I think one of the reasons why trauma survivors develop guilt and shame about their baggage is because of seeing so many negative reactions from friends or family if we ever open up, because often they can’t handle it and they don’t know how to respond and it does make them uncomfortable.

I would love a video on finding the balance between trusting your gut and experience vs projecting your expectations of ulterior motives onto someone.

I feel like this 100% of the time. With friends, family, everyone. I'm not in a relationship right now because i feel like no one would want to deal with my issues.... I don't want to deal with me, so why would they? As usual, great video. Hits very close to home.

Jo, you give me language to understand what I’m feeling. I’ve been sending my husband these videos, because you explain the things I’m experiencing, when I can’t. Thank you.

As a fellow survivor - “it’s hard to admit that I needed anything” - YESSS❤️

relationships with caregivers and authority after people like teachers being the main cause of trauma.

Thankyou for voicing the fears of so many of us as survivors of trauma. I wish someone talked about this 20 years ago, so glad you were brave enough to speak the truth. Blessings, Dot

going to watch this multiple times in the next few weeks probably. definitely dealing with the feeling that my trauma is Too Much despite my partner reassuring me constantly

Thank you for this! I relate. I think that may be why it hurts so much when my in-laws don't want me bothering my husband with all my trauma. My guild for being with my husband despite my trauma is magnified when someone agrees that I should feel that way. Significant other's parents could be an interesting topic. Like: how do you tell them or they find out? How does that shape your interactions with them? Etc.

Thank you for voicing what I essentially experience on a daily basis. I'm also neurodivergent (AuDHD) on top of the CPTSD, and I feel like a broken alien who doesn't deserve to be truly loved for who she is, even though most of that feeling results from harm that was done to me by other people, at a young age.

Someone I love dearly suffers from ptsd. I’m ignorant to all the particulars and trying to learn what role I should play in this. This video is so informative. Thankyou for putting your experience out there. I like so many are desperate to understand. I am in love with this woman and I am invested emotionally. I don’t intend on letting her get away. So I’m trying to train my brain to comprehend what she is going through. I sincerely want to understand her needs and when and what I need to do and not do. It’s heart wrenching and I often feel lonely and sad. I can only imagine what she is faced with. Your video Was both reassuring to me that she isn’t intentionally acting this way and directional as to how I should respond to her actions.

This series is so helpful. I’m in a relationship with someone in the aftermath of me being a survivor of domestic violence and I have struggled with some of these feelings

I cannot thank you enough for making this video, and all your videos on PTDS in relationships. I suffer from CPTSD and have just entered a relationship for the first time in years because I thought I would be an absolute nightmare. After years of different treatments and therapy I thought I had a pretty good handle on it. About 6 months into the relationship I had a random trigger out of no where and I was back at square 1. I fell back into the darkness and I didn’t think it would happen again. I felt so ashamed and awful as we were having so much fun and it was smooth sailing. It’s been hard as I thought I was alone and too crazy or couldn’t be fixed. But I’m determined to overcome it for myself and my partner. This video has described so much of what I’ve been struggling to express. Once again thank you so much! This is so valuable and helpful. I hope everything is good with you too! Much love

Thank you ! I relate ! My current relationship is complicated as we both have trauma and I always feel vulnerable and scared to share ...I feel worse when he doesn't share back. My previous relationship was abusive and the man would use my trauma against me to manipulate me and control me, so it's made me put up these big walls in my current relationship. The walls are there for my fiance too and we have just been struggling so much We lost trust in each other. It is sad.

Yup this is me. I experienced trauma and got into a relationship with an amazing man only 6 months or so after the trauma happened. We are now nearly 5 years into this relationship, and I am really struggling again with anxiety and PTSD. It has caused me to not want intimacy and my self-worth is on the floor. I feel awful still talking about my issues now, and I feel like he won't understand and he's sick of hearing this. I feel so nervous to talk to him about it, because I know he is going through his own struggles. We barely communicate about our issues, and I never feel like my feelings are valid. Watching this video made me realise it's all part of the process and I need to be open and honest to give him a chance to understand. Thank you!

