complex ptsd (cptsd) and why we isolate: 9 reasons (2024)

[Music] welcome today's video is all about isolation and really my goal in this video is to talk about isolating through the lens of not pathologizing and shaming people who are highly sensitive who have trauma who are depressed who may be neurod Divergent for all the different reasons we might isolate we're going to talk about those and destigmatize but also identify what is the difference between the art of isolating and a a beautiful day of self-care that looks like bed rotting or girl rotting as I'll be talking about in my new podcast or is it actually

depression and something like functional freeze I'm a licensed psychologist so I hope to see you through the rest of this video and at the end if you were on my channel this morning I'm going to explain to you a little blip that happened that uh basically changed the video I posted today I always meant to post this video today but unfortunately a video I loaded up and had not been ready to post because I messed up on the timestamp in terms of the scheduling popped up and it turns out that the sound quality was nowhere

near where I needed it to be so I'll be res sharing and remaking I guess I should say that video at another time anyway let's get into it I'm so glad you're here I made a video a couple years ago it's actually my most viewed video on complex trauma and why we isolate and as I've said before when I learn new things and research and just expand my understanding of human beings I always want to share those things with you and at the same time as someone who has been a big time isolator for many

reasons throughout the course of my life many of which I'm just now really understanding I'm tired of it being pathologized and shamed and yet I understand as the clinic that there can be a fine line between something like bed rotting and something like depression so that is what I wanted to share the first thing I want to say is that the reason why people I believe whether you are sensitive traumatized neurod Divergent all of the above is that people are the trigger people are often the source of the wound of the overstimulation of the reasons

for why we might choose to isolate alongside something like the way our own brains take in the world or in many cases take in everything in the world and why something like isolating might be helpful so number one though if we're going to talk about this layer between trauma and childhood and relationships and something like neurod Divergence is that many people isolate at kind of the very just classic core Baseline dynamic they are what we call AUD Auto Regulators they are self soothers and many of us learn to do this in childhood because of things

like childhood emotional neglect lacking anyone to really be there for you physical neglect in essence we've learned to take care of our own needs and often times when we feel really emotional whether or not we can tap into why or what's happening the safest thing for us in childhood was something like being alone in our rooms I've talked about playing music albums on my blue carpeted floor in the 80s for you know for hours every day and even when I could be with my parents as an only child I spent a lot of time alone

it turns out that it maybe it wasn't just my being an only child like I used to think that perhaps there's something inherently safe about being alone and so for many of us the core piece looks like something like a trait or dynamic of avoidant attachment where we have learned to to really be hyper independent and to take care of our own needs and as I just said earlier because human beings and the environment might be triggering caring for ourselves alone might be our go-to number two alongside that can be something like disorganized attachment and

remember that's the fourth style the often less talked about style but in my experience many traumatized people from the high end to the low end of big tea and little tea trauma often find that they have a mix of both anxious and avoidant qualities in relationships so perhaps you might be really anxious and and be socially motivated but also when you become overwhelmed when you feel vulnerable that more avoidant self-isolating side or when you're feeling very wounded as a result of being anxious and maybe not receiving uh reciprocity in a relationship and you just feel

really shattered inside that of void part can make us want to be alone number three these are all connected of course but being an introvert getting your energy literally from being alone you're resourcing when the world feels rich and quiet and peaceful and exciting and that is how you regenerate and alongside that you might also be which I know there's a lot of discussion around HSP and autism but regardless of that we do know that we many of us come out of the womb both animals and humans with a more sensitive temperament sensitive temperament to

the world to people to stimulation to everything to violence whatever it is and so for those reasons we might find that being alone feels really good number four being easily triggered easily wounded and clearly traumatized especially if you're walking around with a lot of unprocessed unhealed trauma if you don't have necessarily access to skills and tools like nervous system regulation DBT we're going to talk I'm going to share some books at the end of this that I love that are filled with skills and tools you can use but it may be that your your skin

