drglenndoyle

“Love” and “safety” shouldn’t be conditional.

Trauma survivors know: it is exhausting to constantly feel we have to earn, and re-earn, and re-earn again, love or safety. 

In fact, it can be so exhausting that we figure it’s not even worth it. 

The belief that love or safety is conditional, that we have to keep earning and re-earning it, often comes from childhood neglect— and it hooks hard into our “fawn” trauma response. 

When we’re kids, we’re not wired to understand that what we’re getting— or not getting— is not our fault. 

We assume that, if we’re starved for our basic needs (emotional or physical), that it probably has to do with us. 

Hell, sometimes we’re basically told as much by our abusers or bullies, especially when the needs in question are emotional. 

We don’t grow up believing that our caretakers had blocks of their own or made choices that resulted in us not being loved— we assume it was us who wasn’t “lovable.” 

This pattern has lots of variations. For example, if we grew up feeling invisible, we may assume that we simply weren’t attractive or entertaining enough to “deserve” attention— not that our caretakers just didn’t do their job. 

There are, of course, some things that are conditional. We choose our playmates, and later our friends, based at least partially on how they make us feel— and we’re not “unconditional” in it. We’re very conditional. 

But a parent taking care of a kid and providing for that kid’s needs should be held to a different standard than a kid choosing their playmates or friends. 

The bottom line, though, is that may CPTSD survivors arrive in adulthood feeling the crushing weight of what we think is our “failure” to “earn” the love and safety that we should have been entitled to growing up. 

Consequently we rarely feel secure or calm when it comes to love or safety, no matter what happens to be going on— because our nervous system is thoroughly convinced that there IS no such thing as “secure” love or safety. 

Our traumatized nervous system thinks it can never rest, because to do so would be to risk losing the love and safety we have. 

This is how the trauma symptom of “hypervigilance” shows up in CPTSD: never being able to relax, for fear of loss. 

The reality is, “love” or “safety” we have to earn, and re-earn, and re-earn again, is not actual “love” or “safety.” 

“Love” is not the same as affinity or attraction, both of which can vary. But “love” is a deeper level of investment and commitment, that cannot be “lost” that easily. 

Similarly, “safety” should not, cannot be dependent on someone else— we have to create it for ourselves and inside ourselves first and foremost. Otherwise it’s never truly “safe.” 

Do not let your early conditioning convince you you have to exhaust yourself “earning” love or safety. 

There are plenty of tasks in trauma recovery that require plenty of effort— but if someone says they love you, they don’t get to make you feel like you’re constantly auditioning for their love. 

And if someone represents that they’re a “safe” person, that safety should not be contingent upon their attitude toward you today. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Remember Truman.

Nobody can “make” us give up on trauma recovery. 

They can try. 

They can create circumstances that make it very, very hard for us to be patient and self-compassionate and grounded, as we need to be to realistically work our trauma recovery. 

They can distract us. 

They can try to hijack our focus. 

They can try to influence our self-talk. 

They can try to deprive us of resources we need to manage our physiology. 

They can do all kinds of things that can make it hard as hell for us to stay focused on our goals and values, the future we’re trying to create. 

But they can’t “make” us give up. 

They can’t “make” us harm ourselves. 

They can’t “make” us kill ourselves. 

Understand: it is not, in any way, shape, or form, “easy” to stay committed to our trauma recovery when a person or institution is out to make us feel like garbage. 

I’m not minimizing the massive influence others can have on us. That’s real. 

I’ll never tell you, as some therapists might, that no one can “make” you feel anything. Other peoples’ behavior can make it ENORMOUSLY easy to feel certain feelings, and ENORMOUSLY difficult to feel anything else. That’s real. 

But I will tell you: no one can “make” us surrender in our head. 

No one can “make” us decide that trauma recovery is not worth it. 

No one can “make” us give up on our “parts” and inner child. 

This post isn’t some bullsh*t toxic positivity “you control everything about your experience” spiel. Obviously other people can exert such an influence on our experience, that in no realistic way are we “choosing” what to feel in those moments. 

And let’s be clear about the fact that certain people very much want us believing, at the core of our being, that they CAN “make” us give up. 

