drglenndoyle

Trauma responses and self-sabotage.

Why do CPTSD survivors seem to self sabotage? 

Is it a deep, unconscious desire for self-harm or self-destruction? 

Eh, sometimes self-sabotage can be driven by an unconscious— or even a conscious— desire to burn ourselves…but, in my experience, that’s not what’s usually going on. 

Usually self-sabotage in CPTSD survivors is a combination of trauma responses we don’t immediately recognize as trauma responses. 

People think “fight,” “flight,” “freeze,” “fawn,” “flop,” and “f*ck” are all “obvious” behaviors that are easy to clock— but in my experience they’re often more subtle than we might realize. 

What are we doing when we self-sabotage? We’re behaving in ways that seem to undermine our values and goals, without a clear reason why or an obvious payoff. 

Sometimes that looks like not doing something we need to do to follow through on our goals. You know, like we’re “frozen.” 

Sometimes that looks like actively retreating or running away from or goals. You know, like we’re “fleeing” something associated with them. 

Sometimes self-sabotage looks like subverting our goals to someone else’s needs or expectations. You know, like we’re “fawning” to that person. 

And sometimes self-sabotage looks like just giving up on our goals in exhaustion. You know, like, just “flop.” 

Everybody reading this knows that the reactivity CPTSD conditions in our nervous system is not great for goal achievement— but we often misunderstand what’s actually happening. 

Yes, we might have mixed or negative feelings or believes about whether we “deserve’ to achieve or goals or not— but on an even more basic level, it’s often the case that we’re responding to triggers, and our nervous system is throwing up trauma responses to try to feel a little safer. 

What that means is, we don’t have to figure out or solve all our deep, unconscious self worth issues in order to significantly cut down on self sabotage. 

What we do need to do is get more nuanced about what trauma responses look like— and more specific about what we need to do when they come for us. 

Trauma responses are not “choices,” and we’re certainly not going to “willpower” our way through them to get back on track with our goals. 

To effectively manage self-sabotage patterns that are rooted in trauma responses, we need to check in with ourselves, notably our “parts” and inner child, and ask some good Recovery Supporting Questions (RSQ’s) inside. 

“What’s going on?” 

“What are you feeling?” 

“What do you need?” 

“How can I help?” 

Remember: the quality of our trauma recovery is the quality of the relationship we nurture with ourselves. 

Asking gentle, validating RSQ’s of our “parts” and inner child will engage our parasympathetic nervous system— our “rest and digest” apparatus— and begin to defuse the trauma responses that have us undercutting our own goals and values. 

When you seem to self sabotage and it seems to make no goddamn sense, get curious about what might be getting triggered right now and what trauma response patterns might, even subtly, be informing your “crazy” decisions. 

“Crazy” behavior in CPTSD often starts to make all kinds of sense when you ask RSQ’s about triggers and safety.

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Tonight’s emotional flashback.

I got sucked into an emotional flashback tonight. 

I’m packing up my apartment, preparing for a cross country move. And in doing so, I’ve been going through documents in my personal files, shredding ones that are no longer useful to keep. 

I found a bunch of documents related to one of my first jobs as a therapist, even before I was licensed, working in the private practice of my then-mentor. 

In the years since that professional relationship ended, I’ve come to believe that many aspects of it were toxic— to the point that, in retrospect, I wish I’d not chosen to work for her. 

For all she introduced me to in trauma work (she didn’t really “teach” me much, but she did provide opportunities to work with complex trauma and dissociation that few early career psychologists get), she also impeded my professional growth in multiple ways— and I’ve come to believe our dynamic on a personal level was ultimately destructive to my own trauma and addiction recovery.

That said: the relationship ended, I built my own career, and we’ve not spoken in fifteen years. Neither she, nor that early career experience, has much of anything to do with what I do now. 

Anyway, in clearing out my files tonight, I came across multiple documents that triggered not just memories of working for her— but brought my nervous system right back to patterns of feeling and responding exactly like it was 2011. 

