This is the final part of a three-part series about conditional worth, the safety we seek from our partners, and the fear we can pass on to our children. Read Part 1 | Read Part 2 My partner disagrees with me. Nothing terrible has happened. They see something differently, or
Two years ago, a pivotal shift happened in my life. Reading the insights, blogs, and shared experiences of others who navigate Complex PTSD (CPTSD) finally opened my eyes. It gave form to things I had felt deeply in my nervous system my entire life, helping me understand that these patterns
This is Part 2 of a 3-part series exploring how humanity lost its unconditional baseline, why we seek parents in our partners, and how to stop passing our survival pain to the next generation. [Read Part 1 here]. We tell ourselves we are looking for an equal relationship. We
The brain is stuck in identifying danger, and forcefully and immediately solving (disarming) it... ..any problem, question, puzzle... sadly, any internally perceived possibility of an interpersonal conflict. It's a default mode...which I didn't even notice I had for decades. To keep going...my system produces
This is Part 1 of a 3-part series exploring how humanity lost its unconditional baseline, why we seek parents in our partners, and how to stop passing our survival pain to the next generation. There is a war happening inside and between millions of people right now, and almost
How "you should know better" parenting forces children into survival mode. Note: This is not a critique aimed at blaming individual parents, but rather an examination of widespread, socially accepted parenting practices and systemic cultural pressures. The Foundations of Safety and Trust For a human child, group acceptance
For over twenty years, my life was an (almost) constant battle against my own symptoms. Because after mentally collapsing in my late teens, my providers believed the patchwork of diagnoses they had decided upon explained everything, the symptoms themselves were always the only target. I tried to manage them, suppress
For years, my medical record read like a expanding list of acronyms. Starting with Dyslexia and Dyspraxia in early childhood, my collection grew to include Recurrent Depressive Disorder, ADHD, and eventually GAD, by the time I reached my mid-30s. Each diagnosis offered a piece of a puzzle, but none
CPTSD? Google: Did you mean PTSD? Within 48 hours, the internet made a raccoon with a misshapen body globally famous. Yet, thirty-four years after researchers identified Complex PTSD...and thirty years after neuroscientists discovered the physical mechanisms of human empathy, typing "CPTSD" into Google still prompts the
I had planned to make my next post on the topic of understanding the evolutionary concept of stress and what it does to people who were scared of their surroundings at an early age. Maybe include how stress and anger are related, and how both of them have been hijacked
To the public, I’m a father of two daughters, a husband, and a successful IT Manager (albeit currently looking for a new opportunity). But what the public doesn't know is that I live with severe CPTSD, Complex PTSD...or whatever term one chooses to use. I live