The Election Trauma Response
My past few days have been filled with the same conversations many people are having. It doesn’t matter if you live in the United States. You were probably watching what was happening in America. Our elections have an impact on the world, and I’ll be honest, this one might have been the most significant so far (at least since I was born). I consider myself to be quite connected to my emotions, but I’m still working through my response to this. One thing is clear to me: almost everyone is having a trauma response right now. This is happening for two reasons. This current experience feels traumatic, and this is highly likely to bring up past experiences which were also traumatic.
That’s a big problem for us. When we respond to current events with the flashback emotions of past traumatic events, we can end up repeating patterns. As you know, these are not patterns we want to repeat. When we take actions fueled by flashback emotions, we are rarely able to make a change to the way we are interacting with the world. This is not what we want. When we address the flashback emotions and learn more about the memories driving them, we can take new actions and make the changes necessary to end the patterns. First, we must see them for what they are. We must recognize them as trauma responses. To help in that process, I developed a short list of responses which might be attributable to trauma.
If you are telling yourself this will have no impact on your life, it’s a trauma response. As children, we learned how to pretend things were okay when they weren’t. The controller developed very impressive skills at convincing self that things were fine in situations where it was not. We stopped seeing things clearly because we could no longer see the truth without falling into despair. This is a necessary childhood trauma response when we are trapped in trauma. We must lie to ourselves to survive. Without healing in adulthood, we will keep doing this, but it is no longer helpful. We need to start being honest about what impacts we might experience.
If you are telling yourself this is the end of all life (or yours), this is a trauma response. On the opposite side of our trauma responses is the intense and paralyzing fear that developed in our traumatic childhoods. Our fear kept us hypervigilant by always assuming the worst. This is also a controller pattern. We can exhibit both these responses at different times from the same controller. In certain circumstances, we will tend toward one response over the other. This is a very personal preference based on our traumatic experiences. Both extremes are trauma responses. The reality is in the balance between them which comes with healing.
If you believe a man is going to save you from some evil he says exists, this is a trauma response. People who say they will protect others are often looking to control others. The self-proclaimed savior is never going to save anyone. In order for someone to claim they can save us, they have to make sure we feel enough fear to crave saving. In childhood, this is how they get us to remain faithful to abusers. We start to see all relationships rife with unhealthy power dynamics as an opportunity to be saved. Unfortunately, this brings about more abuse. As adults, we need to stop believing the fear tactics so we can feel grounded enough to lead our own lives in authentic directions. We don’t need anyone to save us any longer. That’s a flashback.
If you can only see a person as entirely good despite evidence to the contrary, this is a trauma response. As children, we had to fool ourselves about people in addition to circumstances. While we knew our abusers were not safe, we also knew we had no choice. We refused to look at the bad. We would accentuate the positive in our abusers. We would rewrite the story and never EVER open our minds to anything that would challenge the story we told. Our love seeker learned to make them look like the most amazing person even when they clearly weren’t. This was necessary in childhood but is disastrous in adulthood. If you are putting anyone on a pedestal, you are susceptible to abusive practices, including cult-like experiences. Nobody is all good. It is critical to open our minds to the good and bad associated with others. Take them off the pedestal.
To break out of these patterns, we need to start with what we can control: expressing our emotions. Our intense emotions are mostly flashbacks and they need to be heard. As we listen to ourselves, we can release some of these flashback emotions. It will help us find a new inner balance and we will start connecting with new options we couldn’t see before. Try out some of these writing prompts if you are struggling with big emotions right now.
- Ungrounded anger will keep us from making strategic decisions and playing the long game. If you are angry, write from the rage which is naturally coming to the surface. Writing it in a letter to a particular person is a great approach when learning to rage write.
- Ungrounded futility will keep us paralyzed. If you are futile or feeling hopeless, write from the feeling that abusers always win. Like other emotions, futility can feel like it is entirely about now but keep looking for how it is about the past too.
- Ungrounded fear will keep us from setting our boundaries and protecting ourselves in healthy ways. If you are scared, write from the fears of what is to come. If it feels exaggerated to your adult brain or bordering on paranoia, still give it the space to express.
- Unprocessed shame will fuel the futility that paralyzes us and exacerbate our need for perfection. If you are feeling shame, write from any feeling of not being good enough to change your life or this world. It isn’t easy to hear from the shame, but it helps change our patterns.
- Unfelt grief will stop change from happening. It can also make us sick. If you are feeling sad, let the grief come. Let the feeling of what “could have been” express itself. Give yourself time to acknowledge the losses you feel.
Through emotional expression, we can find a way to bring balance to our inner world during this challenging and triggering time. We can find the next best step forward so we can change our patterns no matter what others are choosing. It can be difficult to live in a world which doesn’t support our own inner growth, but if we keep bringing it back to our inner conversation, we can find moments of peace when it feels impossible.
The Revolution Starts with Healing
I know that trauma is universal. It crosses all genders, races, ethnicities, religions, cultures, belief systems and even the political divide. While traumas are almost as diverse as the people on the planet, our trauma responses can be shockingly similar. My goal is to reach as many people as possible, so I keep my inner parts work focused on the web of the inner world. Honestly, that can be enough. It is enough to discuss the complexities of unraveling the web of traumatic beliefs and emotions within each of us. I don’t usually focus on our external differences because the inner parts work is enough.
That said, there is an important truth I have never been able to deny no matter how neutral I attempt to make my material. My audience is comprised of almost entirely women (easily 90%). I have thought about the reasons for this. Maybe it is simply the fact that I am a woman and I naturally speak from this perspective. Maybe it is the emotional nature of this work. I am not suggesting that men don’t have emotions, but women seem to be more inclined to connect with emotions voluntarily. The controller parts in men might stay stronger for longer. It also might be that women are just tired of living with the misogyny and double standards, meaning they are far more likely to embrace change. Whatever the reason, it’s the truth. The statistics don’t lie (at least not in this case). This blog will be mostly focused on a woman’s perspective in the world today.
