one of the most popular topics in all my YouTube videos is the problem of loneliness and isolation
and I knew that this was common for those of us with childhood PTSD but oh my gosh from the
comments and the email I've received from all of you I learned that loneliness is not just common
but a core issue for a huge proportion of us and I'm going to talk about one aspect of it in this
video today my name is Anna Runkle by the way also known as the crappy childhood fairy and
this is the seventh video in my nine part series on resilience now I'm breaking down some of the
big obstacles that stand in the way of healing past trauma as well as the strengths that we can
develop to overcome those obstacles and the one that I want to talk about today that's a little
hard to explain but very connected to loneliness and isolation is what I will call defended miss
that's a weird word right but what I mean is a kind of fragility that we get sometimes we're
fragile right where we think we can't handle being around something that bothers us so we try to
control it like we control other people by telling them what they can and can't say around us like
don't use that word or we make elaborate rules that we think we need other people to follow in
our company like don't make jokes in front of my friends or don't eat I don't know ham in front of
me because it reminds me of this thing that upsets me you know what I mean by fragile and controlling
and what we're trying to do when we're defended is not get triggered right because for us it's really
costly to get triggered we get all dysregulated and we might lose hours or days in terms of the
ability to function and focus and that can seem like it makes sense because when we're triggered
it's hard to function hard to be friendly hard to go to work so we get points for good intentions
here and you know what some people will play along with our rules but trying to keep your
PTSD brain regulated by controlling other people it just never quite works defended miss is not a
boundaries so don't confuse the two defended 'no san obstacle it's a wall we put up and we think
we're blocking out triggers but what we block out is basically everything including izes including
things that will help us grow and especially we block out connection so this is a long background
talk about how we use defended 'no stew try to maintain some safety but ultimately defended
necessar now here's why defended 'no safe there's no safety because putting up walls only puts you
in prison you're never going to be able to make the world be just how you want it to be so when
are you ever going to be able to get out of that prison the future know what you can do is calm the
trigger and this is what i teach in my healing childhood PTSD course you can save all that
energy that you're spending trying to control your environment and instead enjoy your life by simply
growing more neutral to the things that used to upset you now of course i'm not saying that you
should be neutral in the face of abuse we don't tolerate abuse we still get to say no to things
and we walk away from what we don't want but if we choose to stick around we can be more open-minded
and accepting that people are different they're not all like us they don't fit what we want
and that is absolutely ok when you know that and you're not so triggered by people having different
opinions and wants and ways of expressing themselves you'll become more appreciative of
the goodness in most people the wonder of them and when you can start to shift into this less
defended mode of interacting life unfolds for you and it reveals to you what you were looking for in
the first place which is connection and meaning now I know these are the things that were taken
from you when you were abused and neglected as a kid and back then staying safe meant defending
yourself against people and life but now there is a way to be more open to it all to love and be
loved defenselessly and still keep yourself intact and safe there's a way it has to be learned but
there's a way and that is the strength that you're gonna need to break through the walls you've put
around yourself you probably weren't expecting me to say that but the strength is love you come
inside with nice shiny boundaries motivated by love for other people I'm telling you increase the
love now codependence is not love trying to make people love you is not love love is the energy
that you bring to people you encounter in this day no matter what's gone on for you in the past and
you can increase the love in the world in this way and this is where your loneliness gets healed you
walk the path of love and if you want my help you can go look at the links down below I teach this
in my courses but this is why we heal and we're doing it together so I will see you next week you