But they can’t. 

And that’s why we’re going to win. 

Remember that scene at the end of “The Truman Show” where Truman, determined to sail his boat to the edge of his world, is buffeted by heavy storms sent by the “director” of the show, who is equally determined to drown him? 

We are Truman. 

And, like Truman, we’re not giving up— no matter how intense and scary the storm. 

(Believe me: I understand exactly how intense and scary the storm can get. I’m not guessing. I know what you’re up against.)

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

And remember Truman. 

drglenndoyle

Think MacGyver, not Mr. Perfect.

The most experienced, successful trauma recover-er will not know how to solve EVERY trauma related problem or symptom that crops up. 

That happens. 

And that’s utterly normal. 

As it turns out, NO ONE knows how to solve EVERY problem, trauma related or otherwise, that comes across our radar screen. 

I’m talking about the smartest, most has-their-sh*t together trauma survivor in recovery you can imagine. 

I’m talking about Trauma Recovery Ninjas with years of experience, who have significantly changed their life through recovery skills, tools, and philosophies. 

Not even THEY know how to handle EVERY problem that crops up. 

Maybe you can give yourself a break for not immediately knowing how to manage or resolve EVERY symptom you experience. 

The reality is, trauma recovery is not about “knowing”…well, anything. 

It’s not like we’re handed a Book of Secret Knowledge, and suddenly we know how to effortlessly metabolize every trauma response or cognition we have. 

(Trust me, if that book were possible to write, I would write it and immediately give it away for free.)

This isn’t about “knowledge” or “intelligence.” There are plenty of trauma survivors who are literally brilliant, who get their brains beat in by trauma responses on the regular. 

What trauma recovery is actually about, is adaptation. 

It’s about how we approach the situation when we have literally no idea what to do. 

Everybody reading this has had a trauma response that has hit us in the face, and we have had literally no idea how to begin managing or processing it. 

(If you haven’t had this experience, just wait, you will.) 

The fact that we have no idea what the hell to do doesn’t mean we’re toast. 

It means we have to fall back on our trauma recovery skills, tools, and philosophies and start asking some good Recovery Supporting Questions (RSQ’s)— no more, no less. 

Speaking for myself, when a particularly intense trigger smacks me in the face, I usually have to run through a few RSQ’s before I start to get a handle on what to do— and then I have to experiment with a few tools before I find one that really “clicks.” 

Don’t get up in your head about “knowing” how to handle a situation. 

Trauma recovery is about being MacGyver, not Mr. Perfect. 

Don’t get precious and don’t get perfectionistic. Remember that literally EVERY trauma recovery skill, tool, or philosophy is a work in progress— and it’s your mission to fine tune ALL the tips and tricks you’re learning to fit your needs. 

If the world’s most accomplished trauma recover-ers get their ass kicked by trauma responses for a minute before they get their sh*t together and manage them, maybe you can let up on yourself a little bit. 

You’re a work in progress and trauma recovery is a dark ride. 

Grace over guilt. 

drglenndoyle

Scratch. That. Sh*tty. Record.

You are not making a “choice” to talk to yourself like your bullies and abusers talked to you. 

You are responding to conditioning. 

You are running a pattern— a pattern so familiar that it feels “right.” 

Hell, you’re running a pattern so familiar that you’re probably not even aware it’s a pattern. It’s just “the way things are.” 

A lot of trauma symptomatology is like that. 

We do these things because we were programmed to, and we do them very effectively because we have a lifetime of practice at it— not realizing that we’re actually being unkind and unfair to ourselves. 

Then, when some dork of a therapist like myself comes along and tells you it doesn’t have to be like that, you’re skeptical as hell— because in your nervous system, there’s just no other way for it to be. 

After all, what would a day without shredding yourself for the smallest mistake realistically look like? 

What would a day without fantasizing about suicide look like? 

What would a day without denying and disowning feelings and “parts” of ourselves we feel shame about actually look like? 

We don’t know. Our nervous system never really considered the possibility. 

Or, maybe our nervous system DID consider the possibility— but we decided we didn’t “deserve” a day without kicking the sh*t out of ourselves. 

