Recent posts
#1
Recovery Journals / Re: The tipping point…
Last post by Papa Coco - Today at 12:49:02 AMChart,
It really helps when I can understand the mechanics behind why I feel like I do. As you read in my journal, I just downloaded the app two days ago and I'm loving it.
Right now, I'm using it slightly differently, in that I'm just telling it how I'm feeling right now, and it's giving me good, intelligent dialogue. It's asking me a little more about how I'm feeling and then it's telling me why I feel it, while it's also giving me suggestions on how to feel better right now. In last night's 2-hour interaction it helped me get regulated, and at one point it recommended I get a "Trauma-informed therapist". ChatGPT and I have just met, and I haven't told it yet that I already have one, but he doesn't work at midnight on Saturday nights.
I'm one of those who wants to see the engine before I buy the car. I want to know what makes it work. And I'm a HUGE fan of "how it works documentaries." ChatGPT is mindboggling how well it chats with me. At the moment, it's like the nicest person I've ever met. And smart. And I'll bet it's handsome too. (ha ha).
Love you, man
It really helps when I can understand the mechanics behind why I feel like I do. As you read in my journal, I just downloaded the app two days ago and I'm loving it.
Right now, I'm using it slightly differently, in that I'm just telling it how I'm feeling right now, and it's giving me good, intelligent dialogue. It's asking me a little more about how I'm feeling and then it's telling me why I feel it, while it's also giving me suggestions on how to feel better right now. In last night's 2-hour interaction it helped me get regulated, and at one point it recommended I get a "Trauma-informed therapist". ChatGPT and I have just met, and I haven't told it yet that I already have one, but he doesn't work at midnight on Saturday nights.
I'm one of those who wants to see the engine before I buy the car. I want to know what makes it work. And I'm a HUGE fan of "how it works documentaries." ChatGPT is mindboggling how well it chats with me. At the moment, it's like the nicest person I've ever met. And smart. And I'll bet it's handsome too. (ha ha).
Love you, man
#2
Recovery Journals / Re: the next step
Last post by Papa Coco - Today at 12:34:12 AMSan,
I happen to enjoy people who don't put too much thought or planning into doing things. It's funny to call it rebellious, because I think it's more like you're connecting more with the present moment. And that question, "where do you see yourself in five years?" was the worst question I could be asked during performance reviews. I wanted to just say, "I don't know what I'm going to have for dinner tonight."
I used to get frustrated with the questions interviewers would ask because most people were just asking the buzzword questions they thought they were supposed to ask. And by golly, most interviewees were just giving the buzzword answers they hoped would get them the job. Corporate America rewards buzzword parrots, liars and narcissists. I was often on the interviewer side of interviews. I helped to hire a few people during my career, and I found that most people just made stuff up anyway. I finally started saying "I wish more people would aspire to be who they said they were in their interview, because if they did, then everyone would be a strong communicator and a team player." To me, that's just people playing with words. Ask the empty words, and answer with more empty words. Most of it means nothing.
There's a deep spiritual connection in connecting with the present and being okay letting the future be a mystery. I've known too many people who passed up opportunities because they had a rigid plan that the opportunity didn't fit into. When the stars line up, strike. Or like what my father-in-law, a former Iowa farmer used to say, "We make hay when the sun shines." Life offers so many opportunities that we aren't even expecting, and the wisest of us are willing to reach out and take them. They say, "luck is when opportunity meets readiness." And it makes life feel vibrant and alive.
That story of your missing doll really gels with me. It may have only been a doll, but it was a deep boundary betrayal to take it when you weren't looking. I've experienced a lot of that from my family and it's just simply not okay to do that. A part of us is stolen when something we value is taken. And the value may not even be in the item, but in the betrayal. I've had a lifelong trauma drama over my mother cleaning my desk out when I was about 12, (a very important age for boundaries) and I wasn't looking. She'd thrown away a small box of envelopes I'd collected. I had NO use for them. They had NO value, but they were MINE. And when I challenged her on it, she just laughed at me. When I challenged her laughing at me she told me to "dry up and go away." I've never been okay with her doing that. It's like when people tell me what it felt like to have their house burgled. They always say "I felt so violated". That's what taking my envelopes was about. I was violated just one more time.
