Expecting abandonment after closeness is common after trauma, neglect, inconsistent caregiving, or betrayal. If closeness was followed by criticism, rejection, withdrawal, punishment, or abandonment in the past, your nervous system…
Healing can feel like betraying your family because recovery often requires you to see harmful experiences more clearly. Many people were taught that loyalty meant staying silent, minimizing harm, protecting…
Yes. It is far more common than people realize to love an abusive caregiver. When a caregiver causes harm, the child’s nervous system doesn’t stop needing them. Trauma creates a…
Betrayal trauma happens when the person you depended on for safety was also connected to the harm. Sometimes that means the caregiver was the one causing the abuse. Other times,…
Telling yourself to “get over it” is often something you learned from other people. If your feelings, needs, or struggles were dismissed growing up, you may have learned to dismiss…
Caring for yourself can feel wrong if your needs were ignored, criticized, punished, or treated like a burden growing up. You may have learned that other people’s needs mattered more…
Automatically blaming yourself is often a learned survival response. Many people learn in childhood that it feels safer to believe “it was my fault” than to accept that someone else…
Imagine a stack of 2,000 pennies. Each one represents a time you were told — directly or indirectly — “You’re worthless.” Now picture one single penny beside it. That’s the…
Trauma-holding parts often carry memories, sensations, emotions, or beliefs that were too overwhelming for the rest of the system to manage. They may carry fear, shame, grief, anger, helplessness, body…
A gatekeeper alter is a part in a dissociative system that helps manage access to information, memories, emotions, communication, or switching. Some gatekeeper parts try to control which alters are…