Despite Your Trauma, You Are Meant For LOVE

one of the cruelest ways the damage shows up from neglect and abuse in childhood is that we go through life either alone or in relationships where we're not loved not safe and not happy it's not supposed to be that way and if you have childhood PTSD and you're wondering why you keep attracting people who are either not functional not into you or outright hurtful to you you're going to want to watch this video my name is Anna Runkle also known as the crappy childhood fairy and I teach people how to heal the symptoms of complex PTSD and childhood PTSD and having relationships with the wrong kind of people is definitely one of those symptoms that is how my childhood trauma manifested for me when I used to live my life stuck in a loop between alone and in a bad relationship one or the other I'm making this video for those of you who are in that Loop right now and if you're actually in a good relationship keep watching because what I'm going to teach you here can be applied to a lot of other aspects of life like work and creativity and fulfilling the dreams and goals that you have but haven't achieved yet but let me focus on romance basically if you had trauma as a kid romance is one big area where you can end up with not just less than you really want but with something you never wanted you try to meet someone you like who's a solid person someone you can trust and even when you think you found them they let you down they push you away or they turn out to have some giant problem like they're already in a relationship or they have an addiction or they just can't be there for you for one reason or another and you wonder why didn't you see it coming right if you're like a lot of people with childhood PTSD it's not even clear how this blind spot happens everything seemed so good right they said all the right things there were promises made your heart flew wide open to them and you were feeling really good about it and then bam you find out how wrong you were and the horrible truth is a lot of us stay in those relationships if they don't leave us for no better reason than we just can't face the prospect of a breakup or of being single again it's too triggering of old abandonment wounds so we hold on as long as we can whether it ends now or later we lose years of Our Lives this way so if this is familiar to you and you're drained and you're confused I want to tell you why this experience this moment where you just lost what you thought was a good relationship is an incredible opportunity to heal not a tragedy an opportunity now when you get pushed out of a relationship with the wrong person whether you know it or not you've just taken a big step closer to the right person because right now your path is clear with some healing the right person can find you so if you're feeling ready for this good thing to happen to meet up with the right person I have some advice for you the job in front of you is not to run out there and meet someone not yet but instead to raise the brightness of what I call your cab light cab light do you know this term you know how taxi cabs have a light on top and when the cab lights off it means there's already a passenger in that cab but when the light is on hey it's free well this is a metaphor that refers to the vibe of someone who's ready and open to meet a really great new person a cab light now what happens when your cab light won't come on has this ever happened you feel ready to meet someone you're thinking about it all the time and maybe reaching out to people and putting in a lot of effort but it's like no one can see you you're not attracting interest or you're attracting interest but not the right kind or not the right people that's a broken cab light by the way where you're trying to meet someone but the only ones noticing you aren't anyone who's safe or appropriate or available for you and if you're feeling anxious to meet someone it's tempting to rush in and think oh you know I can just make it work right have you ever done that I have or you bond with that person and then realize who they actually are and then spend the next two years or so trying to retrofit them into the person you hoped they were the first time you met and you know how that ends right now when your cab light's working properly and it comes on good people show up in your life people who are appropriate wonderful totally happy to be with you so how do you make that happen how can you get your cab light to shine bright in just the right way to attract just the right person for you I'm going to tell you but let me first explain what may have been standing in your way so far if you grew up with trauma like abuse being demeaned neglected going hungry not being protected from danger these hardships even when they're over can leave traces all over your life wounds blind spots pockets of low self-esteem that kind of leak out even when you're on your best behavior so for example if your aim is to have a family then you would only want to attract people with the same goal and who were capable of you know caring for kids earning a living supporting Life as a family and if you want to have a marriage then you'd only want to attract a partner who could do that who's free to marry you as in not already married and able and willing to make a lifetime commitment to you if things go well so the question is if you're not attracting these things if you're getting entangled with the wrong kinds of people who can never be what you want or aren't even trying what are you communicating about yourself that's leaving these needs of yours just dangling out there unmet unseen if you're not attracting what you want your cab light is not working so you can think of a working cab light as the set of signs that you give off that a partner who's a good fit would be looking for when they meet you healthy people look for the signs of what they want and they stay away from people who communicate something different than that the people who don't really care what signals you're sending are the messed up people the people who aren't healed yet or the people who are actually looking for not love but a quick fix relationship and for them the stakes are really low they don't care so if you're not clear who you are and what you're seeking then your cab light can't communicate it for you and in that case you're going to get whoever you get but not who you want now I'm simplifying it but this in a nutshell is how we end up in empty and miserable relationships blaming the other person but really the problem began because we were carrying around enough trauma that we just couldn't shine a light that could attract the kind of person we wanted now the good news is you have the potential to change this and it starts in here healing the hurts that dim your light and you do this both through brain healing and through a loving and honest self-assessment around where you might be putting up a barrier between where you are and where you want to be now what kinds of barriers am I talking about well maybe you're not taking care of yourself or you're letting TV and spacing out take up all your free time or you're being way over busy or this is a big one you're isolating nowadays it's easier than ever to do that and if this is your tendency I urge you to fight it and to fight the hundred ways that your light gets turned off right when you need it so what else are some things that hide your light being already in a relationship that's not healthy or happy for you for one thing bad relationships they wreck your Sparkle and they squash your confidence and though you might be thinking that you can hold on for a while until you meet the right person healthy people don't want to meet you like that they don't want to be involved with people who are already attached or with people who are too insecure to be on their own when that's the right thing to do you want a person who's picky like that not someone who gets into a relationship that's compromised or demeaning you want someone who cares about themselves enough to hold out for a good person someone bright and shiny and whole and available that's what healthy people do so how can you tell if you're sending signals that you're not truly available this is where a loving and honest self-assessment comes in to ask yourself if maybe there are barriers you're putting up that are keeping the good partners away addictions would fall into this category drugs drinking and porn for example are all things that people feel like they're doing privately but in reality they change your energy they change your countenance and unhealed people might not be able to tell the difference but healthy people can tell pretty quickly and they're not attracted now carrying a lot of anger is another barrier also having a lot of drama or conflict in your life not that you can always control this but a lot of times a pattern of drama and conflict could point to a lot of wounding and a high probability that this is what you'd bring to a relationship so just like addictions and anger drama and conflict deserve to be at the very top of your list of where to focus your healing when you're working on getting that shine up in that light of yours another barrier is when your romantic energy isn't contained within you right there right ready to be shared with another person when the time is right you could be leaking that potential that emotional availability all around you with maybe staying too connected to an X or two or three or being caught up in casual relationships where you have some vague plan to just get rid of those people if the right person comes along you know it's easy to think that it's a small thing and if no one really knows about it it won't affect your ability to meet someone new but you know what my experience is it dims your cab Light and Healthy people who are looking for someone intact and capable of sharing their lives in a good way are just not likely to be interested in someone who has one foot in another relationship even if that's a fantasy relationship healthy people can sense that too they're looking for a bright cab light and that's someone who is totally present mostly healed don't have to be perfect and free of past entanglements now it might be harsh to hear but I'm telling you it's a very powerful shift to make this is all stuff that I teach in my dating and relationships course for people with childhood PTSD and if you're interested I've put a link to that in the description section below but I found people with a rough childhood can have great relationships it just takes a little extra healing sometimes people ask me sometimes what's my favorite video that I've ever made and I want to share it with you here I taped this on this little funky desktop setup back in April 2020 just two weeks into the lockdown and I had no access to professional equipment or editing or hair styling but this is about my absolute conviction that if you long for a great love in your life one day it really is what you're meant to have and I know that may sound weird because my reputation today is as a source of tough love advice for people who magicalize romance I also think it's a bit telling that I was talking about a crisis of emptiness in this video little knowing just how terrible and how long that lockdown would become but if you know me you know I teach people struggling with romance to be practical and Lucid about their desire because for traumatized people the Longing For Love can get very distorted and destructive and as so many of us know through bitter experience trauma wounds can sabotage any good relationship that happens to spring up in your life but I'm sharing today this older video because I want to remind you what I believe is behind that longing for Union with another person yes the trauma wounds of limerence and attachment wounds and abandonment reactions can turn our most beautiful and Noble feelings into great shame and regret and it can throw your life way off