I will also cross another uncomfortable line today. I am going to reference two powerful women as I discuss trauma patterns in our world today. I will not name them, but you will likely know them. Both women represent something you might not agree with, but to me, they are living their lives in a way that invites an onslaught of attacks from the people who are not willing to accept a different power dynamic. They will be my examples as I discuss a major problem with the world today, a problem which has contributed substantially to women’s trauma. For women, it is critical that we understand these patterns so we can’t break free of them in our daily lives. You may or may not believe these women deserve the power they have, but please stay with me as I highlight these patterns. They might show you the ways you have been held back by the world or by your own internalized misogyny.
That was quite the introduction, but it was needed. I am discussing one of the most important topics for women today. We are entering am unprecedented time where women can claim what should have always been theirs. On the most basic level, it is equality. On the most healing level, it is freedom. Many women are standing up and saying, “I am done being trapped in a world that purposefully limits my options to keep me in a role which makes others comfortable.” That said, the backlash is immense. The attempts to “put us back in our places” have been undeniably obvious. There are two women who have been receiving the brunt of this backlash. One is in entertainment. One is in politics. Today, I want to discuss the messages that are meant to destroy a woman seeking a powerful role in our world. From a trauma perspective, this is critical because we must excavate these beliefs from within our unconscious to be free. To do that, we must see this gaslighting for what it is. It is a trick to keep us small, and it will never serve us to jump on this bandwagon. Do you need to like these women? Nope. Do you need to consider how the backlash rhetoric is impacting your own life? Yep. If it’s happening to them, it is happening to you. I will share several examples of trickery which has been used against us for generations. Please hear me out.
She’s different from you. This is an attempt to pit women against each other and it has worked for a long time. Of course, women are different from each other. Humans are different. We all bring something to this world that is somewhat unique. Unfortunately, women’s jealousy, often stirred by this gaslighting, is not helping us seek our freedom. I have watched endless attempts in the media to pit female stars against each other. Sometimes it works, but more recently, I have seen women shutting down the stupid questions attempting to create a divide. I have seen a change in the way women are supporting women. I am loving what I’m seeing. We are good at providing support to men. Now, we need to provide it to each other.
She’s not following the rules. She’s stepping out of the role we expect her to have. What are the two most prized roles for women according to the powers-that-be? You know them: children and marriage. What are the two main reasons a woman can’t be a role model? She doesn’t have children. She is not married. Here’s the problem with this. It is much more difficult to compete for power positions when we are married and/or have children. They know this. We carry most of the emotional labor in our relationships. The more relationships we take on, the less energy we have to rise up to any purpose, let alone positions of power. Powerful women are often shamed for not marrying, marrying too early, marrying too late, having lots of partners, having children and not staying home, having children and staying home, not having children. You know this list. This shaming is meant to keep us disconnected from what we really want.
She’s not good enough. They won’t come right out and say this, but the criticism about qualifications and the questions about how she got to this point (many things implied) will be plethoric. There is absolutely a double standard behind these criticisms. The underlying message is clear. She is not good enough because she is a woman. That’s it. I don’t care how many PhD’s she has. The misogyny (and unfortunately internalized misogyny) is behind all this gaslighting. It is critical to fight the tendency within us to hold women to a higher standard. It is arbitrary and it is invented by those who do not want us to succeed.
She’s mentally unwell. This has been one of the most significant tricks used against women since the dawn of time. She’s emotional. She talks about emotions. She has emotional reactions. This means she can’t handle the pressure. This means she is mentally unwell. The trauma women experience is rarely a part of this conversation, but if it is, the focus is on how we need to handle it better. Male anger is not considered a problem. All emotions from women are a problem. This is meant to shut us down. If they don’t focus on our emotions, they will focus on our truth-telling. They will say we are mentally unwell to attack the credibility of our story. This is meant to keep us disconnected from our intuitive selves who know full well that something is drastically wrong with the world and the way we are being treated in it.
Depending on where you are in recovery (which can differ by the day), you might find this rhetoric triggers different reactions in you. It might bring up futility where you can’t see the point of the fight. It might trigger anger about the injustice of all of this gaslighting. It could trigger fear because the people claiming to have more power are stepping up to crush someone doing what “they are not supposed to do”. It can also trigger shame if the words hit a bit too close to home. You might even find yourself agreeing with it when your defenders are in charge. It can feel safer to agree with those in power. Women are the underdogs right now because men have established a system of structural, financial and emotional support for their continued place of power. That said, it is time for change. The real revolution can only happen through our healing. We have to release the gaslighting and internalized misogyny which keeps us stuck. This is our collective trauma. It is time for us to collectively change the story of what it means to be women in this world.
*As a part of my inner parts work, I discuss the importance of writing from our emotional responses. These are usually the opposite of positive intentions, but they help to release the traumatic emotions in our systems so we can create new patterns in our lives. If you are feeling an emotional response to the triggering rhetoric I have just discussed, here are some prompts you can try:
Karma Kid – There is no point. They will always win.
Freedom Fighters – I am sick and tired of their tricks.
Controller – Why can’t women just stay in their place and stop rocking the boat?
In Pursuit of Freedom
I’ve been struggling lately with what it means to be free. While we tend to put too much emphasis on those external steps, I know that freedom can only come from one thing. Freeing ourselves from dissociation is what makes us free. If we see things clearly and understand the truth about the people in our lives, good and bad, we can make the best decisions for our freedom. We don’t have to worry about what we don’t know. There’s a big problem with this plan. Most people don’t know they are dissociating. That’s the entire point. Dissociation is meant to defy our awareness. Another problem is we need safety to release our dissociative survival skills. When we don’t know what is unsafe because of our dissociation, it becomes very difficult to find safety.
While I logically recognize the way to freedom and I work hard to free myself every day, I am also watching my parts struggle with their own interpretations of freedom. I am retrieving memories of my failed attempts to find freedom in my young adulthood. I tried it all. I tried responsible approaches like doing well in school and graduating from high school and college with high marks. I am still proud of that because dissociation dramatically impacted my ability to focus. Not to mention, my mother was sabotaging my attempts every chance she could. I also tried to run. I got my driver’s license as soon as possible. I bought my first new car when I was only a sophomore in college. I worked jobs and socked away money as early as I could. I traveled. I studied abroad. I planned my escape with love interests (much less responsible), but no matter how hard I tried, I never really escaped her control or the pimps she hired to torture me. My external steps in my early adulthood never led to the freedom I was looking for.
