THRIVE Trauma Recovery Coaching Blog

SHUT UP ALREADY!   When Depression Turns Your Brain Into A Lethal Inner Critic      Ever wish there was an "off" button for your brain? Does your brain chatter to you while you're asleep, reminding you of all the mistakes you've made?  Does it catastrophize incessantly until you wake up in a panic, certain your world is on the edge of catastrophe?       Welcome to the miserable land of untreated major depression and anxiety - the evil twin enemies of mental health.       There's a lot that psychiatry doesn't know about depression and anxiety - like why they usually go hand in hand. I recently saw a sadly accurate meme that said "Depression is not caring enough, Anxiety is caring too much".  That's a pretty accurate description of the hell a lot of us live in on a daily basis. The depression says "go crawl under the sheets and hide" and once you get there, the anxiety says "You're such a loser bum. Look a...

     Have you ever wondered how those majestic beasts, the circus elephants, are convinced to perform in the circus for our entertainment?  I mean after all, they are GIANT beasts and could easily take down the tent and everyone in it.  How exactly does the trainer control them?      The analogy of the circus elephant is an elegant teaching tool used by Bobbi L. Parish M.A. in her video "What is Learned Helplessness?" And I'd like to use it here to help you understand exactly what learned helplessness is and how it works. Understanding it can help us approach victims of abuse with more compassion and caring. It may even help us find compassion for ourselves. The Analogy of the Circus Elephant      The trainer starts training the elephant when he or she is a baby.  In this analogy, I'll use "she".  She is little and not able to do much, taken away from her mother at a young age, she is small and helpless and doesn't u...

     When you hear the term "toxic" applied to family, you probably think, "mine aren't that bad", but chances are if you've even considered that your family members might be harming  you, they are probably toxic.      There is of course, a spectrum to toxicity but that same spectrum doesn't correspond to the damage it causes.  Sometimes the most innocuous abuse causes the most damage.  So let's define toxic first.      Toxic applies to any word or action that undermines your sense of self, worthiness, or safety.  It leaves you filled with negative feelings about yourself, other people, and the world around you.      Let's look at some examples of toxicity. Examples of Toxic Family Members      1.  When you reveal you're planning to quit your job and start your own business, your family member says "Really honey?  Are you sure that's such a good idea? You know how you are -a...

      'Tis the season to suffer for many of us.  If your abuser was a family member, the holidays may create the perfect storm of suffering. It's a time of year when many survivors start asking themselves, "Should i even be spending time with these people anymore??"        This is a particularly painful situation if your family consistently invites both you and your abuser to family gatherings and expects you to "play nice".       Make no mistake - if your family does this, they are choosing your abuser over you. There's no "go along/get along" involved when one family member harms another.  You either take the side of the victim or you take the side of the perpetrator. You can't be on both sides.       Asking a victim to sit down for a holiday meal with the person who hurt them does only one thing - it further harms the victim.  It also sends a clear message to the perp...

 We've all met someone like this. That odd, single guy whose mother texts him during his dates.  The wife who spends endless hours on the phone, giving her mother support and advice. That child who seems overly mature and wise, but is a loner.      These are the most common examples of a phenomenon called parentification, also known as emotional incest.  The offending parent does not engage in sexual relations with the child, but he/she invades basically every other aspect of the child's existence to such an extreme degree that the child has little to no life of his or her own.  So what is parentification exactly? What are the tell-tale signs? Signs You Were Parentified as a Child Your parent used you as his support and confidant. Your parent monopolized your time and attention during childhood. Your parent was, and continues to be, jealous of your friendships and frequently tried to  sabotage them. Your parent encour...