Author Archives: Shay Seaborne, CPTSD
Systemic Blindness: The Ignored Story in My Health Chart
My weight data from the past few years is one of the most important indicators of my overall health. When I am in environments that support me, my weight moves toward a healthy range. When my environment is unsafe or … Continue reading
Posted in Well-being
Tagged body mass, data, healthcare, medical, obesity, PTSD, weight
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Learning to Feel and Trust Our Instincts
When early relationships repeatedly dismiss, override, or punish a person’s signals, the body learns that its own cues do not lead to safety or effective response. Over time, attention shifts away from internal sensations because registering them did not result … Continue reading
Posted in Well-being
Tagged body signals, felt sense, Interoception, IPNB, presence, relationships
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Listening to My Nervous System is Not Optional
Trauma recovery is not a belief system, moral stance, prescription, or a choice based on what feels convenient, politically aligned, or socially condoned. Recovery is about learning, often the hard way, what my nervous system actually needs in order to … Continue reading
Posted in Neurobiology
Tagged danger, IPNB, Nervous System, Relational Neuroscience, threat, trauma recovery
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Beyond the Mental Illness Industry: Healing Trauma with NARM and Interpersonal Neurobiology
After the psychiatric abuse of a “standard treatment” nearly killed me 8 years ago, I found the tools that made survival possible. This was at the intersection of the NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM) and Interpersonal Neurobiology. Unlike the mental illness … Continue reading
When Speaking the Truth Changes the Dynamic: Reclaiming Agency After Harm
For a few years I felt helpless about something awful that had happened to me. An abuser had sexually assaulted me, and for a long time it felt like the story ended there: harm done, no meaningful response from any … Continue reading
Posted in Abuse
Tagged abuse, accountability, neglect, speaking, speaking up, truth, truth-telling, voice
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Signs of Recovery, an IPNB Perspective
The mainstream mental illness industry offers a symptom–management and pathology-reduction framework that reflects the incomplete biomedical model of mental health. That narrow framework treats progress as a set of isolated symptom-based milestones, focusing on controlling or managing parts of experience … Continue reading
Posted in Mental Health
Tagged Behavioral Health, IPNB, Mental Health, PTSD recovery, recovery, Relational Neuroscience, symptoms
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Her Lips Were Moving But Her Advice Was Myopic
I met a woman in her eighties who talked at length about how healthy, fit, and good-looking she and her husband are. She described regular exercise, summers at the beach, her husband’s consistent swimming, and a long marriage in which … Continue reading
Posted in Relationships, Well-being
Tagged advice, assumptions, choice, health, misattunement, self-help
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Beyond Credentials: The Non-Negotiable Key to My Recovery
I had a years-long period when my functionality was so low that it was hard for me to leave the house. I was severely isolated by disability from repeated medical harm. My relationships with practitioners became my default primary social … Continue reading
Posted in Healthcare, Relationships
Tagged connection, doctors, Empathy, healthcare, IPNB, pain, pain medicine, pain specialist, practitioners, Relational Neuroscience, relationships, safety, well-being
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Always in the Direction of Life: Eight Years of Medical Harm and My One Prospect for a Future
I have been fighting for my life daily for 8 years. Before that, there was already a lifetime of abuse from people in positions of power, most often from caregivers. The medical and psychiatric abuse of the last eight years … Continue reading
Posted in Healthcare
Tagged Doctor, healthcare, IPNB, medical abuse, psychiatric abuse, Relational Neuroscience, relationships
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Empathy is Crucial in Medicine, But the Healthcare System Undermines It
Prioritizing efficiency and financial goals over empathetic care has detrimental effects on both patients and healthcare practitioners. Empathy Improves Patient Outcomes Enhanced Communication: Empathetic healthcare practitioners build better communication with patients, leading to more accurate diagnoses and more effective treatments. … Continue reading
Posted in Healthcare
Tagged burnout, doctors, Empathy, healthcare, medical, Medicine, mindfulness, physician burnout, Psychology, training
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