Recovery can only take place within the context of relationships; it cannot occur in isolation
Judith Lewis Herman
Trauma is an overwhelming experience that renders us helpless in some way. When our earliest attachments are threatening or abandoned, those experiences alter the development of the self. As Courtois and Ford (2013) explain, survival is required to take place over normal psychobiological development.
Complex trauma is when there have been repeated events, ongoing abuse, discrimination and the accumulation of subtle ongoing events of not being accepted, causing the identity and sense of self to become broken.
One of the symptoms of C-ptsd is self-abandonment. This occurs when caregivers abandon the child’s emotional world, and you do the same to yourself. It is possible to rebuild and reclaim that relationship with self so nobody can take away what is yours and those meaningful relationships from you ever again!
Deep fear, anxiety and toxic shame are the consequence of childhood complex trauma and manifest in adults as ongoing underlying depression, feeling unable to feel joy and happiness continually in their life. It is essential to begin the journey of accepting and prioritising yourself fully, and this journey needs to be in a relationship with a therapist who works relationally.
Symptoms:
- Nightmares and flashbacks
- Loss of appetite
- Unable to sleep
- Agitation
- Hopelessness
- Depression
These symptoms become overwhelming, and because of this, we do not live fully; we are protecting ourselves from living fully because we do not feel well; we are overwhelmed.
So, we have the abandonment that happened early on in our life that has been traumatic and on top of this, we have the symptoms. As Owen Marcus said, “Simply put, even the healthiest body will reach a place where there is no more room for stress. Your body will remain tense until the older trauma is released as well as the more recent trauma.”
Where there has been Developmental trauma and emotional neglect, one gives up reaching out for connection because no one is there, and so our systems go into shutdown because it is too painful to feel that need to connect. The need for connection to others, self, the environment, and transpersonal connection is fundamental to well-being.
Once we feel connected to others, to self, nature and spirit (however this is for you), we can enter deeper intimacy with life. We enter deeper intimacy with life through life, not alone in isolation.
When the body-mind system shuts down, this is stored in the body as learned helplessness, translated into ‘nothing I do can help or make a difference or be worthy of anything’.
The Freeze and shutdown in the body build up when we feel we cannot do anything and we cannot take action, and chronic pain and chronic illness are the results of this.
The body holds everything, including the memory of what it wants to do, i.e., run, fight, flee, and reclaim that pushing someone or something away or reaching out toward or for someone or something.
Therapy involves learning together how to establish safety and connection. From here, we begin to think about unmet developmental needs, learn to meet them and grow into our unique, authentic, and beautiful selves.
Call or email me to arrange a consultation if you are ready to begin your healing journey in a relational and co-creative psychotherapeutic framework.