drglenndoyle

Trauma Brain and Relationship Struggles.

Trauma Brain, the internalized voice of our abusers and bullies, very often gives us an enormous amount of sh*t about our relationship struggles. 

So many trauma survivors struggle with relationships— so many HUMANS struggle with relationships— and our trauma conditioning just loves, loves, loves to blame and shame us for our relationship issues. 

The irony is, it’s often Trauma Brain— our complex trauma programming— that created or significantly contributed to those relationship issues in the fist place. 

Relationships can be complicated for CPTSD survivors. 

Complex trauma, by definition, is pain that very often wraps itself around our most important connections and relationships. 

Complex trauma tends to chip away at our sense of fundamental competence and worthiness— which then often sabotages our attempts to be close with (or tolerate closeness from) anyone else. 

One of the most frequently mentioned issues in my comments is how CPTSD does a number on our ability to trust. 

Hell, CPTSD ever often does a number on our ability to even see positives in other people— let alone in ourselves, trying to connect and relate to other people. 

And as we struggle with it all, Trauma Brain is going to becoming at us, blaming and shaming. 

(Blaming and shaming is pretty much what Trauma Brain does best.)

Trauma Brain is going to tell you your relationship struggles happen because you’re “broken.” 

Or because you’re “scared.” 

Or because you’re fundamentally “undesirable” or “unworthy.” 

Trauma Brain is going to tell you that if you weren’t so “broken” or “unworthy,” you’d “obviously” be surrounded by friends and lovers— and you’d find it easy to connect and relate to them. 

Here’s the truth: yes, CPTSD makes relationships (and attraction, and sex, and consistency in relationships) complicated— but that’s not about your fundamental worth. 

Some of the most amazing people in the world struggle with relationships because of old patterns and old pain— and that does not make them less amazing. 

Remember: you are not fundamentally “broken.” You are injured— but your injury is not fundamental to who you are. 

Your injury is not your “personality.” 

And, importantly: your injury is not permanent. 

Your current relationship struggles do not represent your ultimate relationship destiny. 

But most importantly: your relationship struggles are not your fault. 

Blame and shame, Trauma Brain’s favorite tools, miss the mark on this one. 

There’s no denying you are injured, and in need of support and tools to heal— but that’s very different from “your’e just bad.” 

Or “you’re just gross.” 

Or “you’re just destined to be alone.”

Remember: Trauma Brain is not interested in truth or reality. It just wants you to feel a certain kind of way— and it fully understands that your pain points around relationships are a fast track to getting you to feel that way. 

You are not the first, last, or only survivor to struggle with relationships. Ask me how I know. 

And your current struggle is not a life sentence. Regardless of what Trauma Brain just whispered in your ear as you read that. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

“Fake it till you make it?” Nah.

I’m not a big fan of “fake it till you make it.” 

For CPTSD recovery to be realistic and sustainable, I prefer “practice it until you’re better at it.” 

Here’s the thing: the habits that trauma recovery requires of us do not come easy to most survivors. 

Self-respect? Self-trust? Self-care? Are you kidding? 

Trauma programs us to find all of those pretty abhorrent. 

Our trauma conditioning most often wants us talking to and behaving toward ourselves more or less like our abusers did— and respect, trust, and care do not fit that bill. 

So recovery is necessarily going to ask us to try on and get better at self-nurturing things that we have spent an entire lifetime NOT doing and feeling. 

It’s going to be awkward. 

Hell, sometimes those new habits themselves are going to create anxiety in us. 

Understand: recovery habits are not awkward or anxiety provoking because we don’t “deserve” respect, trust, or care. It’s because self-respect, self-trust, and self-care are UNFAMILIAR. 

Of COURSE we’re not good at them. Of COURSE they don’t feel “natural” or “right”— yet. 

We need to practice them. 

Practice is not “faking” anything. It’s trying something. 

It’s starting where we are, and doing our best to do the thing— even if the best we can do today is an awkward, half-assed, cringey mini-version of the thing. 

Practice changes our brain and nervous system. 

Things that we repeatedly think, feel, and do, we get better at thinking, feeling, and doing. It’s called “neuroplasticity.” 

I will never ask you to “fake” anything in trauma recovery. 

I will ask you to step out of your comfort zone— and to remember that our comfort zone was most likely shaped by our experiences with abuse and neglect. 