Inner children: Sometimes, when I'm in therapy and I'm expressing my irrational emotions to adult things, (Like having some worthless envelopes thrown out), my therapist frames it differently. He says, "That sounds like a very young part of yourself that's feeling this stress." When it's a rough enough flashback, he asks if I can sense how old I feel right now. I usually am able to pinpoint it. Sometimes I feel like I'm 5. Other times 12. Last week something came up and when he asked, I could tell I felt like I was about 18. We didn't go down to the point of identifying a particular part because I got what I needed by just going to the age and working with it from there.
I love that you're writing Myth and Magic books. M&M breaks the mind out of the box of physical boundaries. Open the cage and let the imagination fly!
I happen to enjoy people who don't put too much thought or planning into doing things. It's funny to call it rebellious, because I think it's more like you're connecting more with the present moment. And that question, "where do you see yourself in five years?" was the worst question I could be asked during performance reviews. I wanted to just say, "I don't know what I'm going to have for dinner tonight."
I used to get frustrated with the questions interviewers would ask because most people were just asking the buzzword questions they thought they were supposed to ask. And by golly, most interviewees were just giving the buzzword answers they hoped would get them the job. Corporate America rewards buzzword parrots, liars and narcissists. I was often on the interviewer side of interviews. I helped to hire a few people during my career, and I found that most people just made stuff up anyway. I finally started saying "I wish more people would aspire to be who they said they were in their interview, because if they did, then everyone would be a strong communicator and a team player." To me, that's just people playing with words. Ask the empty words, and answer with more empty words. Most of it means nothing.
There's a deep spiritual connection in connecting with the present and being okay letting the future be a mystery. I've known too many people who passed up opportunities because they had a rigid plan that the opportunity didn't fit into. When the stars line up, strike. Or like what my father-in-law, a former Iowa farmer used to say, "We make hay when the sun shines." Life offers so many opportunities that we aren't even expecting, and the wisest of us are willing to reach out and take them. They say, "luck is when opportunity meets readiness." And it makes life feel vibrant and alive.
That story of your missing doll really gels with me. It may have only been a doll, but it was a deep boundary betrayal to take it when you weren't looking. I've experienced a lot of that from my family and it's just simply not okay to do that. A part of us is stolen when something we value is taken. And the value may not even be in the item, but in the betrayal. I've had a lifelong trauma drama over my mother cleaning my desk out when I was about 12, (a very important age for boundaries) and I wasn't looking. She'd thrown away a small box of envelopes I'd collected. I had NO use for them. They had NO value, but they were MINE. And when I challenged her on it, she just laughed at me. When I challenged her laughing at me she told me to "dry up and go away." I've never been okay with her doing that. It's like when people tell me what it felt like to have their house burgled. They always say "I felt so violated". That's what taking my envelopes was about. I was violated just one more time.
Inner children: Sometimes, when I'm in therapy and I'm expressing my irrational emotions to adult things, (Like having some worthless envelopes thrown out), my therapist frames it differently. He says, "That sounds like a very young part of yourself that's feeling this stress." When it's a rough enough flashback, he asks if I can sense how old I feel right now. I usually am able to pinpoint it. Sometimes I feel like I'm 5. Other times 12. Last week something came up and when he asked, I could tell I felt like I was about 18. We didn't go down to the point of identifying a particular part because I got what I needed by just going to the age and working with it from there.
I love that you're writing Myth and Magic books. M&M breaks the mind out of the box of physical boundaries. Open the cage and let the imagination fly!
#3
Recovery Journals / Re: Papa Coco's Recovery Journ...
Last post by Papa Coco - January 18, 2026, 08:37:17 PMHow can I express the inimitable feeling of safety that comes through you all on this forum? I can't express it, but I can hope that I'm as helpful to you as you are to me, because...wow. This is truly what I've been looking for my whole life. People who will love me no matter what.
