Learning to love Plan B in trauma recovery.

So much of trauma recovery is about improvisation and adaptation. 

It’s not that we lack confidence in Plan A. Make Plan A as realistic and ambitious as you need it to be. 

It’s that if trauma recovery has taught us anything, it’s that sh*t goes sideways. A lot. 

Triggers pop up that we didn’t anticipate and don’t understand. 

Memories and feelings flood us out of nowhere. 

Symptoms we thought we’d “handled” reemerge— even after months or years of stability. 

Trauma recovery is a lot of things but “predictable” is often not one of them. 

In realistic trauma recovery, Plan A is often toast before we get to the first check in. 

So we need Plan B. And Plans C, D, and E. 

Here’s the thing about trauma recovery: not even the “experts” understand it perfectly. 

And NO expert who ISN’T you, perfectly understands YOUR trauma recovery trajectory and needs. 

I certainly have MY ideas about what TENDS to make for successful trauma recovery— but my perspective is HEAVILY biased by my own struggles and recovery. 

One of the reasons I don’t make super explicit recommendations on my social media pages (I know, much to the extreme frustration to some of my readers) is that I DON’T know you. I DON’T know exactly how applicable the tips, tricks, and tools that worked for me, are to you. 

What I DON’T want is somebody trying what I recommend, realizing it’s not a perfect for THEIR recovery, and tossing the baby out with the bathwater. 

(This actually is a problem with “experts” who try to convince their large audiences that their specific recovery ideas are the ONLY route to recovery. This is never, ever true.) 

None if this s about trauma THERAPY, per se. It’s about trauma RECOVERY. 

And trauma recovery is always, in the end, Do It Yourself. DIY. 

In realistic, sustainable trauma recovery, we improvise. We adapt. We riff. We experiment. 

Psychotherapy CAN be a helpful tool in trauma recovery— but even the best psychotherapy is ONLY effective when we take what we learn and work in in the therapy hour, and adapt it to our everyday life. 

I’ve never had much patience for people who insist on elegant, perfect models or treatment plans for trauma recovery. 

Real recovery just doesn’t work like that. 

It’s very often not elegant or predictable or even linear. 

Trauma recovery in the real world is often messy. It’s often counterintuitive. 

Our recovery needs very often change— not just year by year, but week by week, even hour by hour. 

That’s why we have to be willing and able to switch it up. 

We can’t get over reliant on certain skills, tools, or philosophy. 

And we DAMN sure can’t get over reliant on the ideas or care of a specific therapist— “expert” or not. 

Having a Plan B (and C, and D, and…) doesn’t mean we lack faith or confidence in Plan A. The problem with Plan A is very rarely that we just don’t “believe” in it hard enough. 

It’s that things change— out there in the world, and inside our head and heart. Often suddenly. 

A realistic trauma recovery is a flexible, adaptive trauma recovery. 

The best trauma recovery tools, skills, and philosophies are ones that are open to revision as we change and grow and encounter new problems and challenges. 

Do not listen to anyone who tries to get you too wedded to any one set of skills, tools, or philosophies. And do NOT listen to anyone who INSISTS their bag of tricks is the “only” way to recover. 

We are not in this for brand loyalty. 

We are in this to realistically feel and function better. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus.