The Real Reason It's So Hard to Recover from Childhood PTSD

I'll never forget the day I found out there was a name for what was wrong with me for the weird behaviors and emotions that I couldn't seem to stop and for the mistakes that I kept making over and over again the name of it is complex PTSD which is the kind that comes from chronic exposure to intense stress usually in childhood it can happen in adulthood but the thing I'm focusing on are the wounds of trauma that happened when you were a kid and especially my life changed when I learned the word for the core

symptom of this kind of PTSD neurological disregulation now I had lived most of my life disregulated and thinking it was just me I would get discombobulated or numb or too intense and I'd get clumsy I'd trip over myself and drop things so I learned about cptsd and disregulation and I learned how to get re-regulated and I felt so different I thought nothing bad was ever going to get into my life again but the thing is like all people and especially like all people who have lived through trauma in childhood I had self-defeating behaviors now I

knew this and I knew it for a long time and I thought it was just cuz I was a bad person I was ashamed about it and then I learned that it was actually very normal for people who had trauma still though I didn't know what to do about it so what I learned was when you learn to reregulate your nervous system it can get better and if you've watched even one of my videos before you know I'm always talking about the importance of re-regulation and I teach how to do that you can find my

my course on that or my book re-regulated Down Below in the description section but the problem was even though I was re-regulating I kept doing things that would knock me back from a re-regulated state back into disregulation and I'm talking about self-defeating behaviors which I'm going to list here for you so that you can see if you have any of them when when I was disregulated my self-defeating behaviors would just get activated that's what happens if you don't get disregulated they don't tend to activate they might everybody has some of them but disregulation makes it

so much harder to control they just leak out they get bigger than they should be so I had to learn to re-regulate and I had to learn to face honestly how I was sabotaging myself because as bad as my childhood trauma was I was keeping the effects of my trauma alive with my self-defeating behaviors I was things get better now some of these aren't such a big deal and some of them are huge and they can ruin your life it's a matter of degrees they always start as an innocent way of getting out of pain

all self-defeating Behavior you're just trying to get out of pain but if you keep using the behavior to try to get out of pain pretty soon the pain gets bigger and if you don't find a way to change that self-defeating Behavior it will create more pain and more life problems and keep you ret traumatized in way that totally blocks your healing so this is the hardest thing to face to acknowledge that today a lot of what's hurting you and holding you back is not your parents not anymore not because of uh anything that happened to

you not anymore today what's happening is your own behavior and the worse you were hurt back then the more likely it is that you have a pattern of hurting yourself now and it's not your fault what happened to you or that you ended up affecting Ed by that but now every bit of your courage is going to be needed because there are things that only you can change self-defeating behaviors are those things these are things like the people you allow into your life the way you take care of yourself the choices that you make about

partners and jobs and money and where you live and the people you admire and the things you say and of course the way you act it's easy peasy to spot this in other people but it can be really hard to see it in ourselves we go into denial we defend ourselves that what we're doing is necessary I'm self-medicating I have to but it doesn't actually make things better that's the nature of a self-defeating Behavior it defeats you changing is what makes things better and I teach this because for me this was the hardest part of

healing and I mean yes the stuff that happened to me when I was a kid was harmful it was not okay but in the end it was the stuff that I was doing to myself the bad relationships chain smoking the lashing out at people you know that's that's what was taking my life down and keeping me from healing as an adult and if you've taken my courses you've probably heard my story well I wasn't getting better for a long time because of all the hurtful situations that I kept putting myself into I didn't know any

better but I was dragging other people into them and it was just problem after problem and then I changed and it's not like I'm a perfect person never have been never will be I'm a work in progress just like you but if you're stuck in a pattern I get it I do understand stuck and patterns and I'm here to show you a better way okay so if you want to hear some of these self-defeating behaviors and ask yourself if there are any priorities that you don't want to do anymore let's go through them now remember

you're not going to have have all of these but you might have some and some will be worse than others so you can ask yourself if you relate to any of these number one black and white thinking so traumatized people are often drawn to extreme views and you know strong authority figures and groups who follow gurus you might notice that you're often outraged about current events and God knows the news is there to add fuel to the fire they want outrage so when we engage in that we're sort of inviting it in but that outrage

is activating disregulation and perhaps self-defeating Behavior as a traumatized person just remember you may be extra vulnerable to outrage and you know it does feel good sometimes when you're depressed to get mad but it's not it's it's the lowest grade anti-depressant there is so if you get to the point that you find that you're losing your freedom to disagree with people and stay friends or you're losing your freedom to leave a particularly dominant person or maybe that you are the dominant person or you're you're talking smack about other people and trying to get other people

