Here's a short video about this core symptom of complex trauma. You'll find more videos on Crappy Childhood Fairy YouTube channel, and more than 100 articles, courses and coaching on my website .

Childhood PTSD is, in its essence, an injury to our ability to connect with other people. You may have sensed the injury, but you likely considered it a personal failing. You saw other people easily connecting, and you thought your difficulties were because you were doing something wrong. We now know that abuse and neglect in childhood can literally change your brain and restrict the normal cognitive processes that enable you to seek out and connect with good, appropriate people to bring...

There’s one kind of romantic relationship that I wouldn’t wish on anyone — and that’s the kind that’s been made intense by a trauma bond. This another name for dynamic also known as “intermittent reinforcement, where one person gives intense affection and approval to the other person, and then alternates it with neglect, disapproval, abandonment or even abuse. You would think this kind of emotional on/off torture — blowing hot and then cold to the point of cruelty — would it drive away...

I t is sadly very common that people who grew up neglected and abused by their parents end up either alone or cycling through one life-damaging relationship after another. The terrible irony is that when you need love the most, Complex PTSD can keep you locked out of it. You can try hard, you can read books, go to therapy, make promises to yourself and hold high standards for yourself. But you'll keep finding that you’ve yet again gotten yourself attached to someone who can't be a good...

There is something unfair that happens when you’ve survived traumatic times. Even when the abuse wasn’t in any way your fault, people stop trusting you. You get abused and they don’t trust you. And you might think this is just because they were horrible people who don’t understand — and sometimes they don’t… But when you look a little deeper, there are some very real signals you might be sending. Living through trauma has a way of leaving scars on you that influence your perception, and they...

If you were hurt by trauma when you were a kid, you’re already painfully aware of how the old hurts, and fears, and triggers come back to haunt you, right when you’re trying to take a big step up on your career. And it’s not that you’re not smart enough or capable enough. It’s the trauma injury inside. It can rise up sometimes and make you say the wrong thing, or lose your focus, or get overwhelmed and take yourself out of the running for an opportunity you really wanted. Has this ever...

If you had trauma when you were little, I’m going to guess that you’ve made some really bad decisions in your life… strange self-sabotaging decisions about relationships, jobs, or the way you express yourself when you’re angry. And you know you’re doing something that’s not right because the people around you are giving you that concerned, judgy face. Do you know that face I’m talking about? But because of that agitation inside from past trauma, you can’t see in the moment that you’re making...

If you're ever going to heal from childhood trauma, to become happy, connected, and doing work you love, you'll need to get out of brain fog. Brain fog is common for people who grew up with abuse and neglect. It's a feeling of fuzzy-headedness where you can't hold a thought or focus. It's almost as if your memory isn't working properly, or you’re sleepy and out of it. It can feel like there's a membrane between you and the world. It may not seem like it, but brain fog is one of the worst...

If you look around all the friends and partners you’ve let into your life, and discover that there’s a high proportion of trainwrecks and jerks, guess what? Your red flag detector is broken. It’s broken! It’s supposed to be warning you when bad people try to walk into your life (this goes for bosses and jobs too). You’re supposed to get a bad feeling, a sense of aversion to people and situations that are going to hurt you! What shuts down that crucial function is abuse and neglect in your...

If your life feels empty and lonely, despite the fact that you do all the things that are supposed to fill up your life, you might be a “covert avoider.” You might have a good career, you’re friendly, you’re interesting, there are people in your life -- but if you feel like nothing is connecting it’s all superficial and not giving you happiness -- It’s time to ask yourself if you’re secretly avoiding your own life. Avoidance is really normal for people who had trauma when they were kids. If...

First, the bad news: You can’t MAKE a person with complex PTSD change.. You can’t make them heal. You can’t make them learn about the adult effects of abuse and neglect in childhood, and you can’t even make them admit there’s a problem. But the good news is there are things you can do to help a loved one accomplish all these things themselves -- without being controlling or judgmental (those tend to produce resistance in people with CPTSD, which you’ve probably noticed!). I’m going to give...

One of the biggest reasons why people who grew up with trauma struggle to maintain good relationships, is because of our own behaviors that push people away. I teach a lot about triggers -- the way people and experiences can dysregulate us and throw us off -- neurologically, physically, emotionally. Triggers are key, but what’s also important are the ways we act when we’re feeling triggered -- or when we’re triggered and don’t even realize it -- and we end up hurting or alienating other...

Some people don’t want you to heal from your childhood trauma. You’ve probably noticed this. While there are all kinds of great people out there working for solutions and supporting people who want recover from the effects of abuse and neglect, there are are also some who want you -- who think they need you -- to stay damaged and a victim forever. I want to help you armor yourself against discouragers, naysayers and slayers who see your progress, who learn about efforts you’re making to...