The issue isn’t that I did these things. It was the intensity with which I did them. They were life or death to me. I felt that my independence was the only chance I had. My mother knew I felt that way, so she worked so hard to make everything incredibly difficult for me. I can see this playing out in my life today. I never thought raising two teenagers would be harder than raising two 3-year-olds. Maybe it isn’t, but I am struggling with the intensity of the anxiety I am experiencing as I watch my 17-year-olds take steps to launch themselves. My teens have led a substantially different life than I have. While they want to do things like college and work, they don’t have the urgency and intensity I felt. They aren’t trying to escape because they aren’t feeling unsafe. They are exploring their options and already seeing success. They are excited about those things, but they are not having panic attacks when obstacles show up.
I, on the other hand, am having panic attacks. These triggers are bringing up the old memories of my attempts to escape and the sabotage I faced from others. I am truly grateful that the memories are coming forward. I want the information. That said, I am having intense responses to normal high school challenges. My kids look at me like I have two heads because I am so invested in almost nothing. I will jump through the strangest of hoops. I take ridiculous steps to make things happen. I know my kids see my steps as supportive (although they will never admit it). It is support I never had and there is grief in that understanding. At the same time, I would rather not have a trauma response every time a recommendation letter doesn’t get sent on time or GPA is threatened by a bad test. The unconscious mantras of “you can’t escape” or “you’ll never be free” are clearly projected onto my children with every obstacle and it is exhausting. I am glad for my awareness, or it would be worse. I see other parents in a panic, and maybe they see it, but maybe they don’t. I just know I am ready for a bit more peace in my own life.
I am lucky. I know how to get there. It isn’t going to come from college acceptances and perfect SAT scores. We are taught to believe that our panic will end when the external circumstances end. Our controllers embrace this message and continue looking for the perfect life in the external world. I know better. I know if we don’t process those emotions, it just moves on to another problem, or the original problem never really resolves. I must listen to the parts who are still dying for freedom and the parts who say it is impossible. I need to release the need for freedom and detach the old flashback beliefs from the new situation. I have done this so many times. I have helped clients do this so many times. However, when we aren’t there yet, it can feel a million miles away.
I’ll keep writing. I’ll keep remembering horrible people and their actions. The moments of calm and peace around this launch will grow. One day, I will embody freedom in ways I never thought possible because it is possible. People have been attempting to control other people since human beings inhabited this Earth, but there is no foolproof way to rule another person. Our innate drive for freedom is too strong. When we bring the focus to our inner freedom and we put that first, we can finally find the peace we have always wanted.
The Best Decisions
I’ve been thinking about my parenting journey and the decisions I have made along the way. I know Mother’s Day is almost here, but it feels bigger than that. Maybe it’s the big life changes coming in the next year. My twins are completing their junior year of high school, and both have already been accepted into college programs. They are having discussions about their hopes and dreams for the future. It’s the looming reality of an empty nest, and for me, that nest is particularly empty. They are nearly 6 months away from that dreaded age of 18 when the rest of the world will see them as adults, and I will still see them as my kids. I have spent almost 18 years questioning my parenting decisions EVERY SINGLE DAY while facing many inner battles. Honestly, I haven’t been fair to myself.
Whatever the reason, I have been thinking about the choices I made and wanted to share them with you. I made hundreds of mistakes as a parent, but I want to focus on the good decisions I made today. I wanted to share them with you because many of my best choices felt wrong inside. They didn’t feel wrong intuitively because I wasn’t noticeably in touch with the touted mother’s intuition. If I was, it was just a quiet whisper amidst very loud, risk-averse inner parts. Most of my doubts came from the parts who wanted to fit in and look like everyone else. I want to share my best decisions with you today because they didn’t fit the societal mold. I want to open your eyes to the choices I am most proud of because they aren’t encouraged by society. I am aware that these choices won’t fit everyone’s life, but they made a huge difference for me and my children.
I chose to split from my husband. This is a lie. I know. I’m not starting off well, but I didn’t choose to split from my husband. He left me. That said, I didn’t fight it, and I made sure my children were safe from his pedophile parents with some particularly tricky language in our divorce decree (with the help from my lawyer of course). I knew he would walk away for good if I did this, but I knew he would probably walk away for good anyway. I didn’t fight for the marriage. I fought to keep my kids safe in the divorce. That was a choice. In my head, the inner parts were screaming. “How can you let him leave? How can you not even pretend to be a happy family? The kids will never have a normal life without two parents. You are ruining their lives. You will have a broken home. You will be a pariah in a sea of ‘functioning’ families.” I heard it all, but I made an unusual choice to put my children’s safety ahead of conventional “wisdom” about what’s good for children.
I chose to walk away from the “rebound” guy and stop dating. It wasn’t long after the marriage that I tried again. My love seeker was very active still. I believed in the fairy tale and would not give up despite my pattern of bad experiences. When things started to take a turn toward abusive behavior on his part, I made my second major decision for the sake of my kids. I realized that I had to heal to have good relationship patterns. I started to understand that I was never going to find a good person when I could not set the boundaries I had no clue how to set. I was repeating childhood because my behavior, beliefs and energy were bringing in the wrong men. I made a drastic decision to shut down the relationships until I could bring in the right men. My inner parts were loud about this one. “I could not raise these kids on my own. I would be stigmatized. There would be nobody to protect me. The kids must have a father. The kids will suffer in a single-parent household. They will never have a healthy relationship modeled for them.” I heard it all. It all felt so true. I had heard it all so many times before, but I also knew that my children were only going to see unhealthy relationships unless I took time to heal myself, so I shut down this part of my life. I shifted my energy to self and parenting which was the best decision I could have made.
I decided to write. I was completely alone raising two very young children (3 years old) and I was not the mother I wanted to be. I was angry. I was exhausted. My family wasn’t helping (other than to remind me of my bad choices). I had no outlet for my physical and emotional pain, so I opened a word document and started writing my story. Honestly, there wasn’t much to write at first. I didn’t remember most of it. I just kept writing whatever I knew, and new things started to show up. Big emotions started to surface. I let myself write anything and everything. I wrote all the feelings, no matter what they had to say. This came with so much resistance from my inner parts. “This is a waste of time. You have more important things to do. You should focus on your work. You need to stop naval gazing and get on with your life. The past is in the past. This isn’t helping. It is actually making things worse.” I heard it all. I even wrote it all. I kept writing anyway.