to agree with you or you're trying to hurt their reputation or you're cutting off contact with people who are outside of your opinion bubble you may be veering off into black and white thinking to the degree that it's a self-defeating behavior all right number two neglect of your body you might find that for reasons bigger than the limits of your income you're wearing shabby clothes or you have poor hygiene or you don't exercise people who struggled in childhood are prone to do this and sometimes we neglect medical and dental care even when we can afford

it at the extreme though neglecting our body and our health can become self harm and so at that point it becomes a very clear self-defeating behavior number three is the addictive use of food yes food this includes everything from carrying a whole lot of extra weight to having an eating disorder not eating to a tendency to indulge in large amounts of fast Caro carbohydrates like sugar and flour and things that kind of put you in a food coma now that kind of feeling can be calming at first I know that is in the past has

been one of my kind of drugs of choice is just to numb out on a bunch of carbs it helps it feels like it helps any way when you're disregulated and you just want to calm down but in the long run it just makes you more disregulated it throws you off of a sort of steady energy level and ability to focus and pay attention that is what makes life good and happy number four is the addictive use of media and entertainment so do you watch TV or browse the internet or scroll your phone or play

games enough that it's interfering with your sleep or your meals or your daily routine or do these forms of Recreation cause problems for your family um maybe you don't meet your responsibilities at work or fulfill your education or pay your bills because you're so sucked into your screens that's a self-defeating behavior number five is dishonesty and this includes things like exaggerating hiding important personal truths or preferences lying stealing cheating on a significant other tax evasion or any kind of illegal activity the minute you're lying you are losing your Source you're losing your connection to all

that's good and I recommend cutting it out immediately number six is work problems and this includes staying stuck in unfulfilling work like um work that is not meaningful to you but maybe you're afraid to leave because the transition just feels overwhelming to you it's self-defeating Behavior to stay like that although everybody gets there sometimes another one is under earning where you're you're not earning a fair and adequate wage to support yourself and your dependents and it's very very common for for traumatized people to get stuck in underere earning um there's a fear of conflict for

asking for enough money and a fear of the pressure of doing a job that's a little more challenging that might pay you know a higher wage and that's real until you have the the skills to re-regulate enough that you can start to stretch the boundaries of your life and let it be bigger and take on tasks and jobs and relationships that do require the ability to self-regulate but you can do that this can also include uh avoiding employment just you know just staying out of it not bothering with it falling into ruin over it having

more than your share of conflicts with employers and co-workers you know there's usually somebody like that in every workplace but it's stuff like suing or getting sued making accusations like having that be the whole Mo of somebody is a self-defeating Behavior nobody wants to have a person like that around for long or acting in a way that makes co-workers feel intimidated or threatened or undermined number seven and I've recently added this to the list because I talk about self-defeating behaviors a lot but this is such a big one procrastination and this is really common with

cptsd it's often a result of your nervous system being in freeze mode and it's a you know this is a trauma reaction that we don't totally have control over initially but you can work on it and in some other videos you can learn about how to get out of freeze the number one thing to do is to move your body just that's your immediate fix for feeling like you can't get out of procrastination is just move your body get outside and move around and then you know there are dozens of solutions out there for what

you can do you know for time management and getting things done but really when you realize that your nervous system is just like ah your your your nervous system is playing posum which is an old old reaction from your brain to being under stress so this can result though it has terrible consequences whatever the causes are you Miss deadlines you don't pay bills you don't follow through on tasks at home and at work where other people are counting on you and overall you feel exhausted and unmotivated when mentally you want to be moving forward in

your life number eight and I also just added it to my list of self-defeating behaviors if you can believe it I talk about self-defeating behaviors a lot and I talk about clutter a lot but clutter belongs here now clutter also is a symptom of trauma a sign of trauma but it's also a retraumatization of stuff in your living space or yard to the point that it becomes unhygienic it's gross it's uncleanable it's such a mess that you don't even know where to begin or it prevents you from using rooms in your home or having company

over either because you don't have space for them to sit or you just feel too ashamed to show them what's going on so the tendency to clutter Can it can also be mental or emotional where problems you haven't dealt with are piled up and it discourages you from facing the problem or talking to the people involved or getting involved in anything new you feel so burdened by the mental energy that's just getting drained from you all the time by unsolved problems with people and problems so clutter can also take the form of an over full

schedule where you fill your empty time with activities out of fear of loneliness or a sense of anxiety when you have time to relax or be alone so you just are always going going going going until you're stressing yourself out it defeats you number nine is blame and this includes having a hard time seeing your own role in problems it's victim thinking it's bitterness it's casually saying things about other people that hurt their reputation terrible thing to do there's a word for that calumny it's a very bad thing to do to try to get other

people to see and agree with some terrible thing you've said about people especially when you're not certain it's true so blame can also be believing that all of your problems are because of this one thing it could be racism or sexism or foreigners or one or another political party or certain foods or certain approach to education or some medical thing and you know these things all can be problems big problems but they're not the only problem and if it's clouding your ability to see that there is something in this tangle of problems that you do

