CPTSD: The Ultimate Time Loop (and the Starship That Keeps Exploding)

Living with complex trauma can feel like being trapped in a time loop. Not a memory—but many of them. All active. All urgent. All happening now.

In this solo episode, Alexis explores CPTSD through an unexpected but painfully accurate lens: a classic Star Trek: The Next Generation episode where the Enterprise keeps exploding—over and over—while the crew senses something is wrong long before they consciously remember why.

CPTSD isn’t about being “stuck in the past.” It’s about the past reloading itself into the present through your nervous system’s red alert system. Tone shifts, pauses, power imbalances—even the anticipation of something good—can trigger alarms that feel overwhelming and confusing.

Alexis breaks down:

• Why your body remembers what your mind can’t
• How “coping” can accidentally reset the loop instead of ending it
• Why awareness often feels worse before it feels better
• The difference between control and choice in trauma healing
• How recognizing memory states—not fighting them—is how the ship finally stops exploding

With honesty, humor, and a deeply personal story, this episode offers language for experiences many trauma survivors live with quietly—and reassurance that you are not broken. You’re responding exactly the way a system trained for survival would.

Autopilot kept you alive. Awareness is where choice returns.

If this episode resonates, you’re not alone—and you’re not imagining it.

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Forgiveness is one of the most misunderstood—and most weaponized—concepts trauma survivors are taught to accept without question.

In this solo episode of When the Bough Breaks, Alexis dismantles forgiveness from every angle:

the dictionary definition, the religious mandate, the mainstream self-help narrative, and what forgiveness actually looks like when you’ve survived abuse, neglect, estrangement, or long-term harm.

If you’ve ever been told you can’t heal until you forgive, this episode offers a necessary reframe.

We talk about:

•Why forgiveness is often used to silence survivors

•How religious and wellness spaces pressure people to forgive without accountability

•Why anger is not the opposite of healing

•What forgiveness does—and does not—mean for trauma survivors

•Why healing does not require reconciliation, excusing harm, or being “the bigger person”

We talk about WHO does and doesn’t deserve your forgiveness.

This episode is for listeners who are tired of being rushed, minimized, or morally judged for protecting themselves.

Forgiveness is optional.

Your safety is not.

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Some families don’t just keep secrets—they assign children the responsibility of protecting them. In this episode of our series Healing for the Holidays, Alexis explores the often-unnamed role of the dark secret keeper in narcissistic households: the child who is expected to know what happened, never speak about it, never grieve it, and carry it quietly into adulthood.

Through personal storytelling and trauma-informed insight, this episode examines how coerced silence, forced proximity, and religious justification compound harm—and what it takes to reclaim your voice when silence was once required for survival. This is a survivor-centered episode about truth, boundaries, and putting down what never belonged to you.

Content Warning: This episode discusses family violence, murder, child sexual abuse, religious abuse, and coercive silence. No graphic detail is included, but themes may be distressing. Listener Care: If you need to pause this episode, please do. Your nervous system matters more than finishing a podcast.

Resources:

• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (U.S.)

• RAINN Sexual Assault Hotline – 800-656-HOPE

In loving memory of Jane.

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