Childhood Neglect And The Feeling That You Can Never Belong

one of the most misunderstood symptoms of childhood PTSD and I see this in almost everyone who was abused and neglected and I I've seen it in myself especially before I recovered and it's that we seem to gravitate toward people who don't have their lives together and and we have the capacity to do this even when we do have our lives together except for that one thing that we're attracted to people who drag us down the people with whom you associate is a huge factor in how you turn out in life so why would anyone do this I wanted to share with you a comment that came in last week from someone named John and I just was like that John really nailed it on this and I wanted to say more about it so what he wrote was um breakthrough this morning when you're a kid in a toxic family they steer you away from making good connections with decent people they don't want accountability as a kid you have magical thinking where you think your pain is visible you want to be saved but you're told that decent people are not to be associated with for fear their shitty parenting will be noticed that your own parents shitty parenting will be noticed you carry this into adulthood by not making connection with assertive people of High morals and then he said I hope this message helps someone else it helped me John hey I wanted to expand on this this is one of the great mysteries for me is like why do we do that I have a long history of especially in romantic relationships being drawn towards destructive types or you know totally unavailable or self-destructive either way bringing my life down a lot and people would just be like why don't you just choose nice people and the secret truth was I'm not attracted to them they seem dumb to me or they seem two-dimensional rather than three-dimensional to me and I don't really late so I I've thought it was that I was told sometimes by therapists um you just want to recreate your childhood like you know or or by new age people who are like um it's your karma you're just going to keep recreating the pain from the past until you work it out and so the people who hurt you are your teacher and none of that ever sat right with me none of it ever sat right what John said sits right I think that is what it is um my parents had serious problems with especially around alcoholism and everything that goes with that and they weren't very present and the problems at home were quite visible to anybody who visited and so I when John wrote this I was just thinking back um the first time I ever had a boyfriend our first date was the Eighth Grade Prom and leading up to that prom for the months preceding that first there was all the anxiety with my friends will anybody ask us to go I was I was 13 and the prom when the prom happened I had just turned 14 would we get asked and you know what will we wear so my family was really poor what I would wear was a big worry and I remember so the prom was in May I think and in February that year I was visiting my dad and he he died actually the next year and so he was sick he had luk G's disease but I was visiting him and he was still like able to walk and talk a little bit and I told him about my worries about the prom dress and he was was like I'm going to get you a prom dress and my dad didn't have money either he had you know the problems that my parents had were just devastating to their lives and even though he was very talented and educated and had once done well um he lived in a garage and we could when we came to town to visit him we couldn't stay with him and had to stay with relatives but I loved him and he loved me and all of the problems that he had are one thing but his love for me is definitely an asset that I have he just loved me unconditionally thought the world of me so so he took me to the mall and um I bought a prom dress that was a very beautiful cool tiered chiffon um zigzag pattern in maroon and light blue and dark blue and it was kind of a disco dress right and I thought it was great I loved how it looked and and it had these little spaghetti straps and there's a picture um there's a picture of me sitting on the sofa at his girlfriend's house wearing this dress and looking very very good and shy and I I was still a little bit innocent back then I remember the dress was $45 and that was so much back then especially for him I think he lived on unemployment and yeah that was that was a lot of money back then so it was this really special thing and he also paid for me to buy these wedgie high heels so I was since I was um not quite 14 to have high heels panty hose the disco dress the whole thing I think I had on some blue eyeshadow you know I just this was like a really big deal for me the captain and tal hair and when I got back to Arizona where I lived and where my friends were they were like nobody was going to wear stuff like that they were going to wear these little um kind of uh Holly Hobby Laura Les dresses I was a Laura in Les fanatic as a kid and uh I didn't know these things were available well that ended up being another $60 for a dress like that and I had this little white ruffled thing and it was it was very pretty had the shoes already but I had to buy a second dress and I Babys sat and got the money to buy this dress it was such a big deal well it was a week before the prom and nobody had asked me and I'm not totally sure why I would have been like not asked by anybody but I wasn't you know I I I was I don't know okay enough pretty enough but I wasn't asked by anybody and it was a week away and I was desperate and it was you know at that time time and place it was all up to the guys to do the asking in my English class I had had a little bit of talent for writing in mid mid semester I was transferred into a journalism class that was really wonderful and exciting for me a lot of people were good writers there and it was stimulating and I was writing a cartoon and I I put out like a weekly cartoon it was called Dr lightning Dr lightning and I I loved being funny I was really into comedy my big dream in life was to be a comedian and I ended up being a comedian in earlier part of my career and now this is really life doesn't feel like comedy but it comes in handy being the crappy childhood fairy and I wrote this cartoon and through that class I met somebody else who loved comedy who was clever like that and um liked my cartoon and I wanted him to ask me to this Eighth Grade Prom so I did what 13-year-old girls do and I had I guess by then I was just 14 and I had her go to him on my behalf and say do you like Anna yes or no and I think she actually did it with a note with boxes and everything and he could check the box and he sent it back yes so she talked to him in person and said will you ask her she wants you to ask her and and um he said he couldn't because he was really poor and his mom who was single a single mom couldn't afford to get him anything to wear so I sent her back my Emissary and said go tell him that's fine I don't care what he wears I would just like him to ask me so it was Friday the week before the Friday that was