I decided to cut off most of my immediate family. Memories started to come back, and they were NOT GOOD. I started to understand why my choices in men had been so bad. It was what I knew. I realized that my kids could not be entirely safe as long as my family was in our lives. I didn’t have to cut off everyone in my immediate family. I just started to set boundaries and many of them walked away from me. That said, I did cut off my parents. Contrary to the ridiculous notion that walking away from parents is a flippant decision, I struggled. I held on to my mother too long. I know that now. I heard so much from my inner parts. “Your kids will never know their family. They will never have real family holidays. They will never know what it’s like to have a big family Thanksgiving or Christmas.” At times, it got more ominous. “You are in trouble now. They will get you. They will come after you. You will be punished.” I wrote from it, but I stood by my decision. Honestly, holidays were so much better.
I decided to quit my cushy corporate job and start my own life coaching business. There was not one person in my life who thought this was a good idea, including me. I was a single mother with no safety net (family) to fall back on. I had a good job with good benefits. What in the world was I thinking? I went back to school for an MSW with two small children (4 years old) and a full-time job. My inner parts went absolutely nuts. “You have lost your mind. This is impossible. You are never going to make money at this. You will be broke. Your children rely on you. You need to be responsible. You are NOT being responsible. You are going to die. You are going to run out of money. You are never going to make it. You are ruining your kids’ lives with this decision.” I heard it. I wrote from it. I wrote from it endlessly. It was so strong, I can still easily write from it more than 13 years later. That said, there is no better decision I have ever made … EVER.
I chose to move from Virginia to Florida. While I would never minimize the impact of a major pandemic, it may have saved my life. The isolation which came with Covid put things in perspective for me (and many other people I know). I started to see my surroundings in a new way. I was able to take in just how I was being influenced by the people in my life, many of whom had known my family and were likely communicating with them. I lived an hour from my parents, which was far too easy a drive. I knew I had to step it up a notch and completely start over. According to Taylor Swift’s latest album, there is one state where people go to redefine themselves. We decided to move to Florida during a pandemic. Again, there was not much support from people in my life. People were angry. They condescended to me about the choice. My inner parts were loud and condescending too. “What are you thinking? You don’t know anyone there. You have no reason to go there. You need to keep the kids here so they can have a stable life. You need to keep them with their friends. You aren’t going to be able to buy a house there. This is going to be a disaster.” I wrote from it. I talked to the kids, and they were excited to spend their high school years in Florida. We found a great house and an awesome high school. It’s been a great move for us.
I decided to put myself first. There is a lot of parenting advice out there which would disagree with this, but there are also plenty of memes which talk about “filling your cup first”. I had never put myself first, but I started to realize that my kids were watching me. They were going to model themselves around how much I embraced life and took care of myself. I started to make more choices for me. I stopped making every decision based on whether my kids would like it. After the Florida move, I realized I was usually wrong when I thought they wouldn’t like it. I brought a bit of fun back to my life, and I dragged my teenage kids with me (sometimes). My inner controller was not happy. “Don’t take your eye off the ball. You need to keep your focus on your work and maintaining your household and getting the kids through school. There is no time for fun. You can’t spend the evening doing what you want. You certainly can’t go do things by yourself.” I listened and I wrote from it, but I did things anyway. I am still working on this one. Maybe I always will. I’ve realized that nobody else in my life (other than my children) ever really cared about me, but that doesn’t stop me from caring about me. I can live the life I want. The more I love myself, the more I will bring that love into my space. It is enough to know that for now.
I’m proud of these choices. They were the most difficult choices I have made. These decisions have gone against the societal pressure around me and the inner pressure within me. To make these decisions, I had to trust myself on a deep level. I had to be committed to my authenticity. I had to dismiss the “advice” I was getting from everyone. These were not habits I developed in my abusive childhood. I share this so you might consider an intuitive choice you’ve been postponing. Try writing from your resistance so you can see it differently. Try considering how an uncommon decision might be the catalyst for a better life.
The Battles Continue
My system is at war right now. Is this more of a war than normal? It’s hard to know. Most of the time, we believe we are feeling the worst we’ve ever felt because we just can’t remember how bad we felt before. That’s also a defender trick to convince us that we aren’t getting better. That’s my long way of saying this war might be the worst, but it might not. Either way, my defenders are terrified. They believe I am going to die if I take any more steps toward visibility. I don’t invalidate their fears. I’ve had enough invalidation to last a lifetime. Even if something doesn’t feel so scary to my adult self, it was terrifying to my child self. Honestly, some of it feels pretty scary to both. Instead, I just write what they have to say, and I let them tell me the terrifying memories which taught them to carry so much fear.
Each time I get a memory back of my abusers in action, I am dumbfounded by the amount of energy that went into their intimidation tactics. It is utterly mind blowing to think about what would happen if the world’s abusers shifted their attention, time and energy to positive things. We would live on a completely different planet. Unfortunately, this is everywhere. People work hard to keep other people stuck. They are jealous. They are under contracts. They are completely unconscious about what they are doing. They are operating from their own young, traumatized inner parts. These are all reasons, but it doesn’t make any of it okay. They are doing horrible things. They are ruining lives.
For many years, they ruined mine, but I woke up. I am their worst nightmare. Nobody is supposed to wake up. Nobody is supposed to remember. People who abuse are reliant upon dissociation. This is why dissociation was not recognized as a real survival skill for such a long time. If people aren’t aware of dissociation, it makes it much harder to see it, and this makes it much harder to stop it. Many will spend their entire lives in a state of dissociation repeating their trauma patterns without realizing how to stop them. It is the most painful life, but it is also the most common life. Of course, the more intense our trauma, the more painful that life becomes. It lives on a continuum in that way.
