drglenndoyle

Trauma recovery is more than just wrangling symptoms.

I believe CPTSD recovery is about more than just wrangling our symptoms.

Yes, many of us would like to reduce or eliminate our CPTSD symptoms. Of course we would.

But that’s not what I’m talking about, or at least all I’m talking about, when I talk about trauma recovery.

What CPTSD does to us is steal our identity.

It hijacks our attention.

It very often hijacks our physiology, our very muscle fibers, our very cells.

To me trauma recovery is about taking all that back.

One of the reasons I keep banging on about “authenticity” in trauma recovery is because in my mind it’s a process of rediscovering— or maybe discovering for the first time— who we really are.

Trauma symptoms famously masquerade as personality characteristics.

It’s one of the reasons why CPTSD is so often mistaken for “Borderline Personality Disorder.”

Trauma responses can be so ingrained, so consistent, so immersive, and endure for so long, that many of us don’t know or remember who we are without those psychologically “load bearing” symptoms.

In my mind, that’s what we have to learn in trauma recovery.

So we have to go beyond just turning down the volume on our flashbacks.

We have to go beyond closing the loop of interrupted “fight” or “flight” reflexes.

We have to get back to who we are and what we’re all about.

The reality is, many CPTSD survivors did not have the safety or support to flesh that out in the first place.

How are we supposed to figure out and develop who we are? We’re supposed to do that in childhood and adolescence, with the supportive “scaffolding” of safe adults.

Raise your hand if you had that.

What many people don’t understand about CPTSD is that it is not just a post traumatic injury— it is an injury of interrupted development.

(Often violently interrupted development.)

To really heal, those developmental tasks are the loops we have to revisit and complete in ways that are true to ourselves.

Which is why I say CPTSD recovery can’t just involve therapy.

It also has to involve music that moves us.

And art that speaks to us.

And books that resonate with us.

True trauma recovery— as opposed to just successful trauma therapy— is a search and rescue mission for ourselves.

I want you to wrangle your symptoms. Symptoms are no fun.

But I want that to be the beginning of your CPTSD recovery story, not the end.

Breathe. Blink. Focus.

And remember— or get ready to create— who you are

drglenndoyle

Features and glitches.

You’re not “broken” because you’re drawn to familiar patterns.

Literally every human being is drawn to familiar patterns.

It’s part of how the human nervous system works— we get “used” to certain situations, certain feelings, certain behaviors, because the neural networks associated with those situations and feelings and patterns become physically easier to activate the more they’re activated.

For most humans, this is a feature, not a glitch.

But for us trauma survivors, it’s a glitch. One hell of a glitch, actually.

For us trauma survivors, the “familiar” is toxic. Poisonous.

And the fact that we’re drawn to that toxicity, that poison, is NOT the same as us “liking” it.

It’s a quirk of our nervous system, not a “choice.”

The fact that we’re drawn to what we know doesn’t mean we’re broken— it means we function exactly like every other human on the planet, every other human in the history of humans.

The issue isn’t the fact that we’re drawn to the familiar— the issue is that our “familiar” really sucks.

By the way, this doesn’t mean trauma survivors can’t be nostalgic.

Hell, the most nostalgic, sentimental people I know are trauma survivors.

One of the ways CPTSD f*cks with our head is, because it results from pain we endured over time and was wrapped around our most important relationships, it means our trauma memories are interwoven with lots of other memories— some of which we actually cherish.

Recovery might be a lot simpler if we could just cordon off all our trauma memories and say, I’m never thinking about that era of my life again, because it was all awful.

But the reality is, our trauma memories weave in and out of memories we might feel lots of different kinds of ways about.

That is to say, revisiting ANY memory, including memories we feel positively about, can kick open the door to painful trauma memories and symptoms.

It’s not fair.

Don’t shame yourself for being drawn to the familiar.

Don’t shame yourself for being sentimental or nostalgic.

