If you’re struggling with food, weight, substances, or relationships I can help. I struggled in each of these areas for many decades until I learned that they were classic symptoms of unhealed complex PTSD and I got the support I needed to heal.
As a result of healing my trauma, I am in long-term recovery from my struggle with alcohol and drugs and have been in long-term recovery from binge eating, and severe obesity, and have been maintaining a 160lb weight loss for over two decades.
Also, after struggling for years in forging and maintaining close relationships, healing from CPTSD has gifted me with the ability to maintain a healthy long-term romantic relationship and several close friendships.
If you can’t identify a link between what happened to you as a child and your current struggles, we can explore the more subtle forms of childhood trauma, known as emotional neglect (when a parent, due to their own unhealed trauma, anxiety, depression, addiction, or being too busy, doesn’t acknowledge their child’s emotions as valid, important, or shames them for having emotions.)
Another form of trauma that is frequently missed is childhood witness abuse. This is where a child is exposed to chronic tension, emotional abuse, or physical violence between parents, or between a parent and a sibling. Bullying, racism, homophobia, poverty, and living in an unsafe neighborhood are also forms of childhood trauma.
My primary types of trauma were witnessing my drunk, alcoholic mother raging at my dad on a regular basis for over a decade, as well as her emotional neglect due to her alcoholism and unhealed trauma. I also experienced emotional abuse due to being bullied for many years as an overweight kid at school as well as living in a fat phobic culture as a child and as a severely obese women throughout my adulthood. Additionally, experiencing the realization that I was a lesbian while attending Catholic High School in the 1970s and throughout the following decades in an extremely homophobic culture was another form of trauma I endured.
Believing I had to have been sexually or physically abused to be considered a trauma survivor is what prevented me for over three decades from seeking the necessary trauma based therapies to experience optimal healing.
There are also many forms of invisible emotional, physical, or sexual trauma that can happen at such a young age that a child’s brain is not developed enough to explicitly remember them. This explains why so many of us struggle with food, weight, substances, and/or relationships but have no clear memory of why. The good news is you don’t have to have an explicit memory to be able to heal the ways trauma has impacted your brain, body, mind, behavior, and relationships.
One of the most hopeful things I learned about complex PTSD is that it’s treatable, and you can recover from these struggles and go on to live a life you love filled with the connection, peace of mind, and fulfillment you deserve.
My life and the lives of millions of trauma survivors are a testament that healing trauma, recovering from your struggle with food, weight, substances and relationships, and going on to live a life you love is not only possible but probable when you get the right support.
Once you heal the ways your brain, body, mind, relationships, and worldview have been shaped by trauma, an entirely new world that had been previously constricted by trauma opens up.
As a complex trauma recovery and resilience coach I provide a safe, compassionate space for you as we work together at a pace you’re comfortable with to uncover what’s keeping you stuck with your struggle with food, weight, substances, relationships, work or other common issues survivors struggle with.
I offer weekly coaching sessions over the phone or via Zoom to help you get freed up to live your life free from the shackles of unhealed trauma symptoms so you can thrive in living a life you absolutely love.
Contact me to learn how I work with clients.
Learn How To Heal From Complex PTSD
Learn How To End Your Struggle With Food, Weight, Substances & Relationships