The Complex Trauma Podcast

How do you grieve a childhood you never had? If you grew up with childhood emotional neglect, you may have heard that grief is part of complex trauma recovery and still have no idea what you're supposed to be grieving, or what that grief is supposed to feel like.
This episode is built around a listener's question. She grew up without much affection, remembers wanting it, and came to believe that needing it meant she wasn't growing up properly. Decades later, she's wondering whether she has anything to grieve, and whether feeling sad about it is selfish.
We talk through how the grief of emotional neglect works when nothing specific "happened," why you often only recognize the loss through contrast, and why receiving care now can sometimes make you feel worse before it feels better.
In this episode:
Why the grief of childhood emotional neglect is hard to locate, and how a point of comparison can suddenly make it visible
What you're actually grieving when you never had the thing
Why grief can feel like self-pity, and what "my childhood was good overall" might be protecting you from
What this grief can look like, including anger, envy, numbness, disbelief, and trying harder with the parent you still have
Why a partner's hug or a therapist's kindness can make your body brace, and how to read that response
Memory reconsolidation, and how receiving care now may update old emotional learning
Why you don't have to go looking for grief or perform it correctly
What grieving can look like in actual life, without turning it into a checklist
Whether accepting a parent's limitations means giving up on the relationship
When grief gets too big, and what to bring to your therapist
This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth! I’m so excited to have them supporting The Complex Trauma Podcast. Head to Cozy Earth and use code RECLAIM for 20% off your order.
Thanks for listening to The Complex Trauma Podcast!
Be sure to follow, share and give us a review on your favorite podcast platform.
Follow on Instagram: @sarahherstichlcsw 
Follow on TikTok: @sarahherstichlcsw
Learn more about EMDR & trauma therapy in Pennsylvania with Reclaim Therapy
This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for professional medical, psychological, or nutritional advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Remember, I'm a therapist, but I'm not your therapist. Nothing in this podcast is meant to replace actual therapy or treatment. If you're in crisis or things feel really unsafe right now, please reach out to someone. You can call 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, text them, or head to your nearest ER.
The views expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not represent the opinions of any organizations or institutions. Reliance on any information provided by this podcast is solely at your own risk.

What happens when you grow up learning that someone else’s needs, emotions, or version of reality matter more than your own?
In this episode, I’m joined by Amy Marlow-MaCoy, MEd, LPC, to talk about narcissistic abuse and its relationship to complex trauma. We unpack narcissistic family systems, gaslighting and DARVO, the roles children can take on in these families, and why survivors may struggle with self-trust, perfectionism, overfunctioning, guilt, and boundaries long after childhood.
We also talk about what happens when you begin changing these patterns, the complexity of low and no contact, and what it can look like to rebuild a relationship with yourself after years of learning to question your own experience. 
About Amy
Amy Marlow-MaCoy, MEd, LPC, is an internationally known clinician and trainer specializing in gaslighting, narcissistic abuse, and complex developmental and relational trauma. She is the author of The Gaslighting Recovery Workbook and co-author of The Clinician’s Guide to Treating Adult Children of Narcissists. Amy is also the founder of The Courageous Heart Institute, a learning community for clinicians specializing in treating survivors of narcissistic abuse.
Amy has advanced training in Internal Family Systems (IFS), EMDR, Brainspotting, and other trauma treatment approaches, and provides therapy, consultation, supervision, and continuing education for clinicians working with narcissistic abuse and complex relational trauma.
Follow Amy on Instagram and Facebook!
Check out her website here
Thanks for listening to The Complex Trauma Podcast!
Be sure to follow, share and give us a review on your favorite podcast platform.
Follow on Instagram: @sarahherstichlcsw 
Follow on TikTok: @sarahherstichlcsw
Learn more about EMDR & trauma therapy in Pennsylvania with Reclaim Therapy
This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for professional medical, psychological, or nutritional advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Remember, I'm a therapist, but I'm not your therapist. Nothing in this podcast is meant to replace actual therapy or treatment. If you're in crisis or things feel really unsafe right now, please reach out to someone. You can call 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, text them, or head to your nearest ER.
The views expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not represent the opinions of any organizations or institutions. Reliance on any information provided by this podcast is solely at your own risk.

