Author: drglenndoyle

Sometimes— a lot of the time, actually— a flashback isn’t what we traditionally think of as a “flashback.” 

We often think of a flashback as, like, an immersive movie— and often, it is like that. 

We feel yanked from the here-and-now, and deposited back-there, back-then— and every sense modality we have is pulled into reinforcing the experience. 

We see what we saw then; we hear what we heard then; and, in emotional flashbacks, we very much feel what we felt then. 

This type of flashback is very much like being trapped in a movie theater. The surround sound is cranked up, the screen in front of us is huge (maybe even 3D!), and sometimes the seat beneath is even rumbling with the intensity of the scene. 

Those flashbacks suck. They can be scary, disorienting, and even physically painful, as our physical body lurches into fight or flight mode in response. 

But there are types of flashbacks that don’t involve that intensive, immersive visual component. 

One of the most impactful of these flashbacks are olfactory flashbacks— literally, smelling things. 

Scent has particular power in sending us back to certain times and places. 

Almost everybody reading this can think of specific scents that yank them right back into the past. 

Sometimes we’re not even sure what a particular scent IS— but we know that on whiff sends us on a magic carpet ride (one that we didn’t necessarily choose). 

I can still smell my high school. I couldn’t tell you what that particular scent IS; but I know it when I smell it. 

I can still smell my grandparents’ house. Again, who knows what combination of things I’m actually remembering as that scent— but I know it when I smell it. 

Scent is actually DESIGNED, in the nervous system, to be an especially primal emotional trigger. The neural structures that carry scent information to the brain literally bypass neural architecture that the other senses need to check in with. 

That means when we smell something, we have less opportunity to interpret or process it. It hits us raw. Hard. 

When an olfactory trigger hits us, raw and hard, it often touches off an olfactory flashback— which isn’t visual, as we imagine traditional “flashbacks” to be. 

What happens is, we get flooded with smells from the past. 

If you’re reading this, you very likely know exactly what I mean. 

Even if the trigger is here-and-now, we’re actually smelling things from back-there, back-then…and the worst part is, we may very much not know what the hell it is we ARE smelling. 

We just know the feelings associated with those smells. 

Our nervous system knows full well what those smells are linked to. 

Olfactory flashbacks are particularly problematic because, unlike visual or auditory flashbacks, we can’t look around and readily identify the fact that we’re smelling something not-here, not-now. 

How many times we have smelled something, and had no idea where it was actually coming from? 

It’s thus really hard to reality check olfactory flashbacks. It’s hard to get grounded and contain what’s coming up. Often we don’t even realize we’re in a flashback— because no one told us a flashback can “look” like getting flooded with a smell. 

Our front line defenses against olfactory flashbacks are competing, chosen scents. Lots of survivors seem to like citrus scents for this purpose. Many survivors swear by essential oils, scented markers, or scented erasers that they can unobtrusively carry around. 

Olfactory flashbacks are an inconvenient, frustrating, often confusing symptom of post traumatic stress— but they are, like every symptom, understandable and manageable with patience and self-compassion. 

I know. Those are tall orders, some days. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

One day at a time. 

Many trauma survivors arrive in adulthood with a lot built up inside them. 

A lot of feelings. 

A lot of memories that just…won’t…fade. 

A lot of words they’ve never had the space or safety to speak out loud. 

So many words. 

One of the things that very often happens when somebody begins trauma focused therapy is they start talking…and the words start flowing. 

And then they REALLY start flowing. 

Which then leads the survivor in therapy to suddenly feel anxiety and/or shame. 

You get a lot of apologies. A lot of “I’m sorry I’m rambling.” “I’m sorry I’m ranting.” “I’m sorry I’m talking in circles.” 

Mind you: almost never is the survivor in therapy ACTUALLY “rambling” or “talking in circles.” 

And if they are “ranting,” it’s usually a rant that is long-delayed, and well-deserved. 

We want to apologize for talking in therapy not because we’re ACTUALLY doing anything wrong— but because we’ve been conditioned to believe talking is bad. 

We’ve been conditioned to believe talking, especially about what happened, will get us in trouble. 

We’ve been conditioned to believe that talking, especially about our pain, is shameful. 

