The Crappy Childhood Fairy Podcast with Anna Runkle

Limerence is a weapons-grade obsession with other people you can’t actually be with. It blocks you from real love, and holds onto you like an addiction. People say limerence is a projection of who YOU really are, or a projection of the divine – but sometimes I think that toxic cloud of limerence might be generated by the ABSENCE left by your parents’ failure to truly see or love you. In this video...

Many of you have been telling me you’re struggling with a feeling of emptiness right now, especially during the holidays. One person described it as a mix of sadness and "What's the point?" Maybe you're feeling depressed or lost, or as if things have gotten so bad that there just isn't any good in the world anymore. But there is good. It's all around us, even in the darkest moments, and I'll show...

This is one of the WORST aspects of living with the effects of early trauma: You keep losing friends, but you don’t know why. If you were abused or neglected in childhood, I can almost guarantee you’ve had more than your share of ruined friendships. That’s what trauma in childhood so often does to us, long term it injures our ability to connect with other people -- for several reasons. You’ve prob...

Abuse and neglect in childhood can leave you with the conviction that everywhere you go, YOU are responsible for everyone’s feelings. If your family is miserable, you spend all YOUR energy trying to make them happy. If they’re angry, you try to help them see the bright side of things. If they start fighting with each other, you ruin your own peace by trying to be a peacemaker for people who don't...

Almost everyone who writes to me here at Crappy Childhood Fairy was not SEEN or UNDERSTOOD by the people who raised them. Whether it was neglect or addiction or mental illness or death, that loss of the attention you needed, in order to have a center, to know who you even are – can create years and even decades of empty relationships and a painful quest for real love – even as you block that from...

You can SET boundaries. But You can't make people respect them. Shocking, right? We’ve all tried to make other people be who we want them to be but if the other person is not inclined, it’s exhausting to try to make them comply. Some people are aligned with us and they’re going to cooperate with us anyway. It’s the ones who are not aligned with us, where everything gets jammed up. Because these pe...

Neglect by a parent (or the loss of them) can leave an emotional wound on a child that affects them all their lives. How many times have you fallen for someone, only to find that you weren’t valued, your existence was kept secret from someone's "real" partner, relegating you to the status of "side chick?" The consequences of this pattern don’t just draw you to the wrong person; the pattern leads t...

The first months of a romantic relationship can feel like there’s a sweetness that moves through everything in your life.. like all your problems have been solved -- especially when you’ve been alone a long time. But soon, things aren't so perfect, and each person's flaws are revealed. This is when you need to know the signs of whether someone is truly a good match, and if both of you are ready fo...

Past trauma is almost always a factor among people who find themselves in the s*x industry; in recovery, many people leave this line of work and start their lives fresh. But what happens when it's time to date? In this video, I respond to a letter from a former stripper who would like to form a relationship with a good man, but worries that telling him too early -- or not at all -- could end up sa...

Most experts don't talk about this, but there's a very real phenomenon in the world that is commonly known as Evil. And while it's not scientific, it's recognized in all peoples, all countries, across history. It's metaphysical, but shows up tangibly in the form of abuse and neglect of children. We don't want to risk passing on the evil that was done to us: In this video, I share with you one of m...

It’s common in our culture for people to sleep together almost as soon as they meet. And people act like that’s fun and easy, and only foolish people can’t handle it, or think it should be avoided, in favor of something better. So for people who grew up neglected and abused, there’s a contradiction – their attachment wound is crying for someone to love them and STAY and not leave, but the culture...

Children are brilliant at rationalizing how a parent could simultaneously LOVE them, but also hurt, punish and abandon them. As children we had to make it all fit in our minds but if you’re STILL doing this as an adult – and a lot of us get stuck in that pattern – you may have gotten stuck in "cognitive dissonance. "That’s the psychology term for the mental disturbance and stress you feel when you...

