Episode Details

What if the patterns you’ve spent years blaming yourself for were never a character flaw in the first place?

In this episode of Thought Atlas, I sit down with Carrie Davidson, a registered nurse, trauma-informed coach, and author of Addicted to Trauma: A Memoir of CPTSD, Addiction, and Taking My Life Back.

Carrie describes nursing as her second career, following earlier work in public health and community health education. After several years in nursing, she became a coach, combining her professional experience with her firsthand experience of complex trauma.

Carrie shares the moment that forced her to look differently at her life. Ten years ago, while living in Southern California, she says she was drugged and kidnapped in Mexico and later woke up in a psychiatric hospital without knowing who she was or what her name was.

But as she looked back at what had led her there, she began connecting the experience to patterns that had developed much earlier in her life.

Carrie grew up in an alcoholic household and was helped by her grandparents, whose deaths during her early teenage years preceded her experimentation with drugs and alcohol as a way of escaping trauma. She explains how she spent years believing that healing meant staying positive, moving on, and simply putting one foot in front of the other.

Her perspective changed as she began examining the patterns underneath her experiences.

We explore Carrie’s understanding of complex PTSD, why she believes prolonged exposure to trauma can leave people stuck in survival responses, and why she says she was diagnosed with several different conditions before understanding her experiences through the lens of CPTSD.

Carrie also explains her Conscious Creation Method, a framework she first used on herself and now uses with people she works with.

She walks us through its five stages:

Witnessing — becoming aware of patterns and triggers.

Understanding — asking, “What was this protecting me from?” rather than “What is wrong with me?”

Interrupting — creating a pause between an unconscious thought or behavior and the next decision.

Creating — moving from asking what you are avoiding toward asking what you want to build in your life.

Sustaining — developing the repetition and skills needed to keep living intentionally when old patterns resurface.

We also discuss self-compassion and Carrie’s experience of working with what she calls her “inner child,” as well as her belief that healing involves developing compassion for both the adult experiencing the healing journey and the younger self who lacked the safety and support they needed.

Ultimately, Carrie’s message is about moving away from self-blame and toward awareness, compassion, and intentional living.

CONNECT WITH CARRIE DAVIDSON

Website: carriepdavidson.com

Instagram: @CarriePDavidson

Carrie says her website contains information about her book and free resources, and that she welcomes people to reach out and start a conversation.

Her book is scheduled for release on August 8, according to the recording.

Learn more about Thought Atlas:https://joinpodmatch.com/thoughtatlas

Food for thought from Carrie:

“What do I want to build in my life?”

And:

“Life will present us the same lesson in different ways until we learn it.”