drglenndoyle

CPTSD and executive functioning.

CPTSD f*cks up our executive functioning— our decision making. Literally, our ability to execute the tasks that comprise our life. 

But many survivors don’t know it’s trauma f*cking with us. 

We assume we just suck at decision making. 

Often we assume we’e “stupid”— because that’s frequently the language our bullies and abuses used, isn’t it? 

“Stupid,” “lazy,” “selfish.” All gems that frequently showed up in how we were talked to growing up. 

What many survives have in common is the experience of feeling that EVERYTHING is our fault and EVERYTHING is our responsibility. 

If something’s gone wrong, it “must” be because we made a “bad” decision. 

If we’re struggling, it “must” be because we somehow chose or set ourselves up to struggle. 

The truth is, trauma often gets in our head and distorts our perceptions, beliefs, and priorities. 

Which, yes, results in us making decisions we don’t love— but many of those decisions aren’t exactly “free.” 

How can a decision be “free” when our sympathetic nervous system is lit up like a Christmas tree? 

Many not-so-awesome decisions we make often boil down to, our “fight” or “fawn” trauma responses were activated. 

When we’re triggered, we end up doing things that are not aligned with our goals our values— not because we’re exactly “choosing” those things, but because some part of us thinks we NEED to do those things to SURVIVE. 

I’ve said it a thousand times: we are not ourselves when we’re triggered. We become who we think we need to be to survive. 

We do not “choose” trauma responses— including those trauma responses that can look like “choices” from the outside. 

Many of us don’t like to admit that CPTSD impairs our executive functioning. It makes us feel powerless. 

We want to believe that we have the “freedom” to choose, at all times. 

We might have the “freedom” to choose— but when our brain is awash in stress chemicals and our nervous system is on fire having been triggered, we may simply not have the ABILITY to choose in that moment. 

It’s okay. You’re working on it. 

First thing’s first: pay attention to how trauma and triggers distort your executive functioning. Your decision making ability. 

You’re definitely not alone. 

(Ask me how I, personally, know.) 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

CPTSD and DID are injuries. Not judgments.

CPTSD is going to try to convince you your struggles and symptoms mean there’s something fundamentally “wrong” with you, personally— but you need to know that’s not true. 

CPTSD is an injury. We didn’t ask for it. We couldn’t avoid it. 

Neither CPTSD nor DID reduce to something being fundamentally “wrong” with us as people. 

We are not struggling with CPTSD or any of its symptoms— dissociation, depression, anxiety, self harm urges, suicidal ideation— because we are “weak” or “bad.” 

CPTSD and DID occur when the human psyche is subjected to specific kinds of pressure without support or escape. It’s just like what happens to a tendon or a bone when it’s subjected to certain kinds of pressure— they break. 

That’s not a design flaw with the tendon or bone— of COURSE they break when subjected to certain kinds of pressure. 

And the fact that CPTSD or DID develops when our nervous and endocrine systems are subjected to certain kids of pressure is exactly the same— it’s not due to a flaw or weakness in us. 

It’s just what happens. 

It’s tempting to get up in our head about why we developed CPTSD in response to our experience, whereas others didn’t— but what I can tell you, definitively, is that that difference has absolutely nothing to do with “character” or any other measure of “goodnesss” or “toughness.” 

We did not ask for this. 

Our vulnerability to trauma responses does NOT have a moral component. 

And we do not heal injuries by returning again and again to our insistence that we “shouldn’t” be injured. 

So we’re injured. We can’t deny or ignore our way out of it. 

We CAN care for our injury as best we know how— in the case of CPTSD, leveraging the tools of self forgiveness, self talk, mental focus, and physiology, especially our breathing. 

Yeah, I said self forgiveness. Not because we need “forgiveness” for things that happened TO us. 

But sometimes it helps to use that language with ourselves, to the tune of: “I forgive myself for being vulnerable to injury. 

I forgive myself for being human. 

I forgive myself for needing care. 

I forgive myself for every symptom and reaction today— even the ones that frustrate the hell out of me.” 

Neither CPTSD nor DID means YOU are “wrong,” or “bad,” or “weak.” 

They are injuries. Wounds. 

Care for them as such, with compassion and patience and realism. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Self-criticism is a losing “strategy.”

If self-criticism was going to fix us, we would be all healed by now. 

Hell, if self-criticism was going to fix us, we would have been healed a long time ago. 

