Complex PTSD¶
Metadata¶
- Author: Pete Walker
- ASIN: B00HJBMDXK
- ISBN: 1492871842
- Reference: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HJBMDXK
- Kindle link
Highlights¶
I have worked with many survivors stranded in this form of adult helplessness. Those who recover from it typically do so by engaging extensively in the angering work of grieving that is discussed throughout this book. The ability to invoke willpower seems to be allied to your ability to healthily express your anger. With sufficient recovering, you can learn to manufacture your volition. — location: 661 ^ref-24848
mindfulness eventually awakens your fighting spirit to resist the abusive refrains from your childhood, and to replace them with thoughts that are self-supportive. — location: 736 ^ref-59160
repression of one end of the emotional continuum often leads to a repression of the whole continuum, and the person becomes emotionally deadened. — location: 758 ^ref-6962
The repression of the so-called negative polarities of emotion causes much unnecessary pain, as well as the loss of many essential aspects of the feeling nature. In fact, much of the plethora of loneliness, alienation, and addictive distraction that plagues modern industrial societies is a result of people being taught and forced to reject, pathologize or punish so many of their own and others’ normal feeling states. — location: 767 ^ref-62516
those who cannot feel their normal angry or fearful responses to abuse, are often in danger of putting up with it without protest. — location: 777 ^ref-36186
I have self-esteem to the degree that I keep my heart open to myself in all my emotional states. — location: 795 ^ref-9655
assertiveness training and anger release work are especially helpful for survivors who have difficulty accessing their assertiveness or instincts of self-protection. — location: 963 ^ref-652
simplistic versions of the salvation fantasy, and are typically pursued at the exclusion of working on more core issues of recovering. — location: 1012 ^ref-40597
Beyond The Marriage Fantasy, by Dan Beaver is especially helpful for men. — location: 1129 ^ref-725
the life-changing epiphany that lead me to trade in my old primary aspiration of “Celebration” for my new one of “Serenity.” — location: 1393 ^ref-62251
feelings of fear, shame and guilt are sometimes signs that we have said or done the right thing. They are emotional flashbacks to how we were traumatized for trying to claim normal human privileges. — location: 1435 ^ref-42745
“What is my most important priority right now? What is the most beneficial thing I can do next?” — location: 1915 ^ref-45993
“What hurt am I running from right now? Can I open my heart to the idea and image of soothing myself in my pain?” — location: 1916 ^ref-15812
master the art of changing the internal channel whenever inner experience becomes uncomfortable. — location: 1932 ^ref-49000
a powerful clue that you are in a flashback. With practice, mindfully noticing a sudden upsurge in craving can be interpreted as the need to invoke the flashback management steps. Moreover, I see many survivors gradually decrease their self-medicating — location: 2447 ^ref-61203
hypervigilance typically devolves into intense performance anxiety on every level of self-expression. — location: 2612 ^ref-60466
I reduce procrastination by reminding myself that I will not accept unfair criticism or perfectionist expectations from anyone. Even when afraid, I will defend myself from unfair criticism. I won’t let fear make my decisions. — location: 2673 ^ref-7546
All this in reaction to the tiny faux pas of a spilled glass of water! — location: 2703 ^ref-31276
As the quest for perfection fails over and over, and as parental acceptance and nurturing remain elusive, imperfection becomes synonymous with shame and fear. Perceived imperfection triggers fear of abandonment, which triggers self-hate for imperfection, which expands abandonment into self-abandonment. This in turn amps fear up even further, which in turn intensifies self-disgust, etc. On and on it goes in a downward spiral of fear and shame-encrusted depression. It can go on for hours, days, weeks, and for those with severe Cptsd, can become their standard mode of being. — location: 2753 ^ref-34974
Permanent abandonment, public humiliation, lethal illness, lonely death, imminent attack, and penniless homelessness are common endangerment themes of many survivors. — location: 2763 ^ref-21226
the critic is above all a self-perpetuating process of extreme negative noticing. Second the critic is a constant hypervigilance that sees disaster hovering in the next moment about to launch into a full-court-press. — location: 2766 ^ref-1433
We can re-hijack the anger of the critic’s attack, and forcefully redirect it at the critic instead of ourselves. We can then silently and internally say “No!” or “Stop!” or “Shut Up!” to short-circuit drasticizing and perfectionistic mental processes. — location: 2773 ^ref-16441
The most important thought correction of all is a switch in the perspective of our thinking. — location: 2868 ^ref-2675