course for a while but the actual love you seek the sense of healing and being met for who you are of loving and being loved all the way it's very very real so here's the video I made about that it's very near and dear to my heart I read a short story last week that was about emptiness and love and in that funny thing that happens sometimes three different people wrote to me within about a 24-hour period about emptiness and love and I think a lot of us are thinking about those things right now there's this harsh empty Loveless feeling that keeps swooping into Consciousness just for a sec during this quarantine period of Our Lives but it's sounding the alarm that something huge might be missing from our lives and like this one woman said I know you'll think I'm crazy for holding on to the hope that some big love is going to come into my life and save me well a lot of people might say yeah that's crazy and they'd have some platitude about loving yourself or something but I won't I'm Anna Uncle also known as the crappy childhood fairy and I teach people how to heal from the effects of trauma during childhood and one of the harshest effects of early trauma is the injury to our ability to connect with other people it's like a chronic feeling that love can't get in or a scared reaction when love does show up or a set of defenses that block love from ever showing up at all and as hard as it is to be staying at home right now with all the fears about money and safety and the future that this triggers we we actually have an incredible opportunity at the moment to go ahead and I can't believe I'm saying this experience that empty feeling and I mean normally there's a lot to distract us from it whatever it was for you shopping vacation plans work goals dating apps weed meds money whatever made you feel like happiness was just around the corner for you but with all those distractions diminished right now what we're left with is all the crap that was under the rug everything we put there what all these letters I'm getting are about that emptiness we're feeling the instinctive knowledge that we are incomplete in a tragic way because we haven't fully experienced love now nothing could be more important by the way just in case you're still beating yourself up and calling yourself crazy I know I'm always saying how critical it is to Face Reality to not get stuck in blame and fantasy that completely gives away the control of your own happiness because that's fatal to your progress but real love is not a fantasy the fact that you long for it is natural and right and needs to be listened to and that's why I'm saying that the emptiness you feel during this lockdown is trying to tell you something it's a gift we all need the courage to accept this gift which means facing that emptiness for now and letting the tears come if you have to and letting the awareness come too that you've been suppressing about the nature of your loneliness not so much where it came from we know that but why really is it happening now and what would it take to Free Yourself to change and heal so that you could in increasing ways open yourself to love now with childhood PTSD it's so common to feel especially after an experience of loss like we're outside of love like other people are in this world of goodness but we're stuck outside the gates like orphans but remember you can't be exiled from your own experience alone is always where we start but our healing from all the false ideas that trauma taught us can bring us forward into being inside in Love Inside it and by that I mean feeling it sharing it knowing it having the highest experience of it that people can have at least for a little bit in your life it's that full experience of love that everyone is longing for and it's not really a thing you do or you that you get it's a state of consciousness that you go into and I think this is why it feels like a walled City when you're on the outside of it trauma or no trauma it can be hard to come in from that place but it's the place to aim and it's worth fighting for so I think before too long this lockdown will end and I don't know about you but I want to face everything but isolation has been teaching me because I have so much I want to learn and become and normally I'm making videos and programs about practical changes to make life full right and I've got a bunch of new videos and a new program lined up and that's coming out soon but today while this worldwide isolation is still weighing heavily on us I wanted to make this one special video about not the fullness of life but the emptiness especially now when so many people are feeling like it's too much to bear and they want to escape it or control it somehow but what if you just let it happen with all the dignity within yourself and the safety of knowing that the isolation is going to pass and the distractions will return with full force very soon and you can hide in them if you want but what if just for today you just faced it this emptiness this space in you or childhood trauma stole your your natural ability ability your instinctive knowledge of How To Love and even though you've created a lot of good in your life it drove you toward the sorrow and the regrets that are haunting you right now I have great news there's still time and this is what I wanted to say to the people who wrote me and I want to shine a light on a few myths that need to be set straight so that even as we take practical Common Sense steps to heal our lives we aim not at being just commendable or reasonable or appropriate but at being fulfilled and at reaching the place that we're longing for that we were born to find okay so first is real love is not a transaction and it can't be negotiated or demanded of anyone what you didn't get as a child is gone and it can't be replaced by humans but real love is still here and what shows up in your life is a gift to you from something far more powerful than yourself and the reason this longing for love won't go away is because you're made for it and the reason it's so liberating when it happens is because for once you don't have to be a genius and work hard and make something happen it just arrives in our hearts one day as naturally as hunger or sleep but it's not cyclical like that it's a transition a maturation something more like puberty really and it takes over and you change whether you want to or not but it's not coming merely from the body and we don't seem to be able to choose whether it begins we can choose a lot of things including many forms of Love Like Duty and service and being part of a family and taking care of other people and those can go a long way toward healing that emptiness but that big love that's signaling itself through the emptiness you feel is not something that you can make happen it's more like it's making something happen through you and they're good things even though it can make things pretty messy but good things that ultimately benefit you and the other person and perhaps everyone now you can screw it up definitely you can distort it and try to turn it back into some kind of negotiation or get obsessed on it or destroy it even because everything good in life can be abused and if you have childhood PTSD you've already absorbed way more than your share of that but you can't remove real love out of existence so long as it's flowing through you it may be inconvenient or terrifying but when it's happening even with all the emotional overreactions of cptsd all you can really do is your best and you just try to be honorable you don't be a jerk you don't act like an entitled little baby or you don't pull emotional blackmail moves right we just have to do our best even when we don't know where it's going even if it usually turns out that you don't get what you would have wanted there's a way to go through it that deepens you and makes you stronger you've been conscripted into the greatest project of all time which is to bring more love into the world and there is no greater good so let yourself be part of it second I say this to a lot of women and men I've coached you get to want love to turn out the way you want it to turn out now just because everything in your life so far was a disappointment doesn't mean you can protect your heart by setting your sights way low down here if you're going to struggle with love struggle for what you really want and you want the real thing trust me the real thing when I ask people what they really want and they say oh a life partner or they say a long-term relationship or companion or they talk about getting needs met and things like that don't set your aim at what you think you'll likely have to settle for set your aim for what you want and what you want is the one you'll have plenty of chances later to lose that person or to never find them or to settle for number two or three or four there's no guarantees here but I'm telling you get clear what you really want and wear it with pride don't act cool about it don't crap fit you know that word I have a whole video about it you get so good at fitting yourself to crap when you're a kid that you you can't stop you take a crappy person or a situation and in your mind you make it okay you think oh I can make this work don't make it work don't try to hedge your bets and pretend you're okay with whatever or you're gonna get whatever you've been getting whatever all of your life and that empty space inside of you it's made of whatever okay the only version of you that anyone's going to fall in love with with real love is the real you and if your childhood PTSD is mucking that up with a lot of defenses and fear and anger and grabbiness then healing is very likely going to be a very big asset for you and you might need to heal first a little bit and in that case you are exactly on the right Channel and finally the third thing and heads up I got to talk about God here and if you're not into that I invite you to just adapt what I'm saying to what makes sense to you but don't let anybody tell you that the idea of perfect love is crazy it is the most real thing there is actually it's how we're shown spiritual reality and it's an experience of seeing through God's eyes if only for a little bit right so so that we can know the truth of our Oneness with all things that's the place where we want to be that's where we truly live we're there all the time even though we'll almost never be conscious of it a trauma can tear us out of knowing this ever but it can't actually take it away it can't change what is our home you're part of it and Through Your Love of another person if you can keep healing and open up to it you can experience it that Oneness that's the thing you're craving Oneness now maybe you've experienced this it's not a trick played by chemistry it's it's your Awakening and it's an intense spiritual experience for anyone and if you have that trauma in your past your attachment issues can kick in and you'll want to like grab hold and stop the fear and unfortunately this can take you right out of that experience and it doesn't always work out like you'd hoped but whatever you do even if you screw it up it expands you and it raises you up into who you really are now I get letters from people and they say oh but you don't realize I'm almost 40 or I'm 51 or I'm 67 or I'm 75. here's what I learned from my friend Gladys who found her great love at age 80 just a few years before she died there's still time and for all you know the greatest love you could possibly know may still lie ahead of you especially if you keep healing from what happened in the past and that longing you feel when you're lonely especially now has a message for you that it's real and it's pointing the way toward your home when I help people sort out their dating lives one of the most common things I find that's standing in the way of having a happy relationship especially for people with childhood PTSD is that they're not willing to be clear what they really want they're not clear with other people they're