Emotion

  • Sharing – Lifelong Imprints of Childhood

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    We hear stories about this all the time. If your parents constantly compare you to an older sibling who could do no wrong, you spend much of your adult life believing you are not enough. If you come from a family that didn’t express emotion, you find it hard to be close to someone emotionally as an adult, and so on.

    You take those messages about what is expected from your surroundings and adjust your behaviors and beliefs to fit in with them. It can be very difficult, not impossible, to overcome that and relearn a different message.

    If this seems familiar to you, I want you to take the next step and imagine what kind of messages a survivor of childhood abuse carries from their childhood.

  • How Are You, Really? And How To Answer, Really

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

    Some replies are pithy, witty, and sarcastic, and one is even “meh.” But, what they get at is the underlying fact that answering “good,” “fine,” etc., is not the only way to answer the question. We can be honest with ourselves and each other. We can admit that right now, things are far from great. We can all be a little more human and recognize the struggle of being alive sometimes.

    It won’t hurt us to be more up-front and honest with each other. That’s how you eliminate stigma.

  • Sharing – 22 Types of Childhood Verbal Abuse and Their Recognition

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    I’m willing to bet the reason this is true is that we’ve struggled to define verbal abuse: “Currently, four subtypes are used to categorize child maltreatment: physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect. Verbal abuse is noticeably absent. Of those four, a June 2023 study of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) among U.S. adults found…

  • Sharing – Being calm is not our default mode

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    I’ve seen many mentions recently about anxiety being a normal response to our current world. This is also a contradiction to what much of the self-help and positivity industry would tell us. Spend any time on social media and you’ll see plenty of messages about gratitude, finding joy and purpose, and the silver lining in any situation.

    What you won’t hear is that there are situations that SHOULD make you angry, anxious, and sad. But there are.

  • Do You Deal with Alexithymia

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Frankly, this does sound like a common struggle for childhood abuse survivors. It also sounds a lot like some of the symptoms of being neurodivergent. So, I guess the question is, does a history of childhood maltreatment equal an increase in the likelihood of being neurodivergent? Or does this personality trait simply have a lot in common with other types of neurodivergent traits yet is caused by surviving early trauma?

  • Good News Really Matters

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Let’s start the conversation, where do you go when you want to see some good news? Do you check out a site like Upworthy.com? Do you follow someone making fun content or beautiful art on social media? Do you find fun music on your favorite streaming app? What can we do to bring more kindness into our newsfeeds?

    Where do you go to find the good in this world?