It doesn’t mean your trauma “wasn’t that bad.”

It doesn’t mean you’re masochistic.

And it doesn’t mean you have to reject everything that is familiar or memories that you happen to cherish.

It means that healing from complex trauma is, well, complex.

If it were easy, nobody would be reading this right now.

Breathe. Blink. Focus.

And remind yourself you’re probably more “normal” than you realize.

drglenndoyle

Nope. Not easy.

None of this trauma recovery thing is easy. Don’t let anyone try to tell you it is, or “should” be.

Realistic trauma recovery involves unwiring deeply conditioned patterns in our nervous and endocrine systems, and rewiring them from scratch.

What the f*ck is supposed to be “easy” about that?

Some people will say trauma recovery is as simple as “letting the past go.”

How, exactly, do you think we “let the past go?”

That’s right: by unwiring old patterns in our nervous and endocrine systems, and rewiring them from scratch.

There is no one time, magic way to “let it go.”

“Letting it go” means literally, physically changing how our mind and body work.

It’s not easy.

We know how to recondition ourselves— but that doesn’t make it “easy.”

The essentials of reconditioning ourselves is not a mystery: self-talk, mental focus, and physiology.

Some people give me sh*t for boiling it down to those basics, but they really are the building blocks of how we rewire, recondition, reprogram ourselves.

What we say to ourselves on repeat, conditions us.

What we habitually focus on, conditions us.

How we breathe and use our body, conditions us.

The fact that the building blocks of realistic trauma recovery are relatively straightforward does not mean they are “easy.”

Ask any CPTSD survivor whether it’s “easy” to talk to ourselves in realistic, supportive ways, when all we’ve heard for years is how much we suck, how “evil” we are, how “weak” we are.

Ask any CPTSD survivor whether it’s “easy” to focus on our strengths and goals and values and successes, when for years our focus has been forced to dwell on our weaknesses and vulnerabilities and regrets and supposed “failures.”

Ask any CPTSD survivor whether it’s “easy” to breathe and move in ways that support parasympathetic nervous system dominance— “rest and digest”— when for years we’ve been stoking sympathetic nervous system activation with our breathing and movement.

It’s not easy.

And no magic therapeutic modality or therapeutic tool will make it easy.

But are you reprogrammable? Yes.

Are your brain and nervous system still plastic, still changeable? Yes, yes they are.

And are you worth the effort it will require to rewire and rebuild your nervous system and identity.

Yes, yes you are.

I know this isn’t easy. And I know many trauma survivors feel a lot of pressure from a lot of places to recover faster, to “move on,” to “let it go.”

Remember that this truly is a marathon, not a sprint. And nobody who actually understands trauma or recovery expects it to be a sprint.

Marathons require intelligent pacing and one-mile-at-a-time focus. Ask me how I know.

(Because I am a marathoner— and a trauma survivor working my recovery, one day at a time.)

Breathe. Blink. Focus.

drglenndoyle

(X) does not justify abuse or neglect. Full stop.

Religion doesn’t justify abuse or neglect.

Culture doesn’t justify abuse or neglect.

Someone’s personal history of abuse or neglect, does not justify abuse or neglect.

Miss me with those supposedly “nuanced” conversations about cultural or historical or other norms that somehow “contextualize” hurtful behavior.

Yes, it’s true that at times in our history, abuse or neglect were “normalized.”

It’s true that different subcultures have different understandings of what is “abusive” or “neglectful.”

And, I don’t much care about any of that.

I work with the people actually impacted by abusive and neglectful behavior.

As it turns out: the human nervous system doesn’t distinguish between abuse or neglect that is culturally “acceptable” as opposed to “taboo.”

The human nervous system is impacted by what it’s impacted by. Harmed by what it’s harmed by.

I understand the temptation to try to normalize or contextualize abuse or neglect. No one likes to think of people we maybe looked up to in our culture or our history or our family as abusive or neglectful.

