A few years ago, in the early part of seeking trauma support for my husband, I began to experience an unsettling feeling. It was kind of like a heavy wool blanket. The type that feels…
Do the words ‘family estrangement’ scare you? Do they make you inwardly recoil or want to stop reading? Maybe topics liked complex PTSD and family estrangement feel too heavy on top of everything going on…
It can be a challenge to find information for both survivors and their loved ones in a single post. I asked two trauma therapists to weigh in on the topic on my blog.
Supporting partners of trauma survivors is my mission. I was very excited when Laura Reagan, founder, and host of TherapyChat invited me to be a guest on her podcast. Of course, the episode focused on…
There’s a recurrent conversation between my partner and me. It goes like this. . . Me: “Why are you doing that?” or “Why didn’t you do that?” Him: “I don’t know.” Me: “What do you mean…
This post was originally published in 2018. As I write this, things are hard at home. My partner is struggling and so am I. It has been a challenging year and I feel discouraged. About…
Making sense of complex post traumatic stress disorder is hard. As a partner to a person with CPTSD, I struggle. Some things just don’t make sense. When I discover a clear quote that summarizes a…
What do partners of survivors read? Over the past year, I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with many partners of survivors. What I’ve learned is that partners are avid readers. We read for inspiration. We…
My husband has developmental trauma and no one told me about it. After eight trauma therapists, three psychiatric assessments, four general practitioners, two big psychological breakdowns, many smaller breakdowns, three employment leaves, financial loss, one…
“What do you do for self-care?” It’s one of the first questions I am asked by other partners. While I know what works for me, my preferred activities may not be what works for you.…
I was at my second appointment with my new therapist. She asked, “Do you think you have secondary trauma?” I paused and answered: “Yes.” An online search of ‘secondary trauma’ pulls up information for mental…