When Oprah talks, people listen Let’s hope Oprah’s message in her interview about Developmental Trauma penetrates the veil of denial about its presence in our American culture. She says it’s time to connect the dots between what happens to people in early childhood and the problems they are having in their adult lives. Pulling No […]
Freaked Out: How Hidden Developmental Traumas Can Disrupt Your Life and Relationships. Hidden developmental trauma can disrupt your life and relationships and cause you to freak out. It is hard enough to be a human being. You, like many people, freak out just trying to cope with the stress from competition to be better than […]
The fact that “nothing happened” can cause a freak-out? Doesn’t make much sense does it? Something, some event, usually causes a freak-out, but not nothing. These “nothing happened” freak-outs are because “something should have happened and didn’t” . . . also known as neglect. Research shows that childhood neglect has a much bigger impact on us than the […]
Experts such as Dan Siegel say stress is all in your beliefs! It’s your beliefs about stress–not the stress itself– that determines whether an experience has a positive or negative impact on you. Let’s face it: we live in a world where we can’t avoid stress. Periodic freak-outs are an inevitable part of responding to life’s challenges. If we believe that […]
Dr. James L. Wilson is an expert on adrenal fatigue, a topic of great importance to people who experience regular or chronic stress from being freaked out and emotionally overwhelmed. According to Dr. Wilson’s article about adrenal fatigue, “every time you experience any kind of stress, whether internal, like a sore throat, or external, like an angry teenager, […]
Codependency is a set of adult behaviors that are caused by developmental trauma during the first nine months of life and has a characteristic set of identifying behaviors: feelings of fear and anxiety about losing the connection to another person a compulsive over-focus on other people’s activities, problems and needs that looks like an “addiction” feeling […]
“I’m fine, fine,” said Charlie Croker, a Cockney gangster in the British caper film Italian Job. To which Mr. Bridger the crime syndicate boss replied, “You know what ‘fine‘ stands for, don’t you? Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional. I’m Fine. is also a famous Ross Geller line in a Friends’ episode. “I’m fine” is what we, like Ross, say when […]
Maybe you get triggered and freak out because you are more sensitive than other people. Perhaps you smell, hear, feel and taste things that other people don’t pick up because you have a more finely-tuned sensory filter. This sensitivity is sometimes known as “atypical sensory filtering.” Sensory sensitivities can intensify as we grow older. And we may develop new sensitivities. […]
Research Findings on Anxiety and Childhood Adversity Researcher Samantha Pratt’s article, The Impact of Childhood Adversity on Later Anxiety (1) says there’s a high correlation between traumas associated with childhood adversity and the appearance of anxiety disorders later in life. The rise in the severity of adversity simultaneously increases the sensitivity to stress, and ultimately the likelihood of […]
Saying that someone freaked out is another way of saying they had an unexpected loss of composure or control of their emotions. Also known as “flipping our lid,” “blowing our mind” and”going bananas,” “freaked out” describes an overwhelmed nervous system that is unable to process an experience in a timely matter. A freak-out episode means losing our “normal” self and having a […]