Wow, U are an amazing person…Thank U for being a ray of light in the darkness of trauma survivors struggles.

This Title got me... this hits home for me

This was excellent advice. I've been in a relationship with someone for six months who had a very bad childhood and a disastrous end to a 33 year marriage. Now I know that I need to be consistent in helping him and just listening. Thank you.

Man this video tore my heart out! I have tried to talk to my wife about her trauma and have supported her when she has bad days for the last 8 years, for the last 3 years she won’t touch me, affectionately or intimately and very rarely shows her affection for me.

Thanks Jordan for putting feelings into words.

I feel this so much. I feel extremely lucky to have someone that is more than happy to give that reassurance and listen when I need him too.

I am so glad i found your channel. That is exactly what i am feeling. Its worded in a way i just couldn't word right.

I think for me the unhealthy thought is: they are missing out on stuff that is supposed to be just easy and fun, and because of me it's all so complicated and heavy and in the end basically ruining éverything. 🙄 Hm.. interesting video 👍

Thank you, you've just helped me make sense of all the feelings and thoughts I've had and been unable to completely understand. Myself and my ex husband were both trauma survivors. It was these traumas that bonded us so deeply. Having someone who understands you so much is everything, though trying to deal with their trauma and your own is never going to work. Well at least not without a huge amount of support. Unfortunately for me I was unable to deal with my trauma until recently, which wasn't soon enough for him. Our marriage of 25 years ended last year and I can honestly say after all the hurt and upset I'm now in a good place. I'm able to concentrate on just me and not worry that I'm not giving care and attention to my three now grown children or to him. Thank you for the strong and kind words, I'm holding back tears writing this because of my realisations. I'm feeling full of hope and a lot more positive about my future and positive that if I find another partner they'll be the right one for the me going forward. xx

Thank you for being brave and talking about this. As Aubrey Merrill said, "you give me language." Some of the things you address I have been able to work through and others are things yet to come.

I was wondering if you could maybe make a video about how to stop yourself from getting angry about bad things that have happened to you? In particular, sometimes when I think about the things that hurt me, I get so mad at the people who did them to me. It can be a few months or even years after it has happened, but when I get into those moments, I'm as angry as if it just happened. And I want to hurt them back, but I can't, I know I can't, so I end up breaking down. I know it's not healthy, but I can't stop. :(

I even apologize to my therapist... I feel guilty for sharing my pain to people but m boyfriend doesn't share his pain at all and he has alot... I don't know hos to get him to open up

My GF has distanced herself from me. I haven't heard from her in 2 months. I haven't seen her in over a year. She was abandoned and sexually abused as a child and her father tried to merry off while in Egypt last year. I have my own complex trauma issues too and am no longer strong enough to support her. I love her. The pain is excruciating.

