drglenndoyle

Survivors are grievers.

Every trauma survivor out there is grieving. Whether they know it or not. 

We’re grieving what should have been. 

What could have been, with just a few tweaks to the timeline. 

We’re grieving our innocence. 

We’re grieving our illusions— some of which, make no mistake, were “load bearing” illusions.

We’re grieving the normal, boring, drama-free life we might be living right now if only somebody in our past had made different decisions. 

If only the people who said they “loved” us had walked their talk. 

We’re grieving the mistakes we should have been able to make as humans, and have then be understood as just mistakes humans make— as opposed to questioning every goddamn misstep, “is this a trauma response? How about this one?” 

We’re grieving the opportunity to feel angry, or sexually aroused, or scared, or any other “edgy” or complicated feeling without it being hitched to something or someone in our past. 

Grief has stages; trauma has reactions. 

Grief has denial; trauma has dissociation. 

Grief has anger; trauma has “fight.” 

Grief has bargaining; trauma has “fawn.” 

Grief has depression; trauma has “freeze” and “flop.” 

Grief has acceptance; trauma has recovery. 

Survivors are grievers. 

And survivors deserve all the respect and care that a civil, compassionate culture would extend mourners at a funeral. 

drglenndoyle

You do not need to “fix” yourself for anybody’s “love.”

You do not need to “fix” yourself for anybody else. 

Nobody’s love— in any healthy version of “love”— is dependent upon you “fixing” yourself. 

Don’t get me wrong, I understand why we trauma survivors think we need to “fix” ourselves to be “lovable.” 

It’s because we were conditioned to believe this toxic story about what “love” is and means. 

CPTSD survivors were very often “loved”— that is, given attention and afforded relative “safety”— when we were doing the “right things.” 

You know— basically behaving as the big people in our environment preferred. 

When we weren’t doing those things, we very often didn’t get that attention and relative “safety”— again, what we had come to understand as “love.” 

So, we developed this hard wired connection in our nervous system: we have to DO and BE very specific things in order to be “loved” and “lovable.” 

Now: it turns out all of that is bullsh*t. 

But it’s bullsh*t that gets reinforced, over and over again, in our culture. 

If you haven’t noticed, we are a culture absolutely OBSESSED with “earning” “love.” 

We are also a culture that deeply conflates love with attraction and stimulation, which doesn’t help. 

All of this makes it very easy for us trauma survivors to believe that our “only” shot at being “loved” is to “fix ourselves”— that is, conquer our symptoms and struggles, ideally through sheer “willpower,” ideally immediately. 

We came to understand “fixing” ourselves as the ultimate expression of our “love” for someone else— the ultimate “glow up” that might “make” somebody love us. 

I wish love and life and healing were all that straightforward. 

But they’re not. 

Nobody worth loving is going to make you “fixing” your CPTSD a precondition of their own love. 

Nobody who understands CPTSD will assume or assert that “fixing” your CPTSD has anything whatsoever to do with “willpower.” 

And love, real love, has nothing to do with superficial extensions of attention or feelings of stimulation. (Not that there’s anything wrong with attention or stimulation— but they’re not love.)

Why does any of this matter to your trauma recovery? Because if we think we’re working a recovery to “fix” ourselves, particularly for someone else, we’re starting from the wrong place. 

I’m not one to tell someone what language they can or can’t use in their own recovery— but I’ll tell you that every time I’ve seen a survivor start out from a place of “I need to ‘accomplish’ recovery to ‘earn’ love,” it hasn’t gone well. 

Trauma recovery is a long term project, a lifestyle. It’s not a series of “hacks” that become obsolete once we’re reached a level of “fixed” we find acceptable. 

And if we play along with this idea we have in our head, of “love” as something we can or have to “earn” (even by improving ourselves), we’re reinforcing a road map that has only led to pain in the past and can only lead to pain in the future. 

You are working a realistic recovery with the expectation of realistic change. 

