ONLINE TRAUMA AND GRIEF THERAPIST, NYC, NJ, CT AND FL - Blog

Blame

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 13:54:37 GMT

Good morning to everyone. I'm sorry that I've been away for awhile. I was diagnosed in December with tongue cancer and I've been doing all the work to get to full recovery. I'm delighted to say that at this point, I'm cancer free and fully able to communicate.

All of this got me to thinking, though. About identity. About trauma. About the things we experience as human beings that we just manage and keep it moving. About how we don't really ask for help when we need it, and how we brush off our experiences when it feels like our stories might be a burden to others. I did that, and sometimes still do, because I learned as a child that saying anything is dangerous. Being seen isn't safe. Asking for help is being needy. We believe that it is shameful and weak to be ill or struggling.

But it's not.

Cancer is somehow a disease underwritten by shame. I've had it twice. We question what we did wrong in the world, in our lives, to have gotten cancer. Everyone else asks too. Did you do this bad thing? Or that one? How are you to blame for what you are experiencing? Good people don't get cancer, you know.

Same goes for trauma. You must have been bad, deserved the abuse, deserved the assault, didn't obey, didn't listen, weren't good enough, weren't perfect, were too weird, wore a pretty dress, weren't a boy, weren't a girl, weren't enough, were too much. Society finds many reasons to blame victims of abuse. Good people don't get abused, you know. But IT ISN'T TRUE. We need to stop self-blaming and self-shaming for things that happen to us that are out of our control. People are often bad and cruel and very careless with the well-being of others. That isn't, and never was, your fault.

If you feel like you did something to deserve your past, please let me assure you that you DID NOT. You've never done anything to deserve pain, neglect, violence, abandonment, abuse or illness ... it was never your fault. I'm sorry for your pain and I hope that, with time, you can forgive yourself for other people's actions. Be kind to yourself when others are not.

You absolutely do deserve kindness.

We don't know how to do this either.

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 16:29:39 GMT

You don’t know how to do this.

We don’t either.

In the frightening and quickly changing environment in which we are trying to not just live but thrive, we are all learning together. There is no training for this for any of us, clinicians included. Your therapist is here to listen and to help with the tools we have and the wisdom we hold in getting you through the hard moments, but the world? Yeah, we weren’t trained in calming tools for this kind of onslaught of fear and intimidation.

Even if we don’t quite know the perfect way to help you, share your feelings and your fears. We feel it too, and we understand the system overload you are experiencing.

Having prefaced with all of that, I’ll share some of the things that I’m doing to get through the day without collapse.

I am using isometric muscle relaxation exercises to release adrenaline. The most effective exercise for me is pushing the palms of my hands together with extra pressure on the heels of my hands until my arms start to shake, counting to three while I’m in the state of overexertion, then releasing and pulling into the moment of relief.

I’m doing planks. All the time. The physical overwhelm of planking forces your body to rest for a moment after you stop.

I’m doing brief stints of yoga mindfulness. 5 minutes of it works. It doesn’t have to be an hour-long practice, but just enough to pull you into your body and recognize the safety of the very moment. It helps.

I’m talking to everyone who understands about the way I am feeling, allowing all parties to vent and cry if necessary, then enjoy the relief of not feeling alone.

I’m allowing myself to feel ALL the feelings I’m having, but not all the time. Make space for yourself and your own joy. What brings you peace? What books transport you? What movies make you laugh or scream or cry safely? What TV show is comforting without needing attention? Listen to the album that owns your heart.

How are those trees outside doing? Go ask them. Touch grass, look at the sky. The earth will heal and exist and provide. Find strength where it is and collapse under the beauty of it.

Does any of this take away the dangers of the world? No. But we cannot hold that danger in our systems all the time.

Think about it, then stop. Stopping is hard but do it anyway.

Limit the time you devote to solving the worlds problems in your head and say out loud how long you will allow yourself to doomscroll. Pet your cat. Play with your dog. Kiss your partner. Hug your friends. And notice when your system is overwhelmed.

Is this the answer? I don’t know. None of us know or feel wise in this moment. The feelings are overwhelming, but they are also appropriate. Keep breathing, friend. Strength in yourself, strength in numbers, strength in hope and love.

We’re still here with you. We are still listening and teaching. And we feel it all too.

CPTSD Self-Reflection Tool

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 15:32:40 GMT

CPTSD Self-Reflection

Take a moment to reflect on your experiences and feelings related to CPTSD. Your honest responses can offer valuable insights.

How often do you feel a sense of calm and safety in your daily life?

To what extent do you feel connected to your emotions and body sensations?

