Why? Because they provided the framework for our neural connections and brain development. When you start out with a relatively “formless” mental framework, you WILL inherently model it in line with the reinforcement and punishment that you receive. Then, all subsequent synapses will be built on those foundational structures… leaving you with fucked up core beliefs, behavioral patterns, and thought patterns that expand outwards, encompassing every area of life, if they go unchecked. When you don’t know what’s “healthy” from the beginning, you wind up repeating those patterns forever after. And let’s also not fail to mention the role of epigenetics; the traumas our families have been through are imprinted on our DNA.

BUT…

No, we aren’t here to “blame them for everything.” That’s a sure-fire way to get stuck in a helpless, angry, and victimized mindset.

We ARE here to contextualize the foundations of our cognitive and emotional worlds… and those most often come from the people who raised us.

After that? It’s all about self-accountability, awareness, learned regulation skills, and neural rewiring. You gotta understand where your “old brain” got its blueprints, so you have a basis for moving forward as you draft a “new” one. And that’s why we focus on the FOO.

I recommend using the Psychology Today Provider Finder to browse practitioners in your area or area of interest.

You may want someone with DBT, CBT, EMDR, IFS, somatic experiencing, neuropsychotherapy, relational / social psychology, psychedelic therapy, or complete resource model speciality… to name a few options. But it all depends on what approach(es) work for you. It’s a personalized process, and your needs may change with time; meaning your therapist may change with time, too.

What I can tell you is: Make sure you find someone who is trauma experienced, not just “trauma informed.”

The difference? Trauma-experienced therapists have worked WITH trauma survivors in the past, in depth. They have hands-on expertise for working through triggering memories and emotional disruptions without causing undue harm. On the other hand, trauma-informed therapists have only necessarily received the clinical rundown on “best practices” with trauma survivors… and that certification can be earned with a weekend course. Knowing the “theory” is different from knowing how trauma actually presents and how to heal it.

Here’s the little-known resource I used to finally see a trauma-experienced therapist who gave me real answers (and kickstarted this whole project).

Open Path. It’s a database of therapists who use sliding-scale pricing for their clients, so you can set your price in agreement with the practitioner, rather than going through health insurance.

How it works? Pay a one-time fee upfront (it was $50 back in the day) and then freely browse their catalog of participating providers. You then communicate with the therapists directly to find the right match for your needs and financial situation. If your first chosen therapist doesn’t work out? Go back and choose a new one, no additional fees required.

I recommend the program highly because it worked for me. I could only receive treatment thanks to the $30/session fee set with my provider. Dozens of MFs have since tapped into this tool. Give it a try and spread the word if it works for you, too.

– Reined-in anxiety. Ability to think your way out of the spiral, re-regulate nervous system, and return focus to the present moment. Over time, less anxiety and greater sense of well-being, in general.

– Comprehension, detection, and root causes of triggers; leading to decreases in magnitude and occurrence, and less sensitivity to triggers overall.

– Uncovered and processed disturbing memories, culminating in relief from intrusive recollections and sensory flashbacks. 

– Re-regulated nervous system and vagal control. Bringing the lizard brain and body into the present, so they operate in alignment with real world conditions. Freedom from sympathetic-parasympathetic rollercoasters, panic attacks, energy drainages, functional disturbances, and undesired F Responses. 

– Increased somatic experiencing; reconnecting awareness of the body in the brain. Increased physical health, relief from chronic pains/numbness, nervous system regulation, emotional experiencing, grounding abilities, and personal needs fulfillment. 

– Meta monitoring of inner narratives, beliefs, and thought patterns; ability to notice, critically challenge, and re-direct automatic thoughts. Increased understanding of their correspondence to mental, emotional, and behavioral changes. 

– Subconscious wound repairs. Relief from prevailing sense of wrongness. Reduced social fear. Increased decisiveness. Enhanced boundaries. Freedom from abuse replays. Healthier, more genuine, and equal relationships.

– Newfound sense of Self and self-esteem. Recognition of self as an autonomous, powerful, valueable being. Reconnection to and honoring of internal experience. Reduction in self-abandonment, sabotage, and criticism. Increased comprehensive autobiographical recall. Decreased confusion about “allowed” identity and behavioral shame.

– “Integration.” Cohesion and/or cooperation between “Parts” of the brain to create a more unified sense of existence. Leading to external changes which align with the internal remodelling; bringing a “fulfilling, balanced, you-authentic life” into reality.

But beating ourselves up is a common, destructive, reaction to perceived regression. It hurts to feel you’ve “lost ground.” It’s even worse when you start comparing yourself to prior versions of “excellent self.” 

The reality is… you will likely encounter things that pull you backwards in time and progress, even as you dedicatedly work on your wiring. That’s how brain plasticity works. Triggers, overwhelm, and unexpected trauma excavations are unavoidable, especially when you’ve been traumatized by relational and domestic experiences that are often repeated in daily life. Truly healing a wound often takes many rounds of challenges… but each challenge feels like it “might be forever.” This can cause you to panic with thoughts of doom, eventually royally fucking yourself with re-emerging patterns of negative thinking and self-limitations.