This is not an exercise in “fixing” anything. This is about rebuilding your body, mind, and soul for the next several decades. 

drglenndoyle

What is trauma bonding?

When we are forced to be dependent upon people or institutions that have abused us or caused us pain, our nervous system has to figure out what to do with that. 

This is what we call a “trauma bond.” 

The most well known type of trauma bond occurs between abusive or neglectful parents and the children who have to cope with and process being dependent upon them— but that’s not the only situation in which trauma bonds occur. 

Remember that there are multiple kinds of dependency— and that our dependency needs don’t suddenly disappear when we’re no longer children. 

It’s very common for survivors to be trauma bonded to a church or religious identity— most notably when they believe that that faith provides something important for their eternal salvation. 

Survivors can be trauma bonded to people, organizations, or communities they believe are integral to their functioning— including multi-level marketing organizations, and/or gurus ad the communities that surround them. 

The key to understanding trauma bonding is that we are wired to survive above all else. 

If that means “bonding” with a person or other entity that is causing us pain, that’s what it means— and then our nervous system goes to work “reconciling” the fact that we’ve “bonded” with an abuser, usually by compartmentalizing knowledge and feelings via dissociation. 

It’s why you get some survivors vociferously defending their abuser in public. 

It’s why you get some survivors of religious trauma continuing to be “faithful” adherents to their church. 

What is important to know about trauma bonding is, it isn’t a “choice.” 

It’s a mind f*ck. 

Because you are or were trauma bonded to an abuser doesn’t mean you “liked” it. 

Because you are or were trauma bonded to an abuser doesn’t mean you can’t demand accountability. 

One of the reasons CPTSD is “complex” is specifically because trauma that occurs over time, is functionally inescapable, and entwined in our relationships, tends to f*ck with our attachment style and our beliefs. 

Talk about trauma bonding in a nutshell. 

You’re allowed to have complicated feelings about the people or institutions that hurt you. 

You’re allowed to have relationships with people or institutions that hurt you, if you choose. 

The point of understanding trauma bonding is to affirm that you also have the option of ending or limiting those relationships, if you choose— you don’t “have” to maintain them to survive. 

Not anymore. Not ever again. 

drglenndoyle

Try this Recovery Supporting Question over “positive thinking.”

I do not believe in “positive thinking.” 

“Positive thinking” has never done much other than annoy and distract me on my trauma and addiction recovery journeys. 

Your milage may vary. But it’s not a tool that I find useful. 

I don’t believe in superficially “positive” thinking— but I do believe in asking intelligent, recovery supporting questions of almost everything that happens to me. 

In my experience, the most useful RSQ (Recovery Supporting Question) in any situation is almost always: “How can I use this to serve my recovery?” 

I suppose that’s catty-corner to “positive thinking” in a way, in that it assumes there IS a way to use virtually everything that happens to us to support our recovery. 

So be it. That’s one of my rock solid beliefs: that we can use literally anything that happens to level up in our recovery. 

Mind you: I’m not talking about the gaslight-y thing where we insist we’re “grateful” for everything that happens to us. 

I once knew a self help demagogue who blithely insisted that the true definition of “forgiveness” was getting to the point where you could honestly say, “thank you FOR GIVING me that experience.” 

F*ck that. 

There are absolutely experiences that are not worth being “grateful” for. That we wouldn’t ask for; that just suck. 

But that doesn’t mean we can’t use them. 

I’ll be the first to admit: sometimes I have to bend over backward to figure out a way to use the sh*tty situation that just happened to somehow support my recovery. 

Right now, as I write this, I’m dealing with a frustrating health symptom that almost surely developed out of my past addiction behavior, and my brain is, to put it mildly, struggling to find a way to use this development to support my recovery. 

But I will find it. Because I am committed to not wasting pain. 

If something is going to suck, you’d better goddamn believe I’m going to find some way to use it. 

Again: don’t confuse that commitment to some positive thinking fantasy that we can or should be “grateful” for even the painful situations we’ve endured. 