Very often we’ve been raised to believe that the “honorable” way to deal with pain is to never talk about it. To bear it silently. To quietly endure. 

We’ve been conditioned to believe that acknowledging our pain, let alone talking about it at length, let alone FEELING anything about it, is “weak.” Perhaps a sign of “self centeredness.” 

We’ve been conditioned to believe that expressing anger about what happened to us or what we didn’t get is tantamount to going on an “unhinged” rant…and THAT is the sign of a person who is not emotionally “disciplined” or “mature.” 

What a bunch of BS (Belief Systems— but the OTHER kind of BS, too). 

One of the most important tasks of trauma recovery is known as “unburdening.”

Unburdening is exactly what it sounds like. 

We— you— have been carrying things that you should never have been asked to carry. 

Very often you’e been carrying them alone. Even if people have WANTED to help you carry them, there was no safe, straightforward way for them to actually assume some of your burden. 

Over time, if we keep carrying things that are so heavy— and that get added to every year, every day, we’re NOT in active trauma recovery— we get tired. 

We get exhausted— in every way possible for a human being to feel exhausted. 

And when we feel exhausted, it becomes very easy to feel hopeless. 

That’s why unburdening is so important. 

It doesn’t always have to happen in a therapist’s office— but it does need to happen. 

The core of trauma recovery is creating a different relationship with our past and with ourselves. 

We can’t do that and continue carrying what we’ve been carrying, in the same way we’ve been carrying it. 

So we have to take some risks. 

Usually that means talking. 

It might even mean singing, or creating art, or digging through sand in a tray. 

And, yes, there’s usually crying involved, too. 

It’s okay. 

In fact, it’s more than okay. 

It’s f*cking beautiful, and I’m so f*cking proud of you. 

So much of trauma recovery is about improvisation and adaptation. 

It’s not that we lack confidence in Plan A. Make Plan A as realistic and ambitious as you need it to be. 

It’s that if trauma recovery has taught us anything, it’s that sh*t goes sideways. A lot. 

Triggers pop up that we didn’t anticipate and don’t understand. 

Memories and feelings flood us out of nowhere. 

Symptoms we thought we’d “handled” reemerge— even after months or years of stability. 

Trauma recovery is a lot of things but “predictable” is often not one of them. 

In realistic trauma recovery, Plan A is often toast before we get to the first check in. 

So we need Plan B. And Plans C, D, and E. 

Here’s the thing about trauma recovery: not even the “experts” understand it perfectly. 

And NO expert who ISN’T you, perfectly understands YOUR trauma recovery trajectory and needs. 

I certainly have MY ideas about what TENDS to make for successful trauma recovery— but my perspective is HEAVILY biased by my own struggles and recovery. 

One of the reasons I don’t make super explicit recommendations on my social media pages (I know, much to the extreme frustration to some of my readers) is that I DON’T know you. I DON’T know exactly how applicable the tips, tricks, and tools that worked for me, are to you. 

What I DON’T want is somebody trying what I recommend, realizing it’s not a perfect for THEIR recovery, and tossing the baby out with the bathwater. 

(This actually is a problem with “experts” who try to convince their large audiences that their specific recovery ideas are the ONLY route to recovery. This is never, ever true.) 

None if this s about trauma THERAPY, per se. It’s about trauma RECOVERY. 

And trauma recovery is always, in the end, Do It Yourself. DIY. 

In realistic, sustainable trauma recovery, we improvise. We adapt. We riff. We experiment. 

Psychotherapy CAN be a helpful tool in trauma recovery— but even the best psychotherapy is ONLY effective when we take what we learn and work in in the therapy hour, and adapt it to our everyday life. 

I’ve never had much patience for people who insist on elegant, perfect models or treatment plans for trauma recovery. 

Real recovery just doesn’t work like that. 

It’s very often not elegant or predictable or even linear. 

Trauma recovery in the real world is often messy. It’s often counterintuitive. 

Our recovery needs very often change— not just year by year, but week by week, even hour by hour. 

That’s why we have to be willing and able to switch it up. 

We can’t get over reliant on certain skills, tools, or philosophy. 

And we DAMN sure can’t get over reliant on the ideas or care of a specific therapist— “expert” or not. 

