Awareness of what happened to us as children [the abuse and neglect] and how it impacted life from the first incident [anchor trauma] onwards truly helps lessen the shame, blame, guilt that gets assimilated as a truth pertaining to one’s worthiness, lovableness and amount of shame. Yet, this isn’t a truth at all, is it? In fact, these are lies.

As healing happens, there is an *awakening* of sorts and part of this is realizing how one’s own traumatized or wounded brain plus social/relational underdevelopments have impacted others, especially those we love and want in our support circle. It’s important as we make this transition of awareness, that it is remembered that a wounded brain thinks and responds very differently to life’s ‘normal’ challenges. Frankly the wounded brain has areas that didn’t develop properly, some being overdeveloped [limbic system] and others being underdeveloped [hippocampus and prefrontal cortex]. And this is why trauma that happens in the developmental years is called Developmental Trauma.

This takes us to where understanding what happened to the body and mind helps lessen the pressure and judgement that is directed toward self. And with this, the ability to forgive oneself grows. Self-forgiveness is HUGE in trauma recovery. Facing this and learning how to forgive self helps kick the blame and guilt to the curb.

Self-compassion helps rewire the brain. What better gift can you give yourself than this?

One step towards self-forgiveness is sitting with an uncomfortable feeling [ie: frustration, anger, fear], just acknowledge it’s there. Hold space for it, validate it and let it know it’s OK to be. Feel compassion towards the feeling instead of dismissing it or being angry with it. Just  hold space and see what shifts happen inside. 

 

You’ve got this!

 

Lisa Hilton is a Certified Trauma Recovery Coach, supporting adult survivors of childhood trauma transform travesty into triumph. Book a consultation today.

As you know I’ve been reading more about Gaslighting lately and have come to learn that true Gaslighting is a type of communication that is done with the intent to create confusion and self doubt so the gaslighter can gain power or mastery over another, wielding power and control. Basically, what this means is that having this sense of power while destroying another individual gives them a “high” of some sort. Emotionally beating you down feeds their own fragile ego and insecurities. In the world of narcissism, it’s called being their ‘supply’. They need your submission and lack of confidence to “prove” their superiority over you.

Now I cannot read another person’s heart and I am careful about imputing wrong motives in an individual. However, I do know my own physiological response to various words and phrases that were said to me while growing up.
Here are some of the things I heard:

Oh, I didn’t say that!
Why would I say something like that?
Stop your whining.
Quit your whining.
It wasn’t that bad. 

Stop your complaining or belly aching.
You always make a big deal out of nothing.
You’re making a big deal out of nothing.
I said nothing of the kind.
Here we go again!
You’ve got it all wrong.
How could you think I’d do such a thing?
I never said that!
You’re such a baby.
You need to toughen up.
You’re too sensitive.
Oh, for Pete’s sake.
You’re blowing this out of proportion.
You’re just trying to get attention.
Your perspective is all skewed.
That’s not how I remember it.

 

These words still…. I can feel a sensation go up and down my spine when I recall some of these being said — a somatic response. Regardless of the reason why these were said – the key is – the pain inflicted on the receiver is what causes trauma.

Trauma is not the event, it is the wounding that stems from the event or circumstance. As Gabor Maté says: Trauma isn’t what happened to you, it’s what happens INSIDE of you because of what happened to you.

On another note, have you found saying some of those words to yourself?  You may be gaslighting yourself.

A few days ago, I woke up with a couple of things swirling in my head. Some of which involved what I learned in my TR Coaching course- How we as coaches want to help our clients see that they have Voice and Choice. So… Voice and Choice… hmmmm. …. Then I thought, “How do I live knowing deep within that I have Voice and Choice?” “What does that look like, feel like to me?”

Healing from Complex PTSD [and I’ve called it various names: Childhood Trauma, Complex Trauma, Developmental Trauma, Childhood Sexual abuse, Childhood Abuse trauma, C-PTSD] is a life-long journey and one of the ‘silver linings’ of recovering from C-PTSD are the things we learn about ourselves, and how the physiological, psychological and relational damage that ensued now explains actions, choices, challenges and triumphs.