I’ve worked hard to develop tools that help me stay out of headspace I associate with growing up— but as it turns out, it took me a minute to realize I was actually in an emotional flashback, not just experiencing memories. 

As I went through my files, I was feeling incompetent. 

I was feeling “in trouble.” 

I was feeling insecure. 

And I wanted, very very much, to salve those feelings by using substances. 

Mind you: there was no “rational” reason for why I was feeling these things. There was nothing in those files that “should” have made me feel incompetent, in trouble, insecure, or at risk of relapse. 

That’s how we know it’s a flashback, not just a memory. 

I wasn’t REMEMBERING feeling those ways. I was feeling them viscerally, here, now. 

Emotional flashbacks are real good at making us forget who we are and where we are in our recovery arc. 

It’s only when we realize what’s going on— as I finally did— that we can actually use our trauma recovery tools to reassert ourselves in the here and now. 

I used the tools we all have, the tools that I believe comprise the basics of recovery— self talk, mental focus, and physiology— to remind myself of who I am and what my life is all about. 

I sought support from people— and a cat— who know me now, who know of my life’s passion and priorities, and who could help me feel like myself again. 

I asked Recovery Supporting Questions (RSQ’s) and reviewed my Recovery Mission Statement to manage the risk of relapse in particular. 

That’s how we do this, gang. 

When we get freaked out, when a trigger hits us, we back up, we name what’s happening, and we don’t try to just “white knuckle” our way through it— we use the tools we’ve developed in working our recovery. 

Flashbacks of any kind are not fun. 

But we don’t have to just let them run their course. 

We can interrupt them, as surely as we can scratch a record or CD so it doesn’t play the same way. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

And bring it back to improving this minute by .01%. 

Your future has f*ck all to do with your past. 

Remember who the f*ck you are. 

drglenndoyle

CPTSD almost always involves relationship f*ckery.

Betrayal is almost always a part of the CPTSD wound. 

Almost always there is an element of “this person/institution/community should have taken care of me…but didn’t.” 

Many people understand that CPTSD results from trauma that was prolonged and inescapable— but, in addition to those, CPTSD almost always involves relationship f*ckery. 

Betrayal. 

Someone who should have been there…not being there. 

Someone who should have listened…not listening. 

Someone who should have put our needs ahead of theirs…choosing themselves over us. 

Trauma spiked with betrayal hits differently. 

It’s not just painful— it’s disillusioning. 

It makes us question our worth. 

It makes us question the very existence of “love.” 

(I guarantee there are survivors reading this, who are nodding their heads.) 

It’s one thing to be hurt. 

It’s something else to be hurt by someone who was supposed to have your back. 

And it’s something else as well to be hurt by someone who claimed— maybe STILL claims— to “love” you. 

Betrayal takes trauma from painful to mind f*ck. 

That’s why exposure therapy will never be enough to heal CPTSD. 

The damage wasn’t just done by a thing that happened that hurt us, that we need to “get over” being afraid of. 

The damage in CPTSD was done to our beliefs and our sense of self. 

The damage was done to our feeling of emotional and relational safety in the world— not just our sense of physical safety. 

We don’t heal hose wounds by “exposure.” 

We heal those wounds by being there for our “parts” and inner child the way we needed our parents and clergy and others to be there for us once upon a time. 

The thing that makes CPTSD particularly complicated is, we need to be for ourselves what we never saw, what we never experienced. 

We need to nurture a relationship with our own nervous system that is unlike anything we actually experienced: we need to create safety inside our head and heart. 

Tall order. 

And also, doable— if we’re willing to risk extending compassion and patience toward ourselves, one day, one hour, one minute at a time. 

To me, the backbone of realistic CPTSD recovery really is the relationship we reestablish— or maybe establish for the first time— with ourselves. 

Without that relationship, none of the tools or skills will do any good. 

We need to be on our own side in this project. 

That’s what begins healing the betrayal wound almost all of us bear. 

drglenndoyle

About that “emotional regulation” thing.

Reality check: sustainable trauma recovery does not require us to have our emotions perfectly regulated at all times. 

