Author: drglenndoyle

Chronic pain complicates trauma recovery, because it replicates exactly what makes complex trauma so devastating. 

That is to say: chronic pain is a textbook complex traumatic stressor. 

Complex trauma is “complex” because it happens over time; it’s difficult or impossible to escape; and it gets entwined with many, or all, of our important relationships. 

The same could be said for chronic pain as well. 

Chronic pain isn’t the type of pain that is experienced, and then passes. By definition, it lingers and persists, even if it varies in intensity. 

That is to say, the experience of chronic pain stretches over time— just like complex trauma generally.

Chronic pain sufferers don’t think back to “that one time” they were in pain; many or all of their memories are accompanied by recollections of how their pain was affecting them at the time. 

Similarly, chronic pain is difficult or impossible to escape, even with pain management medications. 

(This is something many people seem to misunderstand about the experience and treatment of chronic pain— pain meds don’t “solve” the problem of chronic pain. They may, under the best of circumstances, make chronic pain more manageable— but at no time do they negate the withering impact of chronic pain.)

And, as sufferers of chronic pan can attest, the experience of chronic pain seems to invade every important relationship in their lives, from work relationships, to friendships, to romantic and sexual relationships. 

It’s just impossible to experience chronic pain without that pain becoming central to our life experience. 

The experience of chronic pain is very often overwhelming. 

One of the things that makes traumatic stressors “traumatic” is, they overwhelm a survivor’s ability to cope— and chronic pain is one of the most overwhelming experiences a human being can endure, day after day, year after year. 

Many people don’t understand that the experience of trauma isn’t just about what happens to us who we’re hit with a traumatic stressor. Trauma, especially complex trauma, is also about the overwhelming, painful experience of living with the impact of a traumatic stressor over time. 

Living with trauma is, itself, a complex traumatic stressor— and living with chronic pain is definitely a complex traumatic stressor. 

That means managing chronic pain necessarily needs to incorporate trauma recovery tools, skills, and philosophies. 

Living with chronic pain very often stokes negative beliefs and attitudes about ourselves— about our worthiness, our ability, our lovability. 

Living with chronic pain very often leaves us feeling hopeless and helpless. 

Living with chronic pain very often distorts our own relationship with ourselves, and our thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors surrounding relationships with others. 

That is to say: all the complex trauma symptoms and struggles that also afflict survivors of childhood abuse, childhood neglect, domestic violence, spiritual abuse, or any other form of complex trauma. 

Why is this important? It’s important because very often chronic pain management skips the part about it being a complex traumatic stressor. 

The medical community often thinks of pain as a primary “physical” problem, and any psychological problems that stem from it are treated like afterthoughts. 

Anyone who struggles with complex trauma knows that, when complex trauma is present, it is no afterthought. It dominates your life— as surely as chronic pain itself does. 

Trauma recovery skills, tools, and philosophies have a lot to offer chronic pain sufferers. 

Not the least of which is the assurance that they are not alone in the psychological and behavioral symptoms they’re experiencing— even though almost every trauma survivor tends to feel very alone at some point in their journey. 

For trauma recovery to be sustainable, it’s real important we approach our symptoms and struggles as if they make sense— somehow, some way. 

Many survivors get in the habit of approaching our symptoms and struggles with disdain or frustration— and I get it. We hate these symptoms and struggles They’re literally running and/or ruining our life. 

But if our goal is to manage and reduce those symptoms and struggles, we need to understand them. 

We often need to sit with them for a minute, while they “tell” us what they’re all about. 

Many of our symptoms and struggles in trauma recovery will seem mysterious to us. Reactions and triggers won’t seem connected to anything that happened to us. Trauma symptoms and responses might seem to come out of nowhere. 

The thing is: no trauma symptom occurs “for no reason.” 

Even those symptoms that seem mysterious or nonsensical serve some sort of purpose. 

We may not be able to discern how our symptoms are related to our trauma right away— and, the “good” news is, we don’t have to completely understand a reaction in order to manage it. 

But we do need to approach whatever we’re experiencing with compassion and respect. 

That can be a tall order when we’re sick to death of getting our ass kicked by trauma symptoms and responses. 