A huge problem for many of us with CPTSD (definitely for me) is that we end up with too many MEAN people in our lives. These can be friends, relatives, co-workers, relatives, neighbors, bosses and partners. They criticize you, they ridicule you, they ostracize you, underestimate you and they say terrible things about you that turn people against you. It may feel like you have no control over how y...

There’s this trauma-driven behavior where you go through life without ever quite investing in permanent or even long-term things -- relationships, jobs, groups you belong to and even your own home may all feel like a stepping stone, a rest stop – a temporary thing. And a lot of us who lived through abuse and neglect in childhood have been walking around like this, thinking it was a personal failur...

Growing up in a chaotic and dysfunctional family can leave you with a wounded ability to connect. And while some traumatized people respond to things that trigger connection wounds by clinging to relationships, you might respond by running away. This is AVOIDANCE. And If you've ever fled from a partner, or a friend or family member who cared about you, you know how painful this is -- how intense t...

It’s a no brainer to stay away from people who have betrayed you and drained you of the love you used to feel. But sometimes, there are reasons why you might think twice about returning to someone who’s decidedly NOT the love of your life. In this video, I respond to a letter from a woman who thinks it may be time to settle down with an ex who mistreated her. 16 CPTSD Behaviors That Sabotage Your...

You might THINK you are ready for real love but if you’re pouring ALL your emotional and romantic energy into someone who is stringing you along, not available, and has been clear they DON’T want a relationship, it’s time to wake up. My letter today is from a woman who is aputting a giant wall between herself and the possibility of love. How to Tell if Someone is Partner Material? : FREE PDF Downl...

“Productivity Crash” is a term I made up for a phenomenon I see over and over again, where those of us who lived through trauma as children demonstrate a capacity for huge accomplishments -- but then they're followed by collapses in our ability to focus, be on time, or get anything done. It feels like someone took our batteries out! What is that? I’m bringing back here one of my most popular video...

If you grew up with trauma, there's a high probability that you've become emotionally attached to people who bring trouble into your life. Either they are unavailable, not into you, inappropriate, or abusive. But the trouble with childhood PTSD is that it can leave you with a broken "red flag detector." Nervous system changes caused by early abuse and neglect can leave you with difficulty reading...

Living with your own self-defeating behaviors goes on so long sometimes, that when you even THINK of changing your life, you feel panicked. Many of us see what we need to change before we feel ready to take action. But be careful you don't stay frozen and stuck, waiting until you feel "ready." Soon your future starts to pull on you, drawing you forward, showing you what you must face, whether you...

It’s a terrible thing when parents ignore and neglect a child for whom attention, love and security are just as important as food and water and oxygen. If you grew up starved for comfort, you may find yourself now, as an adult, trying to make do in relationships where you get almost nothing back. And the hardest part is, you can’t let go. In this video, I respond to a letter from a woman whose par...

When you’ve lived through abuse, neglect, bullying, hardship and getting ostracized, it becomes hard to think. Your life gets chaotic. Your feelings overwhelm you. It’s hard to keep track of time or take proper care of yourself. And your space gets cluttered. What your wounded self is craving is *order,* where all the elements of your life can fall into place, into a flow that helps you to mentall...

Your mind plays tricks on you when you fall in love with someone who says flat out they don’t want a relationship. This absent character, present only as an electronic voice or a digital image but never as a real person at your side who loves you -- can be the perfect blank canvas for lament fantasies. “If only we could be together…” that’s what the limerent thinks, never doing the math to underst...

It’s easy to think that when a period of intense trauma in your life is over, you should be fine. But the trouble is, AFTER traumatic experiences you can be extremely vulnerable, not just to people who want to manipulate you, but to your own, trauma-driven pattern of self-deception. Healing takes time, and sometimes the gravity of your mistakes becomes real to you later. In this video, I respond t...

Everybody loves transformation stories where someone has a horrible life of struggle and addiction and trauma – and then ONE good thing happens and EVERYTHING is happy ever after. It sounds good on social media but does not help those of us who are trying to FREE ourselves from the trauma-driven problems of the past. In reality, the wounds of trauma are still there even after you begin changing yo...