And while I hate to state, “it’s all part of the process for most of us,” that’s the gd truth. 

What I can tell you is: Having a weak support system will contribute to these backslides massively. Being in unstable or insecure life conditions will make them near-impossible to combat. Isolating yourself to “deal with it” often backfires / becomes a cycle of life-avoidance.

Self-care, compassion, kindness, and acceptance are key. You don’t have to be “happy” with where you’re at now, but recognize, honor, and treat yourself fairly in the conditions that you find yourself. Don’t off-write “negative feelings” – experience them with curiosity; they mean something about what still needs attention inside of you. And try not to extrapolate undesirable current conditions onto an indefinite timeline looking at the future.

Regression isn’t forever… as long as you keep trying whenever you have the necessary resources.

In the beginning? It’s a lot of “trauma management.”

You’ll learn what brain behaviors are / are not actually healthy, beneficial, or authentic to you. And then you’ll have to monitor your own thoughts, emotions, and behaviors like a hawk; pausing to recenter, rethink, and redirect your cognitive activities time and time again. Your head WILL automatically try to do what it’s always done – and with CPTSD many of those deeply-rooted behaviors are “the problems at hand.” So you’ll have to watch your own brain and correct it many times over, in order to create new pathways in your head. 

After a while? “Trauma recovery” is more apt.

Once those new neural connections are up and running, with enough strength and activation-readiness to combat the old ones, you won’t have to be as hypervigilant with your own brain monitoring. Your automatic responses won’t be rooted in early trauma lessons – they’ll be the intentional instructions you’ve carefully sewed into your synapses. At this point you can release some of the pressure to consta-watch yourself; your system will be under better management from your dominant neural pathways, outward. This frees you up to explore and heal your deepest subconscious burdens on a subtle, emotional, level. Then “integration” and “comprehensive recovery” can be achieved.

That said… all of these efforts will still require maintenance from time to time.

Your brain will “revert” in many areas, if given the opportunity. You may need to return to therapy or other past stages of recovery when things get jank for some “spot treatment.” Being meta-aware of your CPTSD brain is a lifelong job because you’re fending off lifelong patterns that have been critical for your survival in the past.

But it gets exponentially easier with time.

There are tons of places to learn about trauma, PTSD, and CPTSD these days. So what’s the point of TMFRs?

Traumatized Motherfuckers takes a different approach than a lot of other sources out there. We don’t just talk about traumatic events and downstream suffering; we discuss why our brains adapted in the ways that they did and how to change our programming. Using peer-reviewed research and academic sources, we ground our real life observations in science – so your brain can’t keep offwriting your experience as “some over-sensitive nonsense.” At the same time, I cut out the flowery language and reductionary suggestions that don’t speak to the reality of the experience for most of us. 

The other major difference is who is behind this project. Myself, a peer-reviewed published former scientist and lower class punk, with a background in biological systems / biomedicine and a M.S. in Behavioral Science. And the rest of the Fuckers from round the world, who contribute their own perspectives to create the “Community Healing” aspect of TMFRs. 

This is a recovery project FOR trauma recoverers, BY traumatized recoverers. In language that we connect with.

Clinical observations and academic notes are helpful in t-recovery, to some extent. But they don’t speak to the full experience or the nuanced obstacles we face. Only we can do that, our damn selves.

Check the Get Started page to find best practices for jumping in, starting from the public resources and advancing from there. Also check the pages under the “Learn” heading to get visual background info on CPTSD.

When you’re ready for next steps? For the details on utilizing your Patreon benefits, go to the Private Community Hub – Git Started. There, you’ll learn how to best navigate the massive podcast backlog, get started with the community, and tap into all the material that’s already been released.

The public podcast stream is where we summarize important findings from the private podcast research efforts! It’s my attempt at “spreading the CPTSD news far and wide.” Education for the masses in a bite-sized format, perfect for introductory t-brain learning. Use it to get a baseline understanding of CPTSD & related issues! The private podcast stream is where the bulk of the information lives. The episodes are longer, denser, and more diverse. It also includes MFs Speaks episodes, where community members share their own reflective recordings and research results. Hit up the Private Podcast Stream for the full research deets, tons of extra resources, and connective resources for community healing.

Here’s the deal. TMFRs didn’t always have a closed-door community or podcast stream… and then I learned some lessons the hard way.

Because “CPTSD” is fairly synonymous with “unintended learned reactivity and abuse patterns,” it can get challenging for us to commune safely. It’s a major obstacle to be encountering all-too-familiar social triggers, control tactics, and sometimes-aggressive survival responses while we’re trying to recover from our own pervasive relational trauma.

In the open-door days there were mishaps that had a negative effect on the community. When anyone can jump in, it tends to become a trauma-spewing experience. Now we ask that folks have a commitment to trauma recovery before they gain internet access to the rest of the crew’s brains, so we can practice healthy relating with less risk.