is so thin in terms of wound that everything feels you know you're easily uh wounded in the sense that you feel easily rejected and we'll talk in a minute about hypervigilance but how all of that is connected so let's do that actually so when you are living in a state of hyper vigilance an activated state of fight or flight you're often living in a state of detect and respond detect and respond what does that mean that means that if you learned in childhood for any reason that it was important to pay attention extreme attention not

just your you know typical attention to the mood and mind of your caregivers because their mood and mind determine the temperature of your home the emotional safety whatever it was you've learned to read people their voice their tone of voice their body language their eye contact how they engage in the world and it's usually it comes when that when that happens in repeated trauma big tea or little te you've learned that you need to do something after you detect detect and respond you need to isolate you need to avoid conflict you need to uh disengage

you need to hide whatever it is you need to people please or Fawn you might go into a freeze State whatever it is that walking on eggshells fight ORF flight lives in your body and it's not just percep percep it's not just perceiving people it's often being highly sensitive and highly responsive to be whatever version small compliant easy whatever that will quickly give you peace it's like an Outsourcing I'm only good if you're good we we all know that's not a great way to go through life but so for so many of us including myself

I up until I learned about hypervigilance in this last decade and really trauma that's what I thought good wives and good Mothers did they overly paid attention to everything and everyone and sacrifice their minds and bodies and cells in the process the next one is you are depressed and we'll talk about depression and this kind of newer topic often in social media called functional freeze but this idea that you truly are disengaged lacking energy hopeless not feeling well not motivated suffering in some way way and so that is why you're isolating number seven is part

of that classic complex trauma piece of the inner and outer critic I'm not good enough and so you won't accept me so I'll stay home alone or do my own thing and also perhaps the outer critic and you're not good enough either so no one is good no one is safe and so I keep myself removed because it's just too much to risk that internal and external criticism that I have to contend with if I go out in the world or or engage with others number eight is the world and people Society are not safe

so it's like a baseline of anxiety living in the US there are many reasons for many different parts of our good and bad sides I suppose to to fear things that we contend with here so it could be actual physical danger and violence it could be that just the idea of putting yourself in front of people is overwhelming and stressful and so or it's very anxiety-provoking but it feels very dangerous and remember going back to hypervigilance fear is that piece repeated fear but in chronic hypervigilance even though we think fear is there and we're always

looking for it when it becomes chronic often we detect fear but the actual danger is low but our bodies and Minds don't actually know that and the last one is being neurod Divergent traumatized autistic having ADHD any form of sort of the way your brain engages in the world in which people are unsafe the environment is overwhelming overstimulating or even if you're highly socially motivated and autistic for example it just takes a lot of resource out of you your window of Tolerance shrinks and so you need a lot of recovery time and so that is

why you isolate so at the core there can be lots of reasons why we might remove ourselves and as you could tell from this list they're not they might sound bad they're not necessarily bad to me when it's used well something like isolating or bed rotting can be a a form of self-care a form of reparenting and giving ourselves safety in ways we didn't have before a sense of control all of that and joy and we'll get to that but it might not be so what is the difference between something like self-care rotting bed rotting

this is the worst term but it is just where we are in social media right now and depression so it's important to keep in mind that rotting or self-care in this idea is like for example a classic especially if you're not on Tik Tok or Instagram you might be like what is this popsy term it's this idea that like on a Sunday you get all your soft blankets you have your snacks and your your dogs and your cats or whatever you have and you watch movies and you make yummy food or eat junky food and

you give yourself a treat and have yummy things to drink I'm not talking about like substance drinks I'm talking about teas or whatever it is so you might set your my lovely daughter is at work and texting me hold please turn that off sorry and no she doesn't need me for those of you who have triggers she's working at a at a restaurant and just sending me commentary which is super cute um okay so the idea though is that with rotting you are giving your nervous system a break you're isolating yourself to have a day

or an evening of something that feels really good to you and for many of us and I will say now with menopause and and chronic illness and working so much because we live in such hustle culture for all of us it can be that we are depleted we don't we have so much we're supposed to do and we're overwhelmed and so getting in my bed for example after a workday when I'm not sleepy taking a bath getting in my jammies that I you know love and watching my favorite shows or binge watching is with a

