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How Your Deep Feelings of Worthlessness Are Formed in CPTSD
Feeling the weight of invalidation from complex trauma.
Trigger Warning: The following content includes personal experiences and discussions around difficult topics such as trauma, emotional challenges, childhood maltreatment, or abusive relationships. While my intent is to educate and share personal insights, some readers may find certain content emotionally distressing. This article is for informational purposes only.
It can be difficult to explain to someone asking what toxic shame and worthlessness feel like. Sure, as an experienced doctor of psychology and seasoned complex trauma recovery specialist, I can quantify the terms into “simple” observable behaviors such as how often a person may withdraw from social situation or in what contexts a person deflects a compliment or minimizes their accomplishments as merely luck.
Are these behaviors associated with feeling toxic shame or worthlessness? Sure, they can be. Can they be associated with something else such as severe depression or social anxiety? Sure, they can be.
Yet, when these kinds of behaviors are paired with personal experiences of chronic abuse, neglect, invalidation, parentification, or unpredictability — the end result is often feeling that you are unworthy of…