Or we decided that if we failed to kick the sh*t out of ourselves today, then we’d somehow be punished for it— that life would come along and kick the sh*t out of us anyway, so we may as well do it to ourselves first. 

Because then we’d be in “control” of our own ass kicking, right? Right? 

Or something. 

Changing that pattern starts with understanding we’re not making a “choice,” and we don’t need to feel shame about it. 

No one reading this woke up this morning and just decided to talk to themselves like their bullies and abusers talked to them. 

What actually happened was, we woke up this morning, and our patterns of self-talk and mental focus were what they were, what they have been for decades— and we did what every human does, we went along with our conditioning. 

That’s how conditioning works. 

Interrupting that old conditioning means scratching the record— and I’ll spoil the suspense, that’s uncomfortable as hell. 

Every human struggles to change patterns that have been deeply conditioned and heavily reinforced in their history. Just ask any smoker. 

The good news is, patterns can be interrupted and records can be scratched— if we’re willing to pay the price, that is. 

The price of interrupting these particular patterns is called “trauma recovery.” And it’s a hassle. 

It’s often inconvenient and uncomfortable and counterintuitive, and we often end up hiring a professional to help us do it if we can. 

But you don’t have to roll with your old conditioning indefinitely. 

People have been radically changing their patterns and lives ever since ancient times. 

You are not the exception to the fact that realistic change is possible. 

You did not choose your trauma conditioning— but you can choose to scratch the f*ck out of that sh*tty record, minute by minute, choice by choice. 

Breath by intentional breath. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

drglenndoyle

Trauma recovery is self-reconnection.

CPTSD tries to cut us off from ourselves. 

I know that might sound strange, but that’s the bottom line of what it does. 

CPTSD tires to drive wedges between the “parts” of us, such that we’re not in touch, we’re not collaborating, and we’re not caring for or about those “parts” of us. 

We’re not making a “choice.” It’s programming, conditioning. 

This is almost impossible to explain to someone who doesn’t struggle with CPTSD, but many survivors reading this know exactly what I mean. 

That sense of self-alienation. 

That sense of not feeling like yourself, for no discernible reason. 

That sense that there are “parts” of us that hold and need things—but which we can’t quite access, and we’re never sure why. 

It can all sound “crazy” to a non-CPTSD survivor. 

But for survivors, dissociation, depersonalization, and derealization are often everyday occurrences. 

They often occur so regularly that we don’t even register them as particularly unusual or remarkable events. 

Dissociation happens when we’re reflexively, involuntarily removed from, cut off from, distanced from, or made unaware of something we feel, need, remember, or otherwise experience. 

Depersonalization is when we don’t feel like ourselves. We know we ARE ourselves— but we don’t feel real. 

Derealization is when the world around us doesn’t feel real. When we feel floaty, or as if everything is unfamiliar, strange, or overwhelming. 

All of these are more common experiences for CPTSD survivors than is commonly acknowledged— even by survivors. 

We often don’t acknowledge these things because we don’t love them. They’re disorienting and inconvenient and sometimes scary. 

And, not for nothing, we sometimes don’t even realize we’re experiencing them in the moment. 

(That’s kind of the problem with symptoms that f*ck with our sense of presence and reality.) 

It all comes back to CPTSD trying to alienate us from ourselves— from our memories, our emotions, our needs, and even our physical reality. 

Realistic recovery from CPTSD always involves reconnection— first and most importantly, with ourselves. 

It always involves rediscovering who we are and what’s authentic and essential to us. 

We are simply not recovering while remaining splintered and scattered and floaty. We have a life to live here.

That’s NOT to say recovery from CPTSD (or DID, for that matter) involves “parts” going away— quite the opposite, actually. 

What recovery DOES involve is lowering the barriers between “parts.” 

It DOES involve giving “parts” opportunities to support each other. 

It DOES involve us being as grounded in the current moment as much as possible— not because the current moment is always great (sometimes the current moment absolutely sucks), but because right here, right now, is where we have our power, our autonomy, our wiggle room. 

CPTSD must fail to divide and conquer us from within. 

