Author: drglenndoyle

The reason why trauma therapy so often emphasizes that abuse and neglect is not the victim’s fault is, so often victims of abuse and neglect show up strongly believing their experience IS their fault. 

Trauma therapists didn’t pull this out of thin air. 

People blame and shame themselves for their own abuse or neglect so often, and it is so destructive to trauma (or addiction) recovery, that we’ve learned that that “I deserved it” belief really does have to be dealt with first— and explicitly. 

Sometimes people assume this means trauma recovery is about “blaming” someone else. 

I can assure you: no one gets into trauma therapy to obsess about blaming anyone else for their pain. 

Trauma recovery doesn’t philosophically hinge on blame. 

The main reason we deal with blame in trauma treatment is to place it where it belongs— and to remove it from where it does not belong, i.e., on conscience of someone who was abused or neglected. 

i cannot express how much it annoys me when people— including some therapists— take shots at trauma-focused treatment to the tune of, “it’s all about blaming (whoever) for your problems.” 

The assumption that trauma-focused therapy doesn’t ask a person to take personal responsibility for how they feel and function is absurdly incorrect. 

In trauma recovery we know, very well, that we are responsible for how we feel and function. 

Recovery generally is about taking responsibility— and giving up the fantasy that we’re going to be rescued. 

I WISH trauma recovery WAS all about blaming those responsible. That would be more fun. 

In trauma recovery we direct blame for abuse and neglect where it belongs for the purpose of freeing ourselves up of a terrible burden that was NEVER ours to carry. 

Abusers and manipulators go to great lengths to make their victims feel responsible for and ashamed of their abuse. 

Often abusers and manipulators have been in positions of authority and influence to do a VERY good job of conditioning victims to believe they really ARE responsible for their own abuse. 

In correcting this, we DON’T swing to the other side of the spectrum, where “nothing is you fault and everything is your responsibility.” 

That’s not realistic— and recovery doesn’t work if it is not brutally, consistently realistic. 

With the hundreds of trauma survivors with whom I’ve worked, “accepting responsibility” has never been the problem. 

The problem has usually been the exact opposite: getting okay with letting go of responsibility that is not ours to take. 

Accepting that NOT everything is our fault or our responsibility— especially things that happened to us when we were in disadvantaged or disempowered positions. 

Don’t buy into anyone’s argument that trauma or addiction recovery will lead you to fail to take responsibility for your life. 

And don’t fall for the argument that trauma recovery tries every problem you had or have back to your trauma, either. 

Trauma recovery is about getting real about how what you went through, affected you. No more; no less. 

It’s about getting real about the fact that, when something is as overwhelming as trauma and post traumatic reactions, that issue HAS to be first on the agenda to manage EVERY day. 

It is not becoming obsessed with or preoccupied by trauma— it is realistically acknowledging the reality of what we’re up against. 

We can’t “make too big a deal” out of something that has effortfully tried to ruin every minute of our life since it happened. 

Taking realistic responsibility is hard. It requires us to step up— and also to let certain things go. 

Humans aren’t great at that. 

Th good news is: you don’t have to be great at it. 

Just take it one day at a time. 

Sometimes a dam floods. 

It breaks. It fails. 

Every engineer knows that there are absolutely volumes of flood water that can burst a dam. 

No dam is immune to being flooded. 

When a dam does flood, though, we don’t criticize the dam. 

We don’t waste our time blaming the dam for adhering to the laws of physics. 

We acknowledge: that particular dam met its match in terms of how much volume it could handle. 

That’s not good or bad; it just is. Dams flood. 

The same thing happens to us when we experience trauma. 

Just like there are certain volumes of water that dams are not designed to handle, there are certain experiences the human nervous system is not designed to handle. 

Just like dams fail when they’re overwhelmed by flood water, our nervous systems fail when flooded by trauma. 

