Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

by Pete Walker

Cptsd flashbacks can be utilized as evidence of, and in later stages of recovery, proof of your childhood traumatization. Flashbacks point irrefutably to the fact that your parent’s abandonment forced you to habituate to hypervigilance and negative noticing.

Afraid of being criticized [as in childhood], the inner critic can launch the survivor into a “confession” of her every defect in hopes of short-circuiting anyone else from bringing them up. Sometimes hearing the criticism from yourself feels less hurtful than hearing it from someone else. After all, it’s old news to you and your critic.

the toxic critic is not an authentic part of us. We were not born with it. We were indoctrinated with it by parents who viewed us in an extremely negative and jaundiced way. Because of this, we need to protect our intimates from its distorted and destructive judgments.

Cognitive work in both cases involves the demolition and rebuilding processes of thought-stopping and thought substitution, respectively. And, emotional work in both instances is grief work. It is removing the critic’s fuel supply - the unexpressed childhood anger and the uncried tears of a lifetime of abandonment.

Angering is the grieving technique of aggressively complaining about current or past losses and injustices. Survivors need to anger - sometimes rage - about the intimidation, humiliation and neglect that was passed off to them as nurturance in their childhoods.

Survivors need to resuscitate their instinctual anger about parental maltreatment or they risk blindly accepting others’ reenactments of these behaviors.

As we learn to grieve effectively, we allow ourselves to mourn about the lack of positive parental attention in our childhoods. We feel sorrow about the horrible reality that parental attention was typically negative and dangerous. As recovering progresses, we also cry for the child who was not appreciated and reflected as special, worthy, and easy to love.

“Joy shared is doubled. Sorrow shared is halved.”

Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman

Perhaps there was no more detrimental consequence of our childhood abandonment than being forced to habitually hide our authentic selves. Many of us come out of childhood believing that what we have to say is as uninteresting to others as it was to our parents. We must repudiate this damaging legacy of the past. Verbal ventilation is the key way that people make friends.

Imagine your anger forming a protective fiery shield around you.

this typically happens so quickly that we do not notice the fear and shame, or the inner critic. The first thing that we usually begin to notice in early recovery is that suddenly we are engaged in our most typical 4F response. As recovery progresses we become aware of the critic.

Chronic emotional abandonment devastates a child. It naturally makes her feel and appear deadened and depressed. Functional parents respond to a child’s depression with concern and comfort. Abandoning parents respond to the child with anger, disgust and/or further abandonment, which in turn exacerbate the fear, shame and despair that become the abandonment mélange.

child, with parents who are unable or unwilling to provide safe enough attachment, has no one to whom she can bring her whole developing self. No one is there for reflection, validation and guidance. No one is safe enough to go to for comfort or help in times of trouble. There is no one to cry to, to protest unfairness to, and to seek compassion from for hurts, mistakes, accidents, and betrayals.

I want to develop a more constantly loving and accepting relationship with myself.

I want to attain the best possible physical health.

want to cultivate a balance of vitality and peace.

I want increasing freedom from unnecessary fear.

I want a fair amount of peace of mind, spirit, soul and body.

I want to increase my capacity to play and have fun.

want to make plenty of room for beauty and na...

want a balance of loving interaction and healthy self sufficiency.

HUMAN BILL OF RIGHTS

I have a right to make mistakes. Mistakes do not make me a mistake. Every mistake or mishap is an opportunity to practice loving myself in the places I have never been loved.

3. Self-Hate, Self-Disgust & Toxic Shame. I commit to myself. I am on my side. I am a good enough person. I refuse to trash myself. I turn shame back into blame and disgust and externalize it to anyone who shames my normal feelings and foibles. As long as I am not hurting anyone, I refuse to be shamed for normal emotional responses like anger, sadness, fear and depression. I especially refuse to attack myself for how hard it is to completely eliminate the self-hate habit.

I am no longer a victim. I will not accept unfair blame.