the actual thing and and uh I was going to my locker the bell rang it was time to go home and I was devastated like it wasn't going to happen she had already told him he had had several days to process this and then he was walking ahead of me and then all of a sudden he spun on his heel and then he came back and goes do you want to go to that thing with me and I said um okay and then it was like oh my God oh my God so I had I had now sunk all this money into the dress and the horrible thing about having my first date was that his mother was going to drive him to my house and he was going to have to come to the door and possibly his mother and we were going to have to ride in the car with his mother but they were going to see where I lived and possibly come inside and I became completely anxiously consumed with how I could possibly still have the date without letting them come to my house or see what's inside and I had this great friend named Debbie and we're still friends and she she came from a household that was somewhat similar and she helped me like strategize how are we going to make it really fast if they come in have them come really fast have them get out but I was so scared not of the date but of getting found out about the about the conditions of my homes so here's what my house was like when I was growing up it was piled high with junk there was rotten food all over the counter you couldn't eat anything um it was there there was little or no cleaning that ever happened and things weren't put away there was a giant hole knocked through the wall of the living room into the garage that at one point in the history of the family was going to be a doorway but had never been finished it was just raw bricks and the smell of garbage and dirty walls and what I was most afraid of is that my mother would make an appearance and she would show up really drunk was almost willing to give up my date to get out of this so I I worked it out I waited by the door I saw them pull up in the car I ran out the door I said bye and I just like said here let me in let me get in the car and I got in the car and nobody ever came in I was able to hide my whole history my whole life then we got there and there was this whole little March that you did you know marching together what was it called the Grand March or something at the beginning into the cafeteria you know where we had the dance and there was the theme song that we danced to which was Reasons by Earth Wind and Fire which I had practiced with Debbie a hundred times how to slow dance how are we going to do this you know all of this was new to us and my date said I have a friend who's a grownup who lives a couple blocks from here and he has pot weed um do you want to go get high and I was like um yeah of course and I didn't I wanted to be at the dance gosh IID put so much into this for months and that's what happened we went to some guy's apartment and smoked pot and um I hadn't done that before and it was weird and it was uncomfortable and I was um luckily it didn't do very much to me um and then he gave us all beers and this other couple went with us and it was just this like devastating disappointment now unfortunately the story goes on that several months later like I did he did become my first boyfriend and then he broke up with me and it was uh just like one of the most heartbreaking things in my life I tried to hold on to that relationship despite all the crap and the crap fitting of the whole thing of me being a girl who was so excited and into this and just settling for going to some guy with a mustache in some crappy apartment you know who was I mean he had to be in his 20s what were the what were we even doing there and that's where I got that aversion that's where I got that aversion to de guys thanks to Facebook I know I'm friends with men and women who I went to school with Junior High high school and what's interesting is they're really cool I like them and I feel much more comfortable with a variety of people um now that a lot of my trauma is healed and that identity as like the poor girl the girl who is not wanted or asked anywhere um who doesn't you know who takes the crappy jobs who doesn't deserve to have what she wants who suffers all the the time and gets ulcers and smokes cigarettes trying to deal with the pain that identity has melted away now and I feel more comfortable with people but here's the truth John I still feel most comfortable with people like you I feel most comfortable with people who know what cptsd is people who understand the Oddball suffering that we have that's not really like what anybody expects who doesn't have what we have people who have Tender Hearts when I describe what my past was like and who get it themselves cuz I understand you it means the world to me that we have a tribe together where I belong and I I feel safe here and I hope you can too what I hear over and over again from the people who come and watch my videos is wow I just came to this Channel and it's the first time anybody's described what it's like to be me me too me too you know when I started putting videos out there I didn't expect anything like this but we are a tribe and we do understand each other and some of us have gone on to great things and also struggle on struggle on the side with cptsd symptoms and we're all together working it out you don't have to date people who are not good to you you don't have to work for people who exploit you you don't have to stay stuck in the outward signs of trauma if you can begin to change and heal that identity inside that that's all you are that's what I think we're seeking the people where we don't feel judged and we feel safe and that can be really hard with people who are just just have it all together you know they just are put together every day they move forward they always have the right thing to say everybody likes them you know that brings up a lot of pain for me but that's where the daily practice comes in is I'm resentful at the people who look so nice and have it all together in my work life I've met some amazing people some like people who have accomplished great things in business and um spirituality and recovery and so many parts of life when you're loved by people who relate to you you have a lot more capacity to be friends with the people who don't relate to that part of you and it's really good to be able to do that because that's where you know the world operates it's full of all kinds of people and it's a good way to be to be openhearted and open-minded about them but to know who you are so what is it that makes those people who have it together feel uncomfortable for us and here's here's what's become clear to me it's shame it's shame I had Shame about the house I grew up in uh I continued to have Shame about the ways that my life was dysfunctional the ways that I could kind of keep it looking like everything's together on the outside but if you got to know me or saw what was actually going on you'd know that I was really dysfunctional in certain ways and that shame made it simply unsafe for me to get to know people who would recognize that I was