I’m not even necessarily saying anyone “has” to consider those people “monsters.” You have every right to think whatever you think of those people. I couldn’t stop you if I tried.

I’m just saying that I, as someone deeply invested in trauma survivors’ recovery, am not going to be entertaining “both sides” narratives on this.

People are going to do what they have to do to minimize their own cognitive dissonance— in this case, squaring the abusive or neglectful behavior of someone with the fact that they happen to like or respect them.

I get it, cognitive dissonance is no fun.

You know what else is no fun? Being abused or neglected.

And you know what’s REALLY no fun? Being told your abuse or neglect wasnot a partic ularly big deal, because what happened was “normalized” within that family or culture or church or time period.

I’ve heard so many trauma survivors minimize their own experience because what they went through was “normal” for their family, culture, church, or time.

I’ve seen trauma survivors bend over backward to “forgive” their abusers, because what their abusers did to them was “normal” in that time, in that setting.

I’m not saying you have to be furious with your abusers.

The reality is, you get to feel whatever you happen to feel about them. And there are plenty of survivors who have lots and lots of mixed feelings about their abusers.

I also fully understand that norms of conduct for certain times and places and situations don’t do a lot of people any favors in terms of supporting ethical, non-harmful behavior.

And but also: religion doesn’t justify abuse or neglect.

Culture doesn’t justify abuse or neglect.

And someone’s personal history of abuse or neglect, doesn’t justify abuse or neglect.

Harm is harm.

And realistically acknowledging harm is a necessary step toward realistically healing that harm.

Breathe. Blink. Focus.

And see what you see and know what you know.

drglenndoyle

“Go with the flow?” Only if you want to feel like garbage.

I wish CPTSD recovery was easier.

I wish it was more intuitive.

I wish, to successfully recover from CPTSD, we didn’t have to always be pushing back against what feels normal and natural.

I wish we could just “go with the flow” and still recover from CPTSD.

Unfortunately, though, we really, really can’t.

Why? Because the damage CPTSD does is through conditioning. Programming. Brainwashing.

That is to say: “the flow” that feels “natural” to us was shaped by our bullies and abusers.

The things CPTSD gets us saying to ourselves and focusing on and doing to and with our bodies may be painful— but they may also feel “right,” because those things are familiar.

Taking care of ourselves, talking to ourselves supportively, focusing on who we are and what we’re all about as opposed to our last bad decision or how we’re supposedly “failed” at life— all that may feel unnatural, abnormal.

That’s because it goes against the grain of our CPTSD conditioning.

If the rituals and tools of trauma recovery felt intuitive and natural and easy, everybody would recover from CPTSD overnight.

We wouldn’t have to work so hard to do this.

But that’s what we’re up against.

“Going with the flow” is going to leave us feeling like garbage.

Not doing the trauma recovery stuff because it feels too hard, too “unnatural,” too weird, is exactly what our bullies and abusers want.

They WANT us thinking of recovery supportive self-talk, mental focus, and physiology as “too much work.”

They WANT us depressed that we can’t just “go with the flow.”

I don’t love the amount of work trauma recovery asks of either me or my patients.

Wouldn’t it be great if life just equipped us to ask good questions, to focus on empowering things, to take care of ourselves, instinctively?

But that’s not the world we live in.

Many of us were raised by people who were more interested in controlling us than teaching us how to solve life problems.

They were more interested in our submission than our success.

Even into adulthood, many people reading this have had the experience of someone who was supposed to teach them or support them or heal them, instead reinforcing mental and behavioral programming that makes us feel like ass.

None of that is our fault.

But unwinding and rewiring it all requires us to give up the fantasy that we can just “go with the flow.”

The good news is: as we recondition ourselves in CPTSD recovery, the recovery rituals and tools get easier. They really do.

They don’t get effortless, because we don’t live in a reality where anything worth doing is effortless.

But our nervous system will absolutely mold itself around what we repeatedly say to ourselves, focus on, and do.