Chronic lateness and poor follow through on commitments can also be unconscious, passive-aggressive ways of expressing anger to others. — location: 2969 ^ref-51525
I subscribe to authenticity as one of my highest values, but it does not include sharing my outer critic’s view of you or exposing my inner critic’s unfair judgments of me. — location: 2977 ^ref-58093
the toxic critic is not an authentic part of us. — location: 2979 ^ref-49530
When we do not resist this junk food feeding of our psyches with a news “service” that exults so thoroughly in the negative, we can be left floundering in a dreadful hypervigilance. — location: 3033 ^ref-61462
In worse case scenarios, outer critic drasticizing deteriorates into paranoia. — location: 3038 ^ref-8137
Cognitive work in both cases involves the demolition and rebuilding processes of thought-stopping and thought substitution, respectively. And, emotional work in both instances is grief work. It is removing the critic’s fuel supply - the unexpressed childhood anger and the uncried tears of a lifetime of abandonment. — location: 3155 ^ref-9717
we can choose to face the acute pain of critic-shrinking work because we want to end the chronic pain of having the critic destroy our enjoyment of life. It is the fight of a lifetime. — location: 3172 ^ref-27537
Critic management is often the primary work of early stage grief work. This work involves recognizing and challenging the ways the critic is blocking or shaming the processes of grieving. — location: 3318 ^ref-35050
Self-hate is the most grievous reenactment of parental abandonment. — location: 3335 ^ref-19549
When we greet our own tears with self-acceptance, crying awakens our develop- mentally arrested instinct of self-compassion. Once we establish self-compassion through consistent and repeated practice, it becomes the cornerstone of an increasing sense of self-esteem. When an attitude of self-compassion becomes habitual, it can instantly antidote the self-abandonment that so characterizes a flashback. — location: 3414 ^ref-5452
The depth of our ability to be there for an intimate generally depends on the depth of our capacity to practice unwavering allegiance to ourselves. — location: 3418 ^ref-38556
Without complete emoting of his hurt, a survivor can become stuck in moodiness. — location: 3435 ^ref-62099
Blocked anger can degenerate into bitter sullenness, and blocked sadness can deteriorate into melancholic self-indulgence. — location: 3437 ^ref-52462
Grieving has almost instantly delivered him from painful loss into eager apprehension of what is fun about life and what there is to look forward to. — location: 3447 ^ref-38502
When we can both anger and cry while re-experiencing our early abandonment in a flashback, we can obtain a more complete release from the abandonment mélange. Each survivor does well to assess whether his angering or crying is blocked or stultified, and to then work at recovering it. — location: 3449 ^ref-36416
Holotropic Rebirthing and Reichian therapy employ special breathing techniques to help free stuck emotions. — location: 3458 ^ref-43525
As unsupported children, we have to dissociate because we are not able to effectively grieve. We have to protect ourselves by not allowing the full brunt of our pain into awareness. — location: 3507 ^ref-35346
Some survivors over-rely on reasoning and lofty dialogue to protect themselves from the potentially messy and painful world of feeling. Even the highest levels of creative thinking can deteriorate into an obsessive defense when they are excessively engaged. — location: 3533 ^ref-47884
We must repudiate this damaging legacy of the past. Verbal ventilation is the key way that people make friends. — location: 3540 ^ref-37886
Nowhere is this truer than with mutual commiseration. Mutual commiseration is the process in which two intimates are reciprocally sympathetic to each other’s troubles and difficulties. It is the deepest most intimate channel to intimacy – profounder than sex. — location: 3549 ^ref-10244
Feeling is a way of focusing on somatic experience that enables us to reclaim our ability to experience full, relaxed and vital inhabitancy of our bodies. — location: 3558 ^ref-25818
A child who is repeatedly punished for emoting learns to be afraid of inner emotional experience and tightens [armors] the musculature of her body in an effort to hold feelings in and to banish them from awareness. — location: 3583 ^ref-19453
focusing your awareness on physical sensations in your body can help you to become more proficient at the practice of “feeling”. — location: 3592 ^ref-15141
As a survivor becomes more adept at angering and crying, fear of his feelings will decrease, and opportunities to learn to simply feel will present themselves. — location: 3603 ^ref-54782
practicing this — location: 3618 ^ref-48898
The first thing that we usually begin to notice in early recovery is that suddenly we are engaged in our most typical 4F response. — location: 3662 ^ref-51948
mindfulness of the fear and shame that fuel the critic. — location: 3663 ^ref-43035
in later recovery, we become aware of the abandonment depression itself. — location: 3664 ^ref-43209