I will ask you to practice self-care habits like self-respect, self-trust, and self-care, even though they’re hard right now. 

Practice does not make “perfect.” I am utterly UN-interested in the fantasy of “perfection,” at least when it comes to CPTSD recovery. 

Practice makes skill. 

Practice makes progress. 

Practice turns CPTSD and DID recovery from this hypothetical thing you’re reading about on the internet, to a lived reality that you are creating day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute. 

Don’t “fake it till you make it.” 

Practice it, knowing that every time you do the new thing, you incrementally, microscopically, realistically change your nervous system. 

Neuroplasticity is real— and so is trauma  recovery. 

drglenndoyle

Trauma survivors and “good natured” teasing.

Trauma survivors often struggle with teasing that is supposed to be “good natured.” 

That’s what the people doing the teasing think (or say), anyway. That it’s “good natured.” “Just teasing.” “Just kidding.” “Just jokes.” 

Many survivors find ourselves getting sensitive, hurt, and, yes, triggered by “good natured” teasing. 

And then, many survivors find ourselves embarrassed for being sensitive, hurt, or triggered by supposedly “good natured” teasing. 

Why? 

Many of us have had supposedly “good natured” interactions used to shame, control, or coerce us. 

Many of us grew up in families or peer groups that communicated through teasing and mocking and pranking— and we weren’t into it. 

Many survivors are nursing wounds and scars left by old, painful relationships— and we’re not really great at instinctively separating “good natured” teasing from mean spirited teasing. 

Many of us have been shamed to the tune of, “Oh, lighten up.” 

“It was just a joke.” 

“Get thicker skin.” 

Here’s the thing: when our closest relationships, the ones in which we “should” have been able to let our guard down, turned out to be not so emotionally safe, we adjust to that lack of safety. 

We get used to being on guard. And why wouldn’t we? 

That’s what growing up or existing in unsafe relationships for years does to our nervous system. 

For many of us it wasn’t a “fine line” between “good natured” and abusive teasing— because that line didn’t exist at all. 

You do not struggle with “good natured” teasing because you have “thin skin.” 

You struggle with it because you did not have the chance to establish a safe, secure foundation of self-esteem growing up. Which is neither your fault nor a “choice.” 

We can get better at tolerating these kinds of interactions as we work on realistically shoring up our self esteem in trauma recovery— but it takes time. And patience. And the willingness to forgive ourselves for struggling with any of it at all. 

There is no shame in getting triggered by “good natured” teasing. It doesn’t mean you’re a social or emotional “failure.” 

It means what it means: you have work to do creating safety inside your head and heart. 

Which, welcome to trauma recovery. We all have that work to do. 

You can do this. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

“Victim” is not a bad word.

You don’t have to choose between being a victim of trauma, and a strong, autonomous, authentic human being. 

You are both. 

“Victim” is not a bad word. It just states a fact. 

There is this bullsh*t cultural narrative that happens around the word “victim.” People are going to tell you “victimhood” is “just a mindset.” 

I wish that were true. 

I wish we could opt out of being victims by sheer force of will. 

But we can’t. And that has nothing to do with what most people mean when they refer to “victim mentality.” 

Most people, when they say “victim mindset,” are referred to a mix of helplessness and entitlement that they assume victims are “choosing.” 

Survivors of trauma should know this is bullsh*t— but we’re so used to blaming and shaming ourselves for everything that sometimes this bullsh*t is, well, sticky. 

Nobody “chooses” to be a victim. 

And empowerment— real empowerment, authentic empowerment, the kind of empowerment we nurture in realistic trauma recovery— has nothing to do with rejecting the “label” of victim. 

We were victimized. 

It does not define or defile us, but it is a fact. 

There is nothing shameful about having been victimized. We did not choose it. 

And it is not a “mentality.” 

I guarantee there will be someone down in the comments sputtering about how some people DO “choose” a victim mindset of helplessness and entitlement— and, to be fair, I suppose there are some who do. 

But they aren’t those who identify as survivors working a trauma recovery plan. 

Most of the time the whiny “victim mindset” types are abusers themselves, trying to pull of a DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) move. 

I’ve met and worked with many more trauma survivors than most people. And I can tell you without a doubt, “helpless” and “entitled” does not describe them. 

The culture can take its “victim mindset” head games and stuff them. 

Victimhood is not a “mentality” or a cause for shame. 