screwing up I did not want to be seen for that and that's why I have such tremendous respect for the people who write letters like they're willing to be seen there's a little anonymity there but let me tell you when they write letters and they write in and people get in there like never make shaming comments to people who write in only support those people it benefits all of us to have a place where we can support each other including the mistakes we make including the things that should be obvious but they're not obvious when you have PTSD that's why we have each other so we get sham because yes we get shamed for things that weren't our our fault stuff that you know the condition of the house we grew up in or behavior of the parents who raised us perhaps things like that but we also get ashamed of the stuff that we start to do it's the stuff that we do that is where that what I call earn shame there's like shame that just glues on to you and then there's this little bit of Shame that's because you don't feel good about something that you did right and that's okay there's nothing wrong with that I'm not telling you what you should feel ashamed about but just that when I didn't treat myself with respect or when I hurt other people I don't feel good about that and so there's a feeling of Shame so long as I'm holding it in and I'm not working it out and when you don't have healing for your cptsd how are you going to work out shame you need to be able to self-regulate you need to have love no matter where you are on that journey of working it out support and you need to have people who get it so I hope you find that here in this YouTube Community you can definitely find it in my Facebook Community for members come be a member there's always a link to that down below in the description section and courses but support from people who get it is essential to start breaking the cycle of Shame I'm the only one who's like this I don't know why I'm such an idiot that's what I used to think when you begin to solve those life problems that make you ashamed then your head comes up and then there's room to start making different movements different choices I hate that word choices it's so judgy you know that's not a very good choice you just kind of move about your life CU we're all guessing we're all improvising like I don't know what should I do next but it starts to get easier and wiser as you get Freer of the fear and resentment that holds you down that is the sort of chatter of complex PTSD that's what the daily practice technique I teach is designed to bring down so you have space for your better angels for your smarter wiser wisdom to come in and guide you towards a Next Step that makes good sense for you and then there's and then the shame is healed that's how it works less shame more confidence and you still get to have your deepest Affinity with the people who get it about you so I think that's pretty cool I really love you guys for being here I love you for having what you have and for expressing what it's like and for creating this community where people come and they just can't even believe that everybody understands what's going on and what they're describing so closely matches what they've been going through it's a good thing we are pioneers we are a movement so I'm really glad you're here true or false your life would have been totally different if you'd known all along how to date like a person who never had trauma and you had landed in an easy stable loving relationship if you were abused and neglected as a child chances are high that you've spent years of your life struggling with the effects of childhood PTSD on your romantic life and this is one of the crul EST ways that the damage of a hard childhood shows up we end up either alone or in relationships where we're not loved or not safe or just not happy it's not supposed to be that way it's possible to heal the thinking and behavior that keep activating old childhood wounds if that's a priority for you you'll want to watch this video where I list 20 signs that the abuse and neglect that happened to you when you were a child may be having a negative impact on your romantic life now and I'll tell you what you can do to start changing that number one do you find yourself attracted to unavailable destructive or abusive people that's probably one of the most universal signs that a lot of us have noticed are common for people who had a hard childhood number two have you found yourself rushing into relationships and this includes having sex living together and even getting married before you really know the person that seems to be connected to having an attachment wound the sort of neglect that you may have experienced as a kid can cause you to have very poor judgment about when and how to get into a relationship it happens too quickly there's an anxiety that comes up that you just want to push down and getting together feels like it's going to work three at the opposite end of the spectrum do you tend to avoid relationships altogether even though you'd like to be in one there's a word for that it's called intimacy anorexia or relationship anorexia and it's also very common for people with cptsd four do you habitually hide or lie about your feelings for someone when those feelings are romantic for fear that you aren't ready for a relationship or you need to change something about yourself before you can reveal how you feel or more probably or more honestly because you fear they'll reject you and you'd rather keep the fantasy alive even though it means that you'll remain alone number five have you had a pattern of becoming obsessed with another person thinking of them all the time trying to find information about their daily activities on social media scrolling or lurking or looking for signs in things that they say or if they text you so that you can believe that even though they say they're not into you they really are looking for signs is a key sign of something called limerance and that's sort of a very Amplified Obsession or infatuation with somebody who you're not really with and that is a key sign that limerance is going on is that you're searching for signs where there really aren't any number six have you ever lied to other people or hidden the true nature of a relationship that you were having because you felt ashamed of the person you chose or of what was happening in your relationship that often happens in relationships that are inappropriate or abusive number seven have you damaged relationships because of intense emotions having outbursts of sadness or jealousy or anger when it doesn't seem appropriate that could be a sign that you're emotionally disregulated it's also very common with childhood PTSD number eight have you fit yourself to people and situations that were actually unacceptable to you that is a trick that many of us learned as kids when we were in unacceptable environments and not being cared for and we learn to make it okay with our minds but if you get too good at that and you don't learn to stop doing it as an adult you end up doing what I call crap fitting fitting yourself to crappy