Jump to: CPTSD Exhaustion Hits Hard · The “I Just Can’t Anymore” Wall · CPTSD Creates Constant Pressure · What This Shutdown Feels Like · It’s Not Failure, It’s Still Protection · Two Ways You Can “Do Nothing” · How to Practice the Grounded Nothing · Microsteps You Can Use Based On Energy · Why Doing Nothing Can be the More Regulated Choice · How This Method Can Help · Gentle Closing

I think we’ve all encountered several points during the CPTSD healing journey, or CPTSD as a whole, where you feel like you hit a wall.

These are the moments when you think:

• “I can’t do this anymore.”
• “Nothing works.”
• “I just can’t.”

Sometimes it’s not even verbal. Sometimes you feel like you can’t move at all.

For a lot of people, this is the beginning of that “I can’t do this anymore CPTSD” feeling, even if you don’t have words for it yet. It’s okay. It’s still part of the process. You’re not going backward or doing anything wrong, or “not the right way.” CPTSD is exhausting.

People who don’t have CPTSD also hit emotional walls but for us it hits harder. And that can lead to more hopelessness. This post talks about some ways to step away from spiraling down further.

It can feel like CPTSD is always hitting hard. But, part of what you’re experiencing is still your body trying to protect itself.

After days, weeks, months or years of pushing, you need a break. You probably need an extra break, not just from the symptoms, but from actively trying to solve.

Sometimes you may literally feel like you can’t move: this can also be your body trying to regulate itself⁽¹⁾. There is so much hypervigilance, flashbacks, trying to figure things out, that you also need both a mental and physical break.

What happens here though is that it goes too far in the opposite direction of hypervigilance. Your body just shuts down entirely.

CPTSD healing isn’t linear but that doesn’t mean it’s going “back down” either, it’s just changing or trying to find new paths. It’s also common to move through bursts of hypervigilance, collapse, shutdown, bursts of hope, confusion, clarity, frustration, and long stretches where you want to give up. This is often where the “I can’t do this anymore CPTSD” moment starts to show up.

This is the CPTSD moment behind the feeling of “I can’t do this anymore.” It is when even imagining the next step feels painful in your head, your heart, and your body.

Your system is not actually failing. It is dysregulated, but it has not stopped trying. It is still working to re-regulate. It is simply exhausted, overwhelmed, and confused by everything it has been carrying.

This is where self-compassion matters. Even remembering that your system is doing its best can create a bit more softness.

There is not weakness here, just an overwhelmed nervous system wanting some rest.

And, what if doing nothing is not failure and can be turned into a regulated, skillful response?

Before we talk about doing anything at all, it helps to understand why this shutdown happens. And, that’s a natural response to an overstressed system.

When you live with complex trauma, your nervous system is constantly scanning for danger, both internally and externally, in addition to the symptoms that already come with it.

Less talked about thoughts and feelings that come up are:

• Feeling a need to be prepared for whatever comes either internally or externally
• Fearing your own reactions, even when you’re trying to do “positive” things in healing
• Obsessively thinking about your symptoms and finding their meaning
• Wondering, on a loop, if others are experiencing the same, but not really feeling reassured or believing it
• Wondering if you are good or bad
• If there is something “wrong” with your symptoms, thoughts, or feelings
• Searching tirelessly for the “right” healing technique because none of them really fit or work
• Being terrified you’re not healing “fast enough” or the right way
• Feeling that your suffering is worse and more “unhealable” than others’

This kind of mental and emotional over-functioning eventually pushes you more into shutdown, the other end of the hypervigilance spectrum.

It’s also the thinking part of the brain trying to solve for other parts that it can’t. With complex trauma, the logical part of your brain is harder to access but this can change. 

In this type of “I can’t” shutdown, you may feel:

• Exhaustion, more than you thought possible, but in a “different way”
• Feeling physically incapable of moving
• Mentally, emotionally, verbally not being able to make any more effort
• Numbness and a sense of deeper despair
• Feeling like all possibility of motivation and hope are gone, forever
• Feeling like you can’t think, it’s too painful
• Wanting desperately for everything to stop, now and right away
• Feeling like you’ve already failed, you’re weak and “that’s it”

But these are not truths, they just feel like them, and they can weigh on you heavily.