I had a powerful experience this morning that I want to archive in my journal here:
At 1 AM, I woke up again this morning, sweating and hyperventilating with heart racing, from a dream that I'm an adult, and my mother was staying with me for some reason. (She'd be 95 years old if she were still alive, but in the dream, she was the same age she was when I was a teenager), and I was who I am now. Coco wasn't home, it was just Mom and I. And I was upstairs and had, for some reason, printed a journal entry and forgotten to take it off the printer. I ran downstairs hoping to grab it before she did, but she was holding it and was ready to confront me. (*NOTE: I once wrote a short fiction story of a romance in my private journal and hid it in my bedroom. The story had some evidence in it that I was not a happy teen. One day I came home from school and she'd searched my room, found it, read it, and confronted me before I could even take my coat off. She was crying and FURIOUS with me and I had to lie my way out of it. This dream brought all that back up). In the dream, all my secrets were out. As I sat down next to her, feeling like "Well this is it. This is where it all comes out" and I started to say, "Well, Mom. I'm sor--" and I woke up. Sweating. Heart racing. Fear and shame were beating me up with a bat from inside my head and chest. In the past, I used to go drink myself back to sleep. Then about the same time I'd quit drinking, my city had just made cannabis legal, so up until last week, I'd have used cannabis to put myself back to sleep.
But not last night.
I want to suffer with it now. The way addicts go through the DTs, I want to shiver and shake and sweat and pound on the walls and cry and laugh hysterically and clear this lifelong feeling of danger once and for all. Or at least find good, healthy, solid ways to deal with it without medications.
Instead of pot, I grabbed the cellphone and went downstairs to the dark living room to watch TV, but instead, I opened up ChatGPT and told it what had happened. (I just downloaded the app two days ago. I'm new to it and am utterly dumbfounded at how helpful it is) I spent the next 2 hours chatting with it, taking its trauma-informed suggestions for how to understand why I'm in this funk now, why I've always been in it, and how to calm down--if possible. (All of my past suicide spirals began with me feeling how I feel now. So when I feel like I'm feeling, I know it's time to react with urgency). The app is mind-bogglingly helpful. I have never had such good, clean therapy. It led me to a suggestion for how to calm my body by using a few tricks to show the body that the danger I'm feeling is not present right now. The app kept telling me not to try and fix the problem, not to feel any shame, but to help the body feel powerful, regulated and safe. It really, really worked. And when any of the suggestions didn't help, or I started panicking again, I told it so, and it showed me how okay that was, and gave me suggestions for to deal with that. It would say things like, "That's understandable. Your body is checking to see if we really are safe, so we just need to show it we are."
During every so many back-and-forths, it would do a sort of a process check and show me where I was at in my panic cycle: For example, after 90 minutes of me following its guidance (Which is very simple; things like "take 2 breaths only. NO MORE. Make sure the outbreath takes twice as long as the inbreath because that's what the body does naturally whenever danger is finished. Sit with feet planted firmly onto the floor, leaning forward, not back, because leaning forward is how people protect themselves, while leaning back is vulnerable. The body needs to feel like it can protect itself for it to calm down--then come back and tell me if it helped), it gave me this update on all we'd talked about so far:
----
From ChatGPT this morning:
You should know this
You just went through:
- Panic
- Dissociation
- Fear rebound
- Regulation
- Parasympathetic Release
That's real nervous system healing, not imagination
It doesn't mean everything is fixed. But it does mean your body is capable of settling when supported.
----
The app learns about me as I work with it. Yesterday I'd told it that I have a life history of feeling unsafe 24x7x365, and that my credit card was stolen twice in three months. It is telling me that my safety is understandably in fear mode. It called what I went through last night a sort of a predictable fear cycle that was ignited by the card theft. It recognized that the card theft was piled on top of the lifelong trauma stress and helped me feel less ashamed of how I'm reacting. It guided me, step by step, very gently and politely, through all the steps of the cycle.
