CHILDHOOD CPTSD: 10 TRUTHS

hi and welcome to my channel I have been gone I've been making videos but I'm so glad to be back and I hope you will find this video helpful I have been in kind of a a trauma space myself for the last month and haven't been here and recently I just kind of let myself sit in some thoughts and I had a bunch of ideas and this was one of them which is the truths I believe about childhood trauma and how these especially um unhealthy unsafe unpredictable neglectful parenting experiences we might have in childhood so I'm really talking about that the you know the lack of security safety stability whatever within your caregivers how that can really play out in your life if you don't understand and work to deal with what happened to you of course number one the number one thing is we often repeat these patterns in how we treat ourselves and the partners that we choose and we're often reenacting a lot of these stories but the first thing is that if you don't deal with your childhood wounds it will deal with you and that's what I'm saying is if you don't if you're not aware of it just like I went through life not knowing about it I learned the hard way through the partner I chose through the triggers I had through the relationships that fell apart with my parents things like that so or through you'll have a chronic illness like whatever it is what you don't see has a way of of impacting your life whether you know about it or not number two your childhood emotional availability and stability is directly impacted to what happens in your life what do I mean by that I mean that I fully believe that the the instability even if you have uh Financial stability but you're moving houses you're flipping back and forth with custody your parents are fighting whatever it is that stability is directly impactful to our lives and so if you had parents who weren't able to be emotionally stable generally and generally stable as sources of attachment and security that that will play out with who you choose and how you live your life the things that show up and happen to you some of which you don't choose directly but as a result of your wounds you create the opportunity for those things to happen like I'm saying having um choosing a narcissistic partner but not knowing it right it feeling like home or choosing a narcissist that felt so different from another parent who was really just regulated and then feeling and realizing that you have a lot of the same wounds um or you feel a lot of the same Dynamics in your adult life number three traumatized children often become compliant adults until they don't my point is that you often learn to be compliant in childhood to do as you were told to be safe whatever that was good bad or indiff and that you will um display that same compliance and stay in unhealthy relationships at work at home home with lovers Partners whatever because you learn that compliant equals safety number four if you didn't have stability in childhood you're at risk for placing it above all else without recognizing it is not actually stability what do I mean by that what I mean by that is that as I've talked about growing up with a mom in in a very financially insecure environment in an apartment and then in my adult life thinking well married somebody and I'm doing well and so you know this person's going to give me security because they can financially provide for me and for us and that feels safe I'm not just talking about money but that often can align with things like narcissism or whatever my point is that you will if you didn't have Safety and Security you will generally want to find that Above All Else and of course it's way up there but it cannot be above everything else it's an illusion so I thought well you check these boxes so therefore you are safe and secure when actually that was not the case at all but on the outside I didn't see it right I mean I didn't see on the inside on the outside it looked like it but I didn't know enough to to push deeper than that and then you wake up in it and realize it's actually you're often not in a stable secure relationship at all number five traumatized children will reenact and always blame themselves first for everything and everyone until they don't so in a lot of these childhoods we learn to blame ourselves in fact that's what we often do right we say kids are egocentric they think the world revolves around them they make things happen when they realize that's no longer the case it doesn't matter if mommy or daddy or parent are yelling and screaming it's somehow something is wrong with me and often times these parents demand that we rotate around them through hypervigilance through being parentified or in mesed or serving their needs or distracting from the marriage or being the marriage counselor when you're 10 with your parents whatever it is and so you start to take on responsibility and blame for things that don't belong to you and you will do the same thing in your adult life in all your other relationships until you don't number six disconnected nervous systems love distraction numbing substances Etc so if you grew up with a chaotic or unsafe in whatever Dynamic childhood with your parents or caregivers you have to separate your nervous system right you're living in that fight or flight or you learn to shut down certain parts of yourself that you disconnect from what's really going on to survive and that nervous system disconnection will feel so chaotic that often times the only ways you feel connected are when you're numbing out when you're dissociating when you're using substances whatever it is it's like that that nervous system doesn't know how until you learn to actively and and patiently and presently be calm it's just like a defensive posture a reaction to try to find ways to kind of um deal with that nervous system and that can obviously create a whole other set of problems number seven if you lived in fear in childhood you're more likely to create a life living in fear never feeling safe no matter what and I just made a video about this but you often are motivated through fear right it's like Panic fear um and or walking on eggshells and that will be your Norm that's your Baseline right it's like you can't turn that nervous system off it's always scanning for threat in everyone and everything number eight abandonment will feel safer than worrying about abandonment by others so self-abandonment right you're more likely to abandon the parts of yourself the parts that need compassion the parts that need care the parts that um would be part of your natural development you will often decide that because of your ultimate fear of Abandonment it's easier to just abandon yourself first your needs your wants your desires your beliefs in the service of things like security or stability or finally being loved and accept it you know in ways like that so it's a chronic Dynamic that never never really feels good where there's just this key fundamental piece of Abandonment occurring whether you mean for it to or not in your life number nine It's never enough and you're never enough so no matter what you have it's like you're always comparing I mean this is crazy I I would never have admitted this but I told this I think my son and I visited one of my boys um up at college and we were talking about this childhood trauma Dynamic for many of us and how this sense of worthiness and not enough and comparison drives you and that even when I had what was the highest level of financial stability in my life in my marriage it was like oh but they have that much more and I mean I would never said it out loud like it sounded like a terrible thing to say it wasn't about the things it was about no matter what comparing and feeling less than so it didn't it doesn't matter what you have or don't have the bottom line is that it's never enough and you will never be enough and lastly that survival mode will be your Baseline for everything and this kind of goes back to that living in fear but that everything is about survival there's no real sense of like being present and flourishing and mindful like truly it feels like well that is for other people not for me I can't do that right I have to always be thinking about how I'm going to survive this job this relationship this day this Dynamic this task whatever it is and I just had a thought about that which is the last thing I'll say is because we know that childhood trauma can create impacts on our mental and physical health you know all of these things are so much harder to manage when you have chronic and very commonly underlying depression anxiety OCD other trauma Related Disorders autism ADHD whatever it is and of course you also have a risk for things like traumatic brain injury and chronic illness like but all of these things overlayer these belief systems and these expectations the ways you function in the world and it just it makes it really difficult to ever feel um at peace to feel Joy to feel safe whatever it is so that's my Spiel on what I truly think happens and if I had understood even like a quarter of those I think it would have been very helpful in my adult life like I always say it doesn't necessarily mean I would have made different choices but I may have had the opportunity to understand and I do believe that that is why I'm here that's why I keep sharing content because I always think about you know and a bit of it is like I'm saying a bit of a false illusion but I do believe there certain things I had healed and understood in the work I've done in therapy especially in the last like 10 years I just think it would have been mind-blowing if I could like talking too fast I think it would have been mind-blowing and lifechanging if I had done the work in the last 10 years that I had if I had done that earlier um because I had i' only done therapy around losing my father before I got married and it was really more grief work there wasn't a lot of childhood work and then that was it and so um I just think that you know it has the potential to be life-changing and so I hope that's I hope it's helpful in some way for you big or small thank you for being here please stay safe and well and I'll see you soon [Music] bye [Music]