Turns out, self-criticism, at last the way we trauma survivors tend to use it, only makes us feel worse. 

Which is ironic, because many of us believe that we “need” self-criticism to function well. 

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told by trauma survivors some variant of “if I lighten up on myself, then I won’t be motivated to achieve!”

We don’t “choose” to believe this, understand— we’ve been CONDITIONED to believe it. 

We’ve been conditioned to believe that criticism and pressure are the keys to motivation and performance— largely because criticism and pressure were the primary tools that were used to motivate us to perform. 

It was what we saw. What we internalized. What we assumed was appropriate. 

Over time, self-criticism as a “motivational” “strategy” became so familiar, it never occurred to us there might be alternatives. 

Here’s the thing: self-criticism, as we were conditioned to use it against ourselves, doesn’t just make us feel like garbage— it also decimates our self-esteem. 

It’s doesn’t just put us in a bad mood. It chips away at our entire concept of who we are, what we can do, and what we deserve. 

Many of us paradoxically only feel “safe” when we’re beating the sh*t out of ourselves. 

Better we do it ourselves, we reason, than wait for someone to do it TO us. 

In that way, self-criticism gives us a feeling of control. 

It’s a bullsh*t feeling of “control,” of course— but we really like that feeling. 

Getting out of the self-criticism habit isn’t easy. We’re talking about heavily conditioned neural pathways here. 

If getting out of the self-criticism habit was “easy,” we’d have all done it by now. But it’s not. 

The tool of self-talk is powerful, in trauma recovery and in life. Self-talk has the power to create and the power to destroy. It is a primary way we direct our mental focus, the “lens” through which we see and interpret the world. 

If vicious self-criticism truly was “motivational,” we wouldn’t struggle the way we do. 

Don’t buy into the myth that self-criticism helps, or that we “need” it in order to perform well. 

Being hard on ourselves does not motivate or enhance our performance. 

Over time, it only gets us to dislike, distrust, and avoid ourselves. 

(That “avoiding ourselves” thing is what we call “dissociation.”)

drglenndoyle

Why recovery supporting self talk is hard.

When we fist start paying attention to our self-talk in trauma recovery, it can be kind of shocking. 

We can be really f*cking mean to ourselves. 

We can be really f*cking mean to ourselves, without intending or trying to. 

Very few trauma survivors wake up in the morning and say to ourselves, “I’m going to beat the sh*t out of myself today.” 

Most of the time, that’s just how things work out— because we, like most of humanity, navigate most of our days on autopilot. 

We let our old programming run how we talk to and behave toward ourselves— and guess how our old programming has us talking to and behaving toward ourselves? 

Most of the time our old programming has us talking to and behaving toward ourselves like our bullies and abusers did. 

Mind you: this isn’t because we WANT to be like our bullies and abusers. 

Most of the survivors reading this would actually do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to NOT be like our bullies and abusers. 

But many of us learned how to relate to ourselves through the example our bullies and abusers set. 

We internalized it. Unwittingly “downloaded” it into our nervous system. 

That’s why it’s so easy to be so hard on ourselves: we have lots of practice at it. 

We experienced it for so long, it kind of sunk in. Became part of our operating system. 

Then kicking the sh*t out of ourselves became so second nature, we stopped noticing when we were doing it. 

Years and years of that sh*t— is it any wonder that our “parts” and inner child don’t feel safe?

That conditioning is also why it’s so hard to STOP kicking the sh*t out of ourselves— because when we start intentionally trying to talk and relate to ourselves with compassion and kindness, it feels…weird. Wrong. Awkward. 

What that feeling ACTUALLY  is is, “unfamiliar.” 

CPTSD recovery is going to ask us, over and over again, to scramble old patters. Scratch old records. 

That starts with our self-talk. 

It’s real important we get OUT of the habit of talking to ourselves like our bullies and abusers did— even (especially!) if we’re deep in that habit. 

Yeah. Easier said than done. 

But real important to do, if we want our trauma recovery to be realistic and sustainable. 

Easy does it. Breathe; blink; focus. 

Just start by paying attention to your inner monologue. 

drglenndoyle

Readers are recoverers, & recoverers are readers.

I think books are an under appreciated trauma recovery resource. 

I’m not talking about psychology books or books about CPTSD or self help books. Though those can be helpful, too. 

I’m talking about stories. 

I’m talking about books that take us to other times and other places. 

