CPTSD Medicine Blog

If you have ever found yourself wondering is your marriage struggles are related to trauma? Or why your marriage feels so hard—heavy, disconnected, and exhausting—I get it.

You are not alone.

I started CPTSD Medicine with a podcast literally called that: Marriage Is Hard.

Marriage, or any type of intimate partnership, can feel incredibly hard when deeper dynamics are at play, and it is not always clear how to break free from the cycle of hurt and frustration. This is especially true because mainstream marriage advice is not translated into a “with unresolved complex trauma” version.

When there are Parts of you from your childhood that are stuck in a time and space when your emotional needs were unseen and unmet, that well of unmet need travels forward in time and lands right in the middle of your marriage.

Your marriage struggles are not just about what is happening in the present moment with your partner. It is about decades of past abandonment wounding and rejection suffering, paired with the frustration of the present moment.

The tension you feel in your marriage originates in patterns you carry from your own past, even before your marriage began.

Unhealed trauma can show up in the form of heightened sensitivity, defensiveness, or shutting down. These reactions aren’t your fault, but they can make it hard to feel safe and connected in a marriage. Your marriage struggles are amplified by your unhealed trauma.

Here’s where many humans make a mistake. Because their marriage feels so awful, they go straight away into trying to fix it or decide about it.

Yet, when emotional flashbacks are looping us back to the past and taking us away from the reality of the present moment, we are unable to see the reality of our partners or our relationship as it truly is.

You are well-served by learning how to unblend from wounded younger Parts of you and unburden those Parts of Hurt Victim Energy before you attempt to problem-solve with a partner or even engage in couples therapy.

---

Here are three quick tips for unblending:

1. Use your breath to turn inward and see what is happening internally. Do you notice that memories of the past are flashing in your mind’s eye? Gently ask your Parts, “What is it about these memories that are relevant to what is happening right now?” Open your heart and let them show you and tell you.
2. Notice how you are looping back through the past even though you are in the present moment. This recognition is a pathway to healing. Do not try to let go of the past, but rather see if you can provide an update to the Parts that validates their experience as being stuck in the past, while showing them that you have in fact grown up.
3. See if they are willing to come join you in the present moment so that you can continue to update them.

---

When you are ready, you can unburden these Parts so that they are no longer trapped in the past. But this begins with the three steps above.

As you work with this, you will likely discover that working on your marriage should come after you go on a healing journey. Healing yourself first isn’t selfish; it is necessary to see your relationship and your partner clearly. If you are running Hurt Victim Energy and looping back through the past, your relationship is not being given a fair chance to reveal what it is truly about.

Have you ever felt like life was spinning out of control but did not know where to start to fix it, or maybe you didn’t even feel willing to try?

If so, you are not alone in feeling this way. Resistance to healing is normal, for us all.

I knew for seven years that my life had become unmanageable. The incident that made this clear still makes my stomach flip whenever I think about it. Yet, it took me seven more years to research and discover the root cause of my struggles.

As CPTSD becomes a more commonly known mental health challenge, many humans are seeking solutions.

In my opinion, there are few viable holistic solutions for CPTSD healing available today. This is why I founded CPTSD Medicine in 2022 and am passionate about developing it as the industry leader for alternative and holistic services for lasting CPTSD Resolution. 

One of my greatest challenges as the leader of CPTSD Medicine is to help humans navigate the bridge between their starting point of an internal system burdened with trauma energies to an end point of an unburdened internal system. 

The main obstacle to such work is overcoming the resistance that comes from making healing CPTSD a top-three priority in one’s life. Logically, it makes no sense to delay healing as nothing is ever peaceful, fulfilling, healthy or well when a human is running trauma energies. They can mask and perform, but eventually this always leads to either a collapse or lashing out.

Healing is like stopping to fix a broken leg before continuing the hike.

Delaying healing is like continuing to hike with a broken leg and saying you will fix it when you are done with the hike. While you are hiking it is just going to get worse and worse, slowing you down even more. Instead you could stop the hike, heal your leg, and then restart the hike from where you left off. 

Why is there so much overwhelm and resistance at the beginning of a healing journey? 

For the same reasons a healing journey is necessary. Parts of you may not trust your leadership. They might believe you are fundamentally flawed, don’t deserve healing, or that living in emotional pain is your only option. They may think other people’s needs are more important or that you will fail if you try.

All of these are the trauma energies running in a human that is a victim of childhood trauma. I have heard all of them as a CPTSD Resolution guide. 

Here is my guidance on how to overcome resistance to healing.

Acknowledge Your Resistance: Do not ignore this experience or make it wrong or bad. Instead, honor it as wisdom from your internal system about where there is fear. Take a moment to notice and name the fears or doubts that arise when you think about healing. Recognize that these thoughts are rooted in trauma energies, not in your True Self.

Start Small: Healing does not have to begin with a big leap. Choose one small action that feels manageable today—like turning inward to listen to the voices inside for five minutes or stretching gently for ten minutes. 

Focus on Self-Compassion: Amplifying the Self Energy of Compassion can remind you that nothing is perfect and setting rigid standards is harmful to wounded Parts of you. Invite in a perspective that is about progressively supporting yourself in the most loving way. Speak to yourself with kindness and remind your Parts that their fears are valid, but that you are here leading now so you can offer more support and guidance.

Find a Mentor: Experiencing resistance in isolation can be terrifying for Parts of you. If you can find a trusted mentor, they can walk you through what has worked for them and their clients. Sometimes you just need someone further along in their healing journey to reach a hand back to you and share what they have learned through their own lessons and celebrations. 

Your first step is to address this directly, rather than delaying your healing. Imagine how it would feel to live without the weight of trauma energies. This vision can help motivate you to take the next step, no matter how small.

If you continue to delay your healing, you will get out of the emotional flashback or toxic fight that led you here and you will feel better eventually, but guess what? In two weeks, two months, two days, two hours, you will be right back to that flashbacked state or right in the middle of yelling at your partner, because you have not addressed the problem. 

Address the problem now, or it will continue to show up again and again.

Feeling overwhelmed and resistant to healing is a natural part of a CPTSD journey. You are not alone. There is a path forward, and it starts with addressing the problem head-on.