Anna Runkle Takes Your Questions LIVE

Okay, we’re live — hello everyone, and thanks for being here. It’s me, the Crappy Childhood Fairy, and Rob has been collecting your questions for me to answer. First up, light777 asks: they had a mostly good childhood with some hard moments, have done a lot of therapy, but still wake up with intense anxious thoughts they can’t stop. Why is that happening? That is a big question. Here at Crappy Childhood Fairy, we don’t obsess over labels as much as symptoms. If you’re experiencing anxiety, we call it fear, and we focus on practical strategies to manage fearful and resentful thinking. I strongly encourage learning the daily practice — if you haven’t yet, there’s a free course you can take that teaches it. Once you’re on our email list you’ll be invited to weekly, free daily practice calls for anyone who has learned the method and wants to join. Marissa asks whether re-regulation can help with attachment problems and limerence. Yes — learning to re-regulate gives you options. Your world can expand: you can be in a relationship or single and still remain regulated. You can try new jobs, hobbies, sports, public speaking — even start a YouTube channel (I wouldn’t be doing this without my daily practice). Rachel Nichols says she met her husband 35 years ago, pretended to go along with his religious family though she doesn’t believe, and now can’t keep faking it and is avoiding them. What’s the move? That behavior is fawning — people-pleasing to belong, to keep the peace. You probably started from kindness, but pretending about something this big is manipulative in its own way. You don’t need a dramatic announcement; start reclaiming authenticity now. Gradually be true about your choices — for example, say you’ll skip certain religious events because they aren’t for you. Be prepared for pushback; hopefully your spouse supports you. Healing often requires becoming who you really are, and that honesty is part of the fruit of that healing. Yosser asks why they set rigid, perfectionist standards for potential partners and then push people away. I don’t have all your history, so only you truly know the motives, but if trauma is involved the pattern is usually avoidance — a trauma response along with clinging or trying to control people, codependency, and an attempt to make relationships into something they’re not. Those reactions block genuine intimacy, keeping you lonely and making relationships unstable. To work through it, you need ways to hold and process the emotions that come up around closeness; being around people — especially romantic partners — is anxiety-provoking for many. The daily practice is the tool I use: we put fearful and resentful thoughts on paper, ask for them to be removed, and free up space in our minds to experience the present and something real. Often trauma reactions respond to old events that aren’t relevant to the current relationship; yet we keep repeating patterns we learned early on. Lulu Z asks what to say to a loved one who doesn’t understand CPTTSD or dysregulation when you miss deadlines or fail expectations repeatedly. People typically won’t hear “I have CPTTSD” as their first reaction; their immediate response is about the concrete behavior. Start with an apology — “I’m really sorry” — and then focus on working to re-regulate your behavior. Most people only start to accept explanations about trauma once they can observe a change in behavior. Don’t make your healing contingent on others accepting a diagnosis; concentrate on changing what you do. Adrienne wonders how the practice prevents rumination, since rumination is focusing on the very thoughts you want to stop. Rumination is usually a symptom of dysregulation — repetitive, energy-draining loops of anxious or resentful thoughts. Think of the example of lying awake worrying about which time to call the bank: rumination is a huge waste. The daily practice functions like jotting a note on a pad by your bed; you get the worry out of your head and onto paper so you can rest. But it’s a specific method — if you just scribble an angry list you might feel worse. So get the book or take the course to learn the exact format that reduces distress instead of amplifying it. If you’re afraid the practice itself will trigger you and make things worse, write that fear down in the practice: “I’m afraid starting this will trigger me and make me worse.” Then sign off and ask for it to be removed. That is the practice. You’re not digging up new trauma — you’re offloading what’s already on your mind. Do it as taught; if it’s making you feel worse, you’re probably skipping important steps. Glenno says they cope with CPTTSD fairly well but struggle with transitions, like Sunday to Monday and returning to work. That’s a familiar issue — change can be hard. Again, the approach is the same: put fears and resentments about the transition down on paper, which softens the emotional charge and creates more willingness, clarity, or even the option to change things if you decide not to return to that situation. The question “what causes us to date briefly but not get over the breakup for years?” is usually an attachment wound. Sometimes the person was genuinely important; sometimes the relationship mirrors earlier wounds and keeps you stuck in obsession or limerence. If the relationship is truly over and there’s no hope of getting it back, continuing to obsess becomes rumination and an escape from reality. The antidote is cutting contact, stopping conversation about them, and making a conscious effort to focus on your own life: friendships, joy, activities. Shift your thoughts intentionally to pleasant images or sensations you like — a go-to pleasant thought helps retrain your mind away from the obsession. Alyssa says she’s gone no-contact but still replays conversations and talks to the person in her head. The answer: do the daily practice twice a day. Use the practice to write about the person, your fears and resentments, ask for removal, and then spend the rest of your time deliberately changing subject and activity. Thought-stopping takes effort; surround yourself with people who support your goal of letting go. Phoenix worries they’re limerent about a best friend of four years and suspects the friend might reciprocate. They don’t want to create distance but want to get out of limerence. If there’s a real chance of mutual interest and neither of you is in a relationship, you might consider being honest — the worst is staying stuck in limerence indefinitely. People often avoid disclosure because they fear ruining the friendship, but staying in that limerent state keeps you invisible and unappealing; clearing it up is healthier in the long run. Don’t force anything on someone who is already committed to another person — don’t be the person who ruins relationships. Someone asked how to support a person dealing with their own trauma while you also manage CPTTSD. The best support is doing the daily practice together. Don’t rely on endless talking; recounting trauma can dysregulate both parties. Instead, read your practice to one another if you have a buddy who’s willing to listen — they don’t need to fix anything, just witness. Surround yourself with friends who are walking the same path, who won’t turn your processing into perpetual reactivating conversation. Zen Yourself asks whether CPTTSD can be healed completely. From experience, the condition tends to become quiet rather than vanish entirely — it goes dormant when you consistently practice re-regulation and make life changes that prevent re-traumatization (for example, leaving abusive relationships). Healing means learning to manage symptoms, take responsibility for behaviors, and apply tools like the daily practice. Some people get stuck identifying trauma endlessly; validation is useful, but the work that moves you forward is changing daily life. Sinara wonders whether the start of a panic attack might actually be a sign of becoming dysregulated. That resonates — panic often begins the way dysregulation does for me: numb hands, a distorted sense of the surroundings, visual overwhelm, like there are too many billboards flashing past. It can feel chemical or electrical in the body, similar to how a migraine starts, and it’s possible panic and some forms of dysregulation overlap. More research will clarify this, but noticing the early signs is useful for managing it. Daisy Cake asks how to tell whether trauma is making them think someone is toxic or whether the person truly is toxic. That’s the hard question for many with trauma. Two resources help: reliable tools to sort fact from fearful imagination — like the daily practice — and a community of friends who understand trauma and are on the same healing path. Writing the fears and reading them aloud to trustworthy peers who won’t gaslight you but who also aren’t fueling your reactivity can loosen the grip of a stuck story and let you test reality more clearly. Carol Minky wants to know how to respond instead of react when triggers happen in public. Take a break: excuse yourself to the bathroom and use that moment to write your daily practice. If it’s someone who knows your work and cares for you, ask for 15 minutes to go write and re-regulate, then return. Most people who care will respect that; it’s a responsible, loving way to avoid an escalation. Debbie V asks whether dysregulation and dissociation are the same. They’re related: dissociation — feeling disconnected from your senses, body, or reality — is a form of dysregulation. Terms like depersonalization or derealization describe extremes of that checked-out state. I prefer “dysregulation” because it sounds more normal and practical: it means your nervous system is off balance and needs tools to return to baseline. Azie asked whether the daily practice is just journaling. There’s an important difference: journaling is often written for record or reflection; the daily practice is about discarding. The daily practice is like cutting your nails and throwing away the clippings — you get excess fearful and resentful thoughts onto paper and then discard them so they don’t keep circling in your head. Early trauma impairs the capacity to move experiences from active, adrenaline-fueled reactivity into calm memory. The daily practice helps that processing. Other processing tools include movement that coordinates both sides of the body — martial arts, dance, marching, or even group activities — because co-regulation with others can be very grounding. When you do the daily practice you generally tear up what you wrote unless you plan to read it aloud to a practice buddy; that reading is sometimes enough to make the material evaporate. The practice is specific: name fears and resentments, ask for removal, then rest with a brief meditation so your nervous system can settle. Ruth is learning to re-regulate but is afraid to return to driving, worried she’ll be “crap” at it and that her world will stay small. That’s a clear example of life shrinking around triggers. To widen your world, neutralize the trigger: name the fears — “I’ll crash,” “I’ll space out,” “I’ll wobble,” etc. — put them on paper, and use tools to re-regulate. When you notice physical signs of dysregulation — dropping things, spacing out, impulsive actions — stop, pause, and use your techniques before you continue. There are many ways to give your nervous system a corrective jolt: movement, cold showers or cold water on the hands, grounding exercises — think of it like a tiny defibrillator for nervous-system rhythm. Co-regulation matters too: other people’s calm presence can steady you because our bodies sync up. When both partners understand and cooperate in regulation strategies, it’s a huge help. That’s all for this hour — thank you everyone. I’ll post more videos on YouTube soon, including content about difficult relationships and when it might be necessary to leave. Come to the videos, join the daily practice, and if you want to be a member of our community, we’d love to have you fully join us. Bye, everyone.