we fight, flee, freeze or fawn to disassociate ourselves from the painful voice of the critic. — location: 3699 ^ref-54901
On a deeper layer, the critic is also distracting and disassociating us from our emotional pain. — location: 3700 ^ref-15997
fear and shame dis-associate us from the bottom layer - the terrible abandonment depression itself. — location: 3701 ^ref-65466
Overreaction to depression essentially reinforces learned toxic shame. It reinforces the person’s belief that he is unworthy, defective and unlovable when he is depressed. Sadly this typically drives him deeper into abandonment-exacerbating isolation. — location: 3733 ^ref-52408
chapter. Mild sensations of fear are muscular tightness or tension anywhere in the body, especially in the alimentary canal. Tension in the jaw, throat, chest, diaphragm or belly also often correlates with fear. — location: 3744 ^ref-19919
One of the biggest challenges of mindfully focusing on depression is to not dissociate into sleep. Sitting up straight in a comfortable chair can help to keep you awake and focused on fully feeling and metabolizing your depression. — location: 3758 ^ref-46580
that I typically function well enough no matter how tired or introverted I feel. These days, I am sometimes even able to authentically welcome the most exhausted of these experiences as a chance to take a break from my less essential routines. I have learned how to resist my critic’s all-or-none productivity program, and be satisfied with days of getting less done. — location: 3790 ^ref-44791
feeling tired is sometimes unrelated to sleep deprivation. It is instead an emotional experience of the abandonment depression. I believe that emotional tiredness comes from not resting enough in a safe relationship with yourself or with another. — location: 3807 ^ref-5249
Step. The cyclothymic two-step is the dance of flight types or subtypes who habitually overreact to their tiredness with workaholic or busyholic activity. Self-medicating with their own adrenalin, they “run” to counteract the emotional tiredness of the unprocessed abandonment depression. Eventually however, many exhaust themselves physically, and become temporarily too depleted or sick to continue running. At such times, they collapse into an accumulated depression so painful, that they re-launch desperately into “flight-speed” at the first sign of replenished adrenalin. Survivors with this pattern sometimes misdiagnose themselves as bipolar because of their abrupt vacillations between adrenalin highs and abandonment-exacerbated lows. — location: 3813 ^ref-63729
cultivating self-kindness during those inevitable times when you feel tired, bad, lonely, or depressed. — location: 3822 ^ref-48230
Freeze/Dissociative type, who learned early to seek safety in the camouflage of silence, often needs a great deal of encouragement to discover and talk about his inner experience. — location: 4099 ^ref-50973
freeze types can easily get lost in superficial and barely relevant free associations as they struggle to learn to talk about themselves. — location: 4101 ^ref-33407
the flight type can remain stuck and floundering in obsessive perseverations about superficial worries that are little more than left-brain dissociations from his repressed pain. — location: 4121 ^ref-43165
all 4F types use left- or right-brain dissociative processes to avoid feeling and grieving their childhood losses. — location: 4122 ^ref-30556
Childhood trauma left Frank hair-triggered to retreat and isolate. — location: 4165 ^ref-51655
When he accepted her request to move in together, however, it became harder to hide his recurring emotional flashbacks. He was more convinced than ever that his feelings of fear, shame and depression were the most despicable of his many fatal flaws. — location: 4168 ^ref-53523
During his most intense flashbacks, his fear and self-disgust became so intense that he invented any excuse to get out of the house. — location: 4178 ^ref-6507
his silent withdrawals were evidence that he was flashing back. He — location: 4182 ^ref-45932
over, he confronted the critic’s projection of his mother onto his partner. — location: 4184 ^ref-41124
the healthiest cognitive position concerning forgiveness is an attitude that allows for the possibility of its occurrence on the other side of extensive grieving. — location: 4337 ^ref-22424
when I occasionally feel hurt by proven intimates, I may not be able to immediately invoke loving or forgiving feelings towards them, but I know that with sufficient communication and non-abusive venting, I will eventually return to an appreciative experience of them. — location: 4370 ^ref-36108
Disabling Performance Anxiety. — location: 4569 ^ref-54202
I am reducing procrastination by reminding myself not to accept unfair criticism or perfectionist expectations from anyone. Even when afraid, I will defend myself from unfair criticism. I won’t let fear make my decisions. — location: 4569 ^ref-59921
Harville Hendrix’s Getting The Love You Want, is a wonderful guide for working through this dynamic in a way that heals childhood wounds and enhances intimacy at the same time. — location: 4622 ^ref-48848