For all the talk about emotional regulation and dysregulation that gets thrown around in trauma treatment and recovery, you’d think the project is entirely about keeping our sh*t together emotionally. 

But the truth is, people who very much have their sh*t together when it comes to trauma recovery, can easily lose their sh*t at the right (or wrong) trigger. 

NOBODY reading this is perfectly emotionally regulated— and the person writing this is DEFINITELY not perfect when it comes to his emotional regulation. 

Realistically, we’re all going to have ebbs and flows when it comes to our emotional regulation. 

Some survivors are even under the misconception that “emotional regulation” means an utter LACK of emotional experience or expressiveness.

What we’re actually going for when we talk about emotional regulation is, we don’t want whatever we’re feeling to hijack us and drag us away from what matters in our life. 

It’s true that trauma survivors tend to be particularly sensitive overall— but many survivors actually have a whole lot of practice coping with and containing our strong feelings. 

Our problems with emotional regulation are often less about emotions themselves, and more about our attention span and skillset when it comes to functioning THROUGH strong emotions. 

Speaking for myself, I love powerful, passionate feelings. 

I think they’re the “juice” of life. I believe the only reason we do anything in life is to experience certain feelings that we like and value. 

Personally, I don’t WANT to be perfectly or robotically “regulated” emotionally. 

But I also don’t want those “juicy” emotions that I experience to bludgeon me and drag me off course when it comes to my values and goals. 

THAT is what emotional regulation in trauma recovery is actually all about: finding realistic ways to stay present and focused on our projects, no matter what we’re feeling in the moment. 

The way we do that is getting clear about how our patterns of self talk, mental focus, and physiology either do or don’t support us in functioning through strong feelings and reactions. 

There is no “magic bullet” to emotional regulation. EVERY effective emotional regulation philosophy or tool, from Dialectical Behavior Therapy to EFT tapping to Neurolinguistic Programming to mindfulness to contemplative prayer, leverages those thee basic tools: self talk, mental focus, and physiology. 

It takes patience and experimentation to figure out how specifically to use those tools inside your head and body to realistically manage what you’re feeling and stay On Purpose. 

But emotional regulation is a skill we can learn. 

We should have been safe and supported enough to learn it when we were kids— but that ship has sailed. 

No shame; not our fault. 

And also not something we’re going to let ourselves be held prisoner by for one more minute. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

“To suffer with.”

Self compassion is not a weakness.

In CPTSD recovery, self compassion is a tool. A powerful tool. An essential tool. 

We’ve been conditioned to believe that self compassion makes us vulnerable— but it doesn’t. 

The word “compassion” comes from Latin. It literally means “to suffer with.” 

When we extend compassion toward ourselves— toward our “parts,” toward our inner child— we are committing to not abandoning or rejecting them. To staying with them, no matter what. 

If you’re reading this, you know that I believe the core of trauma recovery is our relationship with ourselves. 

That’s what gets mangled by the experiences that create CPTSD: experiences that are prolonged, that are inescapable, and that entwine with— that poison— our relationships. 

Healing our relationship with ourselves starts with self compassion. 

Not some fluffy, abstract, pop psychology concept— but what self compassion actually means. To suffer with. To be with. 

To not abandon. Not reject. 

We can’t heal our “parts” and inner child if they’re constantly afraid of us. 

We get conditioned to shame ourselves, especially our “weaknesses.” 

We get conditioned to talk to ourselves the same way our bullies and abusers talked to us. 

That’s where we need to start if CPTSD is going to be real. 

We need to get past our allergy to self-compassion. 

We need to remember and truly know what it means. 

To suffer with. Be with. 

That is to say: to love. 

Compassion is no more a weakness than love is. 

And self-love necessarily starts with self-compassion. 

The real stuff. Not the touchy feely bullsh*t. 

“To suffer with.” 

drglenndoyle

The “frozen” “fawn.”

“You must have liked that relationship on some level, or else why didn’t you leave?” 

CPTSD survivors get versions of this question all the goddamn time. 

Survivors don’t stay in certain painful relationships— personal or professional— because we “like” them. 

