Do you ever feel like you just don’t fit in? Or like there’s something wrong with you that makes you feel like an outsider or leads to you withdrawing from people and isolating? This is what I talked about with one of my good friends, the Crappy Childhood Fairy, Anna Runkle.
Ann has recently written a book called Connectability and it talks about how trauma can make it harder for us to connect with others, but also how there are practical things you can do to learn how to connect better with other people and to build good relationships and to open new opportunities and experiences in your life. Let’s jump in
The following is the raw transcript of my YouTube podcast conversation with Anna Runkle.
Disconnection: The Hidden Symptom of Complex PTSD
Emma McAdam:
Anna, thanks so much for being here. I’m really excited to talk with you. Always fun to see you.
Anna Runkle:
Yeah, good to see you again, Emma.
Emma McAdam:
Okay, so we’re talking about your new book, Connectability. I’m really excited because as I started reading this book, I was like, holy cow, this resonates with me. Tell us a little bit about the main idea.
Anna Runkle:
Well, when I did my first book last year, Re-regulated, I was laying out my own experience of growing up with complex PTSD, living with it, that it was kind of happening. The hard part was in three areas of life. Dysregulated nervous system, a feeling of disconnection from other people, and then the self-defeating behaviors that flow out of those two basic problems. And if you get any healing in any one of those, it helps you with the other two.
So that’s kind of my worldview on how I experienced the symptoms and how to approach healing. And in my book, Re-regulated, it was very focused on dysregulation. There was a chapter on disconnection. But my audience on YouTube engaged so much with every video I make about that feeling of being left out, not belonging, overlooked, like there’s a wall between you and other people.
And I know it’s really common for many people. It’s especially common for people who were neglected when they were kids. And I know that’s like noted in the literature, but from my perch as a YouTuber with these thousands of comments coming back to me, I’m like, this is huge, this is a huge symptom. And I would almost venture almost universal for, and yet normal people advice about how to deal with the sense of disconnection never quite applies. There’s something underneath it all.
And I needed to write a book about the guide for people who have lived with trauma. And I do hope and believe it’s going to be very helpful. I’m gonna take that back and make it present tense. And the book is also intended to serve the needs of other people who feel disconnected, people on the autism spectrum, people who are introverted, people who have been through a terrible loss or they’ve been ostracized from their community for some reason. This is about how to come back.
This is a practical guide and it’s something that I had to figure out when my life sort of hit bottom with isolation and loneliness. It’s all very practical that anyone can do it. When you are connected with other people or you have the choice to connect and disconnect, which is key to being able to connect, that you can set a boundary. When you have that, your life can just get big. It can get wonderful you can try things that you’re not sure if you like. And all these things that used to be too risky. The cost was too high to your wellbeing, your stress level. And so I’m very excited for people to read this book.
Covert Avoidance: The Hidden Way Trauma Keeps You Lonely
Emma McAdam:
Mm-hmm. That’s awesome. And as I think about the challenge here of like loneliness and disconnection, I also think there’s this barrier of like shame. So like when I think of myself sometimes as feeling lonely, I feel like, what’s the matter with me? Like there must be something wrong with me that I’m lonely or I don’t have that many friends, or it’s harder for me to connect with people or I feel really awkward in a group. And I think, well, there must be something wrong with me. And that really prevents me from being able to do much about it. I don’t know. I think a lot of people experience this.
Anna Runkle:
Yeah, yeah. The first instinct is to sort of just self-criticize and think, it’s just me, I’m a weirdo. one of my go-to thoughts often, my self-critical thoughts is, I haven’t worked hard enough at this. You know, I must have been very lazy when everybody else was paying attention about how to get along with other people. But in the end, that’s not really what it was. I’ve probably worked double time. And as a lot of people who struggle with connection do, have worked extra hard to try to connect.
Emma McAdam:
Right.
Anna Runkle:
And it could be baffling, like, why isn’t it working? Why isn’t it landing? Well, one of the areas for me that was always like, I just didn’t understand, but moms groups, having kids requires that you socialize with other moms and families. And the moms groups in particular, and I think because, my first husband left the marriage when my kids were very small and I had to work full time and many of the other moms I knew had more time, more freedom to be with the kids in a way that I would have liked. I didn’t predict that there would be this big difference between us afterwards or that I would be, I think, ostracized in some cases, but also just that I think I would feel envious. They would come to the school function and they would have all brought things and I didn’t have time. And to actually go into dive into this a little deeper about what helped me have insight about the part that I could change is I realized like in this particular aspect of my experience being separate from people, I may not have had a lot of time, but I started to adopt this like mantle of like, I’m a single mom. I can’t be expected to bring anything or really go the full measure. And that’s true. It’s true that I couldn’t do everything that somebody with more time could do, but it was like an identity I put on. And it caused me to sort of give up on things that were important. It’s important to be friends with other parents so your kids have good friendships.
But there’s many things we can’t control too. There’s things we can control, there’s things we can’t control. I’m such a fan of working on the things that we can potentially do something about. The things that have to do with me, regardless of what other people did, and the things that are happening in present time, even though what happened in the past certainly influences me. And that’s what Crappy Childhood Fairy is very focused on. what can I do now? what can I notice about the way that I’m…
Emma McAdam:
Absolutely.
Anna Runkle:
Distancing myself, holding people at arm’s length. And I gave that arm’s length thing a name. I call it covert avoidance. a lot of people were just like, yeah, that thing.
Emma McAdam:
Mm-hmm. When I read that, it like hit me to the core. like I do, like I stay busy even when I’m around people to like avoid that discomfort sometimes that I feel around them. Or like, yeah, what are some other forms of covert avoidance? Like what does that look like?