To be able to understand the WHYs in my life has helped me sooo much. I cannot explain really the sense of jubilation I feel when I have these epiphanies after I’ve learned a word or a name that describes what was going on in my head or body or what certain behaviours were that I experienced which left me feeling sad and disrespected. Some of the silver linings are gaining emotional literacy and ability to for self-compassion. The harsh self-judgement and the negative natterer that lived in my head has pretty much disappeared. Having that relief gifts me the freedom to be able to do more for others with greater joy. I don’t feel like I am being ‘held back’ when it comes to reaching out and connecting with others.

So this Voice and Choice. All along I’ve tried to use my voice and the frustrating part of doing that is being treated with disrespect while doing so. And yet, this hasn’t stopped me. My choice is to use my voice. I write of my healing journey so that other abuse victims can see and know that they are not alone.  As said before, childhood abuse victims grow up feeling so alone, isolated and like they don’t belong anywhere. I feel such empathy and compassion for those who struggle with these same feelings. I know how debilitating they are.

Honouring the ability to choose, helps build confidence and regain a sense of empowerment – all things that childhood sexual abuse took away from me. Sharing my experiences is my gift of understanding and compassion to them, to you. It’s important that I give and live the message that as a fellow childhood trauma survivor, please know you are NOT alone.

If you’d like to learn more of how you can enhance your voice and choice, please send me an email and let’s make a plan.

 

Lisa Hilton is a Certified Trauma Recovery Coach, working with adult survivors of childhood trauma who are seeking more of an interactive and client-led approach to healing. I believe that you have the what’s needed to heal. I’m here to hold a safe space for you to tap into that so you can grow, learn, and thrive.

Looking back, I am beginning to think I’ve lived pretty much the past 50+ years in various forms of dissociation. It’s amazing really, how the body and brain work so that I was able to grow up and accomplish all that I did while often being disconnected to my feelings and without a deep awareness of self. This means that I’ve merely existed, lived mostly in survival mode and not really thrived – all due to childhood experiences. And…. that no longer matters, really. What matters is today and how I can live life authentically now, being in the present and being able to enjoy life’s precious moments without being disconnected, worrying about the future or living in the past.

“Dissociative disorders usually develop as a way to cope with trauma. The disorders most often form in children subjected to long-term physical, sexual or emotional abuse or, less often, a home environment that’s frightening or highly unpredictable. The stress of war or natural disasters also can bring on dissociative disorders. Personal identity is still forming during childhood. A child is more able than an adult to step outside of himself or herself and observe trauma as though it’s happening to a different person. A child who learns to dissociate to endure a traumatic experience may use this coping mechanism in response to stressful situations throughout life”.  https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/dissociative-disorders/symptoms-causes/syc-20355215

Dissociation manifests itself in various ways.  It becomes a life-saving strategy. What I have experienced is also called Derealization or Depersonalization. It is a sense of detachment or being outside yourself — observing your actions, feelings, thoughts and self from a distance as though watching a movie (depersonalization). Other people and things around you may feel detached and foggy or dreamlike, time may be slowed down or sped up, and the world may seem unreal (derealization). You may experience depersonalization, derealization or both. Symptoms may last only a few moments or come and go over many years.

It is a common symptom of C-PTSD. Dissociation is part of the Freeze trauma response.  For a child to endure horrific treatment so she doesn’t feel the pain, physical or emotional, she will numb out, pretend it didn’t happen or separate herself from the reality and see herself in the 3rd person.  There was too much sensory information.

It has taken me a long time to even be aware when I am in dissociative brain. Now after learning some mindfulness techniques, I can sense when I am not fully present. I no longer panic nor get upset. I acknowledge it and if I can, go about my day. If you’d like to learn the skills to become more present so you can enjoy life more fully, please reach out and let’s chat.

