There are no “failures;” there are only results.

A lot of trauma recovery is starting over, and a lot of trauma recovery is reinventing ourselves. 

How many times? As many times as it takes. 

Trauma has this way of trying to convince us that we are limited in the number of times we can try again. 

That might be true in some specific contexts— but, in the grand scheme? We never actually run out of chances to work our recovery. 

That thing, where our trauma conditioning tries to convince us we’re “done” because we’ve “failed” a certain number of times? That’s just our trauma conditioning fishing for a way to discourage us and get us to quit. 

These “failures?” Aren’t even usually failures. Though, I must confess, I’m not an authority on the subject of “failure,” because I don’t actually believe in it. 

To me, there, are no “failures.” There are only results. 

They may not be the results we prefer, or the results we expect, or the results that are consistent with our larger goals— but we always “succeed” in producing a result. 

Trauma Brain, however, very much wants you and me to believe in “failure.” 

It wants us to believe that a bad day is way more than a bad day— it wants us to believe that a bad day is “clearly” indicative of the fact that we’re doing recovery “wrong.” 

Believe me, there are lots of ways to “fail” in trauma recovery— if you believe in that kind of thing. 

We’re gonna have days when our mood sucks. 

We’re gonna have days when our motivation is zero. 

We’re gonna have days when we cry in situations where we’d very much prefer not to cry. 

And, sure, we could process all of those as “failures.” But to me it’s just not that straightforward. 

There are lots of reasons why our mood might suck, or our motivation is zero, or the water works happened to be turned on in inopportune times or places today— and chances are we don’t actually have perfect control over all those reasons. 

But even if we do have some control over some of those reasons, and even if we could have made adjustments to how we managed our feelings or responses, I still don’t consider those “failures.” They’re results. They’re data. 

No more; no less. 

Your milage may vary about all of this. Maybe you really do believe in the concept of “failure.” The question to ask, always, is: “does the belief or way of thinking about this support or chip away at my recovery?” 

Most of the “failures” we think are devastating in trauma recovery are setbacks due to moments of exhaustion or confusion. Many of those setbacks are the result of a specific skill deficit in a specific moment. 

They do not represent a generalized “failure” in recovering from trauma. 

If you’re reading this right now, even if you’re coming off of an experience of “failure”— or, as I would call it, unexpected or unwanted results— you’re still in the game. 

I know this, because you have eyes to read this and a brain to decode it and another day to work your recovery. 

How we explain what happens to us, matters. The language we use matters. The metaphors we use matter. The labels we affix to unexpected or unwanted results, matter. 

If you’re still breathing, there is no “failure” catastrophic enough to disqualify you from starting over and working your recovery today. You don’t even have to wait until tomorrow. You can work your recovery for the rest of today. 

Oh, and one more thing: Trauma Brain is very likely absolutely howling at you as you read this. 

That should be an indication that we’re on to something recovery supporting here. 

Breathe; blink; focus; and do the next right thing.