I’m a victim. And I am an empowered, skillful, realistic, authentic human being working to heal the patterns and wounds caused by my victimization. 

So are you. 

drglenndoyle

You are not, actually, “incoherent.”

Our CPTSD programming not only makes us feel like sh*t— it often makes us feel incoherent. 

We try to explain what we’re experiencing to others, friends, a therapist, whomever— but it just doesn’t come out right. 

No matter the words we use, or how many words we use, we just…can’t…explain it the way it actually feels. The way it actually is. 

Then…the shame sets in. 

We don’t quite understand why we can’t express ourselves— but we know we feel embarrassed about it. 

Turns out, that’s part of our trauma programming, too. 

Trauma conditioning is real good at convincing us that EVERYTHING is our fault, and EVERYTHING is our responsibility. 

At some point we just kind of give up trying. 

Nobody is going to understand or care about our experience anyway— so we tell ourselves— so why bother? 

You need to know: you are not as “incoherent” as Trauma Brain wants you to believe you are. 

Remember that Trauma Brain not only wants you miserable, it also wants you silent. 

CPTSD does NOT want you reaching out. It does NOT want you expressing yourself. 

CPTSD wants you alone, hating yourself, convinced that no one can relate and no one cares. 

So— it floods you with shame for even TRYING to express yourself. 

It convinces you you can’t express yourself well. 

It convinces you what you have to say doesn’t matter. 

Listen to me: that’s bullsh*t. 

You can express yourself. 

What you have to say matters. 

If I believed Trauma Brain’s bullsh*t, I wouldn’t be writing these words, and you wouldn’t be reading these words. 

Keep trying to express yourself. 

It’s true that not everyone will be able to keep up or appreciate your story or know how to respond— but that’s a them issue. Not a you issue. 

You are not “incoherent.” 

You are smart, you are articulate, and your words are key to your trauma recovery. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

For CPTSD recovery to work, sometimes we have to give up on a relationship.

Sometimes we’ve gotta give up on certain relationships, personal or professional. 

It sucks, but it’s a fact. 

Some relationships just do not meet our needs— any need we have. 

Some relationships we entered into when we have different needs than we have now. 

Some relationships we entered into not quite knowing what we were in for. 

Some relationships we entered into under false pretenses— that is, we were deceived about what would be expected and asked of us in the relationship. 

I’m not talking only, or even mainly, about romantic relationships. 

All of us have dozens of relationships we engage with daily. Our job is a relationship. Services we use are a relationship. If and how we engage with our church is a relationship. 

Our very identity is a relationship— with ourselves. 

We even have relationships with “parts” of ourselves that determine many aspects of how we feel and function that we’re often not even all that aware of. 

And sometimes we need to reevaluate if or how we engage in those relationships. 

Now, the relationships with “parts” of ourselves, we can’t opt out of. We need those relationships to be positive and trustworthy. 

But, other relationships, personal and professional? Well— sometimes they need to significantly change, or even end, if our trauma recovery is to be realistic and sustainable. 

Sometimes we outgrow relationships. 

Sometimes we heal, and a relationship we entered into when we were wounded no longer fits. 

Sometimes a relationship that once upon a time served a need for us, just doesn’t anymore. 

I wish I could tell you we could work our CPTSD recovery and never have to confront leaving a job or limiting contact with a person or going no contact with a person or leaving a church or breaking up with a toxic partner. 

I wish I could tell you that we can do all of this without making significant changes to our beliefs about who we are. 

But that’s not reality. 

Turns out CPTSD recovery is full of realities that are going to make us uncomfortable, at least in the short term. 

And the fact is, many of the relationships that have been a part of our world have also maintained and depend our trauma. And we have to be uncompromisingly real about that. 

It is okay to have mixed feelings about giving up on some relationships. Especially if they’ve been part of our world for a long time. 

It can be bittersweet. And it’s often anything but “easy.”

(Yes, “easier said than done.” Let me say it first.)

But what we’re building in CPTSD recovery is too important.

Our recovery has to come first. 

drglenndoyle

MacGuyver-ing our way through trauma recovery.

Let’s be honest: many CPTSD survivors reading this are doing recovery on their own. 

No therapist. Limited support. Limited community. 

When trauma recovery is discussed on the internet, it’s often in the context of therapy— what works, what doesn’t, what the hot new modalities are, what a good trauma therapist does and doesn’t do. 

