Good news shouldn’t come with dread, but for a lot of people with CPTSD, it does. This post breaks down why the nervous system learns to treat happiness as a warning sign, and what it actually takes to let good things land.
Why Good Things Make You Anxious (When You Have Complex Trauma) Read More »
It’s not the shaking hands or the racing heart before a party. It’s the three drafts of a text message before you send the one that sounds “normal enough.” It’s rehearsing how to order coffee. It’s replaying a five-second interaction from Tuesday while you’re trying to fall asleep on Thursday.
Social anxiety doesn’t always look like avoidance. Sometimes it looks like the person who shows up, laughs at the right moments, asks good questions, and leaves the room feeling like they’ve just run a marathon nobody else could see. The performance is so smooth that even the people closest to you assume it costs nothing. That’s the part nobody tells you: the version of social anxiety that gets missed is the one that’s working hardest to be missed.
What Social Anxiety Actually Looks Like (The Invisible Version) Read More »
Discover 30 CPTSD journal prompts for every stage of healing, from grounding and self-compassion to emotional release, inner child work, and post-traumatic growth.
30 CPTSD Journal Prompts for Every Stage of Healing Read More »
If you want to start journaling for CPTSD but keep putting it off, or you’ve tried and found the blank page harder than expected, that’s not avoidance. It’s your nervous system being careful. Journaling for complex trauma works differently from regular journaling. The approach and containment matter as much as the practice itself. Starting with trauma journaling for beginners means starting small, structured, and on the surface. That’s how it actually helps.
Journaling for CPTSD: Where to Start Read More »
Why do good things make you anxious when you have complex trauma? Learn how CPTSD, nervous system responses, and fear of positive experiences can be connected.
Why Good Things Make You Anxious (When You Have Complex Trauma) Read More »
What does a bad mental health day with complex trauma actually feel like? Explore the signs of a CPTSD bad day, why your nervous system responds this way, and what can help.
What a Bad Mental Health Day Actually Looks Like With Complex Trauma Read More »
The inner critic in CPTSD is not a personality flaw or a sign of low self-esteem. It is a voice that was installed from the outside, usually in childhood and by people who had power over you, and gradually became so familiar that it started sounding like your own thoughts. The first step to changing your relationship with it is realising it was never yours to begin with.
The Inner Critic in CPTSD Isn’t Your Voice (Here’s Whose It Actually Is) Read More »
A trauma trigger isn’t an overreaction. It’s your nervous system pattern-matching to something from your past, often before you’re even aware it’s happening. Here’s what’s actually going on, why CPTSD triggers are so much harder to predict than single-event trauma, and what genuinely helps.
What CPTSD Triggers Actually Are (And Why Yours Make Complete Sense) Read More »
For years, the exhaustion made no sense. Nothing had happened. The day was fine. And yet coming home felt like putting down something you’d been carrying for hours without realizing it.
I asked “what is wrong with me” more times than I can count, until I finally got an answer that actually fit. Hypervigilance. And then — more importantly — I understood why.
If any of this sounds familiar, I hope this post is the answer to “what is wrong with me” that you’ve been looking for.
Your Nervous System Is Not Broken (It’s Responding to What It Learned) Read More »
