#complex trauma

The cycle of forgetting and then re-remembering trauma memories

Constant depersonalization and derealization

Feeling as if you're stuck living someone else's life

Failure to plan for the future because nothing feels real + losing time

Thinking a flashback is over when you've actually just dissociated away from it, and having it resume as soon as you stop dissociating

Dissociative stupor/trance

Alexithymia

Identity issues outside of alters

Inability to connect with other people

Being unable to tell if you've healed from a past problem/trauma or if you've just dissociated away from it

Not learning from past mistakes because of amnesia and dissociation

Feeling nothing psychologically despite physical shaking, racing heart, nausea, crying, etc

The extreme disorientation + identity confusion that comes with co-consciousness and co-fronting

Somatic flashbacks

like if someone's lost in the woods, you don't really expect them to cook a meal that's good & healthy for them, let alone something gourmet. you wouldn't chastise them for scavenging for berries or eating raw meat in the absence of other food sources.

it's less about the behaviors being risky/unhealthy, and more about the situation or environment being unhealthy for the person. simply removing the behaviors doesn't actually change the core issue, and it can even put that person at greater risk of harm to do so.

"Emotional neglect in childhood is one of the most misunderstood—and overlooked—forms of relational trauma. Unlike overt abuse, it leaves no visible scars. There is no defining event to point to. Instead, it’s marked by what was absent: comfort that never came, attunement that never formed, needs that were quietly dismissed, feelings that were too often met with silence or subtle disapproval.