Abuse

I snapped this photo this morning. After cleaning out the birdhouse from the last bird family, this daddy bluebird started preparing it for his own family. I love how he takes the lead and works so hard to make it comfy and perfect. It’s instinct. Did you know bluebird daddies will even take over feedings? And both parents take care of the babies for 2-3 weeks after they leave the nest.

I got to thinking about my own parents. Many here know I grew up with abuse. And I found out just last August that the one who I thought was my dad wasn’t. I grew up without nurturing. It’s taken a lot of therapy to come to terms with it all. I missed out on so much. I grieve my past sometimes. I see children (and adults) with caring, loving parents and wish those moms and dads were mine.

I was hoping you all might have some family memories you would be willing to share here. Were you close to your parents? Are you still? What do you miss about being a child?

I want you to know how thankful I am for each of you who had positive experiences growing up. I am so grateful for that! And if, like me, it wasn’t positive, I’m truly sorry. Know that I care. I get it. I do. I feel blessed to have this safe place to care and share. 🫶🏻

Trusting other people can feel terrifying.

But trusting yourself after you’ve doubted your own thoughts, emotions, choices, or worth? That can feel almost impossible.

For many individuals living with trauma histories, addiction, or borderline personality disorder (BPD), the deepest rupture is internal. Somewhere along the way, we stopped believing ourselves.

When Self-Trust Breaks

Self-trust erodes slowly:

*When your feelings were dismissed.

*When you were told you were “too sensitive.”

*When trauma distorted your sense of safety.

*When addiction led you to act against your values.

*When intense emotions made you question your reality.

Individuals living with Borderline Personality Disorder often experience emotional dysregulation, identity disturbance, and fear of abandonment (American Psychiatric Association, 2022). Emotional states can feel absolute and overwhelming, which contributes to chronic self-doubt.

Over time, the internal narrative becomes:

“I can’t trust myself.”

Trauma Changes the Brain — Not Your Worth

Chronic trauma affects neurobiological functioning. Research shows:

*Increased amygdala activation (heightened threat perception).

*Reduced prefrontal cortex regulation under stress.

*Alterations in stress-response systems (HPA axis dysregulation).

These findings are well documented in trauma research (Shin et al., 2006; Teicher & Samson, 2016).

This is not weakness. It is adaptation.

The hopeful reality is neuroplasticity — the brain’s capacity to reorganize and form new neural pathways through repeated regulation and therapeutic intervention (Doidge, 2007).

Addiction and the Collapse of Self-Trust

Addiction compounds the rupture.

Substance use disorders are classified as chronic, relapsing medical conditions that alter reward circuitry, impulse control, and executive functioning (American Psychiatric Association, 2022). According to Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, addiction impacts the brain’s dopamine system and decision-making processes, making relapse a neurological vulnerability — not a moral failure.

Each broken promise can erode internal credibility.

Rebuilding self-trust requires starting small and creating consistent behavioral evidence of change.

What Rebuilding Self-Trust Actually Looks Like

1. Regulate Before You Decide
Emotional regulation is foundational. Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), developed by Marsha Linehan, emphasizes distress tolerance and emotion regulation skills as primary interventions for BPD (Linehan, 2015).

Regulation strategies may include:

*Diaphragmatic breathing

*Grounding exercises

*Sensory modulation

*Brief physical movement

Decisions made from regulation are more reliable than those made during emotional flooding.

2. Keep Micro-Promises
Behavioral consistency restores internal reliability.

Research in behavioral psychology supports the concept that repeated small successes increase self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997). When you keep small commitments, you accumulate evidence that you are dependable — especially to yourself.

3. Separate Feelings from Facts
Cognitive distortions — such as emotional reasoning and catastrophizing — are common in trauma and BPD presentations (Beck, 2011).

Feeling: “He hasn’t texted. I’m unlovable.”

Fact: “He hasn’t responded yet.”

Cognitive restructuring is a core component of evidence-based therapies including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and DBT (Beck, 2011).

4. Understand Shame’s Role
Shame significantly predicts relapse, depression severity, and self-harming behaviors (Tangney & Dearing, 2002).

The Canadian Mental Health Association highlights that stigma and internalized shame worsen recovery outcomes.

Self-compassion interventions have been shown to improve emotional resilience and decrease self-criticism (Neff, 2011).

Replacing “I’m crazy” with “I’m dysregulated” is not semantics — it is neurocognitive reframing.

Implications for Child Welfare and Clinical Practice

Attachment disruption in early childhood significantly affects emotional regulation capacity and identity formation (Bowlby, 1988; Teicher & Samson, 2016).

Within child welfare systems, individuals often internalize labels such as “non-compliant” or “resistant.” Trauma-informed care frameworks emphasize understanding behavior as adaptation rather than defiance (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA], 2014).

Restoring autonomy and internal safety must be prioritized if we want sustainable recovery and relational stability.

A Personal Reflection

There was a time I did not trust my thoughts, my decisions, or my emotional reactions.

Recovery taught me something clinical — and deeply human:
Emotional intensity is not pathology by itself. Dysregulation without skills is.

Now, when I feel activated, I pause. I regulate. I gather data. I respond rather than react.

That pause is self-trust rebuilding in real time.

Conclusion

Trusting yourself again does not mean you will never struggle.

It means:

*You regulate before reacting.

*You keep small promises.

*You challenge distortions.

*You replace shame with informed language.

*Self-trust is not perfection.
It is repair.

And repair is evidence of growth.