Lately, a lot of people who grew up with childhood trauma are going “no contact” with their families and loved ones. I hear people talking about it with relief and sometimes a sense of accomplishment. For many people, the abuse was egregious and may be ongoing; in these cases, walking away for good may be necessary and courageous. For others, going no-contact is an emergency form of self-protection that, over time, may not need to be permanent. So I want to share with you ten tips to protect...

For people who were abused and neglected in childhood, one of the cruelest ways the damage shows up is in romantic relationships. Too many of us go through life either alone, or in relationships where we’re not loved, not safe, and not happy. It doesn’t have to be that way. If you have Childhood PTSD and you’re wondering why you keep attracting people who are either dysfunctional, unavailable or abusive -- you’re going to want to read this... READ FULL BLOG POST or.. WATCH THE VIDEO ON...

There has never been a time when thinking clearly, and thinking for yourself, have been more important than they are right now. With Childhood PTSD, it’s all too common that we end up losing ourselves around other people -- especially people with strong personalities and strong opinions. It’s OK that people have strong opinions. But with us, We get around that and we often feel we have to go along with those opinions, or we go silent, even when we disagree, or we lose track of what we...

Why do SO few people make real progress recovering from the long term effects of childhood trauma? If you ask me, it’s because of the misguided belief that telling the story of what happened in the past -- if we just probe the memories enough and generate enough emotions around those memories -- will somehow make everything better. And now this belief in “the story” dominates the kind of help you can get when you ask for help, and it dominates decisions about what health insurance will...

When you have Childhood PTSD, there is nothing worse than being in some crucial conversation or some big moment, and some little thing triggers you. And even though you know it’s not worth getting upset about, it happens anyway. It’s like you can feel it spreading through your body -- the feeling of adrenaline and dyscombobulation, feeling numb (perhaps) in your hands or your face, or having trouble expressing your thoughts. Or you might feel flooded with emotion like panic or rage... have...

When the world around you becomes unstable, there are two basic energies you can adopt. For those who went through trauma as a child, it’s hard to avoid getting stuck in one of them: Self-protection. As much as we need safety, inside and out -- we also need growth. If you have Childhood PTSD and you always favor self-protection, then times of crisis like we’re going through right now are likely to make your symptoms worse and worse. So what can you do to stop this? As I’m writing this, we’re...

If you’re feeling like the people YOU like, don’t like YOU -- and you don’t know why -- the first thing you want to look at is whether you are people-pleasing. People-pleasing is the act of changing yourself to make people like you -- trying to match their interests and values, flattering them, and hiding how you really think and feel in hopes that they’ll let you in, and keep you in their lives. People-pleasing is really common for people who were abused and neglected in childhood. It’s...

I don’t know why you’re not allowed to say this, but I will: Talking about the trauma that happened to you as a kid will not, by itself, heal Childhood PTSD. In fact, for a lot of us, talking about it, exploring it and processing it (the approach in traditional therapy) can make healing from trauma even harder. Do you relate to this at all? As someone who spent the first thirty-plus years of my life struggling with the effects of a hard childhood, I want to impress on you that the solution...

I read a short story last week that was about emptiness and love. That funny thing that happens sometimes, happened, and three different people wrote to me within about 24 hours about… emptiness and love. They were feeling -- and I think a lot of us are feeling it -- a harsh, empty, loveless feeling that keeps swooping into their consciousness during this quarantined period, sounding the alarm that something HUGE is missing from our lives. One woman even said “I know you’ll think I’m crazy...

One hard thing about my work is — I get hate mail sometimes. Maybe you do too — or you just get exposed to other people’s hurtful messages, and feel “punched in the gut” or outraged when you’re just going about your business reading articles online or scrolling through your social media feed — in a pandemic! But there is a miracle going on of people rising up and helping each other and taking risks and doing everything they can think to do — and especially if they’re in a leadership role —...

Now that the pandemic has us all in a crisis situation, we’re about to find out to find out who falls apart in a crisis, and who rises up to serve, lead and encourage others. The ones who shine are not always who we expected — have you noticed this? Here in California we’ve been sheltering in place for over two weeks now. Everywhere in the world, we’re trying to figure out how best to respond to the pandemic, how best to care for ourselves and the people we love. It’s a work in progress. For...

