drglenndoyle

The freeze and the wiggle.

Many CPTSD survivors feel shame about our “freeze” response.

The “freeze” trauma response is rooted in that “deer in the headlights,” “if I don’t move, maybe the danger will pass me by” reflex.

“Freeze,” like every trauma response, is not a choice— and, ironically, that’s one of the reasons many survivors feel shame around it.

We don’t love it when our body or mind does something without us.

(Survivors of sexual abuse experience something similar, when our bodies responded to what was happening— which was not a “choice,” either.)

“Freeze” can be infuriating.

There are survivors reading this who have been in the position of feeling locked in place, internally screaming at themselves to do something, ANYTHING— but not being able to make ourselves move.

A lot of procrastination or task paralysis is actually “freeze.”

The “freeze” response often contributes to us failing to escape situations that other people assume we “should” be able to just exit.

The “freeze” response can contribute to us missing professional opportunities that might advance our career— but which come with demands we’re not at all sure we can meet.

CPTSD survivors in particular can get “frozen” when we sense certain relational dynamics.

A date or romantic relationship that, for whatever reason, echoes the vibe of a painful relationship we had growing up can seem to just wipe our mind in a triggered moment— even if the person we’re with right now hasn’t done anything “wrong.”

There is often a dissociative element to the “freeze” response.

Many survivors report that, in addition to “freezing,” they feel themselves inexplicably removed from the situation— as if they’re watching themselves fail to act.

What the “freeze” response is NOT, by the way, is any kind of “failure.”

Trauma responses like fight, flight, freeze, fawn, or flop, evolved over millions of years. Our vulnerability to them is deeply wired into our physiology.

That is to say, “freezing” is not your fault.

To get out of “freeze,” start by moving the teeniest, tiniest part of your body you can.

Wiggle your little finger. No more, no less.

Remember that a frozen solid object does not unfreeze all at once. It has to thaw.

Just create some friction. Wiggle that little finger.

Then maybe your ring finger, too. Don’t rush it. Just get some movement going.

Breathe, blink, focus— and then wiggle your middle finger. Just those three. No rush, no pressure.

Create friction. Create movement. Create “heat”— and feel your hand start to thaw.

It is the case that a lot of the “freezing” we do is psychological and emotional— but, of the three tools we have available to us at all times, i.e., self talk, mental focus, and physiology, the tool I find most helpful for thawing out a “freeze” response is physiology.

Your mileage may vary.

Whatever teeny, tiny movement works for you, work it.

But remember that “freeze” is not your fault, not a “failure,” not a “choice,” nothing to be ashamed of— and not evidence of anything about you, other than the fact you are a human whose nervous system evolved in exactly the same way the rest of the species did.

Easy does it.

Just get to wiggling.

drglenndoyle

DIY recovery is ancient recovery.

If you’re reading this, there’s a better than average chance you’re doing this trauma recovery thing more or less alone.

Maybe you have a therapist, or you’ve had a therapist in the past. Or, maybe you don’t.

Therapy can be a great tool— for the right survivors, at the right time in their journey, given the right therapist— but the vast majority of trauma survivors in recovery are in this relatively alone.

I’m going to get sh*t for acknowledging that, but it’s the truth.

I call it DIY (“Do It Yourself”) trauma recovery.

One of the reasons I write things on the internet about trauma recovery is because I believe we have to be utterly realistic about how many of us are DIY’ing recovery.

It makes resources that are not therapists— books, internet posts, videos, grassroots recovery communities— super important.

In my experience some therapists don’t like to talk about DIY recovery, because they feel everyone “should” have a therapist.

Maybe everyone “should”— but you and I know that good, trauma informed therapy is simply not available to everyone.

Practically, realistically, the principles of trauma recovery need to be out there for anyone to access, even if they’re broke as a joke, even if they’re reading these words on a public library computer.

The reality is, people have been recovering from trauma for centuries. Long before therapy or modern medical treatment were things.

What I understand as the principles of trauma recovery have been discussed by philosophers for years. They go back to ancient Greece and Rome, and probably much father than that.

The tools of trauma recovery have been around as long as art and poetry and spiritual practices and physical rituals have existed. That is to say, for as long as humans have been able to create and move and breathe.

That doesn’t mean those principles or tools are obvious, or that you should just instinctively know how to access or leverage them. That’s why people like me, and others who write and talk about the “how” of trauma recovery can be useful.

But my point is, the principles and tools are out there. Mostly for free. They really are.