relationships number nine does the fear of Abandonment or of being alone cause you to act irrationally that fear of Abandonment is often driven by something that is called abandonment mange it's an intense mix of fear rage and grief when someone leaves you or even when there's talk of the end of a relationship and it's very common for people who are literally abandoned either physically or emotionally as children number 10 do you cling to relationships even when you're not in love and not happy with the person do you stay even when you want to go only because the emotions that overtake you at the end of relationships feels too terrible to ever go through again that's kind of all the childhood PTSD symptoms acting together and keeping you stuck number 11 do your relationships have an unusually high amount of arguing or conflict and that's a little bit related to number 12 have you ever been in a relationship where you were being physically hurt or being violent yourself number 13 have you found yourself going home with someone even when you knew it was dangerous or hurtful to yourself or to other people or likely to lead to an STD or unwanted pregnancy that can be a sign that you're checking out that you have some dissociation going on in a moment of stress when you're trying to decide what to do next in a relationship or with somebody you just met and that's really common with childhood PTSD number 14 does getting sexual with someone trigger terrible feelings of Panic or worthlessness or grief or overwhelm do you fill up with anger do you get the urge to flee those could be trauma responses that come up directly in response to intimacy and often that's connected to a history of sexual abuse number 15 have you hooked up with so many people you feel ashamed that can be a result of seeking to calm your childhood PTSD symptoms but engaging in a self-defeating behavior that really just makes the symptoms get worse and that's very common with childhood PTSD 16 have you had a pattern of cheating on other people when you were with them or of choosing Partners who cheat that often comes from having a red flag blind spot where you can't really predict the problems you will cause with your own impulsive behaviors and you can't always see that somebody else is being dishonest with you totally common with childhood PTSD 17 have you thought about or even attempted suicide because of a relationship or the loss of one a history of neglect and abuse in your childhood can make your romantic relationship seem like the most important thing that's ever happened to you because you're attempting to fill some needs that were never met when you were a child 18 have you suffered from reproductive disorders like endometriosis or pelvic inflammatory disease that's correlated with a history of abuse abuse 19 when you're upset is it hard for you to put your feelings into words that could mean that you get emotionally disregulated and neurologically disregulated when you're under stress and it can have a huge impact on relationships that is common with childhood PTSD number 20 do you often find that no matter how much your partner tries to be there for you you feel alone unloved or unheard if you relate to a lot of these signs you might be feeling shocked or sad right now but you might also feel just a little bit relieved to know that childhood PTSD is a thing and this is how it can affect people when people are abused or neglected in childhood you see some very common patterns in the way that relationships become hard for them and yes these are harsh experiences but the good news is these are normal symptoms that healthy people can develop when they weren't loved or supported or kept safe as kids you're normal and there are things you can do to change the the trauma driven patterns that have taken shape in your life you can clear away the mental fog and the emotional hunger that in the past has made it hard for you to know what you want and to have boundaries around that you can stop settling for crumbs and you can break out of the fantasies that have comforted you when you felt lonely but in the end have left you feeling even lonelier it starts with making a decision that you're willing to change and the major ways that people do that is by getting therapy going to a 12 step fellowship or support group getting a coach or a mentor taking a course reading books or and this is the one we all get drawn to but it seldom works we try to tough it out ourselves we hope that the next person we meet will be so wonderful that we will heal and it's not that this has never happened for anyone but it's not very likely the very nature of trauma wounds is that they make it hard to see situations clearly so you can end up in self- attack running away going into denial acting out or drifting off into fantasies of how great it would be if some particular person would be with you healing happens here in the real world and the success of your healing goes way up when you have the courageous Vision to own what you want in a relationship your heart's desire and when you have people who support you in taking courageous actions that prepare you to have that relationship so courageous vision and support for courageous action we're not talking about anything magic we're talking about developing clear thinking and self-honesty so that you can stop the trauma driven behaviors and take Common Sense actions to heal and change your life what I have to tell you about this could be a whole book and in fact it will be but for now if you want an assignment I'll ask you to write down exactly what you want in a relationship like don't be shy write down what you really want I know you might not get it there are many things in life we want but don't get that's fine but write down what you really want you're going to notice as you write that that a lot of things in your life now are not leading you to what you want in fact they might even be blocking you so if you don't consciously work to change a negative pattern like that it's very likely to keep repeating so as you write what you really want not a specific person try to avoid that but just write what write the conditions the characteristics okay the kind of person that fits you and how you want to feel in a relationship do you seek to feel really loved do you want to feel in love do you want to feel deeply secure you can write that write it down and don't talk yourself out of what you just wrote okay you don't have to change anything not today just allow yourself to see the words that you wrote and to feel what it's like to write it down what it is you really want there are dozens of things that you can do tomorrow about it if you choose to but for now let the honesty and dignity of you owning how you really feel to begin to heal you nobody likes being ignored and left out or just left behind and so many people with childhood PTSD have it because of these experiences when they were small now maybe your parents were alcoholic or addicted and turned off like a light switch when it was time to give you attention and support or maybe one of your parents died or was locked up or