Struggling is not “failing.”

For many survivors, the hardest trauma recovery tasks revolve around giving ourselves things. 

Giving ourselves permission to feel what we feel. 

Giving ourselves space to feel what we feel. 

Giving ourselves forgiveness for not knowing what we didn’t know, and not being able to do what we couldn’t do at the time. 

Giving ourselves time. Time to heal, time to grow, time to not know, time to rest. 

Why is it so hard to give ourselves things, when we’ve been through trauma? 

Trauma conditioning often convinces us we don’t “deserve” things— and we can’t give ourselves things we don’t “deserve.” 

After all, what did we do to “earn” any of this “recovery” stuff? 

The thing about that is, the very statement reveals it’s flaw: why should we have to “earn” recovery? 

So man of us grew up believing that our worth was based on our performance. 

So many of us grew up believing that we had to “earn” the very oxygen we breathed, the very physical space our body consumed. 

Many of us, right now, feel guilty for existing— because we haven’t “earned” the “right” to exist. 

We judge our lives to be “failures”— therefore we don’t deserve to continue living. 

The truth is, we don’t have to “earn” the right to exist— or the right to recover from trauma. 

If we exist, we have a right to exist. 

If we are human, we have the right to try to feel and function better. 

We have the right to try for a better life. 

You DO “deserve” to exist— you don’t have to “earn” the “right” to the oxygen you breathe or the physical space you take up. 

You do not have to “justify” your existence by creating and living a life that “they” would approve of. 

But all that sounds not-real to us, doesn’t it? 

I can say all that— and in our heads, we can still hear the voices of our bullies and abusers, notably parents and teachers, telling us that that all may SOUND nice…but the reality is, of course we have to work had to not be a “disappointment.” 

So many of us feel like a disappointment, a failure, before our feet even hit the floor in the morning. 

You need to know that that’s not reality. That’s programming. That’s the sum of our trauma conditioning, the attitudes and beliefs and conditioned reflexes I call “Trauma Brain.” 

Trauma Brain does not tell you the truth about who you are and what you deserve. 

Trauma Brain exists to reinforce the messages you got from bullies and abusers once upon a time. 

We can struggle to wrap our head around this, because goddamn, do those messages feel real. It feels very REAL that we’re a “failure.” It feels very REAL that we’ve “wasted our life.” 

Listen to me: struggling is not “failing.” 

Being in pain does not make you a “failure.” 

So you’re at a point where you’re struggling. That has exactly zero bearing on your worthiness. Or your value. Or you “right” to live or recover. 

See through it. 

Look past it. 

Return to the certainty, the absolute certainty, that you and I are as valuable as any human being has ever been. 

You have a right to live. 

You have the right to create a life you like. 

You have the right to not be defined by things that have happened TO you, or things people have said TO you. 

You have the right to recover. 

Yes, you. You reading this. I don’t mean hypothetically or in the abstract. You, as a person, as a survivor, as a human being reading these words right now. 

You have the right to recover. 

And you can. 

And you will. 

I’ve seen the future— and this all works out.