You are not “stupid.”

You are not “stupid.” 

The fact you are struggling has noting to do with intelligence. Or “character,” for that matter. 

No amount of intelligence or character makes us immune to the impact of trauma. 

But: there are many survivors reading this right now who have been convinced they’re “stupid.” 

They’ve been convinced that if only they were “smarter,” they would suffer less. 

I hate to tell you this, but the absolute smartest people I’ve ever met have been absolutely tortured by their trauma symptoms. 

In fact, trauma conditioning has this way of actually turning our intelligence against us. Nobody overthinks like a trauma survivor who is being used to logic their way out of a jam. 

Especially when our trauma involved abuse or neglect growing up, it’s very easy to believe those things happen dot us because we were “stupid.” 

Growing up, people may have talked to us as if we were “stupid.” 

A primary tool in the arsenal of many mental and emotional abusers is the implication or accusation that we are unintelligent— that if we were only smarter, we should understand that the way they related to us was fine. 

That we would “get the joke.” 

Survivors of narcissistic abuse in particular may have been subjected to constant messaging about how smart we are not— because pathological narcissists actually do believe that everyone with whom they interact is significantly less intelligent than they are. 

Our beliefs about ourselves very often echo what we were told about ourselves most often growing up, and how we were consistently treated growing up. So you can imagine what growing up with a pathological narcissist does to our self-esteem. 

(Many of us, myself included, don’t have to “imagine” that, actually.) 

Even if we wanted to take a stand and declare that we are not, in point of fact, “stupid,” many of us have been conditioned to believe that standing up for ourselves is “arrogant’ or “prideful.” 

Yes, abusers would very much prefer if we just shut up and took their abuse without question or protest, thank you very much. 

For many of us, embracing our intelligence is daunting, because even if we know we may be smarter man average, we’ve been conditioned to doubt and distrust ourselves. 

It is almost impossible to build realistic, sustainable self-esteem when we are constantly doubting and distrusting our own judgment and instincts— and abusers know this. 

Hence why gaslighting is such a common, and effective, tool for them. 

You are not “stupid.” 

I’m repeating it for a reason. Because you are not “stupid.” 

I don’t care what kind of grades you got. 

I don’t care what messages you received from any teacher or parent or peer. 

I don’t even care what any IQ test you’ve ever taken says. 

(Sometime when I’m not publicly ranting about trauma, I’ll tell  y’all the truth about IQ tests. It’s not petty.)

The messaging you received from your bullies and abusers about your lack of intelligence was fake news. It had nothing to do with reality— and everything to do with their desire to make you feel a certain kind of way. 

There are many kinds of intelligence— and as we work our trauma recovery, we reacquaint ourselves with the many ways we are, in fact, f*cking brilliant. 

I will die on the hill of: trauma survivors who have survived the sh*t we’ve survived are very often secret geniuses. 

It’s time to stop denying and disowning our genius. 

It’s time to start making our intelligence work for us— one day at a time.