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The Outer Critic, Self-Parenting and the Thirteen Steps of Healing

 

By Shirley Davis, CPTSD Foundation, Jul 16, 2019

This series of articles has focused on emotional flashbacks. We’ve discussed how they feel, what causes them, and the turmoil they bring into relationships and lives. In this article, we will cover ways to conquer the emotional roller coaster that accompanies complex post-traumatic stress disorder and emotional flashbacks.

Self-Loathing Comes from Adults that Mattered

When you were a child living in an abusive home, you saw first-hand how the words and actions of a parent or other caregiver cause you to feel. Perhaps you felt betrayed, belittled, unwanted, or even afraid. I would also venture to say that as you grew you said to yourself, “I’m never going to treat my kids like that!”

Unfortunately, as you became an adult you carried the lies and hateful words written into your brain by your caregivers and treat your inner child the same as they did. You belittle yourself out loud or silently in your mind for even minor failures. You say hateful things about yourself like, “I’m ugly,” “I’m messed up,” or “I’ll never (you fill in the blank.)

This cognitive self-hatred is especially prevalent during an emotional flashback where you relive the emotions attributed to negative comments made to you about yourself in childhood. Suddenly, you fall into a time warp back to the moment when someone whose words carry weight with you said to you said you are worthless, or worse, you are helpless.

[Click here to read more.]

 

For more information on CPTSD, including resources and materials to help in healing and living with Complex PTSD symptoms, head over to CPTSDfoundation.org.

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Thank you for this powerful post. I would like to add some video replies. 

For negative self-talk and the words from self-hatred, what I call judgments and denials.  

https://youtu.be/tQO4Tps7ZKU 

For living as a victim forever.   https://youtu.be/gXNBDuHC4UM

For The Importance of Becoming Your Own Parent,  https://youtu.be/VWerNeaxzwM

And https://youtu.be/2cj3yuF8NYk

These are processes and they are for changing habits. So practice is needed. I say habits over wounding or healing because we are not really wounded or damaged. We are imprinted with feelings and words that create habits of self-talk and the feelings they invoke.

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