When we’re not so awesome.

Eh, sometimes we’re not our best selves. It happens. 

Sometimes a “fight” trauma response gets the better of us. 

Sometimes we lash out, recreating an old relationship pattern. 

Sometimes we lash out because we feel our feelings were not heard or invalidated by someone we really want to hear and validate us. 

Sometimes we lash out because the constant stress of managing all of this sh*t in our body and mind has us exhausted, and we just ran perilously low on bandwidth. 

It happens. We’re human. Humans lash out sometimes. 

Sometimes, when our central nervous system gets stuck in a “fight” trauma response as its default, we lash out more than sometimes. 

It happens. It doesn’t feel great, to anyone involved, but  it happens. 

I don’t believe trauma responses let us off the hook for our behavior, especially toward other people. That’s what I’ve never understood about those “personal responsibility” fetishists who are always harassing trauma advocates— there is nothing, in philosophy or practice, in the trauma informed movement that is anything but extremely pro “personal responsibility.” 

I do, however, think we have to look at all our behavior in context. And that means seeing triggers and trauma responses for what they are. 

We are responsible for our behavior— but we also have choices when it comes to interpreting our behavior. 

Trauma Brain— which is what I call the sum of all the trauma conditioning and brainwashing we’ve endured over the years, the collective voices of our bullies and abusers we’ve internalized— is going to try to tell us that we lash out because we’re “bad.” 

It’s going to try to tell us that we lash out because we’re “too much.” 

It’s going to try to tell us that we lash out because we are “immature.” 

It’s kind of ironic that the one explanation Trauma Brain will NOT offer as contributing to our lashing out is, actually, trauma. 

Anyway, you need to know that lashing out doesn’t mean you suck. It doesn’t mean you’re “immature.” It doesn’t mean you’re “too much” for the other humans. 

All it means is that a trauma response got the better of you for a sec. No more; no less. 

If it happens repeatedly, it means that your nervous system’s stuck in a default “fight” mode— which is worth paying attention to as a recovery issue, but it is NOT a judgment about who you are as a person. 

The truth is, most trauma survivors I know would really, really love to connect to people in non-toxic ways. 

The overwhelming majority of trauma survivors I’ve ever worked with would sell their kidney for the tools necessary to relate and be close to the other humans WITHOUT lashing out or melting down. 

Relating to the other humans involves interpersonal and emotional regulation skills most of us survivors weren’t taught growing up. If you grew up like me, you were bullied and shunned, and your emotional management “skills”— such as they were— developed without much healthy guidance or modeling from the adults around you. 

It happens. Them’s the breaks. Not your fault; not my fault. 

Interpersonal effectiveness and emotional regulation are absolutely skills that we can learn— but before we’re even at that point, we need to commit to not judging or punishing ourselves for struggling with it now. 

That’s the deal we have to make in trauma recovery generally: no judgment and no punishment. 

Even if we do sh*t we don’t love in trauma recovery— and let me tell you, I have ABSOLUTELY done sh*t I haven’t loved in trauma recovery— we have to meet our struggles and not-great decisions with patience and compassion. 

We have to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. 

If we wanna break the pattern, we have to avoid that reflex to kick the sh*t out of ourselves— because I can assure you, people who are busy kicking the sh*t out themselves are actually MORE likely to lash out and push people away, not less. 

If we want to relate more constructively to people, that’s great— but we absolutely have to start with ourselves. 

That means being cool to you. 

Even when you’re kind of a dick. 

Especially when you’re kind of a dick. 

Being a dick to yourself when you’ve been a dick only reinforces Dick Culture within. And that’s not recovery behavior.