We need to have a united internal front— and an internal environment in which “parts” know, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are wanted, needed, listened to, and protected. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Become unrecognizable.

One way I think about trauma recovery is, it’s the process of becoming unrecognizable to our abusers, our bullies, and people who knew us when we were going through the worst of it. 

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with who we were. 

It’s that this project, trauma recovery, is about rebuilding ourselves, from the ground up, at the level of identity. 

We can have all the empathy in the world for who we were then. 

In fact, it’s really important we not blame or shame the person we were then. 

And but also, we need to move on from them. 

Not “abandon” our past self— but evolve beyond them. 

The psychological research tells us over and over again that change “sticks” when we incorporate it into our identity. 

It also tells us over and over again that change does NOT stick when we hold on to our old identity. 

For example: quitting an addiction, like smoking, tends not to “take” as long as one thinks of oneself as a smoker who is trying not to. 

But when one shifts their identity, so one does not think of oneself as any kind of smoker anymore, when smoking becomes something so foreign to their identity that they wouldn’t even think about picking up? That’s when quitting “takes.” 

The same can be said of any time we try to significantly change what we believe, what we feel, and what we do. We can’t think of ourselves as the same-old-person-who-is-trying-to-change. 

We need to shift our identity. 

And then we need to talk to and behave toward ourselves as if our new identity is set in stone. 

All of which is to say: trauma recovery is not about staying the same person and trying to make some tweaks. 

It’s about reformatting our own hard drive. 

The reality is, trauma has ALREADY reformatted our hard drive. It’s ALREADY shaped and shifted who we are, on the identity level. 

Trauma recovery is about us taking that power and autonomy back. 

It’s about “brainwashing ourselves”— with ideas and beliefs that we choose, in the service of an identity that feels chosen and authentic to us. 

That is to say: becoming unrecognizable. 

Understand, your mileage may vary. All I can speak to is the ideas and frameworks that motivate me, focus me, speak to me, in my trauma recovery. 

I don’t get all that motivated by the idea of making some minor tweaks in how I feel or behave. 

I do get motivated by becoming someone my bullies and abusers would not recognize. 

I get motivated by the idea of reshaping myself so completely that, while I love and accept and forgive my past self, it would be hard to believe I grew into the powerful, autonomous, self-responsible “recovery me” I did. 

Don’t play small. 

Become unrecognizable— and more authentic than you’ve ever been. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Our islands of misfit “parts.”

It’s the “parts” of us that get muzzled every day, in real time, that need us the most. 

Those are the “parts” we’ve been conditioned to deny and disown. 

Those are very often the “parts” of ourselves we’ve been conditioned to distrust and even hate. 

We’re not making a “choice” to do that, understand. Conditioning is not “choice.” 

Why were we conditioned to deny, disown, distrust, and/or hate “parts” of ourselves? 

Often it’s because of what those “parts” hold. 

We don’t develop “parts” for the hell of it. They evolve to “hold” memories, feelings, and other patterns that we can’t integrate at the moment. 

There may be lots of reasons why we can’t integrate something— but most often it’s because it’s just too painful. 

An example of something that is often too painful to integrate is betrayal. 

Our brain just might not be able to wrap itself around the idea of someone we love and trust choosing to hurt us, especially again and again over time. 

We just reject that idea. We can’t integrate it into our model of the world, our understanding of reality. 

So we split that knowledge and experience and those feelings off into a “part,” that holds it for us. 

And there that knowledge and those experiences stay, stuck, unprocessed, unintegrated— held by that “part” of us that is also frozen in time, most often at the developmental stage we were when what happened, happened. 

It’s not exactly a mystery why we don’t love that “part” of ourselves, or what it holds. 

So we learn to deny it. Disown it. 

Over time, we learn to distrust it— to not even be sure what that “part” holds is even real, insofar as it feels so hazy to us (except when we get pistol whipped with flashbacks, which feel hyper real and overwhelming). 

And we definitely learn to hate it. Because its existence represents something we powerfully resent. 

For as painful as all of that undeniably is— it’s all pretty normal. 

Most every CPTSD survivor is walking around with “parts” of us feeling muzzled and “stuffed” every hour of every day. 