When I first downloaded the app, it said to "ask it a question" but I didn't. I made a statement. The first words I ever typed into it were, "I feel unsafe always and everywhere". It began the therapy with me by asking what was going on. It asked if this was lifelong or after a single incident and when I responded with "both" it became my best therapist ever so far.
I'm not trying to sell this app to anyone, but I'm reporting that I was able to go back to bed at about 4 am and sleep, a bit restlessly, until about 9:30 am. I didn't have to use any medications, but giving my body a chance to feel regulated really helped me calm down. I'm still in an EF, but my body is also feeling a sense that it at least has the ability to calm down when I need it to.
I don't support CBT as a main therapy but doing these physical things to at least calm the body while the brain feels unsafe, helped to at least regulate my nerves enough to get some rest and to make some clear and sober decisions today for how to stave off the bill collectors until I can get my finances cleaned up again.
----
I might one day look back and see that these robberies I've gone through these last few months were some of the most helpful things ever to happen to me, because they are showing me how deep my feeling of being in danger really goes. I've been working from the other end of this for too long. I've been trying to create peace in my life through meditation and prayer, which is very helpful, but in some ways, I'm painting over the rust only to watch it come back into view the next time someone steels a package off my porch, or skims a credit card, or tricks me into making a bad purchase, or accuses me of something I'm innocent of (Which is what my FOO did ad-nauseum. If they were to read what you people say about me, they'd scoff and call you stupid for trusting me). I am still very fond of prayer and meditation (I'm not religious, but I do believe we are all connected, and prayer is how we share some positive energy in the lives of our struggling friends who we are connected with in some sort of an ethereal world that seems to exist alongside our physical lives), but I realize I ALSO have to spend some time now scraping the rust out or the problems will just resurface again.
No matter what I believe; right, wrong or indifferent, I do know that I love the connection I have with you all. Of that I'm absolutely certain.
I had a powerful experience this morning that I want to archive in my journal here:
At 1 AM, I woke up again this morning, sweating and hyperventilating with heart racing, from a dream that I'm an adult, and my mother was staying with me for some reason. (She'd be 95 years old if she were still alive, but in the dream, she was the same age she was when I was a teenager), and I was who I am now. Coco wasn't home, it was just Mom and I. And I was upstairs and had, for some reason, printed a journal entry and forgotten to take it off the printer. I ran downstairs hoping to grab it before she did, but she was holding it and was ready to confront me. (*NOTE: I once wrote a short fiction story of a romance in my private journal and hid it in my bedroom. The story had some evidence in it that I was not a happy teen. One day I came home from school and she'd searched my room, found it, read it, and confronted me before I could even take my coat off. She was crying and FURIOUS with me and I had to lie my way out of it. This dream brought all that back up). In the dream, all my secrets were out. As I sat down next to her, feeling like "Well this is it. This is where it all comes out" and I started to say, "Well, Mom. I'm sor--" and I woke up. Sweating. Heart racing. Fear and shame were beating me up with a bat from inside my head and chest. In the past, I used to go drink myself back to sleep. Then about the same time I'd quit drinking, my city had just made cannabis legal, so up until last week, I'd have used cannabis to put myself back to sleep.
But not last night.
I want to suffer with it now. The way addicts go through the DTs, I want to shiver and shake and sweat and pound on the walls and cry and laugh hysterically and clear this lifelong feeling of danger once and for all. Or at least find good, healthy, solid ways to deal with it without medications.