just left you like you never existed and Not only was this terrible to happen to you as a kid to any child but it can really muck up your adult relationships with anxieties and longings that can really drive away any possibility of genuine stable connections with people romantic or otherwise abandonment wounds push you into relationships too quickly the slow pathway you know that just wasn't even encoded in your nervous system but I promise you you can learn to do it with some techniques and I do teach that but when you were a kid you didn't learn the slow way and then when you find yourself attached to someone you can't stand or who treats you badly you may feel like you can't leave because your abandonment triggers kick in and make it feel like leaving would be almost worse than dying so you go in too fast and then you can't leave that's how people get stuck and abandonment wounds can also show up in group dynamics where I'm willing to lay money on it you've had horrible experiences of being ostracized left out judged by peer groups and I'll talk about that in this video too I'm going to talk about why these wounds are so hard to observe in yourself when you kind of flip out on someone because your abandonment wounds get set off it's like you're not even yourself and the desperate and sometimes overly intense reaction to feeling abandoned even even when it's just a feeling and no one has actually done it to you in that moment it's almost like a bad dream what it actually is is an emotional flashback which is normal with cptsd an emotional state from the past comes back and overlays your present time experience someone walks out of the room when you're trying to talk to them and this woo tsunami of desperation and grief can come over you that's an abandonment wound and next thing you know you're calling them names you're threatening to leave you're crying it feels like your life is over that's what we call abandonment mange that's a word Pete Walker contributed to the literature and it's such a good concept of the intense grief and rage and panic that can come over people when the feeling of Abandonment happens and it's drawing through this emotional flashback on what happened to them as a kid and I want to talk about why that happens and how emotional injuries that happened before you even had language show up like that as just overpowering emotions that aren't connected to present day circumstances and you don't even know where they came from but they are upon you and they feel real so let's just go over some common triggers that you see in people who were abandoned as kids the really valuable thing about looking at triggers is that everything that is a symptom of cptsd only occurs if it gets triggered and that includes you know the neurological disregulation disconnecting from people going into self-defeating behaviors of lashing out running away smoking you know there's so many self-defeating behaviors but all of that sort of calms down it goes dormant like a you know like chickenpox virus if you're not getting triggered so you can't stop the world from triggering you but you can learn to calm how you respond to triggers once you know what they are and you have the tools so let's talk about some of the triggers that that can really get you when you have abandonment wounds one of them is when somebody walks out out of the room if they storm out when you're in the middle of talking this is a really normal thing there are some people some including some people with cptsd but all kinds of people when a conversation gets intense how they sort of self-regulate is they get physical distance for a minute so they might stroll out of the room for a minute now this is really different than saying that's it it's over and they leave and pack a suitcase and they're out the door but even that can be the same impulse the same coping mechanism to flee so somebody who is like actually in the relationship and will come back in the room in just a few minutes sometimes walks out of the room just goes oh gosh I just can't deal with this conversation for a person with cptsd that can be so triggering it it brings back you know who some memory that you don't even have anymore you when you didn't have words like before the age of three or so you can't really form memories and so all you remember is the emotion you can't remember the event but it's not common in people who grew up in unstable households where there was fighting or addiction or you know trauma going on that that would have happened that your needs would have been neglected that you would have cried for a very long time in a wet diaper and that's where these wounds come from so it's not going to come back as this reminds me of when I was crying all alone like you won't have that memory but you'll remember the feeling and the feeling comes up and since it's not attached to a a you know a cognition of what what it was of what the memory is it just feels like it's happening right now and you just think this terrible person who's making me feel this way I have got to shut down this relationship then if you have typical cptsd that wants to do that you know that has that reaction to things maybe an hour later when you start calming down or when you start going into dissociation And the emotions are calmer then you your emotions come back and you go oh dear what have I done oh dear what have I done if you have the kind of cptsd I have you've probably done that before you may have ruined relationships with it before all right similar to that trigger is the silent treatment now the silent treatment there's minor forms of it where somebody's just like I'm not going to talk about it with you and then there's one where you know somebody living with you or all the kids at school they turn their back and they won't talk to you they shun you they refu you know there's stonewalling where I won't talk about it and then there is the silent treatment and either way this can be extremely triggering for somebody who was rejected or neglected as a kid we can't control what other people do but I would say the silent treatment is emotionally immature it's not a good way to handle conflict with somebody and at the extreme it can be emotional abuse so I don't recommend doing it or staying with people who keep doing it and don't intend to change it all right a third trigger that really gets people who were abandoned as kids is waiting having to wait for somebody now maybe you were a kid who got left in daycare until the last minute or even later or your parents were separated and you sat by the window all of Saturday afternoon waiting for your dad to come and pick you up for his time with you and he didn't show waiting and not having your needs met is a big thing that can cause cptsd in the first place so a lot of people who have this wound any kind of waiting does it and the thing is when it happens because because it's triggering cptsd it's simultaneously triggers kind of a fog where you go I think I'm freaking out about getting stood up for this person who said they would come and oh then your mind plays a trick and goes well it's probably my