Nate Postlethwait

There’s nothing normal about expecting family members to be in the same room when one has abused the other. This is abnormal. This is harmful. This is perpetuating more abusive patterns. When you elevate family traditions over protecting the abused, you are re-creating the abuse

You will be disrespected by people who envy your ability to be authentic. You will be dismissed by people who fear your strength in how you address your pain. You will be critiqued by oppressors as you find the things that set you free. It’s your life. Don’t slow down for them.

The scapegoat is often the empath or highly sensitive person who expresses an authentic hunger for better treatment, truth, and/or change. This is the most threatening temperament to a toxic system-familial or other.

I hope you heal from all the things your family denied happening to you.

To those who've felt unlovable:

This is often a painful aftermath of not having support when you needed it most. I hope you find ways to love all parts of you, but especially the parts that felt rejected or like they they didn't belong.

Be kind to people-pleasers. Many of them were taught the only way to be accepted was to give others what they want without getting anything back. They were taught this by people that were supposed to keep them safe and teach them about love. Seriously, be kind.

There are people that would rather lose you than be honest about what they’ve done to you. Let them go.

A haunted house for people with cPTSD, but it's just a room full of people saying "Everything happens for a reason."

cPTSD is a result of not having the freedom (or access) to acknowledge and process trauma. The complex part is because the trauma was ongoing. PTSD represents specific traumatic memories. Complex PTSD presents those memories and experiences having no end.

Abuse survivors are heavily triggered by dishonest people. When you’ve sacrificed your time and security in order to figure out the truth, people who lack truth will feel like they’re pulling you back to your darkest days.

“Family is everything.”

No, healing is. And if the family is who caused the trauma, they don’t always get to participate in the healing.

An enabler will listen to you share the most harmful things someone has done to you, and then tell you you’re misunderstanding what happened. When I say enablers are just as dangerous as perpetrators, this is what I’m talking about.

We’re too quick to tell a traumatized person that it’s their responsibility to heal without considering what has been taken from them.

When a person chooses their dysfunction and denial over a healthy connection, they’re helping you make choices too.

“But forgiveness is for you!”

So is justice. So is accountability for those who hurt them. So is the anger that must be heard for them to find peace. Stop using forgiveness to shame people for healing on their own terms. If it’s for them, let them decide. Stay out of their way.

People have a hard time detecting red flags when they grow up being taught to normalize the way they were being hurt by people who were supposed to protect them.

When you hear someone over-explaining, know one (or all) of these is true:

1). They’ve often had their reality denied.
2). They've been hurt in unpredictable ways & believe it was because they didn't explain better.
3). They've grown up being ignored.

Please be patient.

Pay close attention to any person who has issue with you wanting to live life on your own terms. Terms that don’t hurt other people. Terms that give you security and peace. Pay very close attention.

You are supposed to be triggered when someone mistreats, lies to, or disrespects you. You can heal to lessen the intensity of that trigger, but having a reaction to poor treatment means your body is alive, alert, and reminding you that you deserve better.

People don't understand what a big deal it is for a childhood trauma survivor to depend on others, & god forbid, ask for help. When you've had to be dependent on people who hurt you, you try to not need people. If you know someone like this please be patient, clear, & kind.

When you lose the respect of an empathetic person, it’s permanent. Not because they’re bitter, but because they’re wise.

A person who is not changed by you telling them how their actions are hurting you, is a person you need to move away from.

No one will tell you to stop dwelling on the past quicker than a person who doesn’t want you to remember the things they’ve never apologized for.

A traumatized child is not resilient-they’re hypervigilant. What they did to get by was not from strength, but from being faced with a world that felt like a threat. Suggesting traumatized children are resilient is dismissing the severity of what never should’ve happened to them.

People with cPTSD have difficulty explaining why things feel so intense. Think of a person in pain who was always denied help with past pain & imagine what they’ve had to do all those years to get by. The c in cPTSD is complex. A life built in survival mode is not easy to explain

Forgiveness isn’t the cure for injustice. Justice is.

There is still much unknown about cPTSD because it’s the result of things people were never meant to endure.

Being shamed for your anger by a person who has taken advantage of you is them taking further advantage of you. That shit makes you feel crazy. You have every right to be mad.

The older I get the more I appreciate the people who make it safe to be sensitive in their presence.

I’m glad you’re here! 🫶