Anna Runkle:
Yeah. Yeah, well, that’s the key sign is like you want to be connected with people. It’s not that you want to be isolated. Some people do want to be isolated. Let’s call that overt avoidance. Some people would like to be. Yeah, this is not going to work for them right now. They know that. But many of us, we want to be connected. We have hurt feelings sometimes that we’re left out you if you don’t say yes to invitations enough times, you won’t be invited anymore.
Emma McAdam:
Right, yeah, like, leave me alone, yeah.
Anna Runkle:
And so these symptoms start to they have ripple effects where we get more isolated, but we’re holding people apart This is what I believe it’s because it’s stressful people are stressful and different people have a different stress level about people some some people have it very easy some people just you know have drinks to sort of lubricate social lubricant, know to make it easy to hang out with people, but it can be triggering It can be alienating people can hurt your feelings or they can interrupt you
Emma McAdam:
Mm-hmm.
Anna Runkle:
They can not listen. Yeah, they can say things that they thought they meant well, but don’t land well. And so it can be stressful. And for a lot of us, our stress level is already so high that there’s just this unconscious decision. I can’t take that on right now. I just don’t have bandwidth for this extra stress of having coffee with Denise, you know, I can’t do that. Yeah.
Emma McAdam:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I feel that.
Anna Runkle:
Yeah, and so then we go, well, I’ll do it. I’ll do it very soon. And that’s what we text back. Sorry, can’t make it today. Just very overwhelmed. Can we do this again soon? Sure, she says. But then soon doesn’t come and it starts to add up. And I hit a crisis of that when my kids were smaller after my divorce, when I was in and out of the hospital off and on with I had 14 major surgeries and all these medical complications. It wasn’t my fault. There was a medical accident in the first surgery and they did their best to fix it.
And eventually I did recover, but it was a very tough time to be a single mom. And they kept saying, you need to rest for three months. Well, a mom can’t. And they had to get lifted into their car seats and taken to school. so I was sort of pushing my limits all the time. And I was also very traumatized at that time. you my marriage had fallen apart. It was and not for happy reasons, not for anything positive. It was a very hard time. And so carrying all that and having ….
Emma McAdam:
Holy cow, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Anna Runkle:
I think being a mom can be isolating. We lived on a semi-rural neighborhood on a long cul-de-sac. And if you didn’t fit in with that neighborhood, you’d be very isolated and I’d have to drive my kids 20 minutes to their schools so they couldn’t just fall into play dates. And so there was always this feeling of like, I gotta try harder to fit in with these folks. But I didn’t fit in. And honestly, I just made a video about ….
Emma McAdam:
Absolutely.
Anna Runkle:
…female bullying that I experienced in that neighborhood that I endured for a long time and my life got so much better when I moved away. Learning, aha, there was nothing I could do except to get out of there. as an aside, the great thing about having the people on YouTube commenting on it, I found out like so many women have experienced that. It’s really common.
Emma McAdam:
Yeah. Yeah. It wasn’t just me, like it
Anna Runkle:
Somebody starts a smear campaign, other people get on board and it can be devastating. So, those were some very hard years for me and very hard for me to heal my body under the circumstances. Yeah.
Emma McAdam:
And I think relationships in general, like you said, they’re difficult or they include some stress. Like part of caring about people involves caring and worrying or feeling stressed or hurt when they hurt us.
How Childhood Neglect Affects the Nervous System
Emma McAdam:
How would you say childhood trauma exacerbates that, makes relationships harder?
Anna Runkle:
Yeah. Well, this was very painful for me to learn, but also really liberating that abuse and neglect, but especially neglect to my surprise, can alter brain development. It can change the growth of your nervous system. I’ve come to just like honor and admire the nervous system. It’s such a beautiful thing when it’s illustrated as points of light and lines of nerves and things. It looks like an angel.
It’s this very significant part of your being. I think there are parts of us outside of our body and nervous system, but what we’re experiencing day to day, our emotions, our hormones, when we go into puberty, why we fall in love, who attracts us, so much is governed by our nervous system. And when there’s an injury there, which I learned neglect really can, alter development.
Since I’m not a brain scientist, I like ordinary language. it puts a dent in the part of your brain and nervous system that is meant to experience attachment and connection. And I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what’s going on with me. My mother was somebody who, you know, came and went without announcing what was going on. She would just like leave the family for a month at a time, starting when I was a newborn and nobody would know if she was coming back and so…
Emma McAdam:
Hmm. Hmm.
Anna Runkle:
My dad would be stressed, whoever was caring for me. It was just sort of this frantic energy all the time, like, is she ever coming back? And so I have no doubt that affected me, even though it’s not anything I can remember. I think of that idea that the body holds trauma, stores it. think, for me, I think of that as metaphorical. And I understand the point, it definitely affects my body. But the way that my healing has happened has been less a physical thing like it is for many people.
Emma McAdam:
Yeah.
Anna Runkle:
And more of expressing and naming the thoughts and feelings. And as you and I have talked about before, I’m like many people who experienced a lot of chronic ongoing intense stress and developed complex PTSD as a result. I’m like many people who talking about what happened can dysregulate my nervous system all over again. It ended up making talk therapy like not a fruitful way to come at it.
Emma McAdam:
Yeah.
Anna Runkle:
And the techniques that I stumbled on have to do with expressing it in writing, not as a journal, not as a way to document it, even though I also think that’s a really good thing to do, but a little dump twice a day. I did it in the form of a prayer. I teach it in a way that people, if they’re not oriented that way, they can do it as a release of these things. But to just name these fearful, resentful thoughts going on and feelings.