What my commitment to USING everything is about is acknowledging the reality that sh*tty situations are, in fact, going to happen— and we have at last a little wiggle room in how we process and respond to those sh*tty situations. 

“Positive thinking,” in my experience, doesn’t resonate with many trauma survivors. 

Try on the realistic RSQ “how can I USE this to support my recovery?” instead. 

drglenndoyle

Your vs. “their” mission statement.

Remember: you are on a different life path, a different mission, than “they” are. 

Of course they’re going to misunderstand you. 

Maybe mock you. 

Certainly communicate to you in dozens of implicit and explicit ways that you’re “doing it wrong.” 

You’re not, actually, doing it wrong. 

But, in working your trauma recovery, you’re definitely doing life much differently than “they” are. 

Hell, you are doing life much differently than they ever COULD. 

You and I know the kind of focus and courage working our trauma recover takes. 

Do you think “they” could actually do that? 

I don’t. 

Chances are, anyone who gives you sh*t about your recovery needs and habits is light years away from realistically being able to do what you do every day. 

They don’t even know how much effort you’ve had to expend at various points in your journey just to stay ALIVE. 

So, yes. You are on a very different path than they are. 

Your mission statement is very different from theirs— not least because people who aren’t working a recovery often don’t even bother having a mission statement for their life. 

Don’t let “them” get in your head. 

Their judgments have exactly zero to do with what you’re actually doing in your life. 

Don’t hold yourself to “their” standards. Don’t take “their” opinions any more seriously than they deserve to be taken. 

You are on a different path, a different mission— and that’s the good news. 

The path you’re on, the mission you’re on, is keeping you alive and creating a quality of life “they” could never. 

Don’t doubt it. 

drglenndoyle

We can’t stop people from judging us. But…

Rough truth: we will never be able to stop people from judging us. 

Human beings LOVE to judge other human beings. 

We love it so much we create reality TV shows that revolve around increasingly creative ways to judge contestants. 

Many of our conversations revolve around judgment: how good or bad we judge our pops stars, our athletes, or our internet psychology influencers to be. 

Trauma survivors are particularly sensitive to being judged. 

CPTSD survivors in particular tend to come from backgrounds where we were harshly judged in a million and one toxic ways, big and small. 

Add to that the fact that we CPTSD survivors are absolute champions and judging the sh*t out of ourselves for BEING CPTSD survivors. 

We judge our symptoms, we judge our feelings, we judge how we’re functioning. 

For many of us, harsh judgment isn’t even like a second language— it’s our native tongue. 

It’s true that we’ll never live in a culture that doesn’t love to judge, and it’s true that we’ll never be able to escape others’ judgment. 

It’s also true that others’ judgments about us will often be uninformed, unfair, and unkind.

Welcome to that category of stuff the Serenity Prayer identifies as “things we cannot change.” 

What can we do? 

We can work on that “judging the sh*t out of ourselves’ thing. 

Mind you: we judge the sh*t out of ourselves because we’ve been taught and conditioned to judge the sh*t out of ourselves. Getting OUT of that habit isn’t easy, or a one moment or one time decision. 

It takes work and time and patience and persistence to get INTO the habit of meeting our pain and past with compassion. 

Luckily, you and I and every trauma survivor reading this are hella skilled at doing things that are hard. 

Just notice when it’s happening. 

Notice when it’s happening, push pause, and leverage the tool of self-talk to affirm to yourself, “Naw. That’s the old thing. I’m going to do the new thing. The patience and acceptance and self-compassion thing.” 

Mind you: your system isn’t going to love this. Trauma Brain might literally laugh at you. 

Which is why we manage our expectations, why we don’t expect miracles, and why we remind ourselves we’re going to have to do this again and again (and again) to get into the self-kindness habit. 

Don’t demand or expect perfection. Just do your best. 

People are going to judge us. 

We don’t have to play along in our own head. 

drglenndoyle

Why trauma conditioning’s bullsh*t sounds so convincing.

It can be hard, during the course of the day, to remember that what our trauma conditioning tells us is not reality. 