It’s a game changer when we develop enough perspective in trauma recovery to meet our trauma responses calmly and evenly. “Okay. This is happening. Let’s deal with this.” 

It’s a game changer when we approach our responses trough the lens of, “I may not get it just now— but this makes sense to some part of me, and I’m going to deal with this on its own terms.” 

We get into all kinds of trouble in recovery when we try to insist or demand that we feel something other than what we’re feeling. 

Our nervous system doesn’t especially care if we like what we’re feeling, or if we’d prefer to feel something else. It evolved to keep us alive, not to cater to our preferences. 

Trauma recovery is about repairing and developing out relationship with ourselves— and that includes our relationship with our various symptoms and struggles. 

It’s very easy, when we’re struggling, to get frustrated with or angry at the “part” of us that seems freaked out by a trigger. 

We wanna yell at it. We want to tell it to get over this. We want to roll our eyes and ignore what’s happening, because it “shouldn’t” be happening. 

But none of that will actually help us manage a trauma response. 

Trauma responses aren’t “choices,” and our nervous system doesn’t activate them to frustrate or inconvenience us. 

It can be frustrating, inconvenient, and overwhelming to get hit with trauma responses over and over again. That’s real. You get to be exactly as frustrated as you are— with all of it. 

But we can’t take that frustration out on ourselves. We can’t take it out on the “part” of us that is fueling or experiencing that trauma response. 

We’re already getting our ass kicked by trauma responses. 

We don’t need to kick our own ass in frustration or shame ABOUT experiencing trauma responses. 

For trauma recovery to be realistic and sustainable, we need to develop an attitude of radical acceptance toward our symptoms and struggles. 

We don’t have to like ‘em. 

But we have to accept that we’re struggling exactly as much as we are, experiencing exactly what we are— and that our symptoms and struggles make sense. They are connected to reality. 

They are understandable— and important. 

It matters how we think and talk about our symptoms and struggles. 

We are going to run into plenty of people who will blame us for making “poor choices.” 

We’ll meet plenty of people who will tell us the way others behave toward us is a function of what we “tolerate.” 

We’ll meet plenty of people who will attribute our feelings and behaviors to our “character.” 

It’s very easy to let all of that get in our head, and kind of marinate in our own shame. 

Trauma conditions us to feel shame about almost everything we think, feel, and do. 

Abuse and neglect in particular condition us to blame ourselves, often in the harshest possible terms, for any pain or dysfunction we experience. 

Don’t get me wrong: we are humans, and humans sometimes contribute to our own pain. It happens. 

But t’s also the case that trauma tries to bully us into taking way more “responsibility” for our pain and dysfunction than is realistic or useful. 

Sustainable trauma recovery is not about either accepting or denying “responsibility” for our symptoms and struggles. 

It’s about actually understanding why we’re feeling and functioning as we are— and identifying realistic ways to feel and function better. 

Harsh self-blame gets in the way of that. 

No elite athlete has ever been motivated, long term, by harsh criticism. 

No elite athlete continues to perform, long term, for a coach who dos nothing but rip them to shreds. 

We cannot expect ourselves to be motivated, creative, or consistent in trauma recovery if the main way we interact with ourselves is through harsh criticism. 

Many people reading this don’t experience their harsh self-criticism as a “choice.” It’s simply how they talk to themselves. How they learned to talk to themselves. How they’ve been talking to themselves since forever. 

A huge part of trauma recovery is getting very aware of how we talk to ourselves— and shifting our self-talk to be consistent with realistic, sustainable recovery. 

That doesn’t mean flooding ourselves with unrealistic, over the top, optimistic self-talk. 

It does mean talking to ourselves supportively and realistically. 

In trauma recovery, above all else, we are honest with ourselves— and, sure that includes times when we’re not thrilled with ourselves. 

Trauma recovery self-talk isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. 

What trauma recovery self-talk is, is balanced, respectful, and patient. 

Do we have to be “nice” to ourselves at all times in trauma recovery? Eh, to me, this question kind of misses the point. We have to be respectful and realistic with ourselves at all times— and, yes, I find it’s usually more productive to speak more or less “nicely” to myself. 

The core of trauma recovery is repairing and developing our relationship with ourselves. 

We’re not going to do that if we’re talking to and behaving toward ourselves like we’re someone we hate. 