The difference, though, is that while nobody blames a dam for capitulating to the laws of physics when it floods, we OFTEN blame ourselves when WE are overwhelmed by trauma. 

It doesn’t matter that the human organism just isn’t designed to withstand

certain experiences and continue functioning well. 

We often heap blame and shame upon ourselves for “failing” when we’ve been flooded by trauma…even though, under the circumstances, it makes COMPLETE sense that we would “fail.” 

And here’s the thing about that: even though we don’t function well when we’re flooded by trauma, very often we STILL don’t completely “fail.” 

Once a damn is flooded, it’s flooded. It’s done. By definition a dam that floods is no longer a functioning dam. 

But many of us CONTINUE to function even after we’ve endured trauma. 

We may not function optimally, or even well…but we still “function.” 

LOTS of people know what it’s like to go through the motions of “functioning,” despite the fact that we’ve been flooded by trauma— and we can’t seem to un-flood ourselves. 

Sometimes that’s the worst part— the half assed, haunted “functioning” that we continue on with after we’ve been flattened and flooded by trauma. 

When a dam floods, what do its engineers do? 

They don’t give up on the dam. 

They figure out what happened. 

They figure out what they’ll need to do to rebuild the dam. 

They use the data from the flood to build a new dam that is less vulnerable. 

The truth is, dams are always vulnerable to flooding— and people are always vulnerable to trauma. 

No matter how “resilient” we are. No mater how well we “function,” even under duress. 

But: we don’t have to blame and shame ourselves for succumbing to flood waters. 

Floods come— and floods go. 

We build better dams. Stronger dams. Dams with design modifications that make them less vulnerable. 

We do the same thing with ourselves in trauma recovery. 

Floods happen. Trauma responses happen. No blame. No shame. 

We redesign and rebuild— as many times as we need to. 

The past is going to hit you out of nowhere. 

It happens. 

Maybe we’re having a good day; maybe we’re not. But out of seemingly nowhere, out of the ETHER, a memory or a feeling or a belief will come at you and tackle you. 

In that moment, the past seems right here, right now. 

Sometimes it happens emotionally; but sometimes all of our senses are hijacked, and we can’t tell where we are, what’s going on, or who we are. 

We’ve been triggered. 

We’re reliving something from the past, in the present. 

Part of what makes an emotional or sensory flashback so hard to explain to anyone else is that it seems so overwhelming, so engulfing. 

How CAN anyone understand what it’s like to very suddenly be smothered by images or feelings that we KNOW aren’t here and now in the room with us…but absolutely FEEL like they are? 

It sounds crazy. 

It sounds pathetic. 

And we don’t want to sound crazy or pathetic to the people around us, do we? 

So we keep it to ourselves. 

We learn to “function” through flashbacks. 

Many people would never even know that we’re struggling with a flashback. They may see us continuing to smile, continuing to exist and function, and assume nothing’s wrong. 

But something IS very, very wrong. 

We’ve just learned to cover it up. 

We’ve learned to keep smiling. 

We’ve learned to keep going through the motions…even if the inside of our head is a blender at the moment. 

Getting through flashbacks requires us to be grounded and self-compassionate— but it’s very hard to be either when your central nervous system is hijacked. 

Getting through flashbacks often requires us to talk to ourselves in a calm, supportive way— but that’s really hard to do when you’re busy just trying to keep breathing. 

We are not born knowing how to handle flashbacks. 

We’re not taught how to handle flashbacks, because they’re not the kind of thing that kids (or adults!) should “have” to learn how to handle. 

All of which means we’re frequently on our own. 

Lost. 

Drowning, even. 

Eventually flashbacks tend to abate and we tend to return to the here and now…but going through a flashback is very often as physically exhausting as any exercise you’ll ever do. 

You need to know that it’s not all in your head. Flashbacks happen, and they suck. 

You also need to know that we can learn to be there for ourselves when we have flashbacks. 

We don’t just have to lose ourselves in the echoes of the past. 

