Courtney Slade, LCSW

These are examples of the type of dialogue we need to have with our inner child.⠀
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Notice how all three examples have an element of shame in them.⠀
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Children who are abused grow into adults who struggle with shame.
I know you guys get this, but how does the shame manifest in you? ⠀
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First statement - some of us start fights because we don't know how to do healthy conflict or intimacy. Shame comes from the situation and/or the hangover after. 😡🤢⠀
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2nd statement - some of us have a strong belief that we are responsible for and/or cause other ppl's upset - just like childhood with our parents
moods😒😞😖- (shame).⠀
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3rd statement - some of us, (a lot of us) overly take fault or blame, even when it's made up in our head a lot of the time. Shame about existing or burdening others, just like childhood. 😳⠀
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The way out is finding our adult and getting that adult to practice these self boundaries and not act out from our childhood beliefs 💪🙅🏽‍♀️🙅‍♀️🙅🏾‍♂️🙅‍♂️🤱🏼🤱🏽⠀

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P.S. it doesn’t mean that your present situation isn’t unhealthy or not hard

When we grow up in the midst of chaos, we will of course hope to one day have peace.⁠
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Sometimes, though, this early experience will normalize chaos in our relationships.⁠
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We might believe that the only way to peace is through the chaos.
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We might enter into and commit to relationships that aren’t even peaceful in the first place - hoping one day we can change something we could never change in our childhood, yet deeply desired to have different.⁠
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The adult self tries to heal the child self by making a similar situation “different”. And yet the more powerful response might be to figure out how to navigate the similar situations, differently.

Why People-Pleasing and Parenting Don't Mix Higher stress, and a chance of turning kids into people-pleasers, too.

I grew up in a home where keeping the peace was a normal part of life. Upsetting or disappointing my mom would end up in the silent treatment. My dad, who struggled with communication and understanding his own anger could emotionally spiral quickly. So, from a young age I started dissociating. I checked out. I learned to exist in my little bubble of achievement, rarely voicing my own needs.

Of course this carried over to my first marriage. I kept the peace. Never truly voicing my feelings. Carrying the resentment that always comes from suppressing how we actually feel.

And my body showed the evidence. Through chronic inflammation. And then through scary fainting spells. Where out of nowhere I’d feel dizzy and wake up with a group of people trying to wake me up.

One of the hardest parts of my own journey is to speak difficult truths. To have uncomfortable conversations. And to (finally) be ok with the reality that I can disappoint people. That my role is not to rescue everyone around me from their feelings— like I learned in childhood.

This is your reminder that your role isn’t to keep the peace— it’s to take care of yourself. It’s to assert yourself when needed. It’s to be ok when other people feel uncomfortable. It’s to find the people who don’t require you to betray yourself to be loved

✨I am currently accepting new clients! I prioritize wellness, self-care, interpersonal development, motivation, boundaries, and balance in the treatment I provide. My approach is supportive and engaging, utilizing an integration of cognitive-behavioral, humanistic, motivational, and mindfulness interventions.✨

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Courtney Slade, Clinical Social Work/Therapist, Delmar, NY, 12054 | Psychology Today Courtney Slade, Clinical Social Work/Therapist, Delmar, NY, 12054, (518) 809-7651, It takes courage and strength to ask for help. If you are seeking support and assistance in navigating difficult times, relationships, work, school, etc. you’re in the right place. Therapy is a collaborative experie...

Our childhood experiences become stories that weave themselves into our bodies, our identities, and our beliefs about ourselves and the world.

Which is why we often need to look back before we can move forward in healing, our present lives.

Some people are lucky to inherit secure attachment patterns from their families of origin. But so many of us did not have that luck, and instead have to put in healing work to learn what it means to be secure in ourselves and our relationships.

It can feel scary and emotional and overwhelming to process our childhoods, but when we do so, we offer our children the potential to have childhood, they don’t have to heal from. And we do that by making sure there are secure, close adult relationships in our lives, where we are seeing heard and cared for an offer the same to others.

For help in doing this important work, get yourself yourself a copy of 📖Securely Attached📖… I wrote this book as a guided journal on purpose so that, instead of simply learning about attachment, everyone has the chance to process their specific attachments experiences and heal through them.

Love on.

You may not have an ideal relationship with your parents, step-parents, adopted parents, or in-laws due to the reasons above. Relationships where you cannot be seen, heard, or accepted can be difficult to manage. Finding a way to manage or choosing to end or pause a relationship is never an easy choice.

Expecting the other person to change isn’t helpful and doing all the work seems unfair. In life, things are not black and white. Making decisions about relationships is challenging for many of us.

Drama Free: A Guide to Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships is available now in bookstores.

Great article on emotional regulation and self-care.

The Truth About Emotional Regulation How we can maintain our calm and what that requires

I have some availability opening up for morning-noon (convenient for lunch time) appointments in the coming months. My website provides all practice information as well as a way to easily request an appointment. Feel free to pass along.

Courtney Slade Therapist providing online therapy in Delmar, NY and throughout New York State.

✨Great relationship resource ✨

❤️ check the account for lots of tips to help you get there ❤️

Join me in conversations with online or in NYC.

Whether you are coping with a long-term pattern of emotional neglect, addiction, or abuse, or trying to understand a new conflict that’s come up with a parent, sibling, or in-law, you will find empowering information and tools to help you manage these complex relationships in a way that offers psychological safety and honors the person you truly are.

Tickets available on my website.

Really great reminder

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The goal and signs of recovery are the same as individuation and being an emotionally mature adult. Read the research on codependency and why becoming your authentic self is so difficult. https://bit.ly/4aOeifK “Codependency for Dummies” shows you how https://amzn.to/2m3ef8L

💫 I thought it might be helpful to share some of my favorite books I’ve recommended in clinical practice and found helpful in my own personal work. As I add more, I’ll continue to share. 💫

Such a great reminder by .dagba

For childhood trauma survivors, our body is constantly trying to tell us, "It's happening again."

The thing happening again can be any of the following,

That we're invisible again.
That things are going to be a disaster again.
That we'll never get out of this job, relationship, or stuck place.
That we can't say no.
That we have to fight right now
That we have to be quiet and say nothing

The crazy making piece is that our trauma conditioning is overly protective and doesn't have the present situation entirely correct.
Our trauma tells us we don't have any power and we're not going to win again.

This was true growing up, but it doesn't work in the present. Thinking we don't have any real power keeps us stuck.

The reality is we have things we didn't have in childhood.

We have choices.
We have a voice that we can use.
We have autonomy.
We have access to money and transportation.
We have free resources available to us, like Instagram.
We have the ability to let things go.
We have the space and time to recognize that we are good people.

You might be telling me these things are not true when they are compared to being six years old and stuck with unsafe people with
twelve more years ahead of you. That's powerless.

Much of childhood trauma work is taking into our hearts, not just our minds, how the present (no matter how f'ed up it is) is better than it was growing up when we just had to go along with being powerless.

I learned this concept from my mentor, Amanda Curtin LICSW, to whom I'm forever grateful. Whatever I was facing, I could talk to my inner child and remind them that we can handle anything because it's not like what it used to be like.

Comment "link" for a DM to my website for more resources.

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Follow for my childhood trauma and toxic family education.

💫Great list for reflection in the coming year. Make 2024 about protecting your peace and holding boundaries around what might sacrifice that peace. Remember it’s not about perfection.💫