I will repeat that this type of shutdown is not weakness and it’s not a failure. And while there might be some resistance involved, it may not be self-sabotage either. There are still steps you can take next.

Remember to find grace for yourself and your body. It is still doing the best it can in protecting you from overwhelm. It is tired.

Your mind is saying “I can’t.”
Your body is saying “I need rest.”
Your trauma history is saying:

• “I’m scared, again.”
• “What’s going on now?”
• “More symptoms?”
• “Is something bad happening again?”
• “I’m even more of a failure or even weaker than I thought?” → You’re not.

None of these mean you’re failing. It just means you’re tired, and what I call “CPTSD tired”, which is different from regular tired. So what do you do? → Nothing.

By the time you reach that “I can’t do this anymore CPTSD” state, it can feel like you have no options left, but even then there are different ways of doing “nothing.”

I’ve named it “Spiraling Nothing” because the trauma brain works on loops and it can feel like you’re getting “sucked into” a hole.

One of the eventual goals is to re-wire it and give it escape paths. At first, this will usually come in the form of some accept + redirect, small “microsteps”, and a lot of self-compassion and building self-trust along the way. Those microsteps will help to build these too. 

This is the “collapse into the spiral” version:

• Withdrawing completely (even more so), you feel like you’re a in deeper hole
• Not answering people around you when they’re talking to you, even when you know they are
• Doom-scrolling
• Reinforcing the despair by looking up ways that healing is impossible
• Telling yourself over and over that you can’t, that you don’t have a choice
• Replaying your past “failures” consciously to prove that you can’t
• Finding ways in which you’ve “failed”
• Believing every scary thought or feeling that the scary thought is “you”
• Giving the trauma or state, full control of the narrative

A Spiraling Nothing deepens despair because the nervous system has crashed but the mind is still going. Trauma loops are getting reinforced here.

And you know this sense well: you stop trying because trying feels dangerous, or you’re afraid of more failure. You’re afraid it’s all fake. You feel overwhelmed and feel like you can’t move. You feel like there’s no way out. But there is.

There’s another kind of nothing: a steadier one and a more stabilizing one.

This is more of a grounding or resting “non-doing”. What does the Regulated Nothing look like? It’s not about collapsing or giving up. It’s not about bypassing your feelings or avoiding healing.

But it’s not actively engaging too much energy either. We can’t always be in active healing mode. Although, little by little, your body does become more engrained with safety and this will become more of a natural and back-to-baseline state. The one you were initially born with, even if it hasn’t felt accessible in a long time.

Think of this as a conscious pause to restore your energy. So you can have a break from all the urgency and a small reset for your body and mind.

Part of rewiring the brain is that return to baseline and that doesn’t involve always trying to find a solution.

**Re-Reminder: Yes because the CPTSD brain needs to be reminded over and over: Part of you can believe things are ok, even when the other parts don’t.**

You stop fighting the state you’re in. And try not to question it. Try to accept and move from thoughts that may come up like:

There is no judgement of what is going on here, you’re not trying to “feel better” right away. Acceptance lowers physiological stress. Judgment raises it.

If the judgemental thoughts or doubt come back, as they may, re-accept and re-direct. If you can maybe be curious about them or acknowledge them as “this is a thought”, “this is a feeling in the moment”.

The Body–Mind Interplay (microsteps listed in next section)
Changing your posture, even slightly, can signal safety to your nervous system. When thought or speaking feel impossible, the body can sometimes communicate faster than the mind.

Any small physical cue, or perception of it, can disrupt the loop just a bit.

If you notice even a microsecond where something helpful feels doable, hold onto that moment. Let it be enough. Try not to overthink it. If nothing feels doable, that’s okay too. There’s no judgment about what happened in the moment.

If moving feels too hard, that’s okay too. There will be examples for this too. 