I get it: you may not be feeling self-love just now. Been there. And the good news is, we don’t always have to “feel” the self-love. 

But we do always have to behave toward ourselves as if we’re on our own side. 

We do always have to talk to ourselves in ways that are starkly different from how our bullies and abusers talked to us. 

We don’t always have to be gentle and “positive” with ourselves. 

But our self-talk needs to reflect our goals in our trauma recovery and our relationship with ourselves— even if we’re not “there” just yet. 

Easy does it. This is a marathon, not a sprint. 

Trauma does this thing to us, where it makes “basic” human behaviors really difficult— then we feel shame for struggling with those “basics.” 

When we’ve survived trauma, things like eating can be hard. 

Sleeping can be really hard. Almost impossible, some nights. 

Relating to people can be really hard after trauma. Sustaining romanic and platonic relationships can get really complicated. 

And post traumatic symptoms and struggles famously interfere with many survivors’ ability to hold down a job and/or otherwise provide for themselves financially. 

Here’s the thing: once you understand how trauma impacts our nervous system and develop an appreciation for why it does what it does, all of those difficulties make sense. 

But many survivors still feel shame for struggling with what the world tells us “should” be “basic” human behaviors— which, unfortunately, many people understand to me “easy.” 

The truth is, behaviors like eating, sleeping, relationships, and maintaining economic stability, can actually be way more complicated— even for non-trauma  survivors— than our culture is willing to concede. 

But trauma takes many things our culture takes for granted— many things our culture assumes “should” be easier than they are— and turns them into a minefield. 

You are not “detective” because you struggle with things that the culture says “should” be easy. 

You are not irreparably “broken.” 

You are, in fact, experiencing struggles and symptoms that an overwhelming majority of trauma survivors have also experienced over the years— but which many survivors don’t talk about, because of the shame. 

Ah, yes. The shame. 

Our culture often sends us messages to the tune of, if you struggle with “basic” human behaviors, it’s likely because you’re “bad.” 

The culture likes to tell us that struggling with “the basics” is often a result of  simply “not having our sh*t together.” 

Many trauma survivors, having been flooded with similar messages our entire lives, internalize the gist of that message— and we end up framing our difficulties as needing to “make our lives work.” 

The thing about all THAT, however, is that struggling with “the basics” has nothing to do with you being “bad”— or “good,” for that matter— as a person. 

How well we feel or function every day is not reflective of our worth. It is not an indication of “character.” It is not a matter of “will.” 

Our basic functioning— including eating, sleeping, relationships, and economic stability— is largely a function of where we are in our trauma recovery, and how consistently we’re working our recovery. And a lot of other factors, like our external safety and our access to resources. 

The point is: we need to resist the habit to blame and shame ourselves for our symptoms and struggles. 

So you’re struggling with something you think is “basic.” So what? 

We struggle with what we struggle with. We didn’t ask for these struggles. We’re as frustrated by them as anyone. 

Realistic, sustainable trauma recovery is never built on shame. 

So you’re struggling with “the basics.” Welcome to trauma recovery, we ALL struggle with the basics. 

And we’re all as deserving of compassion and support as any human being who has ever struggled— with anything. 

Easy does it. 

In trauma recovery, we very often confront issues and conflicts surrounding our core identity. 

Many people reading this might feel like we don’t even HAVE a core identity. 

Every time I write about how something we “recover” in trauma recovery is our true self, several people comment to the tune of, “I don’t know who my self even IS.” 

That’s part of what abuse, neglect, and other trauma does to us: it confuses us about who we are. 

In some cases, trauma even seems to rob us of who we are. 

Many trauma survivors get through their experience in “fawn” mode— extreme people pleasing. 

Anyone who “fawns” can tell you how easy it is to lose ourselves in a “fawn” response. We literally become who we think “they” want us to be. 

Other survivors get through their experience by “freezing” or “fleeing”— neither of which allow us to st with who we are, figure out what we’re all about, develop our personality or interests or values. 

And, of course, when we’re lost in the “fight” trauma response, almost all of our meaningful personal development stops— because we have to devote all our resources to either winning or not being destroyed. 

The very common trauma response of dissociation, on the other hand, often quite literally has us floating away from ourselves— not feeling present, not feeling real, not feeling connected to ourselves OR our surroundings. 