How well are you able to manage distressing thoughts or memories when they arise?

How supported do you feel by your social network (friends, family, community)?

How confident are you in your ability to cope with stressful situations?

Why you're so good in a crisis.

Mon, 07 Jul 2025 14:33:29 GMT

It might seem strange, but many people with complex PTSD find themselves functioning surprisingly well in a crisis.

You might very well be the person who's doing the best amongst your friends and family who don't have trauma histories! If this resonates with you, I hear you. In my work, and in my own life, it's a familiar pattern. It can be both confusing and a little disorienting. You may wonder why you can hold it together during a major emergency but unravel during something as small as a difficult conversation or a last-minute schedule change.
There’s actually a reason for this. People with complex trauma learned to become hyperaware, fast-thinking, and ready to respond to unpredictable situations, especially if they grew up in homes where safety and stability weren’t guaranteed. Crisis, for you, isn’t unfamiliar. It’s a space your nervous system already knows. For better or worse, it’s what you've been trained for.
When a true crisis hits, the body kicks into survival mode and for someone with CPTSD, this might feel oddly regulated, even calm. There’s clarity, sharpness, action. Decisions are made quickly, feelings are compartmentalized, and everything just moves. That’s because the brain is doing what it’s done many times before: assessing danger, avoiding threat, and getting through. And it can feel almost like coming home - not a safe or comforting home, but a familiar one.
Of course, this doesn’t mean it’s healthy or sustainable to be in that state. Functioning well in crisis can be really helpful, but it doesn’t mean you're healed. It means you've had to adapt. It also means your system may struggle with the quiet moments, like the moments that require vulnerability, rest, or trust. For people with CPTSD, calm can feel threatening, because that’s when the brain has time to remember, or when vigilance no longer has a task to perform. That’s often when the anxiety creeps in, or when shutdown follows the high-functioning moments.
If this is you, appreciate the brilliance of a nervous system that learned to survive the unimaginable. At the same time, survival mode isn’t meant to be a way of life. The work of healing often starts not in the middle of the crisis, but in the moments after it ends - when everything is quiet, and your body is still on high alert. Learning to feel safe in those quiet spaces is often the hardest part. It takes time. It takes support. And it takes a lot of unlearning.
There is nothing wrong with you for being excellent in emergencies. But you deserve more than just surviving them. You deserve peace that doesn’t feel foreign. You deserve a life that doesn’t require you to be in crisis just to feel competent. And that kind of healing is possible. It's uncomfortable, but you know how to do discomfort better than anyone.

Tears aren't weakness. How to understand tears and why we cry and how to let go of the guilt.

Sun, 01 Jun 2025 13:51:51 GMT

Somewhere along the way, many of us were taught that tears are something to hide. Maybe you heard it growing up—“Stop crying, you’re being dramatic,” or “Crying won’t get you anywhere.” Maybe you absorbed a message even without words: a parent turning away from your sobs, a teacher praising you only when you “toughened up,” a friend laughing uncomfortably when your eyes welled up.

For women, crying has often been framed as manipulative. “She’s just crying to get attention.” “She’s using tears to make you feel guilty.” For men, it’s often seen as weakness. “Be a man.” “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.”

It’s no wonder so many people have learned to swallow their tears, to apologize for them, to feel ashamed of them.
But crying is one of the most natural, healthy ways our bodies process emotion. We cry when we’re overwhelmed, when we’re grieving, when we’re moved, when we’re joyful, when we’re angry. Tears aren’t always about sadness. They’re about intensity—about the heart needing a way to speak when words don’t quite reach deep enough.

And here’s something most people don’t know: not all tears are the same. Our bodies actually produce different types of tears depending on why we’re crying. There are basal tears, which keep our eyes lubricated; reflex tears, which protect our eyes from irritants like smoke or chopped onions; and emotional tears, which come from deep feelings. What’s fascinating is that emotional tears contain different chemicals than the others—including stress hormones like cortisol and even natural painkillers like endorphins. In other words, when we cry from emotion, our bodies are literally helping us release stress and soothe pain. Tears aren’t just symbolic—they’re biological. They help us heal.

When we’re not allowed to cry, that energy doesn’t just disappear. It gets redirected. Often into anxiety. Or resentment. Or anger. Especially for men who are told that crying is “unmanly,” tears can morph into rage—because that’s the only socially acceptable outlet they’ve been given. For women, suppressing tears can lead to emotional shutdown or internalized guilt for even having feelings in the first place.

