When the Bough Breaks

CPTSD: The Ultimate Time-loop (and the ship that keeps exploding.)

Alexis Arralynn Season 2 Episode 8

CPTSD: The Ultimate Time Loop (and the Starship That Keeps Exploding)


Living with complex trauma can feel like being trapped in a time loop. Not a memory—but many of them. All active. All urgent. All happening now.


In this solo episode, Alexis explores CPTSD through an unexpected but painfully accurate lens: a classic Star Trek: The Next Generation episode where the Enterprise keeps exploding—over and over—while the crew senses something is wrong long before they consciously remember why.


CPTSD isn’t about being “stuck in the past.” It’s about the past reloading itself into the present through your nervous system’s red alert system. Tone shifts, pauses, power imbalances—even the anticipation of something good—can trigger alarms that feel overwhelming and confusing.


Alexis breaks down:


  • Why your body remembers what your mind can’t
  • How “coping” can accidentally reset the loop instead of ending it
  • Why awareness often feels worse before it feels better
  • The difference between control and choice in trauma healing
  • How recognizing memory states—not fighting them—is how the ship finally stops exploding



With honesty, humor, and a deeply personal story, this episode offers language for experiences many trauma survivors live with quietly—and reassurance that you are not broken. You’re responding exactly the way a system trained for survival would.


Autopilot kept you alive. Awareness is where choice returns.


If this episode resonates, you’re not alone—and you’re not imagining it.


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