“Fake it till you make it?” Nah.

I’m not a big fan of “fake it till you make it.” 

For CPTSD recovery to be realistic and sustainable, I prefer “practice it until you’re better at it.” 

Here’s the thing: the habits that trauma recovery requires of us do not come easy to most survivors. 

Self-respect? Self-trust? Self-care? Are you kidding? 

Trauma programs us to find all of those pretty abhorrent. 

Our trauma conditioning most often wants us talking to and behaving toward ourselves more or less like our abusers did— and respect, trust, and care do not fit that bill. 

So recovery is necessarily going to ask us to try on and get better at self-nurturing things that we have spent an entire lifetime NOT doing and feeling. 

It’s going to be awkward. 

Hell, sometimes those new habits themselves are going to create anxiety in us. 

Understand: recovery habits are not awkward or anxiety provoking because we don’t “deserve” respect, trust, or care. It’s because self-respect, self-trust, and self-care are UNFAMILIAR. 

Of COURSE we’re not good at them. Of COURSE they don’t feel “natural” or “right”— yet. 

We need to practice them. 

Practice is not “faking” anything. It’s trying something. 

It’s starting where we are, and doing our best to do the thing— even if the best we can do today is an awkward, half-assed, cringey mini-version of the thing. 

Practice changes our brain and nervous system. 

Things that we repeatedly think, feel, and do, we get better at thinking, feeling, and doing. It’s called “neuroplasticity.” 

I will never ask you to “fake” anything in trauma recovery. 

I will ask you to step out of your comfort zone— and to remember that our comfort zone was most likely shaped by our experiences with abuse and neglect. 

I will ask you to practice self-care habits like self-respect, self-trust, and self-care, even though they’re hard right now. 

Practice does not make “perfect.” I am utterly UN-interested in the fantasy of “perfection,” at least when it comes to CPTSD recovery. 

Practice makes skill. 

Practice makes progress. 

Practice turns CPTSD and DID recovery from this hypothetical thing you’re reading about on the internet, to a lived reality that you are creating day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute. 

Don’t “fake it till you make it.” 

Practice it, knowing that every time you do the new thing, you incrementally, microscopically, realistically change your nervous system. 

Neuroplasticity is real— and so is trauma  recovery.