We may not love the idea of acknowledging, let alone engaging with those “parts” of ourselves that hold such pain— but it’s exactly those “parts” of us that need our patience, our validation, and our compassion the most. 

How we hold and engage with those “parts” of us determine the realism and sustainability of our recovery arc. 

Because we’re NOT getting out of this maze while also continuing to deny and disown our pain. 

We’re NOT managing or resolving our CPTSD while also “stuffing” wounded “parts” of ourselves. 

Conditioned denial and self-hate are literally what got us sick. 

They are not going to heal us. 

Don’t try to rush self-compassion. You don’t have to figure it all out today, let alone reverse decades of conditioning today. 

Just start softening toward those “parts” of you you dislike, are afraid of, or don’t understand. 

Think becoming 1% less judgmental of them. 1% less resentful. 1% more open to them. 

It’s a long walk back to Eden. Don’t sweat the small stuff. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

See it.

Not for nothing, but you and I have spent an awful lot of time focused on the wounded version of ourselves. 

That’s not our fault. We’re not voluntarily “fixated” on our wounds. We’re not making a “choice.” 

We’ve been focused on our wounds because our wounds have been our life. 

We haven’t had the option of a day without our wounds f*kcing up our job, our relationships, our life. 

People who don’t struggle with CPTSD don’t know— that’s not a “choice.” We’re not being “difficult” or “negative.” 

That’s just what we’ve been handed by life, and it’s been on us to cope with it as best we can and stay alive. 

No shame, no shade. 

And but also— if recovery is going to be realistic and sustainable for us, we need to devote some focus to the healed version of ourselves that we’re trying to create. 

I’m not talking about bullsh*t “positive thinking.” 

I’m talking about getting clear and visceral about what we’re shooting for. 

What does a “healed” version of you look like? 

What do they feel like? What sorts of experiences do they have in their life every day? 

Many trauma survivors are surprised to find we haven’t really thought much about that.

After all, why would we? A “healed” version of ourselves has seemed so unrealistic over the years, that to envision it might even be more depressing. 

Add to that the fact that many of us have been told, implicitly or explicitly, that we “can’t” meaningfully recover from what we’ve experienced. 

Many survivors reading this haven’t had a particularly robust cheering section as we’ve tried to change our life, have we? 

So— visualizing that “healed” version of us might have been bittersweet at best, or a profound bummer at worst. 

But I’m going to ask you to put that “healed” version of yourself back on the radar. 

Our nervous system functions much better when we give it a clear goal. 

Most humans have real trouble “locking in” if a goal is abstract. Hard to hit a target you can’t really define. 

So, in your journal, on a Pinterest board, wherever: flesh that healed version of yourself out. 

What do they look like? What kinds of things do they think about? What kinds of things do they believe? 

What is it like inside the head and heart of the “healed” version of you? 

I understand: this is not an easy exercise for many survivors. We’ve been hit over the head so often and so rudely by the “toxic positivity” crew that envisioning a “healed” version of ourselves may feel silly, like a waste of time. 

But I’m telling you: the mind develops the pictures we hold in it. It’s not magic or metaphysics; it’s neuroscience. 

Dopamine flows where our focus goes. 

You are not struggling because you’ve been thinking “negatively.” That’s not at all what I’m saying. 

What I’m saying is that giving your brain something to shoot for as you design your trauma recovery is worth the effort. 

Our wounds and limitations will always be there to think about. 

But mixing our pattern of focus up to include what we’re driving toward is a value added tool. 

No pressure. Just experiment with it, like you would with any recovery tool. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

“Try harder” is not a trauma recovery strategy.

The secret to trauma recovery is not “try harder.” 

And your problem in trauma recovery is not that you haven’t been trying hard enough. 

“Try harder” is not even a strategy. It kind of sounds like one, but it’s not. 

“Try harder” is the kind of thing people say who don’t understand trauma or recovery. 

Most people reading this, especially if they’re recovering from CPTSD, already feel an enormous amount of guilt for supposedly “not trying hard enough.”

This tends to be true no matter how hard they’ve been trying. 