Tears are not manipulation. They’re not weakness. They are release. They’re an internal pressure valve that lets us reset and reconnect with ourselves. Biologically, crying activates the parasympathetic nervous system, helping us calm down. Emotionally, it allows us to feel our full range of humanity.

We’ve been trained not to cry because somewhere, someone decided that vulnerability was inconvenient, uncomfortable, or too powerful. But the truth is—tears are honest. And honesty is strength.

So if you cry easily—good. It means you feel. If you’ve been holding back tears for years—maybe it’s time to let them come. You don’t owe anyone an apology for being human.

Trauma is not a competition!

Wed, 30 Apr 2025 14:16:35 GMT

When the World Doesn't Feel Right: Understanding Moral Injury

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 16:05:18 GMT

You may have heard the words moral injury but aren't sure what that means or if it is something that you have experienced in your life. It's important to understand as we are becoming more subject to moral injury in an ever changing world.

Moral injury happens when someone is involved in, witnesses, or is unable to prevent something that goes against their deeply held values or moral beliefs. It’s not quite the same as trauma as we have discussed it here, though they can have similar outcomes in our emotional and physical well-being. Where trauma can leave people feeling unsafe, moral injury tends to leave people feeling broken-hearted, ashamed, or spiritually adrift.

It can look like a nurse who had to follow orders that led to substandard care, a combat veteran who had to make impossible choices, a child who was forced to betray a sibling to survive, or a social worker who had to participate in a system they knew was harming the very people they wanted to help. Sometimes it’s not about what someone did—but about what they couldn't do. The inability to intervene, to stop harm, or to live in alignment with what they know is right can sit like a stone in the gut for years.

It’s not always obvious if you're experiencing moral injury, especially because people often assume their emotional pain must be about something else—like depression, burnout, or just feeling "off." But if you find yourself haunted by something you did or didn’t do, if you feel a deep sense of guilt, shame, or regret that doesn’t seem to fade with time, or if you feel like you’ve betrayed yourself in some way, those can be signs. Maybe there's a part of you that still feels like you failed someone—or like you failed yourself. You might find it hard to talk about what happened because you worry that others won’t understand, or worse, that they’ll confirm the worst things you believe about yourself. Sometimes, it shows up as anger, isolation, or a kind of numbness that settles in because it feels safer than feeling everything all at once.

Moral injury often leads to intense feelings of guilt, shame, or even self-loathing. People may replay events over and over again, wondering what they could have done differently. There can be a loss of trust—not just in others, but in themselves. Some folks find themselves questioning everything: their identity, their purpose, even their worthiness of healing. It’s a kind of soul wound that doesn't always have words, but it changes the way people relate to themselves and the world around them.

What makes moral injury so painful is that it’s not just about what happened. It’s about what it meant. The meaning we make of these experiences can shape how we carry them. And because it’s tied to our values—what we believe is good and right—it can shake the foundation of how we see ourselves. Someone might look like they’re functioning just fine on the outside, but inside, they may be carrying deep grief, anger, or a sense of betrayal.

Healing from moral injury takes time. It often involves not just processing what happened, but also reconnecting with one’s values and beginning to forgive themselves for making choices that are at odds with their internal sense of right and wrong. It can mean finding a way to make meaning out of what was once unbearable, to allow complexity where once there was only black-and-white thinking, and to remember that being human means we are sometimes put in impossible positions.

If this is something you recognize in yourself, you’re not alone. Moral injury is real, and it deserves the same care and attention we would give to anything that causes pain. Moral injury is the result of having a conscience in an unjust or overwhelming situation. And while the pain is real, so is the possibility of healing.

Ways childhood neglect shows up later in life.

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 14:54:23 GMT

Childhood neglect can show up in adulthood in a lot of different ways, often in patterns that feel frustrating or confusing but make total sense when you trace them back to early experiences. Since neglect is the absence of consistent care and attunement, adults who experienced it may struggle with self-worth, relationships, and emotional regulation in ways that feel deeply ingrained. Some of these might be familiar to you.