not even clear with themselves so one of the things that I teach everyone is to get clear about what you want what's your vision for your life and what kind of partner do you actually want how do you want things to land in your life do you want to be married do you want to have kids do you want to go slow like these are things you get to decide for yourself and you get to choose the qualities in other people that would be important to you necessary for you or that would be a deal breaker for you so when you make a list of what it is you really want over time you're going to be able to refine this list and you can discover new things that you realize are important to you and new things that you've now learned the hard way will not work for you so the more conscious that you can be about what you really want and the more careful you can be to honor what you really want what you don't want as well then the easier it will be to stay out of heartbreak and entanglement that that causes you to use lose years of your life and delay when you finally do find a good relationship so that's the thing about bad relationships they don't just keep you from having a relationship in that time but they deplete you they can be destructive to your personality they can make it a lot harder for you in the future to have a happy relationship just because you end up with these injuries emotionally that you just go oh here we go again and you fall into a negative pattern that can push people away so it's really really important to go out with people who are good who fit you who don't have red flags blazing but who are demonstrating good qualities that you should be looking for and do you want to know what I think they are I'm going to list them for you okay so just a little background usually the best way to meet prospective Partners is in real life through activities that you actually love doing and you've heard this before but to do that to meet people in real life it means that your job right now is to be doing activities that you love that's how you're going to find people who have compatible things that they love doing too and it will bring you into contact with people who fit your vision you'll meet all kinds of people you know everybody knows that dating is a little bit of a numbers game if you know what you're looking for if you know what your vision is and then you have contact with lots of people and meet them you can't help but start finding people who begin to fit what it is you do want that's how you do it and the one advantage of meeting people online is at least you know it's a date right when you meet people out in the real world there's some testing the water that goes on before you know if it's a date or you declare that it's a date or ask them out sometimes so that's part of what I'm going to teach you here about qualities to look for it requires looking for what I call green lights all right let's just call it green lights I heard that word from Matthew McConaughey in his book his autobiography and he would talk about something really nice happening in his life something positive and he'd go green light with his nice accent and I just got that I think it's really the opposite there's a red flag which says stop there's a green light which says go so looking for signs that somebody is a good person to date what are the green lights one it is a feeling in you that you feel romantically attracted to them and they show you in big or small ways that they're attracted to you and I know that sounds really simple and it sounds obvious but how many times have you gotten it wrong right so you won't always know if you're reading their signs correctly but either they seek out a conversation with you or when you talk to them they seem happy to talk to you and they make eye contact and they smile and they act interested in what you say and they put a little effort into keeping the conversation going now I know there's Charming people out there who aren't really interested in they might do that I'm going to tell you you know several signs that you look for to see if if it looks like a series of green lights for you so that's one of them they need to be interested you need to feel it you need to see signs that they're feeling it too all right second thing they are not already in a relationship again that sounds really obvious how many times have you gotten it wrong so there's no green light for people who are kind of entangled in other relationships or seeing people right now that's a heartache waiting to happen clarifying this with someone that you've just met in a gentle way one totally socially acceptable way to do that is to and and you can simultaneously you can find out if they're available or and also let them know you're interested by saying oh so oh that's interesting what you say so are you in a relationship and we all know that that's something that people say when they're kind of wondering if maybe they could date you so I'm just giving you this is a gentle socially acceptable not in people's face way also you can save face if they go why yes I am that's my girlfriend over there you can be like oh great and you didn't just fall all over yourself for them you're just getting information you need to know do I have a green light all right third thing so let's say they show signs of Interest they're not in another relationship and one of you suggests getting together sometime if you're in doubt about where they're coming from if they suggest this or whether they mean it to be a date your mission is to get that clear ideally before the first date but it's possible sometimes people do this as friends and you don't know yet and you don't want to force the issue okay so the worst case is you go along as if you're friends but you don't do a second thing with that person unless it is clear that it's a date that they are in fact interested and at that point if you went on one thing that you thought was a date and you have to ask them if it's a date and they say no yeah you could still stay friends with them there hasn't been like a you know a great love lost or anything but if you struggle with emotionally unavailable people I would just say you know if you feel attracted to them and they're not into you they're just not a good person to be friends with it's going to be just kind of like draining you of your emotional availability all the time your choice though all right number four when you meet online you're generally putting your information out front about what you're looking for what's going on in your life what your status is and you can read from other people what are they looking for and if you both decide to meet in person you know it's a date you've accomplished certain things that that you would otherwise have to do through the whole ritual of what we just described in the first three points for meeting in person so if you met online you can skip through one two and three here we are at number four so this applies no matter how you meet they demonstrate an interest in getting to know you they don't just talk about themselves they don't just try to impress you or talk about outside things like news or the weather they talk about you they want to know about you they ask questions now anyone who is healthy and looking to be in a relationship will have big questions about who are you that will be the number one thing that they want to know is who are you so that's something to look for that's a green light all right five they listen to what you say they understand you they get you now not everybody in the world understands and gets you but that's what you're looking for somebody good to have a relationship with they're interested in you and it's not just you two two people taking turns asking questions and answering them like some sort of rote behavior all right number six they make it clear that they are interested in you and this is a date that is a green light there are circumstances where it's okay even though it's awkward to get to know someone through one or two or at most three get togethers or dates if you find yourself falling for them but you're afraid to ask and you've been hanging out with them for a while the answer is probably that they're not interested in you they will usually let you know you're avoiding the question why because either you know the answer or you fear the answer is no but courageous healthy people like to get this clear they just want to know and they don't want to go too far without knowing is that where they're the other person's coming from is that what this is I encourage you to do it too so that you don't waste your lovely romantic possibilities waiting around in nervous limbo afraid to ask thinking you're not worthy to know we're thinking there's some there's really nothing shameful about being interested in somebody and finding out they don't feel the same way it's totally dignified to ask and then respond accordingly by stepping back all right that's six the seventh sign that someone is is good to date is that they're open about themselves and what they're looking for it could be a red flag if they jump right in and tell you tragic stories or rants about an X or you know even the trauma that happened to them as a kid even though you have that too it is boundaried not to go into deep stories that are emotional on early dates all right first you get to know somebody later you can talk to them about it so if if people are you know leaking out all the sad and angry stories and the rants then they might be in healing mode but they're not in relationship mode they're not ready for a relationship yet the openness to look for is about their vision for themselves what they want in life do they want marriage are they interested in having a serious relationship do they want what you want do you have matching visions that go together if yes that's a green light if no then that would be a reason to stop dating them again because sure you can fill Time by dating somebody who's not going to be a match but if you have childhood trauma and this has been a struggle for you that you end up in relationships where you're attached but not happy I'm just really going to encourage you like only get into the relationship that you really want just stand up for what you really want so there are major compatibility issues that can be avoided when you get that on the table within three dates all right number eight is are they logistically available and that means they live in the same general geographical area as you they have time for a relationship they don't have anything in their life that would get in the way of a committed relationship and I'm talking about something like you know an ex living in the basement or a job that keeps them out of town most of the time or they're about to move to another country that is a red flag not a green light number nine they treat you this is this is a sign this is a green light they treat you and everyone else you see them interacting with food servers other drivers people on the street animals they treat them with kindness and respect that is a green light a good sign all right now anybody can put on an act early on but if they can't put on the ACT in the first six days um it's not going to work out so watch for that watch for how they treat other people number 10 they're honest if they notice the restaurant forgot to charge for the dessert they tell the restaurant if if you ask them a question about themselves they answer they know how to be limited in talking about personal information but they don't lie if you catch somebody in a lie in the first six weeks trust me it's gonna get worse all right they are number 11 considerate about making plans with you they make clear when a plan is firm they show up when they say they'll show up and they call if they're going to be late they take care of that generally they call when they say they're going to call and they never leave you guessing about whether something they invited you to do was an invitation