drglenndoyle

You get to decide.

You have the right to determine what your life looks and feels like. 

This is a revolutionary concept to many survivors of trauma. 

Many of us have been conditioned to believe that we don’t get any say in the shape or feel of our life. 

Many of us have only ever felt NOT in control of our life. 

Many of us have lost any kind of faith in our ability to affect the direction of our life. 

It’s a thing called “learned helplessness”— which doesn’t mean it’s our fault, even though it’s “learned.” What it means is that we’ve had the experience, again and again, of trying to affect or change things in our life, and we haven’t been able to. 

So of course we lose confidence in our ability to change things. 

That’s not our fault. 

Trauma recovery is going to ask us to believe in our ability to actually shape and choose our experience of life— and, no doubt, that can feel like a risk. 

Letting ourselves experience hope absolutely feels risky. 

It’s okay to be anxious about feeling hope. 

It’s okay to be reluctant to let ourselves feel hope. 

But we can be open to it. 

As you and I work our trauma recovery, we slowly start to believe in our ability to realistically, meaningfully change things in our life— bit by bit, choice by choice. Not all at once. 

Don’t think of this “recovery” thing as requiring huge leaps of faith or belief. 

Just focus on the .01%. 

Just focus on making one teeny, tiny choice today that can help your life feel better, more comfortable, more authentic, more livable. 

How your life looks and feels is truly up to you. 

It won’t transform overnight, and that’s okay. That’s better, actually. 

We want change to stick. 

We want your new life to be realistic and sustainable. 

You get to choose what it looks like. 

You get to choose what it feels like. 

You get to choose who does and doesn’t have access to your new life. 

You get to choose what your new life is all about. 

You have the right and you have the ability. 

Don’t let anyone tell you different. 

drglenndoyle

Slow down. You’re doin’ fine.

I want your CPTSD recovery to be realistic and sustainable. 

Not dramatic. Not cinematic. 

And not stupid fast. 

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want any survivor to suffer for a second longer than they have to. 

But I have seen trauma recovery go up in smoke because survivors pressured themselves to do it fast. 

Part of that is an artifact of how many of us were raised. 

Many of us were conditioned to believe that fast is good and slow is bad. That if we’re “good” at something, we can do it fast, and ideally more or less perfectly the first time. 

Many trauma survivors (and many humans!) very much HATE feeling like we’re not good at a thing we’re trying to do. 

We feel embarrassed. We feel humiliated. 

We feel like we want to quit this thing we’re trying, because we believe we’re “failing” at it— and we want to not try at it anymore, because who needs to feel like a “failure,” am I right? 

The truth about trauma recovery is, we tend to be better at it the slower we take it. 

And the real truth about trauma recovery that many survivors don’t want to hear is, we only ever get REALLY good at it by embracing the fact that we are, every day, beginners at it. 

That might sound weird. Isn’t the goal of this whole thing to achieve mastery? 

You bet it is— but we only ever achieve anything approaching mastery at trauma recovery by approaching it every day as a beginner. 

Whenever a survivor starts making noises about how “good” they are at trauma recovery, that sends up a flag for me— a flag that there’s something off about their recovery. 

Trauma recovery is too delicately balanced for us to get a big head about any of it. 

True masters, of recovery or anything else, approach EVERYTHING as a learning opportunity. 

I approach every day in my own trauma and addiction recovery as a student. A beginner, who has things to learn from this day. 

Not only does that take off some of the pressure of having to “perform” recovery, it reminds me that I am never, ever, so strong or so skilled that I have nothing to learn from this day. 

Part of being an eternal beginner, an eternal student, is going slow. 

After all, if we go too fast, we can’t really learn things— we’re too busy keeping up and plowing ahead. 

Mind you: I’m a big believer in self-improvement and goal setting. 

Yes, I want to improve constantly. A core principle of my life is CANI— Constant And Never-ending Improvement. 

But to realistically achieve CANI, I have to slow down. 

To really look and really see. 

To really take in what this day in recovery has to teach me. 

To really internalize and reinforce the skills, tools, and philosophies that will keep me safe and stable today. 

Wanna go fast in trauma recovery? Me too. 

So go slow. 

Slow is steady. 

Steady is fast.

And beginner mind is mastery. 

drglenndoyle

Let ’em moo.

As we work our trauma recovery, we’re going to get sh*t from people. 

Not “maybe.’ We will. 

Some of those people may be well intentioned, some of them won’t be— but all of it is going to be annoying. 

