Child abuse, Complex PTSD & managing emotional flashbacks

****Please share & re-blog this post to help as many others as possible****

This blog post might be useful to anybody out there who suffers with Complex PTSD, who has suffered from childhood abuse or who has a loved one who suffers with a mental illness. I have created the below charts to assist those of you who might need a clearer map of how complex trauma affects individuals and why they might have moments of overreacting to criticism, an angry tone of voice or a stern look. Emotional flashbacks are explained and a list of coping skills are included, which I have used extensively throughout my own healing over the last 4 years. I find that boxes, colours and diagrams are very useful for me to remember things, especially because my own Complex PTSD affects my memory and cognitive function. Forgive me if there are any errors.

Please note that I have also added links under each image, so you can download these diagrams for your own free use.

Below is also a video I just did on YouTube! It is around 7 minutes long, if you can bare it 😉

emotional flashbacks 2

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7k454c6xtmnUWJxaFJZd1VILTQ/view?usp=sharing

 

emotional flashbacks

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7k454c6xtmnQ3VXZmVzOU9fZk0/view?usp=sharing

diagram of emot

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7k454c6xtmnMDNDdnQyRUlEeXM/view?usp=sharing

 

Thanks for reading

Much love Athina ♥

© All blog posts and images are owned by me and Courage Coaching. Please don’t use without consent and only re-blog if you would like to use the information on here.

YouTube video-How to protect yourself from a narcissist

Dealing with a narcissist in a safe way is very important for your well-being, especially if you aren’t able to avoid them and go ‘no contact.

Child abuse

A poem about Child abuse ❤

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You gave me life

yet took my light

and always thought that you were right.

No matter what

I tried to do

your actions always made me blue.

I needed love

I needed protection

you gave me fear

and constant rejection.

I always wanted to shine my own light

you kept me small and scared of the night..

I yearned for love

I yearned for safety

I wanted a family

to hold me gently.

Instead I found more toxic pain

with men who treated me the same.

Child abuse is very real

you can’t just ‘get over it’

you need to heal.

My Child within

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10 tips – How to choose a healthy partner after an emotionally abusive relationship

 

Blocks to healthy self-assertion

Being assertive can come very easily to many of us whilst some of us might have an extreme difficulty in this area, due to many of the following blocks as stated by Hauck (1981b):

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1.Fear of injury -Physical violence may be threatened or unleashed in order to keep you in line. This might be the case in an abusive relationship.

2. Fear of failure

3. Fear of hurting other people’s feelings-For example, if I tell him that ‘his gift wrapping is not very good, I might hurt his feelings’

4. Fear of rejection– For example: I couldn’t cope if they criticised me or abandoned me

5.Fear of financial insecurity- For example, you stay in a job you hate because you are worried about financial instability if you leave.

According to Trower et al (2011)there are these 2 blocks:

1.GuiltYou believe it is wrong to assert your own wishes because you believe this is selfish behaviour or you don’t feel worthy enough.

2.Damning anger– You end up blaming others for frustrating you by insulting or hurting them. For example, you might say ‘You are such a lazy and slow worker’ rather than saying ‘I would like to talk about how we could equally distribute the work load between yourself and Adam’

According to Gilbert (2000) there are these blocks to being assertive:

1.Loss of control– Assertion can involve high psychological arousal which might lead to shouting at your partner.

2.Fear of counter attack– After you have asserted your complaints, you fear being overwhelmed by the other person’s response. You fear blushing, you mind going blank or maybe even getting tongue tied. You fear looking worse off after asserting your wishes.

3.Self-blame– You might blame yourself for causing tension or conflict by asserting your needs.

4.Positive self– You view lack of assertiveness as having positive qualities of being kind and caring.

Assertiveness in general will help you get more of what you want and less of what you don’t want but there is the possiblity that it might not always work out in the way that you hope. If you have been someone who isn’t assertive and suddenly start asserting yourself with familiar people in your life, things may become increasingly uncomfortable with those people, as they aren’t used to you being assertive. People don’t like change!