or just a random idea tossed out that's not actually happening you've probably been there before all right the 12th sign that someone is good to date has to do with how you feel when you're dating them that is the biggest thing how do you feel while you're dating them you feel good that's a green light not just because you know there's hope that the lonely nights are finally going to end because that's that can kick in sort of cloud judgment about how does it feel but that's really fear about what it would feel like if you weren't with them it's nice to have somebody in your life it's a legitimate thing to hope for but it's not enough and it's not enough to just feel attracted or crazy about them by itself those feelings are not a sign the sign is that as a result of meeting them and spending time with them you feel lifted up you find yourself being a better version of yourself and in meaningful ways like you are taking responsibility in a better way you're taking better care of yourself you know perhaps learning something new instead of just frittering away time you want to be a better person you want to do more you want to be more you want to be healthy or positive be fulfilled those are signs that someone is a good influence on you and therefore a good match for you and ideally two people have this lifted up feeling from each other two people feeling that way that's a good sign people who had a traumatic childhood can be very difficult to be in a relationship or marriage with I get a lot of letters from hurt scared people who are going through a lot of pain because their partner has cptsd and is not yet able to calm their symptoms now do I think people with cptsd are always worth being with no not always but great relationships are possible when you both understand what cptsd is and you're both working on strategies to Halt the hurtful and chaotic dynamics that can very easily pull couples into a dark vortex with the knowledge and Goodwill healing can be totally positive for both people and can I just say this to the people who do choose to love people with cptsd I love you for this I'm grateful to those of you who care enough to ask how to be a good partner to those of us who are affected by hard stuff in childhood a loving and stable relationship goes a long way to help heal human beings who are hurt and feeling alone so thank you for that all right I first just want to acknowledge that the symptoms of childhood PTSD are on a Continuum they come and go they might be little things and they could be very serious things and before I get into the nuts and bolts of how to be with someone who's having these symptoms I just want to say under no circumstances should you put up with abuse and I'll get into that a little more at the end but yes people who had a hard childhood are totally worthy and lovable and can be worth a bit of trouble sometimes and yes we can be complicated and confusing and needy and exasperated sometimes but also wise and capable and warm so here are some tips to help you understand your loved one and offer support while also taking care of yourself because there is no good relationship where people don't take care of themselves so first of all it may be helpful to know that a lot of what your partner is dealing with is called dysregulation this is a real and measurable nervous system phenomena that can cause a person to feel you know spaced out discombobulated emotionally overreactive you've probably seen that and struggling to think straight and you're like uh-huh dysregulation happens to everybody to some degree sometimes and we all naturally recover from it eventually and this is this recovered state is called re-regulation or self-regulation now self-regulation is often used in the context of emotional dysregulation which is one piece of the pie emotional but nervous system dysregulation is not just emotions it's the endocrine system it's the immune system it's blood flow it's the vital signs there's a lot of things that are really not under a person's control directly but they can be calmed using techniques so the recovered State it's called re-regulation and the thing about for people who have PTSD from childhood it getting disregulated can happen a lot more frequently it can be a lot harder to climb back out of and so a person who had trauma compared to somebody who doesn't the traumatized person is probably spending more time dysregulated and having a harder time climbing back out of it and it's during those dysregulated times that the problems can really get in now it's important to remember the tendency to get dysregulated is not your partner's fault and it isn't your fault even if your partner thinks it's your fault when they're upset now everybody does that sometimes right we blame other people but the symptoms you're seeing are just what PTSD looks like when it's not very well under control and technically how you deal with your partner's dysregulation could influence how quickly they can get re-regulated if you just start yelling or threatening to leave you're not likely to calm things down so unless you mean it unless that's really what you want I'd recommend don't make threats don't do things that increase the drama it just doesn't help you don't have to be a doormat either so it's important for you to remember even if your partner can't see it in the moment that it's not your fault that their feelings got this intense and you're not responsible for making it better right now it's not your fault and it's not your job it's the person who has PTSD it's our job we've got to learn to re-regulate we have to nobody can regulate our PTSD brains for us we're the ones who've got to take steps to change it and we're the ones who have the option of self-control we also have the option to leave if somebody is just so you know destructive to us that we cannot self-regulate that's where people get into like a no contact relationship with an ex or perhaps a family member so as hard as it may be to draw upon when you're feeling the urge to lash out or run away from loved ones the inner resources are there to calm your symptoms it's not the fault of the person with cptsd but we're the ones who can make the change change in here okay that said here's what you can do you can support your partner as they try to heal as they learn to re-regulate you can ask or suggest that they try to heal you can um suggest they read a certain book or try a certain technique but you cannot make it happen not on your timeline not against their will and you can't do it for them if only you could right I get a lot of uh males and comments from people who are like how do I make someone heal and you can't but you can offer support and you can suggest things lightly but you must remember what is needed is understanding encouragement and then being willing to step back and detach a little uh to allow people to make their own decisions and find their own answers it's genuinely the truth that no one person really knows what another person needs and uh I I sit here and I teach about this stuff every day of my life but I never presume to know what another person needs and so when you do that to a partner you know what happens they don't like it they will pull away they will shut down it could delay things for them now you might notice that when your partner is dysregulated they can go from happy and Goofy to overwhelmed and enraged and then to emotional flatness like nothing ever happened all without you ever realizing what set this off and sometimes they'll be dysregulated without any outward sign they seem fine they say they're fine but then you notice they're not hearing a word you say or they're tripping over things or forgetting to show up for appointments with some people this brain fog aspect of dysregulation can be really pervasive and it'll be tempting for you to think they're acting this way intentionally to show you that you're not important to them or they don't respect you or you might try to force them to go see an ADHD specialist and take medication but hold on because while all of this could be the case it's most likely just a sign that they're dysregulated and believe me I'm telling people like your partner that dysregulation is not an excuse to be rude or inconsiderate healing while you're in a couple means two people meeting halfway and your partner may need to make the effort to show you that they care and you need to keep in mind that a brain thing might be temporarily blocking the signs of caring that you need to see like the emotion is there but you can't see it on the face so that's one thing but maybe the hardest thing about a person with childhood PTSD is that they can be unreasonable they get upset and you get blamed for things that you have nothing to do with and I'll tell you a secret if you keep presenting yourself as someone who has power to fix the PTSD who has the answers you will soon be having fights about why you haven't fixed it yet and I'm gonna bet you've had that argument before maybe many times where your partner believes that you have the key because you sort of presented yourself that way for them feeling better if only you would turn the key but you won't because you're so mean right that's a way of thinking that I call Outsourcing responsibility for healing and I tell people with childhood PTSD to step out of that thinking and own the process you know I know like we're all at the effect of other people other people affect us very much of course but we must own the process of our healing and changing how we behave and I'm telling you as their partner let them own it it's totally okay and appropriate to offer Comfort to a person who's in a PTSD response and consistent love and stability are good things and definitely influence healing but sometimes what love looks like if you support a person and give them space to just you know day by day notice how their how their PTSD symptoms affect them and let them recalibrate their response that's what healing can look like maybe they're already in my courses for doing this and that's how you heard about me you can support your partner while they do the work and still hold a boundary against yucky Behavior or abusive behavior that happens when they're dysregulated so the way to do that is when you notice the symptoms coming on in your partner and they're starting to behave in ways that are making you feel scared or upset you can take a step back your feelings matter they matter a lot you are half of this but your partner who's having cptsd symptoms right now this is not a good time to try to talk things out with them or get what you need you'll get much better results if you wait and if they're pressing you to talk about their feelings and we do that sometimes then say things are feeling a little intense right now and I want to talk to you but I want to wait until things are calmer now notice you're not abandoning them that's a trigger you don't want to set off unintentionally you're not shutting them down you're making a plan to communicate in a better way and if your partner doesn't want to let you do that you get to do it anyway now remember they're not they're not themselves right now so it's for you to do the wise thing for yourself and remember they will eventually feel calmer and you can talk then so what's helped me in my marriage since I'm the one who gets disregulated is that I try to take responsibility to notice when I'm dysregulated not say much until I can get get myself re-regulated and this is sometimes easier said than done and the urge to you know process the feeling sometimes is overpowering that my process I mean like talk talk you know and you said this and you said that in another and even when I mask it as I statements you know I felt I felt horrible because you were just such a dick you know it doesn't disregulated talk it's like drunk talk think of it that way you know the I I even tell people when you're dysregulated do not drive a car pull over if you can't remember you know if you're