I’m talking about books that put us inside the head and heart of someone else. 

For my money, fiction is an invaluable trauma recovery tool. 

Fiction helped keep many of us alive once upon a time. 

Fiction can act as a pressure release valve on our stressful-as-f*ck lives in recovery. 

Fiction can introduce characters into our lives that can inspire us, or turn us on, or get us thinking, or make us laugh. 

Stories can bolster our mood. 

Stories can give us something to cry about when we have trouble crying for ourselves. 

Stories can remind us that it is possible to create whole worlds that wouldn’t otherwise exist, except that someone saw fit to put words to what was in their head. 

The best stories unlock something special in us— something adjacent to hope. 

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think we heal our trauma ONLY by reading books. 

But fiction can be one of our secret weapons in trauma recovery. 

Just like books helped keep us alive back then, they can do the same for us now. 

Many adults kind of forget the power of a good book. 

Some people were never introduced to that power in the first place. 

But it’s never too late to become a reader. 

Readers are recoverers. 

drglenndoyle

It’s okay to feel.

It’s okay to feel tired. 

It’s okay to feel hopeless. 

It’s okay to feel angry. 

It’s okay to feel numb. 

It’s okay to feel more than one thing— even if it seems to conflict with other things you feel. 

It’s okay to FEEL. 

Why say this? Isn’t it obvious that it’s okay to feel? 

Not to many trauma survivors. 

Many trauma survivors have been shamed for feeling. 

Many trauma survivors have been told that their feelings are “the problem.” 

Many trauma survivors have been conditioned to believe their feelings are invalid— or maybe not even real at all. 

So sometimes we need the reminder: it’s okay to feel. 

It’s okay to feel bad— or good. 

It’s okay to feel things that don’t seem to make sense. 

It’s okay to feel things at a level of intensity that doesn’t seem to match the situation. 

Not only is it okay to feel— it’s also okay to express your feelings. 

That is, it’s okay to express how you feel— to people you choose, for reasons that matter to you. 

It’s also okay to NOT describe or explain your feelings to anyone you DON’T choose. 

How we relate to our feelings really, really matters. 

Our feelings reflect important pieces of who we are, what we’ve been through, and what we need. 

Our feelings deserve to be taken seriously. 

Our feelings deserve to be held compassionately and respectfully. 

Our feelings— even those feelings we’re not crazy about— deserve to exist. 

Remember: it’s okay to feel. 

And also remember: you are not your feelings. 

drglenndoyle

Andy.

Let me tell you about my friend Andy. 

Andy was a supervising therapist at a day program for serious post traumatic and dissociative disorders where I trained. I ran lots and lots of groups with Andy. 

The thing most people will remember about Andy, I suspect, was his playfulness. Which can be a fine line as a trauma therapist. Survivors are so used to being mocked or otherwise invalidated that playfulness and humor can be touchy for them— but he pulled it off. 

His smile was at once mischievous and genuine. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body. 

As a therapist Andy came from the psychodynamic theoretical orientation, meaning he believed trauma was healed by giving survivors the opportunity to feel safe in the therapy relationship— even as they tend to reenact old, painful patterns in the therapy relationship. 

Andy was good at making people feel safe. 

Andy loved, loved, loved classic rock music. He had a particular thing for Neil Young— and I don’t think it was only about the music. Neil Young’s spirit of uncompromising rebelliousness spoke to him. 

I cannot remember Andy ever being pissed at me, or showing a flash of irritation or anger in group. Even when he was challenging you, he had a way of doing so that felt supportive— and, importantly, didn’t leave you feeling stupid. 

A lot of how I do therapy echoes how Andy did therapy. I definitely hadn’t evolved my therapeutic “voice” before working with him. 

So, if you’ve been helped by me as a therapist, you were also helped by Andy. 

Andy worked in a challenging setting. Not just because he specialized in working with complex trauma, but because programs that treat complex trauma tend to be— how shall I put this?— sh*t shows. In the program where we worked, there was a lot of office politics and other toxicity— but, while I was not great at just blowing it all off, he was. He never let it get to him. He didn’t deny it or disown it or anything— he navigated it, deftly, intelligently. I’m still not great at doing that kind of thing. 

When I had a serious professional falling out with my long time mentor, who was kind of a big deal in the trauma treatment world, Andy was one of the few people from the old program to check in on me, offer me support in building my first solo practice, and remind me not to take any of it too personally. 