Nobody who has invented a costly trauma recovery technique has invented something new. They’ve repackaged something that probably existed for centuries (and, don’t get me wrong, some of those rebranding of ancient wisdom have been incredible, and made that ancient wisdom more accessible to modern survivors then it would have otherwise been).

If you follow my work, you know my holy trinity of trauma recovery tools: self talk, mental focus, and physiology.

Every effective trauma recovery tool is some combination of those— which I say not to denigrate any trauma recovery tool, but to reassure everybody reading that you absolutely have access to the building blocks of EVERY effective recovery tool.

I am not in any way trying to denigrate therapy. I’m a therapist. The therapy relationship can be a powerful tool, and it can train survivors in powerful skills.

But I need you to know that if you’re DIY’ing trauma recovery, with no realistic access to good therapy, you’re not screwed.

Trauma recovery is not easy or obvious for anyone. But DYI’ng it can be a b*tch.

You’re in good company, though.

As in, the company of almost all the trauma survivors who have ever worked a successful recovery since the beginning of time.

You, we, can make this work.

drglenndoyle

Don’t get tricked into the Trauma Olympics.

Comparing your trauma to someone else’s is almost always a trap.

I can tell you from experience, that juice is almost never worth the squeeze.

It’s true that sometimes hearing others’ stories can be validating. It can help us understand that we’re not alone in what we endured. That there really were other families that functioned (such as it is) the way ours did. That there really are other people who are still alive after life tried to kill them.

But it’s also the case that hearing others’ stories can get in our head about the validity or severity of our own experience.

Many trauma survivors already struggle with feeling that we don’t have “permission” to feel what we feel.

We often struggle with feeling like our experience wasn’t “bad enough” to produce the symptoms and struggles we face now.

We’ve often been told that it wasn’t the situation that was bad— but rather, we were “weak.’

Some of us have been told that we didn’t really experience trauma— we just have a “personality disorder.”

A fair amount of the work in trauma recovery is unwiring and rewiring feelings and behavior that stem from what we were told.

We don’t need to add to that task by comparing and contrasting what we went through or how we responded to it, with what someone else went through, or how they’re handling it.

I find it useful to remind myself that, no matter what I learn about someone else’s past or trauma, I’m almost surely not hearing the entire story. I’m hearing what they remember, and/or what they’re able to express right now.

I also find it useful to remember that, no matter how someone seems to be handling their trauma, what I see is almost never the entire picture.

In the end, just like nobody knows our entire story or experience except us, we truly don’t know all the contours of somebody else’s story or experience.

Not that this fact stops Trauma Brain from trying to get us to judge the living sh*t out of ourselves based on what we do hear about others’ stories.

Trauma Brain— the internalized voices of our bullies and abusers— will almost always use someone else’s story to tell us we didn’t REALLY have it “that bad.”

Or, sometimes, Trauma Brain will play against type, and use someone else’s story as “evidence” that what we went through was SO bad, there’s no POSSIBLE way we can “recover”— so we might as well not try.

What I want you to notice about that is, Trauma Brain doesn’t actually care about how our experience stacks up against someone else’s.

It just wants us to judge and hate ourselves, and give up on recovery.

Be mindful when you’re exposed to others’ stories of trauma and survival and recovery.

Remember that, no matter what anyone else endured, you still absolutely have the right to feel what you feel and need what you need.

Your injuries are your injuries. They don’t change because someone may have had it “better” or “worse.”

Trauma survivors very often end up bonding over our shared experiences of pain (which is not a “trauma bond,” by the way— that term refers to what happens when a survivor is coercively bonded to an abuser on whom they are dependent). And it’s true that some of our biggest supports in this trauma recovery can be other survivors.

Just be careful Trauma Brain doesn’t sucker you into competing in the Trauma Olympics. That is a very reliable recipe for a spiral.

Breathe. Blink. Focus.

And remember your recovery truly is YOUR recovery.

drglenndoyle

You are up for this.

CPTSD is going to try to convince you you are not up to this life. That you can’t hack it.

It’s going to give you all sorts of “evidence” that you’re just not up to this— and that evidence is going to feel very real, mostly because you’re exhausted.

Exhaustion makes false evidence appear real. You know, “F.E.A.R.”

The reality is, you are up for this.

When I say “up for this,” I don’t mean you’re up to the project of simply continuing to exist— I mean you’re up for the project of creating a life you don’t hate.

The thing is, we’re not really taught how to do that.