big thing of water right and a girl maybe it's a girl dinner maybe I just had dinner the point is it feels feel very safe and relaxing there is nothing else I'd rather be doing I'm not avoiding the world I'm not longing for things for many people we can long for connection and we can be lonely and this can also be why we're doing it but we don't know how to make friends and I think it gets really hard to make friends as you get older and it's as a quick aside I think many of

us with autism with all the things that are part of our story and lives plus trauma it can be really hard to make friends to you know even just where do you find friends and we'll talk about that a little bit at the end too so there can be some you know avoidance happening there but when we're talking about it like I'm saying in a positive way it's this idea of giving yourself a break but if you want to do more and socialize more and all you're doing is isolating that is different than selecting a

day or evening a week or evenings right or a few hours to care for yourself so the difference is in depression we're looking at things like potentially lack of motivation hopelessness fatigue lack of connection feelings of tearfulness and sadness could be anger also anxiety feeling worthless and alone in the world recurrent thoughts of not being here certainly physical Dynamics backaches and headaches and chronic pain in your body sleep disturbances which is a huge part of it which if rotting is interfering with can be a problem and we'll talk about that reduced and or increased appetite

feeling like you just don't find joy in in activities and the only thing you do enjoy is being alone in your bed and that can be for many reasons and so we want to look at that not being able to concentrate or make decisions so if you understand what I'm saying like you're avoiding exercise you're avoiding self-care not because you just want to because you're unable to in some way that can be part of depression really this idea of a functional freeze state where we're really just in and we're not engaging in the world and

we're using isolation as a coping mechanism and it might be better than other bad mechanisms that we could be using but really the the key here is that we're incapable of doing other things in many regards we're unable and we're using this shutdown isolation freeze position as a way to cope quick reminder in terms of freeze when we're talking about something like fight or flight and we're looking at the autonomic nervous system in terms of poly vagal Theory I thought I'd share this is just a great chart if you're a therapist this poly Bagel uh

flip chart but the idea is that we are living in our bodies in a way where we are really shut down in terms of our our nervous system and so in that parasympathetic state of ventral vagel we're connected we're engaged in the sympathetic we're in a mobilized state that's that more fight ORF flight but in a parasympathetic dorsal vagal like a depression a freeze State we really are often conserving energy and resources and shutting down and we're not really able to engage in the world the way we want to and so that is different than

saying I need a day a Sunday or a Saturday or after work I need downtime I need to watch my favorite shows on Netflix or Hulu and have my snacks or I don't feel well in my body I have a chronic illness and I've used up using spoons Theory which came out of the chronic illness community and later became part of the autistic Community L language and lingo is that we have only so many spoons per day and for many of us you know the first part of the day could be using up the bulk

of our spoons AKA are resources and so it really is an individualized caseby casee Dynamic and so it's important to look at so if you are saying okay I feel like I'm depressed please consider reaching out for help through therapists you know networking family friends your doctor whatever it takes to get the help that you need and if you are trying to understand well is rotting you know what is the what is what are the benefits of rotting it should be things like feeling like it's joyful you feel rested you feel uh like it's intentional

it's a reset in some way it might be a place for you to feel just peace it might be a way when you isolate to just really dive into your whatever your special interests are from tinkering in the garage to reading or books or podcasts building creating knitting learning whatever it is that you know when you watch and B shows it feels like there's some joy in that or maybe you needed to cry and that feels cathartic that you feel like it helps with your overstimulation from the world and that it isn't your only coping

mechanism it feels special in some way or meaningful and if you have other mental health issues trauma depression anxiety that are significant and you have no other sources of support or help this can't be your only coping skill theoretically I mean it can be but you might not be able to make progress and move through those issues if you'd like to if you're just sort of sort of really shutting down and isolating as opposed to using it as one of the tools in your sort of art of isolation toolbox so if you are shut down

though let's talk about that really quickly doing things like going for a walk let's say you're like no I am rotting but I'm rotting too much going for a walk in a blue or green environment outside if you can and it's safe certainly just exercise and cardio I know you hear it all of the time but it is profound the impact of something like sleep and exercise and self-care around food even just literally putting your shoes on and walking on a treadmill or your house it doesn't have to be anything crazy I keep saying it

but I heard this doctor say if walking was a pill it would be the most successful drug in history in terms of helping people with a myriad of issues and so that's important seeking out social groups volunteering somewhere putting yourself in the way of likeminded people that you think you might connect with and even if you don't a cooking class a political volunteering thing uh a I saw one for parents of lgbtq kids right whatever it is where you feel like no matter what I'm going to get something out of this and best case scenario