We don’t have to just drop below the waves and keep sinking. 

There are skills and tools that we can learn to turn to when we become aware we’re getting sucked into an emotional or sensory flashback. 

Ah, but that’s the thing, isn’t it? By the time we know it’s happening— it’s often too late. 

Don’t sweat it. This is hard for everybody who experiences it. 

We learn to recognize what’s happening .01% sooner than we did. 

We learn to respond to ourselves with compassion and presence when we feel small and lost. 

We learn to talk ourselves through flashbacks now, with the words and attentiveness we needed then. 

We learned to come home to ourselves. 

That’s recovery. 

It’s not “entitlement” to want to feel and function better. 

It’s not “immature” to want to suffer less. 

Suffering doesn’t build character, no matter what the cultural trope says— and we don’t lack character because we want an easier life. 

The world is going to give us all kinds of messages around our desire to feel and function better. 

We live in a culture that really glorifies suffering.

Many people lionize suffering because they associate it with hard work, which  in turn they associate with virtue. 

Yes, it’s true that hard work often involves discomfort. 

But it is NOT true that the tolerance of discomfort itself indicates that we’re morally or spiritually evolved. 

Sometimes we get it in our heads that there is transcendental virtue to suffering because our brain needs to make sense of some of the things that have happened to us. 

We create stories around “why” we “had” to experience what we did. 

The culture often follows this up by flooding us with messages about how certain exceptional people are only exceptional because of the suffering they endured. 

Humans are meaning-making machines. We love constructing stories around the events of our lives. 

The thing is, we need to make sure those stories aren’t accidentally toxic. 

If we create a story around our life that says our suffering led to our strength, we risk creating a core belief that suffering is good. 

That belief, that suffering itself is virtuous, may lead us to believe that wanting to get OUT of pain, wanting to AVOID suffering, reveals a lack of character. 

We can get it in our head that we are “weak.” 

We can become ashamed of our disinterest in “sucking it up” and moving on. 

Many people reading this struggle with believing that they “deserve” to feel or function better. 

Who are we, we think, to imagine that we “deserve” anything more than the “gift” of “character building” suffering? 

This makes seeking help or trying to change our lives a complicated project. 

Not only do we have to do the hard work of changing our lives, but we have to swim upstream against a whole belief system that says we are wrong to WANT to change our lives. 

Let me spoil the suspense: there’s nothing inherently virtuous about suffering. 

And wanting to feel and function better might be the most human impulse there is. 

I’d say forgive yourself for wanting to feel and function better, but the truth is, there’s nothing to forgive. 

Somewhere along the way, someone convinced us that we had to stay stuck in order to be a “good” person. 

Somewhere along the way someone convinced us it was “entitled” or “high maintenance” to try to change your life in ways you choose— instead of just accepting what life gave you. 

 What a load of BS (Belief Systems). 

I don’t know. Maybe you and I ARE “high maintenance” in refusing to accept the way we’re feeling and functioning now. 

It’s certainly the case that people with high, realistic self-esteem DO demand certain things from the people around them— like visibility and respect. 

If that makes us high maintenance— well, I guess we’re high maintenance. 

All I know is that it’s a game changer to get past our guilt and conflict about wanting more. 

To let go of our belief that it’s “entitled” or “immature” to want to consistently feel differently. 

You don’t have to “earn” the right to feel and function better. 

You DO have to be willing to do your part— but I’ve never met someone in trauma or addiction recovery who wasn’t MORE than willing to do their part…when pointed in the right direction. 

Sometimes our body and brain aren’t gonna give us the results we want. 

It’s on us to love ourselves anyway. 

I know, that sounds paradoxical— why would I love myself, my body, my brain, if all they do is frustrate me? 

Why should I love a body that is in pain all the time? 

Why should I love a brain that makes it hard to function with the kind of things it urges me to do, the kinds of thoughts it thinks, the kinds of memories it contains? 

