The Crappy Childhood Fairy Podcast with Anna Runkle

Every day, I read the comments and questions of hundreds of viewers on my YouTube channel. Sometimes the questions make me angry. Sometimes I want to give the person a hug! In this video I respond to some of the most challenging and interesting questions about Childhood PTSD and how we heal, one by one. FREE Download: "Ten Signs Your Trauma Is Healing" https://bit.ly/3raZghI Take my FREE Course or...

It’s a horrible feeling when you THINK someone is interested in you and flirted with you, and then you respond in what you THINK is the same vibe – and THEY FREAK OUT. People who were emotionally neglected as kids have a hard time reading other people’s feelings and intentions as it is. But when limerence is at play (the obsessive, addictive form of love for someone you can’t actually have) it can...

Codependency sucks the life out the person who can't help but try to extract their own happiness by changing another person. If you believe you'd be happy IF your partner (or relative) would do what you believe is best, you need to watch this video. Are YOU in a Codependent Relationship? Free Download: https://bit.ly/3pwt5c6 Take my FREE Course or Quizzes: https://bit.ly/40M2YeW Enroll in my Cours...

So much content on trauma is about WHAT HAPPENED. It's true that acknowledging the past is important, but real healing happens when you can notice your CPTSD SYMPTOMS and use strategies to calm your trauma reactions and make positive changes in your life. In this "best of" compilation I share my top videos on how you can stop the drama and transform you life after trauma. Heal Trauma in Just One Y...

Overfunctioning is a trauma reaction where a person does TOO much – too much work, too much managing, too much trying to compensate for other people being unsafe, unloving and unreliable. It’s a survival mechanism that can be destructive to your health and your relationships. And, people end up resenting overfunctioners – especially if they are underfunctioners! Not having a hundred things to do c...

When you were never loved enough in the first place -- and then you witness someone else getting really, really loved – it can tear down all the defenses you’ve built up in order to cope with the painful absence of love in your life. If you have Childhood PTSD, you may be hiding from that pain because if you were to actually face the losses -- the breakups, the bad choices, feelings of shame or gu...

If you’re not making progress healing from the effects of a traumatic childhood, it’s very likely, that whatever you were told to do is not working for you. There's an old way the world sees trauma and treatment, and there’s an emerging, research-based approach. In this video I talk about that emerging approach, and how I’ve come to understand and work with people who are progressing through five...

If you were neglected, manipulated, or gaslighted as a child you may still be struggling to be sure if a hurtful situation is a) someone mistreating you or b) your imagination. Until you heal trauma-driven wounds to your perception, you may be prone to indecision and self-doubt. In this "best of" compilation of my videos on CPTSD and Damaged Perception, I teach how the problem manifests, and how t...

There’s a deep need in every one of us to have a parent who deeply loves us. Where THEY are, is where we derive the feeling of HOME. And sometimes, as we grow up and go out on our own, when times get rough - the love of that parent and the existence of that place, provides an anchor - a shelter where we can return for comfort and strength. So many of us with Childhood suffer with a vague sense of...

If you grew up emotionally neglected, you may have learned to ignore and override clear information that someone is mistreating you. At first you feel hurt and angry when they do it; you try to set a boundary and pull away. But soon, this other part of you starts making you think that it’s YOU who’s the bad one -- that you’re just expecting too much, or you’re being too unforgiving, or you're just...

*** Limerent obsession with someone you can't have can become more than harmless little fantasy -- especially if they give you signals that there's HOPE. Limerence is basically an addictive tendency to POUR your life’s energy into the IDEA of a relationship that doesn’t really exist (or not like you think it does). When you know in your bones someone’s not into you you might TRY to face reality an...

Rather than creating a happy life, people with trauma from childhood wait for the ideal relationship to come along and MAKE them happy. You may catch yourself believing that if you could JUST find the right person, or say the right thing, everything would work in your life. But when your identity isn't developed and you don't know how to be happy, your life is full of holes. This is when people wi...

Kids are supposed to learn how to 'be" in the world from their parents. If you were ignored, you had to figure things out by yourself using a child's logic. If you tend to go into a stress response when you try to communicate (especially around your emotions and your boundaries), it could be a sign that you weren't listened to as a child. In this video I lay out several signs that are common in ad...