The plasticity, the changeability, that resulted in our trauma injuries can also work FOR us in our recovery.

But getting there can be rocky. It can be awkward. It can feel unnatural.

You know what, though? Most people out there “going with the flow,” cruising around on autopilot? They’re often not all that happy.

I would not have chosen trauma or recovery for either myself or anyone else— but the reality is, the things that CPTSD recovery asks of us will absolutely make us more focused, more effective, and ultimately more fulfilled humans than the vast majority of people.

Yes, it would be better if this, all this, was easier.

But the fact that this, all this, is as difficult as it is, as counterintuitive as it is, as energy intensive as it is— that doesn’t mean we can’t do it.

Breathe. Blink. Focus.

And go scramble some “natural” patterns in your nervous system today.

drglenndoyle

CPTSD is about conditioning. Recovery is about reconditioning.

It is not your fault that you were conditioned to stay in certain situations.

If we’re going to truly recover from trauma, we very much need to understand and accept what conditioning means.

It means many things that may have looked like “choices,” weren’t.

That’s true even if there was no physical coercion involved.

If you’re reading this, chances are someone has given you sh*t— or you’ve given yourself sh*t— for staying in a situation longer than you wanted to, or longer than it was healthy, or longer than was safe.

What we come to understand in working our trauma recovery is, many of those situations where we thought we were “free” to leave, were more complicated than we knew.

If our brain simply doesn’t register something as an option, it’s not a realistic option for us.

If our nervous system believes we will be harshly punished— or worse— for certain things, those things aren’t realistic options.

We can’t just “power through” those internal obstacles.

If we try, our nervous system will cheerfully engage the defenses of dissociation and “freeze,” leaving us literally, physically unable to “just leave.”

It has nothing to do with intelligence.

It has nothing to do with courage.

It has nothing to do with strength or “toughness.”

It is not an option for us to simply ignore our conditioning— especially conditioning that was burned into us by pain over time.

Complex trauma is trauma that unfolded over time; that was functionally inescapable, and that entwined our most important relationships.

That is to say: the perfect recipe for conditioning. Brainwashing, really.

We didn’t wake up one morning and just decide to be vulnerable to triggers. We were conditioned to be vulnerable to them.

We didn’t wake up one morning and just decide to believe awful things about ourselves. We were conditioned to believe those things.

We didn’t wake up one morning and just decide to struggle with our eating and body image. We were conditioned to feel and focus on those things.

And we definitely didn’t wake up one morning and just decide to fixate on hurting or killing ourselves. We were conditioned to think about and feel those things.

Our conditioning is not our fault. No one asks to be brainwashed. No one wants it. Most of the time we don’t even understand it’s happening at the time— how could we?

My model of trauma recovery is all about reconditioning our nervous and endocrine systems. No other piece of recovery work will matter if we’re not fundamentally rewiring what we reflexively think, feel, and do.

Realistically reconditioning ourselves means understanding and accepting that we were conditioned, brainwashed, programmed with trauma BS (Belief Systems— also bullsh*t).

That is to say: we are not suffering because we suck, or we suck at making choices.

We are suffering because we were “taught” and we “learned” distorted things about ourselves and reality— often by the very people and institutions that were supposed to teach us how to live and thrive in the world.

Don’t get me wrong: trauma recovery goes way beyond “it’s not your fault.”

But it definitely starts there.

Breathe. Blink. Focus.

And see your conditioned patterns for what they truly are.

drglenndoyle

Trauma Brain, emotional reasoning, and “deserving.”

CPTSD is going to have lots of opinions on whether you are competent and intelligent enough to “deserve” opportunities.

Most of those opinions are going to be negative. Shockingly.

Very often, trauma survivors work really, really hard to get good and be good at things— but, no matter how hard we work, we often still get sh*t from Trauma Brain about how undeserving we are.

