What is CPTSD?
… And how does it explain your greatest self-mysteries?

Let’s get you the foundational information you need, in audio and visual form.
Ready for more details? Jump into either podcast stream from the beginning – or hit up the Most Highly Rated episodes from the Fort.

First things first – what is “trauma”…. really? 

When an event takes place that abruptly challenges our prior sense of the world, our safety, and/or our role in all of it?
Our brain doesn’t know how to integrate the new information with our past/present assessments.

This event conflicts with “everything we thought we knew,” so we can’t easily sew the pieces into a cohesive story.

This is when our brain pushes the new, disruptive, information into its “unsolved mysteries” department.
And all the shittery cascades from there.

The event is “alive” in our system – rather than being processed, integrated, and stored with the rest of our memories.

Which means?

1) The event can be “acutely re-experienced” as if it’s taking place all over again.
2) We can get “sucked into” the memory, without a neural pathway to get back out.
3) Our SUB-C is working very hard to resolve the unknown, creating intrusive thoughts and mental drains.
4) We most often blame ourselves, leading to further internal upsets.
5) A myriad of physical, mental, and emotional symptoms emerge from here, over time.
6) Left untreated? Everything spirals to hell in our world, as our brains and compensation tactics get more extreme.

… But what about COMPLEX trauma?

The downstream effect of many extreme events?
Is collecting many fragmented and unprocessed memories….

… While failing to build a cohesive sense of self or continuous autobiographical recollection of life.

And a whole lot more.

Check out this noncomprehensive list of SOME of the MOST COMMON downstream effects down below.

Common CPTSD outcomes and experiences:

You can probably intuitively see (and feel) how each downstream effect feeds into increasingly severe symptomology.

If you don’t know what “normal” looks like, you set yourself up for a lifetime of flailing through unhealthy patterns.
If your brain hates itself for those “failures,” it diverts authority to folks who don’t deserve it.
If you end up in abusive dynamics, your thoughts will be tethered to past relational traumas.
If your head is continually trying to process past events, it can’t “be in the present.”
If you’re disembodied while intrusive memories challenge your sense of safety, your system cannot relax.
If you’re chronically stressed, your physical and mental health is going to fail.
If everything hurts, you’ll learn to avoid the “optional” pains in life and fall into agoraphobic isolation.
If you’re alone and in pain without respite, you’ll pick up maladaptive numbing strategies.
When that doesn’t work? You’ll fall into learned helplessness, dreaming of the “sweet relief” of suicide.

(If you are suicidal, please take this moment to seek professional assistance. Call 988 for immediate help. You’re not alone or unseen.)

But the major take-home point is…
Many downstream CPTSD symptoms are individually diagnosed,
while practitioners miss the whole picture.

Anxiety, depression, OCD, attentional deficits, abuse, emotional management, and attachment issues are often the focus.
But none of them are the root of the MF problem.

This leads to frustrating / expensive experiences attempting to “spot treat” the most obvious complaints and issues.
Years can be lost with psychiatrics and talk therapy… Rather than treating the invisible underlying cause.

It’s yer gotdamn trauma brain.

Your poor sense of self, trauma-normalized core beliefs, hypervigilant body, and fragmented memories –
and all those unprocessed, often subconscious, wounds you’ve carried for decades.

So let’s start healing these heads, together.

Get the information you need.
The support you’ve always lacked.
And the internal acceptance of Self that’s held you back for years.

Check “Get Started” to learn how to jump in with ease.