 

Lisa B Hilton, CTRC, of Hilton Coaching & Consulting, is a Certified Trauma Recovery Coach and supports adult survivors of childhood traumas and neglect. Her focus is walking with the client in their healing journey supporting the transformation of travesty into triumph.

Have you heard of Cognitive Dissonance?

Are you aware of what it is?

Have you seen it in action in yourself? In others?

What can you do when you are struggling with this yourself?

How can you help yourself when seeing this in others?

In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance occurs when a person holds contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values, and is typically experienced as psychological stress or literal head pain. The discomfort is triggered by the person’s belief clashing with new information, and so they try to find a way to resolve the contradiction to reduce the discomfort. When two actions or ideas are not psychologically consistent with each other, people do all in their power to change them until they become consistent or resolve this discrepancy.

Sometimes one can literally feel like the brain almost is splitting as it works to make sense of this new information. Often there is outright resistance. So, it can show up as denial, or in words like: I can’t believe that is true! So and so wouldn’t do something like that- I know him or her!  That’s impossible. You’re making this up! You’re blowing this out of proportion – it can’t be that bad!  

Most survivors of childhood abuse experience cognitive dissonance [CD] when some memories start to surface. Sometimes there are no picture memories, or only bits and pieces that appear out of nowhere or perhaps there are waves of intense emotions that cause extreme anxiety or terror without pictures and it’s not certain where or why this is happening. These are Emotional Flashbacks.

When these begin to happen sometimes the abuse victim has periods of Cognitive Dissonance. This is because she or he is trying to make sense of what is happening inside.

Other times these same victims will experience CD from others when they start to tell their story.

Often the ones that the abuse survivors hoped would believe them and or support them don’t believe the survivor. Those with cognitive dissonance are in total denial of what happened.

It’s good to remember this – Denial is a choice. This is because it stems from ignorance, a lack of understanding and education, which are choices one makes.

Yes, Denial is a choice. In fact, for some abuse survivors you’ll see how CD can be so deep that these ones even deny their denial. Denial is contagious and I see it as another pandemic in our world.

Years ago, I heard this expression: “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”  Meaning we cannot convince another unless that person wants to and is willing to be open to other ideas or possibilities. If that person is willing to entertain the idea that he or she may not have all the facts, then they may be open to the new information.

How does CD show up in others besides denial of your experiences? Well, it can manifest in avoidance of the topic or in avoidance of you, the one talking of a sex crime.  It can manifest in retaliation or slander of the victim, and the like. Usually, it’s more often shown in quiet or covert disagreement.

How do you deal with this pain, the feeling of judgement and or rejection by the cognitive dissonance of others?

Here are a few things that helped me work through this.

Change your thinking– how?

There may also be resistance to accept the fact that each one of us humans is capable of having egregious or wicked thoughts and even acting on them. Fortunately, most of us don’t act on them.

It is a disservice to child abuse victim/survivors if all energy is focused on the 20% who will never “get it” nor believe. Focussing on this group is a guaranteed road of futility, discouragement, and needless suffering. For healing it’s beneficial to let that last 20% go.

Get moving

Practice Mindfulness

Understand the level of shame that your childhood trauma caused and notice how it’s impacted your life

Practice Self Compassion

  1. Self compassion is the antidote to shame.
  2. Be patient with yourselves as these memories start to arise. Work hard at not judging self.
  3. Learn to love yourself not necessarily despite childhood experiences, rather, because of them.
  4. Be determined to change negative and self-defeating thinking into a mindset that is healthy and conducive to reaching recovery goals instead of hindering.
  5. Connect with a certified Trauma Recovery Coach who can help you navigate your healing journey, assuring you feel and see that you’re not alone, that you matter, that your pain matters.

I trust it has been helpful to learn what cognitive dissonance is, how it shows up and learning what you can do make self more open to your own healing journey. Feel free to print this off and/or refer to it as you continue to develop healthy coping strategies for your own trauma recovery.

I trust that this has been helpful for you. If you’d like further information on how to show self compassion or identifying what the next step is in your healing journey, feel free to contact me.