Intellectually, we might understand we objectively deserve that promotion.

We might understand we’ve put hours toward mastering that skill.

We might even know that we’ve tried really, really hard to be a good relationship partner.

And yet, Trauma Brain— the internalized voices of our abusers and bullies— will still give us 2,447,276 reasons why we don’t deserve professional success, why we’re probably not very good at that thing, and why we DEFINITELY don’t deserve the love or attention of a quality relationship partner.

And those reasons may sound CONVINCING.

One of Trauma Brain’s most devastating weapons is a cognitive distortion called “emotional reasoning.”

When we’re deep in emotional reasoning, we believe things not because they add up logically— but because we FEEL they’re true.

We may even buy into things that DON’T particularly add up logically, specifically because they FEEL true.

When something FEELS true to us, it can be really hard to convince ourselves those things— like our supposed undeservingness— are actually untrue.

The problem with that, of course, is that those things that FEEL true to us have usually been heavily conditioned by our trauma.

When we’ve been abused or neglected in relationships, especially over time, we get LOTS of practice at feeling undeserving. Quite against our will, mind you.

Whatever we get practice thinking, feeling, or doing, over and over again, we get good at. Those things get easier to think, feel, or do— and our brain often mistakes “easy” for “right.”

It is easy for most trauma survivors to feel undeserving, because those neural pathways have been strengthened and deepened by repeated use.

And because it’s easy to feel undeserving, we get it in our head that that feeling must be “normal,” “natural,” “correct.”

The reality is, it’s just familiar. Not right.

Doesn’t matter: because it FEELS familiar, which we mistake for “right,” emotional reasoning kicks in— and any attempt to logic our way OUT of that feeling of undeservingness gets met with skepticism, and is usually rejected.

It’s one of the most common struggles of CPTSD survivors: emotional reasoning affirming that we don’t deserve success, we don’t deserve happiness, we don’t deserve safety— and that train of thought being impervious to any kind of intellectual or logical challenge.

You are not alone in struggling with this.

What we need to do— which is not easy— is remember that us FEELING a thing is correct or incorrect may not be a reliable guide to its truth value.

That what we FEEL about a thing’s accuracy— including our subjective feelings of deservingness or lack thereof— reflects our CONDITIONING. Not necessarily reality.

I often get responses to my writing to the tune of, “I’m the one person this doesn’t apply to. I’m the one person who truly IS undeserving. I’m the one person who truly CAN’T recover from trauma. I’m the one person who truly DOES deserve to die.”

That, my friends, is a rundown of emotional reasoning’s greatest hits when it comes to CPTSD survivors.

If you truly think or feel that, know, without a shadow of a doubt, that is Trauma Brain f*cking with you. That is emotional reasoning f*cking with you.

That is your bullies and abusers f*cking with you, from INSIDE your head— even if they’re no longer in your life, even if they’re dead.

You 100% deserve opportunities.

Yeah, yeah, I may not know you, but I don’t need to know you to assure you of that.

You deserve safety and the same opportunities for happiness and intimacy that any human being in the history of the world has ever deserved.

Realistic trauma recovery is going to ask you to stand up to CPTSD’s BS (Belief Systems— also bullsh*t). And it’s not going to be comfortable. It’s not going to feel intuitive. I’m telling you that right now.

CPTSD doesn’t get to tell you “no” on this one.

Though it will try.

drglenndoyle

The freeze and the wiggle.

Many CPTSD survivors feel shame about our “freeze” response.

The “freeze” trauma response is rooted in that “deer in the headlights,” “if I don’t move, maybe the danger will pass me by” reflex.

“Freeze,” like every trauma response, is not a choice— and, ironically, that’s one of the reasons many survivors feel shame around it.

We don’t love it when our body or mind does something without us.

(Survivors of sexual abuse experience something similar, when our bodies responded to what was happening— which was not a “choice,” either.)

“Freeze” can be infuriating.