Hell, humans are really taught how to do that under the best of circumstances, even when they’re not being abused or neglected.

Look around. How many people do you know who are actually relaxed and focused and happy?

You might know a few— but you probably know a lot more who are tense, scattered, and unhappy.

That’s because we’re not really taught how to design a life.

We’re not taught it in school, and the versions of it we’re “taught” in religion often have nothing to do with what we actually want or value.

So you take that basic skill deficit that most humans suffer from, and you add abuse and neglect that f*cks up our head about whether we “deserve” to live, let alone be happy— and you wind up with trauma survivors who are very vulnerable to hopelessness about our future.

Trauma recovery is going to ask you to understand that feeling for what it is: a feeling.

Even that sense of certainty that you “can’t” create a life is just that: a feeling. A feeling that has been conditioned, programmed, reinforced, by painful experiences that shouldn’t have happened.

We truly shouldn’t be taking our bullies’ and abusers’ word for what we deserve and what we can do.

We truly shouldn’t take on the BS (Belief Systems) of people who didn’t have their own sh*t together— to the extent that they had to make THEIR lives all about making OUR lives hell.

It is my experience that most survivors in trauma recovery are not just creating our recovery from scratch— we’re building our lives and our self-concepts from scratch, really.

The idea that we can create a life that is about what WE want it to be about is this bizarre idea.

Maybe its sounds unbelievable. I get it.

But here’s the rock bottom reality: neither you nor I were “destined” for anything.

We were not destined for misery; nor were we destined for greatness.

We have the life we have. The resources we have. The time we have.

And, yes, you and I have the injuries we have. This fun collection of beliefs and behaviors called CPTSD.

But we get to choose what our life is about.

How to DO that is not easy or effortless, but let me be crystal clear: we GET to learn how to do it. We GET to decide who and what we want to be.

That’s not toxic positivity bullsh*t— that’s reality.

You are up for this. It may not be pretty and it may not be easy— I know my journey hasn’t been either of those, and it still isn’t.

But you and I are up for this.

You have a realistic place in this world and a realistic life you can build that you don’t hate waking up to every morning.

It all starts and deepens with conditioning and reconditioning.

You are not the one human being whose nervous system stopped being malleable after your trauma. I guarantee it.

Breathe. Blink. Focus.

And seek out the next teeny, tiny, recovery supporting micro choice.

drglenndoyle

Recovery work is identity work.

CPTSD shreds our identity.

This is one of the hardest things for many survivors to express or explain.

The symptoms and struggles of CPTSD are not primarily about what happened to us. They’re about what happened to us impacted how we understand ourselves, how we communicate with ourselves, what we believe about ourselves.

If CPTSD was just about what happened, we could heal that by working exclusively with the memories of what happened.

But it’s just not that simple.

We could erase or transform every trauma memory we have— and the damage of CPTSD would still be deeply entrenched.

We would still struggle with our self-esteem.

We would stills struggle with our relationships.

We would still struggle with managing our money and our time.

Those are all things linked to our identity and our relationship with ourselves— which is what CPTSD really goes after.

Realistic, sustainable recovery has to focus on not just what happened to us— but also who we are.

In realistic recovery we have to develop tools to understand and communicate with ourselves in ways that support our authenticity— instead of conforming to others’ expectations or pressure.

The reality is, we humans are not really taught how to intentionally develop our identity.

Most of us, traumatized or not, are living out someone else’s vision of who we “should” be.

For some people, that’s not a problem— if they grew up with adults around them who nurtured a positive, proactive concept of who they should be.

But we survivors of complex trauma grew up with something different, didn’t we?

Many people reading this grew up with people mocking them. Or gaslighting them. Or ignoring them.

What results is an identity that is patchwork of negative ideas and stereotypes and assumptions that has almost no relationship to who we actually are.

Then we wonder why we’re such a sh*t show in relationships, at work, in the world?

Some people are confused and frustrated that CPTSD recovery, at least as I teach and support the concept, isn’t entirely focused on eradicating trauma memories.

They don’t want to get into issues of who they are and how they relate to who they are.

But that’s where the real pain is, and that’s where the real movement in recovery is.

That’s why it’s so important in realistic trauma recovery to broaden the conversation from wha happened to us us, to who we are and what we want our personality and life to be about.

CPTSD recovery is identity work, grief work, and life development work— not just memory work.

And it all keeps coming back to, “who do you want to be?”

Breathe. Blink. Focus.

And look inward, without judgment or rush.

drglenndoyle

Trauma recovery and impulse control.

