Kinhost dot Org
ItsComplicated

ItsComplicated

If you're experiencing distress, flatlining, burned out, etc. please seek professional help. None of our works are intended to replace having a team of professionals, although we approach everything with the knowledge that unfortunately not everyone has access to, nor can bring themselves to access, professional help. Please use the resources you can, internal & external, including your own wisdom and intuition in evaluating and considering everything you encounter including this. Our intention is informational, not prescriptive.

Welcome to It's Complicated, a series by The Crisses that we are producing on relational trauma & shame specifically intended for people with C-PTSD and those who care about them. The views contained herein are our our own, based on our own research and observations, and crunching a lot of information in our neurodivergent brain. Our research includes many trauma, work resources, personal observations, work with our clients, discussions we've had within the Plural and DID community, and with professionals. When we can, we will cite specific sources below.

Episodes

It's Complicated: V01 Adaptive Shame

This recording brushes on the concepts of natural or adaptive shame, basically the types of shame that people without relational trauma are most likely to experience, the evolutionary role that adaptive shame plays, brushes on the ages where we first experience it, and a couple examples of how it shows up. It also goes into the "F-Words" or panic reactions and how we can divvy them up into 2 survival strategy groups -- those that are mainly about individual survival (Dino brain responses), and those that are about survival-in-groups or social survival (Buddy brain responses).

We recorded this in January 2025, then immediately thought we had omitted something very important, shelved it, and due to other circumstances in our life we had many months of physical and mental health struggles and couldn't work on it after. We are doing much better now (September 2025) and decided we let perfect be the enemy of good. We are publishing with no further edits, we can make more content to bridge any gaps, leaving in flubs, pauses, etc is proactively anti-shaming.

We are not perfect. We have decided not to selves-edit and pretend we are. We may get negative comments because of flubs and pauses. So what?

Resources

Here are some of the related works and writings that inform this series.

Our Related Works

Other Publications

  • Understanding and Treating Chronic Shame - Patricia A. DeYoung
  • Unshame: healing trauma-based shame through psychotherapy by Carolyn Spring
  • Unlearning Shame: How We Can Reject Self-Blame Culture and Reclaim Our Power - Devon Price
  • Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes from, How It Sabotages Our Lives and Breaking Free: A Recovery Workbook for Facing Codependence by Pia Mellody and Andrea Wells Miller
  • Healing the Shame that Binds You - John Bradshaw
  • Facing Shame: Families in Recovery by Fossum & Mason
  • NICABM Shame series (full disclosure: they gave a refund after we gave feedback on some of the "bonus" content regarding how re-traumatizing and disrespectful it was, which they pulled from the series)
  • more to come…

Downloadables

These are diagrams and documents that relate to describing shame situations and emotions around relational trauma that we use with our clients, group participants, and in this series. They will be used in the series, referenced in the series, etc.