 

Lisa B Hilton, CTRC, of Hilton Coaching & Consulting, is a Certified Trauma Recovery Coach and supports adult survivors of childhood traumas and neglect. Her focus is walking with the client in their healing journey supporting the transformation of travesty into triumph.

 

After hearing Brené’s podcast with Harriet Lerner on Apologizing I was reminded of some important truths:

  1. Those who’ve done the most damage often is the least able to apologize.
  2. Those who do a lot of harm do so because they come from a place of their own deep shame.
  3. The non-apologizers walk along a tight rope above a huge canyon of low self esteem.
  4. Arrogance can be a sign of low self esteem.
  5. When we speak our truth, it is done to hear our own truth from our own voice, saying it validates what’s happened. No need to expect the apology to validate our pain. 
  6. Those who don’t apologize- it doesn’t have anything to do with love for you. It is all to do with the size and strength of their own platform of self worth.
  7. Sometimes people won’t apologize because if they do, they’ll collapse into shame so deeply that they can’t see themselves out.
  8. Being able to apologize for own your part in the situation shows a healthy self esteem, it comes from a place of integrity, and that you value the relationship.

 

Being a Good Listener

  1. Notice when we are listening in defensive mode.  This is manifested by listening for the inaccuracies or what you don’t agree with. These can be addressed at another time.
  2. Listen to understand. Listen for what is in common or for the ESSENCE of what is being said.
  3. Being a good listener is also knowing when it is a good time for you to be at your best to listen well. And it’s ok to set up a time when and a place where you can be more engaged and open with the conversation.
  4. Defensiveness is the arch enemy of listening and connecting.
  5. Listening to someone tell us we’ve hurt them is hard to do. It is easier when we focus on the injured party’s pain and care more about them and their healing in that moment over our own stuff.  
  6. Stay curious.
  7. Listening means you stop talking, defending, excusing. Just listen and breathe.

 

Apologizing gives us three gifts

  1. Gift to the hurt party – it validates their wounds and shows respect
  2. Gift to self – being vulnerable requires courage. Apologizing sincerely improves own self esteem and builds our own integrity
  3. Gift to the relationship – shows we value the relationship more than being ‘right’.

UNCODITIONAL LOVE – Previously I’ve shared on FB my aha moment of what *belonging to me* now means. That realization was monumental and huge leap in my trauma recovery journey.  This opening door allowed me to experience something new. Now there is the ability to give myself unconditional love.

 

If we’ve never experienced unconditional love from our parents or primary caregiver, we don’t know what that kind of love feels like nor looks like. We may even judge it as ‘a way that people can take advantage’ and let’s be frank here, who wants to be taken advantage of? So again, here’s more fear-based thinking that we just accept while growing up as ‘normal’. Until….. there is self awareness –  beginning with an analysis of personal values and doing the hard work of shedding unwanted thoughts and behaviour patterns, then we become ready to fully adopt the ones we like – the ones that make life richer and happier and support living life authentically.

 

This includes eliminating the lies that abuse and neglect force us to swallow which are: that we are to blame for the abuse, that we should be ashamed of ourselves, that we are unworthy of love and respect and that we are powerless to change.  This is all part of the work of “making our minds over”. The more I do Trauma Recovery Coaching, the more I see how much Shame has influenced behaviours, attitudes, outlooks, relationships, marriages, employment, etc. It truly lives everywhere.

 

Healing to this point where being able to give myself that unconditional love is FANTASTIC!  It brings mental and emotional freedom that clears the path in so many ways. It is a bit scary at times because it is such a new experience. That said, giving myself the love and compassion that I missed out on still is healing and helps me be more loving, understanding and patient towards others too.

 

This article explains simply the physiological, mental, and relational benefits of receiving unconditional love. And if we didn’t receive that while growing up, all is not lost because us abuse survivors can still  ‘parent’ ourselves and we can live authentic and emotionally healthy lives.

 

https://www.newportacademy.com/resources/restoring-families/power-of-unconditional-love/