When I heard that Andy had passed, I did what we all do— I checked the last time we texted. It was a few years ago. He wanted to know if I wanted the high end keyboard (piano, not computer) he remembered me playing when I’d been at his house. I told him thanks for thinking of me, but I didn’t have room for it. 

What a stupid last text. 

I can hear his voice perfectly in my head. 

“How’s that workin’ out for ya?” 

“Don’t confuse how you’re feeling with how you’re doing.” 

“Say more.” 

Andy wasn’t perfect, none of us are. I know he could rub some of his colleagues the wrong way, mostly because he refused to get worked up about things THEY were worked up by. I know he could sometimes run afoul of the expectations of hospital leadership— which he also refused to get worked up by. 

He was one of the few people I ever saw stand up to my ex-mentor. Which, I cannot describe how big a deal that was in the professional circles we ran in. 

I will miss my friend. 

Tonight I dug out one of the CD’s he burned for me back in the day, with his handwriting on it. 

I’m quite sure Andy saved peoples’ lives with the work he did. 

And I’m quite sure he’d support us through our sadness at his loss with the same kind of playful genuineness he always gave. 

drglenndoyle

On a rough night.

Some nights you’re going to be in a terrible mood. 

Some nights words won’t even seem to make sense. 

Some nights your motivation is going to be garbage. 

And, let me spoil the suspense: Trauma Brain, the internalized voices of our bullies and abusers, is going to use how we struggle on some nights to try to tell us WE’RE garbage. 

Mind you, that doesn’t mean we’re garbage. It means we’ve been CONDITIONED to feel like garbage when we struggle. 

It means we’ve been CONDITIONED to attribute the fact that we struggle to some inherent quality of our being— or the supposed “fact” that we’re just “failing” at life. 

I don’t care if you feel like garbage tonight, if you feel scattered tonight, if you’re in a terrible mood tonight, or if your motivation is dog sh*t tonight— none of that means you’re “failing,” at trauma recovery or life. 

It means what it means. It’s a rough night. They happen. 

What we say to ourselves really, really matters— ESPECIALLY on a rough night. 

It’s when we struggle, when we’re triggered, that our trauma conditioning really kicks in. 

Trauma Brain can do a reasonable job of quietly lurking in the background much of the time, only to rear right up when we’re having a tough night. 

Know why that is? Because rough nights make us vulnerable. 

We tend to go on autopilot when we’re having a rough night. 

And guess who and what experiences programmed our autopilot? That’s right— our abusers and bullies. 

Trauma Brain, in other words, does exactly what abusers and bullies always do: attacks us when we’re the most vulnerable. 

We need to remember that on our rough nights. 

We need to remember how we’re feeling on a a rough night is not the same as how we’re DOING, overall, in our recovery. 

(An old mentor named Andy taught me that: “don’t confuse how you’re FEELING with how you’re DOING.”)

On a rough night we need to remember that there is no rule that says we MUST feel good or better. We’re not going to be in trouble for having a rough night. 

On a rough night we need to remember that our biochemistry and psychological functioning fluctuates throughout the day and night— and the fact that we happen to be feeling like crap right now is part of that fluctuation.

On a rough night we need to remember that there is nothing in the world wrong with just getting by, leveraging the recovery tools of distraction and containment. 

If there is anything that is universal to EVERY survivor’s experience of trauma recovery, it’s that we are GOING to have rough nights. Not “maybe;” we absolutely will. 

It doesn’t mean what Trauma Brain wants you to think it means. 

So you’re feeling like sh*t. It happens. 

Don’t overreact. Don’t make long term decisions. Don’t make short term choices that will leave you feeling sh*tty tomorrow. You know the kind of decisions I’m talking about. Play the tape forward. 

Easy does it. Breathe; blink; and focus. 

Get through tonight. 

Then push the “reset” button tomorrow. 

drglenndoyle

Trauma recovery is a multitude of little choices. Dammit.

The bitch of trauma recovery is, we have to it ourselves. 

No one’s going to do it for us. 

No one can do it TO us. 

We actually have to make choices and endure discomfort to realistically recover from trauma— which, I don’t know about you, pisses me the hell off. 

After all, we’re only IN this position because we’re ALREADY enduring a rather HIGH level of discomfort. 