And ask for them to be removed and then to set intentions to try to know where really does my energy and attention belong today and could I please have the strength to do that? Because that’s where life gets happy is when you’re doing what you’re meant to do. You’re doing what you’re capable of doing, bringing your gifts into the world and not being stuck underneath this constant reactivity and hurt from the things that are happening in your world.
Emma McAdam:
Yeah.
Anna Runkle:
Other people would say they’re out of proportion, but I don’t think that’s fair. I think the reason that small things can be so triggering for a traumatized person is it’s just like the stack of pancakes is already so high. You put one more pancake on it and it will create sort of a breakdown. So we’re all just trying to protect ourselves, trying to hang on, trying to keep it together. So I think isolation is for many of us, it’s a go-to strategy to, you know, just like calm it down, get that stack of pancakes down a little bit.
Be able to show up for work, to get some sleep, to have clean clothes on in the morning, to get the kids in the car, to deal with the odd neighbor. And I think that’s a noble effort. That’s not crazy or failure. It’s just where we are at any given time.
Emma McAdam:
Mm-hmm. Okay. So, so to summarize this, basically trauma makes us more sensitive. Trauma makes us, neglect makes these experiences feel more, more stressful. And we have this pile up. I’m visualizing this, this video I saw on Instagram the other day of this, this guy who was working on his roof and he’s bringing asphalt shingles up to his deck and stacking them on his deck to get ready to work on his roof. And he goes and lays this one thing of shingles on top of this huge pile of shingles on his deck. And the whole deck collapses. And so, it wasn’t that one pile of shingles that did it. It was the 50 piles of shingles that did it. So when we have neglect or trauma or stress or anxiety, then it’s like our deck is already weighed down and these little situations or these little experiences feel super intense. Then maybe we have a reaction that you would say is disproportionate–or not disproportionate–it’s like we react in a way.
Emma McAdam:
That it hurts us or we hurt someone else and then we think the only solution is to just isolate, to avoid, to separate ourselves and not have those anymore.
Anna Runkle:
Yeah, yeah. There’s the anticipatory isolation, like this is going to be too much for me. And then there’s, I snapped at somebody, I lashed out, I act panicky in front of them. They think I’m irrational. They think I’m the crazy girl. And then we isolate out of shame. I grew up in a commune in Berkeley, so you wouldn’t be surprised that I feel this way, but so many people feel this way now. They don’t really have the language and the structure. Like, what do I do when I feel embarrassed about how I behaved? What am I supposed to say?
Emma McAdam:
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Anna Runkle:
And so if we just go hide from that moment, it will like further isolate us. And if you have some basic tools, I’m a big fan of tools, just like basic tools. And a lot of them are things my grandmother probably knew very well, you know, what to do. But somehow we’ve lost that. And there’s a number of things we could think of that did that. And I notice since the pandemic, and especially since like the advent of these things, that’s my husband there. That’s a little loving picture of my husband.
Emma McAdam:
Yeah. Yeah. Hi handsome. I love it.
Anna Runkle:
I keep it on my phone in case I get mad at him and I remember, no, actually I love that guy. Never forget. I was going to say since the pandemic and since the advent of phones, between lockdown and isolation, which some people really enjoyed, it gave them a breather. Other people, it was torture but for I think everybody, it made it harder to come back.
Emma McAdam:
That’s so good.
Anna Runkle:
Most people I talk to feel like they’re not quite how they were before in terms of being able to connect with people. And then just the phones, I don’t want to pathologize it too much. You know, we all have one. Even in Africa, I noticed they had smartphones and you know, it’s just, just they’re everywhere. It’s just part of our lives and we need to learn how to handle it. But it’s too easy to finally get together with somebody for that coffee. And then the whole time you’re looking at your phone. And you know a little note a little ding that little ding it’s like, what is it? Some spam from you know my insurance company all right yes make a million dollars at home. Yeah
Emma McAdam:
Someone’s offering me a job. Yeah, that’s what I get all the time. Yeah, phones. That’s right. Without easy work, get paid daily. Yeah, it’s like perfect. I definitely am going to click on that. Well, it’s true, it’s true. And so then I appreciate that you share like your process for re-regulating, which we did do an interview on, which is this writing process to help you get re-regulated. But then you’re saying ….
Anna Runkle:
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
What to Do When CPTSD Makes Connection Feel Impossible
Emma McAdam:
Let’s hear some of these other tools. Like let’s hear some of these other things we can do maybe after we’ve made a mistake or we are already isolated or the preemptive isolating. Like what do we do? How do we reconnect when it does feel harder than ever to connect to people?
Anna Runkle:
Mm-hmm. It feels harder than ever. Everybody wants a listicle, know, three things you can do and the problem solved. And there are little things you can do for sure in the moment. I’ll tell you what they are right up front. You can just give it a point value and try to do three one point things a day. A one point thing is like, go to my car without checking out the window first to see if anybody’s out there that I’ll have to say hi to. Respond to an email that’s ….
Emma McAdam:
Yeah. Yeah.
Anna Runkle:
…. bothering me because I haven’t responded yet. Sometimes it’s just go to any public place. This is my favorite one. Just give a kind word. Giving a kind word. If you remember one thing for your connection, just give a kind word to people. It’s impossible to see from the outside how much that might mean to somebody. Some people it might just be like a fly they swat off. Who cares?
For most people, it’s going to be a very big deal. It could be life-changing. You don’t know when you’re interrupting a very dark time for them when they’re just thinking, I’m so alone, nobody cares. You’d be surprised. we would all be surprised how lonely people are, even though they look great on the outside. We’re all a bunch of covert avoiders. We’re trying to look good on the outside. So you give a kind word.
