How to trust your intuition as a CPTSD and Childhood Trauma Survivor

Have you ever felt like you were stepping into a situation that you knew just felt wrong, and you did it anyway? You know the feeling when you measure the environment you are in and then ask yourself, should I be here right now? Or have you met someone and just knew deep down that this person was not a person that you should be around? That is your intuition, your gut. 

We learn not to listen to our gut feeling and avoid following our intuition in childhood. Often, simple curiosity can lead to devastating consequences. We have been molded as trauma survivors to stuff curiosity or interest down so that we cannot reach it to maintain the status quo and ensure our survivability. The problem with this is that when we appease going with the flow or doing 'it' because we feel obligated, we are only causing further harm to ourselves and others. And this stems from a place of embedded fear of repercussion. It is reasonable to understand that through our experience that our intuition may be wrong.

However, I would argue that our intuition is the most intelligent and absolute measure of truth that we have access to. The issue isn't is our intuition leading us down the wrong path? We don't know how to trust our intuition because we believe it has only put us in danger. The truth that took me a lifetime to come to terms with is that my gut is never wrong. How do I know that? It's pretty simple yet incredibly complex.

I was sitting in my therapist's office four years ago. I told him about these often occasions in which my step-father would come home and how immediately I would get that sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach. In telling this story, it dawned on me that this sensation was the same that I felt when speaking in public or talking to attractive people. There's a fine line between love and nausea - one of my favorite quotes from Coming to America. And as I sat speaking with him and having this moment of clarity, it dawned on me that my gut was warning me of something, but I had not yet attached a meaning to the message. 

In the scenario in which my step-father was coming home, the meaning of my gut reaction was that I was in danger, and my body was queuing my fight or flight response via my sympathetic Nervous System. The signals transmitting to my brain were telling me that I needed to run and hide and that something terrible would happen. How did my gut know to tell my mind that? I'm no scientist, but when you look at some research segments, there is a clear indication that our guts may be as intelligent if not more intelligent than our brains. 

As time went on, my brain registered that my gut feeling was meant to be ignored as each time I moved towards things that I wanted or needed as an abused child, I would suffer. It was easier to stay in line with what others wanted or needed from me or put myself in harm's way not to upset the flow. Ignoring my gut would become a catalyst for many scenarios I found myself in that could have been avoided. But why? Why do we ignore that sensation built within us as a mechanism for survival since the dawn of time? Because we have discovered from learned experience that we are not allowed to show up for ourselves without enormous consequences. 

So, how do you start to trust your instincts as a childhood trauma survivor?

This is a question that you should be asking yourself daily because the answer is the key to what is next in your life, not only in discovery but in accepting that you have control over the person you want to be. To satiate others' desires due to fear based on past experiences is reasonable until you decide that that statement should no longer hold. You are stepping into owning the part of yourself that vias for safety. To be seen starts with accepting that you are allowed to have agency in your life. Having agency in your life means listening to your intuition and following through with your personal boundaries to ensure that you are protecting yourself.

Stepping into the place of accepting that you can measure your environment and own your boundaries while taking heed of your intuition will take time. The word patience often comes up as this process, like many in trauma recovery, takes time. 

I thought about what it was like in the moments leading up to me finally listening to my intuition and letting it guide me from an evidence-based perspective, and this what it looks like:

Should I allow my intuition to guide me as a CPTSD survivor?

The process of listening to yourself starts with PAUSING and making an educated decision on a few things before acting. Let's measure by asking ourselves these questions:

Is the environment I am safe and supportive of me?

1. By stepping into this scenario, will I or anyone around me be in danger?

2. Am I with a person/people who are/is trustworthy?

3. Am I familiar with the surroundings of where I am/am going to be?

4. Who am I acting on behalf of? Am I doing this for me or someone else out of obligation?

5. What is the possible outcome of this action?

6. What will happen to me if I don't do this?

At a baseline, I have discovered that we know inherently what we should or should not be doing. By evaluating our potential outcomes, we can prove if our hypothesis is accurate, i.e., if I do this, that will happen. By asking ourselves these questions, we can create a baseline of understanding that will better inform our decision to either move forward or remove ourselves from the scenario. As you are making your decision, you will have to be willing to hold yourself accountable to the personal boundaries that you have in place because we know from experience that people will always try to pull us back in to place that we KNOW we should not be.

I encourage you to be patient with yourself as you rediscover listening to your intuition and to respect your boundaries in the process. This journey is delicate, and in time the steps and actions you take now will craft the person you are becoming, this if anything is reassuring. I know first hand that trusting yourself can be terrifying, but let me leave you with this:

"I believe in intuition and inspiration...at times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason."

-Albert Einstein

Until next time my friend…

Be Unbroken,

-Michael