CPTSD survivors can have a real hard time saying “no” to ourselves. And there are reasons for this.

Among the biggest triggers for survivors is often feeling trapped and/or controlled— because many of our experiences growing up were all about us being trapped and controlled.

It makes perfect sense that now, as adults, we’re highly sensitive to feeling trapped and controlled— and not just in overt ways.

Many of our triggers around feeling trapped and controlled are subtle.

If you haven’t noticed, CPTSD survivors’ nervous systems are overwhelmingly sensitive— so much so that many of our triggers may not seem to make sense, even to us.

But we pick up on things. We pick up on MICRO things.

Such as micro-feelings of being trapped or controlled.

When we have to rein in an impulse, say “no” to ourselves, our nervous system often processes that as tonally similar to when we were reprimanded or shamed by our bullies or abusers.

It doesn’t matter if the thing we’re saying “no” to is “bad” for us— what our inner child hears and responds to is the vibe that we’re “wrong” or “bad” for wanting or trying to do that thing.

Making healthy dietary choices gets linked to “good people don’t eat junk food.”

Avoiding intoxicating substances gets linked to “good people don’t do drugs.”

Managing our time gets linked to “responsible people don’t procrastinate.”

All of which toggle those “trapped” and “controlled” triggers in our amygdala and hippocampus— along with the third big trigger of most CPTSD survivors, feeling “in trouble.”

So, while saying “no” to ourselves, reeling in certain impulses, is super necessary to our health and safety in the real world, CPTSD survivors (and definitely survivors who have DID) are tasked with managing a cadre of rebellious internal “parts” that are hell bent on never feeling trapped, controlled, or in trouble, ever again.

Here’s the thing: the backbone of realistic trauma recovery really is the relationship we nurture with ourselves.

It’s that relationship that complex trauma shreds, and it’s the relationship with ourselves that we need to repair.

That means we need to handle things like saying “no” to ourselves with sensitivity, compassion and realism— especially when we get kick back from our “parts,” who bristle at restrictions or limits of any kind.

First thing’s first: no shame.

So saying “no” to ourselves and managing impulses is fraught. We need to understand that for the complex trauma symptom it is— not as a mark of immaturity or lack of “character.”

We need to understand that wrangling our own behavior is always going to be more complex than just telling ourselves, “don’t do that.”

Meeting our own resistance with compassion, patience, and realism needs to become our default setting— which is hard, when we’ve been conditioned to shame and blame and punish ourselves for being “difficult.”

Our job in CPTSD recovery, over and over again, is to push back against the internalized voices and patterns of our bullies and abusers— especially in those moments when shame and punishment feel like “natural” go-to’s to modify our behavior.

It’s absolutely true that managing our impulses, saying “no” to ourselves, is necessary to live a safe, healthy life. Self-discipline is a super necessary tool to achieving our goals.

But it’s also true that if we try to “discipline” ourselves like a drill sergeant, we’re going to end up reinforcing old patterns of abuse and neglect— and damaging the relationship we are here to repair.

I know. I wish managing our own behavior in CPTSD recovery was more straightforward and intuitive, too.

But our trauma-conditioned autopilot is what got us here. It’s not what will dig us out.

Breathe. Blink. Focus.

drglenndoyle

Functional freeze and fawning in plain sight.

“Fawn” and “freeze” in CPTSD often don’t look like we think they should.

When we hear “freeze,” we often think of literal paralysis.

Sometimes that is what “freeze” looks like— but CPTSD survivors tends to be far more familiar with “functional freeze.”

In “functional freeze,” we may not look “frozen” at all to someone observing us.

We may be going about our tasks of the day, doing the things, showing up to work, taking care of the kids.

But inside, we may be at a standstill.

We may be procrastinating on important things that we just cannot get ourselves to do.

It often feels like an internal wall we just can’t get around— and yet, we feel lots of shame about that wall, because we don’t register what’s happening as a trauma response.

It’s easy to mistake a “functional freeze” state for a “choice,” because we’re still doing certain things. We’re not literally, physically “frozen.”

But “functional freeze” is no more a “choice” than any other trauma response.

Trauma responses are not choices.

CPTSD survivors stuck in “functional freeze” would often give ANYTHING to be able to do the things they feel unable to do— even as they’re doing the things they are able to do on autopilot.

A similar thing happens with the “fawn” response.

We may not even realize we’re “fawning” when we are. We may think we’re just engaging with someone in a friendly, accommodating way.