Here’s the thing: we can’t make our self-love dependent on the “results” we produce in our life. 

I’m not talking about liking or approving of ourselves. 

There are MANY times when I don’t like OR approve of myself. 

I frustrate myself PLENTY. I guarantee I frustrate myself more than most of the people reading this frustrate themselves. 

But self-love isn’t about liking or approving. 

I love my cat; I don’t always approve of the way she scratches my furniture. 

There are people in my life who I DESPERATELY love— but whose behavior, including the things they think or say, I sometimes don’t like. 

We CAN love ourselves, but be frustrated with ourselves. 

We CAN love ourselves, even if we have mixed or negative feelings about some of the results we’ve produced (or NOT produced!) in our lives. 

For a lot of us, this is hard because we grew up with this idea that approval is the key to love. 

Many of us were only, or mainly, shown affection (or even just attention) when we did something well. 

We constantly felt like we had to “perform” for the love of the adults around us. 

When we didn’t “perform,” or didn’t perform adequately, it’s not even that we were always punished— sometimes we were just ignored. 

For a kid who is craving attention and attachment, that might have been particularly difficult. 

The point is, we didn’t grow up with a realistic idea of what “love” means. 

As adults, we don’t instinctively know that to displease someone is just that— to displease them. It’s not the end of the world, and it happens every day. 

But to love someone— including ourselves— means that, even WHEN we’re displeased (ESPECIALLY when we’re displeased!), we don’t abandon them. 

Lots of people reading this need practice with sticking with ourselves even when we don’t like or approve of ourselves. 

We need practice having our own back even when we’re a disappointment to ourselves or others. 

You’re gong to hear lots of toxic positivity to the tune of, “you’re not a screw up!” 

I agree, YOU’RE not a “screw up”…but you WILL screw up. We ALL screw up. Me more than most. 

The point of recovery is not “not screwing up.” 

It’s accepting and loving ourselves even WHEN we screw up. 

It’s accepting and loving ourselves even when we don’t feel we deserve it. 

Love in the real world can be counterintuitive, because it doesn’t mean ways feeling positively toward someone— including ourselves. 

Love is, most importantly, a verb. 

It means to behave lovingly toward someone. 

We need to behave lovingly toward ourselves— no matter what. 

Even if we screwed up. Relapsed. Spent the day collapsed in a heap of depression or paralyzed with anxiety. 

How do we behave lovingly toward ourselves when we’re not thrilled with our thoughts, feelings, or behavior? 

We don’t persecute or torture ourselves. 

We do the next right thing. 

We talk to ourselves like a supportive coach talks to an athlete that has a bad game— with realism, but acknowledging strengths…and focusing on where to go NEXT. 

The most loving thing we can do for ourselves is be real with ourselves, hold ourselves accountable— without self-hate or self-mockery. 

If we’re actually invested in getting certain results in our life, self-love is a key concept. 

We’re not going to hate ourselves into realistic, sustainable success. 

Financial stress can be a hell of a trigger for many trauma survivors.

The essence of trauma is worry that we are about to be hurt. Our entire nervous and endocrine systems get hijacked in the service of keeping ourselves away from danger and pain. 

The thing is, access to money in our culture is a HUGE mediator of our chances of being hurt. 

Nothing makes us feel quite as vulnerable as being broke. 

It’s not a crazy fear, either: when we don’t have ready access to money, we often ARE especially vulnerable. 

It’s not just in our heads. 

Many people reading this count on certain resources to live and function. 

Everybody reading this counts on access to safe, accessible, and reasonably comfortable housing. NOT having access to safe, accessible, and comfortable housing is not only a HUGE trauma trigger for many of us— but it often puts us in actual danger. 

Many people reading this literally stay alive because of our pets. NOT having the means to responsibly care for our pets puts us in, without exaggeration, kind of a nightmare scenario. 

