You are not “disordered.”

Maybe there’s nothing “wrong” with you. 

Maybe the reactions and feelings you’ve had in response to what you’ve been through are actually pretty normal. 

Maybe you’re the least f*cked up part of the situation. 

Maybe you don’t need to be “fixed”— maybe you actually need to be understood and supported. 

Maybe you don’t need to change who you are— maybe you actually need safety and resources. 

I am sick to death of psychology and psychotherapy’s attitude toward trauma survivors that we are “disordered.” 

We are not, actually, “disordered.” The sh*t we’ve been through— that was disordered. 

The people who hurt us— they were “disordered.” 

The culture that openly hates and fears trauma survivors— that’s “disordered.” 

Yes, we have conditioned patterns of thinking, believing, feeling, and behaving that cause us and others pain— but maybe that’s not our fault. 

Maybe coming at trauma survivors with the threadbare “personal responsibility” tropes causes way more damage and hurt than it resolves. 

Maybe it’s extremely rare for trauma survivors to exaggerate or invent their story for attention or personal gain. 

Maybe the cultural assumption that abuse survivors are lying or exaggerating until proven otherwise is culturally defensive bullsh*t. 

Maybe you have the building blocks of your own healing within you. 

Maybe trauma recovery isn’t about becoming a different person— maybe it’s about rediscovering, or even just discovering, who you really are in the first place. Who you are now. 

Maybe your trauma responses are more adaptive and sensical than most of the sh*tty advice you’ve ever ben given about how to handle your trauma. 

The psychotherapy industrial complex has a historical problem: it does not know how to deal with customers who are not, at their core “disordered.” 

I will de on the hill of, trauma survivors are not “disordered,” even f the word “disorder” is part of our clinical diagnosis. 

Imagine the hubris of telling someone who has survived unimaginable trauma and pain that their normal, human responses to their ordeal is “disordered.”

Imagine the arrogance— and the cruelty— of telling those survivors that their pain will be resolved by assuming “personal responsibility” for their lives. 

Yeah yeah yeah. “Trauma wasn’t our fault, but healing is our responsibility.” Good for you, you can regurgitate the cliche’. Here’s your medal. 

Maybe no trauma survivor is unclear about the fact that our healing is our responsibility. We f*ckn’ know. To keep reminding us of the fact is insulting and condescending. Knock it off. 

Maybe you can work a recovery that embraces your inherent value and worth, regardless of what “they” think or say. 

Maybe recovery starts with ditching the “disorder.” 

I assure you: you are not “disordered.” You are injured, you are in pain— and you are a f*cking survivor. But the fact that you survived and are experiencing aftereffects of your experience is not “disordered.” 

Chances are you are the LEAST disordered part of this whole f*cked up equation. 

In my experience, trauma survivors working our recovery are the LEAST disordered people out there in the world, period.