fault it's probably just me and maybe should I be mad about this and I get a lot of letters from people where they're like is it just me and so sometimes I or our community come in you know in the membership community that we have people can pose those questions in our secret Facebook group like is it just me or when this guy said he would call me this weekend for the plan and then he didn't call and I waited all day is that bad and everybody go yeah that was bad maybe some people don't mind being treated like that but you do and it's not a happy thing and it's not a good sign for a relationship and if it's something that you don't have a boundary around I have good news for you you can make a boundary around it and then future people won't get very far with you if they treat you like that all right number four feeling jealous and getting gasit about it now I think this happens a lot um when you're dating that you break up with somebody and then they say we're just going to be friends right let's just stay friends and you think oh yeah I should be I should do that that's what people do and then you have to watch them eventually get together with somebody new and pretend like you're the cool girl but you're actually jealous and you have to pretend you're not jealous anything where something feels terrible to you but you have to pretend it's not terrible is putting you in danger of like dissociating and this is this is something that's been very hard about the age of division that happens over social media is that people can do terrible things and say terrible things and you can't defend yourself because if you do and you say anything you could get attacked by trolls you could get cancelled we have thousands of people who are going into their cptsd because they can't speak up and when people just make up stuff about them and it's terrifying it's horrible and it is a form of narcissistic abuse when people do that to each other so if you grew up with parents who were neglect and for all the reasons they get neglectful because you know they have personality disorders they're drunk they're high they're totally selfish if that's what was happening you got told all the time you know you got treated badly and then you're like oh get over it or oh stop being such a worry wart or oh you're just you know you're being so old-fashioned I got that all the time as a kid and I was very sensitive about it until I learn to calm those triggers a little better but I can't stand it when I know very well that some something bothers me and I'm shamed for being bothered now like everybody else I've had to be in situations and jobs where something really bothered me and there was nothing that could be done about it you know having um a boss who didn't think that I was valuable enough to promote so some of these things it's life it's where it is and when that happens you know if you're an autonomous person it's time to change jobs for example or you're dating somebody and but I wanted to get to this thing where you get gas lit in present time time right you're dating somebody and they want to hang out with their ex and you're supposed to be cool about it you're getting gas lit like what's the matter why are you so jealous you just have jealousy jealousy is how people feel when they have an expectation of loyalty or monogamy and they feel threatened and yes I totally have met people where the jealousy is just kind of rampant it's not really tied to reality that can happen but it's also something that is natural and if you've been told like you don't get to hold out for that you actually don't have to agree to be somebody's an ex's buddy and you don't have to agree to be okay dating somebody who hangs out with their ex you get to actually have your boundaries about that and you get to maybe test out okay I think I'm okay with it and then you're like I'm not okay with it actually and you get to not be okay with it don't kid yourself don't try to pretend you're somebody you're not because that can just bring on the old trigger of being abandoned it a huge abandonment trigger to be afraid that somebody's going to leave you and there's part of that that's just baked into relationships especially in the early stages especially when you're young like that's that's part of it but how you can keep yourself healing and intact as a person with cptsd is to be very clear with yourself about what your boundaries are about that and to to go very slowly in relationships so that you can you can refrain from attaching too strong before you know if this is somebody who matches you in terms of what you need and expect out of the relationship another trigger uh for people who are abandoned is empty time when there's nothing scheduled you may find yourself maybe you over function you fill up all your time you do frivolous socializing just because the thought of being on your own on for an evening is just makes you kind of anxious maybe a lot of feelings come up so here's what's really great about the path of healing from trauma is it involves tools that help you make the most of the feelings that come up so if you it's actually very fruitful sometimes to be alone for an evening even when you feel lonely you sit down and you write your fears and resentments in the way that I teach and a lot more is going to come up when you're feeling a little bit alone less will come up when everybody's waiting for you because everybody's going to go to the restaurant right you're going to be like and go on but when you're lonely that's can be a fruitful kind of loneliness is to go ahead and face what's in there and some of my most powerful experiences of healing have been on those really dark nights of the Soul when I was feeling so alone so empty time can be used very fruitfully for something and that's healing all right number six closeness with loved ones can be a trigger it it's kind of ironic right it's like not having closeness is a trigger but sometimes when people really show up and look you in the eye and they love you and for this I always think about when I was 15 my dad died of ALS and a few months before before he died you know I had to travel from one state to another to visit him and so the last time I saw him was 4 months before he died and I will never forget he was so sad when he said goodbye he was standing in his driveway smiling and waving and saying goodbye and I wanted to run to him and just hug him but the whole thing was so weird and uncomfortable I just couldn't so the intensity of his feelings of his wanting to give me all that love for the rest of my life was it was like a fire hose it was like trying to drink out of a fire hose and I couldn't deal with it and it was a trigger for me so I was you know to have my dad die when I was still a youngster like that it is a classic form of Abandonment he didn't do it on purpose he never would have done it if he could have helped it but first my parents got divorced and then my mom moved us out of state and oh I lost my dad in these stages and it really really affected me and I have no doubt it affected how I approached relationships later so I've still had