Having a Plan B (and C, and D, and…) doesn’t mean we lack faith or confidence in Plan A. The problem with Plan A is very rarely that we just don’t “believe” in it hard enough. 

It’s that things change— out there in the world, and inside our head and heart. Often suddenly. 

A realistic trauma recovery is a flexible, adaptive trauma recovery. 

The best trauma recovery tools, skills, and philosophies are ones that are open to revision as we change and grow and encounter new problems and challenges. 

Do not listen to anyone who tries to get you too wedded to any one set of skills, tools, or philosophies. And do NOT listen to anyone who INSISTS their bag of tricks is the “only” way to recover. 

We are not in this for brand loyalty. 

We are in this to realistically feel and function better. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

For a lot of trauma survivors reading this, the perfectionism and/or drive toward people-pleasing may have been our main source of “motivation” for…years, sometimes. 

We can’t imagine having the drive to achieve WITHOUT perfectionism or people-pleasing. 

Then, we get into therapy or recovery, and we’re told that we should lighten up— that we don’t NEED to be perfect, and that people-pleasing is often a manifestation of the “fawn” trauma response. 

Which, of course, sounds all good in theory. Of course we shouldn’t be driven or haunted by perfectionism. Of course we shouldn’t be held hostage to people-pleasing. 

Learning how to give those up can only result in us being happier and healthier…right? 

Sure. In theory. 

In reality, learning to give up perfectionism and people pleasing in trauma recovery often presents us with a very practical problem: how the hell do we motivate ourselves to do…well…anything? 

We’re told that we “should” want to achieve just for the joy of achieving…but many of us don’t have a whole lot of experience associating “joy” with achievement. 

Rather, we associate achievement with stress. We associate it with a fear of failure. 

We often associate achievement with exhausting, fruitless attempts to “earn” the approval or love of someone in our family, or even a romantic or sexual partner. 

The idea of achieving something just for the “joy” of it is just a bizarre concept to us. 

The achievement paradox experienced by many complex trauma survivors is part of a larger problem many survivors face: when we’ve been living our entire life in survival mode, we frequently have very little idea what our live can or “should” look like when we’re NOT in survival mode. 

What do we even like? 

Who even ARE we? 

The idea of achieving something for the sake of achieving it begs the question of, what would I even DO, what would I TRY to achieve, if someone else’s approval (or, alternately, their potential disdain) wasn’t on the line? 

Who are we, outside of others’ plans for or expectations of us? 

For people who didn’t grow up in high control environments, these questions might sound weird. After all, who arrives in adulthood with virtually no idea who they are or what they like? 

People who were raised or enmeshed in high control environments, that’s who.

That is to say, people who struggle with complex trauma. 

This is why I so often return to the fact that the big thing we “recover” in trauma “recovery” really is ourselves. 

We “recover” our right to exist independently of the people and institutions that dominated our early lives. 

We “recover” the right to CHOOSE our interests, goals, and even our personalities. 

And when I say “recover,” I’m very aware that for MANY of us there isn’t any pre-complex trauma “us” to go back to— so what I REALLY mean is “recreate.” 

(But, for obvious reasons, “trauma recreation” doesn’t work as a replacement term for “trauma recovery.”) 

Struggling to find or maintain motivation AFTER giving up perfectionism and/or people pleasing is a real thing. You’re NOT the first or last survivor to run headlong into this dilemma. 

For awhile, we gotta do the things WITHOUT being particularly motivated. Which, yes, sucks. 

But the good news is: we DO eventually find— that is, create— ourselves. 

We WILL eventually feel motivated on OUR terms. 

And when we hit that point, something almost miraculous happens: we find ourselves not PUSHED toward our goals by others’ expectations or our own anxiety— but rather PULLED toward our goals by how meaningful and interesting and beautiful WE find them. 

I know. It all sounds improbable to you now. Don’t worry about that. 

You just worry about YOUR recovery goals, today. 

You know the drill. One day at a time. 

Many people reading this are an acquired taste. I know I am.

Our life experiences may make us hard to know. 

Some of our life experiences have resulted in an emotional life or behavioral choices that may be difficult for others to understand. 

When we’ve experienced trauma, our perspective on the world and other people often shifts— often radically. 

