Tag : Complex PTSD

16 Jul 2018

Seven Steps to Heal an Eating Disorder

My eating disorder began at 17, just before start of studies at Uni. Raised in a family that emphasized persona, my guise became perfection. Through grades, wardrobe, friends, weight – or lack thereof. A perfect persona translated to perfect love; to fall short of perfection was to be unlovable. For eight years, as I desperately sought love through perfection, my self-hatred intensified. I thought myself never good enough. At anything. I saw therapists and doctors, yet was too ashamed to divulge that […]

Eating Disorders 0

27 May 2018

Narcissism: When No Contact Becomes The Blessing

Going no contact with my narcissistic family was the most difficult time of my life. I was submerged in a whirlpool of tears: Would I be sucked down? Could I catch a breath? Or emerge anew? My son’s recent high school graduation allowed me to reflect further upon the pain of leaving family to become whole, to gather strewn parts of myself and bathe them in love. The Dance at 18 As my son and his classmates danced hula during […]

Narcissism 4

23 Mar 2017

Off-Roading, Addictions and Self-Love

I took the off-road journey to self-love: the white knuckling, dust-in-the-mouth, barren path of addiction. My body became a shell and I nearly died. Yet in the most wondrous of ways, my heart was broken wide open. For eight years, whilst an outwardly ambitious grad student and young professional, I had a major eating disorder. It consumed my thoughts, smothered my esteem and ravaged by body. Each day saw the obsessive pursuit of easy-to-purge foods and a subsequent quest for […]

Mental Health 0

07 Feb 2016

Recovery from Childhood Abuse: Differentiate First, Spirit Follows

Many spiritual paths focus on transcendence of individual self in order to experience a greater self, spirit or source energy. For those abused during childhood, however, sense of self and inner voice were never developed. Inner voice was often berated and no individual spiritual platform from which to spring was established. To become spiritually mature and empowered, process is important: First, we establish authentic sense of self and inner voice through emotional and intellectual differentiation from family of origin; then, […]

Spirituality 2

24 Nov 2015

Complex PTSD and the Pursuit of Spiritual Perfection

I first gravitated to Eastern thought after I obliterated a relationship with a man I dearly loved. Love gave me anxiety. Lots of it. And I acted it out, thanks to yet-to-be-revealed Complex PTSD. When I discovered an intoxicating mixture of mantra chanting, bendy yoga, incense and exotic Indian food, amid a comfortable assemblance of life in an idyllic university town, I was hooked. Yoga and the path of transformation would forevermore be my perfect pursuit of perfection in an […]

Spirituality 2