My life was intensely painful before I discovered inner parts work, but my defenders were convinced it was better that way. Some of my defenders are still convinced it is better their way. No matter how many memories I recover, they still believe the next memories will be the end of me. So the battle continues. Each memory is a struggle. It’s exhausting, but I have learned the truth. The fear is not the truth. The people who did these things to me were hoping I would never figure that out. Could they still hurt me? Sure, but they can no longer rely on my dissociation. If they want to hurt me, they have to go up against my adult self. Let’s face it, most of my abusers are operating from their child selves. So it’s their child against my adult. I have far more power than before I started healing and far more power than them. Most importantly, I know who they are and so do others.
This changes the inner and outer landscape, but it doesn’t make my defenders feel better. I will continue fighting to express and reveal my truth to the world. I will continue putting these messages out there. Each time I sit down at the computer to write another truth, I will connect with the defenders and let them write. I will let them tell me why they think I cannot move forward. I will express from the fear-based beliefs they were given by others. I will respect and validate their views even if I am not in full agreement with the actions they want me to take. I know these beliefs come from a long history with very abusive people. I know my defenders were taught these things on purpose. It helps to know this when I work with them, but the big changes come with the expression of their fear.
You are going to be ruined for this. This is a core belief in my system. As a child, any time I attempted to do what I loved or connect with my authentic self, I was inundated with sabotage from the very people who were meant to love me unconditionally. It is not surprising that my defenders believe this pattern will continue. Honestly, until I went no-contact with my immediate family, there was plenty of sabotage in my adult life too.
You will be punished. In my childhood, there was punishment for almost everything I did. I had forgotten most of these punishments because they were horrendous. Sometimes, I was not directly punished, but the threats were so severe, I was terrified. My abusers made it clear they were willing to do anything, so even the worst threats were believable.
You aren’t allowed to do this. It didn’t really matter what I did. There was a concerted effort to make sure I never felt confident or accomplished in any way. My abusers particularly attacked me when I was exploring my gifts. It was unacceptable for me to be who I was meant to be. My abusers knew this had the power to reverse the impacts of my trauma through connection with self.
Stay small and stay alive. When I was a child, I was powerless. I didn’t have many options. I could freeze which didn’t stop the trauma from happening. I could please others which had about a 25% success rate. I could also hide. I discovered that staying small, even invisible, had the potential to protect me. If they were specifically targeting me, it didn’t work well, but staying out of the path of destruction was occasionally useful in trauma avoidance.
If you hear these messages, let them write. Give your defenders the chance to express their fears. As you do, it will feel like a battle. It will feel like there is no hope. It will feel like this is too difficult to continue. Rest when you need to but keep going when you can. Every step you take to reconnect with yourself is going to move your life forward, even if you can’t see the progress in the moment. This is how life comes back to us. This is how the abusers lose. We will win this war, one battle at a time.
Back to the Blog Too
As a survivor of trauma, there is nothing more unnerving and disorienting than the process of recovering memories of traumatic events. I despise the unknown. It is difficult to acknowledge there are aspects of my own life of which I have no awareness. It’s scary. It means I am vulnerable because I don’t have all the information. This isn’t just something my scared inner parts have made up. It’s the truth. Dissociation is a beautiful survival skill which keeps us alive in childhood, but in our adult lives, it makes us highly vulnerable to repeated patterns and future attacks. I have learned this the hard way. I have learned that I cannot fully protect myself while there is important information not available to my conscious mind. This understanding has made me deeply committed to the memory recovery process. I am committed to remembering everything I need to be fully informed about the people who hurt me, the way they hurt me and how they might try to hurt me again. In the end, this gives me an advantage over many of my abusers because they often don’t have the memories of what they did to me. I am ahead of the game. I have an edge. I know the truth and they don’t (not that they would admit it if they did).
One of the primary catalysts to the memory recovery process is establishing safety in our present lives. This is not easily done when we are brainwashed to stay in our traumatic patterns. Our choices in life will reflect this. Our inner parts are compelled to repeat patterns to resolve the original trauma, but this keeps our lives in chaos and avoids healing. When I moved to Florida, I thought it was a new beginning, and it was, but I have learned things tend to get a bit tumultuous when we first establish safety on a new level. For the past three years, I have recovered the hardest memories of all. You might be surprised to hear what I will say next. The hardest memories to recover are the memories from our adult lives. The more recent a memory is, the more our defenders fight against it. Adult memories are the most unnerving of all the memories.
We like to think we are in control of our adult lives. The controller certainly wants us to believe it. The controller loves to tell us that we are living our best lives under their control, but it is often a dissociative and denial-based story. In my Back to the Blog post from last year, I said my abusers ran for the hills when I started my blog. That is true to some degree. They may not have shown their faces. That’s not the whole story though. That was the controller story. They were using other people to get to me. They were creating havoc in my life and even my children’s lives in some ways. They were using flying monkeys and attacks on my credibility to make my life extremely difficult. They wanted me to shut up and they threatened me in many ways to stop my blog. At the time, I did not stop my blog. I knew it was the right thing to do. At the same time, I had to remove almost everyone from my life to avoid further abuse. Eventually, I had to leave the state altogether. This is hard stuff to acknowledge. I was deep in recovery, and I was still forgetting important things. I hate that. I could not use the full power of my adult self to protect us because I was dissociating. That’s infuriating.
In retrieving these memories, it has put a hold on my blog. I hate that too. I have been processing tremendous fear from my inner parts, and it stopped me from any significantly visible activities in my business. I’m going to come back with a vengeance. I don’t know how long that will take. I said in my Back to the Blog post, “Maybe I’m back.” That’s still where I am with things. However, my unconscious is less resistant every day. I am writing this blog, so that’s always a good sign. My adult self now knows names and circumstances. My inner defenders think that makes me less safe, but I know better. That makes me much safer. The attacks on my credibility don’t have to go unanswered. I don’t have to be their victim any longer. My unconscious no longer internalizes their contracts and restrictions on how I live my life. I can tell my story more fully.
Is this the “end” of my recovery story? Of course not. The controller would like to say it is. The idea of a nice, neat end date is one of their favorite stories, but I know better. I don’t know what’s to come. That’s frustrating. I want everything to be safe and clear, but I have learned the more uncertainty I can handle, the better life can be. I will be more open to hearing the truth. The truth is where our power lies. I am heading toward my power. My abusers are not powerful. They are the least powerful people on this planet. I may have been quiet, but I’m not going away. I won’t vanish. I will keep showing up. I will keep telling the truth. That’s what I am here to do.