Hi ACEs Community, normally I post about healing from childhood trauma but THIS is a short video I made at home to help those of you who are working from home and using Zoom in new and bigger ways, or for the first time. Enjoy! Since COVID-19 changed our lives, I've been consulting to institutional and corporate clients re: new uses of Zoom for teams, meetings, marketing and leadership. If you'd like some help with that you can reach me at anna@crappychildhoodfairy.com

If you grew up with abuse and neglect in your childhood, chances are good that you’ve suffered more than your share of broken relationships. Sometimes the break is caused by the other person, but today I want to talk about broken relationships where we played a role in hurting our connection with someone we care about — someone with whom we do want a relationship. This is one of hardest side effects of trauma in childhood — being close to people, and working through conflicts, can be really...

It doesn’t happen that often anymore, but one place where I almost always get triggered with my Childhood PTSD symptoms is when I visit the doctor. I could never even put this into words before. But now that I’m mostly healed from my Childhood PTSD symptoms, I want to express what I wish my doctors – all the doctors of my life – had understood about the effects of Childhood trauma, about me. Note: This is one of my most personal posts ever. Unless you’re someone who really prefers text, I...

One of the worst triggers of Childhood PTSD symptoms for many of us is the feeling of abandonment. This trigger is primal because we’re all wired to be loved and included in the tribe as if our lives depended on it. Because in any situation before the last 100 years or so, our lives did depend on it! We need our parents when we’re born and we need dependable people connected to us throughout our lives. So just about everyone (and I know this because I’ve taught so many people to write their...

You hear this a lot among people who experienced childhood trauma. They have trouble shaking the feeling that they’re somehow different , as if everyone else seems to know something — how to act, what to say, how to be connected — and that somehow we never got the memo. Do you ever feel like that? I know we’re not the only ones. But it seems to be a big part of living with the adult symptoms that follow abuse and neglect in childhood. Is this feeling of being different just in our minds? The...

Hi everyone, this week I've released a video and article about emptiness, and the suprising way we can come to feel fulfilled. As you'll see in the video, especially near the end, I feel very strongly about this. Everyone feels a sense of emptiness sometimes, but people with Childhood PTSD are especially prone to it. It’s one of the classic adult symptoms of early trauma. And like most trauma symptoms, it has roots in your brain development as well as your psychological development. This is...

You probably know a few people who are stuck in bitterness. In big ways and small, you may be stuck there too. Bitterness is the seventh of the eight obstacles to healing from Childhood PTSD that I'm covering in my resilience series. I want to talk about what bitterness looks like, how to know if you’re “doing” it, and my suggestion to you if you are ready to be set free (though I think it might surprise you). The bitterness of other people is all around us (think commenters on Twitter,...

One of the most popular topics in all my content is the problem of loneliness and isolation. I knew this was common for those of us with Childhood PTSD, but from the comments and the e-mail I’ve received from all of you, I learned that loneliness is not just common, but a core issue for a huge proportion of us. This is part seven of my Resilience series, where I break down some of the big obstacles that stand in the way of healing Childhood PTSD, and the strengths that we can develop to...

One of the the most common, painful adult manifestations of Childhood PTSD is difficulty perceiving reality accurately, especially around the meaning of interactions we have with other people. We have trouble sometimes predicting that a choice is risky, or that a person we meet is unreliable, or whether our own sense of discomfort is an appropriate response. This is the sixth article and video in my resilience series, focusing on eight obstacles to healing from childhood trauma, and the...

It’s super common for those of us who grew up with abuse and neglect when we were small, to feel as adults that we are on the outside somehow. When we're in groups we feel as if we are only partly in it, and never really included . Or we start as a full participant but pull away over time. We un-include ourselves. But it feel like other people are keeping us out. The telltale sign that being on the outside could be a personal choice, even when it doesn’t feel like it, is that we’re almost...

Have you ever had the experience where you know you should do something -- like go to work on time, or get ready for an important meeting, or just brush your teeth before bed -- but you just couldn't do it? Everybody procrastinates sometimes, but for people who experienced abuse and neglect in childhood, procrastinating can morph into a kind of paralysis. I’ve had this happen; I’ve spent whole seasons in this place before. And it's so demoralizing when it’s happening to know that you’re here...

Have you ever had the experience where you know you should do something -- like go to work on time, or get ready for an important meeting, or just brush your teeth before bed -- but you just couldn't do it? Everybody procrastinates sometimes, but for people who experienced abuse and neglect in childhood, procrastinating can morph into a kind of paralysis. I’ve had this happen; I’ve spent whole seasons in this place before. And it's so demoralizing when it’s happening to know that you’re here...

