Trauma Recovery and PTSD

You Were Told They Did the Best They Could

You had parents who were less than adequate.

Then you were told they did the best they could.

That does nothing but minimize your pain and your story.

Being told your story is wrong, or not correct, does the same.

Abuse is senseless.

In its simplest form, healing from childhood trauma is about making sense of what was done to you.

I’m here to validate your story, every component of it you remember.

The parts you don’t remember, the ones that lie in mere silhouettes, count just as much.

You needed structure, order, and more than anything, to be loved and accepted.

The religious structure offered all of it to an unparented child who was easily molded.

Unparented children confuse control with love.

You thought it was love, until your inner voice knew it wasn’t.

You were told you’re out of the trauma, but it doesn’t feel like it.

Your body still responds to triggers from the past and leaves you frozen and paralyzed.

If you still feel like you’re in emotional danger, and you know you’re not, that is PTSD.

Triggers are very real experiences that set PTSD in motion.

They tell your body you’re in danger when, in actuality, you’re not.

Fight, flight, freeze, fawn: whatever pattern you used in the traumatic experience sets itself in motion again.

PTSD is complex and confusing much of the time.

The work starts with validating your body’s experience and listening to it.

It has something to say.

Our job together is to let your body know it’s safe.

Putting a voice to trauma validates that your experience was real.

We gather the memories, and the pain of the unbearable.

Then we put the past in a context, so you can live free in the future.

You can’t erase the past.

But you can color your future in your own best interest, and stop letting the abusers take any more time from you than they already have.

Childhood trauma, religious trauma, and PTSD are real.

Coming from a traumatic background, you generally don’t trust yourself or your story.

Together we collect the pieces of the story you do remember and validate the ones that stay vague.

Your body remembers, even if you don’t have the words or the memories. Your body knows.

“Unbearable pain that is expressed and acknowledged becomes bearable.” (Christine Ann Lawson)

A free 10-minute phone call with me is the first place it gets expressed.

Start with whatever piece you do remember, and I’ll acknowledge it.

Ten minutes on the phone will tell you most of what you need to know about whether I'm the right person for this.

There's no script for that call, so ask me anything you want.