We can’t go back and un-know what we know. Un-experience what we’ve experienced. 

All that may make us seem kind of mysterious to many people. 

Add to that the fact that many of our life experiences have resulted in us intentionally keeping many people at arm’s length. 

Add to THAT the fact that our highly sensitive nervous system is often too keyed up or burned out to tolerate prolonged social interaction. 

It all adds up to the fact that, yes— trauma survivors may be sort of difficult to understand, know, or be close to. 

Believe me— most of us survivors are WELL aware of that fact. 

For some of us, it’s a feature, not a glitch. There are survivors reading this who DEFINITELY don’t mind the fact that we’re often kind of apart from other people. 

But for others of us it’s DEFINITELY a glitch. There are survivors reading this who would give almost ANYTHING to be ABLE to be closer to others. 

Then there are those of us who have radically different needs and preferences at different times when it comes to being close to other people. 

Sometimes we can’t stomach the very IDEA of being close to others or letting them close to us. 

Except for those times when we desperately crave that closeness. 

You need to know that our push-pull relationship with closeness or letting ourselves be known isn’t just a “you” thing— it’s a trauma thing. 

It’s not that YOUR ability or inclination to be close to others is broken— it’s that trauma, especially complex trauma tends to scramble EVERYBODY’S relationship with attachment and vulnerability. 

Think about the experiences that create complex trauma: painful experiences that occur over time (often years or decades); are for all practical purposes inescapable; and— this is the REALLY important part— are entwined with our important relationships. 

How is someone supposed to go through those kinds of experiences and NOT have an ambivalent relationship with attachment, vulnerability, and closeness? 

The fact that we— you AND me— are an acquired taste doesn’t mean were are LESS lovable or even LESS desirable. 

The fact that we can be difficult to really “know” doesn’t mean we’re “broken” (though many people mistake our apart-ness as “aloofness”). 

The fact survivors’ life experiences and needs are kind of opaque to many people out there doesn’t mean that we don’t WANT to be known or understood— or that we REMAIN enigmatic to people who are willing to put in the work. 

The factors that lead us to kind of be “apart” from so many people and opportunities for connection? We didn’t ask for those things to happen to us. 

Sometimes we’re frustrated by all of it. 

Sometimes we’re comforted by all of it. 

But it doesn’t make us “less than.” 

It don’t make us irreparably broken— or even necessarily ‘broken.” 

It means our combination lock has a few extra twists and digits than you average non-trauma survivors’. 

No more; no less. 

(Trust me— WE are more frustrated trying to figure out our combination lock than YOU could EVER be). 

No kid deserves to be neglected. 

No kid needs to “earn” their right to attention and love. 

But our culture just can’t quite seem to wrap its collective brain around this. 

We didn’t “deserve” love and attention and care and the basics of survival because we’re cute, or well-behaved, or intelligent kids. 

We deserved them because we exist. 

Our culture kind of has this problem where it just can’t NOT think in terms of “earning” and “deservingness.” 

When somebody dies tragically, it’s often discussed in terms of how the victim didn’t (or did) “deserve” what happened to them. 

When somebody comes forward and describes a painful or exploitative relationship experience, it’s often discussed in terms of whether they “did enough” to extricate themselves from the situation. 

We’re very used to discussing the pain of adults in terms of whether or not they “deserve” what they are experiencing, based on their behavior (or, just as commonly, based on how attractive, appealing, or relatable they are). 

This in itself is pretty f*cked up— but even more so is the fact that we often retroactively think of children in much the same way. 

Whatever a person goes on to do or be in their life, when they were kids, they absolutely deserved shelter and nourishment and comfort. 

Is it any wonder survivors of neglect in particular grow up to doubt their essential worth? 

The implicit message of many of our cultural institutions— and a LOT of our popular media and entertainment— is that those who “deserve,” get. 

We LOVE the story of people who “deserve” things, getting them. 

But we struggle with the idea that maybe EVERY child— maybe EVERY human being— deserves to be sheltered, nourished, and even loved. 

Our culture tends to plant this poison seed in the minds of kids who were neglected: “you must not have been attractive enough/endearing enough/entertaining enough/smart enough/(whatever) enough to be loved.” 