Which of these blocks do you struggle with? If not, feel free to share your experience of being self-assertive.

Thanks for reading

Much love Athina ♥

© All blog posts and images are owned by me and Courage Coaching. Please don’t use without consent and only re-blog if you would like to use the information on here.

The importance of self-reflection & self-awareness

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This quote speaks to me in so many ways..

Through coaching, I aim to guide people find their answers through enabling them to self-reflect on where they are at currently and where they want to be. Self-reflection is very important in the process of change, as is persistence (which I talked about in this previous blog post- The importance of persistence).

The driving force behind change, is when an individual is able to look at their current life and notice that there is something negative popping up for them. If we feel negative or sad about something, then this can be the one thing that pushes us to make lasting change. If we don’t have self-awareness however, we remain stuck in a sad or negative existence and just keep repeating the same mistakes or habits over and over again.

As a survivor of complex trauma, I luckily became self-aware from a young age. I noticed I was struggling more than other children at school and had really low confidence. I found it very difficult to focus on school work the older I got and when I hit 15 I was already very depressed.I used art & poetry as a way to self-soothe and manage my emotional pain and luckily sought therapy when I was 17.

Over the years, with extensive therapy, I learned to tap into my emotional self-awareness even more. I continued to question my choices and behaviours and realised that actually it wasn’t my fault I was so sensitive and depressed but actually that my parents were both narcissistic, specifically with NPD. I was diagnosed at 29 as having Complex Post Traumatic stress and was told by my therapist that I was incredibly resilient and able to self-reflect a lot more than most of her clients. I left the session that day happy to be someone with self-awareness and wouldn’t change this for the world!

Self-awareness is incredibly hard for people with NPD, as well as the ability to feel empathy for others. When a healthy individual hurts others and causes them distress, they usually genuinely apologise and try to make a change for the better. For people that are aware of their actions, of their flaws, are sensitive to their body sensations, sensitive to their health and are also able to make sensible choices, change comes more easily.

What are your thoughts? How destructive have you found people that lack self-awareness?What difficulties have you had? Are their times when it took you a few failed attempts to finally have an epiphany about an unhelpful behaviour you may have had?

Thanks for reading

Much love Athina ♥

© All blog posts and images are owned by me and Courage Coaching. Please don’t use without consent and only re-blog if you would like to use the information on here.

 

DSM traits of someone with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD)

 

In this video I state the criteria that someone needs to have, to be diagnosed as having NPD (at least 5 or more to qualify ).

If you or someone you know has suffered greatly due to someone with this disorder, please leave a comment or share your experience. More and more people are realising that they have been abused by such pathologically ill individuals.

Most of the time, these individuals know that they are being abusive as they try to hide their actions in public. They are very good at turning people against the victim of such abuse if they dare speak out and making them out to be the abusive one.

Take care, always ♥

Love Athina

© All blog posts and images are owned by me and Courage Coaching. Please don’t use without consent and only re-blog if you would like to use the information on here.

”The negativity of the world can’t put you down, unless you allow it to get inside you”

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The above quote is easier said than done when we are constantly surrounded by negativity, tragedy, pain and loss. If we were raised by mentally ill, abusive parents, the negativity that we carry with us takes years to change in therapy. It is a huge commitment but it is possible to change for the better.

If we have been lucky enough to only have certain certain negative experiences with others and in our life, then this of course makes it easier to not sink into the depths of negativity or despair.

If we have many loving, uplifting people in our life, a good job, a healthy lifestyle and a loving marriage then does negativity affect us less? It probably does but what is also important to consider is the amount of inner resilience and courage we have and the possibility of mental illness or physical illness which can touch anyone.

Every person is unique and each experience is also unique but how prepared are we to challenge that inner voice we might have of worry or destructive thinking? Not everyone is willing to reflect on themselves.