Remember, you’re not trying to fix anything here. Just to gently shift your brain out of survival-mode spiraling and break the spiraling loop.

You don’t push. You don’t need to chase clarity and you don’t need to rush the process. Sometimes there’s still that weird discomfort there and that’s okay.

You’re simply allowing your body to recalibrate.

This is how you begin teaching your brain a different pattern, and one based on safety instead of urgency, and presence instead of overwhelm.

You don’t have to “do” the work right now. If your mind is tired, let the neutral words in this free Phrase Bank hold space for you. They are here if you need a soft place to land without any effort.

CPTSD recovery isn’t about forcing your way through healing. It’s about learning to recognize what your system needs in the moment.

Sometimes you need to be a bit more proactive: you can journal, process, challenge the inner critic, reflect, talk or let a grieving cry. 

And sometimes you need to do nothing at all: this is not collapse. It’s not hiding or giving up. It’s just a pause. Doing nothing in this context can help when:

• Hypervigilance is through the roof
• Your brain keeps spinning on trauma loops
• You feel “foggy” or even more detached, numb, dissociated
• Anything feels like too much
• You’re “everything exhausted”

This is not avoidance → It’s nervous system care.

Your brain is exhausted, not broken, and this isn’t about fixing anything, or figuring anything out. This state isn’t permanent even if it feels like it. Your healing is not measured by:

Daily productivity
How many or what tools you use
How perfectly you practice regulation
Whether you feel hopeful today

You’re not even completely focusing on healing as an objective right now. You’re just returning to steadiness, even in small ways.

Remember the moments where you think “nothing works” or “I can’t” are often the moments where your system is still trying to work. So here, you’re trying to interrupt the overload and pause.

You’re bringing yourself back into your body and keeping yourself from more burnout. You’re increasing your reserve of energy. Exhaustion makes everything feel impossible. But it’s not the end, just a cue. 

Healing continues even during small breaks and even when not in pursuit of it. You don’t always need to push harder or chase clarity and full relief. It also happens in small micro-moments.

Sometimes your next step in healing is something incredibly small. These tiny resets are not pointless. They are nervous system prompts that move you toward safer states.

This feeling is a state and not a verdict or a sentence. The “nothing works” feeling is not evidence that you’re beyond help.

It’s not going to predict or define your future or your progress. It also doesn’t mean that healing isn’t real. 

It’s a state and a temporary nervous system state that feels like permanent and the “real” truth. But it’s not. States can shift and they do.

Regulation can return. Hope comes back online even if they’re micro-moments or sometimes deeply buried.

You don’t have to push yourself out of it, which I think sometimes becomes the focus because they are difficult states to be in. 

Let yourself rest in the Regulated Nothing. Let your body reset and your system settle. Sometimes little “nothing” steps are enough.

Because even in the moments when you think nothing works and you’re in the “I can’t do this anymore” CPTSD moment… your nervous system is still learning. It’s still adapting and moving slowly, but quietly and trying to help.

This counts, it has counted and it will count.

You don’t need to feel hopeful to still be healing. Your system is doing more than you know. Is there something that you’ve found helpful in the “I can’t” state? 

Warmly,
Allie C. | CalmFire™

When you’re triggered, finding the right words can be hard.
I created a free Phrase Bank with specific phrases for safety, neutrality, compassion, belonging, and personal power. Use it as a gentle anchor back to the present.

If you’d like to explore more:
– Very small, low-effort nervous system daily resets: A Gentle Daily Ritual to Support Your Nervous System (CPTSD)
– If you have a bit more capacity, one simple shift that can help regulation: Healing Your Nervous System: One Actionable Mindset Shift
– How the inner critic shows up during overwhelm and shutdown: The Inner Critic, Part 1: The Obvious Layer

1. If you’d like to learn more about Polyvagal Theory, click here.

Note: I’m not a licensed professional. I’m sharing from my own healing journey and these are tools that have helped me personally. Please give yourself and others space and patience along the way. This blog is for support, not a substitute for professional care. If you are in crisis, call 911 or your local emergency number.

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