Is it any wonder so many of us come through trauma not feeling like we even HAVE an identity? 

Many people describe feeling that their entire “personality” is just a collection of trauma responses— and it’s not hard to understand why. When we’re busy surviving, we just don’t have the time, space, or safety to truly develop who we are. 

Fast forward to now— here we are, working a trauma recovery, for the first time asking ourselves meaningful questions about who we are and what we’re all about. 

That is to say, figuring out, for the first time, who we are and what we’re all about. 

For many of us, it’s not a simple question. It might even provoke anxiety in us. 

For some of us even thinking about the question of who we are and what we’re all about scrapes up feelings and fears that we’re about to be criticized, shamed, or ostracized. Because that’s what happened, again and again, “back then.” 

For others the project of fleshing out our personal identity might feel like a “trick”— as if the only reason anyone would ask us to define and refine who we are is so they can attack us or manipulate us. 

Here’s the thing: our personal identity is integral to our trauma recovery. 

Why? Because it’s who we are and what we’re all about— our personality and our values— that is going to inform the entire “why” of trauma recovery. 

And make no mistake: the “why” of trauma recovery is also the “why” of staying alive. 

Figuring out who we are and what we’re all about starts with thinking about what we like. 

What books we like. What poems we like. What shows we like. What music we like. 

I’ve written before about how attached trauma survivors can get to our entertainment and media— and this is one of the reasons why. When you grew up in the pressure cooker of abuse and/or neglect, it’s often our books and shows and music and other entertainment that gave us ANY opportunity to reflect on or develop who we are. 

Now, in recovery, we can use our favorite stuff to consciously, intentionally, shape who we are. 

Don’t get me wrong: the stuff we like is only a starting point. But it’s an important starting point. 

Look at the stuff you like, then take a step back, and ask: if all I knew about this person was that they liked this stuff— that they strongly connected to this music or these books or these characters on these shows— what could I surmise about them? 

Slowly but surely, we figure out who we are. Who we choose to be. Who we were meant to be. 

Slowly but surely, we shed “their” ideas and beliefs and demands about who we “should” be. 

Slowly but surely, we realize that creating ourselves, maybe even from the ground up, is actually one of the best things about recovery. 

Starting from scratch can be overwhelming. 

But it can also be the best thing we ever do in or new, recovery life. 

You don’t owe anyone an apology for feeling angry. 

You don’t owe anyone an apology for feeling, well, anything, actually. 

We don’t ask for our feelings. We experience our feelings. 

Our feelings very often represent gut-level understandings of whether something is “for us” or “against us;” safe or dangerous. 

The fact that our nervous system registers something as safe or not-safe isn’t a reflection of the kind of person we are, or what our priorities and values are. Feelings are, much like trauma responses, largely reflexes. 

Cognitive therapy emphasizes how our feelings are frequently reflections of our thoughts and beliefs, and that’s true enough— but we need to understand that those thoughts and beliefs are rarely conscious or chosen. Most of the time our thoughts and beliefs are very much on autopilot, determined by our conditioning. 

Many people reading this have been conditioned to feel guilty for things we feel— especially anger. 

We’ve been conditioned to believe that we have no “right” to feel angry— under any circumstances. 

We’ve been conditioned to believe that anger is only experienced or expressed by bad, destructive people. 

We’ve been conditioned to believe that anger is the enemy of emotional progress and peace. 

We’ve been conditioned to believe anger is “immature.” That it necessarily leads us to being “mean.” 

None of those things are true. Not inherently. Not all the time, for everyone. 

Anger is a normal human emotion. The only reason it exists at all anymore is because it was selected for at some point in our evolutionary history— which means it has survival value. 

Anger, in the best of circumstances, provides us with energy and focus we need to defend ourselves, our loved ones, and our resources. 

Anger is often the first step toward crawling out of the emotional pit of depression. 

And I can assure you: anger is very often an INVALUABLE part of trauma and addiction recovery. 

We don’t need to apologize for getting or being angry. That’s an emotional reflex. Every human being in the history of human beings has gotten angry at some point. 

We may choose to apologize for how we’ve expressed or responded to angry feelings in the past— but that’s very different from apologizing for experiencing the emotion itself. 