It is difficult to commit to changing a bad habit but if this habit is making us miserable then we should want to put in the effort to change it at whatever cost, right?

One of the biggest things I learnt is that we are the driver in our life. We get to choose what direction we go in and whatever comes our way is up to us how we deal with it. Making excuses in life is easy but when we are really passionate about something, excuses don’t exist.  Maybe we should always aspire to finding passionate purpose in our life.Some of us may choose to dedicate our lives helping those less fortunate. Others may be passionate about art, science or education. Whatever we choose to do in our life, balance is very important, respect of others and ourselves is important and giving back as much as we take, is also important.

Currently, I wake up every morning with the ability to spend my days freely and I feel fortunate in so many ways. Although I have experienced tragedy, trauma and been surrounded by negativity in my immediate family for most of my life, I have chosen to give back, to share, to support and to be grateful for every single thing I have. When I watch the news, I feel overwhelmed with the state of our world. The greed that has destroyed so many lives, the fantasies of wealth and power that continue to kill innocence and safety. The constant lies that we are fed in the media, the poverty, the destruction and the neverending war are enough to erase any hope for a stable future.

What can we do however? Do we turn a blind eye and retreat into our own little bubble of life, work and family or do we make sure that we do one good thing for somebody else each day? If we earn an extra 100 or 200 a month, shall we donate it to charity to help others or do we keep it in case tragedy hits us and we need to pay medical bills?

There are so many questions to answer but the one most important thing I have realised is that we can always give back, that we can assist and share our love and be kind to others as much as possible. Keeping negativity away is very difficult, especially when you are a highly sensitive person but whenever you have the opportunity to help someone in need, then I believe you should do it. It is important to have a good conscience and that is the thing that drives me in most of my decisions.What is yours?

We are not infallible and just like any other person we have days where we feel that we haven’t done enough or could have been a bit more aware of our choices. The important thing however is that we keep learning and we keep growing.

Love Athina ♥

© All blog posts and images are owned by me and Courage Coaching. Please don’t use without consent and only re-blog if you would like to use the information on here.

Dealing with criticism

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When someone criticizes us, it tends to touch a nerve and can sometimes leave us feeling very vulnerable, very angry and sometimes both!

This may be because there is absolutely no truth in the criticism and we feel it is completely unfair or actually because there is some truth in the criticism and we are just not ready to deal with it.

Being criticized is also especially difficult when the person criticizing us is someone we hold in high regard. It could be our boss at work or a new partner.

The thing that most people don’t realise is that criticism on it’s own isn’t what makes us upset. The meaning we attach to criticism is what affects us. As I mentioned in one of my previous blog posts, being a people-pleaser means that we give others too much power over our emotions and how we feel about ourselves. If others’ approval is extremely important, then we give them consent to always make us feel bad about ourselves.

In order to stay away from seeking approval, we have to learn to practice self-acceptance and only rate our actions or traits but not ourselves. We are responsible for our reaction to someone’s criticism and it is up to us to change how we respond.

If we already have low self-esteem, then criticism will be especially hurtful and it could take us days to recover from it.

Are you someone who struggles from others’ criticism? Do you find that you always get overly upset when someone criticizes you or overly agree?  Do you avoid contact with that person after the criticism occurs? I would love to hear your experiences.

If you are a childhood abuse survivor, I am especially interested in your experiences. When you have internalised your parents’ negative and unhealthy criticisms, this will then follow you around and will be brought to the surface everytime someone criticizes you. This is actually quite a painful, traumatic reaction because a present criticism can send you into an emotional flashback of your parents’ abuse. This is something I am particularly experienced in through my own recovery from abuse but also through talking to others who still struggle with this internal self-critic.

Love Athina ♥

© All blog posts and images are owned by me and Courage Coaching. Please don’t use without consent and only re-blog if you would like to use the information on here.