It’s easy for other people to say “let it go.”
Or “don’t let it bother you.”
Or “leave the past in the past.”
But trauma survivors often feel immense shame that it’s not quite so easy for us.
We feel we SHOULD be able to just “let it go.”
We wish we COULD just “not let it bother us.”
And we’re desperate for someone to show us how to “leave the past in the past.”
But the reality is, no trauma survivor is making a choice to run any of those patterns.
Those patterns were conditioned into us. Programmed into us. Sometimes beaten into us, quite literally.
People who suggest that it’s a “choice” to just “let it go” are implying that we’re suffering because we’re “choosing” to “hang on” to our past or our pain.
Conditioning is not a choice.
Trauma responses are not choices.
CPTSD and DID are not “choices.”
If we had “choices” in these matters, we would choose something different, every single time.
Most of us don’t even realize we’ve been conditioned in these pattern soft believing, thinking, feeling, and behaving.
Rather, we think it’s just “how we are.”
We assume the way we’ve been experiencing the world is just our experience of the world— and we can’t imagine it being different.
Which is exactly what Trauma Brain, the internalized voices of our abusers and bullies, wants us to think.
The truth is, we can recondition our patterns of believing, thinking, feeling, and behaving— but, realistically, it’s going to take both time and some specific tools and support.
It’s not as simple as making a one time decision to “let it go.”
It’s not as simple as just deciding “something doesn’t bother us.”
And it’s nowhere near as simple as “leaving the past in the past.”
The vast majority of trauma survivors I’ve ever met would happily let go of the past— if only the past would let go of us, of our nervous and endocrine systems.
All of that stuff is going to be easy for other people to say.
But remember, the stuff they say has zero to do with the reality of your situation or your needs.
Rather, the stuff people say is about their projection, their biases, their fantasies, their misconceptions.
Your project is rewiring yourself, reconditioning yourself, building sustainable habits and routines and tools that will realistically impact how you feel and function.
Don’t let their stupid sound bites distract or discourage or shame you.
Stay on target.
Breathe. Blink. Focus.
