Thoughts Over Coffee via @survivingchildhoodtrauma ☕️
Learning to redirect my trauma responses is an ongoing and daily task. Understanding my trauma responses and where they come from has helped soften the edges of the reality of my healing journey.
The Harsh Reality
My triggers are automatic and subconscious, a nervous system level response to a perceived danger. An echo of my survival as a child.
My filtering system is altered; it developed in a state of fear due to my childhood trauma and abuse. My triggers are entangled with my physiological make-up. When my system is triggered by outside stimuli it immediately sends a “danger” message to my brain which unleashes all of my thoughts and emotions related to the trigger and bam …
… trauma response behavior manifests to minimize damage, protect me, or help me cope survival mode style.
That’s why it happens so seamlessly, why I can find myself knee deep in a trigger before I fully realize it is happening. It is also why it is so hard to change my behavior once I am aware.
Healing My Child Self
My trauma responses are the coping skills of a child.
When I am working with these parts of myself in an activated state it is the equivalent to working in real life with a child experiencing big emotions without proper coping skills.
I cannot talk myself out of the behaviors with shame at my “age” or “level of understanding”.
I can’t bargain with myself that “next time I’ll get it right”.
Nor can I logically walk myself through the academia of Complex PTSD so that I “understand” where I am coming from.
Nope, I have to meet myself as the child that I am in those moments with the compassion and understanding I would give my own children as I help them learn to identify and navigate their own emotions.
That is how reparenting happens. As I heal, learn, and reconnect to myself, I must handle myself with the soft and encouraging hands of the parent that I never had.
Easier said than done, sometimes.
On goes the journey 💪🏻🔥
Survivor’s Circle Peer Support Groups meet on alternating Wednesdays and Fridays via Zoom. Attend a session and experience the magical healing that happens when survivors connect and support each other through shit only we can understand.
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