You’re functioning. You may even be the person everyone relies on. But inside, you feel stuck, distant, or like you aren’t fully there for your own life.
In this episode, I'm answering a listener’s question: Is functional freeze actually real, or is it something the internet picked up and oversimplified?
We explore what trauma clinicians mean by functional freeze, why it isn’t a formal diagnosis, and how mixed patterns of activation and shutdown can make you look capable while everything inside feels stalled. I also explain why functional freeze and dissociation aren’t interchangeable and why difficulty getting started can have many possible contributors, including complex trauma, chronic stress, depression, ADHD, exhaustion, and executive-function challenges.
You’ll also learn:
Why you may mobilize instantly during a crisis but struggle to begin a simple task
How childhood emotional neglect and complex trauma can give you more practice responding to others than initiating from within yourself
Why urgency, pressure, and responsibility may organize you more easily than desire
Why stopping doesn’t always make rest feel restorative
How small choices, movement, pleasure, and everyday acts of agency can help build greater nervous-system flexibility
Functional freeze can be useful language for a real experience. But it was never meant to become the whole explanation for you.
This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth! I’m so excited to have them supporting The Complex Trauma Podcast. Head to Cozy Earth and use code RECLAIM for 20% off your order.
Thanks for listening to The Complex Trauma Podcast!
Be sure to follow, share and give us a review on your favorite podcast platform.
Follow on Instagram: @sarahherstichlcsw 
Follow on TikTok: @sarahherstichlcsw
Learn more about EMDR & trauma therapy in Pennsylvania with Reclaim Therapy
This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for professional medical, psychological, or nutritional advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Remember, I'm a therapist, but I'm not your therapist. Nothing in this podcast is meant to replace actual therapy or treatment. If you're in crisis or things feel really unsafe right now, please reach out to someone. You can call 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, text them, or head to your nearest ER.
The views expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not represent the opinions of any organizations or institutions. Reliance on any information provided by this podcast is solely at your own risk.

You finally understand something about yourself. Something that took months of therapy to even name. And now you need someone else to get it too.
This week we're talking about that longing, where it comes from, why it can feel so urgent with certain people, and what happens in your body when the conversation doesn't go the way you hoped. We'll cover emotional flashbacks, the fight flight freeze fawn response, and the difference between being understood and being agreed with. Plus, what's actually yours to hold onto when someone doesn't meet you where you're at.
This episode is for anyone who has ever tried to explain their trauma response to a friend, a partner, or a family member and walked away feeling more alone instead of less.
Thanks for listening to The Complex Trauma Podcast!
Be sure to follow, share and give us a review on your favorite podcast platform.
Follow on Instagram: @sarahherstichlcsw 
Follow on TikTok: @sarahherstichlcsw
Learn more about EMDR & trauma therapy in Pennsylvania with Reclaim Therapy
This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for professional medical, psychological, or nutritional advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Remember, I'm a therapist, but I'm not your therapist. Nothing in this podcast is meant to replace actual therapy or treatment. If you're in crisis or things feel really unsafe right now, please reach out to someone. You can call 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, text them, or head to your nearest ER.
The views expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not represent the opinions of any organizations or institutions. Reliance on any information provided by this podcast is solely at your own risk.

Why can you handle a crisis without blinking but completely blank when someone asks what you want for dinner?
Brain fog, forgetfulness, trouble focusing, difficulty starting tasks, and executive dysfunction can all show up alongside complex trauma. But “trauma changed your brain” is a much more complicated story than the internet often makes it sound.
In this episode of The Complex Trauma Podcast, we’re breaking down what may actually be happening when your brain feels scattered, slow, forgetful, or wildly inconsistent.
Instead of another tour of the amygdala and prefrontal cortex, we’re looking at three things that can help make sense of cognitive struggles after trauma: priority, capacity, and access.
We’ll talk about how trauma can shape what gets your attention, how rumination, hypervigilance, perfectionism, and people-pleasing can take up cognitive bandwidth, and why memory, focus, and decision-making may change depending on stress, dissociation, and emotional context.
We’ll also unpack working memory, processing speed, executive functioning, the overlap between ADHD and trauma, and why being incredibly capable doesn’t mean your brain won’t struggle sometimes.
Because maybe the better question isn’t “What’s wrong with my brain?”
It’s “What is my brain trying to do right now?”

This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth! I’m so excited to have them supporting The Complex Trauma Podcast. Head to Cozy Earth and use code RECLAIM for 20% off your order.
Thanks for listening to The Complex Trauma Podcast!
Be sure to follow, share and give us a review on your favorite podcast platform.
Follow on Instagram: @sarahherstichlcsw 
Follow on TikTok: @sarahherstichlcsw
Learn more about EMDR & trauma therapy in Pennsylvania with Reclaim Therapy
This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for professional medical, psychological, or nutritional advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Remember, I'm a therapist, but I'm not your therapist. Nothing in this podcast is meant to replace actual therapy or treatment. If you're in crisis or things feel really unsafe right now, please reach out to someone. You can call 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, text them, or head to your nearest ER.
The views expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not represent the opinions of any organizations or institutions. Reliance on any information provided by this podcast is solely at your own risk.