time now to to reflect on that love that I saw in his face and that I remember through his actions and he wrote me a series of letters to let me know how much he loved me he knew he was dying we all knew and um I still have them and from time to time I take them out and there it's I can't you know it's has to be very time to time it's so intense to have somebody give you a lifetime of love like that in a letter I'm very grateful I have it I realize some people never even got that but I thought I didn't get anything and then later I recovered in the letter and I realized he sort of encapsulated his love so that when I was older I could get it and even says that one of the letters I'm writing this down because I think when you're older it will make more sense to you and and you'll be able to appreciate it and he told me he told me um what his work was what he actually did at work and told me some stories from his childhood so it was really great cuz there just wasn't time I never got to know him as an adult and I'm way older now than he was when he died which is funny to think and I still miss him yeah still miss him so all right number seven is watching other people enjoy social ease like why didn't I get the memo you got triggers installed instead right so it can be a trigger for your abandonment when you see other people just not being so effed up in social situations and comparing yourself or imagining that they're okay one thing I've learned over time is people don't always feel as at ease as you think but some do it's true some are just like la la everything's great I'm confident I feel like I fit in everywhere I go well I don't that's not how I feel and so sometimes watching them I start to compare myself and then I go into the abandonment thing I'm going to get left out I just know it's coming I I know I'll take myself out preemptively did you ever do that I did all right another trigger can be seeing other people happy and you feel like you you should be happy there's no reason you aren't but you're not happy you feel shame or ostracized or you just know in your bones you're never going to fit in sometimes though you are ostracized because of something about you maybe you're prickly maybe you don't contribute enough maybe you have a Vibe that's very stressed out or angry right and you might be in a state of confusion about why this is you you think oh these other people are terrible sometimes people actually are terrible and you just haven't had enough healing to choose people that are great that you feel good with sometimes you go into blame like you just don't feel okay in yourself and your reflex is to blame other people and people have nervous systems so no matter how polite or kind your words are if you're feeling kind of like with other people they feel it and you will find people pulling away and that has been a lot of my experience in life where if I were to ask people how come I'm not included not that I did but if I did they would have just said I don't know you're included I don't I don't know what you're saying but I just didn't have a very inviting demeanor I wasn't positive about getting together I I I almost was looking for a way to get left out because I felt so triggered by the whole question of whether I was going to be included you know and so when you're healed you have a little bit more like latitude to you get those fears and resentments on paper about that could happen or has happened and then you just kind of like give it your best shot and you just go hey do you want to hang out or hey can I tag along and then you only have to like feel terrible and embarrassed if you you know and you still don't have to feel terrible embarrassed but they could actually reject you but that's almost never what's going on so we work on ourselves and then we work on being free enough to express ourselves and ask for what we want there's always a component of working on ourselves so that we can be you know nice good people that people want to hang out with and that's not a given for everybody with trauma so I'm kind of talking about how a history of Abandonment leads to a present day feeling ostracized and and it is so hard to be ostracized it does happen for real Sometimes some sometimes there is um an overlay you know sometimes people really are just being Wicked sometimes your trauma wounds are kind of adding to it and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy but for ostracization a trigger is being in groups at all like just believing I don't belong I never do I'm uncomfortable I'm triggered I didn't get the memo I don't like these people they're all stuck up they're also perfect they're also normal you know whatever your judgment is it's it it's it's not not a friendly Vibe right second one is feeling overlooked right did you ever do this when you were in school when you raised your hand with an answer and somebody else got called on and then you go oh no I wasn't raising my hand it's this weird shame that some of us feel about like offering ourselves and then getting overlooked it's like shameful or something if you stand outside of it and you just think of a little kid raising her hand in class it's okay not everybody's can get called on and so you may have learned don't raise your hand just sit there and act like you don't know the answer either which is a way to take yourself out of the mix preemptively so you never have to feel ashamed about not getting called on and this can be applied to jobs and relationships and friend groups and family stuff and so it really takes a lot of courage to just put yourself out there for what you want afterwards all right another trigger feeling judged not accepting yourself you know if you're if you're feeling judged by other people people I can almost guarantee you you have a component of not feeling okay yourself about what you're doing who you are and your first order of business is always going to be to work on that to work on yourself all right here's another one you know you don't belong but what happened was you were just crap fitting with this group anyway just so that you could have people to hang out with and isn't it funny how you can do that sometimes and just be like I don't like these people I don't fit in so there you have it you know when you hang out with people just to use them to fill up your time that can happen number six feeling condescended to that comes from fearing you're not enough that you don't know enough and yes some people are very condescending GH and it's a trigger it's a trigger I really don't like I don't like you know when people assume that I don't know something and they explain it to me and it happens all the time and I used to get very prickly and want to tell them look I know that I know and my healing at this stage is I don't even bother I'm just like all right thank you because I basically I don't think it's very polite Behavior but I don't feel like taking it on or getting into conflict with people I just as soon you know carry on and keep all my self-regulation available for myself to use so what can you do about these triggers the world doesn't stop