having like blank outs about how you got across the bridge stop stop and re-regulate and that's what I teach I teach tools to re-regulate quickly and then also long-term strategies to stay regulated more of the time but you don't try to have a big major conversation about what's happening or to try to break down some horrible argument that you had while a person is dysregulated if you really want to have communication maintaining regulation is everything it's everything and so the person with cptsd that's the first order of business is to learn how to do that how to go slowly enough and gently enough that they can kind of stay lucid and in their body enough to talk about how they're feeling and not have this big like emotional flashback come and take over believing you know you're just the worst thing and you you've probably been in that position you know where they're just like blowing flame at you and it's destructive for people with cptsd to get into that blame place because so long as we are blaming other people for how we feel we can't recover it's it you know you're just trying to like it's like help me fix me fix me well other people cannot it explains so much once you understand that it's like oh they can't you know there's things that other people can do to support you but until a person with cptsd realizes what an inside job this is to self-regulate there's going to be so much conflict with Partners so much conflict so that little codependent Dynamic of like I'm gonna help you honey I'm going to help you it can be too much but support is real there is a way to support and it's just like to to do your part to keep it from going down that road of yelling fixing uh blaming all right so you're using restraint on that side the person with cptsd is is working on restraint as well and using tools because ultimately none of us has a license to take out our frustrations on other people and not even because some of us had bad things happen when we were small that affected us neurologically it's not a license it may be an explanation but it's not an excuse so here's a summary of things that you can do when your partner is experiencing symptoms first you can notice the dysregulation sometimes even if you don't say anything just noting it to yourself oh gosh they're dysregulated again and this can help you stay neutral and even supportive without getting sucked into the drama second you can try to reduce overwhelm for your partner by slowing down keeping your voice gentle and not asking a lot of questions or making demands and again you don't have to mention that you're doing this you can just do it and see if it helps the third thing you can do is mention what you're noticing and ask what they need you can say hey I noticed this is making you a bit overwhelmed is there anything you need to make this easier or you could say would it help if I gave you a hug right now because squeezing hugs can be really helpful but you want to make sure it's wanted and expected for a lot of people uh you know a hug especially out of the blue it can just it can set off more just you know it just triggers something and so you don't want to set off more dysregulation because it can feel constricting it can feel threatening it can feel controlling but at the right time a squeezing hug can be so comforting to the nervous system so timing then if things start getting tense it can be it can it can help if you get a little space or a tiny bit of separation and the trick is to do this without setting off an abandonment trigger so let's say you're on the phone and you can hear your partner getting wound up it's about to turn into an argument you can say I need five minutes apart and make a concrete plan for when you're going to call them back and that just five minute break can allow both of you to discharge the dysregulation and the anger that was bubbling up if your partner uses my daily practice techniques of writing and meditating yes you can very politely very politely gently suggest not demand that they might want to do that or you can do it you can do the daily practice it's for everyone and you can invite them to do it with you but since any kind of comment about dysregulation can well you know nobody wants to be told what to do but when you're in a when a person is in a state of dysregulation getting called out on it is it can feel like criticism sometimes the kindest thing is to tell a white lie and pretend that you have to go to the bathroom just to get a few minutes apart whatever you do don't resort to giving the silent treatment or storming out or threatening the relationship even if you know that you're actually going to leave which you probably aren't but even if you are if that's what you know announcing it to a dysregulated person is only going to lead to a blow up so my advice is stay polite stay kind stay out of the drama let for both of you for yourself partner might complain and try to get the conversation started again but believe me they will thank you later when their brain and emotions are re-regulated that you stayed calm and sturdy and didn't let things turn into a big fight well people don't always thank you later but they would if they could see the big picture of the fight that was just averted everyone is exhausted after a fight and arguing can cost a person with childhood PTSD days of dysregulation where their only quasi-functioning it can cause people to you know forego great opportunities it can cause them to abandon things that are totally worthwhile so calm is good steadiness is good now I mentioned at the beginning that there is no scenario where you are obliged to put up with abuse neither at the doormat level or all-out abuse not emotional not physical so I don't care if you're a man or a woman I don't care who started the argument you don't deserve abuse and if it happens the right thing to do is to remove yourself with kids if there are kids and get to safety anything that needs to be worked out can be worked out when things are calmer and that would be the time to pursue professional help but for you if your partner can't or won't control abusive Behavior then it's very sad but it's not best for you or your kids to be trapped like that okay all that said if you are blessed enough to have a safe loving and supportive relationship that is just one of the most wonderful healing things that could happen for anyone and it's a great gift for a person who had trauma as a kid not everybody is called to that kind of relationship and some people are not healed enough yet to pull it off right now but a good relationship is worth really putting your heart into it's a good reason to work hard on yourself as a person if you're a single person with cptsd who Longs for a relationship keep working on your symptoms you you can become ready for a closer more safe and stable relationship that's fulfilling for you if you're with the person with cptsd there is hope so long as someone will cooperate with you to start calming the symptoms so again my love and appreciation to all of the partners out there who have given that to us and who make the world a loving place for us because of it what if someone came into your life and had been in your life for years and you'd always love them and they'd always loved you but for reasons you couldn't under stand you push them away you broke up with them again and again and again that's one common pattern for people who are abused and neglected as kids has this happened to you even when you want things to work out you find yourself self-sabotaging why do you do that and more importantly how can you stop my letter today is from a woman I'll call Larissa and she writes hi Anna I'm writing to ask for your advice on how to stop pushing Love Away I've been dating the most amazing man I've ever met ever all caps he's so kind and gentle spirited hats for each other since I was 20 and he was 30. I'm now 44. so he's 54. okay we have so much in common and being near him calms me so much in in a way but also causes extreme nervousness in my belly when he's around I feel zero desire to drink and almost no desire to smoke both of which I abuse intensely when I'm alone here comes the fairy pencil okay I'm circling that and these facts this is i i Circle things I'm going to read all the way through so I can hear where you're coming from Larissa and then I'll revisit some notes that I made here on the page and I think I can help you you write I don't know if I have limerence or what the heck is wrong with me I've broken up with him like 10 times in seven months it's awful but I can't seem to help it these feelings are just too much we're currently broken up and my heart is so sad frustrated and angry at myself he still comes by my store seeing him melts my heart and I just ball after he leaves I have to fix this for exclamation points he's emotionally scarred from a horrible marriage and even worse divorce where the mother of his children took him to court for the entire 18 years of his children's youth so that even though he has a great job he had very little money for himself all those years now his children are grown and he says he feels like he can date now before he had when he had no money and so much drama he didn't think he would that it would be fair to anyone I can tell he is as scared as I am I was raised by an alcoholic mom and drug addicted dad they divorced on my ninth birthday my father left my mom for another woman who spent 30 years doing everything she could to keep us from my dad so at nine I became the caregiver of my brother who was a year younger because my mom had to work at a bar and grill spent a large part of our time at the bar because no one could watch us so we turned Chairs into bed since we usually didn't get home until three or four in the morning I was then responsible for getting my brother and myself ready for school hours later and was screamed at if I failed to be on time lots more terrible things happened that I don't have room to write about but I now know they had their own cptsd it's been easy to forgive them at least I'm trying to anyway I then entered a 14-year Loveless marriage divorced seven years ago only to date men who turned out to be bums or kind of psycho bums are kind of psycho yeah I'm just laughing because it's just so true right okay been there one was textbook narcissistic personality disorder which I didn't know existed until he had me so screwed up mentally I thought I had literally lost my mind I had to seek therapy and I've been ravenous for healing ever since it was intensely painful I think that that's where the fear of Love is coming from he was a liar cheater and manipulator I'm still shocked I could be so blind to it all I love this letter I know I have to stop drinking and have been trying I've read Alan Carr's book and joined online communities but it's been very hard it feels hopeless at this point I own a convenience store and sell liquor all day long at this point my employees and customers are like family and we all rely on each other they are my rocks it's all I've done since I since I was 20 years old it's like home anyway what are some things I can do to ease my fear of love this man clearly loves me I feel very much in love with him he will not let me push him away I think he's the one but I want to be healthy mentally before we get too serious please help and thank you for your content I'm learning so much Larissa and love and gratitude yeah what a friendly letter thank you um I love your predicament I'm very happy for you it seems like you have found love and now the struggle part two begins is how do you deal with it and yes I know that one too and there are things you can do so it really jumps out you grew up with a alcoholic mom and drug addict uh dad and your mom working in a in a bar and grill to support you guys and having to bring you to work and sleeping on chairs and going home at three or four in the morning and then having to go to school oh Larissa I I know what that's like and um that