BigmommaJ
#trustyourself #Selflove #MentalHealth

Sometimes words are hard.

Child welfare systems exist to protect children from harm. Yet for many children and families, involvement with these systems becomes another layer of trauma rather than a pathway to safety and healing. This paradox is not the result of individual failure—it is the result of systems responding to trauma without being designed to understand it.

Trauma-informed care is not an enhancement to child welfare practice. It is a foundational requirement for ethical, effective, and humane intervention.

Child Welfare Is Inherently Trauma-Exposed

The overwhelming majority of children and families involved in child welfare have experienced multiple, chronic adversities long before a report is ever made. These experiences often include:

*Physical, emotional, or sexual abuse

*Chronic neglect

*Exposure to domestic violence

*Parental substance use and untreated mental illness

*Poverty and housing instability

*Systemic racism and discrimination

*Intergenerational and historical trauma

*Separation from caregivers, siblings, culture, and community

Research consistently demonstrates that child welfare–involved populations have significantly higher Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) scores than the general population, placing them at increased risk for lifelong physical, emotional, and relational difficulties (Felitti et al., 1998; Anda et al., 2006).

Without a trauma-informed framework, child welfare systems risk responding to trauma symptoms as behavioural problems, rather than as adaptive survival responses.

Trauma Shapes Behaviour, Not Morality

Trauma alters neurodevelopment, particularly when experienced in early childhood. It impacts:

*Emotional regulation

*Stress response systems

*Attachment and trust

*Impulse control

*Cognitive processing

*Sense of safety

In child welfare contexts, these trauma responses are frequently misinterpreted as:

*Defiance

*Aggression

*Manipulation

*Non-compliance

*“Lack of insight” or “poor motivation”

A trauma-informed lens reframes the central question from:

“What’s wrong with this child or parent?”

To

“What happened to them, and what do they need to feel safe enough to change?”

This shift is not semantic—it fundamentally alters assessment, intervention, and outcomes.

System Involvement Can Re-Traumatize

Even when removal is necessary for safety, child welfare involvement is itself a potentially traumatic experience. Children often experience:

*Abrupt separation from caregivers

*Loss of routine, identity, and belonging

*Placement instability

*Repeated retelling of traumatic experiences

*Lack of voice or agency in decisions affecting their lives
Parents experience:

*Shame, fear, and grief

*Loss of autonomy and parental identity

*Heightened surveillance

*Re-activation of their own unresolved trauma

Without trauma-informed care, standard child welfare practices—court processes, compliance-based case plans, rigid timelines—can unintentionally replicate dynamics of powerlessness and control, undermining engagement and long-term safety.

Trauma-Informed Care Improves Outcomes

Evidence-informed trauma-responsive child welfare systems demonstrate:

*Greater placement stability

*Improved caregiver-child relationships

*Increased family engagement
Higher rates of successful reunification

*Reduced use of punitive or coercive practices

*Improved permanency outcomes

Trauma-informed care recognizes that regulation precedes reasoning. When people feel safe, they are neurologically capable of learning, reflecting, and changing.

Fear-based compliance may satisfy short-term system goals—but it does not create sustainable safety.

Reflection: A Child Welfare Lens

As a child welfare professional, I have seen how easily trauma is mislabeled as resistance—and how devastating that misinterpretation can be.

I have watched children punished for behaviours that were, in truth, survival strategies learned in unsafe environments. I have seen parents deemed “uncooperative” when their nervous systems were locked in fight, flight, or freeze. I have witnessed systems demand emotional regulation, insight, and compliance from people who had never been offered safety, consistency, or trust.

Trauma-informed care challenges us—not just to change how we intervene, but to examine how power is exercised within systems.

*It asks us to slow down in systems designed for speed.

*To listen in systems designed for documentation.

*To see humanity in systems trained to assess risk.

Child welfare does not operate in a vacuum. Many families enter the system already failed by mental health services, addiction supports, housing systems, education, and healthcare. By the time child welfare intervenes, the harm is rarely new—it is cumulative.

If we do not practice trauma-informed care, we become another chapter in that harm.

Trauma-Informed Care Is Also a Workforce Issue

Child welfare professionals are exposed daily to secondary trauma. Without organizational trauma-informed practice, workers experience:

*Compassion fatigue

*Burnout

*Emotional numbing

*High turnover

*Reduced decision-making capacity

A trauma-informed system must support reflective supervision, manageable caseloads, and psychological safety for staff. A dysregulated workforce cannot effectively serve dysregulated families.

Equity, Culture, and Historical Trauma

In Canada, Indigenous, Black, and racialized families are vastly overrepresented in child welfare systems. This reality cannot be separated from:

*Colonization and residential schools

*Forced child removals (e.g., the Sixties Scoop)

*Systemic racism

*Intergenerational trauma

Trauma-informed care, when paired with cultural humility and anti-oppressive practice, is essential to preventing the repetition of historical harm under modern policy frameworks.

Without this lens, child welfare risks perpetuating the very injustices it claims to address.

Call to Action

Trauma-informed care must be embedded at every level of child welfare:

*Legislation and policy

*Intake and investigation

*Court processes

*Placement decisions

*Case planning and timelines

*Permanency planning

Workforce development
Children and families do not come to child welfare because they failed.

They come because systems failed them first.

If child welfare is truly about protection, then trauma-informed care is not optional—it is an ethical obligation.

BigmommaJ
#traumainformedcare #MentalHealth #Recovery