Emma McAdam:
That’s the thing. Yeah, we think everyone else has this figured out. Everyone else feels secure in their relationships. Everyone else must have so many friends. Like, look at their social media. And then, here I am sitting by myself, or here I am wondering why I said what I said. It’s like, I think most people, when you really talk to them, feel worried about their relationships or lonely or disconnected.
Anna Runkle:
Yeah, can’t think of anything more serious to happen to your life, than to become disconnected. there’s only so much personal growth you can do from a disconnected state. Especially with trauma, the wound is relational and the healing is relational. There is some work you do on the inside. So in the book, I lay it out as, look, there’s an underlying thing of disconnection that you might’ve been born with.
It may be an injury to your nervous system. It may be something that is changeable and it may be something that like some of our friends on the autism spectrum, you learn work around so that you can, you know, have social skills and have good relationships anyway and just say the thing that people need to hear that doesn’t sound intuitive. I learned something from the autism community of this idea of Wi-Fi. It’s like, why is everybody on this Wi-Fi? I can’t seem to get on the Wi-Fi.
I’m not reading the nonverbal communication. So that’s one of the signs that that neurological injury might be at play. so sometimes we just do the behavior anyway, and it’s good. It still has the good effect. It doesn’t have to always be completely authentic. We just do the thing. And that’s really like socially, aren’t we doing that a lot anyway? We’re putting on shoes to go in somebody’s house. We’re wearing clothes. We’re doing things that maybe we didn’t feel like today, but.
Emma McAdam:
Yeah.
Anna Runkle:
But we’re doing it because it’s socially helpful to connect and fit into society. I’m a big fan of people being who they really are and being free to do that, but within limits of like, we need to wear clothes when we go to school. And we need to be considerate of other people and being ourselves, like this idea, like I gotta be me, babe. And I’ll tell you, you know, Berkeley in the sixties, the idea I have to be me, even if it means I flee the family and don’t bother with my kids anymore.
Emma McAdam:
Yeah.
Anna Runkle:
That’s not right. That’s not being you. That’s being malfunctioning.
How to Build Healthy Relationships Without Losing Safety
Emma McAdam:
It’s interesting to see how like a lot of the psychological advice on the internet is very isolating. It’s like, if someone hurts you then you need to cut them off. If someone does this you need to assert your boundaries. You need to protect your own personal space. You need to do self-care. And there’s so much education, education, information, information about like how to never let anyone bother you. How to never like always stand up for yourself. And it’s like
Anna Runkle:
Yeah. Yeah.
Emma McAdam.
Cool, but that’s really isolating. Like I’m not saying we need to be pushovers and doormats and fake and people pleasers, but I am saying like, if we do want real relationships, we have to be willing to put in some work. We have to be willing to bend and adapt, to do things for other people that take energy and effort, and when other people mess up within a broad degree, like we need to be like, cool, they’re human too, right?
Anna Runkle:
Yes.Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yes, yeah, I feel so worried about people who are going so far in the direction of like, you know, everybody’s got some pathology, you know, except me and I need to be me and then cutting people off. I totally get it that sometimes we do need to cut people off. Sometimes either because they’re abusive and dangerous for us or because at the point we’re at in our healing, we can’t hold our sanity in their presence even though ….
Emma McAdam:
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.
Anna Runkle:
You couldn’t, maybe it’s not abuse, but it’s there’s something about it that we just can’t hold it together right now and we need some time. I really think the wonderful solution is to say today, right now, right now I need a break from this person and to keep the door open that a lot of things can change in the future. And you can hold your boundary forever for the rest of your life if you want to, but you can also keep the option open and big declarations that you’re never coming back should be reserved for when that’s absolutely necessary. For me, I experimented with that. My family, they were really troubled. My mom, like, wouldn’t say, love you. she couldn’t remember how to spell my name. There were a lot of stuff that really hurt me. And in my twenties, I was determined. Like, you have to acknowledge what you’ve done to me. You have to acknowledge how you didn’t keep me safe, you know, from all the weird men you brought into the house and all your drunkenness. And that’s what I thought was gonna fix me.
Emma McAdam:
Yeah. Yeah.
Anna Runkle:
And, you know, there was a certain cultural element there that I was, you know, that I was told. she had to be confronted about this stuff. It didn’t go well. She threw me out of the house. And that didn’t feel good. In the end, you know, she died of cancer, and her death was one of the things that precipitated me really being forced to find a better way to heal. At the time, I was in talk therapy three times a week.
Emma McAdam:
Yeah.
Anna Runkle:
And because of my dysregulation, it wasn’t successful for me. I was feeling worse and worse. And I stumbled on a technique where I could express what I was feeling on paper and read it to a friend and actually became so much better so quickly. Like within two weeks, I think I didn’t have PTSD anymore. And the background story is I think I had acute onset PTSD because I had been assaulted on the street at the same time my mom was dying. So I had this very dark night of the soul. I couldn’t function.
And very quickly I was able to function. It would be 20 years before I had a word for what was going on. And it was PTSD from the assault, complex PTSD from a lifetime of chaos at home. And then a concussion. And the concussion is all they could really identify. At the time, they didn’t understand there was an underlying neurological injury going on that was making it very hard for me to cope or come back from this. And the solution of talking about it was retriggering.
Emma McAdam:
Yeah.
Anna Runkle:
And then when I was falling apart after talking about it, the doctors like, here, let’s give you some Xanax, take it liberally. They were even like, drive on it. I’m like, no, I tried that once. I was like, you can’t drive on this. But also I quickly detected the writing technique I had was giving me so much emotional relief. I was instructed just take a restful meditation afterwards. Just close your eyes, rest for 20 minutes. It felt tedious and long at the time and unnecessary, but I now know.
