma patterns before you even realize it. Learn 5 essential skills for staying centered and connected when your nervous system says "run."
The Two Types of Boundaries
Most boundary advice is incomplete. There are two types: containing (holding yourself in) and protective (keeping what isn't yours out). Learn both to transform your relationships.
It Wasn't That Bad
"My parents had it worse." The smoothest denial keeps your childhood trauma locked away and your relationships stuck. Learn how to face what's real so you can finally heal.
10 Common Roadblocks to Healing Trauma (PTSD/CPTSD)
Minimizing. Numbing. Postponing. Denial. These are the roadblocks keeping your trauma stuck. Learn the 10 most common ones and why the best healing is gentler than you think.
What is Complex Trauma (CPTSD)?
Complex trauma doesn't come from a single event. It develops when love, safety, and connection go unmet over time. Learn the three hallmarks of CPTSD and why it hides so well.
What We Get Wrong About Numbness
Numbness isn't the absence of feeling. It's your nervous system's last line of defense. Learn why pushing through makes it worse and how to safely let feeling return.
How to Self-Soothe (with CPTSD)
You can't self-soothe because no one taught you how. Self-soothing is a relational skill you learn from safe others. Here's how to start, even if closeness still feels unsafe.
Why It's Hard to Self-Soothe (with CPTSD)
Self-soothing isn't willpower. It's a skill your nervous system learns from safe others. If no one taught you, no amount of trying harder will change that. Here's why.
Why We Don't Need to Talk about Trauma
Talk therapy doesn't heal trauma. Trauma lives in the body, not the mind. Learn about Brainspotting — a fast, gentle approach that doesn't require you to relive the past.
Presence, Not Perfection
Perfectionism seems like it’s about high standards, but it’s actually armor against rejection. Learn why trying to "get it right" sabotages the connection you're longing for, and what to practice instead.
Maslow was Wrong
Maslow said we need food and shelter before love. He was wrong. Belonging is a survival need, and when it goes unmet, everything else falls apart. Here's what the research shows.
The Fallacy of Catharsis
Suffering doesn't heal trauma, it makes it worse. Learn why intense healing modalities retraumatize your nervous system and what actually works instead.
Creativity and Trauma Healing
Post-traumatic growth brings back joy and connection. But creativity is often the last thing we reclaim, because our nervous systems still see it as a risk. Here's how to get it back.