I feel like this. The last months before my last relationship ended (the longest I ever had) I started to gradually fall into a depression, because of a number of things in my life and my past, like abuse that I don't want to dive into right now. There is where I started to feel just as you said in the beginning of the video. At that time se became very distant and disconnected and often times indifferent, more that what she always were. She loved me but had a hard time expressing her feelings towards me and in general, good or bad. Is as if she was afraid of something. I wanted to be patient and help her but things didn’t change and I kept turning more depressed. After a couple of months of this and me not being well, period in which she never took my depression seriously or ever really tried to understand what depression is, she was the one who abandoned me, telling me that she still loved me and didn’t want to lose me and that she wanted me in her life... Which is contradictory, even more considering the fact that she has not even tried to achieve neither of both, not even by trying to comunicate with me. Anyway, she promised a vulnerable, broken me a future together but just “not now”, “not yet” without further explination... At the beggining I felt like that was not a bad idea for me. Maybe I was already used to ambiguous afrection demonstrations. But a couple of months latter I started to fear that there was just something wrong with me, that I wasn't good enough, atracttive enough or “man enough” for her or other women who I could fall in love with. I felt guilty of everything and like she was right for leaving me behind. It made me start to think that I was just not special or woth it. Nor that I even deserved to be someone's first choice to be with. lt made my depression worse. Right now I am in a treatment. I am trying to heal and change my mentallity to truly believing that I deserve better than what that person was to me, even if I still love her, which makes me feel stupid at times. I want to believe that I am a man who can have depression struggles and still be a good man and a great partner for someone who actually cares to put effot in a relationship with me, not just by harming empty promises, but by actions. Why does a man being “strong”, whatever that means, matter to so many people? Even uncounsciously. I also want to believe that, even if I am a man, there will be someone who is going to accept and love me not just when I'm cheerfull and extraverted, but also when I'm vulnerable, as I would do for that person without a doubt. Some days it is hard to believe. Most days I have to deal and fight against fear of abandonment, resentment, negative and self-destructive thinking, deep sadness, lack of motivation and trust issues. But I really want to truly trust myself and other people again, because deep down I do have a lot of thing and love to give but I am still afraid no one I love would want those things, just like her. And I don't want to be with someone and feel guilty thinking I am some sort of load. I was not like this before, I want to recover and to be ready to face whatever comes, with a more solid self-steem and pourpouse, and maybe eventually I won't have to do it alone, but even if I do, I want to be enough for myself. Thank you for this channel and this videos, it is very helpfull. PS. Sorry if I committed any mistake while writing, english is my second language.

I don’t think anyone should want to be with me after what my ex did to me. I still feel dirty, disgusting. I feel like I’ve been tainted. He took something I can never get back- my consent. Nobody should have to deal with my fifth after that. That’s the mindset I’ve been in since it happened in November of 2018.

This right here is something I go thru at times. I have come a long way but sometimes the broken will creep back in. Therapy has helped me alot. And I fell the same exact way when my husband confides in me I fell so honored.

Of course you are worth talking to and loved. I I love to listen to you! Thank you for been how you are.

I really appreciate how you always put into words everything that I don’t know how to

You have no reason to apologise for you're existence Brian is a lucky person to have such a wonderful person as a wife personally I don't date love you jo awesome video I never met you but you are worth so much to the people who love you jo I love you and you're beautiful content

Wow thanks for hope and joy. Your healthy relationship is such a powerful testimony. I appreciate you !

It took watching a few of your videos to click subscribe. I never thought someone would be able to explain what I’ve felt like for years so perfectly and reassure me that it’s not going to take a day or two to move on from past trauma

this and your first video in this series really hit home and pretty well encompass what my boyfriend and i are going through now, so much so that I sent both videos to him since you put how i’m feeling into words more coherently and eloquently than I can right now

I- I can't tell you how insanely relevant and much needed this video was considering what was on my mind the second it popped in recommended.

I really relate to this and I've come so far in accepting myself and my worth.

I've been called to needy for reassurance seeking, so I stay away from relationships due to the message that I'm too much.

often we know things, yet still really need to hear them said even if we have to repeat it to ourselves in a voice recorder to listen to

Thank you for putting these videos out here.

I found a song a few months ago that I've personally felt captures one piece of this internal process - "Little Lies" by I'm With Her.

Thank you very, very much for this post. So needed. Thank you ❤️

I SO relate to this. Thank you for your transparency. 💞

Hello beautiful youtuber , always great to listen to you

I am so here for that work! umm are you in my brain?! 😂 As a partner this is exactly what my thoughts are! Yes, my love needs to apologize and i always forgive because i know it’s not his fault. Sometimes i forget to say it though.