I’ve seen many trauma survivors only start to make real progress in recovery when they’ve gotten in touch with their anger. 

I can tell you, in my own journey, there have been certain positive things I simply would not have ever done had I not gotten good and angry first. 

When we get angry at the right people, situations, and institutions, the world changes. 

Getting angry is often he first realistic step toward holding certain people and institutions responsible for the pain they’ve caused. 

Trauma recovery asks us to refuse to demonize who are are and what we feel. 

We may not be thrilled that we feel angry at some times— and that’s legit. I don’t like feeling angry. Anger usually exists because something has happened, that should’t have happened. 

But resist the urge to stigmatize your anger. 

Resist the urge to deny it or disown it. 

Own your anger. 

It’s really important— and, in trauma recovery, really useful.  

Trauma recovery can be very lonely. There’s no need to deny it. 

The experience of trauma itself tends to be really lonely. Really isolating. 

Often we just don’t have the words to convey to another human being what we went through, or what we’re going through. 

How can we convey it to someone else? We barely understand it ourselves some days. 

Why do we not remember large chunks of our past? Other people seem to remember theirs.

Why do we re-experience, sometimes in vivid detail, events and places and people that we know are years behind us? 

Why do we sometimes re-experience the consuming emotional reality of our past, but without the memories? 

The experience of trauma tends to be overwhelming; and confusing; and it often leaves us feeling more than a little “crazy.” 

Given all that: how can we possibly explain to another living soul what it’s like to be inside our head, inside our heart, even inside our body (or outside our body, if we dissociate) when we’re triggered? 

The very idea of trying to communicate any of it to another human, let alone meaningfully connect with another human being over what we’re experiencing, can itself trigger all kinds of anxiety and shame. 

So— we very often don’t even try. 

We keep it to ourselves. 

We pretend we’re, you know, “fine.” 

(It’s an old Twelve Step adage that “FINE” actually stands for “f*cked up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional,” and that’s always seemed to me to be appropriate to trauma recovery as well.)

All of which leads us to feel very…alone. Which, actually, is quite okay with us, at least sometimes. 

Every trauma survivor reading this can affirm that alone is sometimes quite preferable to the alternative. 

Alone, for some of us, is the safest we ever feel. 

Alone is predicable. Alone is controllable, more or less. 

But then— sometimes alone is lonely. Very lonely. 

Sometimes people ask why I write about trauma publicly. It’s not because I think my internet presence is going to “heal” anyone, though I do hope at least some of the things I write give some survivors food for thought and/or a starting point or two. 

I mostly write about trauma on the internet to decrease this overwhelming feeling of isolation so many survivors experience. 

That feeling of isolation, of loneliness, can get in our head 

It can give Trauma Brain and the internal prosecutor ammunition for their arguments about how we are “The Exception” to all this “you are worthy” and “you can recover” stuff. 

That feeling of loneliness and isolation can chip away at our already finite bandwidth— and in recovery, we need all the bandwidth we can muster. 

You need to know you’re not alone. 

You need to know you’re not the first, or last, survivor to experience exactly what you’re experiencing. 

You need to know that you’re not “The Exception” to “everyone has worth” and “it wasn’t your fault” and “you can recover.” 

You may feel lonely at times in your recovery journey. I feel lonely at times in mine. 

But that doesn’t mean you are alone. 

And it doesn’t imply all those mean thoughts are true. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

“Medical PTSD” is a term we use to talk about trauma sustained and perpetuated in a medical setting. It’s technically not a diagnosis— but it’s a syndrome of stressors, triggers, and symptoms that, in my experience, is very distinct, and very real.

Many people reading this know what it’s like to suffer from complicated medical conditions— often multiple complicated medical conditions. 

Many people reading this know what it’s like to struggle with chronic pain— including forms of “mystery pain,” pain that medical professionals can’t seem to fully explain or pinpoint the origin of. 

Often, complicated medical conditions occur in people who also have a history of childhood abuse or neglect— but not always. 

What many people “out there” don’t seem to understand is, the experience of having a complicated medical condition, including a severe injury, chronic pain, or a serious illness, especially over time, is itself a trauma. 

It’s a trauma that can be seriously compounded by having negative experiences in health care settings— including dismissive or abusive behavior from health care professionals. 