Emma McAdam:
Haha. Yeah.
Anna Runkle:
When you’re facing and releasing a lot of hard stuff, it’s really good to take a rest immediately afterward. It gives your brain and nervous system a chance to sort of put itself together, integrate, process. I don’t know, these are words that people use in other forms and I’m just going to borrow them here and say, yeah, that’s what it feels like to feel refreshed, to feel untriggered now, know, released from that intense stress and able to go forward. I didn’t have words for it.
Emma McAdam:
Mm.
Anna Runkle:
For the dysregulation, re-regulation, but looking back, I would say, yeah, very clearly that’s what it did for me. I thought I was the only person who had this problem had not been a spiritual person before this remarkable recovery happened and I was like, wow, it’s a miracle and it is a miracle, but like all phenomena that are miraculous, you can measure things about it that also will bear up under science and that’s …. now there’s a word for it. I’m like, that’s what it was. It was when Bessel van der Kolk’s book came out in 2014, I read it. I was in a crisis. I was about to get married to my husband. I had had an emotional dysregulation attack and he was like, we can’t get married like this. And I was like, no, I’ve ruined this wonderful thing that’s entered into my life. And I bought this book and I read it and I heard complex PTSD and I was like, I read what it was and it was the first time I’d ever heard what it was like to be me described in words with bullet points, you know, and all of them applied. And the other thing I learned in that book was the concept of neurological dysregulation. And that was the second just like eureka moment because I think that up until that time I had been told.
Like experts would say this is purely psychological, you’re interpreting your childhood, you’re trying to recreate it, it’s a daddy wound, I don’t know, whatever you want to call it. And all of that was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. And the whole truth was that I had this like neurological injury that makes me sort of short-circuited under a certain kind of stress, where my left front cortex isn’t working properly, I can’t reason properly, I misjudge things. A little slight may feel like something, a relationship ending event, and any self-respecting woman would
Emma McAdam:
Yeah. Hmm.
Anna Runkle:
Cut it off right now. And so I would just do these horrible mistakes and shoot my mouth off about things and it would feel right in the moment. And gradually through my healing, I learned to surround myself with wise people who could help me interpret reality and sort of recover my perception and my red flag detector and get a realistic sense of, is it just me or was this somebody else? And most things are a combination.
And I got to have the experience over and over again, let’s focus on what I can change, whether it’s to stop hanging out with those people or to hold my tongue when I’m feeling very emotional till I’ve had a chance to think it through or maybe talk to somebody I trust. my life, went from a struggle that I think was doomed to turn out badly to a life full of possibility and fulfillment and good things. It’s still hard. I still have CPTSD. It’s hard sometimes, but I know what to do when it’s upon me. I know what to do.
Emma McAdam:
Yeah. So you have your process, your writing process, which we’ve talked about on the channel and people can find on your website and everything.
Anna Runkle:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Emma McAdam:
I’m so happy that you’re finding peace and healing in your journey like this is it gives us hope right it gives us hope that like neuro like that neuroplasticity is a real thing and they that like we we can like heal these wounds and these patterns that we have in our lives like
How to Be Present with People After Trauma
Anna Runkle:
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And we can find workarounds when something is a little bit like a fixed feature or appears to be. Yeah, we can have workarounds. So what I teach in the book, upon this foundation, is I’ve identified what I consider to be nine major obstacles. There are hundreds. Everyone’s unique. But some biggies are…
Emma McAdam:
That’s right. That’s right. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah.
Anna Runkle:
First avoidant tendencies. I think we’re very quick to notice avoidant tendencies and other people, especially when we’re in love with them. One of the things I had to confront is that I was always with avoidance. So what does that mean? Who’s avoidant? And it’s not conscious. I’m not trying to self-sabotage. I’m really against that sort of diagnosis. It’s like, you just want, no, I don’t want to do anything, but I have avoidant tendencies, whether they’re conscious or not.
Emma McAdam:
Yeah. Yeah.
Anna Runkle:
I could think about that and psychoanalyze it till the cows come home and I might not have answers. I just know I don’t want to do that. I know that I want to be more connected and I consciously chose to seek out a partner who would match what I really wanted in my life and could be with me. so avoidant tendencies also show up in the like looking at our phones when we’re sitting with a friend. We’re avoiding something. It’s just ….
Emma McAdam:
Yeah.
Anna Runkle:
It’s avoidance is seductive. It feels relaxing. It feels necessary. And so especially at first, it takes a little bit of diligence to say, I’m really going to work on that and try to be more present with people. And people used to talk about being present. I thought it was psychobabble. And so I really needed a practical understanding. You what does that mean? It means I’m giving my full attention. I’m attending to it. And I’m not 100 % preoccupied with myself and how I feel about what you’re saying. I’m actually ….
Emma McAdam:
Yeah.
Anna Runkle:
…. able to listen to what you’re saying. don’t have to codependently go in and fix you, but I can sit by your side and be aware of you. I’m present. then we have to learn our conversational style of when do I say something about what I’m thinking or what my corresponding experience is. I include in the book a bunch of conversation stoppers that are common. We all recognize them in other people, but if we can work on them in ourselves, they really help. That thing where somebody says, you know, I just got this very scary diagnosis yesterday. And we jump right in and go, I had a scary diagnosis last week. Let me tell you about me. And we’re not able to sit with our friend for a minute there and just be like, wow, so what do you think? What’s that like for you? What’s going to happen? Do you want some help to be present with them? And I can’t remember really being taught this. I think it’s something we learned by osmosis by being around people who are good at it. So if you didn’t get that at home,
Emma McAdam:
Yeah Mm-hmm.
