Why It's Hard to Self-Soothe (with CPTSD)

When I was in the worst parts of active CPTSD, it was impossible for me to self-soothe. This wasn’t a "limiting belief" or a "negative thought." It was impossible for me to self-soothe.

During this time, whenever my nervous system would activate into a trauma response, I would immediately spiral. I was unable to hold myself through the emotional intensity that quickly morphed into panic and desperation as it pulled me into a black hole from which I felt there was no escape.

I wish my then-therapist had told me what I know now, which is that it's impossible to self-soothe until we learn how to from others. Self-soothing is taught. It's not something we can figure out on our own.

This isn't a personal failure or personality disorder. Human neurobiology is interpersonal. We learn how to self-soothe from others. Until our nervous systems learn this necessary skill, we simply don't know how. And no amount of thinking differently or changing our self-narrative is going to change that. It must change at the level of the nervous system.

This is why practicing grounding, resourcing, or other somatic trauma resolution tools don’t always help. Only when we receive consistent soothing over time, from safe and caring others, can we learn to self-soothe for ourselves.

When we do, our nervous systems can begin to benefit from self-soothing techniques and tools. But we can't get there until we know what it feels like to be effectively soothed.

The Biological Reason We Outsource Self-Soothing

Human babies are different from other mammals because we are born with nervous systems that aren’t fully developed. Our sympathetic nervous system develops first. That’s the branch that activates a stress response, our way of alerting others when we need something. 

Our ability to relax and self-soothe happens in the parasympathetic nervous system, which develops after the sympathetic nervous system and continues to do so long after birth.

This means that, although infants need soothing, we can't generate it inside. Soothing must come from the outside — ideally, from our caregivers.

We now know that, in the womb, mothers and babies are entrained and effectively share nervous systems. What happens to the mother's nervous system happens to the baby's nervous system too.

But rather than bifurcating into separate nervous systems at birth, we are discovering that nervous system entrainment lasts well into early childhood. Maternal stress creates child stress because the child is still “borrowing” the mother’s nervous system.

Our nervous systems are connected, interpersonal, and intertwined. This means two important things for childhood development.

1. Soothing the mother soothes the baby, because their nervous systems are entrained.

2. The mother's (or other caregiver's) soothed nervous system is the template the child uses to create their relaxation response.

This has far-reaching implications, especially for adults with unresolved complex trauma (CPTSD) or developmental trauma who find it hard to self-soothe. (Developmental trauma is a type of complex trauma, or CPTSD, that happens in childhood when we don't get the emotional care, safety, or attention that we need to thrive.)

Let's explore this a little more...

1. Soothing the mother soothes the baby, because their nervous systems are entrained.

Infants and young children are physiologically incapable of self-soothing. No amount of letting them "cry it out" can change this biological reality. In fact, letting infants and young children cry until they give up creates long-lasting neurobiological wounding, as they collapse into despair and believe that abandonment — and therefore, death — is imminent.

Until their parasympathetic nervous systems develop more fully, around age one, infants and young children outsource their soothing requirements to their mothers (or other caregivers). A stressed mother means a stressed baby. There is no way around this neurobiologically. Babies and young children cannot soothe themselves.

I need to lean on my public health expertise to remind us that a stressed mother is not a personal failing of hers, but rather a failure of the network of relationships and systems around her to adequately support her needs. This is a relational and systemic issue, not an individual one.

2. The mother's (or other caregiver's) soothed nervous system is the template the child uses to create their relaxation response.

If the mother or caregiver doesn't know how to self-soothe, they won't know how to soothe the child or themselves. The child won't experience the pattern of soothing, both observed and experienced, from their mother or caregiver. Without this template, they won't learn how to self-soothe.

There are many reasons why mothers and caregivers may not be able to provide this essential nervous system development. Mothers may not have learned this from their mothers, creating a cascade of intergenerational trauma (until we heal). Factors like stress, war, poverty, natural disasters, immigration, intimate partner abuse, sexual abuse, or illness may mean a mother isn't resourced or supported the way she needs. And if her nervous system isn't supported, her child’s nervous system can't learn to be either.

What Happens When Our Caregivers Can't Self-Soothe

As babies and young children, if we don’t receive regular and reliable soothing from our caregivers, we try desperately to find whatever substitutes we can.

We might attach to inanimate objects like stuffed animals or blankets, requiring them to help us calm and becoming terrified whenever we are separated from them. We might turn to food or other substances or behaviors as predictable ways to self-soothe.

The behaviors or objects we use to self-soothe don't adequately down-regulate our nervous systems the way a caring human would, but they're better than nothing. We make do with whatever is available as a determined act of survival.

However, because substitutes don't deeply self-soothe or relax us, our nervous systems remain activated. Over time, this leads us to collapse into numbness and despair. Our bodies can't sustain so much over-activation without relief, so we shut down to survive.

What This Means for Trauma Healing

I'm sharing this is because we can always heal. No matter how old we are, or what happened to us, our nervous systems are always capable of change and repair.

We can build new neurons and neural networks that pattern self-soothing at any point in our lifespan. We are always able to reorient our brains and bodies towards goodness and connection. 

Even as adults, we need to experience interpersonal soothing from someone, so we can copy-paste it into our own experience. Otherwise, we don't know what it feels like.

Until we know what soothing feels like, we might cycle through "calming techniques" that don't work. When we try everything but “nothing works,” it’s easy to descend into anger that's easily turned in on ourselves.

We need safe, caring others in our lives to show us what soothing is. Then we can figure out how to self-soothe on our own, so we can use that skill whenever we need to.

If we don’t have this essential connection to others, unwanted behaviors like soothing with objects or substances, or the collapsed shutdown of our exhausted nervous systems, become the norm. It’s not our fault, but we do need to take responsibility for outdated coping mechanisms and teach our nervous systems how to adequately self-soothe. 

Healing is a choice, and it's always possible.

We can learn self-soothing from a beloved partner, trusted friend, a mentor, or a trauma specialist like me. But we need to learn it from someone. Our nervous systems need to pattern what soothing feels like so we can figure out how to do it on our own.

If you have a hard time with self-soothing, it's not your fault. It can be learned. In fact, it must be. Self-soothing is a crucial part of healing.

Those of us with CPTSD and developmental trauma often look for soothing from others, unaware of the deep need we're trying to fill and our own inability to self-soothe.

It's a lot to ask from adult relationships, which is why I want to honor the partners and friends who show up for us this way. I'm grateful.

My hope is that, by bringing more consciousness to the self-soothing process, we can learn how to do this by ourselves, for ourselves. We can enjoy soothing, when it comes from trusted others. But as we heal, we arrive at a point where we don't need it (or cling to it, as a matter of survival) because we have learned to self-soothe on our own.

I know you can do it.

Reach out anytime.

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