I wish I could say those kinds of situations are rare— but, in my experience, they’re not. 

In our culture, we’ve made seeking health care frequently inconvenient, often uncomfortable, and almost always expensive— and that’s in the best of circumstances. 

When patients with complex or chronic medical situations are treated poorly by medical professionals— behavior that might include condescension, gaslighting, or neglect— the experience of seeking health care can turn into a complex traumatic stressor. 

People who struggle with complicated medical issues can’t just opt out of them— they find themselves having to engage with health care delivery systems, sometimes every day. 

It’s easy for such people to feel trapped— in much the same way survivors of complex trauma feel trapped in inescapable, painful relationships and situations for years. 

When we think of how to heal from traumatic stress, we often start with the premise that to heal from trauma, one has to be out of the traumatic situation. One needs to be safe. 

For people struggling struggling with complicated medical situations or chronic pain, there is no “getting out of the traumatic situation.” There is no safety from it. 

And when one has been abused or otherwise traumatized in a hospital or other medical setting, their ongoing care forces them to be exposed to the setting of their trauma, again and again. 

When a survivor s struggling with Medical PTSD, it’s very common for them to avoid seeking medical care, for obvious and understandable reasons— but, depending on what medical conditions they’re struggling with, this can put their health or life at risk. 

It can be difficult for survivors to get people to take Medical PTSD seriously. They tend to be met with a lot of “suck it up— you need to go to the doctor, so go.” 

When we’ve been traumatized in a specific setting, like Medical PTSD survivors have, “suck up up” isn’t so easy. 

Remember, trauma responses are not “choices.” 

The most important thing survivors of Medical PTSD need is support and validation. 

Medical PTSD survivors have often been disbelieved and belittled— much like many other trauma survivors— and they very much need safe spaces and relationships in which they do not have to hide or minimize their pain or impairment. 

Being a trauma informed professional of ANY kind means knowing about Medical PTSD. 

Just like living with trauma is, itself, a trauma, having trauma linked to medical care is, itself, a repeated, complex trauma. 

We need to approach it, and ourselves, with compassion. 

Many complex trauma survivors go through the day feeling like we’re “in trouble.” 

Not only do we often feel like we’re “in trouble”— we often experience shame for feeling it. 

After all, what the hell is that about? We’re adults. How on earth are we “in trouble?” 

Some survivors leap to the conclusion that they must have a “guilty conscience”— why else would we feel “in trouble” all the time? 

I can assure you: feeling “in trouble” is not necessarily a sign of a “guilty conscience”— nor is it any kind of indication that you are, in fact, “guilty.” 

It’s very often a product of trauma conditioning— specifically, being blamed and shamed when we were growing up. 

Many trauma survivors were heavily conditioned to believe that everything is our fault— and everything is our responsibility. 

(This is one of many reasons, by the way, why I believe the assertion that trauma survivors have a “victim mentality” is almost always bullsh*t— if you’ve ever met a trauma survivor, you know that we hav ZERO problem “assuming responsibility” for everything that’s ever happened in our world. Or, you know, the rest of the world, for that matter.) 

Many abuse survivors, specifically, were explicitly told that what was happening to them was their fault— and if they tried to escape “responsibility” for their situation, they would be punished and ostracized. 

When you’re growing up in that kind of environment, you learn to not question or reject the blame and shame that is being shunted you way. 

You learn to accept it. 

Fast forward a decade or two, and you find yourself trying to navigate the world as an adult who has an overdeveloped sense of fault and responsibility. 

Any trauma survivor can tell you: we can find ways to make ANYTHING negative that happens in the world around us our fault, somehow. 

(Conversely, any trauma survivor can tell you: we can find reasons why ANY positive thing that happens in the world around us is mere coincidence, clearly not connected to anything we did.)

Survivors of neglect in particular struggle with feeling “ in trouble.” 

When you grew up mostly ignored, you find yourself inventing reasons why you were so “bad” that the people who “should” have been interested and invested in you, “weren’t.” 

When you’re used to coming up with reasons you’re bad, it’s a short leap to finding reasons why you’re “in trouble.” 