We often stay because our fawn and freeze trauma responses have us rooted to the spot. 

Trauma responses are not “choices.” They are reflexive patterns that our nervous system has overrehearsed, because on some level we truly believe they allowed us to survive. 

“Fawn” has us agreeing with or seeming to go along with an abuser. 

“Freeze” has us doing just that— stopping any kind of motion, hoping to be not noticed or left alone. 

When we find ourselves in a painful relationship, the option of “just leave” may not even exist for us on a nervous system level. We may WANT to leave; we may even TRY to leave. 

But if our nervous system and “parts” truly don’t believe leaving is a safe or realistic option, they will simply short circuit that route— without a “decision” having been made by the front our brain at all. 

People like to point out that we could have protected ourselves far more effectively had we removed ourselves from an abusive or painful situation— but that assumes we even registered that option. 

Many survivors reading this have had the experience of “knowing” that we “should” get out of a situation— but literally not being able to execute an exit strategy, due to dissociation, depersonalization, derealization, and good old fashioned brain fog. 

(Those are the tools our nervous system and “parts” often use to keep us from doing things they have decided are too dangerous to follow through on.) 

Understand: acknowledging the “freeze” and “fawn” responses for what they are is not an “excuse.” 

Trauma responses provide EXPLANATIONS— not “excuses.” 

Every survivor reading this is quite aware that, if a pattern of trauma responding is leading us to behaviors that are inconsistent with our goals and values, it’s on us to change it. 

No trauma survivor reading this is looking for an “easy way out,” or an excuse to stay “stuck.” 

The reality is, we can’t realistically change the pattern of staying in personal or professional relationships longer than we should, if we’re unwilling to see and understand the “fawn” and “freeze” responses for what they are. 

There are was to decrease our vulnerability to “freeze” and “fawn”— and they all start with creating realistic safety inside our head and heart.

That means: no shaming or punishing ourselves for being vulnerable. 

No matter how much it frustrates us. No matter how embarrassing it is. 

Start with the premise that what you’re experiencing makes total sense— and actually thank your nervous system and “parts” for doing what they do to keep you safe. 

I know— radical idea, thanking your system for behaviors that are frustrating or counterintuitive. 

But if we want to see radical changes in our life, we need to do radically different things. 

If nothing changes, nothing changes. 

So: start out with validation. 

Help the “frozen” “fawn” within start to feel safe. 

That’s where you’ll start to see some movement. 

drglenndoyle

Don’t neglect work or finances in your trauma recovery blueprint.

CPTSD or DID can be hell on our ability to make a living and support ourselves. 

And that’s more than an inconvenience. 

Anything that compromises our ability to support ourselves the way CPSTD and DID do threaten our autonomy— and that’s no small thing for complex trauma survivors. 

Feeling dependent can be overwhelmingly triggering for us. 

We know first hand how dangerous it can be to not be able to escape a situation because we’re economically dependent. 

The three major triggers of all complex trauma survivors— feeling controlled, feeling trapped, and feeling “in trouble”— ALL come into play when we feel economically dependent on something or someone. 

Financial insecurity makes walking away from painful situations difficult or impossible— and that in turn triggers us into deeper and deeper levels of resistance or paralysis. 

It’s a vicious, vicious cycle. 

One of the things I get most frustrated with about trauma “treatment” is, it rarely addresses the problems our symptoms and struggles cause at work. 

Trauma “treatment” tends to focus on the struggles we experience with with self harm, suicidal ideation, and relationships— and, of course, those are important struggles that need to be understood and addressed. 

But figuring out to function at work and manage our money is its own super important thing that absolutely NEEDS to be addressed in any realistic trauma recovery blueprint. 

Work and finances have their unique triggers. 

The behaviors working and managing our finances require of us go beyond trauma treatment tropes like self-care and self-love. We’re not going to “care” or “love” ourselves into showing up on time, focusing on our tasks, and keeping track of our account balance. 

When designing your trauma recovery blueprint, get realistic and specific about what triggers and challenges crop up regarding work and managing your money. 

