Our trauma symptoms and struggles make sense.

For trauma recovery to be sustainable, it’s real important we approach our symptoms and struggles as if they make sense— somehow, some way. 

Many survivors get in the habit of approaching our symptoms and struggles with disdain or frustration— and I get it. We hate these symptoms and struggles They’re literally running and/or ruining our life. 

But if our goal is to manage and reduce those symptoms and struggles, we need to understand them. 

We often need to sit with them for a minute, while they “tell” us what they’re all about. 

Many of our symptoms and struggles in trauma recovery will seem mysterious to us. Reactions and triggers won’t seem connected to anything that happened to us. Trauma symptoms and responses might seem to come out of nowhere. 

The thing is: no trauma symptom occurs “for no reason.” 

Even those symptoms that seem mysterious or nonsensical serve some sort of purpose. 

We may not be able to discern how our symptoms are related to our trauma right away— and, the “good” news is, we don’t have to completely understand a reaction in order to manage it. 

But we do need to approach whatever we’re experiencing with compassion and respect. 

That can be a tall order when we’re sick to death of getting our ass kicked by trauma symptoms and responses. 

It’s a game changer when we develop enough perspective in trauma recovery to meet our trauma responses calmly and evenly. “Okay. This is happening. Let’s deal with this.” 

It’s a game changer when we approach our responses trough the lens of, “I may not get it just now— but this makes sense to some part of me, and I’m going to deal with this on its own terms.” 

We get into all kinds of trouble in recovery when we try to insist or demand that we feel something other than what we’re feeling. 

Our nervous system doesn’t especially care if we like what we’re feeling, or if we’d prefer to feel something else. It evolved to keep us alive, not to cater to our preferences. 

Trauma recovery is about repairing and developing out relationship with ourselves— and that includes our relationship with our various symptoms and struggles. 

It’s very easy, when we’re struggling, to get frustrated with or angry at the “part” of us that seems freaked out by a trigger. 

We wanna yell at it. We want to tell it to get over this. We want to roll our eyes and ignore what’s happening, because it “shouldn’t” be happening. 

But none of that will actually help us manage a trauma response. 

Trauma responses aren’t “choices,” and our nervous system doesn’t activate them to frustrate or inconvenience us. 

It can be frustrating, inconvenient, and overwhelming to get hit with trauma responses over and over again. That’s real. You get to be exactly as frustrated as you are— with all of it. 

But we can’t take that frustration out on ourselves. We can’t take it out on the “part” of us that is fueling or experiencing that trauma response. 

We’re already getting our ass kicked by trauma responses. 

We don’t need to kick our own ass in frustration or shame ABOUT experiencing trauma responses. 

For trauma recovery to be realistic and sustainable, we need to develop an attitude of radical acceptance toward our symptoms and struggles. 

We don’t have to like ‘em. 

But we have to accept that we’re struggling exactly as much as we are, experiencing exactly what we are— and that our symptoms and struggles make sense. They are connected to reality. 

They are understandable— and important.