Where Does Shame Come From?
There is nothing more emotionally devastating than the weight shame has on our lives. The desperation of hiding our shame fuels most of our controller’s behaviors keeping us from our rest and inner peace. Shame drives much of our futility which keeps us stuck and spinning on our most purposeful goals. Shame encourages our worst fears to spin around in our minds repeatedly as we wait for bad things to happen, things we unconsciously believe we deserve. Shame has a devastating impact on our lives, but when we start to dig deep to the source of the shame, we can make the realization that it holds no credibility. Shame is simply a bunch of lies. Through our traumatic experiences, it has gained a tremendous hold on our lives despite our deep desire to shine. In our healing journey, our goal is to break that hold by understanding where the shame started.
Projection. The most prominent reason shame exists is projection. The same lies have been told through generations within our families to squelch our gifts and dampen our dreams. These shame messages were developed to protect us from the rejection, exile and even death associated with a lack of acceptance in society. As a family, shaming ourselves became the lesser of the evils in our attempts to stay alive. These messages were ingrained in our unconscious and used to internally suppress purposeful potential, but the unconscious messages were also projected onto the next generation. If the shame messages were suppressing our inner children, those same messages would suppress our external children too. We would have been told anything to stop us from exploring who we are. “Our talents are unnecessary. Our gifts are dangerous. Our emotional expression causes problems. Our goals are unrealistic. Our plans are ridiculous. Something is inherently wrong with us.” There was never anything wrong with us though. It is a bunch of lies created to avoid rejection many years (or even centuries) ago. Shame projection from one generation to the next is a major reason we struggle to move forward in the world. We are all stuck conforming to old threats, rules and laws which no longer apply.
The Evidence. Once we believe the shame, we start collecting the evidence. At first, it is the messages from the family on repeat. Soon, we start to look for that evidence in our other relationships with teachers, bosses, friends and partners. Once we believe the shame, our actions will reflect those beliefs so we can recreate what we believe to be true. If we have an experience which does not support the shamed beliefs, we will reject it as a fluke or a lie. Why do we stick to our shame beliefs so closely? If we don’t, we will have to grieve. We will have to grieve the time lost in those beliefs. We will have to grieve the false stories about how we were treated. We will have to face the reality that we didn’t have the control we thought we had. Believe it or not, in childhood, the shame kept us from falling into total despair. If we believed it was our fault, we could believe there was something we could do about it. Recognizing how we were not in control means facing the reality. Facing the reality means grief.
Contracts. Most of our beliefs come from contracts with our abusers. I am not suggesting that contracts are signed pieces of paper (although they can be). They are more like deals we make with others. As children in traumatic households, those deals are never fair. At the foundational level, they will attack our ability to be authentic. There will be contracts about speaking our truth, expressing how we feel, exploring our gifts, even how successful we are allowed to be. These contracts will be held in place with shame. We will be blamed for something we didn’t do so it can be held against us. We will be to be “saved” by someone so we feel like we owe them forever. We will be forced to do something awful so it can be used against us too. These shame-based contracts are highly effective. It can take years of healing work to realize how our inner parts are holding on to the shame-based lies and the futility of those contracts. It can be done though, and it will positively impact generations to come.
Fear of Punishment. Our shame-based contracts also trigger a deep fear of punishment. If we are inherently bad, the universe and its people are not on our side. This is often proven to us during a difficult childhood as we are collecting our evidence. Our inner parts, especially the karma kid who holds the contracts, will be deeply afraid of the punishment of breaking through the lies and the contracts they support. They will correlate unrelated and unfortunate events to our attempts to be more authentic. They might see a flat tire or a bad grade as a punishment for who we are. If someone rejects us, it is a punishment. If we struggle financially, it is a punishment. This belief creates a strong reaction to life’s difficulties. This keeps us stuck in the half-life our unconscious trauma encourages.
How do we break free of these lies of shame? I promise it is possible. We must see how our systems have been brainwashed. When we see ourselves stopping short of what we want, these are the gateway moments to our shame lies. The most important thing we can do is shine a light on what lives in the unconscious. Talk about it with others. Write down the lies in first person. I call this resistance writing. Repeating this writing helps us release the lies and move forward. Prepare for the backlash whenever you break a pattern or cycle or set a boundary. The backlash comes from the fear of punishment. Inner defenders are terrified of what you will face if you keep empowering yourself. When it comes, write from the backlash. If we expect it, it doesn’t take us down in the same way. Keep reminding yourself that our most important steps in life will come with resistance. Contrary to mainstream beliefs, our purpose is not easy. It is where we will face the most inner resistance. Keep going and surround yourself with people who do not believe the lies either (not likely to be family). You can change your patterns for good. The truth will in fact, set you free.
Back to the Blog
When I started my blog, I was excited to have my voice heard. I felt like I had found my platform to say what I needed to say. I had finally found a way to get past the obstacles to put my story out there. At the same time, I was nervous. After I posted my first blog, I was paranoid about the fallout. I was sure someone was going to come and take me out. I spent weeks in fear about the consequences of my actions. I felt it was only a matter of time before they would stop me permanently. My abusers had always threatened a swift and violent response to any of my attempts to speak the truth. My silence was my only guarantee of survival. My inner defenders were sure of it.
In the end, that didn’t happen. My abusers ran for the hills. They sent a few disguised emails from phony people. They tried to attack me on Facebook with fake profiles. I knew it was them. I think we always know it’s them. It just sounds too familiar. I clapped back and started to gain some confidence in my fight against them. Confidence is the one thing they never wanted me to have. It is the ultimate rebellion to be confident. I loved writing my blogs. It came naturally to me. I am not saying I am the best writer to come around, but I realized I wasn’t terrible at putting down 750 to 1000 words which fit together into a somewhat cohesive and helpful message. I had a friend ask me how I did that. I didn’t understand the question. I just write and then I finish writing. That’s when it occurred to me this was probably a gift. It didn’t come naturally to others.
For these reasons, I stayed committed to my blog even as it became a part of a bigger purpose. As my coaching business developed, I created other programs from workshops to Survivor’s Guide, but the blog was like my favorite child (other than the twins of course). It always felt like such a relief to get those words out on the internet. I knew more people could access the blog than anything else I offered, and I loved that. To be honest, it healed me too. You will not be surprised to hear that I believe written words are healing. Even my controller started to jump on board but with a business focus of course. “I will stay consistent. The key is consistency. I won’t let them down. I will never fail to deliver.” It was a bit like the postal service slogan running through my head every Wednesday. With that level of propaganda coming from the controller, I should have known what was to come, but the unconscious is funny like that. We don’t see it until we see it, and that’s usually after it has knocked us down.
Two years ago, I moved. Honestly, I never thought there would be a big impact to my business. I work from home. I can work from anywhere. I thought the biggest obstacle would be finding my kids’ school. I was wrong. There was a bigger problem. I moved into a beautiful house on a stunning lake with the most amazing wildlife. I bought décor items I liked for the first time. I found the best school for my kids. Not to mention, I was now many states away from my mother. You might be thinking this doesn’t sound like a problem. I thought so too. To my unconscious inner parts, this was a huge problem. I broke 15 contracts at one time. I had done everything my mother warned me not to do. I had taken my life back on such a massive scale and that meant only one thing. My inner backlash would be just as massive.
For two years, I have dealt with intense inner turmoil regarding these inner contracts. I had broken them and they would be released, but the process was incredibly difficult. My karma kids, my contract-abiding parts, went on a full attack. The futility, fear and shame were intense. I heard the shame, and I expressed it as often as I could. “I was not deserving of this house. I was not deserving of the inner quiet and calm it could provide. I was not deserving of the amazing school my kids had been accepted to. I was not deserving of this new life I had created.” It had been something I had dreamed of since I was a little girl. It had consumed me at times, but it was not allowed.
Futility is a defensive emotion, but it is also a protective emotion. It tells us there is no point, but it has a very good reason for it. The karma kid believes breaking the contracts is far worse than ruining a life. They will choose the later every single time. I had done the unthinkable. I had attempted to “have it all”. Now, the fall had to be massive. I had to experience a collapse of everything I just built or I would not survive. The contract had to hold. Total sabotage was the only way. Paralysis was the only way. Taking the productivity to minimal levels and making a bunch of questionable financial decisions should have been enough. In many cases, it would have worked, but I was watching the karma kid. I saw it coming and I was ready. The crash didn’t come, but I had to use tons of duct tape to hold things together this last two years.
The fear is a core emotion, and it can devastate us on so many levels. It says, “Don’t put yourself out there.” It says we better hide away and avoid visibility. It says we are in too much trouble to continue to embrace life. You might not be surprised to hear this isn’t good for an entrepreneurial endeavor. Visibility is key. While some visible offerings remained intact (and I still don’t fully understand why), others were burned to the ground as the fear blocked my efforts to the contrary. Consistency went out the window. I became the unreliable blogger my controller had always judged in others. In case you were wondering, that is the point of this blog. There are thousands of coaches and trainers out there talking about the power of our will. I don’t doubt this power one bit. It is always a player in the success of our ventures, but there is something far more important when it comes to our growth as humans.
I could have stayed enmeshed with my controller and pushed my consistent blog. That would have meant staying in Virginia. My controller didn’t see the point in moving. They are too practical. It would have meant staying within a stone’s throw of my horrific mother. While distance from abusers doesn’t solve everything, it does allow for more awareness. I could not see the way she was still involved in my life until I left. So many chains would have remained if I had stayed, but I would have been free enough to write a pretty good blog probably. I would have remained driven by will because I would not have challenged those contracts and released the backlash of emotions. I would have continued to shove all the trauma beneath the surface in the unconscious. I would have been able to move forward to a point. Willpower is a controller job, and it works to a point. After that point, we must step into the emotional blocks. If we don’t, we may have some successes. To others, they might even look like big successes, but they are limited by what we don’t process. We might remain consistent for a while, but the emotions show up in some way eventually.
I have learned that the emotional, grounded, non-controller journey is not always a consistent journey. It is unpredictable and takes patience I didn’t think I had. I have been sitting here staring at my pile of ideas for two years now, and I’ve been angry about it. Sometimes, I’ve been a bit of a toddler about it, but whatever. I also knew from previous experience that it would shift at some point. That’s the only thing that kept me going through the muck of these emotions and the memories driving them: hundreds of traumatic memories. I can now see a crack in the wall, a part in the clouds. I am writing again on a huge scale for me. I am writing better than I have in the past. I am more connected to my creativity. All that said, I won’t promise you consistency on my blog. I can promise you I’ll never give up. That is a promise I am willing to make.
Thank you for standing by me all this time. Maybe I’m back.
The Wisdom of Isolation
As people grow cautiously optimistic about returning to some semblance of social interaction, many of us may be more concerned than we are divulging. We may be feeling a bit more comfortable with our aloneness. We may have grown accustomed to a slower pace. We may have even liked the idea that we had an automatic boundary when it came to the toxic people that never seem to go away. Opening our lives back up to others might be feeling a bit ominous. How long before we are losing ourselves to the preferences of others? How much time will it take to be totally burned out from requests we can’t turn down? How do we make sure the simple and quiet still have a place in our lives?
If you are feeling like that, you are not alone. You are likely sensing an inner part I refer to as the isolator. We all have the isolator. This inner part develops from experiences of relational trauma. We may have experienced betrayal, manipulation, abandonment or rejection. But it would have left us with an isolator who is sick and tired of the pain caused by other people. The isolator is most interested in living an authentic life. As a part of their ungrounded survival skills, they have learned that other people are generally not conducive to our most authentic life. To some degree, this is true. With others come opinions, pressure, boundary-invasions and even more abuse. These things will trigger our other survival skills which push us toward erasing self. Let’s talk about some of the reasons the isolator loves to keep a distance from others and why they might be a bit nervous right now.
Childhood taught us we had no control over our lives. We learned in childhood that our attempts to stand up for ourselves would be met with horrific results. Asserting our needs and desires could have invited insults, invalidation, humiliation or even violence. We put our needs on the back burner in an attempt to keep the peace and find the approval we needed for survival. But in the process, we completely lost ourselves. Our controller, karma kid and love seeker (the trifecta) came out and ruled our decisions. All authentic parts of self were locked away. When we reached adulthood, we were lost. We were completely at the whim of everyone around us. If we wanted alone time, it depended on how many people asked for our time. If we wanted to rest, it depended on the needs of others around us. If we wanted to eat our favorite dinner, it depended on what others wanted to eat. We had no boundaries. After enough of this torture, the isolator steps forward so we can explore our own authentic selves. The isolation of this pandemic has provided opportunity for that. And the isolator isn’t so sure about letting that go.
Childhood taught us our family of origin would always control us. One of the biggest themes in our abusive family relationships is control. Abusive families rely on their ability to control their children, even after they have become adults. The forms of control can run the spectrum from extremely covert to obviously overt, but we are always taught to see them as normal or to blame ourselves. Once we reach adulthood, the control continues. While it doesn’t necessarily require physical access to us, proximity does help. The control can be almost anything. It can be financial control. It can be guilt. It can be threats. The family can even use our own adult partners to continue controlling us. There is also the possibility of access words, phrases or codes. I know that may sound like something out of a Marvel movie, but I promise you, this is far more common than we want to believe (and pretty easy to set up in children). The isolator is aware of all of these tactics and loves the time away from controlling people. The pandemic has provided a breakaway opportunity and the isolator is afraid to lose all that gained ground.
Childhood taught us we needed others for protection. Abusers want us to internalize the message that we need others. In childhood, this is true. We do need others to make sure we are fed, clothed and housed. But the message doesn’t stop there. The message might become about our ineptitude at living in the world, our inability to survive financially or our need to be physically protected by others. Unfortunately, this doesn’t bring the best people into our space. If we are connecting with others because we need security, there is an issue with the power dynamic. The other person might not be safe for us. The isolator knows these beliefs aren’t true and deeply wants us to find our own way in the world. The pandemic has made it harder for us to seek these people out for protection and safety. And the isolator is fine with that.
Use this time of transition as an opportunity to take a step back. Was this isolated time all bad? Or did you learn a little bit along the way about who you are and what you want? If you did, look for ways you can protect those authentic finds. Don’t let the crowded world around you come in and erase all the gains of your isolation. Yes. Isolation periods always have gains. You deserve to keep your connection with self. You deserve to make choices for you. You deserve boundaries. And you deserve safety. Take your time in diving back in. That doesn’t make you weird or unusual even if others say it. You are simply protecting yourself in a sea of self-interests. The world needs the real you.
Solving the Anxiety Mystery
Anxiety is one of the most common responses to trauma. Unfortunately, it is not widely recognized as a trauma related. It is not always recognized in our systems because there can be many diverse symptoms. And most symptoms can be seen as other physical and psychological issues. Even when we do recognize our anxiety, we are often at a loss for how to address it. It feels impossible to understand and alleviate. When anxiety gets bad, it can feel like medication is the only option we have. But we have other choices too. There are ways to understand anxiety and the messages it is trying to send. Over these years in recovery, I have learned some of the messages behind my own anxiety. Maybe they will help you shift your anxiety too. So let’s look at what is happening when anxiety takes hold.
Our inner parts are fighting with each other. At the most basic level, anxiety is here to tell us that we have a disagreement in our system of inner parts. It is very normal for us to hold two dissonant views about a topic or situation. It is one of the reasons we develop inner parts in the first place. When we are children, we cannot resolve the confusion about what is happening, so we create two parts with two extreme views. Both are too extreme, but it helps us get through the trauma we cannot process yet. As adults, these parts are triggered in familiar situations and they start to fight. This creates anxiety. So when anxiety is present, look for the messages our parts are trying to scream over each other as they work to suppress the opposite view. If you can hear one clearly, the opposite view is not far away.
We are doing something that goes against our defenders’ attempts to keep us safe. We often hear that fear is our intuitive understanding that something is not safe. We are taught that our fear should work as a stop sign. But in reality, fear is often not tied to our intuition at all. Our intuition is pretty fearless. The fear often shows up as resistance to the thing we should be doing. And that fear often manifests as anxiety. When we feel anxiety, it is a good idea to connect with and write from what the fear says. “I will get in trouble.” “I am not allowed.” “Bad things will happen if I try that.” “I am not good enough for that.” When we write from it, we can recognize it as traumatic fear. We can see how it may be operating under childhood rules that need not apply anymore.
We are suppressing an emotion. One of the most common manifestations of anxiety is the suppression of emotion. Anxiety is often an attempt to block our anger with the fear of our anger. But it can work with almost any emotion. Anger just tends to pack the biggest anxiety punch. When it comes to suppression of emotion, there is almost always a controller involved. So it can be helpful to write from messages about the dangers in emotional expression. “This emotion will overwhelm the system.” “I will never be normal again if I let this through.” “I will lose all my productivity if I feel this.” “I don’t have time to feel this.” These are important messages to write from when the anxiety gets intense.
We are about to step into a new understanding. Anxiety can also mean our inner world is going through a significant shift. Maybe an inner part is adjusting their position in the inner parts system. Maybe an inner part is changing the way they see the world around them. Maybe a new memory is coming to the surface which will change how we interact with other people. There are many fears associated with these changes. The unknown is a scary place to our defenders. They don’t have the faith that things can work out because they spent most of their time living in a world where things never did work out. Internal and external change will be terrifying for them. Writing from messages about their fears can help. “Why can’t things just stay the way they are?” “There is nothing wrong with what I have always done.” “I am fine. Why do I need to change?” Let those fears come to the surface in your writing.
Listen in to what your anxiety has to say. It doesn’t have to be a nebulous cloud of dysfunction with no solution. There are reasons your anxiety is stepping forward. There is purpose behind its seemingly random appearances. Your awareness of your inner parts and their interactions can help you find the answers. As you connect with the messages, you can start to move it out and stop the paralysis along with other symptoms the anxiety brings on. Start by asking, “Why are you here?” Write the answers. Open up the conversation with yourself. You can get the answers you are looking for. Believe it or not, you already have them.