It sure FEELS like reality. 


Especially the stuff about how we suck and deserve to suffer and are destined to suffer. 

That stuff all tends to FEEL true— not because it is true, but because it’s consistent with what we were told growing up, often by the very people who were supposed to love and support us the most. 

When the people who share your name and DNA spent years effortfully sh*ttng on you, it’s hard to believe you “deserve” anything better. 

When the people whose job it literally was to raise you to understand who you are fill your head with doubt and fear, it’s hard to believe that you’ll EVER feel or function better. 

What we’re exposed to growing up, implicitly and explicitly, becomes our baseline. 

It becomes our programming, our operating system— and it runs so quietly and pervasively in the background, we barely register it’s a thing. 

Fast forward to now— is it any wonder we meet ideas about how maybe we’re not the worst, maybe we have something to offer, maybe we can do better, with skepticism? 

We’ve been programmed to doubt ourselves. To distrust ourselves. To believe that, given enough time, we’ll “obviously” f*ck up this job, this relationship, this opportunity, just like we “f*ck everything up.” 

It’s not real. It’s programming. Conditioning. Propaganda. 

And, like all propaganda, Trauma Brain’s bullsh*t has a specific goal: to make you and me feel like trash. 

That’s it. 

But you and I need to remember, Trauma Brain’s bullsh*t will FEEL real— because it is consistent with our past conditioning. 

It’s familiar. 

It goes down easy, because we’ve heard it before. Our nervous system has been “softened” to its message. 

That doesn’t mean our self-loathing, self-distrustful thoughts or beliefs are “true.” 

The real truth is, you and I are human. We’re mixed bags. Some things we do well. Some things we could stand to improve. Believe me when I tell you, trauma recovery will put us in touch with both of those categories. 

Because that harsh narrative about ourselves feels true doesn’t mean it is true. 

Yes, challenging it can feel like a risk. Like we’re setting ourselves up to get punked or punished. 

 I wouldn’t ask you to take that risk if I didn’t truly believe it was worth it. 

It is worth it. You are worth it. 

drglenndoyle

Don’t assume. Ask.

Many CPTSD survivors find it triggering— infuriating— when others assume things about us. 

When others assume they know what we’re thinking. 

Or what we need. 

Or what we can and can’t do. 

Many people in general find it annoying when others make assumptions about them— but it can really get under the skin of CPTSD survivors. 

Trauma survivors walk around feeling misunderstood about 90% of the time. 

Very often we walk around feeling as if we’re carrying these secrets— secrets about our past and or pain that aren’t safe to tell anyone. 

After all, we know what happens when we’re real about our experiences with many people: they overreact, they jump to conclusions, they push us away. 

We have LOTS of experience with others’ assumptions about us being very, very off the mark— and almost never are others’ assumptions about us complimentary. 

Many survivors have experience with people not being willing or able to meaningfully engage with us about our symptoms, struggles, or needs— and feeling alienated and shamed as a result. 

Take a look around at what the culture thinks it “understands” about trauma in general, let alone complex trauma or dissociation— then imagine those often exaggerated, inaccurate assumptions were copied and pasted on to you. 

Not great, right? 

One of the most healing things trauma survivors can experience in relationships of all kinds are people willing to ask us about our experiences and needs— and who are willing to actually listen to our answers. 

People who won’t treat us like a caricature or stereotype. 

People who are willing and able to remember that we are more than our post traumatic injuries— that our injuries actually get in the way of us communicating who we are. They don’t DEFINE who we are. 

Making assumptions about trauma survivors, what they experience, what they need and want, is condescending and unnecessary. 

Understand that “trauma survivors” aren’t even one big, homogenous block of people— there are as many different kinds of trauma survivors as there are different varieties of traumatic experiences. 

Don’t assume. Ask. 

And then, listen. Really, really listen. 

drglenndoyle

So maybe you’re stuck.

You might be reading this at a time in your life when you feel profoundly stuck. 