I'm going to put myself in the way of meeting likeminded humans taking baby steps is really important I think we often get these massive ideas about things I do this I get really excited and I need to like slow down and Pace myself and the last thing I'll say is this is true for me too that you know building friendship is also important but friendships even when they're wonderful if you have a depleted nervous system if you're Autistic or ADHD perhaps or you just your life is really filled that you can long for that but

also be overwhelmed and so you know in some phases in life we might want to retreat a bit but if you're really missing out and want those things it's important to lean in and try to find ways to add that so that friendship becomes a tool just like girl rotting bed rotting human rotting in some way or or you know just seeing it as a self-care tool alongside connection because we do know that depression love disconnection and isolation and we do need connection as human beings and so there's a fine line but I think it's

important to identify there can be differences and to not just pathologize something and say that's bad and add more shame I don't want to feel bad about the fact that in the evening I get in my bed and I feel really happy when I do it I spend my day talking to people and working like I'm working my life but for me there's a sense of peace and watching my shows or reading a good book and snuggling with Coco never hurts right or my my puppies so I hope the same is true for you and

then I hope you found this helpful in a way that truly validates why you isolate and then we can all start to maybe rethink and reframe how we understand that being alone isn't always a bad thing says the person who just got back from a trip alone right so not saying I wouldn't like to build friendships to travel with at some point too but I'm not going to let it hold me back from living the life life that I want and I hope that you won't either so thank you for being here please stay safe

and well please know that wherever you are it is valid and Justified that I know you're doing your best most of us truly truly are the last thing I'll say is as I mentioned the beginning of the P of this show I had been working on some podcasts using some software and when I was editing it it sounded fine I loaded it to YouTube I was working all day yesterday trying to get things going for the future and I woke up and a video had been I think released around midnight and for many reasons that

was not what I was ready for I debated leaving it up and then I all realized that the sound was not great and so I'm not going to post a podcast on something like tell me lies which I love on Hulu it's so great to break down things like narcissism and borderline from the Comforts of my rotting my bed my sofa I run a really just I wanted to share these new topics with you pop culture and psychology and research not just this like clinical version of me but also to just I love to break

down and use psychology topics to understand characters and shows and things like that so I also have an interview with Nicole from Love is Blind UK which I did a few weeks ago and I was just trying to look at the sound on that I think it's a bit better because it's it's it's like close to the mic but I'll be sharing that with you too soon and hopefully a whole new series of things I will keep sharing these main you know main videos on these very clinical topics but also I'd like to bring you

into my other little passions and if you can join me there I'd love to see you there so thank you so much have a beautiful day please take really good care of yourselves big breaths slow deep breaths oh and I forgot I forgot forgot forgot if you want to do some work on your nervous system on DBT skills and sematic therapy all of which can help things like functional freeze and autism and Trauma this is a great book called poly vagal exercise for safety and connection I love this book which I know I've made videos

on before you can see I've got it marked the dialectical behavior therapy skills workbook excellent things on distress tolerance mindfulness emotion regulation skills and lastly this book which is a big one the sematic Psychotherapy toolbox worksheets and exercises to treat trauma and stress some of these are sort of therapist Focus but I think you can I honestly think so many you are so well-versed in the psychology universe that you'd be able to find many of those helpful as long as you feel safe in your body to do so if you're not sure reach out for

help first before you engage in any of those exercises and tools as all of the books suggest and as I will always remind you okay that's it thanks so much have a beautiful day I'll see you soon bye [Music]