Thoughts Over Coffee with Surviving Childhood Trauma☕️Join me for a cup of coffee and some real talk about complex PTSD and trauma healing and recovery.
Adjusting to my recent move has me reflecting on self-awareness in the healing process.
Learning Awareness
I remember in my early days of healing, it took me over 18 months to fully get my “CPTSD feet” under me as I learned to navigate and cope with the monumental weight of the reality of my childhood.
Decades of survival mode and trauma responses moved me through my life; I was completely unaware that the way I adjusted myself to others, my fears, anxiety, and lack of worthiness were all the result of my childhood abuse.
And then that changed, and so has my life.
Awareness Holds No Punches
Now I am aware that my activated nervous system is because real-time situations are bringing up emotional flashbacks.
I am aware that when I lose control of my emotions it’s due to childhood wounds and lack of emotional support as a child as I work to reparent myself.
I live with the memories of my childhood which I once successfully packed away.
I understand why my body feels so afraid to set boundaries or express my feelings when my head knows logically that it is safe.
I can’t just turn things off to make myself feel better – I am tasked with making space and having compassion for myself.
I am aware of what I lost as a child, what I deserved, and how I will never have that.
There’s No Going Back Now
I grieve, I rage, and occasionally I still check out. I am exhausted from emotional self-awareness, and sometimes resentful of all the work I have to do.
There are days when I wish I could put it all back into the recesses of my mind and “forget” again. But that is not possible, and honestly, it’s not what I want.
Every day as I heal, I strive for self-awareness and connection to myself; it is the part of the healing process that returns me to myself and helps me find the starting points for the work I am doing. Awareness brings color back into my life each day.
But it is also unrelenting at times: awareness brings grief, anger, frustration, and yes, shame and embarrassment too. It shows me exactly how my childhood of trauma and abuse has affected me and it holds no punches in the process.
Be gentle with yourself my friend, I understand.
On goes the journey 💪🏻❤️🩹
Looking for Ways to Connect With Other Survivors and/or Receive Support as You Heal?
Survivor’s Circle Peer Support Groups might be just what you need.
These small groups meet on alternating days of the week via Zoom. In these groups, survivors connect, share, and support each other through the ebbs and flows of healing. Attend a session and experience the magical healing that happens when survivors connect and support each other through shit only we can understand.
Hi, I am Shanon
I am a trauma informed, trained, and Certified Peer Support Specialist in the state of Wisconsin. I am also a survivor with years committed to my own trauma healing after being diagnosed with (C) PTSD due to childhood abuse. Additionally, I have a professional and personal history of community facilitation and peer work.
I specialize in helping survivors like you make connections between real time experiences and past trauma wounds, identify and communicate boundaries, create self-care plans that work, navigate big emotions and trauma responses, reparent your inner child, and embody your own self-worth through the healing process with confidence and personal empowerment.
These support groups and 1:1 peer support sessions should not replace professional therapy; they will however provide additional support and information.
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