I’ve been talking about resilience in recent posts — the obstacles that hold back recovery, and the strengths we need to keep healing. Last week the topic was fear. In this post (and the video that goes with it) I want to go up a layer to the next strength, and that’s self-care . I used to think self-care was just hot baths and chocolate for people whose problems were so small that this would actually solve them. But 25 years of continuous healing and strength-building has taught me that,...

If you follow me online you know I teach that Childhood PTSD is, at it’s root, a brain injury, and that therefore, resilience begins with healing the brain. This comes as a HUGE relief to most people with Childhood PTSD. It explains so much. They feel understood for the first time, and give themselves over to the work of healing. And then... obstacles appear! And mostly, they come from (of all places) within. It's normal, but if we don't build strengths to overcome inner obstacles, we get...

When we talk about a history childhood trauma, we talk a lot about the problems — the damage, the limitation on our lives, the sadness. But in reality, a lot of us are thriving despite abuse and neglect in the past. The word for this is resilient. Overcoming the effects of Childhood PTSD is not easy, and it’s not a road I’d choose for anyone. But if that’s the hand life dealt you, it is still possible for you to blossom into a life of depth and love and purpose. Resilience is often mentioned...

Note: This article is a transcript of a video excerpted from my online course Dysregulation Bootcamp. Brain and emotional dysregulation are common in adults who experienced abuse and neglect in childhoodhood, and is linked to problems with mood, mental focus, health and relationships. Hurrying is a huge trigger for a lot of people with Childhood PTSD -- everything from trying to get out the door in the morning, to rushing through traffic, to just getting overwhelmed with everything you’re...

Have you ever been at home, and you hear the doorbell, and you’re pretty sure it’s somebody selling something or giving out literature, and instead of answering the door, you HIDE? Like on the floor? Whispering so they won’t “know” you’re there? This is a form of isolating because we don’t trust ourselves to have boundaries . Isolation is a totally common symptom of Childhood PTSD, and for those of us who grew up with abuse or neglect, a lack of boundaries is a big reason why we get...

For those of us who grew up with abuse and neglect at home, it can be hard to know how to ACT in social situations. Here's an example.... Have you ever been to a hotel where there is a person who is there to carry your bags, and even though you didn’t ask, they carry your bags to the room and it’s totally awkward, and you think “I’m supposed to give them a tip, right? I’ve, like seen this on TV. But you don’t have cash, and they’re just standing there ," and you think, "What do I do? What do...

In last week’s post, I talked about how COMMON it is for people with CPTSD and Childhood PTSD to experience being isolated, and being lonely. Loneliness is part of life, at least a little bit, for everyone. But for a lot of people who experienced early trauma, it’s like a curse we carry, that touches everything in our lives and almost never gets talked about. So in this post, I’m going to keep talking about isolation, along with one of the biggest obstacles to healing it, and that’s the fact...

In this article and the next several articles (and the corresponding videos) I'll be talking about one of the biggest, most common adult symptoms of childhood trauma, and that’s ISOLATION. In the three years I’ve been writing about Complex PTSD and Childhood PTSD, I've received thousands of YouTube/Facebook comments and messages from people who tell me how much they’re suffering with loneliness, isolation and feeling cut off from people in their lives. It's not just people with trauma. Lots...

For many of us who grew up with abuse or neglect during childhood, there’s this steep learning curve around PERCEPTION — and by that I mean being able to discern what is true and not true, what is my responsibility and what is not my fault, when I’m in danger and when, maybe I’m just being paranoid. In a family where there is violence, addiction, mental illness or any of the common family stressors that can cause Chronic PTSD, it’s common for parents to distort the truth: “ NO, your dad is...

One of the great things about writing about early trauma, is that I learn from all of you what’s working for you -- and what’s not. I get at least a dozen e-mails from subscribers every day, and I read what you post and I learn about those of you who have found success in healing, all the way to those who don’t even try any more. I also hear from people who are still trying really hard to heal, but they’re hitting a wall. Our community here may not be a representative sample of ALL the...

Forming close friendships is not something that comes naturally to a lot of us who struggle a bit around attachment, connection and trusting others because of exposure to early trauma. Luckily, it's something we can learn, even if we didn't learn this at home. I have some tips to show you how to have better friendships. ( You can watch the video of this post here, or keep reading. 1. Pick the right people for friends. This is no small thing for people with Complex PTSD or Childhood PTSD --...

One of the messages that’s been drilled into us by popular culture is that “you have to love yourself before you can love someone else.” This is something people tell you when you get your heart broken and you feel like you must be… no good! And for a lot of years, every time I heard this I felt like a different species than everyone else. Because there were times when I didn’t particularly love myself – and here and there when I was younger, times when I hated myself. But there was a never...