“At the heart of any real intimacy is a certain vulnerability. It is hard to trust someone with your vulnerability unless you can see in them a matching vulnerability, and know that you will not be judged.” – Rachel Remmen

This is one reason why we feel so alone when we’re living with trauma, or betrayal trauma.

We feel as if the world either pulls back from us … or exercises judgment … or tells us what to do (as it showers us with unhelpful and unwanted advice).

And none of these responses are compassionate responses.

This doesn’t help at all; we only feel misunderstood.

We just feel under pressure to “shut up” and “move on”.

It leaves us feeling worse; it slowly eats away at hope. There’s no-one there to listen so we bear it on our own.

We’ve lived with shock and…

So my high functioning 9 years old who generally speaking hates most sports asked to try ice skating. I jumped on it.
We had a first lesson with a veteran ice skating coach who seemed right out of the military.

Apparently during the session my son kept on expressing that he was scared.
At the end of the lesson the coach comes to me and tells me:”your son kept on using the F word”

I was shocked, literally my mouth was in a O shape … my son doesn’t curse! I guess he saw my indignation and he mouthed: “Fear”… then went on saying that he doesn’t want to hear fear from him.
I took it all in for a few days then I texted him saying that we will probably try another coach next week. He asked why and I explained the HFA issue and that the fact that…

“PTSD: It’s not the person refusing to let go of the past, but the past refusing to let go of the person.”

Said the husband who had cheated on his wife for 15 years …

– “Is it really going to be like this until the day I die?”

– “Are we never going to have the normal life we used to have?”

– “I feel I can’t behave the same as everybody else … and I really want to act the same as everybody else.”

– “I really thought by now you would have healed, and then moved on.”

– “I never, ever thought that it was going to take this long.”

– “I’m angry that I can’t say ‘yes’ to things I’d like to do (because I’m never sure if it is going to trigger you.)”

– “This feels like a life sentence, one I never…