That might be more than a “feeling,” actually— you might, in fact, be stuck at this moment. 

Stuck in a job. 

Stuck in a relationship. 

Stuck in some sort of arrangement that is exploitative. Some sort of relationship, personal or professional, in which you are not seen or appreciated. 

Stuck in a position where healing your CPTSD feels improbable or impossible, because in this particular situation you are stressed and trapped and controlled— and you can’t imagine having the safety or support to make headway in your trauma recovery. 

Again, this may be more than a “feeling.” There are absolutely situations in which we can be objectively trapped. “Trapped” isn’t always a state of mind— and it doesn’t only happen to children. 

There are plenty of adults out there who feel trapped— and ashamed that they’re in the situation they’re in. 

If this is you, I need you to know you’re not screwed as far as recovery goes. 

Yes, it is definitely more difficult to recover from CPTSD if you’re in an exploitative relationship of any kind— let alone an abusive one. 

But there are things you can do. 

Much of the work of trauma recovery involves developing psychological strengths and skills, even before we make outward changes in our life— and you can start doing that, even if you’re stuck where you are for now. 

You can start learning about how trauma impacts the nervous and endocrine systems— and how to use the recovery tools of self-talk, mental focus, and physiology to start influencing your nervous and endocrine system responses. 

You can start developing recovery tools (things you can use), skills (things you can do), and philosophies (ways to think and process information) that will serve you when you finally ARE ready to make some external changes. 

There is no question: when we are stuck, trapped, or controlled in any situation, developing recovery tools and resources is more difficult. That’s real. You’re not imagining that. 

But I need you to remember that “difficult” is not “hopeless.” It is not “impossible.” 

If you’re reading this, you’ve likely done lots of difficult things in your life. 

Turning your focus toward developing internal recovery resources— at first, for now— is no different. 

You are not hopeless. You are not a lost cause. 

Start laying the groundwork. 

Every recovery— every escape— started inside someone’s head, as a plan. 

drglenndoyle

You are here for a reason.

If I could rewire you— yes, you there, reading this— to understand and truly, deeply believe one thing, it’s that you are not near as much of a “burden” as you think you are. 

Trauma Brain, the internalized voices of our bullies and abuses that we play in our head on repeat, wants us to believe we are “nothing” but a “burden” to the people around us. 

That we bring “nothing” to the table. 

That other people are lying or mistaken or exaggerating when they express that we add positive things to their lives. 

“You are just a burden, you bring nothing of value” is one of Trauma Brain’s greatest hits. 

And, it’s complete BS. You know, Belief Systems. Also bullsh*t. 

I understand that sometimes being in our inner circle, especially as we struggle with and/or recover from trauma, can be rough. 

I don’t deny that our symptoms and struggles can be confusing and painful to the people around us. 

And, yes, being part of our support network as we figure this whole “trauma recovery” thing out can involve investments of time and energy and, and, and. 

And but also: that doesn’t equate to “we are no more than a burden to the people around us.” 

Let me ask you this: why is it important we recover from trauma? 

After all, no one “has” to work a recovery. 

We don’t recover for the hell of it. 

We recover because we have something to give. 

We recover because our presence matters in the world. 

We recover because our bullies and abusers have tried to deprive us of the opportunity to give to the world that which we have to give, that which enriches the world in ways only we can. 

And we are not about to let our bullies and abusers get away with that sh*t. 

I understand that right now Trauma Brain is in your ear, listing al the reasons why I’m wrong, telling you that your life doesn’t matter, that you have nothing to give, nothing to offer the world except drama and inconvenience and heartache. 

As a rule, the harder Trauma Brain works to NOT let you believe something, the more true an important it probably is. 

You have things to offer. 

You have things to offer that nobody else can. 

If I’d believed it when Trauma Brain told me the same thing, you wouldn’t be reading these words now. 

Do not believe Trauma Brain. 

You are not just the cost or toll of supporting you. 

You are here— both on earth, and reading this right now— for a reason. 

Make it your job in recovery to figure that reason out.