There are survivors reading this who have been in the position of feeling locked in place, internally screaming at themselves to do something, ANYTHING— but not being able to make ourselves move.

A lot of procrastination or task paralysis is actually “freeze.”

The “freeze” response often contributes to us failing to escape situations that other people assume we “should” be able to just exit.

The “freeze” response can contribute to us missing professional opportunities that might advance our career— but which come with demands we’re not at all sure we can meet.

CPTSD survivors in particular can get “frozen” when we sense certain relational dynamics.

A date or romantic relationship that, for whatever reason, echoes the vibe of a painful relationship we had growing up can seem to just wipe our mind in a triggered moment— even if the person we’re with right now hasn’t done anything “wrong.”

There is often a dissociative element to the “freeze” response.

Many survivors report that, in addition to “freezing,” they feel themselves inexplicably removed from the situation— as if they’re watching themselves fail to act.

What the “freeze” response is NOT, by the way, is any kind of “failure.”

Trauma responses like fight, flight, freeze, fawn, or flop, evolved over millions of years. Our vulnerability to them is deeply wired into our physiology.

That is to say, “freezing” is not your fault.

To get out of “freeze,” start by moving the teeniest, tiniest part of your body you can.

Wiggle your little finger. No more, no less.

Remember that a frozen solid object does not unfreeze all at once. It has to thaw.

Just create some friction. Wiggle that little finger.

Then maybe your ring finger, too. Don’t rush it. Just get some movement going.

Breathe, blink, focus— and then wiggle your middle finger. Just those three. No rush, no pressure.

Create friction. Create movement. Create “heat”— and feel your hand start to thaw.

It is the case that a lot of the “freezing” we do is psychological and emotional— but, of the three tools we have available to us at all times, i.e., self talk, mental focus, and physiology, the tool I find most helpful for thawing out a “freeze” response is physiology.

Your mileage may vary.

Whatever teeny, tiny movement works for you, work it.

But remember that “freeze” is not your fault, not a “failure,” not a “choice,” nothing to be ashamed of— and not evidence of anything about you, other than the fact you are a human whose nervous system evolved in exactly the same way the rest of the species did.

Easy does it.

Just get to wiggling.

drglenndoyle

DIY recovery is ancient recovery.

If you’re reading this, there’s a better than average chance you’re doing this trauma recovery thing more or less alone.

Maybe you have a therapist, or you’ve had a therapist in the past. Or, maybe you don’t.

Therapy can be a great tool— for the right survivors, at the right time in their journey, given the right therapist— but the vast majority of trauma survivors in recovery are in this relatively alone.

I’m going to get sh*t for acknowledging that, but it’s the truth.

I call it DIY (“Do It Yourself”) trauma recovery.

One of the reasons I write things on the internet about trauma recovery is because I believe we have to be utterly realistic about how many of us are DIY’ing recovery.

It makes resources that are not therapists— books, internet posts, videos, grassroots recovery communities— super important.

In my experience some therapists don’t like to talk about DIY recovery, because they feel everyone “should” have a therapist.

Maybe everyone “should”— but you and I know that good, trauma informed therapy is simply not available to everyone.

Practically, realistically, the principles of trauma recovery need to be out there for anyone to access, even if they’re broke as a joke, even if they’re reading these words on a public library computer.

The reality is, people have been recovering from trauma for centuries. Long before therapy or modern medical treatment were things.

What I understand as the principles of trauma recovery have been discussed by philosophers for years. They go back to ancient Greece and Rome, and probably much father than that.

The tools of trauma recovery have been around as long as art and poetry and spiritual practices and physical rituals have existed. That is to say, for as long as humans have been able to create and move and breathe.

That doesn’t mean those principles or tools are obvious, or that you should just instinctively know how to access or leverage them. That’s why people like me, and others who write and talk about the “how” of trauma recovery can be useful.

But my point is, the principles and tools are out there. Mostly for free. They really are.