have control over then it's a self-defeating Behavior Number 10 is numbing with substances like alcohol and drugs and I don't really need to Define this or explain why it can undermine your healing except to say that if it's happening it is a very high priority to heal because basically everything else is going to sit there and be a problem and perhaps become a worse problem over time as long as you don't address the substance abuse number 11 is irritability and we get angry sometimes for no reason we get into arguments and ranting in the car

online face to face and in the extreme this can include rage attacks and even violence that is a absolute must stop the irritability and rage will do more harm to your life and your relationships faster than just about anything else number 12 is the attraction to troubled partners and friends now people who were abused or neglected as children are often attracted to people who were themselves traumatized including those who have high levels of drama ongoing major problems conflicts serious legal and financial problems and they import problems into your life so when that's who you feel

at home with it's almost certain that your life is going to be full of problems number 13 is unfulfilling romantic relationships now you may avoid dating relationships altogether thinking you're just taking a little break and one day you'll get back to it but then you look and it's been seven years that could be a self-defeating behavior um you might stay in bad relationships where there's no intimacy or there's even emotional or physical abuse and you might be doing this to avoid the pain that you would go through from ending the relationship it it it's so

common for traumatized people because that abandonment wound makes the cost of leaving even terrible relationships very high or feel that way but with support you can do it number 14 is the abuse of your sexuality and this can include an overly sexualized appearance or inappropriately seductive behavior in situations where that is not a good thing for other people or for you and as a result of your upbringing you may have a distorted sense of the messages that you're sending or poorly developed boundaries hard to recognize you know what's what's comfortable and okay with somebody in

your presence and when you might be Crossing those boundaries and making them uncomfortable or even feel threatened number 15 is fantasy now this also can be a self-defeating Behavior people say oh fantasy it's harmless it's wonderful not not always it can go too far and this includes things like romantic Obsession or limerance um for example obsessing on what it would be like to be with someone who you're not with and who has told you to please leave them alone or fantasizing about a successful future that you're not pursuing in any realistic way but it dominates

your thoughts and your identity you've basically checked out of the real world which is where the pursuit of good things can ever actually happen so to the degree that you do this you're not going to be present you're not going to be in touch with reality you're not going to be able to take reasonable actions to go for what you want and in the extreme it can go so far as stalking or delusional thinking number 16 is avoidance and this can take the form of avoiding people avoiding responsibilities and avoiding participation in groups where you

kind of belong and it can also take the form of social sexual and emotional anorexia you may have never heard of that but that's the word for when people are depriving themselves of needed contact with other people and distorted thinking is going on that makes it seem like this is virtuous or healing or helpful now I know that sometimes taking a break from people or from dating is how we bring ourselves back together but it can go too far and that's when it becomes a self-defeating behavior number 17 is debting and by that I mean

getting into debt and while financial hardship can happen to anybody and financial stability is never guaranteed debt can become a self-defeating behavior when you're living beyond your means to pay for a place to live and transportation and clothes and Recreation and again I know that there are situations in life where you still need those things and you do not have the means but when I say debing I'm talking about you do have the means but an extravagant limit is sort of taking over your concept of what it's okay to spend and you're getting yourself in

trouble and defeating your freedom trauma can interfere with your ability to consistently earn a living and it and your ability to evaluate consequences for overspending also if you're like me and you grew up poor you know you get a kind of weird sense of like maybe if I had this furniture or this place to live it would solve this anxiety I feel or I would feel more like I fit in but there's a balance there in some of the worst forms debting can turn into a gambling addiction or unsustainable get-rich quick mentality stuff and it

can also lead to foreclosure and bankruptcy and ultimately homelessness number 18 is a habit of repeating traumatic patterns now this happens because of neur the neurological injury how many times have you made a terrible mistake and swore to yourself you'll never do it again and then before you know you've done it again you're doing it again okay that is so common for people with trauma and it has to do with brain functioning and how we react to stress and decision-making and the prediction of risk so it's there it's kind of part of the atmosphere for

us but we can change it so we struggle at times to see red flags and to step back from where trouble appears to recognize somebody as a sick and dangerous person this blind spot though can leave you vulnerable to ever worsening harm that is how it happens and it can give you worse symptoms that are difficult to heal so this list it may sound overwhelming it may sound like it's just blaming you or dumping so much responsibility on you and again it is not your fault you have trauma but what you do now to change

these self-defeating behaviors can make a tremendous difference you don't have to change everything at once if you can identify one self-defeating behavior and begin working to adjust it it can it can make all the difference in your life and it can make it easier to make the next change and then the next one healing is possible you only need to start and if you want a list of the self-defeating behaviors that I just mentioned in this video you can download it right here for free and I will see you very soon [Music]