Furthermore, the podcast covers a lot of material that could be weaponized in the wrong hands. We discuss abuse tactics, behavioral science, cognitive programming, and the more sensitive points of human consciousness… all of which can be used against people, rather than for our own recovery, if desired. Because we’re not looking to better educate people on effective manipulation tactics, we try to keep these details away from folks who might misuse it.

I’ll also be upfront: the “gated” community and podcast are what allow me to do this project.

I release personal information on the private show that doesn’t need to hit every eardrum. Not everyone is suuuuper stoked when you start talking about prior trauma, and those people don’t need the dankest details from my brain for additional ammo. After encountering stalking and harassment behaviors early on, I realized I couldn’t continue airing all my dirty laundry en masse, for my own safety and sanity. On top of all that – the Patreon setup allows me to do this project, practically. TMFRs is a huge time and effort commitment that has become ~3 full time jobs. In order to do the work, I must stay alive… and “family support” / “abundant financials” aren’t realities so far in this lifetime. The private Patreon community makes TMFRs possible. This project is 100% crowdfunded by patrons who believe in what I’m doing and my dedication to doing it. The Public resources (and all the rest) can only exist thanks to financial backing from the Private club.

Let’s be real – communing about healing isn’t one size fits all.

A good “TMFR fit” is someone who’s ready to challenge themselves. Being self-accountable, self-curious, and ready for reflection are pre-requisites for success in the community. We’re not just commiserating in company – we’re focused on challenging the patterns that have created our lives so far. If you’re not open to reworking your thoughts, behaviors, and communication patterns… we’re probably not the best match. 

At the same time, we require folks to be in a position where they’re capable of self-regulation, more days than not. Reactivity WILL happen in t-recovery, but we expect members to have some skills in hand to notice, name, and respond accordingly to their inner distress. We’re not here to abuse each other.

There are a few demographics who seem to connect with the project… and engage with it slightly differently.

The 20-40yo crowd with openminded approaches to gender, sexuality, and lifestyle seem to dig the Discord server. They often have significant “foundational mental health knowledge” under their belts, thanks to the increasingly public commentary on such topics via social media. I am usually not the first person to tell them about complex PTSD and they have an assortment of additional resources they’ve been learning from – hell, they educate me on new topics all the time. They’re pretty “parts savvy” and don’t shy away from the DID conversations. This crew also tends to be fairly tech-capable, and appreciates the chat-based Discord setup right on their phone.

The 40-??? crowd generally are coming to terms with decades of unknown trauma. They may or may not have a lot of “woke” educational experiences or backlogs of mental health information. Oftentimes they’re hearing about CPTSD for the first time, or have only recently been diagnosed… so their entire lives are being re-examined as they reconsider their relationship histories and learn self-forgiveness. Finding out there isn’t a “correct template” for being a human often goes against their prior generational programming and starts to set them free. Letting go of anger and rigid behavioral patterns are also obstacles they face. This crew may or may not love the Discord server due to the rapid pace of communication and tech requirements; the Forums and Post Comments are recommended as alternatives. 

*** These are demographic generalizations with only anecdotal evidence. Can’t speak for everyone, just what this MF has noticed so far.

So let’s talk about relational trauma. It sets us up for some inherent risks when it comes to socializing.

Trauma bonding is very possible. Forming codependent, enmeshed relationships is a standard go-to. Subconsciously replaying abuse dynamics is the bane of our mutual existences. “Boundaries” and “healthy relating” are things we never learned about in our upbringings. Attachment issues and subsequent reactivities are deeply ingrained. And we often recognize ourselves/our past abusers in other TMFRs… which has a rapid magnetizing effect, as we sense comfortable familiarity in one another. (Keyword: “family-iarity”)

Which is to say: When we meet people who “get us” deep in our traumatized bones… we can fall into unhealthy relational patterns.

With our CPTSD histories we’re like matching puzzle pieces who never thought they would find their counterparts. Finding out we’re not alone is intoxicatingly validating. Those connections are immensely powerful for healing, if executed carefully and consciously. However, if we let our old programming get the best of us? If we slip into unconscious connection with folks who share similar “abuse derived wiring”? We can wind up in potentially unhealthy connections, furthering our trauma rather than treating it.

Just beware, in any trauma-recovery community… you’ll have to mind your brain and behaviors. Rapid bonding needs to be taken with a grain of salt. We need to be mindful of what programming we’re truly bonding with, in another individual.

ps – as we’ve said elsewhere, we also need to be aware that the other MFs in the Fort may have reactive days. Communication issues happen. Triggers are still alive in all of us. So self-accountability, reflection, and regulation are required…. as is a broad perspective about the purpose of the community. We’re here to recover, so sometimes we’ll see and self-experience behaviors that are still being worked out. Practice healthy detachment, reconfigure your boundaries, and take community pauses, as needed.