But this isn’t an effort problem. 

If you’re reading this, you probably didn’t have the safety or support you needed to develop effective strategies for living. 

Note I said “living”— not just “surviving.” You obviously survived, since you’re reading this.

But if you’re reading this, odds are you haven’t really been living. 

You’ve probably not had the safety or support to really define or work toward your goals. 

You’ve probably not had the safety or support to really engage and enjoy what you like. 

Hell, you may have been expending enormous bandwidth just staying alive. 

No shame, no shade— but that’s not really “living.” 

And the problem has not been you “not trying hard enough.” 

The problem has the lack of safety and support. Tools and philosophies that you should have been taught by the people who said they loved you—but you weren’t. 

It doesn’t matter how hard we want or try to build a house, if we don’t have a hammer. And a lot of other tools and materials, for that matter. 

Where did that “try harder” thing come from, anyway? 

Usually it came from someone who wanted to blame us for our own pain. 

After all, if our suffering reduces to a problem of effort, they don’t have to take any responsibility for it, do they? 

Then we survivors take that “not trying hard enough” BS (Belief System) and apply it to ourselves, because on some level we actually like the idea that we can do more or less ANYTHING if we just “try hard enough.” 

We would rather feel guilty than powerless, as an old Dialectical Behavior Therapy saying goes. 

No one, and I mean no one, is harder on trauma survivors than we ourselves are. 

It starts out with us imitating our bullies and abusers— who were often our primary caretakers and models— but we sure take it and run with it. 

We don’t do this because we “like” it. We do this we lack alternatives. We don’t relish the idea of building a house without a hammer, but we’ve never been given a hammer to work with. 

We’ve only been told “try harder.” 

Taking realistic responsibility for our trauma recovery is a good thing, a necessary thing, a beautiful thing. 

But we’re not going to “try hard” our way into building a house with our bare hands. 

We need tools. 

Think stacking your toolbox— with tools other than shame or pressure. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

What does what we like have to do with trauma recovery?

We’re not going to realistically build self-respect while also mocking or hiding the things we like. 

Many of us were taught by our bullies and abusers to do exactly that. 

We were taught that if we like something, we can’t show it. 

We were taught that if we’re passionate about something, we’d better keep it hidden. 

We were taught that liking something a lot is “cringe,” and that the only way to keep from being mocked about it is to mock it first ourselves, pretend that we like it ironically. 

I almost never see this discussed in “trauma treatment” circles— how the stuff we like, the stuff we’re passionate about, is integral to our trauma recovery. 

After all, what are we recovering for? 

We need something to think about, to dig into, to celebrate. 

We need our lives to be ABOUT something other than trauma. 

I don’t believe we like the stuff we like “for no reason.” 

The stuff we like, the stuff that resonates with us— stories, music, movies, shows, plays, art, characters— speak to us for reasons. And I choose to believe those reasons are important. 

One of the reasons I can’t design a generalized trauma recovery plan for everybody reading this is because we’re all individuals. What heals me, may not heal you; and what heals you, may not resonate with me.

And make no mistake: the art that resonates with us, heals us. In profound, sometimes inexplicable ways. 

Just like we’re not finding our way out of this CPTSD maze while also mocking and denigrating ourselves, like we were conditioned to do by our bullies and abusers, we’re also not finding our way out of this labyrinth while mocking and denigrating the things we love. 

The things we like and love and invest in— those are part of us. 

Pay attention to what you like and love and get interested in and get passionate about. 

Notice what resonates with you, what catches your attention, what tugs at your heart. 

Treat the things you like and love with respect. Don’t let anyone con or coerce you into denying or disowning them just to be one of the “cool kids.” 

Let me tell you something about real “cool kids:” they don’t actually try to pressure or shame anyone into not liking or celebrating what they like. 

Not every resource that supports your trauma recovery is going to explicitly be a trauma recovery resource. 

But what every resource that supports your trauma recovery will have in common is, it will “grab” you in a positive way. 

Instead of denying and disowning those things that “grab” us, we need to nurture them, collect them, invest in them. 

The stuff we like and love and get passionate about are clues. 

They point the way home.