Jesus girl I love you and so happy I found your channel, your videos are going to be very valuable to me and my partner ❤

This is a very good topic to discuss. I say that because I had a very negative experience with this topic. I had come to the point in my life that I felt “ok” saying out loud that I was sexually assaulted when I was very young. I told my husband at the time. I didn’t get into details or anything but I felt safe saying for the first time out loud (in my 30’s) for the first time that it happened. The only thing he said to me was… “I’m not qualified to handle this”. Needless to say that’s not what I thought I would hear and in a way I felt almost abused all over again. I didn’t need him to “fix” me I just wanted to be herd and validated. I guess what I wish he would have said was…”wow I’m really honored that you trust me enough and you feel comfortable with me enough to share that with me”. I was crushed. Things were never the same and I divorced him that year. The divorce wasn’t all about that but I feel like that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I just wanted to be herd.

I really, REALLY needed this video Jo, thank you so much.

I’m so glad you’re talking about this..My girlfriend always apologizes because she has emotional trauma that has things to do with her family, her and I chose each other and the fact that she’s desk with so much family issues she has broken up with me before even though she didn’t want to but now we’re back together but she’s still going through the trauma..It’s hard to see her like this and communicate with her without her possibly triggering her on something i might say that’ll offend her..Her and I both been through hella toxic relationships but they all never went as far as hers and I ever did. We did everything together and it’s hard to accept that she’s changing a little bit- mostly when it comes to texts but when it’s on call she’s like a whole new different persons..she has confess to me that she’s exhausted of trying to be “happy" but she tells me her true happiness is with me and I just- ooo..I tear up so badly of her having to deal with all this when I never want her to- like she deserves way more..

I really love your videos and your insights, thank you. I've been with a woman for seven months now who has a history of spousal/narcissistic abuse and found your channel after searching for a better understanding of how she operates..thank you for doing this and helping people to better understand all of these issues. This video especially touches on where she is mentally at the moment and it really resonates with me right now. It isnt easy going through this process but she's worth it..thank you again

Your videos have been really helpful. Thank you for making these.

Wow you have really hit a heart string! Thank you for letting me know I’m not alone in times like this.... it really helps!

So relatable thanks for posting 🙂

Thank you for your beautiful honestly and openness, Jo! I wonder if Brian would be willing to join you for a video on the flip side of this topic.. his experience supporting you as his partner, how he’s felt, and what he’s learned along the way. I’m in a similar relationship to you two (trying to do my best to support my partner). It’s hard watching the person you love be in pain, and I always find it so helpful to hear the experiences of other people/couples navigating through similar things. Love your videos❤️

I really enjoy ur videos they relate a lot my new relationship is going good I keep asking to b patient with me a few times he's so understanding he's showing me what truly is unconditional love

I didn't know you had the other channel Footless Jo, I was pleasantly surprised x) I usually just watch your videos here since I subscribed and never bothered to look deeper

Thank you so much ….I feel that kind of where I am at ..at the moment 💜

Thank You! Posting on Facebook!

This is really interesting to me because I've experienced that but not in the same way. It wasn't coming from self-hatred or guilt as much as an overwhelming awareness of how much I'd changed, and how I felt I wasn't fit for relationships anymore. Not because I didn't deserve one. Just because I wouldn't be who I wanted to be in it, if that makes sense.

Hi people. Hi Jo. Interesting fact: Right side of the Windows mouse cursor is parallel to the left side of big white triangle on the wall. On a more serious note: your videos about "this" topic are very important and helpful for many people. Even "normal" people like introverts can find something good in these videos, because we like to keep to ourselves which can cause some communication problems in relationships etc.

thank you so much for these videos

Thank you so much for this.

Wow I'm so glad I heard you say all of that.thank you. So validating to how I've felt pushing people away. I'd say am I talking too much? Bc I do talk a lot once I start. I've specifically been very confused and overwhelmed about who to talk to about this stuff and who not to. And felt betrayed by a lot of people that I did open up to that were just manipulating me to try and sleep with me or If it was a friend just for gossip or God knows why. But not nice not helpful not sincere . But I've been in healing now for so long and really want to start opening up to the right people. I had one friend care and listen and help so much really one person can make a world of difference in someone's life. It was like 1 point for honest people and 20 for the evil ones haha

Sometimes I'm like that with my friends or councillor or mental health support workers. I'm not in a relationship romantically. But other relationships are still as hard for me. Sometimes I don't feel worthy or why does anyone choose to still support me when I definitely make it hard at times. #instagram

This is exactly what I needed to hear This is me

Don't have much to say, but thank you Jo ♡

We ALL have baggage even normal People!!!