Many people reading this count on internet access not only for access to their social supports, but for access to resources that keep them alive and functional. NOT having reliable access to the internet can cut them off from all KINDS of resources they need. 

And, of course, there is one o the most basic considerations when it comes to money: we need to eat. 

It’s true that there are some financial safety nets out there— but almost everybody reading this would probably agree that there aren’t near enough…and accessing those safety nets is often exponentially difficult when we’re already suffering. 

Financial strain is difficult for EVERY human. Money is a problem that EVERY human needs to solve. 

But when our past includes violence; painful, complicated relationships; or other forms of trauma— financial stress can hit a different level entirely. 

Trauma survivors are often ALREADY walking around with a sense of dread or impending doom— and that’s on a day when “nothing” is supposedly “wrong.” 

When you throw in the very real, very pervasive fear of NOT being able to function in the world due to insufficient funds, the anxiety and panic can make it enormously difficult to function at ALL. 

After all, financial problems don’t just go away EVEN IF we get grounded. 

They don’t go away EVEN IF we get our breathing under control. 

They doh’t go away EVEN IF we we can shepherd ourselves out of a flashback. 

To the contrary— it can be enormously depressing to do all the work we need to do to mange our post traumatic symptoms…only to return to a present moment where our very real financial problems are a STILL there, and STILL threatening to ruin our lives. 

What you, as a trauma survivor, need to know about financial stress is that this isn’t just in your head. 

It’s not you being crazy— and it’s not your fault that money is freaking you out this way. 

You also need to know that the skills and tools you’re developing to manage your symptoms WILL help you with all of this. 

They WON’T take away the actual financial stress— but wrangling your emotions and focusing in the present moment WILL help you do the things you might need to do TO manage your financial stress. 

There is no way around the fact that money problems and stress SUCK.

There’s also no way around the fact that we live in a culture that has overwhelmingly conflicted, toxic ideas about what having or “making” money means. 

Thats not your fault, either. 

I’m not a financial advisor, and I’m not particularly great at managing MY money. I have all the problems that people with trauma and ADHD tend to have with money. Money stress has been one of the big drivers in my own suicidal ideation over the years. 

So I don’t have a practical answer for the question of what the hell to do about the money thing. 

What I DO know is this: we are more than our bank balances. 

Whether or not the world appreciates it, we are. 

We HAVE more to live for than being financially solvent. 

And whether we solve the issue of finances or not, we and our pets DESERVE the very best life we’re capable of living, today. 

So reel it in. Deal with today, today. 

As with everything, I’ve found managing financial stress as a trauma survivor is a one day at a time project— often a one MINUTE at a time project. 

Easy does it. 

There’s a wall that some of us run up against in recovery that can be ENORMOUSLY frustrating. 

We’ve been suffering— often a lot. Often we’ve been self-sabotaging; sometimes we’ve been self-harmful; sometimes we’ve even been suicidal. 

Then we hit a point— sometimes we call it “rock bottom”— where we decide we’re going to start living a different way, no matter how hard it is. 

We start working our recovery. And it’s hard. 

They say we work recovery one day at a time, but the truth is, it’s often one HOUR at a time, especially at first. 

Recovery, especially early recovery, very often sucks. But we work it, hour by hour, day by day…and, eventually, we start to feel and function better. 

It doesn’t happen all at once. It usually happens in teeny, tiny nudges. Teeny, tiny baby steps. But it happens. 

We start to have good— or better, at least— minutes. Then better hours. Then, finally, we have a good day or two. 

Our behavior gets less self-sabotaging, one percent by one percent. We start to glimpse what it might be like to want to live. 

And then, when we’re just starting to feel better, when we’re just starting to function better…something happens. 

The people who might have known how much we were struggling, the people who might have been supporting us, the people who were sympathetic to us…are suddenly less so. 

It’s as if, since we seem to have gotten past the worst of what we were going through, we must be all “better.” 

