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“We live in an emotionally impoverished culture, and those who stick with a long term recovery process”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“Optimal stress is the balanced, moderate amount of stress that appears to be necessary to grow the new neurons and neuronal connections that correlate with keeping the brain healthy. Research shows that just as too much stress creates a biochemical condition that damages neurons in the brain, too little stress leads to the atrophy, death and lack of replacement of old neurons. This is why lifelong learning is widely recognized as one of the key practices necessary to avoid Alzheimer’s disease. In my opinion, lifelong recovering is an exalted subset of lifelong learning. I believe that optimal stress is frequently attained when we practice the behaviors that remedy our developmental arrests. Examples of this include reading self-help books, attending self-improvement workshops, working at deeper self-discovery through journaling, or struggling to be more vulnerable and authentic in a therapy session or an evolving relationship. Moreover, it might be that minor flashbacks sometimes function as optimal stress. I certainly know a number of long term recoverees who seem to be evolving and becoming sharper in their old age.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“Advanced recovery also correlates with letting go of the salvation fantasy that you will never have another flashback. Giving up the salvation fantasy is another one of those two steps forward, one step backward processes. We typically have to wrestle with denial a great deal to increasingly accept the unfair reality that we will never be totally flashback-free.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“Nowadays, many therapists attach the phrase “good enoughâ€� to concepts like friend, partner, therapist or person. This is usually done to deconstruct perfectionistic expectations of relationships - expectations that are so unrealistic that they are destructive to essentially worthwhile relationships.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“accommodate her. Once again, psychological health is based on having about two years of this no questions asked entitlement to unconditional love. It is the normal healthy narcissism that Freud described as “His Majesty the Babyâ€�. Serious problems accrue however when the toddler does not begin to learn that there are limits to his original entitlement. If there are no limits for too long, then the journey toward adult narcissism begins. On the other hand, if there are too many limits too soon, the matrix of trauma begins to form.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“Perhaps never before has humankind been so alienated from so many of its normal feeling states, as it is in the twenty-first century. Never before have so many human beings been so emotionally deadened and impoverished.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“Early abuse and abandonment forces the child to merge his identity with the superego, the part of the child’s brain that learns the rules of his caretakers in order to get and maintain acceptance. However, because acceptance is impossible in the Cptsd-engendering family, the superego gets stuck working overtime to achieve the impossible. Perseverating on finding a formula to win over her parents, the child eventually embraces perfectionism as a strategy to make her parents less dangerous and more engaging. Her one hope is that if she becomes smart, helpful, pretty, and flawless enough, her parents will finally care for her. Sadly, continued failure at winning their regard forces her to conclude that she is fatally flawed. She is loveless not because of her mistakes, but because she is a mistake. She can only see what is wrong with or missing in her.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“Some survivors have confidence but not self-esteem. In childhood, my own flight response got channeled into acquiring academic skills for which the outside world rewarded me. But the benefit of these rewards never penetrated my toxic shame enough to allow me to feel that I was a worthwhile person.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“Trauma occurs when attack or abandonment triggers a fight/flight response so intensely that the person cannot turn it off once the threat is over. He becomes stuck in an adrenalized state. His sympathetic nervous system is locked “onâ€� and he cannot toggle into the relaxation function of the parasympathetic nervous system.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“Further confusion also arises in the case of ADHD [Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder], as well as obsessive/compulsive disorder, both of which are sometimes more accurately described as fixated flight responses to trauma [see the 4F’s below]. This is also true of ADD [Attention Deficit Disorder] and some depressive and dissociative disorders which similarly can more accurately be described as fixated freeze responses to trauma.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“I once heard renowned traumatologist, John Briere, quip that if Cptsd were ever given its due, the DSM [The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders] used by all mental health professionals would shrink from its dictionary like size to the size of a thin pamphlet. In other words, the role of traumatized childhoods in most adult psychological disorders is enormous.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“Research shows that just as too much stress creates a biochemical condition that damages neurons in the brain, too little stress leads to the atrophy, death and lack of replacement of old neurons. This is why lifelong learning is widely recognized as one of the key practices necessary to avoid Alzheimer’s disease.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“I am proud and right to see how they tried to murder my soul. I give them their shame back as disgust”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“as recovering progresses, and especially as the critic shrinks, the desire to help yourself- to care for yourself - becomes more spontaneous. This is especially true when we mindfully do things for ourselves in a spirit of loving-kindness. As such, we can do it for the child we were â€� the child who was deprived through no fault of her own. And, we can do it because we believe every child, without exception, deserves loving care.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“recovery from Cptsd is complex. Sometimes, it can feel so hopelessly complex that we totally give up and get stuck in inertia for considerable lengths of time. This is why it is so important to understand that recovery is gradual and frequently a backwards and forwards process.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“The Tao of relational recovery involves balancing healthy independence with healthy dependence on others.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“Normalize the inevitability of conflict & establish a safe forum for it. Discuss and agree to as many of these guidelines as seem useful. The goal is to inform and negotiate for change, not punish. Punishment destroys trust. Love can open the “earsâ€� of the other’s heart. Imagine how it would be easiest to hear about your grievance from the other.
