The Crappy Childhood Fairy Podcast with Anna Runkle

The problem with growing up with neglect and abuse is that it can drive your thinking, constrict what you believe is possible for your life, and make you see only what is ugly in the world. These are what I call trauma-driven beliefs. I can often predict who in my programs is going to make tremendous progress quickly, and start changing their lives – and who is going hit a wall. And the people who...

If you grew up with an abusive or neglectful parent – and especially if you were the oldest child -- you may have learned to dance around and do everything in your power to make Mom stop being sad. You may have erased your feelings and needs and instead poured ALL YOUR ENERGY into the parent. People who have done this often have a hard time getting perspective on it, and realizing that no parent s...

There’s this strange thing that happens to families when one member falls into destructive addiction. We know that addicts’ thinking gets distorted, and they fall into denial and lying and blaming and sometimes stealing. That’s what you’d expect. But, as I know so well from bitter experience, the “presumably sane” people who LOVE the addict ALSO succumb to distorted thinking and toxic behavior – a...

A chaotic and neglectful family life can deprive a child of forming an identity – not just who they are, but what they like, and what they might like to pursue in their lives. In adulthood, you may try to fill this empty space with relationships – or rather, the IDEA of a relationship – to give you direction and a sense that your life matters, and that you’re REAL. My letter today is from a woman...

There’s a symptom of trauma that is common in everyone, but it’s almost universal for people who were abused or neglected as children. It's a haunting sense of loneliness, and not fitting in, that can make any effort to connect with people extra stressful. This is not just an emotional hurt. Abuse and neglect caused an injury to your ability to connect with other people. If this happened to you, y...

Have you ever struggled to get even basic things done, like get to work on time, put wet laundry in the dryer, or make a phone call? Everyone procrastinates sometimes, but for people who were abused or neglected in childhood, procrastination can take over your life and hold you back. In this four-video compilation I share some of my most powerful videos about CPTSD, productivity and procrastinatio...

If you're a woman and you say your "close male friend" is just a friend, one test of your true feelings is how you feel when he gets into a relationship, and how she feels about you. A lot of people will gaslight the girlfriend, or blame the boyfriend for not standing up to her, but often there’s something else going on here. My letter today is from a woman How to Be a Better Friend: FREE PDF Down...

A history of abuse and neglect can make a person crave extra emotional support. But when both partners have CPTSD, communication can be fraught and feelings of abandonment can turn into hours-long processing sessions. Can you teach a partner to listen to the needs you express? In this video I respond to a letter from a man who loves his partner in every way, but suffers when he works so hard to ex...

If you had trauma in childhood, you may find yourself feeling that you have to hide how you feel in a dating relationship, and pretend you're "fine" when in fact you feel manipulated and hurt. Maybe you fear you'll look foolish or drive away what little love is available. But it's never worth faking a relationship just so you don't have to be alone. Being open and honest about how you feel and wha...

One in three people (and even more among people with CPTSD) report that most days they feel completely overwhelmed -- emotionally, mentally and in terms of all they have to do in a day. Just about everyone has lost at least SOME of their power to FOCUS during the last decade. For many, it’s become much harder to feel alert and peaceful inside, and to get things done. In this 4-video compilation, I...

It’s natural to want a loving connection with your own parents. When one or both of them have either abused or neglected you, and they continue to undermine and criticize you, it can be hard to know what to do when the parent who hurt you KEEPS hurting you. Even if you love them – even if you wish you could have a good relationship -- keeping them in your life can make it a LOT harder to heal. And...

*LIVE Webinar May 14. Recover Your Vision of The Life You Want: https://bit.ly/3ifhJ8U* *Do You Have CPTSD?* Take the QUIZ: http://bit.ly/3GhE65z FREE COURSE: *The Daily Practice*: http://bit.ly/3X1BrE0 Website: http://bit.ly/3CxgkRY *** Extreme neglect in childhood – where adults literally don’t care for you appropriately, can lead to a kind of emotional “leakiness” where -- even though you’ve cr...

People who were emotionally or physically neglected, or literally abandoned in childhood often find themselves getting left by partners over and over again. The reasons feel mysterious when it's happening to you. But this is how CPTSD can damage your ability to form healthy relationships AND your perception about why this happens. In this video I explain common behaviors and thinking patterns that...

Everyone knows that abuse and neglect in childhood can have negative effects on us as adults. But there's a taboo around admitting the damage we do to ourselves with our own trauma-driven behaviors. it's not your fault you were abused or neglected, and it's not your fault it left you prone to these common problems in life. But today, the only person who can change this pattern is you. In this 4-vi...

It’s easy to get sucked into terrible relationships with people who treat you badly, especially for people who were mistreated and neglected as children. You may find yourself with narcissists, manipulators, liars and people who just plain grind your spirits down. But so long as you stay hyper-focused on what’s wrong with THEM and what THEY did – the more you may come to see yourself as helpless –...

Romantic obsession with someone you can’t have is a sneaky, life-wrecking toxin – almost a drug that feels great at first and *seems* like if you could just have that person, your life would go from empty... to amazing. This "drug" treats pain. And the drug wears off, and next thing you know the “solution” you’ve found has just swept like a massive mudslide through everything good in your life. Ca...

If you look around all the friends and partners who you've led into your life and you discover there's kind of a high proportion of people who bring trouble and danger into your life --- guess what? Your red flag detector is broken. It's supposed to be sounding the alarm when when bad or dangerous people try to walk into your life. You're supposed to get a bad feeling -- an aversion to soul-suckin...

Abuse and neglect in childhood can leave its mark on your ability to regulate your emotions. They come out too strong, causing you to lash out, burst into tears, panic or fall madly in love at an intensity that doesn't fit the circumstances. This is often the result of changes in children's developing brains. In this 4-video compilation, I share four of my most popular videos on emotional dysregul...

Living through a traumatic childhood takes extraordinary survival skills. You shut down, act tough, dance around to make other people happy, even when it means losing yourself. Sometimes the pain of all you’ve been through doesn’t show up until after the trauma ends. In this video I respond to a letter from a woman who is reckoning with a lifetime of abuse that has now affected her children – and...

Most of us who have ever had a relationship have fallen love, and most of us have also had someone not love us back. But what if you’re with someone who WANTS to be with you and loves you, but they say they don’t feel IN LOVE with yoU? What does this mean? And is there ever hope that their feelings will change? In this video I respond to a letter from a woman who is torn by pleas from her boyfrien...

Your Childhood PTSD symptoms have likely created a lifetime of problems in relationships -- choosing unavailable people, clinging to bad relationships or avoiding love altogether. But the reason you long for a real love -- a "great love" even -- is because you were born to love and be loved. How does a person move past the hurts of the past and learn, at last, to love? How To Prepare For a Great R...

People who lived through trauma in childhood often develop an "avoidant" attachment style, which can be hard for their partners who may crave reassurance, commitment, and frequent expressions of affection that don't come easily to avoidants. In this 4-Video compilation, I share four of my most popular videos about being avoidant, dating an avoidant, when the avoidance is "too much" and how relatio...

Charming and powerful employers have a knack for tempting people who are desperate for a big break in their career. They can offer money, fame, and connections that you might never access again. But if the price is to operate a sexually charged and boundary-less environment, what is the real price of working for them? My letter today is from a woman whose longtime partner Sometimes the most creati...

t’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 o...

Trauma in childhood can leave with obvious problems, but also a subtle tendency to hide your authentic self, and to avoid reaching for big goals that are important to you. In this video I share common reasons why people who were abused in childhood will cope try to manage their vulnerability by playing small. I'll teach you strategies to gradually step forward and big "bigger," braver and more tru...