Abuse, neglect and other traumatic experiences from your past can cause nervous system changes that cause your emotions to come out stronger than other people's. Rage, panic, or passionate attachment to others can get so oversized that they ruin relationships and damage others' trust in you. In this "best of" compilation I teach you why this happens, and how to regulate your nervous system, so you...

Magical thinking is a symptom of trauma. It helped you when you were small to imagine a life that was safe and welcoming for you. But if the habit of distorted thinking around romantic relationships continues into adulthood, you may find that it's impossible to form a real, lasting, mutually committed relationship. In this "best of" compilation, I share some of my most popular videos where I teach...

Based on all the hundreds of letters I get – the background stories about abuse and neglect in childhood, and the present day struggles to form loving, committed relationships – it’s clear to me that limerence is the fruit of emotional neglect. We get too good at seeing love where there is no love, and if we don’t heal, it continues into adulthood, becoming worse in times when we’re isolated, grie...

Have CPTSD? TAKE THE QUIZ: http://bit.ly/3GhE65z FREE COURSE: The Daily Practice: http://bit.ly/3X1BrE0 Website: http://bit.ly/3CxgkRY *** What do you do when you're forced to be face-to-face with the person who traumatized you when you were small? Do you confront them, warn them, talk in advance? Ignore them? In this video I respond to a letter from a woman who will be attending a family gatherin...

Have CPTSD? TAKE THE QUIZ: http://bit.ly/3GhE65z FREE COURSE: The Daily Practice: http://bit.ly/3X1BrE0 Website: http://bit.ly/3CxgkRY *** If you grew up in a dysfunctional family (especially if your parents didn't have strong social skills) there’s a high probability that finding good friends and developing close friendships has been hard for you. The lack of good friends can devastate your life...

A history of abuse and neglect in childhood affects how you think, what you believe, and how you act. This is a major factor that explains why people with CPTSD seem to make self-sabotaging decisions, ruining opportunities and repeating terrible mistakes you swore you'd never do again. In this "best of" compilation, I share a collection of videos where I teach about identifying trauma-driven decis...

Have CPTSD? TAKE THE QUIZ: http://bit.ly/3GhE65z FREE COURSE: The Daily Practice: http://bit.ly/3X1BrE0 Website: http://bit.ly/3CxgkRY *** It's common for people who grew up emotionally neglected or exposed to trauma to have difficulty finding friends and maintaining friendships. Sometimes we choose unreliable people; sometimes we (unintentionally) push good poeple away. In this "best of" compilat...

Have CPTSD? TAKE THE QUIZ: http://bit.ly/3GhE65z FREE COURSE: The Daily Practice: http://bit.ly/3X1BrE0 Website: http://bit.ly/3CxgkRY *** To avoid responsibility for their own actions, abusive parents sometimes make one child into a scapegoat, and siblings follow suit. Scapegoat suffer horribly, but getting pushed out of the family sometimes means they demonstrate more strength and success in lif...

If you grew up neglected, chances are good that when you’re under stress, you get emotionally dysregulated -- your nervous system reacts to stressors with extra strong emotions. When most people would be hurt, you’re devastated. When you fall in love it feels enormous. And getting angry, unfortunately for the people who love you, can turn into RAGE. Emotional dysregulation is not exclusive to Chil...

To be “Demoralized” means to be deflated of all that makes you strong – to have too many bad and discouraging things happen to you until you lose your mental clarity, and lose your drive to bring good into the world. It includes disempowerment, but it takes it one terrible step further – to where you lose your awareness of what is GOOD, and what is right. The most important first step of healing i...

Codependency may feel like a personality quirk but it can grow much, much worse. Codependency can snowball into a crisis-level distortion of thinking that -- unless you heal -- drags down your life (and the lives of others). In this video, I respond to a letter from a woman who finds herself pregnant and dependent upon an undependable and possibly dangerous partner, but cannot see the role she mus...

People neglected or abandoned in childhood often have an anxious attachment style in adulthood, growing frantic while dating a new person to extract security and connection, before they get to know the other person. The result can be off-putting for partners and can ruin any chance of finding real love. In this video I respond to a letter from a young woman whose first date starts well, but ends i...