CPTSD and reasons to live.

I am never going to tell anyone their reason for living isn’t “good enough.” 

If it keeps you alive for even one more day, it’s “good enough” for today. 

We trauma survivors have a rough habit of judging, often harshly, our reasons for living (in fairness, we trauma survivors have a rough habit of judging, harshly, pretty much everything about ourselves)— but, truly, any reason for living is better than no reason for living. 

I very often work with survivors who tell me their reason for living today is someone else, usually a person or a pet— and that’s great. I have no problem with that. 

I do, however, encourage survivors to work on expanding their “reasons for living” list. 

Many people have many different reasons for living, but for the vast majority of the people in the world who continue to want to exist, their reasons include experiences that are meaningful and pleasurable to them— and their confidence that they can create or access those experiences on the regular. 

Trauma survivors, however, tend to struggle with this. 

Our painful experiences have convinced us that we cannot, or at the very least will not, create or access experiences that are pleasurable or meaningful. 

Oh, sure, sometimes we’ll have an experience that is okay, or even great— but those positive experiences often come at a complicated emotional cost for us. 

The moment we become aware we are experiencing something pleasurable or meaningful, we start to feel anxious. 

Part of us often gets activated that is thoroughly convinced that that this pleasurable or meaningful experience is about to be yanked away from us— and we’ll somehow be in trouble for daring to feel good for a minute. 

One of the bedrock beliefs that trauma cultivates in us is that good experiences don’t last. 

I hear variants of this every day. “Nothing gold can stay.” “Everybody leaves.” “Don’t get happy.” 

When we survivors happen to experience pleasure or meaning in our life, we tend to immediately anticipate losing it— while at the same time telling ourselves a story about how we never really “deserved” that moment of meaning or pleasure in the first place. 

There is a cognitive distortion called the “mental filter” that Trauma Brain is very good at leveraging against us, that will have us believing that any positive experience we have is basically an accident— that while we are responsible for every bad thing that happens to us, the “good” stuff comes and goes unreliably and completely independent of our own efforts. 

I know. What a bunch of BS (Belief Systems). But that’s what CPTSD does to us. 

If we’re going to consistently manage our suicidal ideation, we need to realistically chip away at Trauma Brain’s insistence that it is “pointless” to try to create or experience meaning and pleasure in our life. 

Yes, many pleasurable or meaningful experiences are, in fact transitory— but it doesn’t follow that the are not worth creating, pursuing, or enjoying. 

When we start to understand how CPTSD mangles our beliefs about ourselves, other people, the wold, and the future, we begin to see that we’ve been conned out of creating reasons to live that don’t depend entirely on other people or our pets. 

Again: I have zero problem with living for others or our pets. As I say: any reason to live is better than no reason to live. No shame and no shade. 

But as we continue to work our trauma recovery, we’re going to come up against our beliefs about the possibility of meaning and pleasure in our life again and again— and sooner or later we’re going to have to confront Trauma Brain’s lies about our ability to create a life worth living. 

You have as much ability to create and experience pleasure and meaning as anyone who has ever existed. No matter what has happened to you, and no matter what your life has been like until now. 

You might be new to developing the skillset that supports you in creating a life worth living— but the good news is, you’re right here, right now, reading this. 

That means it’s not too late. 

That means there is a life of pleasure and meaning out there for you. 

That means there are skills and tools that will work for you. 

Your reasons to live will not always be a short list. Just keep woking your recovery.