Don't treat yourself like a neglectful caregiver

Most of my clients do not have PTSD overtly. They should, due to childhood trauma, but having PTSD symptoms would have been inconvenient to the neglectful or spiteful caregiver--or simply ignored. So the child learns a way for the trauma not to matter, shelves it, and this works for a while. Later on, in adulthood, this self-view, and perhaps increased mental health symptoms, brings such people to therapy. Often, this is triggered by a critical even in adulthood, such as an abusive relationship, a divorce, the death of a parent, or perhaps combat trauma. Most therapists don't ask about childhood, or consider the possibility that part of the client's mind is trapped in another time, not able to engage in talk therapy. Or that underneath all of those "relics" of neglecting one's own pain, is a covert trauma disorder--fundamentally, PTSD.

In order to heal, it is necessary for the client to stop treating himself or herself like a neglectful caregiver would. This is not navel-gazing self-love, it is simply treating oneself like someone who deserves being listened to. That is embracing the grey areas of adult life, not the either-or of "I must serve others' needs, or I am selfish." This can mean that a number of interventions are needed for the client to be able to hear and heal his or her own story of childhood trauma.

Here are some simple examples:

-Eating a proper breakfast

-Balancing one's life and developing social support and hobbies

-Marriage therapy (this can be critical)

-Defining realistic life goals and pursuing them in a measured way

Doing these things allows the survivor of neglected childhood trauma to realize that the neglectful caregiver does not need to hear the story anymore. The client can hear their own story, and grieve the past. Treating oneself like a neglected child whose story doesn't matter is often more self-centered than treating oneself like a spoiled child whose parent is a walking ATM. There are two types of navel-gazing narcissism: your navel, or someone else's.

Stop acting like a neglectful caregiver toward yourself. If you are a parent, what do you want your child to learn? The message is not "love yourself," or "find yourself." It is a liberating call to grow up, to answer a call to adventure as an adult individual no longer subject to tyranny. Only then you can meaningfully engage in marriage, friendships, philanthropy, art, etc., in a way that makes the world less of a dark place, and does not constantly result in a sense of not mattering. Only then does the inner world of a child's terror have hope for the future, such that healing from trauma is possible.

You must become the type of person who you, as a child, would have trusted to hear your story of pain. Chaos is in your own neighborhood. Children are being neglected and abused, domestic violence is rampant. You can be the answer, so therapists like me don't have to pick up the pieces thirty years later. What are you going to do about it? The adventure is to find out.

By the way, don't go to an EMDR therapist who doesn't analyze your current life resource strengths and needs. That's part of Dr. Shapiro's method, and if you want to get specific, it's called "Phase 2." A lot of people think that EMDR is waving your fingers in someone's face to make the bad things go away, but it's a lot better than that.