But that line— between “friendly” and “accommodating” in an unchosen way— can be very fine.

We’re told so often to stop “people pleasing,” that we may truly believe we’re making a choice, a choice we could make differently at any moment.

But diverting from that accommodating, people-pleasing default may be harder than it seems.

Our behavior when we’re “fawning” can seem so natural, so freely chosen, that we may not register that we’re actually feeling quite coerced— and quite unable to just choose differently.

Trauma responses that don’t necessarily look like trauma responses can really f*ck with us.

We assume that we would know a trauma response when we see it or experience it— but would we?

After all, many CPTSD survivors are real good at hiding our trauma responses from others.

Who’s to say we’re not equally good at hiding them from ourselves?

It’s true that not every reaction we have is a trauma response.

But when a reaction is a trauma response, even one in disguise, it really matters that we’re able to clock that— because trauma responses can’t be just “unchosen.”

They have to be met with compassion and patience— and, more than anything, tools that create safety, inside and outside of us.

Broaden your thinking about what may be a trauma response.

Functional freezing and fawning in plain sight happen a lot more than anybody realizes.

Breathe. Blink. Focus.

drglenndoyle

It’s on us.

No one is coming to save us.

I know I don’t need to tell you that. You probably know.

But sometimes I need to remind myself.

I find it useful to remind myself of the fact, because for a long time I had this fantasy someone would just appear to save me— from my trauma symptoms, from my addictions, from…everything.

That fantasy kept me trapped.

I remember at one time resentfully spitting at my therapist, “I’m drowning here, and you’re describing the water.” (It’s a famous line from the old movie “As Good As It Gets.”)

I was furious, having realized he wouldn’t save me.

Being a trauma survivor, I assumed that the reason no one was coming to save me was because I was unloved.

Or maybe unloveable.

Just not worth saving, I guess.

I clung on to the fantasy of being saved, because I figured if someone DID come to save me, somehow, some way, it would mean I WAS worthy, I WAS loved.

It would be the only way to be sure, really.

Now I know I was setting myself up.

The reality is, no one is coming to save us, not because we’re unlovable or unworthy— but because no one CAN save us.

We have to save ourselves.

No one can reshape our self talk for us. We have to do it.

No one can recondition our patterns of mental focus for us. We have to do it.

No one can manage our breathing and physiology for us. We have to do it.

Not because we’re unlovable or unworthy, but because, quite literally, no one else CAN engage those trauma recovery tools for us.

No one CAN commit FOR us to not attack or shame ourselves.

No one CAN commit FOR us to not harm or kill ourselves.

No one CAN commit FOR us to not relate to ourselves like our abusers and bullies did.

The irony is, once we take radical responsibility for saving ourselves from the inside out? THEN we can actually take advantage of whatever external supports we do have.

I know now I couldn’t take full advantage of my therapist’s skill UNTIL I had made the decision to save myself, no matter what.

(I also now understand that my little tantrum at him was part of that process— because, God dammit, I was angry that I had to save myself. Some days I still am.)

No one is coming to save us. Not from CPTSD, not from DID, not from self-harm, not even from suicide.

It’s on us.

And, as it turns out, that’s the good news.

Because we absolutely can save ourselves, by developing tools we already have.

I’m going to get sh*t from some readers for saying that, but I don’t care: it’s true.

You and I have versions of the tools we need. We may need to develop and strengthen them, which is what trauma recovery is all about, but saving ourselves will not require from us anything we can’t do.

To quote the Beatles, “there’s nothing you can do that can’t be done.”

No one is coming to save us.

But everyone who has ever written a book or a song or a poem about making it through hard times has handed us a tool.

drglenndoyle

Talking– and listening– to ourselves.

You’ve heard me say over and over again that the three main trauma recovery tools are self-talk, mental focus, and physiology.

The self-talk piece is often the one that’s most accessible.

We’re talking to ourselves 24/7/365.

We may not be aware we’re talking to ourselves— but we are. We are in constant communication with ourselves.

We’re constantly telling ourselves stories— some true, some less true— about who we are and what things mean.

What we communicate to ourselves really matters— but how we communicate it really, really matters.

Remember that the backbone of realistic trauma recovery really is the relationship with ourselves— because that’s what takes the hit when we endure complex trauma.

When we endure complex trauma— that is, pain that unfolds over time, is functionally inescapable, and entwines with our relationships—we almost always come out of it with a damaged relationship with ourselves.

We don’t believe we’re worthy.

We don’t believe we’re capable.