The good news is, the basic tools of trauma recovery— self talk, mental focus, and physiology— are all relevant to managing our symptoms, reactions, and needs around work, finances, and realistic economic independence. 

(That goes beyond trauma recovery, by the way: EVERYONE in history who has mastered their finances has used those tools of self talk, mental focus, and physiology to do so.)

I know, it’s triggering as hell, but we need to roll work and finances into our recovery blueprint. 

Turns out: we don’t suddenly become not-trauma-survivors when we clock in. 

drglenndoyle

“Do they like me? Do they? DO THEY??”

One of the most frustrating symptoms of CPTSD for many survivors is, we often cannot stop obsessing about what others are thinking about us and whether they approve of us. 

It’s so frustrating because, intellectually, we may understand that what anybody else is thinking about us doesn’t matter. 

But our nervous system didn’t seem to get that memo. 

We still get anxiety spikes when we think someone doesn’t like us. 

That spike can almost become panic if we think someone doesn’t approve of us. 

It may not particularly matter who that person is, either. They could be a complete rando. 


But when we get a whiff of someone not liking us or disapproving of us? It can consume us. 

What’s important to understand about this symptom is, it’s not a “choice.” 

It’s not even necessarily that we value what that other person thinks or feels about us. 

What’s happening is a nervous system reflex associated with the “fawn” trauma response. 

Many CPTSD survivors grew up in situations where we had to closely monitor the moods, reactions, and needs of the adults around us. 

We had to pay attention to the nuances of what those adults thoughts, particularly about us, because we learned from experience that if we DIDN’T pay attention, that could come back on us in painful ways. 

Many survivors reading this grew up having to manage the adults around them in order to stay safe. 

After years of that, our nervous system gets into a groove. It strongly associates safety with monitoring whether others seem to like or dislike, approve or disapprove, of them. 

When we’re kids, we don’t have the luxury of gauging who is and isn’t a threat— because EVERY adult is a threat to a kid if they want to be. 

Fast forward to adulthood: we’re still walking around with a nervous system that prioritizes safety over connection— and that is still vigilantly monitoring the expressions, body language, and energy of everyone they encounter for potential threat cues. 

This symptom goes beyond just anxiety and people pleasing. 

It’s a deeply wired, heavily conditioned, nervous system deep pattern. 

It’s not our fault, it’s not a “choice,” and it’s not “crazy.” 

We CAN rewire that pattern— but not by trying to shame or pressure ourselves to just “quit it.” 

We can remind ourselves all day that it “doesn’t matter” if others like or approve of us— but that will only make us feel stupid for still having this reaction. 

What we actually NEED to do is create safety inside. 

We NEED to find ways to support our “parts” and inner child in feeling safe— even IF others dislike or disapprove of us. 

We do that by developing a relationship with ourselves that we can trust, using the tools of self talk, mental focus, and physiology. 

Our relationship with ourselves develops— or deteriorates— based on how we talk to ourselves, what we choose to focus on, and how we use our body, particularly our breathing. 

Creating safety inside or head and heart isn’t easy, when we grew up with so much UN-safety. NONE of this is easy— and kicking the “fawn” habit can be particularly hard for survivors of abuse and neglect specifically. 

But it can be done. 

You are not the one CPTSD survivor in the history of CPTSD survivors whose brain won’t change. 

I promise. 

drglenndoyle

CPTSD paralysis.

Something many CPTSD survivors experience is this feeling of paralysis. 

I don’t mean paralysis as in, a limb doesn’t work. Although that kind of thing happens as well. 

Rather, I’m talking about life paralysis. 

We get into this place where it feels difficult or impossible to take action. 

Oh, we might be able to go through the motions and “function” every day. 

But meaningful progress on important life goals grinds to a halt. 

Meaningful intellectual or spiritual development seems to grind to a halt. 

Deepening of our important relationships, both personal and professional, seems to grind to a halt. 

And when we’re asked to explain it, we often just…can’t. 

Why aren’t we moving forward? We don’t know. 

All we know is, we feel stuck. 

And it feels like it would take we-don’t-know-what kind of dynamite to get us moving again. 

