Childhood trauma is “invisible” but it’s always present in the nervous system.
It’s common for someone to say “I don’t have childhood trauma” but their bodies & behaviors tell a different story (🧵)
Do you wince or feel anxious when someone walks into a room? Do you want to connect with someone but cannot trust that they actually love you? Do you lack communication skills & immediately lash out or shut down?
Do you have beliefs like “I don’t matter” “no one cares what I have to say?” When you’re hurt do you struggle to regulate your emotions or even know what you actually feel?
Have you spent a majority of your adult life people pleasing or achieving to get love, validation, or approval? And now you wonder who you even are or why you feel so empty?
Our body doesn’t forget. Our behaviors reflect our past. The way we view ourselves & the world around us is forever changed when we experience childhood trauma.
Most important to understand is that childhood trauma doesn’t just look like severe abuse, neglect, & assault. Emotional neglect & abuse are so common in our society we just call it “normal.”
We have an entire society of adults living these consequences.
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An emotionally unavailable partner slowly puts your body into survival mode.
Here's Why:
When someone's emotionally unavailable, you can feel completely alone in the relationship. You're trying to connect, trying to find middle ground, or trying to "get" them, but they push you away every time.
You crave depth, being seen, and vulnerability, and they crave distraction, avoidance, and solitude.
They things get difficult, their first instinct is to leave or shut down.
Over-explaining is a habit response. It comes from emotional monitoring. When we believe someone might feel upset or hurt by something we say, we over-explain to try to please the other person and to protect ourselves.
The issue with over-explaining is, we're creating a story about how someone will feel before we actually give them a chance to tell us what they think or feel.
If you've experienced chronic pain or exhaustion doctors have told you "nothing is wrong," you might be experiencing...
Mind body syndrome (MBS)
Here's what you need to know:
Our emotions and stress activate the same pain centers in the brain as physical injury. When we experience physical pain the body, we believe this must mean structural damage or damage to our tissue.
If structural damage or a "disease" isn't found, we're often told it's "in our head" which is a misunderstanding of the mind body connection.
Guilt tripping is when someone tries to get you to change your behavior or remove a boundary. It's done through pressure and works by activating your empathy.