Here we are, just trying to make micro choices that support our safety and stability, and here they are, well intentioned or not, giving us sh*t. 

Let me assure you that no trauma survivor or addict in recovery is struggling because they haven’t gotten enough sh*t. 

Giving them more sh*t probably isn’t the move that will finally nudge them into a better place. 

But also, here’s the thing about many of the “helpful” people who are so willing and eager to give us sh*t as we work our recovery: their values, goals, or worldview may not have anything to do with ours. 

When people give us input or feedback, they make this huge assumption that we want what they want. That we value what they value. That we can do what they can do. 

But it’s very often not true. 

You need to know that the vast majority of sh*t you’re going to get in your recovery journey will be from people you don’t want to approve of you, anyway. 

Everybody’s going to have an opinion about how everybody else “should” be living their life— but that opinion may or may not be valid when it comes to you. 

But we may not always have a lot of perspective on that, thanks to the “fawn” trauma response at work. 

“Fawn” will try, hard, to convince us we “have” to take the sh*t other people give us. 

We don’t. 

It actually doesn’t matter if they approve of you. I don’t even care who “they” are, in this context. 

Anyone giving you sh*t for how you’re working your recovery is kvetching from the cheap seats. 

You’re the one in the arena. 

I’ve said it before: their opinions are a moo point. 

You know, it’s like a cow’s opinion. It just doesn’t matter. 

It’s “moo.” 

So they’ll give you sh*t. So they may not approve of how you’re working your recovery. So they’ll judge and they’ll b*tch and they’ll find all sorts of ways to try to make you feel like you’re doing it wrong. 

So? 

Let ‘em moo. 

You stay focused on YOUR recovery micro goals today, this hour. 

drglenndoyle

CPTSD and systems of meaning.

At the core of CPTSD suffering is what psychologists call “systems of meaning.” 

It’s not just what happened to us. Though what happened to us may have been painful enough. 

It’s what we believe those things mean. 

We were abused. We were neglected. Those are facts. 

But Trauma Brain is absolutely going to try sell us on what those facts mean. 

It will try to convince us the fact of our abuse means, we “deserved” it. Or “asked” for it. Or maybe even “liked” it on some level. 

It will try to convince us the fact of our abuse means, we will always walk though this world damaged and dangerous. 

It will try to convince us the fact of our abuse means, we “have to” do self harmful things to regulate our emotions. 

None of those things are true. But Trauma Brain is going to try effortfully to make those narratives the backbone of our systems of meaning. 

The truth is, we get to decide what things do and don’t mean to us. 

We cannot change the fact of our trauma— but we can absolutely shape our understanding of what those facts mean. 

We do not have to accept anyone else’s systems of meaning. 

If someone else thinks we’re “broken” or “damaged goods” because we’ve been abused, that’s a drag— but we do not have to decide that’s what having been abused means to us. 

If someone else thinks abuse survivors “ask” for it, that’s a serious drag— but we do not have to buy into that system of meaning, either. 

Trauma Brain wants us to believe that the systems of meaning attached to certain facts are or should be “obvious”— but that’s just our trauma conditioning trying to get us to not question it’s bullsh*t. 

Our systems of meaning are ours. We get to choose them. 

We don’t have to just download and operate on someone else’s systems of meaning— including the systems of meaning embraced by our family or faith. 

Facts are facts. 

But meanings can be molded to support our recovery. 

drglenndoyle

CPTSD recovery and deconstruction.

It is very likely that your trauma recovery is going to invite you to deconstruct who you were taught to be. 

After all, CPTSD is about more than what happened to us. It’s about what we came to believe about ourselves. 

How we came to understand and interact with the world, at a time when we were being subjected to pain we could not escape, pain that entwined itself with our daily life so intricately that many CPTSD survivors even wonder “was it really trauma?” 

We “coped” and “functioned” by constructing a certain identity. Usually one “endorsed” on some level by the people or institutions who were abusing us. 

For some of us it was the identity of a religious faith. 

For others it was a particular gender identity or sexuality. 

For still others it was a political identity. 

In this process of trauma recovery, however, we are faced with the task of rebuilding ourselves from the ground up— and in that process becoming more authentic than we’ve ever been. 

More authentic than we’ve ever been allowed to be. Than we were ever safe to be. 

This is why you see so many trauma survivors in recovery suddenly realizing or publicly expressing things about themselves that they never would have in the past. 

Deconstructing an old, hand-me-down (or impose-upon-me-by-force) identity in trauma recovery can be exhilarating— but it can also be painful. 