Anna Runkle:
It’s a learning curve you have to put yourself on. I remember as a kid watching TV shows with positive relationships in families and things, and I would just be glued to it. Like, what are moms supposed to say when that happens? How do you tell somebody you’re mad at them? How do you show a guy that you have a crush on him without being weird? And I learned it from TV, sadly. Little in relay.
Emma McAdam:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, it’s interesting. It’s interesting because I do think there are some people who get this naturally, whether they learn it in their family environment or they have a more natural like proclivity toward understanding social dynamics. But I do remember for me, I was really lonely from like middle school through high school. And in college, it finally clicked like Emma, you have to go to a party or an activity that you’re interested in. And then you need to ask people, Hi, what’s your name?
Anna Runkle:
Yeah.
Emma McAdam:
What’s your major? Where are you from? And then they ask you those things and you answer them and give a little extra and you tell them a little bit about yourself. And this is how you make friends. And I was like, this is how you make friends.
Anna Runkle:
I know. It seems so dorky. really? Let’s just small talk.
Emma McAdam:
Like, but yeah, but like I had to literally learn that. Yes, manually. Like I hate small talk, but I, like I scaffold that skill now. Like I scaffold that skill and I’m like, yeah, so I will use this skill even though it’s not my favorite. I remember one of my neighbors, we were sitting at like a end of school party and I didn’t know her hardly at all. We go to the same church, but I hardly know her. She sat down next to me. I think cause she wanted, to borrow my sunscreen or something. We started talking about like.
Anna Runkle:
Yes, it works.
Emma McAdam:
Korean cultural like expectations versus American and whether we’re gonna pay for our kids college or not and we started having this deep conversation about like money and and like really about our values around money and child rearing and like this is awesome like I’m actually really good at connecting with people on a deeper level and I’m terrible at connecting with people on a shallow level and those are the skills that I had to like manually pick up and like like study like ….
Anna Runkle:
Yeah. Yeah.
Emma McAdam:
This is how to make people feel like you like them when they come into a room you smile and say, “Hi, Tammy!” Like, and it’s not being fake you know. Yeah
Anna Runkle:
Yeah, yeah, I learned a trick. I totally have the same thing. I learned a trick for a party. Like, when in doubt, when you just don’t know what to do, scan the room and just see if somebody looks like they’re a bit lonely and go help them out. Like that kind of gets me out of myself a little bit. And the next thing you know, you’re having a conversation. But it’s very good to know. I like visual metaphors, just like you do, but I call it the front porch. It’s like, we’re on the front porch. We’re just talking on the porch. We’re not like…
Emma McAdam:
Yeah. Yeah.
Anna Runkle:
…. getting married, just, you know, we’re not necessarily gonna be besties, but I just wanna come out to the porch and talk to you a little bit and see what’s going on. It’s good for the soul, it’s good for your connectability muscle to just attend to other people. There’s so much nourishment that comes on every level from that. But I know that for many of us, it feels also like poison, and sometimes it is. People can be poisonous, and it feels very risky. Yeah.
Expanding Your Capacity for Closeness After Trauma
Emma McAdam:
Yeah, this is like, yeah. Yeah, so people who experience trauma or have really sensitive natures, these social interactions…
Anna Runkle:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Emma McAdam:
Hurt, they’re painful. So do you have any thoughts on like how we can increase our poison tolerance? Like what is this, the princess bride? Like, you know, like how do we…
Anna Runkle:
Yeah. We don’t have to. Yeah. We don’t have to. That’s not our only option is to increase our tolerance, but it’s one very good one. It’s probably my favorite because it gives you the most flexibility, but that’s not always possible. And you don’t have to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Emma McAdam:
And I’m not meaning like what, when we’re using the term poison, I’m actually not saying like hang out with toxic people and still be tough and fine. Like, no, no, no, you don’t have to hang out with toxic people. A good part of healing is like learning who to not hang out with, but just being in relationships with people involves a little bit of stress and a little bit of hurt and that’s human. So how can we, can we, do you have a tip or an idea on how we can increase our ability to handle the stress that comes with real relationships?
Anna Runkle:
Yes. Yes, it …. Well… Yeah, well I remember watching a documentary about somebody who had two leg prostheses, had lost their legs, and had two prostheses and was rehabilitating and figuring out, you know, had to practice many things, had to work over and over and over and over again at very simple things like getting up out of a chair, you know, and reaching for something high and not losing your balance when when you’re on an uneven surface. And I remember watching it fascinated and going ….
Emma McAdam:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Anna Runkle:
If they can do that, I can do people. I can do people. Some things are a little harder for me than other people, but let me give it a try and think of it like that. Like sometimes I’m going to have to practice and practice. And so two things that make it possible to practice is have a good guide, which is tools, a philosophy. In my healing, a lot of what I did is I read theology, philosophy. I read a lot of
Emma McAdam:
Mm-hmm. That’s a good attitude.
Anna Runkle:
Initially it was self-help books and some of them were helpful to me but really like deep serious philosophy. You know, what did George Washington say about how to handle these situations? He was a bit of a stoic I think and the stoics are helpful. They come in little tidbits that a person who still has active PTSD can read and take in without a whole book and things like that about just like how to be a little bit more neutral to people so that you can have a beat between the trigger and the reaction.
And when I say trigger, I’m meaning a very specific definition, which is a stimulus that causes you to become dysregulated. So somebody yells at you, they honk at you on the road, or you get criticized or you show up at work and everybody’s whispering and they get quiet and you feel triggered. And your nervous system goes, and next thing you know, left front cortex is like not working for you to go, well, maybe they were just planning my birthday because it is today or, you know.