For that matter, we’ve been conditioned to believe that it’s often our fault that we’re suffering— which, we understand in recovery, is just BS (Belief Systems— but also, you know bullsh*t), but many survivors still struggle with feelings of shame and self-blame about our symptoms. 

To me, it f*cking rankles to be told that the key to recovery is making choices. 

The truth is, the choices we have to make in order to realistically recover from trauma are choices that cut against and scramble our trauma conditioning. 

We have to become aware of how exactly CPTSD is f*cking with us, and we have to consciously, purposefully, consistently make choices that scratch that old record. 

Before someone says it in the comments, let me: “easier said than done.” 

OF COURSE it’s “easier said than done.” Literally everything is “easier said than done.” 

This is especially true when we’re talking about conditioning. 

Conditioning, programming, brainwashing— the way these all work is by making it easy, almost effortless, to think, feel, and act in certain ways. 

Trauma conditioning, for example, makes beating the sh*t out of ourselves feel “normal,” “natural.” 

Trauma conditioning makes talking sh*t to ourselves and kicking our own ass seem like the easiest, most effortless thing in the world. 

Pushing AGAINST trauma conditioning, in how we talk to ourselves, how we direct our mental focus, and how we use our physiology? That seems hard, exhausting, and pointless. 

This is exactly how CPTSD traps and tortures us. It makes the old sh*t seem effortless, if painful— and the stuff we need to do to recover, hard. 

There is no doubt: doing trauma recovery sh*t IS hard. Especially at first, and especially when we’re triggered. 

 I will never lie to you and tell you ANY of this is supposed to be easy. 

But the realistic way we rewire, recondition, reshape our nervous system, is by noticing when we’re on CPTSD autopilot, and consciously CHOOSE to do something different. 

We’re just not going to recover on autopilot. 

I know. It sucks exactly as much as it sucks. 

Anybody who tells you trauma recovery is without suck, especially when it comes to making new, uncomfortable choices, is selling something. 

Selling something that smells, methinks. 

drglenndoyle

About that “safe relationships heal trauma” thing…

You’re going to hear it said again and again that you need to experience safe relationships in order to heal trauma— and, yes, safe relationships can sure help heal trauma. 

But I wouldn’t go so far as to say safe relationships are “the” thing that heals trauma. 

There isn’t really one universal thing that does heal trauma, unfortunately. 

But specifically when it comes to safe relationships: you can have all the safe relationships in the world, but they won’t help heal trauma unless you can internalize that safety. 

That is to say: unless you can use those relationships as a model for how to relate to yourself. 

The essence of CPTSD is that we don’t feel safe in our own skin. 

Yes, that lack of safety inside does mirror the lack of safety outside, especially in the past— but it’s the lack of internal safety that we’re carrying around, into every situation, into every relationship. 

It’s the lack of INTERNAL safety that drives our trauma responses, irrespective of how much safety does or does not exist around us. 

(Mind you, I’m NOT saying that external safety “doesn’t matter.” It’s just not what I’m talking about here.) 

If we’re going to realistically recover from our CPTSD, we have to find a way to internalize a feeling of safety— and that can only be generated by how we talk to ourselves, how we consistently leverage our mental focus, and how we use our physiology, notably our breathing. 

Safe relationships can HELP us develop self talk, mental focus, and physiology that support us feeling safe in our own skin— but I get real annoyed whenever I see someone pretending that “safe relationships” in themselves “heal” trauma. 

Why does this matter? It matters because if we try to put all our recovery eggs in the basket of “safe relationships,” we’re misunderstanding the task in front of us— and we’re setting ourselves up for potentially unhealthy dependence on others. 

I used to have a therapist to whom I felt very positively attached. He offered a great deal of modeling when it came to consistency, honesty, and kindness. But for a long time, even with this experienced, skilled therapist, I stayed stuck— because I had this idea that it was something about him that would somehow “heal” me. 

I now understand that that therapy relationship, like any healing relationship, was a tool— useful, but not in itself what was going to complete the project. 

The project is a DIY project— a Do It Yourself one. 

Many people don’t love hearing that, but it’s the f*ckin’ truth. 

I want everybody to have safe relationships. Everybody reading this DESERVES safe relationships. There is no denying the power of safe relationships to support us in learning and practicing new ways of relating to ourselves. 

But we need to be crystal clear on the fact that it’s the “relating to ourselves” part that does the heavy lifting. 

Easy does it. Breathe; blink; focus.