Instead of pot, I grabbed the cellphone and went downstairs to the dark living room to watch TV, but instead, I opened up ChatGPT and told it what had happened. (I just downloaded the app two days ago. I'm new to it and am utterly dumbfounded at how helpful it is) I spent the next 2 hours chatting with it, taking its trauma-informed suggestions for how to understand why I'm in this funk now, why I've always been in it, and how to calm down--if possible. (All of my past suicide spirals began with me feeling how I feel now. So when I feel like I'm feeling, I know it's time to react with urgency). The app is mind-bogglingly helpful. I have never had such good, clean therapy. It led me to a suggestion for how to calm my body by using a few tricks to show the body that the danger I'm feeling is not present right now. The app kept telling me not to try and fix the problem, not to feel any shame, but to help the body feel powerful, regulated and safe. It really, really worked. And when any of the suggestions didn't help, or I started panicking again, I told it so, and it showed me how okay that was, and gave me suggestions for to deal with that. It would say things like, "That's understandable. Your body is checking to see if we really are safe, so we just need to show it we are."
During every so many back-and-forths, it would do a sort of a process check and show me where I was at in my panic cycle: For example, after 90 minutes of me following its guidance (Which is very simple; things like "take 2 breaths only. NO MORE. Make sure the outbreath takes twice as long as the inbreath because that's what the body does naturally whenever danger is finished. Sit with feet planted firmly onto the floor, leaning forward, not back, because leaning forward is how people protect themselves, while leaning back is vulnerable. The body needs to feel like it can protect itself for it to calm down--then come back and tell me if it helped), it gave me this update on all we'd talked about so far:
----
From ChatGPT this morning:
You should know this
You just went through:
- Panic
- Dissociation
- Fear rebound
- Regulation
- Parasympathetic Release
That's real nervous system healing, not imagination
It doesn't mean everything is fixed. But it does mean your body is capable of settling when supported.
----
The app learns about me as I work with it. Yesterday I'd told it that I have a life history of feeling unsafe 24x7x365, and that my credit card was stolen twice in three months. It is telling me that my safety is understandably in fear mode. It called what I went through last night a sort of a predictable fear cycle that was ignited by the card theft. It recognized that the card theft was piled on top of the lifelong trauma stress and helped me feel less ashamed of how I'm reacting. It guided me, step by step, very gently and politely, through all the steps of the cycle.
When I first downloaded the app, it said to "ask it a question" but I didn't. I made a statement. The first words I ever typed into it were, "I feel unsafe always and everywhere". It began the therapy with me by asking what was going on. It asked if this was lifelong or after a single incident and when I responded with "both" it became my best therapist ever so far.
I'm not trying to sell this app to anyone, but I'm reporting that I was able to go back to bed at about 4 am and sleep, a bit restlessly, until about 9:30 am. I didn't have to use any medications, but giving my body a chance to feel regulated really helped me calm down. I'm still in an EF, but my body is also feeling a sense that it at least has the ability to calm down when I need it to.
I don't support CBT as a main therapy but doing these physical things to at least calm the body while the brain feels unsafe, helped to at least regulate my nerves enough to get some rest and to make some clear and sober decisions today for how to stave off the bill collectors until I can get my finances cleaned up again.
----
I might one day look back and see that these robberies I've gone through these last few months were some of the most helpful things ever to happen to me, because they are showing me how deep my feeling of being in danger really goes. I've been working from the other end of this for too long. I've been trying to create peace in my life through meditation and prayer, which is very helpful, but in some ways, I'm painting over the rust only to watch it come back into view the next time someone steels a package off my porch, or skims a credit card, or tricks me into making a bad purchase, or accuses me of something I'm innocent of (Which is what my FOO did ad-nauseum. If they were to read what you people say about me, they'd scoff and call you stupid for trusting me). I am still very fond of prayer and meditation (I'm not religious, but I do believe we are all connected, and prayer is how we share some positive energy in the lives of our struggling friends who we are connected with in some sort of an ethereal world that seems to exist alongside our physical lives), but I realize I ALSO have to spend some time now scraping the rust out or the problems will just resurface again.
No matter what I believe; right, wrong or indifferent, I do know that I love the connection I have with you all. Of that I'm absolutely certain.
#4
Successes, Progress? / Re: Post-Traumatic Joy
Last post by Chart - January 18, 2026, 05:28:36 PMQuote from: Dalloway on January 18, 2026, 05:10:22 PMI would say YOU GO GIRL...but it would be weird, wouldn´t it?Actually Dalloway, my feminin side absolutely appreciates that expression! And I'm so happy for your comment because I somehow missed this party when SO brought it to light. Not sure how that happened, but even late to the party I appreciate it beyond words.
