Feats of Strength 💙 Trauma Healing

This article helped change my life. I started lifting weights to combat anxiety, but found it also built a sense of self-worth I never possessed from childhood. "Weight lifting healed trauma through the felt sense of the mind-body connection, which created a more empowered trauma survivor."

Many trauma survivors have extraordinary "discipline"—we molded & twisted ourselves in many ways just to survive. We've learned to turn every single part of being human into a test of discipline. Healing is mostly replacing self-control with self-compassion & self-trust. ❤️‍🩹 #cptsd

Many trauma survivors have extraordinary "discipline"—we molded & twisted ourselves in many ways just to survive. We've learned to turn every single part of being human into a test of discipline. Healing is mostly replacing self-control with self-compassion & self-trust. ❤️‍🩹 #cptsd

Suicide research often focuses on the "imitation effect," where media reports on suicide increases suicide rates. But there is also the *Papageno Effect,* showing media can play a protective role in preventing suicide by tell stories of overcoming suicidal crises. #cptsd tinyurl.com/3a9c3fzc

Excellent read, IMO. Covers a lot of ground, from silence, to AI’s sycophancy, to the weight of actual human presence. FWIW, I see my recovery as gaining skills to be fully human with other humans. AI could play a role (?), but those roles could be humans too. #cptsd tinyurl.com/3yr4a2k5

The social taboo around suicide doesn't just silence conversations. It can teach us to silence ourselves – to look away from our own painful thoughts rather than investigate them with compassion & curiosity. Self-silencing shame plays no role in self-compassionate inquiry or recovery. #cptsd

The social taboo around suicide doesn't just silence conversations. It can teach us to silence ourselves – to look away from our own painful thoughts rather than investigate them with compassion & curiosity. Self-silencing shame plays no role in self-compassionate inquiry or recovery. #cptsd

Work (in education) brought me to Japan for the summer. The mountains were great, the digital detox was nice too. I'm still a work in progress, but I'm proud of my growth in the past few years. Healing is possible. #cptsd

Recovery for survivors often means looking beyond crisis moments to our self-beliefs, many of which are trauma-adaptations & needlessly cruel. Passive suicide ideation is far from "passive" – its state of distress that deserves our attention, compassion, and curiosity. #cptsd #NAMI #recovery

Recovery for survivors often means looking beyond crisis moments to our self-beliefs, many of which are trauma-adaptations & needlessly cruel. Passive suicide ideation is far from "passive" – its state of distress that deserves our attention, compassion, and curiosity. #cptsd #NAMI #recovery

Found this insightful. The history on the 80s "SSRI revolution" & pushback on the "chemical imbalance" model of depression was interesting. Happy to hear what other folks think. #cptsd www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvcz...

Welcome to Writing the Dawn — where biodiversity, neurodiversity & creativity meet. A neurodivergent-led community for writing, creating & sharing. Neuro-affirming, anti-racist, LGBTQIA+ affirming. Workshops, coaching & body doubling coming soon. Looking forward to connecting soon!

Trauma recovery asks us to fall in love w/ ourselves-- but not in a superficial or narcissistic sense. It asks us to fall in real love with ourselves-- love based on deep authenticity, visibility, & commitment. The kind of love that is more behavior than feeling. Agape, not eros.

What’s more infuriating to a survivor than someone mistaking privilege for discipline, a safe upbringing for courage, or shaming others as wisdom? Remember, their misunderstanding doesn't erase what we survived, what happened to us mattered. Their privilege doesn't diminish our strength. ❤️‍🩹 #cptsd

What’s more infuriating to a survivor than someone mistaking privilege for discipline, a safe upbringing for courage, or shaming others as wisdom? Remember, their misunderstanding doesn't erase what we survived, what happened to us mattered. Their privilege doesn't diminish our strength. ❤️‍🩹 #cptsd

Every moment of self-compassion is a step towards recovery. Be kind to yourself, always. ❤️‍🩹 I’ll be taking a break for a bit 🙏🏼. Still working my recovery, day at a time.

One of the cruelties of trauma recovery is realizing that perfection was never going to make our childhoods whole. We were deceived, perhaps for decades - most of recovery is acceptance and grieving. The light: We have a chance to build a life now, based on the values we choose. #cptsd

One of the cruelties of trauma recovery is realizing that perfection was never going to make our childhoods whole. We were deceived, perhaps for decades - most of recovery is acceptance and grieving. The light: We have a chance to build a life now, based on the values we choose. #cptsd

It's never gonna be fair that trauma recovery requires fixing what other people broke. But unfair isn't the same thing as impossible. We can acknowledge the injustice & we can heal. Every small recovery step forward is a refusal to let others' actions continue programming our lives. ❤️‍🩹 #cptsd