Or maybe, then emotions go high and next thing you know, we’re having a dysregulated emotional response to things. So to have a beat between everything allows us time to look at the situation. So I guess step one is you treat yourself like you’re in rehabilitation. You’re learning things that are maybe harder for you than other people. And you’re willing to practice, learn, study, talk to other people.
You need wise people in your life. Some of our friends are there because they’re really fun, you know, to do things with. Some of our friends are there because we’re in a carpool or something together. But some of the people in our lives are very wise. I was scared to ask for mentoring from the wise people who I was aware of because I felt ashamed. I was ashamed of things that actually I ended up clearing up because it was my mind to clear up.
I was also ashamed about all this stuff that I didn’t do that I just kind of assumed it must be me, but I’m just too like such a bad person. I can’t interpret it. So I needed to work on a process of just kind of clearing up my mistakes and working on interpreting, you know, is this situation stressful for me because of me? And is there something I need to do or is it these people?
And wise people are often quite generous with their wisdom for people who sincerely want it. So I probably over those key years of my healing, there were five really important people in my life and all of them were people I was scared to approach because what I feared is that they’d go, “I’m sorry, Anna, you’re just such a screw up.”
Why would you even ask a person like me to help you? And you know, I’m going to tell you, this is my deepest fear. They’re going to tell me I have to be alone forever. In my trauma, I just always thought like, I have to do all these sort of like dodgy behaviors and stay in dysfunctional friendships or romantic attachments because I won’t have anything else. This is all I can get. And my fear was that wise people would say, nah, you got to let those go. And so now ….
Emma McAdam:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that you just have to settle.
Anna Runkle:
I’m with them on that. There’s a time to let go of the mean people and the people who bring so much like discord into your life that you can’t really be you. And so sometimes we have a duty to those people. They’re our child, they’re a sick parent and we have chosen to honor our responsibility to help deal with them even though they’re just awful to us. These are choices that we have.
But to a large degree, we can release those relationships. And what it involves is a, a period of loneliness where you’re taking a leap of faith. Like it doesn’t have to be this way. And at first it’s going to be lonely. Your worst fear is that if you let go of these relationships, you’ll have nobody. And for a short time, you got to face that fear. It’s going to, it’s going to happen. But what soon happens is that the change in you from not being constantly triggered, from not being constantly put down or you aggravated by irrational treatment, is that you begin to blossom, you begin to shine a little bit. And I don’t really have a better metaphor except to be like a light begins to shine in your eyes. you become approachable. you have a level of calm in yourself that you can actually hear other people and be that person who’s present with them. So it’s all coming up together. There’s not like a sequence where first you get your life entirely together and then you go out the door and deal with people.
Emma McAdam:
Yeah
Anna Runkle:
You’re gradually working on whatever presents itself every day. As you work on yourself, what you’re doing is you’re expanding your world a little bit, which means more stress is gonna get in. You need a way to handle that and release it and make sense of it and keep going. That’s the golden thing. And you’re gonna need boundaries too. A lot of us don’t have boundaries or we’re confused about what boundaries are.
I told him he can’t talk like that. That’s not a boundary. A boundary is if people talk in a certain manner, I’m going to leave or I’m not going to get into that relationship in the first place. That’s a boundary and you honor the, you’re the one who owns the boundary. You have to do something with your boundary. So, so if you know that you have a way to get out of situations that don’t go well, you can go into situations that you’re not sure if they’re going to go well. And that’s freedom. That’s a, that’s your world getting bigger.
And it’s natural not to know. if you go on a first date or you meet a new friend and you hang out and you’re like, oh, what if she turns out like my last friend? Well, you’ll find out. You’ll find out.
Emma McAdam:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. But that confidence that like, if something bad does happen, I could handle it really grows and grows as you build those skills. That’s such a good point because it’s like, think, I think of myself as a kid and it’s like, I would never really talk to new people ever. Like in, class, I’d just sit down and keep to myself. And if they talked to me, I’d give them a minimal, a minimal reply. Fine. Good. Yeah. Whatever. You know? And it’s like ….
Anna Runkle:
Yeah. Yeah. They might have thought you didn’t like them, huh? Yeah.
Emma McAdam:
Yeah, right? would, like, yeah, subconsciously kind of push people away. And now that I’m older and I know, like, even if someone rejected me or was rude to me, like, I could be like, hey, how you doing? What’s your name? Where are from? Whatever. And if they were like rude to me, which is very, very, very rare, I now feel so much more open about being able to do these things. If they were rude to me, I’d be all right.
Anna Runkle:
Yeah, yeah.
Emma McAdam:
Like, it wouldn’t have stabbed me to the heart, whereas when I was much less secure, like, I had to protect myself from ever having anything bad happen by never like letting anyone in.
Anna Runkle:
Yeah. Yeah. In our friendship, you’ve told me that this is what it’s been like for you in the past. And I’m always surprised, but I shouldn’t be surprised. Because you’d never know that somebody who’s like on there on YouTube all the time, very open with themselves, know, in command of their thoughts and, being able to teach in effect and connect with so many people in that way, you’d never think that that had ever been an issue. But that’s the evidence that we can all learn this and be quite successful and fulfill our personal, know, bring our gifts into the world, fulfill a mission to serve others successfully wherever we started.
Breaking Free from Avoidance Patterns
Emma McAdam:
Well, and that’s like, for me, one of the things that helped me shift the most was when I switched from, this is literally what I would say. Know it’s socially, like it’s not an appropriate word, but I would call myself, I was a social retard. That’s why I told myself there’s something wrong with me. I’m socially retarded. There’s something like, I’m broken and so I just should hide. And when I switched to like, these are skills that I can learn. Like ….
