Notice.

Notice when you’re telling yourself a story about how their behavior, is your fault. 

Notice when you’re telling yourself a story about how you’re “only” suffering because you are “weak.” Or “stupid.” Or, or, or. 

Notice when you’re telling yourself a story about how you don’t “deserve” better than you’re experiencing now. 

Notice when you’re telling yourself a story about how you’re The Exception to the fact that human brains and nervous systems can change with experience and guidance and support. 

Notice when you’re telling yourself a story about how because certain things happened to you, you “must” be “destined” for pain and misery for the rest of your life. 

Notice when you’re telling yourself a story about how none of the recovery tools that work for other survivors, will work for you. 

Notice when you’re telling yourself a story about how you “should” be further along in you recovery by now. 

Notice when you’re telling yourself a story about how you “should” be fairer or kinder or give another chance to people or institutions that hurt you. 

Notice when you’re telling yourself a story about how recovery is too complicated for you to wrap your head around. 

Notice when you’re telling yourself a story about how you don’t have the “willpower” or patience or focus to meaningfully recover from trauma. 

Notice when you’re telling yourself a story about how you “can’t” let on to anyone, under any circumstances, how much you’re struggling.

Notice when you’re telling ourself a story about how the “memory holes” in your past “must” mean that there’s nothing there. 

Notice when you’re telling yourself a story about how what happened to you wasn’t “bad enough” to result in your current symptoms and struggles. 

Just notice. 

Notice, and remind yourself: this is BS. Belief Systems. 

They’re Belief Systems so common to trauma survivors that I can list example after example just now, and know that it will resonate with most of the survivors reading my page. 

None of those are true. 

Some of them start out with kernels of truth, but Trauma Brain— what I call the internalized voices of our bullies and abusers, that play in our head on repeat for years— effortfully, very effectively, warps them into self-defeating assertions that we buy hook, line, and sinker. 

Why do we swallow Trauma Brain BS? Not because we’re “stupid.” 

Because we’ve been brainwashed. Conditioned. Programmed. 

Realistic trauma recovery is about scratching the record. Waking up. 

Seeing the stories for what they are. 

And creating new stories for ourselves that are more reflective of reality and more relevant to who we are and what we’re all about.