The feeling that we’re “in trouble”— and the conviction that everything is our fault and everything is our responsibility— are all about trauma conditioning. These are attitudes and beliefs that were programmed into us from an early age— not evidence that we’re actually “in trouble” or “at fault” for something. 

Trauma recovery is about undoing that programming, and reconditioning ourselves in attitudes and beliefs that serve us, rather than hurt us— but it’s not easy. 

That old record has been playing for so long, we barely even register it anymore. It’s become the background music of our lives. 

For trauma recovery to “stick,” we not only have to tune not the record being played— we have to scratch it. 

At first that’s gonna feel weird. After all, we were told that you don’t scratch records— if you do, you’ll be in trouble, right? 

There’s that “in trouble” thing again. 

Doing the things we need to do to work a realistic, sustainable trauma recovery will make us feel like we’re “in trouble”— because we will be defying years of conditioning that were created by some of the most important people in our lives. 

It’s gonna be scary. It’s gonna feel like a risk. 

But I’m gonna ask you to scratch that record. Scratch the hell out of it. 

Yes, you would have been “in trouble” for scratching that record once upon a time. 

But not now. 

Not ever again. 

For trauma survivors, holidays very often carry high risk for emotional flashbacks. 

One of the main things that makes holidays, holidays, is that they are often steeped in tradition. 

Many people and families do the same things, or same types of things, on holidays, year after year, decade after decade. 

The traditions and rituals associated with many holidays are often so old and so culturally pervasive, that it’s impossible to imagine any point in history where people in our culture wouldn’t know what activities, music, and symbols were associated with particular holidays. 

One of the main reasons many complex trauma survivors in particular can find holidays triggering is, the cultural tropes that surround holidays represent a piece of our past we cannot seem to escape, no matter how hard we try. 

Part of what makes trauma recovery, trauma recovery, is that it allows us to move further and further away from our past. 

Often, moving away from our past— intellectually, emotionally, and even geographically— is one of the most healing things in trauma recovery. 

But on certain holidays, it’s like the past follows us. We can’t get away from it. 

When something is associated with an event or period of time that was painful for us, and we can’t get away from it— our nervous system beings to panic. 

Feeling, or being, trapped is maybe the LEAST favorite experience of the traumatized nervous system. 

Not being able to avoid or ignore certain holidays can very much stoke a sense of inescapably, which can easily trigger our nervous system into trauma responses. 

For survivors of abuse at the hands of a family member, certain holidays were when they were forced to see or spend time with their abuser. 

Many survivors had the experience of trying to disclose about the abuse they had experienced, but being told, essentially, to shut up and tolerate their abuser’s presence at holiday gatherings. 

Other survivors experience holidays as reminders of how alienated from their family and culture they feel. 

It’s hard, when the culture around us is celebrating gratitude, to feel like we don’t have much for which to be “grateful”— and, on top of that, to feel shame ABOUT how “ungrateful” we feel. 

Because, you know, we “should” be grateful— as we’ve been reminded, over, and over, and over again. 

Sometimes holidays can stoke a thought process in survivors that it’s actually our fault for how lonely and unloved we feel— that if we only loosened up and “forgave” our abuser or family, maybe we would have a seat at that table. 

All of which is to say: Trauma Brain and the internal prosecutor will ABSOLUTELY use the occasion of holidays to torture us. 

It means we need to be extra vigilant in our trauma recovery around the holidays. 

Trauma Brain will absolutely take the occasion of a holiday to reconnect us, vividly, with holidays from years past. Many survivors find ourselves thrust into emotional flashback, again and again, during the holidays— and it doesn’t help that, often, holiday gatherings are literally being held in towns and even houses where we grew up. 

The internal prosecutor will absolutely take the occasion of a holiday to make the case they’re always making: that we’re the problem. That we’re the weirdo. That we’re “choosing” to be apart and aliened from our family. 

The good news is: all the trauma recovery stuff we do EVERY day, will support us during the holidays. 

Grounding, Containment. The flashback rundown. The oxygen joint. Grounding mantras and totems. Self-hypnosis. All the tools, skills, and philosophies we use to pull off this thing called “recovery” on ANY day— they will ALL come in handy on a holiday. 

We can get through this. The rules of recovery are the same. Breathe; blink; focus; do the next right thing; and take this one day at a time. 

I am thankful for YOU, by the way.