hi it's Anna Runkle here also known as the crappy childhood fairy and today I want to share with
you a video about one of the worst triggers of childhood PTSD symptoms for many of us and it's
the feeling of abandonment now this is one of the videos from my dysregulation boot camp which
is a 20 day course that helps you calm your PTSD triggers and kind of get better mastery over your
emotions and thinking and if you're interested in that I did put a link to it below but you'll
hear me in this video refer to a worksheet so I just wanted to give you that heads up there's no
worksheet here on the YouTube version it's in the course I tell a story in this video of how
triggers can get that power over us and I thought you might find it really helpful for your healing
today we're going to talk about one of the most intense triggers for childhood PTSD abandonment
this one is so primal because we're all wired to be loved and included in the tribe as if our lives
depend on it because in any situation before the last I don't know hundred years or so our lives
did depend on it we need our parents when we're born and we need dependable people connected to
us throughout our lives so just about everyone and I know this because I've taught so many people to
write their fears each day and I've heard the things that come up for everyone being left by
the tribe is a core fear it comes out as fear of ending up alone and homeless and dying alone and
the fear isn't irrational really it's a standard feature of being a homo sapien but for those of
us with childhood PTSD it can go way out of proportion to the situation to the point of
being crippling and it can make us seem really unreasonable in my childhood my mother would
leave the family for a month at a time starting when I was a month old she'd run off with some guy
and not tell anyone where she was or if she was coming back now she did come back but the family
would be in anguish and frantic with uncertainty and this was going on all around me while I was a
small kid and then when I was about five she'd sometimes take me with her and leave me for a
moment in a lobby or for a couple of hours in a movie theater and then she would not come back
for 1011 hours and the police picked me up once outside a casino that's when I was 6 I hadn't
eaten all day I had a fever now nowadays you'd lose your kids over something like that but not
back then and I mean I was scrambling to cover for her because of course I didn't want them
to take me away from her but you can see where I got kind of a weird thing around abandonment and
that carried into my adulthood and it certainly kicked up when I started having groups of friends
than boyfriends and then working and trying to fit in all situations were sometimes there's
rejection and before I learned to stay regulated any rejection I'll tell you what it felt like it
was as if I'd been injected with a toxic chemical I'm assuming that was a release of some stress
hormone and I could feel that bad feeling just like flowing through my bloodstream and I think
oh no here it goes again and I'd fall into a very dark kind of dysregulation and there would
be nothing I could do to stop it that's a trigger so you'll be tempted on the worksheet to put a lot
of work into understanding why you have certain triggers like this one just like I told you why
and knowing this that's possibly helpful maybe you'll better understand that your reactions to
abandonment are not your fault you didn't just make it up but I'm gonna direct the majority of
your focus to just remembering and noticing what it feels like when you're triggered by abandonment
what in your adult life recently has set it off and what was it about those situations that that
seems to get to you so badly so that's all in the worksheet along with reflection on how you've come
back from abandonment totally important right one thing that's going to help you tremendously with
dislodging those deep rooted triggers that have an early and understandable origin is the daily
practice when you write your fears and resentments you can pour out whatever is coming up on a hard
day when your fear of abandonment got triggered fear no one likes me fear I don't know what just
happened fear I'll end up alone when I'm old and I'm resentful at my girlfriend because
I have fear she didn't text me back last night and so on deep triggers aren't going to change
because you merely decide to change it's not likely anyway they change when you can access
that pre language part of your brain where the abandonment hurt was installed and language
out through writing not speaking writing what that feeling is that's happening the terror the
self-hatred whatever it is for you you write it you meditate and you'll find that the emotions
are calmer and they're lying low for the time being and your thinking is clear like maybe you
don't have to freak out and act jealous this time maybe you can forget about it or maybe you're sick
of all the fear involved in a relationship and you want to end it there's no right answer here
the point is that all options are open to you and you're no longer enslaved by a fear of that
physiological hell associated with abandonment that limits so many of us with childhood PTSD
you