is so hard and I'm proud of you because you own a store you did take care of your brother you pulled it together you have a relationship you know it's it's so understandable that you have these wounds right now that make it hard for you to kind of sit still and let love develop right so understandable but you have so many things going for you the big thing you don't have going for you right now is sobriety and so um I think you know I learned the daily practice I teach everybody I learned it from a sober alcoholic woman I'm not an alcoholic but I was my almost my whole family is alcoholic and um you know as far as I know nobody's ever gotten sober I I don't know we're like not even in touch my family is so decimated by alcoholism and addiction I don't even know what's going on with everybody but I will say that the people that I've met in AAA like the woman who taught me how to recover and who I now pass on these techniques to everybody I mean hundreds of thousands of people are doing what we do now that's what she taught me as how she got sober she got sober in AAA and she worked the steps a little differently than you know everybody and there's there's many ways that people do a a I noticed you didn't mention it you mentioned Alan Carr I know that he's well thought of but it doesn't work for everybody is it's a community and um it's a community of people who have gotten sober some of them are still struggling with it some of them have long-term sobriety and they can teach you how it's done and everything that alcoholics tell me is that the only people that they would ever listen to is people who have actually experienced alcoholism themselves and if somebody who had been a hopeless alcoholic and then became sober could tell them how they did it that would be interesting to them so I really recommend it to you um I know people in my family have checked it out and decided it wasn't for them and then kept on drinking and they had their reasons you know like I'm not like these people I don't think I think if you really if you really want to step up and be ready for love that destabilizing effect of like all that drinking smoking less so but smoking you know a lot of people who get sober they first deal with alcohol and later the cigarettes when they can when I started when I first learned these daily practice techniques and I had horrible PTSD I got better very fast but I kept smoking for about three years I was a heavy smoker after about three years then finally I had something going on and a miracle occurred and I was able to stop because I was a big smoker I get it smoking is re-regulating it's a crappy form of re-regulation it's not very good and it's it gives you cancer and you know you're not allowed to even do it inside but that's part of the charm isn't it you get to like go stand outside and take a few deep breaths so we got to find other things to do there is a place where you can get that comfort and ease that alcohol brings in an environment that does not involve alcohol it involves wisdom about how to live without it and a happier bunch of people I have never seen it's a great group there are meetings that are very sad and depressing don't go to those check around go to different ones it's the beautiful thing I've always envied alcoholics because there's so many meetings and um you know I'm somebody affected by Family alcoholism there are fewer meetings but there are meetings for us too and you qualify for that that's what they call in 12-step World a double winner if you have alcoholism and you are affected by Family alcoholism but generally the wisdom is deal with the alcoholism first don't even worry about the other one that you're in in in any 12-step program you're going to be working the same 12 steps check out several meetings get a sponsor and work the steps if you've never worked the steps you have never really done 12-step I'm literally and it's a it's about working the steps and meetings that are depressing and sad are usually because there's too high a proportion of people who don't work the 12-step program they're just there to like talk about their pain and while everybody needs to talk that's the group is what the group is for is to carry the message of Hope so it's also very socializing you can make women friends and I encourage you stick with the women stick with the sober women and learn from ones who seem to be able to have relationships themselves about how to do that there's so much to learn about how to have a loving relationship I had no idea I used to think if I could just get married to a good guy then it was just going to be smooth sailing but it wasn't it was there were some very bumpy years in the beginning and I had the same thing I just I was really like um I don't know like a what's the word skittish I would get upset easily I would very easily feel that oh you don't love me enough and all my old stuff was coming up and it was really hard for him to deal with and luckily we had enough good things in there and had taken our time before getting married that we had a strong relationship that we got through that together and grew through it and um you know every marriage has its ups and downs but that's that's okay that's okay I what you say about this the way he's very comforting to you it's gone on for years I love that well I guess it could be an avoidance logic but if he didn't have work and he had a lot of drama in his life that sounds very responsible not to date you but to do it now because he's free I kind of like that that sounds mature to me so but you both um you both have been badly affected by trauma you both are a little scared of intimacy so here's some things that I would recommend to you don't move in have your own places people who you know people who get all dysregulated and sort of triggered by intimacy they need to be have a space they can go to so it's not time yet to move in first spend some time at least a couple years being in a relationship but not living together all right and then try not to get I don't know what your tendency is if you don't get too enmeshed you don't have to run away so hard so we call that titration I have you know if you would become a member of Larissa that you could take all these courses but I have one it's about dysregulation I have one about dating I have one about connecting with people the connecting one is all about what it's all about like how to have better connections and deal with that difficulty connecting and sticking around with people and setting up boundaries and then opening our hearts all of that is challenging for people who grow up with trauma that's normal so one of the lessons in there it's called titration and titration is a word borrowed from medicine and it means give a little at a time so a way that you can date is like a couple times a week you get together when you talk on the phone keep it to 30 minutes don't text all day have a couple of dates have it be structured and have those dates end don't get sexual yet um I don't know maybe your relationship is already sexual but that will often uh trigger old trauma wounds before you're ready to handle them you can do this the old-fashioned slow way old-fashioned works very well for traumatized people who knows maybe they all had PTSD in the old days and they knew how to do this but you go very slowly and you keep your life going now I like that you have a store yes you sell alcohol I know of Alcoholics who sell alcohol for a living and they're okay with it if they have sobriety so that would be something to check with your AAA group but you have this family at work I love that you have friends to support you it's not all coming from this one guy but I I think it sounds like you guys might be called to be together that's what it sounds like to me I would get support around that you've done therapy before do you need counseling now um do you need to be part of a group of friends where there are couples where they know you and they can support you as individuals and just kind of be behind you I think it that really helps that really helps being a couple who's isolated from everybody else whose problems are private or secret or not known to anybody that's a pretty hard path but with support and being willing to share with other people what's really going on in your life having people who you can safely privately share we had an argument last night it was really hard I felt like I needed to break up with him I've promised him I wouldn't do that again people who will support you through those moments trying to function as a tribe so we love we we have this person we love and our tribe supports each of us and it supports us as a couple so set yourself up like that and go extra slow double slow for people who are traumatized and if you can get that alcohol um get free of it get free of it uh I think I think if you would give a a chance you might just love it one of the messages that's been just drilled into us by popular culture is that you have to love yourself before you can love someone else and this is something people usually tell you when you've had your heart broken and you feel totally worthless right and for a lot of years every time somebody said it to me I just would feel like I must be some kind of different species than everyone else because there were times when I didn't particularly love myself and in fact sometimes when I outright hated myself but there was never a time when I didn't love some other people very very deeply so why do people say this that you can't love someone until you love yourself because actually I think the opposite may be true you can't really love yourself until you love other people I don't think it's possible to be still incapable of seeing the beauty and goodness in other people and yet be able to see that in yourself one comes with the other and here's why I say that when my life was miserable and I was isolated and struggling it was somewhat driven by childhood PTSD and what had happened to me when I was a kid but mostly I was miserable because of problems that I was having with other people in present time then as an adult and a good part of why I was having problems with people was because I wasn't very good at caring about them or paying attention to them feeling empathy for them have you ever been in that place where you couldn't really give that that extreme self-focus well it's normal for adults with unhealed trauma often because we're in pain and it naturally sucks the focus away from what's going on around us the social dynamics and how other people are feeling what their needs are because our own needs are demanding everything we can possibly do just to hold ourselves together and you know that self-centeredness which comes from hurt and fear and anger it's a symptom of childhood PTSD it's it's a universal symptom and it's not our fault we got that way but each day that we're still not able to form mutually caring relationships with other people we love ourselves a little less maybe you'd do okay for a spill and then your PTSD flares up and drives you to lash out at someone and and you damage the relationship even as the words are coming out of your mouth you're thinking oh no no here it comes I'm doing it again I'm overreacting I'm being harsh this person's never going to want me in their life again and sometimes that's true it's a terrible kind of Shame isn't it if you've ever felt it and when you feel that way you'll sometimes find yourself among people who advise people like you and me to just love yourself just love yourself you need to love yourself and I'm sure it looks like that is the very thing that's missing and that if we could just manufacture that self-love everything would be great and fall into place around us but how right nobody tells you how and I'd always think if I could love myself I totally would I would do that really it's such a male adaptation of childhood trauma to not love yourself but here's the secret self-love is not the fix that's needed it's the