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. 

drglenndoyle

“They” will try.

“They” will try to influence you. All day. 

They don’t actually want you to recover from CPTSD or DID. Hell, some of them don’t even believe in CPTSD or DID. 

They don’t especially care what you actually need to recover from your trauma. 

What they do want, is for you to behave in ways they find understandable, predictable, and controllable. 

That’s not being negative; that’s reality. 

What most people want from you is predictability and controllability. And they want your motives and choices to make sense to them. 

Anything else threatens or inconveniences them. 

That’s not to say “they” are necessary ill-intentioned. Some of “them” actually think they’re helping— they think all this “trauma” stuff is bullsh*t, and it’s keeping you from “letting go” or “moving on.” 

They’re going to think what they’re going to think. 

It’s not your job to educate them. 

It IS your job to work your recovery, regardless of what they think or how they try to influence you. 

The fact is, your recovery will ask things of you that they won’t understand. 

It’ll ask things of you that won’t make you particularly predictable to them— that is, you won’t be behaving like the version of you that they knew before. 

And recovery will definitely ask things of you that will make you difficult to control. 

“They” won’t love it. 

They’ll try to pressure and shame you into abandoning your recovery. 

“Why can’t you just be normal?” 

“Why can’t you just let it go?” 

“Why are you always talking about ‘recovery?’” 

Yes, they’ll try all of that— and what they’re really trying is to force you back into that box you were in pre-recovery. 

It’s going to be up to you, every day, to not let them get in your head. 

“Their” skepticism about trauma and recovery might mirror your own skepticism— that is, Trauma Brain’s insistence that you’re just a “drama queen” and none of this actually all that big a deal. 

Even if what they say has teeth or resonates with you— it’s on you to stay on target. 

You’re not working your recovery to please or impress them. 

You’re doing this to save your life. 

You’re doing this to protect your goals. 

You’re doing this to actually live you values. 

So “they” will try to influence you. 

You keep your recovery tools, recovery mission statement, and recovery blueprint handy. 

You stay true to yourself and your needs. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

When trauma responses get us off track.

CPTSD and DID often nudge us toward doing things that aren’t consistent with our goals or values. There’s no need to deny it. 

It doesn’t mean we’re not committed. It doesn’t mean we’re “stupid” or “bad.” 

It means we’re not ourselves when we’re triggered— and that’s not an excuse. That’s an explanation. 

When the “fight” trauma response kicks in, we’re more aggressive than we otherwise might be. 

When the “flight” trauma response kicks in, we might bolt situations that we would otherwise be able to handle. 

When the “freeze” or “fawn” trauma responses kick in, we might appear to consent to things that we are actually not okay with. 

None of these are “choices.” They are nervous system reflexes. 

And the reality is, we’re going to be vulnerable to those nervous system reflexes, even as we work to heal our trauma injuries. 

But, there’s no denying— trauma responses can f*ck our sh*t up. 

They can get in the way of our goals. They can compromise our values. 

They can get in our head about whether we’re realistically capable of working toward or achieving our goals. 

The truth is, experiencing trauma responses that make us behave in self sabotaging ways isn’t the end of the world— IF we’re realistic and compassionate about what’s actually happening. 

That is to say: we need to know a trauma response when we see it. 

And we have to understand that just because we did something in a triggered moment that may seem to f*ck up a goal we’ve been working toward, that doesn’t mean we’re screwed with that goal. 

It’s a setback. A bump in the road that can be corrected for— if we don’t panic and/or go down the rabbit hole of self-punishment. 

Something I think about a lot in my addiction recovery is the trap that relapse is for all addicts: once we give in to our addiction a little, Addict Brain will kick in and tell us that, as long as we’ve f*cked up, we might as well go all in— which leads to a much longer, much harder relapse than we needed to experience. 

Setbacks in trauma recovery are very similar, insofar as we have a choice about how to think of setbacks: a bump in the road that we can recover from once we catch our breath and realize what happened— or an infection point that “has” to lead us down a spiral of self hate, shame, and self punishment. 

So you had a trauma response, and did something inconsistent with your recovery and goals. So what. It happens.

It’s happened to everyone reading this— and it’s damn sure happened to the person writing this. 

Don’t panic and don’t punish. 

Just get grounded; extend compassion and support to the “part” of  you that got triggered; and figure out what the very next teeny, tiny micro choice needs to be that’ll get you back on track. 

This is how we realistically deal with trauma responses and setbacks. 

This is how we protect our recovery from Trauma Brain trying to get us to throw it in the garbage. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

“Fine.”

CPTSD survivors get real good at looking “fine.” 

“Okay.” “Unbothered.” 

There’s this myth that if trauma survivors were REALLY all that injured, we’d be non-functional— but if you’re reading this, you likely know what kind of bullsh*t that is. 

There are badly injured, badly hurting trauma survivors reading this right now who are extremely functional, as far as the world is concerned. 

There are survivors reading this who have advanced degrees. 

There are survivors reading this who have achieved all kinds of success, promotions, earned ranks, been recognized in, their professional careers. 

And these are the same survivors who have contemplated ending their lives, because they’re hurting so bad on the inside. 

You truly can’t tell a CPTSD survivor by looking at us. 

And you DEFINITELY can’t tell someone who has DID by what’s happening on the outside. 

Of course we get good at hiding our pain— we had to hide it for years, didn’t we? 

It was dangerous to acknowledge our pain. Made us more vulnerable. 

Acknowledging our pain opened us up to mockery. 

Acknowledging our pain gave other people the chance to misunderstand— or not even try to understand— what was really going on with us. 

Why would we acknowledge and express or pain when the cost was so high? 

Add to that, many of us learned that if we DIDN’T express our pain— or anything negative ever, really— we were rewarded. 

We were praised for being “mature.” 

We didn’t know it at the time, but when they called us “mature,” what they really meant was “low maintenance.” 

Acknowledging or expressing pain would have ruined all that. 

So we got good at compartmentalizing. 

Keeping our pain over here— maybe isolated to one “part” of us, who was tasked with holding it— while another part came forward and took care of business. 

I interact daily with CPTSD and DID survivors who earned advanced degrees while literally planning to kill themselves. 

So, no. You can’t tell a survivor by our accomplishments or our external “functionality.” 

We’re good at pulling off “okay.” “Fine.” 

We’re good at changing the subject. 

We’re good at stashing our pain in places inside that, we figure, can hold it forever. 

Turns out, though: those places can’t hold our pain forever. 

And those “parts” that have so supported our “functionality?” They get tired. And not infrequently resentful. 

Which is why we choose trauma recovery now. 

Because functioning on the outside while suffering on the inside truly sucks— and we’re over it. 

Right? 

Breathe; blink; focus.