The support and sympathy dries up— and we’re left feeling very alone. 

Not only are we left feeling very alone…we’re left feeling alone at one of the hardest points in recovery. 

Yes, the very beginning of recovery can be very hard…but I maintain it’s even harder a few weeks or months in, after we’ve just started to make progress. 

At the beginning we’re often driven by desperation…but desperation will only fuel us for so long. 

We find ourselves at this point, still pretty early in our recovery, where the name of the game is consistency, continuing to chip away at our emotional and behavioral struggles…but without the support that might have been there when we were desperate. 

It can feel so lonely. 

I maintain this is one of the most dangerous points in recovery. 

It’s a point at which we have to decide that we’re serious about recovery for OUR reasons— not just because someone else wanted us to do this. 

It’s a point where we come face to face with the fact that recovery is often NOT dramatic or evocative— it’s often boring and repetitive. 

It’s a point where we have to accept that, even though being in recovery might be better than letting our trauma or addiction run roughshod over us, we’re STILL going to have days that hurt…and we might have to face at least some of those days without the support we need. 

I wish everybody around us would understand how essential it is to check in on us, to be supportive and expressive and compassionate, when we’re OUT of crisis…not just when we’re falling apart. 

It’s awful to think that we have to keep being the “squeaky wheel” in order to keep getting the support we need. 

It’s awful to think that we have to be in crisis to get the sympathy and compassion that part of us so desperately craves. 

This point in recovery can feel VERY lonely…but it is CRUCIAL. 

It’s crucial for us to stay on track. 

It’s crucial for us to not give up or relapse. 

It’s crucial for us to remember who we are, what we’re all about, and why we’re doing this. 

I know. I wish this whole thing was easier. I wish the people around us could read our minds and know that the point in recovery where we start feeling and functioning a little bit better can be one of the precarious points of all. 

For what it’s worth: I get it. 

Stay on track. 

As the saying goes, we didn’t come this far just to come this far. 

In trauma recovery you’re going to hear, over and over again, that we should give ourselves a break. 

You’re going to hear that trauma survivors are WAY too harsh on ourselves— that we tend to assume EVERYTHING is our fault, and EVERYTHING is our responsibility. 

If you’re a trauma survivor, you can probably identify with this. 

The problem, especially in complex trauma or neglect, is that growing up we didn’t get the attention and emotional safety we needed to accurately sort out what is and isn’t our fault. 

Sometimes we were explicitly blamed for things that couldn’t POSSIBLY have been our fault— but we weren’t taught how to realistically stand up for ourselves or set boundaries with the people who were telling us these things. 

(Let’s face it, those people were often parents or other authority figures— how COULD we have POSSIBLY been expected to stand up to them or set boundaries with them?)

So we just took it. We took on what they were telling us, implicitly or explicitly. 

We made “it’s my fault, even if I can’t quite explain why” part of our self-concept. 

Fast forward to now, and it makes a lot of sense why reappraising how much responsibility and blame we’ve assumed in our lifetimes has impacted our view of ourselves and the world, let alone our everyday functioning. 

We’re told we need to lighten up. Give ourselves a break. Forgive ourselves. 

Yes— that all sounds very good and self-compassionate and appropriate for realistic trauma recovery. 

So why do so many survivors struggle with it? 

Why is there even a part of MY brain that struggles with it, even as I type this? 

There will DEFINITELY be a part of you that is afraid that if you give yourself a break, as all these well-meaning people out there have advised you to do, that you’ll be in trouble. 

Our brain tells us we’ll miss something if we lighten up. We’ll make a mistake. 

Maybe our brain is telling us that we won’t be driven toward “excellence” if we back off of ourselves, if we DON’T hold ourselves to ruthless, rigid standards. 

Giving ourselves a break feels risky, in other words. 

It feels like an excuse— or a trap. 