After all, losing a version of ourselves that somehow, some way, got us by, is a loss. 

Deconstructing a religious worldview in particular can leave survivors feeling adrift spiritually, unsure what really matters in the grand, existential scheme of things. 

(Many CPTSD survivors who also have DID may also be aware of a “part” that resolutely hangs on to their old beliefs, even after their system has expressed a desire to move on.)

I want you to be aware that the pain and confusion of identity deconstruction is normal for survivors in recovery, especially if we’re recovering from coercive or high control relationships or groups. 

I also want you to know that there’s nothing wrong with this part of the journey being bittersweet. 

I also want you to know that many mental health resources may not quite know what to make of your deconstruction experiences and needs— but that there are many, many resources out there that speak to them. Many survivors who have shared their stories. 

This is not new. 

I strongly recommend, whatever else you’re doing on your recover journey, seek out memoirs and podcasts and other places where those who have been through complex trauma have shared their deconstruction stories. 

Because you’re not alone. You’re not the first, last, or only survivor to be up against what you’re up against in starting from scratch— spiritually, sexually, politically, or otherwise. 

This is part of the price of waking up. And it’s rough. 

Worth it— but rough. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Here’s the thing about exposure treatments for trauma…

If you’re working through your trauma wounds with the help of psychotherapy, there’s a chance you’re going to be told at some point that “exposure” is part of the process. 

For a long time, various exposure-based treatments were a centerpiece of working with PTSD. 

The reason for that is, PTSD was originally thought of as primarily a “disorder” of avoidance: we were hurt or terrified by a thing, so our nervous system got in the habit of avoiding that thing. 

The solution, it was thought, was to teach trauma survivors how to re-engage with the thing they were so hurt by, the thing they learned to avoid. That is to say: to expose them to it. 

To this day, “prolonged exposure” is a centerpiece of the Veterans Administration PTSD treatment protocol. 

Here’s the thing about “exposure” as a tool for working with trauma: it relies, in my opinion, on a very one dimensional view of how trauma impacts survivors. 

And exposure based treatments definitely were not designed with COMPLEX trauma or dissociation in mind— in fact, in my experience “exposure” can make CPTSD or dissociative disorders exponentially worse. 

Yes, it’s true that one of the common symptoms of PTSD is avoidance. 

But the trauma responses associated with CPTSD go much deeper than old-school formulations of PTSD acknowledge. 

Whereas PTSD tends to evoke reactions to what traumatized us, CPTSD tends to f*ck with our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs— about the world, about other people, but most notably, about ourselves. 

One of the most frustrating things ABOUT CPTSD is the fact that many of our trauma responses may not seem to have ANYTHING to do with what traumatized us— which, by the way, we may not even remember, due to how CPTSD tends to “Swiss cheese” our memory. 

You don’t change important beliefs through exposure. 

And if a survivor is dissociative— as almost all CPTSD survivors are, either a little or a lot— exposure based treatments are highly likely to just kick on those dissociative defenses. 

Oh, you may get a “part” out front that can pretend the exposure therapy was a great success. 

But what’s actually happened is, the complex trauma wound has been deepened. 

I’ve told you all that to tell you this: there IS no one-size-fits-all, “gold standard” treatment for trauma, especially CPTSD. 

Your trauma recovery blueprint has to be integrative and individualized. 

And before you proceed with ANY modality of treatment from ANY provider, look it up. Know the assumptions that modality makes, the theory of change that modality embraces— and the risks associated with that modality. 

I want the telltale sign that a trauma survivor has read my blog or page to be the fact that they are HELLA informed about their options and tools.


Even if that annoys some providers. (Sorry, not sorry.)

drglenndoyle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But they’re not. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

drglenndoyle

What is trauma bonding?

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

This is what we call a “trauma bond.” 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s a mind f*ck. 

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

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

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

Talk about trauma bonding in a nutshell. 

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

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

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

Not anymore. Not ever again. 

drglenndoyle

Try this Recovery Supporting Question over “positive thinking.”

I do not believe in “positive thinking.” 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

F*ck that. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

drglenndoyle

Your vs. “their” mission statement.

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

Of course they’re going to misunderstand you. 

Maybe mock you. 

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

You’re not, actually, doing it wrong. 

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

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

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

Do you think “they” could actually do that? 

I don’t. 

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

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

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

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

Don’t let “them” get in your head. 

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

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

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

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

Don’t doubt it.