Anna Runkle:
Mm-hmm.
Emma McAdam
And it’s funny because you mentioned like a point system like give yourself points for social things I’m like this is like what we have to do. There’s some people this comes easy to but for me I built a point system that’s a little different but I think it’s funny you have a point system and I have a point system for like encouraging myself to be social and I call this like my plus one zero or minus one response so So if someone is like hey Emma, how you doing and you say I’m good
Anna Runkle:
Yeah.Cool.
Emma McAdam:
That is like a zero, that’s a completely neutral response. If you say, I’m doing okay, today’s been a little bit difficult, I had a big fight with my 10 year old today, but I’m doing all right, how are you? Like how are your kids? That’s like a plus one response, like it invites a positive feedback cycle. and if someone’s like, hey Emma, how are you? I’m like, meh, all right. And then you kind of like turn away, you don’t even ask them like how they are.
Anna Runkle:
Huh. Huh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Emma McAdam:
That’s like a minus one response. It tells people like go away, stay away. Like I’m not really interested in it. So this is how I think about like interactions.
Anna Runkle:
I can think of some minus 2’s
Emma McAdam:
And so like when I think about like if I want to improve my connections, it’s just always like whatever someone gives or what any interaction I’m in, I don’t have to do a plus 10, because that’s not really natural for me. I’m not like that, that fun, exciting or dynamic. But if I just do a plus one, if I take whatever energy they have and I just add a little bit of energy, then they add a little bit of energy, then it’s like, we get, build these positive cycles of connection. This is how I think about this.
Anna Runkle:
Yeah, I hear it. Yeah.
Emma McAdam:
So.
Anna Runkle:
Yeah, positive cycles of connection. And that’s what it is. Every relationship that’s working for you is a healing in its own right. Because life comes with a fundamental loneliness. To have a good marriage, a close friend, to have two or three people in your life who get you is very, very healing. And it’s not just trauma. think being human, there is a great loneliness inherent in it. And to find people who can, who can sit at your side. It may not be many, but to have that is a great blessing. And not all of us are equipped to have it yet, but you can learn. You can learn to step up into that role.
Healthy Relationships After Trauma Are Possible
Emma McAdam:
I love it really appreciate appreciate your book appreciate your time I don’t know if you have any Closing thoughts or tips for us or if not, we can just wrap up
Anna Runkle:
I just want to say don’t give up. The hardest thing about feeling isolated and lonely is that it keeps wanting to like make it worse for you. It’s almost like this thing working against you and it’ll keep driving you away in a way and all the problems that arise because of isolation and loneliness will start to get worse. People get mad at me when I say this, but everything negative in your character will tend to get worse in isolation. We all have negative things.
I call myself like, I get weird. When I don’t spend enough time with people, I get weird. And I can tell sometimes I need it as like a, it’s like a Geiger counter of like, Anna, you’re getting very isolated. It’s just that I have weird thoughts. I have weird thoughts like, maybe we’re in a simulation. Maybe I really don’t have to bother connecting with people. Nothing matters. That’s like, Anna, hello. You’re checking out here.
Emma McAdam:
Yeah. Yup. Or, yeah, or like, I start thinking like, my gosh, I’m the worst parent ever. Like no other parent would do this to their kids. And when I hang out with other moms, I’m like, I’m a pretty Midland parent. Like I’m like pretty average here, you know? Like, yeah.
Anna Runkle:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, especially because if you can observe, what people will say about themselves, you can’t compare yourself. Everybody’s trying to look a little better than it really is. whatever’s going on in the marriage, it’s natural and often correct to not like wear it all out on your sleeve, you know, at all times. And, so we can’t really compare ourselves to everybody else and think we’re the worst person ever. But at the same time ….
Emma McAdam:
Right, yeah.
Anna Runkle:
Sometimes depending on where you’re getting your advice. It’s very easy to Excuse yourself from all agency all responsibility all all potential to be able to change everything. We’re both YouTubers. I’m sure you see it in the comments sometimes with the people who are like, what’s the point? The whole society is just so awful and I that is trauma talking that is trauma talking. Yeah so don’t give up a lot as possible and ….
Emma McAdam:
Yeah, why bother?
Anna Runkle:
There are moments in life when you get better at this. the word connectability, it’s something I always used for those people. They got it going on. They just they just seem to have an easy time of it. They they people like to have them as friends. And I always thought, how do you get that? And and I’m happy to say, like, I got it going on. I got it going on. Very happy about that. It’s totally changed my life. And if I can do it, anybody can do it. So that’s what the book is. It’s a guide on how to step by step, get more of that.
Emma McAdam:
You do. You are very connectable. I love talking with you. Yeah.
Yeah, go ahead and show us your book. Tell us the title for the audio listeners and tell us where we can find it.
Anna Runkle:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Connectability: Heal the Hidden Ways You Isolate, Find Your People, and Feel (At Last) Like You Belong. It’s an audacious promise, but it’s true. You can feel like you belong and it’s available pretty much everywhere online, all over the world and in some bookstores. You can find me on YouTube at Crappy Childhood Fairy, which is also the name of my website.
Emma McAdam:
Love it, love it, cool. Well, thank you so much, Anna. I always, always look forward to talking
Anna Runkle:
Thank you, Emma. Me too.
Emma McAdam:
Okay, and yeah, we’ll take care and we’ll definitely put the link to that in the description.
You can find Anna Runkle’s work at www.CrappyChildhoodFairy.com and on YouTube @CrappyChildhoodFairy.