1. Difficulty Recognizing or Expressing Needs
If your needs were ignored or met with indifference, you may have learned to suppress them. As an adult, this can look like:

Struggling to identify what you need, whether emotionally, physically, or in relationships
Feeling guilty or ashamed for asking for help
Automatically prioritizing others while neglecting yourself

2. Chronic Self-Reliance or Hyper-Independence
When caregivers weren’t reliably there, you might have learned early on that you could only rely on yourself. This can lead to:

Avoiding emotional dependence on others, even in safe relationships
Pushing through exhaustion or distress alone rather than seeking support
Feeling uncomfortable when others offer care or affection

3. Emotional Numbness or Dissociation
Without consistent emotional validation, some people shut down their feelings as a survival strategy. This might show up as:

Feeling detached from your emotions or struggling to identify them
Having a hard time connecting with joy or excitement
Using distractions (work, screens, substances, etc.) to avoid emotional discomfort

4. Fear of Intimacy or Connection
Neglect can make relationships feel unsafe or unreliable. As an adult, you might experience:

Avoidance of deep emotional intimacy, even in relationships you value
A belief that others will leave or lose interest if you “need too much”
Feeling lonely but unsure how to let people in

5. Low Self-Worth & Inner Criticism
When childhood neglect sends the message that your feelings or presence don’t matter, it can shape your self-image. This can look like:

Harsh self-criticism or perfectionism
Feeling unworthy of love, success, or happiness
A deep-seated belief that you are fundamentally “too much” or “not enough”

6. Anxiety & Nervous System Dysregulation
When a child grows up without a sense of security, their nervous system stays on high alert. As an adult, this can present as:

Chronic anxiety or hypervigilance, always scanning for potential rejection
Feeling exhausted but unable to relax
Struggling with self-soothing or emotional regulation

7. Struggles with Self-Care & Boundaries
If no one modeled care for you, it can be hard to know how to care for yourself. This might mean:

Ignoring your own physical or emotional needs until you hit burnout
Feeling undeserving of rest, pleasure, or kindness
Difficulty setting or enforcing boundaries in relationships

Healing from childhood neglect means learning to give yourself what you didn’t receive—validation, care, and connection. It takes time, but even small steps toward recognizing your own needs, allowing yourself to be cared for, and challenging old beliefs can make a huge difference.

The difficulty of navigating childhood neglect.

Fri, 07 Mar 2025 16:18:01 GMT

Healing from childhood neglect is uniquely challenging because neglect isn’t always something we can clearly see or name. Unlike more overt forms of abuse, neglect is often the absence of something essential—love, attention, validation, or even basic care. That absence can leave deep wounds, but because there was nothing visible to point to, many people struggle to recognize how profoundly they were affected. And many of us find it difficult to explain to others how the abuse impacts us on a daily basis.

Neglect shapes your self-perception and relationships in ways that can be hard to untangle. If your emotional needs weren’t met as a child, you may have internalized the belief that your needs don’t matter, that you're a burden, or that you have to handle everything alone. That can make it difficult to trust others, express needs, or even recognize what you want in the first place.

What can make it even harder is that healing from neglect often involves learning how to receive care—something that might feel deeply uncomfortable, even unsafe. If you grew up feeling like no one was there for you, the idea of leaning on someone else might trigger fear or resistance. It’s not just about understanding the past; it’s about rewiring how you relate to yourself and the world.

Childhood neglect can also lead to long-term nervous system dysregulation. Without consistent emotional attunement from caregivers, the brain and body adapt to a world that feels unpredictable or indifferent. This can lead to hyper-independence, emotional numbness, or a constant sense of being on edge, all of which make healing a slow, often nonlinear process.

Attunement is the process of being emotionally in sync with another person—being seen, heard, and understood in a way that makes you feel safe and connected. It’s one of the most crucial aspects of healthy childhood development because it teaches us how to regulate emotions, trust others, and form secure relationships.

When a caregiver is attuned, they pick up on a child’s emotional and physical needs and respond appropriately. For example, if a baby cries, an attuned caregiver doesn’t just feed or change them mechanically; they also offer warmth, soothing, and eye contact. As the child grows, attunement looks like a parent noticing when their child is sad or overwhelmed and responding with comfort, validation, and guidance. This consistent responsiveness helps wire the child’s nervous system for safety and connection.

When attunement isn’t present—like in cases of neglect—the child learns that their emotions and needs don’t elicit a response. Over time, they may stop expressing those needs altogether, dissociate from their feelings, or develop deep insecurity about whether they are lovable or worthy of care. In relationships, this can show up as difficulty trusting others, struggling to express emotions, or feeling like connection is always just out of reach.

Healing from a lack of attunement often involves re-learning attunement in adulthood—first with yourself and then with safe others. This means getting curious about your own emotional world, noticing and validating your feelings instead of dismissing them, and learning how to respond to yourself with the care you may not have received as a child. In therapy or supportive relationships, experiencing attunement from another person—someone who truly sees you and responds with warmth and understanding—can be deeply reparative.

Attunement isn’t about perfection; it’s about presence. And learning to be present with yourself, even in small ways, is a powerful step toward healing.

Breathing and scanning to reduce anxiety

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 20:10:19 GMT