showing them to you the one thing that can change is your trauma driven response where you shut down you pull away you lash out or you avoid people and you avoid your potential as your only means to control control the damage that happens when those responses get Unleashed but that's not great right you taking yourself out is you taking yourself out you can heal your responses when you feel triggered and uh even the abandonment ones and it starts by learning to notice and calm those triggers when you know what's happening it stops feeling like it's just consuming you drowning you that it stops feeling so real frankly a little space appears where you see that you have a choice and I learned how to do this with the techniques that I call the daily practice and it's it's made a huge difference in my life and it keeps making a difference that I've pretty much devoted my life you know to sharing it with everyone who needs that that's a lot what this channel is for and that's what I love about YouTube hundreds of thousands of people are using the techniques now and if you haven't tried them yet I hope you'll give it a try see what it does for you when I ask people I coach what is the biggest most hard to managed trigger of your childhood PTSD most of them say abandonment and this trigger is so strong and so totally takes over your nervous system and your perception that if you're like a lot of people who were neglected or abandoned as kids you can't even tell when you're imagining that someone's going to leave you or if your awareness is really pretty accurate and you are seeing what's about to happen all cptsd triggers lead to some level of disregulation of of your emotions your brain your whole nervous system and in my experience healing is virtually impossible until you can learn to get re-regulated so today I want to share with you a video about getting triggered by abandonment and this is one of the videos from my disregulation boot camp which is a 20-day course that helps you calm your cptsd triggers so that you can get Mastery over your emotions your thinking and your physiology so that you can live your life more in harmony with yourself more regulated more of the time it's so powerful when you learn to re-regulate if you're interested in the disregulation boot camp there's a link below you'll hear me in this video refer to a worksheet but that's only available in the course itself that's okay I'm sharing this because I tell a story here of how triggers can get that power over you and if you live with a vulnerability around feeling abandoned my story could just give you some hope I hope so today we're going to talk about one of the most intense triggers for childhood PTSD abandonment this one is so Primal because we're all wired to be loved and included in the tribe as if our lives depend on it because in any situation before the last I don't know 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 fears each day and I've heard the things that come up for everyone being left by the tribe is a core fear it comes out as fear of ending up alone and homeless and dying alone and the fear isn't irrational really it's a standard feature of being a homo sapien but for those of us with childhood PTSD it can go way out of proportion to the situation to the point of being crippling and it can make us seem really unreasonable in my childhood my mother would leave the family for a month at a time starting when I was a month old she'd run off with some guy and not tell anyone where she was or if she was coming back now she did come back but the family would be in anguish and frantic with uncertainty uh and this was going on all around me while I was a small kid and then when I was about five she'd sometimes take me with her and leave me for a moment in a Lobby or for a couple of hours in a movie theater and then she would not come back for 10 11 hours and the police picked me up once outside a casino that's when I was six I hadn't eaten all day I had a fever now nowadays you'd lose your kids over something like that but not back then and I mean I was scrambling to cover for her because of course I didn't want them to take me away from her but you can see where I got kind of a weird thing around abandonment and that carried into my adulthood and it certainly kicked up when I started having groups of friends then boyfriends and then working and trying to fit in all situations where sometimes there's rejection and before I learned to stay regulated any rejection I'll tell you what it felt like it was as if I'd been injected with a toxic chemical I'm assuming it was a release of some stress hormone and I could feel that bad feeling just like flowing through my bloodstream and I'd think oh no here it goes again and I'd fall into a very dark kind of disregulation and there would be nothing I could do to stop it that's a trigger so you'll be tempted on the worksheet to put a lot of work into understanding why you have certain triggers like this one just like I told you why and knowing this that's possibly helpful maybe you'll better understand that your reactions to abandonment are not your fault you didn't just make it up but I'm going to direct the majority of your focus to just remembering and noticing what it feels like when you're you're triggered by abandonment what in your adult life recently has set it off and what was it about those situations that that seems to get to you so badly so that's all in the worksheet along with reflection on how you've come back from abandonment totally important right one thing that's going to help you tremendously with dislodging those Dee rooted triggers that have an early and understandable origin is the daily practice when you write your fears and resentments you can pour out whatever is coming up on a hard day when your fear of Abandonment got triggered fear no one likes me fear I don't know what just happened fear I'll end up alone when I'm old and um I'm resentful at my girlfriend because I have fear she didn't text me back last night and so on deep triggers aren't going to change because you merely decide to change it's not likely anyway they change when you can access that pre-language part of your brain where the abandonment hurt was installed and language out through writing not speaking writing what that feeling is that's happening the terror the self-hatred whatever it is for you you write it you meditate and you'll find that the emotions are calmer and they're lying low for the time being and your thinking is clearer like maybe you don't have to freak out and act jealous this time maybe you can forget about it or maybe you're sick of all the fear involved in a relationship and you want to end it there's no right answer here the point is that all options are open to you and you're no longer enslaved by a fear of that physiological hell associated with abandonment that limits so many of us with childhood [Music] PTSD [Music]

Channel: Crappy Childhood Fairy

Views: 491,750

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Id: RKhtLsQ8sVE

Length: 57min 59sec (3479 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 13 2023