Articles on Trauma and 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.
The Inner Child Does Not Go on Vacation
The moment you try to rest, despair floods in. That's your inner child, asking for the care you never received. Learn what happens when you finally stop looking away.
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.
The Intelligence of Flight
We're taught that standing your ground is strength. But the flight response is often smarter, saves more energy, and protects your relationships. Learn when leaving is the best move.
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.
What Dissociation is Trying to Tell Us (about PTSD & CPTSD)
Dissociation is more than a failure to be present. It's your nervous system protecting you from what it can't yet process. Learn what it's trying to tell you and how to respond.
What to Do About Shutdown and Sexual Trauma
You've stopped wanting intimacy. Your body goes numb the moment it begins. That's not a choice — it's shutdown from sexual trauma. Learn what's happening and how to heal.
Red Flags of Therapist Abuse (and Coaching Abuse)
When things go wrong in therapy, we blame ourselves. But our healing space should be the safest place we have. Learn 10 red flags that your practitioner isn't safe.
Numbness is Not What It Seems
Numbness is trauma response. It's a survival mechanism that follows chronic stress or trauma. It happens after our nervous systems have been over-activated into a stress or trauma response for a prolonged period of time.
The Truth about Dissociation
The part of us that dissociates uses this pattern as a strategy to lessen our experience of pain and discomfort. It tries to help by removing us from our experience, which always means shutting down our access to the body. It often creates a kind of fog, haziness, or floating out-of-body feeling.
Presence, Not Perfection
Trying for perfection distorts our ability to connect with others. We focus on a rigid and unattainable ideal instead of allowing ourselves to be seen in all our messiness and vulnerability. Often, this comes from a deep fear of rejection or abandonment.
Maslow was Wrong
Understanding the importance of attachment needs has massive implications for people with developmental trauma, a type of complex trauma (CTPSD) that I work with a lot in my private practice.
When Guilt is Good
Those of us with complex trauma or developmental trauma from childhood may have crafted beliefs about ourselves, relationships, and the world from these experiences. We may have learned some version of, "I don't matter," "My needs don't matter," or "No one cares what I think."
Belonging and Self-Betrayal
When our sense of belonging is threatened, it's easier to give up our values and needs than risk abandonment. It's easier to sacrifice personal values and needs to remain connected, rather than face the terror of being cast out, alone.
The Fallacy of Catharsis
We assume that because our experience of trauma is intense, healing must be too. We’re easily seduced by the promise of catharsis, hoping that if we dive back into the pain, this time we can release its hold on us.
Creativity and Trauma Healing
When a stress response interrupts our creativity, the best thing to do is move through it. We can work with the nervous system to get to the other side. We don’t want to fight it, but rather find ways to complete the cycle and return to our center, where we feel safe and empowered to create.
What Most People Get Wrong about Boundaries
Shifting the responsibility for our boundaries onto other people keeps us from effectively using boundaries for our wellbeing. It’s no wonder that we end up in power struggles, trying valiantly to stand up for ourselves, only to feel frustrated, manipulated, or resentful of others.