Great videos thanks for sharing

Thank you thank you thank you ❤❤❤

This is pretty much me right now. I was dating someone where I kept feeling like I wasn't good enough for them. But they were very clear with me that, that wasn't the case and they liked me for me. We ended up breaking up for reasons I won't go into. But I then ended up having a huge depressive/suicidal episode and I felt like there was no one else that I could talk to about it, so I called him for help. He did help me. But I realized afterwords that it wasn't fair to place the burden on him, after we had just broken up, to help me through this. Though maybe that's my depression talking again, I don't know. What I do know is I was starting to place too much of my self worth on our relationship, which wasn't healthy for either of us. I wouldn't trade my experiences with him for anything, but next time I hope to be able to handle a break-up in a healthier way.

I wasn’t sure I had relationship trauma until you said “my poor boyfriend had to be with me”. That sense of pity I felt for him. Considering after I cheated on him and he stayed with me despite that. At that time I hadn’t had sex with anyone, but I was deeply alone in a new state with no friends (by no means an excuse but it played apart). So when a guy wanted to hang out with me, I was all for it. However, he eventually confessed his feelings for me despite knowing I had a boyfriend, I assumed he would respect my relationship and I just wanted cuddles. He eventually started doing things I wasn’t comfortable with, and I went along with it cause I didn’t want to lose the one “friend” I had. When my boyfriend found out I threw up for a week, disgusted with myself, I couldn’t fathom why he’d stay with me. Needless to say I broke it off and made a different friend. But later that year when I got to see my boyfriend again I “traded my virginity” as a sense of commitment. It worked but in the back of my mind I was always making up for cheating and expecting him to take revenge if I ever crossed a line (he didn’t). But I hated myself for well over a year, and still believe I am unworthy of that grace whenever I see/ hear “cheaters always cheat” or stuff of that nature.

Thank you.

Never blame yourself for this

When you just look at the title and become a #nopebadger 😂

Hi Jo! Is there any way you can talk about the physical symptoms you felt post sexual trauma (if you had any), and what steps you took to overcome them when it comes to relationships? I'm currently in the process of healing from sexual trauma from years ago that I repressed and am realizing that every time a guy is interested in me (even if I'm not into them) or i'm having a crush on someone, I immediately feel waves of nausea. I'm currently going thru EMDR right now so I'm hopeful it will help since I'm not sure how I can proceed with dating if I feel like this all the time!

I would love for this to continue I want a relationship so much but no guys r interested and maybe at some point could you give advice about Intimacy for first time after trauma

Hello thank you for your video ,my question is it a good time to start conversation like this while she in PTSD isolation(isolate to close relationship)?

How to handle, manage and control situation where victim was abuse by close person. Can there be healing for a victim whose abuser is part of her family???

You know that saying "It's ok not to be ok"! Well, question... How long is it ok not to be ok???

My ex and I took space and she has had trauma in her past . She said she wants space I’m giving it to her but I’ve told her i don’t care she’s the only one I want and she’s always saying . I don’t think you should be with me . I’m not sure how to break that wall she has but what’s worse she’s a physicists I always get that questioning part back .. I’m stumped .. how can I give her what she needs and be there and she’s pushing me .. idk how to do or handle this .

I really need your help, How can I contact you guys?

❤️

Can you call the girl that just dumped me a week ago and tell her all this on the phone maybe?

I'm wondering if this stuff is easier for women than men. Lets say trauma is the same, w/same effect. Ppl look weak. Now, perhaps it is more accepted for being weak while woman, than while being a man?

Love to have you on our show!!! Spiritualrevolutionradio.com

❤