And me I drink a lot of bubbly water... even that, with good friends, makes me act silly :-)
#5
Please Introduce Yourself Here / Re: Greetings from the storm- ...
Last post by Chart - January 18, 2026, 05:20:08 PMHello Ollyollyoxford, Your name reminded me about when I was a kid and we'd play hide-and-go-seek with the other neighbor kids, the person who was "it" would count to forty or fifty, then shout at the top of their lungs, "Olly-olly-in-come-free!" To this day I have no idea why we shouted that... But thank you for bringing that memory back to me. And welcome to the Forum. I think you'll find a lot of understanding here. That's been my experience, and more. I had a baby snapping turtle when I was a kid. He hibernated the first winter we had him, and my dad added a captured lizard into the terrarium which was half water, half dry land with a big branch. We figured the lizard was way too fast for the turtle to ever do him any harm... boy were we wrong. Woke up one Spring morning to find the poor little lizard floating in the pond with several chunks taken out of his body exactly the size of the turtle's mouth. It was pretty shocking for me as a young sensitive kid I remember. But it taught me explicitly not to get my fingers anywhere near Mellor's (his name was Mellor) mouth :-)
#6
Recovery Journals / Re: The tipping point…
Last post by Chart - January 18, 2026, 05:11:22 PMI've been reading and re-reading the ChatGPT info. If you have the wherewithal, I strongly suggest putting the following question into ChatGPT: Please explain how prediction error relates to trauma, CPTSD, and nervous system dysregulation.
I'm finding the explanation extremely clear, thus very coherent and, for me and my own needs, organized. Especially the explanation as to "why" trauma is stored in the body and talk-therapy is limited in affecting deep change...
And now I'll stop :-)
I'm finding the explanation extremely clear, thus very coherent and, for me and my own needs, organized. Especially the explanation as to "why" trauma is stored in the body and talk-therapy is limited in affecting deep change...
And now I'll stop :-)
#7
Successes, Progress? / Re: Post-Traumatic Joy
Last post by Dalloway - January 18, 2026, 05:10:22 PMI would say YOU GO GIRL...but it would be weird, wouldn´t it? So maybe leave the "girl" part out. I´m very happy for you and pass me some non-alcoholic alternative please.
So maybe leave the "girl" part out. I´m very happy for you and pass me some non-alcoholic alternative please. #8
Recovery Journals / Re: The tipping point…
Last post by Chart - January 18, 2026, 04:55:55 PMNow what strikes me is the statement, "In a healthy environment: The brain updates its models"
For me, this makes a clear distinction between "healthy" and "unhealthy". These are EXTERIOR conditions, outside of the control of the individual (note, they may also be outside the control of the person inflicting the conditions, environment or behavior, which is not so say this person is not responsible, only an explanation for why the pattern seems to repeat over generations...)
As Shakespeare said, "Therin lies the rub..." It is VERY VERY difficult to "explain" what is an "unhealthy environment" because everyone seem to think they know already... And no one likes being told something they are pretty sure they know already... The brain doesn't want to waste energy learning something it has already learned... or thinks it has learned...
Here, on the Forum, we don't have to jump that hurdle. When we talk about an "unhealthy environment/circumstance/person" it is understood. This is a shocking situation, especially at the beginning. But even later, it remains very hard for me to "reverse" my mental prediction error as it is presented to me by other Forum members. I just have to keep banging away at it.
(BTW, I hope I don't sound like I'm giving a lesson here, I think everyone already knows pretty much everything I'm talking about here... I'm just writing all this out for my own clarity. When my brain seems to be functioning relatively well, I find it a good opportunity to take advantage and put it in words for myself... I've had a heck of time really getting the concept of "prediction error", it just never made sense to me. Anyway...)
