Don’t mistake Trauma Brain for a reliable source of information.
Trauma Brain is the internalized voices of our abusers and bullies.
It’d be like if our abusers and bullies bought a cable news network, the subject of which was us and our lives.
All day, every day, their reporters would produce stories about us— but do you think those stories would be accurate, coming from our abusers and bullies?
Not hardly.
They’d probably focus disproportionately on how we suck.
They’d focus on how our problems were our fault— and definitely not the fault of our abusers and bullies, who just happen to own the network.
Those stories would focus on how we’re probably doing life entirely wrong— especially if we’re working a trauma recovery and trying to break free of our bullies’ and abusers’ influence.
If our bullies and abusers had a cable news network, that’s what we’d expect.
What we need to understand is that the cable news network that our bullies and abusers do have, and which is broadcasting 24/7/365, is Trauma Brain.
Trauma Brain is particularly tricky, too, because it is the result of conditioning over time— meaning we often don’t realize that what we’re “hearing” from it is anything other than our own, spontaneous, “natural” thoughts.
We readily acknowledge when a cable news network run by people with whom we disagree, runs news stories with a particular “slant.”
We understand that cable news networks that have an agenda are going to omit certain facts and spin others, such that their point of view is strengthened.
I’m telling you, Trauma Brain is doing that right now, inside the head of every survivor.
Trauma Brain omits facts.
Trauma Brain spins other facts.
Trauma Brain is NOT an objective source of information, any more than the cable news network run by your least favorite political actors is.
Yet, we know that the biases and agendas of cable news networks don’t keep some people from watching them, and believing everything they broadcast.
Any smart, objective person understands that the real truth is probably not what is being broadcast by those networks.
And survivors who succeed at trauma recovery understand that Trauma Brain is not so much a truth-seeker or truth-teller, as it it is a spin doctor or an advertising executive.
Trauma Brain is in the business of persuasion and coercion— not information.
Yes, Trauma Brain can be convincing. So can cable news networks.
But remember who is pulling the strings.
Remember what the real agenda is.
Remember that in order to see what we see and know what we know, we have to step back from the “news” ticker.
Breathe; blink; focus.
And look closer.
Use Your Damn Skills 