Say it as it would be easiest for you to hear. Preface complaints with acknowledgement of the good of the other and your mutual relationship. No name-calling, sarcasm or character assassination. No analyzing the other or mind reading. No interrupting or filibustering Be dialogical. Give short, concise statements that allow the other to reflect back and paraphrase key points to let you hear that you are accurately being heard. No denial of the other’s rights as outlined in the Bill of Rights above. Differences are often not a matter of right or wrong; both people can be right, and merely different. Be willing to sometimes agree to differ. Avoid “youâ€� statements. Use “Iâ€� statements that identify your feelings and your experience of what you perceive as unfair. One specific issue, with accompanying identifiable behavior, at a time. Ask yourself what hurts the most to try to find your key complaint. Stick to the issue until both persons feel fully heard. Take turns presenting issues. No interrupting or filibustering. Present a complaint as lovingly and calmly as possible. Timeouts: If discussion becomes heated either person can call a timeout [one minute to 24 hours], as long as s/he nominates a time to resume. {See 1 below} Discharge as much of any accumulated charge before hand as possible. Own responsibility for any accumulated charge in the anger that might come from not talking about it soon enough. Own responsibility for accumulated charge displaced from other hurts. {See 2 below} Commit to grow in your understanding of how much of your charge comes from childhood abuse/neglect. Commit to recovering from the losses of childhood by effectively identifying, grieving, and reclaiming them. Apologize from an unashamed place. Make whatever amends are possible.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“We survivors often struggle with managing our understandable but unrealistic yearnings to receive permanent unconditional love from a friend or partner.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“More and more research suggests that our ability to metabolize painful emotional states is enhanced by communicating with a safe enough other person.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“The gratitude feeling is deep and profound when it occurs. It feels like a moment of connection to life itself on the deepest level and all life circumstances and what I deem as problems pale to insignificance in those moments and there is only love in its purest form. It truly feels like a blessing albeit fleeting but gives enough sustenance and hope to continue the journey.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“I believe the quality of our emotional intelligence is reflected in the degree to which we accept all of our feelings without automatically dissociating from them or expressing them in a way that hurts ourselves or others.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“For just as without night there is no day, without work there is no play, without hunger there is no satiation, without fear there is no courage, without tears there is no joy, and without anger, there is no real love. Most people, who choose or are coerced into only identifying with “positiveâ€� feelings, usually wind up in an emotionally lifeless middle ground â€� bland, deadened, and dissociated in an unemotional “no-man’s-land.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“Mindfulness is a perspective that weds your capacity for self-observation with your instinct of self-compassion.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“The survivor becomes imprisoned by a jailer who will accept nothing but perfection. He is chauffeured by a hysterical driver who sees nothing but danger in every turn of the road. Chapters 9 and 10 focus extensively on practical tools for shrinking your critic.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“continued failure at winning their regard forces her to conclude that she is fatally flawed. She is loveless not because of her mistakes, but because she is a mistake. She can only see what is wrong with or missing in her.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“Cognitive recovery work aims to make your brain user friendly. It focuses on recognizing and eliminating the destructive thoughts and thinking processes you were indoctrinated with in childhood.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“my own flight response got channeled into acquiring academic skills for which the outside world rewarded me. But the benefit of these rewards never penetrated my toxic shame enough to allow me to feel that I was a worthwhile person.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“The most common transferrential dynamic that I witness occurs when leftover hurt about a parent gets displaced onto someone we perceive as hurting us in the present. When this occurs, we respond to them with a magnified anger or anguish that is”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“Scapegoating is often a reenactment of a parent’s abusive role. It is blind imitation of a parent who habitually released his frustration by indiscriminately raging. When a fight type parent scapegoats those around him, he enforces a perverse kind of mirroring. He is making sure that when he feels bad, so does everyone else. It is like a bumper sticker I saw the other day: “If Momma ain’t happy, Nobody’s happy.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

“most of the diagnoses mentioned above are typically treated as innate characterological defects rather than as learned maladaptations to stress â€� adaptations that survivors were forced to learn as traumatized children. And, most importantly, because these adaptations were learned, they can often be extinguished or significantly diminished, and replaced with more functional adaptations to stress.”
― Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving