Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving: A GUIDE AND MAP FOR RECOVERING FROM CHILDHOOD TRAUMA

A startle response is the sudden full body-flinching that survivors experience at loud noises or unanticipated physical contact.

Stretching has become for me a true labor of love and self-nurturance.

Stretching has become for me a true labor of love and self-nurturance.

Regular systematic stretching of the body’s major muscle groups can help you to reduce the armoring that occurs when your 4F

reclaiming the ability to cry self-compassionately and to express anger self-protectively.

more efficient flashback management.

I also like to apply “good enough” to other concepts such as a good enough job, a good

enough try, a good enough outing, a good enough day or a good enough life. I apply this concept liberally to contradict the black-and-white, all-or none thinking of the critic which reflexively judges people and things as defective unless they are perfect

Toxic shame can obliterate your self-esteem in the blink of an eye. In an emotional flashback you can regress instantly into feeling and thinking that you are as worthless and contemptible as your family perceived you

Toxic shame, explored enlighteningly by John Bradshaw in Healing The Shame That Binds, obliterates a Cptsd survivor’s self-esteem with an overwhelming sense that he is loathsome, ugly, stupid, or fatally flawed.