It's never gonna be fair that trauma recovery requires fixing what other people broke. But unfair isn't the same thing as impossible. We can acknowledge the injustice & we can heal. Every small recovery step forward is a refusal to let others' actions continue programming our lives. ❤️‍🩹 #cptsd

Many recoveries need to learn to harness the f*ck ’ems. We can use anger to set boundaries and protect our recovery values. Its a fuel we can use to consistently turn to healing, so f*ck ’em, we ain't abandoning ourselves. A spite recovery can still be a good recovery. #cptsd

My piece was picked up by Know Thyself, Heal Thyself! From Tony Robbins to Mel Robbins, the mindset grift is everywhere. Despite this, adopting a new mindset offers surprisingly little strategic guidance for trauma recovery; too often, it’s used to bully and shame survivors. tinyurl.com/uacast26

My piece was picked up by Know Thyself, Heal Thyself! From Tony Robbins to Mel Robbins, the mindset grift is everywhere. Despite this, adopting a new mindset offers surprisingly little strategic guidance for trauma recovery; too often, it’s used to bully and shame survivors. tinyurl.com/uacast26

Excellent article, worth a read. "One of the cruelest surprises of trauma recovery is that healing often makes you less functional before you feel better." "Yet the reality is, forgiveness is not a milestone, and it is not required. Healing comes through mourning." Much more! tinyurl.com/yc84ftu8

"People have this idea that PTSD is about what happened to us, and it is— but CPTSD is mostly defined by what it gets us to believe. The lies it gets us to believe." useyourdamnskills.com/2026/06/11/c...

"People have this idea that PTSD is about what happened to us, and it is— but CPTSD is mostly defined by what it gets us to believe. The lies it gets us to believe." useyourdamnskills.com/2026/06/11/c...

The “could haves” will eat survivors alive if we don’t treat who we are right now with empathy, compassion & dignity. The toxic combination of hindsight and fantasy will derail the commitments we've made to ourselves today. Work on today. That's where all of our power lies. #cptsd #recovery

The “could haves” will eat survivors alive if we don’t treat who we are right now with empathy, compassion & dignity. The toxic combination of hindsight and fantasy will derail the commitments we've made to ourselves today. Work on today. That's where all of our power lies. #cptsd #recovery

On the writer's anvil: Shame lacks an internal fight response. Shame’s action is to shrink into nothingness, to blink out of existence, to crawl into a hole. The pain of shame’s exposure and visibility can only be resolved through invisibility, through self-erasure. #lifewriting #cptsd

So many of my wonderful @oxfordlifewriting.bsky.social colleagues in this issue. #lifewriting www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Writing about trauma can be traumatic. Adriene did it. She tells how, and why: moonbridgebooks.com/2026/05/31/u... #lifewriting #memoir #childabuse #Mondayblog

On the writer's anvil: Shame lacks an internal fight response. Shame’s action is to shrink into nothingness, to blink out of existence, to crawl into a hole. The pain of shame’s exposure and visibility can only be resolved through invisibility, through self-erasure. #lifewriting #cptsd

Humans have dealt with immense loss & grieving as a sacred process; a period of sacred time that receives our genuine attention and care. Recovery is always about grieving, the loss of a childhood that should have been. But recovery is about meaning-making too, recovery is a sacred process.✨ #cptsd

Humans have dealt with immense loss & grieving as a sacred process; a period of sacred time that receives our genuine attention and care. Recovery is always about grieving, the loss of a childhood that should have been. But recovery is about meaning-making too, recovery is a sacred process.✨ #cptsd

There’s a special kind of grief. It arises not from loss, but from never having. Never having a parent's sufficient protection & care. Seeing another's family shower them with love can sting us. I thought it was jealousy; it’s not. Its grieving a childhood that should have been. #cptsd #recovery

Once shame starts to lose its grip, trauma recovery work is grief work. Its mourning protections we didn't know, love we didn't feel, a childhood we didn’t have. Just know, grief is a sign of growth. Growth, if anything, requires some loss. It's real bitter, but grief needs to happen. #cptsd

Here's a longer personal reflection on doing recovery writing on social media. Do I think its playing a small part in my recovery? Absolutely, I do. I try to explain a little about my method here. ❤️‍🩹💪🙏 tinyurl.com/6f37m8cc

Here's a longer personal reflection on doing recovery writing on social media. Do I think its playing a small part in my recovery? Absolutely, I do. I try to explain a little about my method here. ❤️‍🩹💪🙏 tinyurl.com/6f37m8cc

Fear & anxiety feel like threats to our existence. With shame, our existence is the very problem. Fear asks us to retreat for protection; shame prefers we erase ourselves. We don't fix shame w/ fear exposure, we heal it by treating ourselves with care, with abundant self-compassion. #cptsd