But let’s be real: most CPTSD survivors who need good trauma therapy, don’t get good trauma therapy. 

And that’s to say nothing of the survivors struggling with DID or OSDD who can’t find competent treatment.

Affordability is an issue. Availability of decent therapists is an issue. 

For many many survivors, safety is an issue— because they’re still in relationships or situations where it is unsafe or impossible to get to therapy sessions.

Of course it’s preferable for ever survivor to have access to competent trauma work and recovery support— but that’s just not the world we live in, is it? 

So: we have to take seriously the fact that most CPTSD survivors are what I call MacGuyver-ing their way through recovery. 


Gathering resources on their own. 

Connecting with other survivors and communities on their own. 

Adapting what they hear and read about. 

Improvising this whole thing as best they can. 

One of the reasons I do what I do on the internet is, self-help books and resources saved my life once upon a time. 

No joke. I was depressed and and anxious and traumatized and addicted and alone and a teenager— and consistent, trauma informed or focused therapy wasn’t an option for me. 

(Which is just as well, because I wouldn’t have known to call what I was struggling with “trauma” anyway at the time.)

DIY (“do it yourself”) resources got me by. They weren’t perfect, but they gave me enough MacGuyver-ed together tools and just enough inspiration to get me by. 

So many survivors are in the same spot I was.

Doing it on your own. 

I see you. I respect the hell out of you. 

What I offer on the internet may not be perfect or comprehensive, but I want to give you things worth thinking about as you cobble together your DIY recovery. 

Of course I wish everyone had access to good trauma therapy, and I wish good trauma therapists were able to take everyone who needs help at affordable rates. But that’s just not the world we live in. 

So: hang in there, MacGuyver. 

You are not alone. 

And you can do this, even with the limitations of doing it on your own. 

Read, read, read. Be a sponge. Take everything in. Consider ever resource that speaks to you, no mater how silly it may seem to anyone else. 

You can do this. Most trauma survivors in history did it similarly on their own. 

I promise you, you can do this. 

And I know what I’m talking about. 

drglenndoyle

CPTSD is not only– or even mainly– about “back then.”

What “they” often don’t understand is, the damage CPTSD does isn’t limited to “back then.” 

Even if the abuse ended long ago, survivors have been taking hits every day since. 

Put another way: trying to function and live life with CPTSD is, itself, a complex trauma. 

Living with CPTSD checks all the boxes of what makes for a complex trauma: it happens over time; it is functionally inescapable; and it definitely entwines with our most important relationships. 

CPTSD survivors are often shamed for “still” being “hung up on” things that happened “so long ago.” 

What the world doesn’t understand is that our pain today isn’t entirely, or even mostly, about what happened then. 

Our pain today is focused on our struggles handling today— which is a struggle we’ve been enduring every day since what happened happened “so long ago.” 

What happened then was painful. 

But also painful are the opportunities we’ve missed— or f*cked up— in the years since, due to or trauma symptoms and struggles. 

The relationships we’ve lost. 

Hell, the SLEEP we’ve lost. 

The world doesn’t understand that, while, yes, we did demonstrably survive our trauma, it is still a very open f*ckng question whether we all survive our recovery. 

There is a myth that we just need to “process” the initial trauma we endured in order to recover from it. 

Trauma processing certainly can be a part of our recovery blueprint— but to actually recover from CPTSD, we need to understand that our CPTSD is not entirely about our original trauma. 

It’s often said that pain becomes trauma when we endure it alone. 

So, so, so many CPTSD survivors have been enduring their pain alone— year, after year, after year. 

So many CPTSD survivors have felt unsafe even trying to describe what we’ve been carrying all this time— often because w know we’re going to get sh*t to the tune of, “but that was so LONG ago— you’re still hung up on THAT?” 

So— we keep it to ourselves. 

Which is exactly how CPTSD deepens. In silence. In isolation. 

This is how CPTSD becomes so much a part our daily life that we often actually mistake CPTSD for our personality. (Also why CPTSD is frequently misdiagnosed as a “personality disorder.”) 

CPTSD is not about “back then.” Not entirely. 

CPTSD is also about the long term complex trauma of living with CPTSD— often having no idea this isn’t normal or how things will be forever. 

The good news is: understanding the nature of our trauma— all our trauma, original and subsequent— is the first step to realistic, sustainable recovery. 

You can do this. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

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.