byproduct of the fix that's needed something definitely needs to change and when you change that the self-love will come but you can't go straight to self-love and expect everything else to be solved it doesn't really make sense does it when you don't love yourself it's think of it as a cry for Change and change can be hard gonna do it from just reading a book or taking a class or making a promise and doing all these things only because someone is about to leave you and you're desperate to stop them that that does drive a lot of change but changes that stick especially changing the the hurts that are installed in you at a deep level these changes are rare because they take a lot of focus and they take a lot of consistency but you can change and there are three conditions first if you're like me you you're not even going to be interested in changing or willing to do the work unless there's a problem unless really you're in pain the old way stops working and when that becomes really really clear and when you're exhausted with the consequences of not changing it kind of Lights a fire under you and it's going to make you feel sick of your life feeling empty and you'll be sick of feeling scared all the time that you're going to lose even more right okay the second condition for change is that it requires humility now that's a weird word it doesn't mean humiliation although humiliation is something we're all very familiar with if we have cptsd it's a major part of a lot of people's traumatic childhood humility on the other hand is something you could think of like acceptance humility is an ability to face a problem without defensiveness and Without Blame normally any kind of loss or failure triggers people not just people with cptsd but all of us and and when we feel like we've done something wrong we will often be tempted to start pointing fingers and sometimes shifting that requires coming down a level and you know that phrase get off your high horse it's like coming down to everybody's level and instead of saying well you did this to me or what do you expect after what happened to me instead down at everybody else's level you can soften your heart and be aware that you made a mistake like everybody does maybe you have a harsh behavior that sometimes hurts people for you it could be anger or trying to control people or criticizing them or ghosting them when you feel uncomfortable so that would be a time to come down a level but humility can also involve a step up where you stop seeing yourself as this pitiful loser who's hopelessly damaged by childhood trauma and who can't possibly be expected to recover or change or show up for people I've done that can you tell because that's not true either so humility is a gentle acceptance of reality you come down from that blaming others you come up from blaming yourself and it's a beautiful state where you just kind of drop all the BS and the blame and the self-attack and just be with the truth of your situation this is a powerful antidote to shame just facing the problem humbly we hurt people we make mistakes and we're strong resilient kind-hearted people who can make good on that we can heal and bring more of our gifts to bear in contributing positively to the people around us that part feels good humility goes a long way toward making it possible for us to make that change and to change the things that we didn't love about ourselves all right but here comes the third and hardest condition for Change and it's effort if we're going to change we're going to have to work at it there's just no way around it a desire to change the courage to face honestly where we are now and the willingness to work consistently daily sometimes deeply sometimes and beyond our comfort zone these are the things that work these are the conditions pain humility and effort we hurt we stop making excuses then we do our best right so not rocket science kind of logical now these are not things that are just going to change automatically because you decided to change it it's not rocket science but change is hard so these criteria these conditions for change will set you up for a radical transformation over time and I know this because I have both changed and I failed to change many many times and when I've successfully changed this is how I did it I am today Miles and Miles Beyond where I was in the beginning of my healing and I have a long way to go I don't even know where I need to go just like everyone but I'm way past the highest point that I thought was even possible for me in my life and each time I was able to make a breakthrough and change and grow in my capacity to love people and listen to them and be caring toward them I think hey you know what I'm pretty good at this you know what I can do this I'm making a difference and when this is happening I'm feeling it because I'm doing it it changes everything and I discovered that I love myself and when I love myself I'm a lot more at ease about other people so it's a positively reinforcing cycle I couldn't love myself when I was focused only on my feelings and my hurts and trying to stop being self-hating and just love myself I had to take steps up and look outward I will say when this started to really happen this is when my spirituality went from a vague idea into a well of strength in me I needed strength not just to imagine change but to hang in there with the changes I was making and not give up because there are always times when you're trying as hard as you can and it just seems like it's going nowhere and you think what is the point of all of this and then out of nowhere something good happens and you get lucky and you get a burst of healing and then you have more capacity to pay attention to your relationships to hear people to be good to them and then the good cycle continues and you find you love yourself now if you're not loving yourself yet and you can't see this yet I'm going to tell you you have precious intrinsic worth and you are worthy to be loved even when and this is true for every person alive even when you can't love yourself yet don't get too wrapped up in the struggle don't go hating yourself over mistakes and things that you can't help keep your eyes on who you aim to be the best part of you and keep working to liberate that part of you out from under the layers and layers of all you've been through a lot of cptsd behaviors got there to protect you you know checking out being defensive isolating from people that's what layers are for they are how you protected yourself when those were the only tools you had now though you're gradually adding new tools and you can release those layers and come back to who you really are and who you really are is very very lovable now maybe some people can love themselves at will but I can't when I cleaned up my life I became more considerate of other people and that helped a lot to feel better about myself to approve of myself there were certain people who I loved hugely even when I hated myself but it wasn't the kind of love that did them very much good it was a complicated love I wasn't very present and better at loving other people now and that helps me be loved more and that makes it possible to love myself more and that's how this good cycle continues you can just start exactly where you are right now we're all learning to love some faster than others and just in case you fear that being loving and caring will just make you vulnerable to being taken advantage of or even abused that's more of what happens when you don't have boundaries you can love and have boundaries both aspects of yourself the love and the boundaries get stronger it creates something like a force field around you you don't get messed with so much you don't get mistreated so much you'll have a natural radar for hurtful people and if they're unkind you'll see their mistreatment for what it is very quickly you'll get a better sense of who you should trust who is solid and you'll grow these qualities yourself this is what will make you more open-hearted because you can afford to be and it'll make you even easier to love right back your positive actions make you feel more real more part of the world more part of the forces of good and that that's what you really want and what will make you feel good about yourself so you can't love yourself yet no problem try just taking positive actions for yourself and do what you can to help others feel safe and love too I'm not saying be codependent or put up with abuse or forget yourself and just give all your energy to other people I'm saying start taking positive actions you know what to do you know already this is the part of you you couldn't feel before but this Good Will within you is very powerful and it's the most lovable thing of all it's almost like you're not supposed to say this but I'm gonna say it because it's true a good and loving and mutually committed romantic relationship is a healing now there's a lot of programming out there ideas that we all get told that you shouldn't expect too much from relationships you shouldn't even need a relationship and you definitely shouldn't bring any expectations to the relationship there's a reason why people say these very particular pieces of advice but on the whole they're counterproductive to your very natural and good desire to find love and to get married if that's your heart's desire and I know not everyone wants to get married but in this video I'm talking to those of you who do want it no matter what Kool-Aid you drank or programming you received from toxic parents and a culture that loves quick gratification and shuns deep commitments it's okay to want marriage you're longing for it is a sign that it's right for you and if that's your heart's desire even if relationships in the past have been a disaster for you or you can't seem to find anyone or you're feeling totally lost in how people do this thing called love I'm going to walk you through some steps you can take to prepare yourself to overcome problems that have held you back in the ways that really matter for healthy relationships so that you can move past this phase of your life when your need to be loved for real hasn't been met you can go into a new phase where you grow into being someone Ready For Love of now ready is a very powerful state so how do you get from where you are now to ready basically if you had trauma as a kid romance is one big area where you don't just end up you know held back and thwarted in the natural course of your development but you can end up with new trauma yeah if your traumatized relationships can bring new trauma something even worse than the trauma that wounded you in the first place now your intention is to meet someone to fall in love with who loves you and who's a solid person and someone you can trust and then when you think you found them bam they can let you down and this is a nearly Universal experience for people whose emotional needs were not met when they were little it's a blind spot it's a broken picker as some people call it you just can't quite pick the right people you fall for someone and then they push you away or they turn out to have some giant problem like they're already in a relationship or they have an addiction or they just can't be there for you for one reason or another and you wonder why didn't I see it coming now if you're like a lot of people with childhood PTSD it's not even clear how this blind spot happens or that there is a blind spot you can't see it everything seems so good and and they said all the right things and there were promises made and your heart is wide open to them and you were feeling really hopeful about the whole thing but no you find out how wrong you were this is a pattern for people with cptsd and the horrible truth is a lot of us then stay in those relationships or half relationships if we don't get left and for no better reason than we just can't face the prospect of the breakup or of being single again it's too triggering of old abandonment stuff and so we hold