Nobody who has invented a costly trauma recovery technique has invented something new. They’ve repackaged something that probably existed for centuries (and, don’t get me wrong, some of those rebranding of ancient wisdom have been incredible, and made that ancient wisdom more accessible to modern survivors then it would have otherwise been).

If you follow my work, you know my holy trinity of trauma recovery tools: self talk, mental focus, and physiology.

Every effective trauma recovery tool is some combination of those— which I say not to denigrate any trauma recovery tool, but to reassure everybody reading that you absolutely have access to the building blocks of EVERY effective recovery tool.

I am not in any way trying to denigrate therapy. I’m a therapist. The therapy relationship can be a powerful tool, and it can train survivors in powerful skills.

But I need you to know that if you’re DIY’ing trauma recovery, with no realistic access to good therapy, you’re not screwed.

Trauma recovery is not easy or obvious for anyone. But DYI’ng it can be a b*tch.

You’re in good company, though.

As in, the company of almost all the trauma survivors who have ever worked a successful recovery since the beginning of time.

You, we, can make this work.

drglenndoyle

Don’t get tricked into the Trauma Olympics.

Comparing your trauma to someone else’s is almost always a trap.

I can tell you from experience, that juice is almost never worth the squeeze.

It’s true that sometimes hearing others’ stories can be validating. It can help us understand that we’re not alone in what we endured. That there really were other families that functioned (such as it is) the way ours did. That there really are other people who are still alive after life tried to kill them.

But it’s also the case that hearing others’ stories can get in our head about the validity or severity of our own experience.

Many trauma survivors already struggle with feeling that we don’t have “permission” to feel what we feel.

We often struggle with feeling like our experience wasn’t “bad enough” to produce the symptoms and struggles we face now.

We’ve often been told that it wasn’t the situation that was bad— but rather, we were “weak.’

Some of us have been told that we didn’t really experience trauma— we just have a “personality disorder.”

A fair amount of the work in trauma recovery is unwiring and rewiring feelings and behavior that stem from what we were told.

We don’t need to add to that task by comparing and contrasting what we went through or how we responded to it, with what someone else went through, or how they’re handling it.

I find it useful to remind myself that, no matter what I learn about someone else’s past or trauma, I’m almost surely not hearing the entire story. I’m hearing what they remember, and/or what they’re able to express right now.

I also find it useful to remember that, no matter how someone seems to be handling their trauma, what I see is almost never the entire picture.

In the end, just like nobody knows our entire story or experience except us, we truly don’t know all the contours of somebody else’s story or experience.

Not that this fact stops Trauma Brain from trying to get us to judge the living sh*t out of ourselves based on what we do hear about others’ stories.

Trauma Brain— the internalized voices of our bullies and abusers— will almost always use someone else’s story to tell us we didn’t REALLY have it “that bad.”

Or, sometimes, Trauma Brain will play against type, and use someone else’s story as “evidence” that what we went through was SO bad, there’s no POSSIBLE way we can “recover”— so we might as well not try.

What I want you to notice about that is, Trauma Brain doesn’t actually care about how our experience stacks up against someone else’s.

It just wants us to judge and hate ourselves, and give up on recovery.

Be mindful when you’re exposed to others’ stories of trauma and survival and recovery.

Remember that, no matter what anyone else endured, you still absolutely have the right to feel what you feel and need what you need.

Your injuries are your injuries. They don’t change because someone may have had it “better” or “worse.”

Trauma survivors very often end up bonding over our shared experiences of pain (which is not a “trauma bond,” by the way— that term refers to what happens when a survivor is coercively bonded to an abuser on whom they are dependent). And it’s true that some of our biggest supports in this trauma recovery can be other survivors.

Just be careful Trauma Brain doesn’t sucker you into competing in the Trauma Olympics. That is a very reliable recipe for a spiral.

Breathe. Blink. Focus.

And remember your recovery truly is YOUR recovery.