Part of what’s often going on when we feel paralyzed like this is a “freeze” trauma response. 

Our nervous system has decided that it’s just safer to stay put, instead of risk moving forward with anything. 

After all, forward is unpredictable, and unpredictable is dangerous, right? 

That’s what our past has taught us, anyway. 

Another part of that “stuck” phenomenon is just sheer exhaustion. 

CPTSD tends to exhaust us in ways that go beyond the physical— CPTSD survivors often feel just bone weary on intellectual, emotional, and spiritual levels as well. 

Yet other thing that’s can be happening in that “paralyzed” state is different “parts” of us can’t get on the same page when it comes to priorities and goals. 

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to function with multiple people pulling you in diametrically opposite directions— but it’s something DID survivors have to cope with every day. 

There isn’t a one stop solution for this feeling of paralysis. It has multiple causes, so it needs multiple levels of support to move past. 

What I can tell you about it is, it’s not your fault. 

It’s not you being “lazy.” 

It’s not something you need to punish yourself for or try to pressure yourself out of. 

As with every trauma based reaction, we meet it with patience and compassion— and we ask it what it’s protecting and what it needs. 

I’ve said it before: realistic CPTSD recovery is entirely about our relationship with ourselves, notably our “parts” and our inner child. 

If we’re feeling paralyzed, they’re feeling paralyzed. 

We’re not going to shame or pressure ourselves, or them, into action. 

Try softer, not harder. 

drglenndoyle

I want your trauma recovery to have legs.

I want your trauma recovery to have legs. 

By that I mean, I want it to last. 

I want it to be realistic. 

I want it to be sustainable. 

That’s why I don’t talk about gimmicky bullsh*t on this page— because while I’m as attracted to gimmicky bullsh*t as anyone (many of you know I got into psychology because self-help books and resource literally saved my life), trauma recovery is too serious and too important to bullsh*t about. 

I’ve been told that to expand my social media reach, I should, like, name my trauma recovery approach something cool. 

But the truth is, I don’t have something new and different for you. 

I have what has worked for trauma survivors in recovery for millennia: tools and philosophies that revolve around self talk, mental focus, and physiology, especially breathing. 

The ancient Greek and Roman philosophers knew these tools. 

The heroes of the Old and New Testament knew these tools. 

Mental health icons from Freud to Albert Ellis knew these tools. 

The tools of realistic trauma recovery— self talk, mental focus, and physiology— are not new. Literally EVERY effective trauma recovery technique revolves around them. 

Including EMDR. 

Including Internal Family Systems. 

Including Somatic Experiencing. 

Including every variant of cognitive behavioral therapy you can name, from CBT to DBT to ACT to schema therapy. 

Why bother saying this? Because it’s real easy to get discouraged out here as we’re working our recovery. 

It’s real easy to get up in our head about how all these therapy modalities sound cool and all— but what if they’re just, like, hypothetical constructs? 

After all, we don’t do trauma recovery in the therapy room— we overwhelmingly do the work of trauma recovery out here on our own. Very often in the middle of long, dark, cold nights. 

What if all this cool sounding therapy stuff doesn’t stick with us when we leave our therapy appointment? 

Or— even scarier— what if we can’t afford therapy in the first place? 

Or what if our history of interpersonal trauma makes a therapy relationship just not something we can do right now? What then? 

The reason I’m writing this post is to tell you, with absolute certainty, that you’re not screwed. 

The essential tools of trauma recovery— self talk, mental focus, and physiology— are available to you, just as they’ve been available to every trauma survivor in history. 

The fact that you’re working your trauma recovery puts you squarely in the lineage of all those warriors and poets and monks and healers— trauma survivors throughout history. 

You don’t have to buy into complex, sophisticated theories. You don’t have to scrounge up unrealistic amounts for therapy (although therapy is absolutely a useful tool for many survivors who are in the position of being able to access it). 

I want your recovery to be more than hypothetical. 

I want it to be real. 

I want it to go slow— because slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. 

I want your trauma recovery to have legs.