As trauma survivors, we’re often looking for the catch. We’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

Yes, yes, forgiving ourselves might SOUND appropriate and helpful, hypothetically…but if we truly forgive ourselves, treat ourselves with compassion and realism instead of holding ourselves to high, rigid, often arbitrary standards…what will keep us from slacking off? 

What if we back off ourselves, and everything goes to sh*t? 

I’ll spoil the suspense: everything won’t go to sh*t if we give ourselves a break. And if it does, I assure you, it was going to go to sh*t anyway, ruthless standards or no. 

Your brain is right: forgiving ourselves, behaving toward ourselves with compassion and flexility, IS a risk. 

But if we’re serious about trauma recovery, it is a risk worth taking. 

We MIGHT risk not performing as “well” if we back off of ourselves— but we also MIGHT risk performing BETTER. 

Wouldn’t THAT blow your mind? 

The idea that we might actually perform BETTER if we were compassionate and flexible instead of rigid and ruthless with ourselves presents its own conundrum: we may not want to know we’ve been so wrong about that specific assumption (that high, rigid, ruthless standard will lead to “excellence”) for so long. 

Yeah. It’s a risk. It’s all a risk. 

But we’re not going to realistically recover without taking some risks. 

And, another spoiler: in trauma recovery we are DEFINITELY going to learn that some of the beliefs and attitudes we’ve clung to for years haven’t been serving us…and that MIGHT not feel great. 

We’re going to have to pay that price if we want to realistically, sustainably recover from trauma. 

May I offer one more spoiler, though? 

That price— the real world price of trauma recovery— is worth it. 

It is SO worth it. 

You’re going to get a lot of people telling you how “strong” and “resilient” you are. 

It’s true– but it’s also not especially news, or especially helpful. to a lot of trauma survivors to hear it. 

People are often trying to be nice when they say it. They’re trying to reassure us. They’re trying to compliment us. They’re trying to affirm us. 

But the thing many survivors hear when someone remarks upon their “strength” or “resilience” is that the “hard” part of their trauma experience must be over. 

If only that were true— or, at least, if only that were the whole story. 

The truth is, painful events don’t just create pain when they happen. 

They very often create pain for years, even decades, afterward, in how they are encoded in our memory and in the very physical cells of our body. 

There are some people who truly don’t understand why trauma survivors continue to suffer— after all, they made it through the thing, right? They’re strong, they’re resilient, and the trauma is behind them…so all that’s left for them to do is heal, right? 

What many don’t understand is the pain of living with trauma reactions, trauma memories, and trauma-fueled thoughts and beliefs is a different kind of pain from the original trauma…but it’s no less real and no less hurtful. 

Many people reading this have had big chunks of their lives defined by post traumatic symptoms and struggles. 

And they’re often reluctant to talk about how hard it’s been to live a life AFTER what happened to them— because there’s always someone there to point out that they are “strong” and “resilient” and the trauma is “in the past.” 

Trauma recovery asks us do certain things every day. 

It asks us to view the world through a certain lens— the lens of recovery habits, rituals, and precautions. 

Trauma recovery asks us to wake up and make the choice to BE in recovery every day— which is different from just waiting for our nervous and endocrine systems to “heal” from what they went through. 

Most everybody reading this knows that we can’t count on our “strength” or “resilience” to heal us. 

We may very well be strong and resilient— but we are also wounded. 

And for as incredible as it undeniably is that we survived, that we were as resilient as we were…it’s also the case that waking up every day and choosing recovery now is incredibly hard for a lot of us. 

No matter how “strong” we are. No matter how “resilient” we were. 

When a project is as complex and exhausting as trauma recovery, even “strong” people are going to have moments when we don’t FEEL particularly strong. 

We’re going to have moments when we don’t FEEL particularly resilient. 

We’re going to have moments when we feel tattered. Beaten down. Defeated. Empty. 

In those moments, people calling us “strong” and “resilient” may just make us feel worse. 