It’s really hard to shake that BS (Belief System— but the OTHER Kind of BS, too). 

Telling a victim of neglect that they ARE, in fact, worthy, that they SHOULDN’T have been without shuttler or nourishment or care, can often SOUND hollow to victims of neglect. 

It might SOUND like something that someone is saying “just to be nice.” 

That’s how powerful that early programming, that early CONDITIONING, can be. 

Make no mistake: trauma CONDITIONS us. 

Neglect CONDITIONS us to question our worth. To assume the worst about how valuable we are. 

Recovery is a process of RECONDITIONING— but it can be hard to recondition beliefs and attitudes that were formed around the ABSENCE of care. 

Telling someone they deserved better can be a tough sell. 

We don’t like to imagine that the universe is unfair. We don’t like to imagine that, through sheer dumb f*cking luck, we got sh*tty caretakers who didn’t know how to meet our needs. 

On some level we might even WANT to believe that neglect WAS our fault— because we were annoying, or needy, or unattractive, or stupid. 

Recovery asks us to come face to face with how unlucky we were. 

The culture might tell us that’s just “whining.” After all, who spends time in THERAPY, complaining about how UNLUCKY they were? 

“Suck it up,” we’re told. “Take responsibility,” we’re told. 

We can’t “take responsibility” for love we didn’t get. 

And make no mistake: it WAS love you deserved. 

You still do deserve it. 

Yes, you. 

I’m always really disappointed when I see mental health professionals, especially those who claim to be trauma informed, post food-shaming content on social media. 

Trauma survivors very often struggle with food. 

Sometimes we literally struggle to get ourselves to eat. 

Other times we seem to struggle with getting ourselves to STOP eating. 

Many of the addictive and compulsive dynamics that trauma amplifies play out around food— our food choices, our eating habits, and our attitudes and habits around physical exercise. 

Sexual trauma in particular tends to show up in our beliefs and attitudes about our physical body and our experiences of pleasure, control, satiety, and deprivation. 

All of which is to say: when we’ve experienced trauma, eating, exercise, and everything around it, often tends to be complicated. 

What seems to be “common sense” for many people when it comes to eating and exercise often gets turned on its head when trauma, especially sexual trauma, is in the mix. 

Our cultural attitudes toward consumption, body size, and and “character” are often kind of f*cked up to begin with. 

The very LAST thing trauma survivors need is mental health professionals reinforcing simplistic “wisdom” around diet and exercise that doesn’t scratch the surface of how complex their actual experience is. 

Yet, some mental health professionals just can’t seem to help themselves. 

We have a long, problematic history in our culture of associating deprivation with “discipline.” 

We love the simplistic equation of, “if you have ‘character,’ that shows up in your willingness and ability to deprive yourself.” 

This pervasive cultural trope dovetails in perfectly toxic ways with a specific way trauma impacts many people: cultivating a belief that in order to be “safe,” one has to be physically smaller, require less, consume less. 

Many survivors get it in our heads that it is not safe to be seen, noticed, or to take up space. 

Many survivors get it in our heads that it is not safe or “right” to consume resources— we can quite literally get it in our head that we are a “waste of oxygen” and “don’t deserve to eat.” 

Survivors of sexual trauma in particular often come out of the experience with a very ambivalent relationship toward their body— which can manifest in a reluctance to literally, physically feed it. 

When we do “break down” and allow ourselves to eat, we often struggle to set limits with what we eat— which makes us feel worse— and then we do a hard shift into obsessively exercising to rid ourselves of the nourishment we feel we “don’t deserve.” 

If you have been caught in this cycle of body dysmorphia and disordered eating, you know it is hell. Absolute hell. 

And it’s a hell that the culture simply does not understand, nor does it care to understand. 

This is why I get so bummed when I see mental health professionals posting “health hacks” designed to get people focused on calories in vs. calories out. 

I get bummed when I see mental health professionals sharing “tips” on how to short-circuit the body’s natural hunger cues. 

I get bummed when I see mental health professionals using therapy concepts, often from cognitive or behavioral therapy, in the service of health tropes that can be incredibly harmful (even life threatening) to people struggling with disordered eating. 

Yes, I know it’s not the case that EVERYONE who follows EVERY therapist on social media struggles with disordered eating. 

But eating disorders are sufficiently common, and sufficiently overlooked (or, let’s be honest, encouraged) by the rest of the culture, that I really wish therapists would err on the side of acknowledging them. 

And they wonder why I kind of balk whenever they claim that all therapists, by definition, are trauma informed. 

If ONLY that were the case. 

There are people reading this who know what it’s like to feel responsible for every goddamn thing, all the goddamn time. 

They also know what it’s like to feel very burned the f*ck out. 

For many, the experience started when they were young. 

They may not remember when, but they do remember that at some point it was just understood that thy were responsible for managing the reactions and feelings of the people around them. 

Many people who felt this way were complimented on how “mature” they were for their age. 

Sometimes they were called “old souls.” 

They were kids— but, ever since they can remember, they’ve carried a certain weight on their shoulders. 

It’s not a physical weight— though we often feel its effects QUITE physically, don’t we? 

It’s an emotional weight. 

It’s the weight of being expected to perfectly hold your sh*t together at a time of life when we’re not designed to BE perfect at holding our sh*t together. 

It’s the weight of being made to feel at fault for everything, and responsible for everything, the happens not only to you, but AROUND you as well. 

There are lots of reasons some of us were handed this weight. 

Sometimes it was because a parent or other caretaker died or was otherwise absent. 

Sometimes it was because the adults that WERE there, weren’t up to the emotional or other tasks of parenting or running a sane, stable household. 

Sometimes it was just…because. 

Very few people who have that weight handed to them have the thought, “I SHOULDN’T have been handed this. I’m not READY for this. I should have HELP with this.” 

More often, we think, “even if another person my age couldn’t handle this, I can handle this. I’m the exception. I can make it work.” 

You know what happens when kids are expected to be adults, emotionally or otherwise? They miss the opportunity to be kids. 

And kids kind of NEED to be kids. 

Not because childhood is this magical time of carefree spontaneity. As many people reading this can tell you, it’s very often…not that. 

Rather, kids need the chance to be kids because it’s when we’re kids that we should, by rights, get the kind of modeling and guidance we need to become thoughtful, effective, compassionate (and self-compassionate) adults. 

When we don’t get that, because we’re busy being the ACTUAL grown ups in our ass-backwards family, we often enter into adulthood lacking the skills, tools, and experiences necessary to BE thoughtful, effective, compassionate adults. 

Then, when we realize something’s gone wrong, who do we blame?

That’s right— we tend to blame ourselves. 

Why? Because, since Day One, EVERYTHING has been our “fault,” and EVERYTHING has been our “responsibility.” 

At least, that’s what we’ve been led to believe. That’s what we’ve been conditioned to believe. That’s what we’ve believed so long, that to challenge it now feels kind of like blasphemy. 

It was not your fault that you were tasked with being the “grown up” in your family. 

It’s not your fault that you didn’t get the modeling and guidance you needed then, to regulate your emotions and set effective boundaries now. 

It’s not your fault that you were made to feel responsible for every goddamn thing, all the goddamn time. 

You deserved better. 

And you still do. 

Complex trauma survivors often have this tortured relationship with our desires and needs. 

That’s not an accident. 

Many of us have that tortured relationship with our desires and needs because someone or something conditioned us into that tortured relationship. 

Sometimes it was a person— maybe a parent, teacher, or caretaker. 

Sometimes it was an institution— such as a church or company. 

Whoever or whoever it was, they conditioned us to believe that we shouldn’t want what we want. 

They conditioned us to believe we don’t actually “need” what we need. 

Often this conditioning took on moralistic overtones. 

We were taught it was “wrong” to want or fantasize about something. 

We were taught that only “bad” people want or fantasize certain things. 

Pejorative labels were ascribed to people who “wanted” certain things. 

“Sinner.” “Whore.” “Glutton.” 

We were taught that it was “weak” to need certain things. 

That it was “lazy” to need as much rest or sleep as our body was telling us we needed. 

That it was “gluttonous” to need as much food as our body was telling us we needed. 

That it was “selfish” to need time alone— or to need to avoid certain people. 

The thing is: it’s very HUMAN to want and need things. 

When “they” brandished shame to make us feel bad about wanting and needing things, it was an attempt to control us. 

When “they” tried to make us believe that only “certain kinds” of people wanted or needed certain things, what “they” were actually trying to do was anchor “their” behavioral preferences to our very identity. To our craving for approval. To our desire to be a “good boy” or “good girl.” 

There are a number of factors that make complex trauma “complex,” but one of the main characteristics of complex trauma survivors tends to be that we have been head f*cked about wanting and needing things. 

You need to know that just wanting or fantasizing about something— anything— doesn’t make you any more or less than a normal human being. 

You need to know that the biological needs of your body and the psychological and social needs of your nervous system do NOT reflect on your character or worthiness. 

You need to know that pathologizing the human experience is one of the oldest mind- and behavior control strategies in the world. 

Abusers and bullies don’t want us at peace with our wants and our needs. 

Abusers and bullies want us at WAR with our wants and needs. 

If we’re at war with ourselves, notably our wants and needs, we are FAR easier to control. To manipulate. To sell to. To deceive. 

One of the most important tasks of trauma recovery is making peace with WHO WE ARE— and that includes our wants and needs. 

Yes— even those wants and needs that we’re kind of embarrassed about. Even kind of ashamed of. 

We’re not gonna recover from trauma AND wage war on ourselves. 

We want what we want. 

And we need what we need. 

And maybe— just maybe— we don’t deserve to be shamed, ostracized, or otherwise punished for any of it. 

Many complex trauma survivors have this tortured relationship with visibility and intimacy. 

On the one hand, both visibility AND intimacy can feel VERY dangerous to us. 

To be visible, to be seen, meant to be vulnerable. 

Many of us learned that our only safety was in being as INVISIBLE, as HIDDEN, as possible. 

We learned to associate relative safety with making ourselves smaller. Taking up as little space as we could. Being as quiet as we could. 

This is the essence of the “freeze” trauma response: when in danger, try not to move, and hope you blend in. 

Of course, to invite intimacy was to invite the opportunity to be hurt. 

Why on earth would we give ANYBODY the opportunity to get physically OR emotionally close enough to hurt us? 

Many of us experienced our most damaging trauma in our most intimate relationships growing up. 

For many people reading this, both intimacy and visibility were, and are, VERY tangled up in fears and wounds from the past. 

But then, on the other hand…there is often at least a part of us that wants nothing MORE than to be seen and held. 

There’s often a part of us that absolutely HATES the idea of being invisible. 

Many people reading this have had the experience of feeling invisible, particularly in certain relationships— and it making them feel hurt and furious. 

Many trauma survivors have also had the experience of wanting nothing BUT intimacy— often a particularly intense kind of intimacy, for that matter. 

Many complex trauma survivor figure, if I’m going to take the risk of being intimate at ALL, it’s going to have be REAL intimacy. We’re going to have to dive DEEP. 

Survivors often find themselves annoyed and disinterested in relationships that DON’T dive deep— we frequently want the mind-melding kind of intimacy where we really feel connected in our GUT, in our BONES. 

It’s a tug of war. 

The fear of being seen vs. the overwhelming need to be seen. 

The fear of intimacy vs. the overwhelming yearning for intimacy. 

It’s the kind of “both-can-be-true” conflict that complex trauma survivors live with every day. 

So where “should” we land on ANY of these questions in realistic, sustainable trauma recovery? 

Realistic, sustainable trauma recovery asks us to acknowledge that there IS no “right” or “wrong” answer to how much visibility or intimacy we “should” tolerate. 

The REALLY important thing is for us to not deny or disown EITHER our fear, OR our want for visibility OR intimacy. 

The fear is okay. 

And the want is okay. 

We’re NOT going to avoid ALL risk by permanently boycotting intimacy OR visibility. 

And we’re NOT going to get ALL our our interpersonal needs perfectly met by going all in on our desire for either visebity OR intimacy. 

What we DON’T want to do is shame ourselves for either impulse. 

What we DON’T want to do is tell ourselves we’re UNWORTHY of being truly seen or deeply known. 

What we DON’T want to do is let our trauma responses limit or dictate our interpersonal decisions. 

Neither fear NOR desire are the enemy. 

Post traumatic SHAME is the enemy.