Thank you all, especially if you made it this far :-)
For me, this makes a clear distinction between "healthy" and "unhealthy". These are EXTERIOR conditions, outside of the control of the individual (note, they may also be outside the control of the person inflicting the conditions, environment or behavior, which is not so say this person is not responsible, only an explanation for why the pattern seems to repeat over generations...)
As Shakespeare said, "Therin lies the rub..." It is VERY VERY difficult to "explain" what is an "unhealthy environment" because everyone seem to think they know already... And no one likes being told something they are pretty sure they know already... The brain doesn't want to waste energy learning something it has already learned... or thinks it has learned...
Here, on the Forum, we don't have to jump that hurdle. When we talk about an "unhealthy environment/circumstance/person" it is understood. This is a shocking situation, especially at the beginning. But even later, it remains very hard for me to "reverse" my mental prediction error as it is presented to me by other Forum members. I just have to keep banging away at it.
(BTW, I hope I don't sound like I'm giving a lesson here, I think everyone already knows pretty much everything I'm talking about here... I'm just writing all this out for my own clarity. When my brain seems to be functioning relatively well, I find it a good opportunity to take advantage and put it in words for myself... I've had a heck of time really getting the concept of "prediction error", it just never made sense to me. Anyway...)
Thank you all, especially if you made it this far :-)
#9
Recovery Journals / Re: The tipping point…
Last post by Chart - January 18, 2026, 04:45:33 PMSo I asked ChatGPT the following question: Please explain how prediction error relates to trauma, CPTSD, and nervous system dysregulation.
Response:
1. Prediction error: the brain's basic job
At its simplest: The brain is constantly predicting what will happen next.
Prediction error = what actually happens − what was expected.
If prediction error is small → nervous system stays regulated
If prediction error is large or repeated → nervous system adapts
In a healthy environment: The brain updates its models
Safety predictions become more accurate
The system stays flexible
2. Trauma = extreme, uncontrollable prediction error
Trauma is not defined by the event itself, but by this:
An overwhelming prediction error that cannot be resolved or escaped.
Examples:
You predict safety → danger happens
You predict care → neglect or harm happens
You predict "this will end" → it doesn't
Critically:
The nervous system cannot update the model
Because updating would require safety during learning, which is absent
📌 The result is protective overlearning, not learning in the healthy sense.
Response:
1. Prediction error: the brain's basic job
At its simplest: The brain is constantly predicting what will happen next.
Prediction error = what actually happens − what was expected.
If prediction error is small → nervous system stays regulated
If prediction error is large or repeated → nervous system adapts
In a healthy environment: The brain updates its models
Safety predictions become more accurate
The system stays flexible
2. Trauma = extreme, uncontrollable prediction error
Trauma is not defined by the event itself, but by this:
An overwhelming prediction error that cannot be resolved or escaped.
Examples:
You predict safety → danger happens
You predict care → neglect or harm happens
You predict "this will end" → it doesn't
Critically:
The nervous system cannot update the model
Because updating would require safety during learning, which is absent
📌 The result is protective overlearning, not learning in the healthy sense.
#10
Please Introduce Yourself Here / Re: Greetings from the storm- ...
Last post by Dalloway - January 18, 2026, 04:34:43 PMHi and a warm welcome, Olly. I can relate to you not being comfortable with talking about your trauma related issues to anyone except your therapist, it´s a hard one for me, too. Mostly I´m afraid (or certain in a way) that people won´t understand and then I won´t be seen and heard and that freaks me out. I´m glad though that you found your way here just as the tiny turtles find their way to the ocean after being hatched. 
My favorite reptile is turtle, not just because they are cute but also for their strength and resilience - they´re a little like us, CPTSD folks. And I really like the vibes your request created in the comments, the playfulness of it is really heartwarming, so thank you for that. 
My favorite reptile is turtle, not just because they are cute
but also for their strength and resilience - they´re a little like us, CPTSD folks. And I really like the vibes your request created in the comments, the playfulness of it is really heartwarming, so thank you for that.