Easy does it. This is all a normal part of recovery. 

I assume everyone who walks through my door is strong and resilient. They wouldn’t be alive, let alone seeking my help, if they weren’t. 

I also assume that they’re seeking my help— they’re looking for a way to frame and buy into trauma recovery— because that strength and resilience that kept them alive for so long is running on fumes. 

No shame. We have ALL been there. I’ve been there. 

There is no doubt in MY mind about your strength or resilience. 

But there’s also no doubt in my mind that you, reading this right here, right now, need more than that to create a life worthy living. 

I am both proud of you— and realistic about the fact that you need more than “strength” and “resilience” to take the next step. 

If you, like me, are a survivor of abuse, you probably very much want to be seen and heard…except when you don’t. 

That is, except when the very IDEA of being seen and heard doesn’t scare the bejeezus out of you. 

You may want to be touched, held, physically soothed…except when you don’t. 

That is, except when touching, holding, and physical soothing or stimulation doesn’t trigger the bejeezus out of you. 

That’s what being an abuse survivor often is: living in two worlds. 

In one “mode,” we very much want to draw people close. 

We very much want to have connections. To listen and share. To give and receive. To be a meaningful part of someone else’s experience— maybe a lot of peoples’ experiences. 

In the other “mode,” though, we very much want to be left the hell alone. 

Physical or emotional intimacy actually scares us. We want to prove to ourselves that we don’t need anybody. To get as far away from the hurt we’ve experienced in past relationships as we can. 

Both “modes” are real. 

Both represent something we need from our recovery. Something we need in order to heal. 

Trauma does a lot of things to our habits of mind, but one of the most frustrating is its tendency to cram us into modes of black and white thinking. 

Many people reading this know what I’m talking about. We think in all or nothing terms. 

It very often goes back to a safety thing: to stay safe, we think we need to avoid ambiguity or nuance. We need to be crystal clear about what a situation is, how we feel about it, what to do about it. 

The problem with black and white thinking being, of course, that existing in the world frequently requires nuance. 

Certain things ARE black and white— but a lot of things aren’t. Especially things about ourselves, what we want, and what we need. 

In order to come to a realistic sense of who we are and what we need, we’re going to have to risk thinking in shades of grey sometimes— and that includes thinking in nuanced terms about whether or how visible we want to be, or whether or how connected to anyone we want to be. 

If we try to reduce it all to a black and white “I want to be seen and heard” or “I want to be invisible;” or “I want to be touched and held” or “I want everyone to stay a minimum of five miles away at all times,” we’re going to have problems navigating the real world and real relationships. 

The reality is, both can be true. 

The reality is, every situation and every relationship kind of has to be navigated on its own terms. 

We can’t lay down black and white rules for whether we’re going to let ourselves be seen and heard, or whether we’re going to let ourselves get close to anyone, physically or otherwise— because different relationships are, well, different. 

If we try to cram our needs into black and white, all or nothing “rules” as a response to our post traumatic anxiety, we’re going to necessarily be denying and disowning huge aspects of who we are and what we require to create a life worth living. 

Not to mention: black and white thinking actually doesn’t work so well, if the goal is reeling in our anxiety. 

(Black and white thinking actually tends to exacerbate our anxiety, in that it reinforces avoidance of the thing we’ve rejected, and often results in us getting preoccupied with the unrealistic all or nothing rules” we’ve tried to lay down.) 

That’s trauma recovery: learning to live in multiple worlds, learning to operate in multiple modes, learning to navigate the layers of who we are, what we need, and what is safe. 

Yeah. It can be intimidating. 

Our best shot at realistically figuring it out is to stay grounded, to be as clear as we can be about what we want out of situations and relationships, what’s appropriate and acceptable vs. inappropriate and unacceptable in situations or relationships, and frequently reminding ourselves what the life we’re trying to create looks like. 

Easy does it. We manage this recovery task just like every recovery task: one day at a time.