We don’t believe we have a future.

And that damaged relationship with ourselves is almost always reflected in our self-talk and other self-communication.

This often takes the form of talking to ourselves like our abusers and bullies talked to us.

We internalize both their vocabulary and their cadences.

And why wouldn’t we? For many of us, our abusers and our bullies were the people we interacted with the most, whether it was our parents or our peers.

Some survivors get skeptical that self-talk plays an big role in either trauma or recovery, because the words “self talk” sound superficial.

But I’m not talking about superficial self-talk.

I’m talking about deep self-talk— the self-communication that is a 24/7/365 live feed inside our head and nervous system. The self-communication that informs and supports our deepest belief systems.

That’s what we have to shift.

Just telling yourself “good job”— while maybe an okay start— isn’t going to do much.

Using your ability to talk to yourself to remind your “parts” and inner child, again and again, that they will not be punished or abandoned— not by you, not inside your own head and heart— can be life transforming.

A good rule of thumb to keep in mind is, you know all the stuff you needed to hear once upon a time, when you were lonely or desperate or in trouble?

You still need to hear that stuff.

But now it needs to come from you, to you— from the conscious, verbal “part” of you, to the more vulnerable, less verbal “part” of you.

(If you’re paying attention, you’ve probably already figured out that self-talk is the way most people get started with “parts” work in trauma recovery.)

Breathe. Blink. Focus.

And talk to yourself.

Talk to yourself like it matters— because it really, really does.

drglenndoyle

Parentification is coercion and neglect. No exceptions.

Anybody who has children knows they can be incredible emotional supports, mostly by accident, mostly in ways that would be impossible to engineer even if one wanted to.

But it’s not the job of kids to be emotional supports for adults.

And kids shouldn’t be put in that position— or the position of doing any job or fulfilling any role that actually requires an adult.

At the heart of the whole thing is consent.

Kids can’t meaningfully consent to being emotional supports for adults— let alone taking on other adult roles.

They couldn’t understand what’s involved if they wanted to.

That’s not to disrespect any children— of course there are remarkably bright and industrious kids out there.

But kids lack the neural wiring to wrap their heads around adult roles.

I don’t care if a kid is an “old soul.”

I don’t care if a kid has triple the raw IQ of their parents.

I don’t care if a kid fervently believes in their own ability to take on an adult role or do an adult job: it’s not for them.

And we, as adults, need to make sure kids are not put in that position.

There are many people reading this who are well aware, who know by experience, what happens when kids are put in the position of being emotional support for adults, or coerced into being “little adults” in other ways.

Yes, I said “coerced.” Because that’s what it is.

Some parents are going to have feelings about this. They’re going to make the case that what they coerced their kids into wasn’t harmful. They’re going to say that it depends on the kid, that there are smart and mature kids out there who can handle it.

One, being smart and mature, even adult-like— in intellect, appearance, or otherwise— doesn’t mean a kid is able to take on adult roles.

Two, adults and kids are not operating on level playing fields, power wise.

Not only are kids incapable of taking on those adult jobs and roles, they are incapable of consenting to do so, due to that power differential. Especially so if the adults in question are their parents, caretaker, or other important people in their lives, such as teachers or clergy.

It harms kids to take on adult roles— especially repeatedly, especially in relationships where refusing to take on those roles is awkward or impossible due to the power dynamic.

Why am I writing about this on my trauma page?

Because more than a few people reading this were harmed by the coercion I’m describing.

Raise your hand if you were ever described as an “old soul.” “Mature for your age.”

Raise your hand if it was up to you to take care of your parents.

I understand a certain percentage of survivors reading this are going to say I’m overstating things, that what happened to them wasn’t abuse or neglect, that they were capable of being the emotional or logistical support their parents needed at the time.

I’m not going to tell you what your truth is.

But I am going to tell you, many survivors of this specific kind of neglect, parentification, don’t register it as neglect— but they are impacted by it all the same.

That “fawn” response? The people pleasing, the perfectionism, the anxiety, the guilt?

The vulnerability to relationship conflict, that “freeze” response when things get tough between you and your partner?

Yeah, none of that comes out of nowhere.

Parentification is coercion and neglect. I don’t care who you are or who your parents were.

And by the way, coercing kids to be “adults” in certain spheres, like emotional support, kicks open the door to rationalizing kids fulfilling other “needs” for adults, with the same arguments for it all. “Some kids are mature enough to handle it,” blah blah blah.

Kids deserve better.

You deserved better.