Trauma Brain’s insidious trick.

Our trauma conditioning is real good at screeching at us that we’ve “failed.” 

Trauma Brain, what I call the internalized voices of our bullies and abusers, seems to find an endless variety of ways to inform us that we are a “failure.” 

Trauma Brain tells us we “fail” at relationships. 

Trauma Brain tells us we “fail” at managing our finances. 

Trauma Brain tells us we “fail” at managing our emotional reactions. 

Trauma Brain tells us we “fail” to make good choices. 

And on, and on, and on. 

To spoil the suspense: Trauma Brain will never tell us we’re good at something, or that we did something better than we expected to, or that our success at something was kind of a mixed bag. 

Through the magic of the cognitive distortions of black and white thinking, emotional reasoning, and mental filter, Trauma Brail will stay remarkably on message: that we are a “failure.” 

Here’s the thing: it is the case that trauma survivors experience tend to experience challenges and struggles with…well, everything Trauma Brain flatly declares us to have “failed” at. 

But you need to know that struggling is not the same as “failing.” 

Everybody who has ever succeeded or gotten better at dong a thing, has struggled with it. 

The fist step to actually being good at doing a thing is, well, sucking at it. 

One of Trauma Brain’s insidious tricks is trying to tell us that we’ve “failed” at something we’re struggling with— because the fact of our struggle seems to give its argument a germ of credibility. 

After all, most of us trauma survivors are VERY aware of the things at which we struggle. 

And if we weren’t aware, Trauma Brain is “helpfully” right there reminding us— often repeating not only the words of our bullies and abusers, but also amplifying the feedback we get from others around us who don’t understand why we can’t just get our sh*t together. 

An important step in our trauma recovery is gaining clarity about what’s actually happening when we supposedly “fail” at something that we imagine “most” adults don’t struggle with at all: we’re not, actually, “failing.” 

We are doing the thing as best we can, with the tools we have. 

We’ll get better at doing the thing the more tools we develop— and we develop new tools as we make it safe inside our head and heart to work on those tools without judgment or shame. 

Understanding this was a game change for my own recovery. 

It also felt like a risk. 

My father was an abusive, addicted narcissist who had created enormous wealth and material success in his life— and he, among others, strongly conditioned in me an abhorrence of “making excuses.” 

If I explained to my father the difference between “failing” and “struggling,” I am positive he would mock me for “making excuses.” 

I always assumed my dad was a wealthy man, because of his material success— but now I understand that he wasn’t particularly wealthy. Not really. 

He was just a guy with money. 

People who create real success, real wealth, understand the difference between “struggling” and “failing.” 

Yes, accepting that difference may feel like a risk, because Trauma Brain— who, in my case, often speaks in the voice of my father— will tell you you’re being a “loser” and setting yourself up for even more “failure” by “letting yourself off the hook.” 

But distinguishing between struggling and failing— properly understanding struggle as a necessary point in the developmental curve of building a skill— is not “letting yourself of the hook.” 

It’s not making excuses. 

It’s getting real about how skills are learned, tools are developed, recovery is shaped, and a successful life— even beyond trauma recovery— is built.