Don’t let “their” attitudes or statements f*ck with YOUR recovery.

We can’t let OUR recovery depend on what THEY are or aren’t willing to acknowledge. 

We just can’t. 

There will be times when other people will simply refuse to acknowledge what you’ve been through. 

There will be times when they refuse to acknowledge how difficult recovery is. 

There will be times when they try to turn it all back on YOU. 

They’ll call you “dramatic.” 

They’ll say you’re “attention seeking.” 

They’ll imply— or out right say— that you’re lying or exaggerating. 

None of this will have any basis in reality, mind you. 

It will ALL be about their issues. Their blocks. Their beliefs. Their agendas. 

But— they will try to get you to believe that YOU can’t move forward with YOUR recovery until you buy into their narrative. 

People really will do anything and everything to cram the world into the mold of THEIR beliefs, their agendas, their comfort zones. 

Unfortunately, for a lot of people, that means denying and disowning the fact that traumatic things happen to vulnerable people. 

The simply don’t want to acknowledge that. 

To really acknowledge it would be to upend their worldview. 

Similarly, they often don’t want to acknowledge that trauma RECOVERY is a hard, multilayered, one-day-at-a-time process. 

If they acknowledged THAT, they’d need to surrender many of their cherished beliefs about how all anybody needs to recover from painful experiences is “willpower.” 

I wish all of this was just limited to a subset of people out in the world— but the truth is, we run into these attitudes, beliefs, and narratives in a LOT of places. 

Our culture really glorifies this “all you need is grit” narrative. 

We make heroes out of people who suffer silently— and we heap scorn upon those who are publicly vulnerable. 

Whenever somebody accuses a trauma survivor who is openly discussing their experience and recovery of being an “attention seeker,” I want to ask them: “What kind of ‘attention’ do you think comes from openly identifying as a trauma survivor?” 

It’s often not the kind of “attention” anyone reading this WANTS. 

So why do people say this about trauma survivors? 

Because they need some reason— any reason— that people might be saying these things…any reason, that is, BESIDES the simple truth that these things happen. 

Some people just don’t want to know that trauma happens. 

Some people just don’t want to admit that trauma recovery is hard. 

Some people just don’t want to admit that traumatic things can happen to people— regardless of how privileged they are, regardless of how attractive they are, regardless of how “safe” their world supposedly is— that they have no control over…and it can affect them in the long term. 

They will go out of their way to defend and reinforce this denial. 

That’s why we can’t let their denial get in the way of our recovery. 

If we do, we’re going to be waiting…forever. 

Their denial has zero to do with your recovery. 

We don’t need their permission to recover. 

We don’t need their permission to identify our pain points. 

We don’t need their permission to do what we need to do, especially within our own head and heart, to recover from what happened to us. 

Don’t let “their” attitudes and statements f*ck with your head in trauma recovery. 

They are defending a narrative that has nothing to do with your recovery.