on as long as we can and whether it ends now or soon we lose years of Our Lives this way so if this is familiar to you and you're drained and you're confused I want to tell you why this experience this moment where you've just lost what you thought was a good relationship is an incredible opportunity to heal it's not a tragedy it's an opportunity when you get pushed out of a relationship with the wrong person which you know they are because it didn't work whether you know it or not you've just taken a big step closer to the right person because now your path is clear and with some healing the right person can find you so if you're feeling ready for this good thing to happen to meet up with the right person I have some advice for you the job in front of you is not to run out there and meet someone not yet but instead to raise the brightness of what I call your cab light have you heard me talk about this I think it comes from a TV show maybe Sex in the City they kind of nailed the concept by calling it a cab light and you know how a taxi cab has a light on top and when the cab light's off it means there's already a passenger in that cab but when the light is on hey it's free you can just put your hand out and the cab comes and it's for you well this is a metaphor that refers to the vibe of someone who is ready and open to meet a really great new person a cab light now what happens when your cab light won't come on has this ever happened you feel ready to meet someone you're thinking about it all the time and maybe reaching out to people and putting in a lot of effort but it's like no one can see you you're not attracting interest or you're attracting interest but not the right kind or not the right people that's a broken cab light by the way where you're trying to meet someone but the only ones noticing you are people who are not safe not appropriate or not actually available to you and if you're feeling anxious to meet someone it's tempting to just rush in and think oh well you know I can make do with this or maybe I can make this work have you ever done that no where you bond with that person and then you realize who they actually are and then you spend the next two years trying to retrofit them into the person you hoped that they were the first time you met them and you know how that ends it's exhausting it's demoralizing it breaks your heart now if you've done it more than once it's really important to heal this part of yourself that takes unworkable people on as projects because unfortunately you could spend your whole life suffering over it when instead you could be loved so when your cab light's working properly and it comes on good people show up in your life people who are appropriate interesting totally thrilled to be with you and as you get to know them you can find out if there's truly a match there but the pool you're drawing from is a better pool it's a pool of people who see your light not a cesspool where people will just knock into you okay I don't know calling it a cesspool is kind of gross and harsh but if you can't see red flags there is a world of pain that gets into your life via your romantic hopes and your sexual desires your heart is a portal and you must not abandon yourself at this crucial point where bad things can get into your life because if you're wise and awake in the way that you date you can reserve opening your heart until the person before you is right and Worthy so how do you make this shift to care for your heart in this way so that it's safe to let your cab light shine bright the first thing is getting honest with yourself about what is standing in the way if you grew up with trauma like abuse abandonment being demeaned going hungry not protected from danger these hardships even when they're over can leave traces all over your life wounds blind spots pockets of low self-esteem that leak out even when you're on your best behavior so for example if your aim is to have marriage and children then you'd clearly need to attract people with the same goal and who were capable of caring for kids and supporting Life as a family and if you want to have a marriage then you'd only want to attract a partner who could do that who's free to marry you as in not already married and able and willing to make a lifetime commitment to you if things go well so the question is if you're not attracting those things if you're getting entangled with the wrong kinds of people who can never be what you want or you're not even trying what are you communicating about yourself that's leaving these needs of yours just dangling out there unmet unseen if you're not attracting what you want your cab light's not working and if you're attracting incompatible people and then letting them into your heart and getting attached to them this is going to be hard to hear but this could be how you sabotage yourself into never having marriage and children you need to be the Visionary and the guardian who knows what you want and makes sure the wrong kind don't get in and block you from finding the right and compatible kind of person you have to know what you want and you have to be true to what you want you can think of a working cab light as a set of signs that you give off that someone who is not compatible with you should stay away if your cab light is working you will not be attractive to people who don't share your vision did you used to hide that what you wanted was to get married well there it is you were sending the wrong signals and people who didn't want marriage responded they thought that you were a good fit for them so that has to change you want to become the person who gives off signals that appeal to healthy people who do want the same things you want healthy people look for the signs of what they want and they stay away from people who communicate something different than that healthy people are looking for people who want the same thing and who show signs of being solid healthy people themselves the people who don't really care what signals you're sending are the messed up people people who aren't healed yet or the people who are actually looking not for love but for a quick fix relationship right for them the stakes are very low they don't care so if you're not clear who you are and what you're seeking then your cab light can't communicate it for you so in that case you're going to get whoever you get or nothing at all but I do know you're not going to get what you want so this is how we end up in empty and miserable relationships or alone or blaming the other person but really the problem began because we were carrying around enough trauma that we just couldn't shine a light that would attract the kind of person we wanted from our heart so the good news is you have the potential to change this and it starts in here healing the hurts that dim your light and you do this both through brain healing and through a loving and honest self-assessment around where you might be putting up a barrier between where you are and what you want now what kind of barriers am I talking about well maybe you're not taking care of yourself or you're letting TV and spacing out take up all your free time or you're being way over busy being busy is not a status symbol even though people pretend it is when it goes too far it's a fancy socially acceptable way of isolating now if this is your tendency I urge you to fight it and to fight the hundred ways that your light gets turned off right when you need it so what are some things that hide your light well number one being already in a relationship that's not healthy or happy for you bad relationships wreck your sparkle right they squash your confidence and when you know it's bad just get out get out fast maybe you're not in an actual relationship maybe you're in a limerent relationship a fantasy with somebody you're obsessed with maybe you spend a lot of time thinking about them or thinking about someone you lost or someone you can't have when healthy people meet you they can't read your thoughts but they can feel them you know they have a nervous system you have a nervous system and what other people who are healthy and tuned in can feel is that when you're lost in fantasy relationships there's a big empty space where your emotional availability is supposed to be humming so it dims your light and though you might be thinking that you can hold on to fantasies for a while or stay in your unhappy relationship until you meet the right person healthy people don't want to meet you like that they don't want to be involved with people who are already attached or with people who are too insecure to be on their own when that's the right thing to do you want to be a person who's picky like that not someone who gets into a relationship that's compromised or demeaning you want someone who cares about themselves enough to hold out for a good person someone who has a big bright light shining themselves there's a whole package they're happy they're into you they're available and I go deeper into this in my dating course if you don't know about that it's always linked down in the description section below it's also on my website at crappychildhoodferry.com with all my other courses and all the stuff I offer but how can you tell if you're sending signals that you're not truly available and this is where a loving and honest self-assessment comes in to ask yourself if maybe there are barriers you're putting up that are keeping the good partners away addictions would fall into this category drugs drinking the use of porn for example are all things that people can feel like they're doing privately but in reality they change your energy they change your countenance the way the the the nervous system communication what people see and feel about you it's like the overall look and feel and the vibe that you give off unhealed people might not be able to tell the difference and they might not care but healthy people can tell pretty quick and they're not attracted so carrying a lot of anger that's another barrier for sure also having a lot of drama or conflict not that you can always control this but a lot of times a pattern of drama and conflict could point to a lot of wounding and a high probability that this is what you'd be like in a relationship so just like addictions and anger drama and conflict deserve to be at the top of your list for where to focus your healing when you're working on Shining that beautiful light of yours another barrier is when your romantic energy isn't contained within you right there like ready to be shared with another person when the time is right and you decide so you could be leaking that potential that emotional availability all around you with maybe staying too connected to an ex or two or being caught up in casual relationships where you have some vague plan to just get rid of those people if the right person comes along it's easy to think that it's a small thing and if no one really knows about it how what's the harm right oh it's not going to hurt your ability to meet someone new but you know what my experience is it dims your cab Light and Healthy people who are looking for someone intact and capable of sharing their lives in a good way well they're just not likely to be interested in someone who has one foot in another relationship even if that's a fantasy relationship healthy people can sense that they're looking for a bright cab light they're looking for someone who is totally there who's honest with themselves about what they want who's mostly healed you know nobody's perfect but they're free of past entanglements and it might be hard to hear but I'm telling you it's a very powerful shift to make so even though it's been hard in the past you can have great relationships it just takes a little extra healing sometimes [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Crappy Childhood Fairy

Views: 112,692

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Id: B1cew7vMkgY

Length: 98min 28sec (5908 seconds)

Published: Sun May 21 2023