drglenndoyle

CPTSD and humor.

There are lots of things CPTSD tries to take away from us— notably humor and laughter. 

Our CPTSD conditioning often makes it complicated to laugh. 

Sometimes when we survivors laugh, we get the thought in our head: if our trauma was ACTUALLY legitimate, ACTUALLY “trauma,” how on earth could we possibly smile or laugh? 

That can often snowball into: “I must not be REALLY traumatized. I must just be making it up. Faking it. Exaggerating. Otherwise, how could I POSSIBLY smile or laugh?” 

Sound familiar? 

It goes had in hand with that gaslighting bullsh*t our abusers and bullies pulled on us to weasel out of taking accountability for their behavior. 

“Was it REALLY that bad? Or are you just being dramatic?” 

“Was it REALLY that bad? Or are you just attention seeking?” 

“If it was REALLY that bad, how can you possibly joke or laugh about it? Faker.” 

On, and on, and on. You know how Trauma Brain is. 

The thing is: it is not only entirely normal for trauma survivors to be able to joke and laugh about our experiences— sometimes humor is one of our most important survival tools. 

When trauma survivors joke about our experiences, we’re not denying or disowning how serious or painful they were. 

We’re actually joking about them BECAUSE they were so serious and painful. 

Humor gives us a tool to process and engage with those painful experiences in a way that doesn’t have us drowning in sadness or horror. 

Humor gives us a way to markedly change our physiology as we engage with those traumatic experiences— it’s well documented that laugher can “goose” the production of endorphins, serotonin, and dopamine, “feel good” chemicals in the body. 

Humor can give us a way to engage with our pain while kind of stepping outside of our memory  of it all— because jokes, by definition, require us to see ourselves as a character in a little story, at last for a second. 

All of which is to say: it’s perfectly okay to joke and laugh, even amidst the sh*t show of having survived trauma. 

It doesn’t mean you weren’t “really” hurt. It doesn’t mean you’re “over” that hurt now. 

All it means is that your nervous system has found a tool to cope and create a little snatch of “feel good”— which, when we’re in pain or a suicidal crisis, can be literally life saving. 

Here’s the catch, though: when we use humor to cope with or process CPTSD, we don’t want to fall into the trap of turning that tool against ourselves. 

Humor is like any tool. It’s like a hammer. A hammer can help build a house— in fact, it’s pretty difficult to build a house WITHOUT a hammer— but it can also mash our fingers if we use it carelessly. 

So— use humor as a CPTSD recovery tool, if it resonates with you. 

Just be mindful that Trauma Brain doesn’t hijack that ver useful tool and turn it against you. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

How the mental filter and emotional reasoning distortions tag team trauma survivors.

Our trauma programming often pulls this maneuver where it tells us that the things we do right or well are “random”— but the things we struggle with represent the “real” us.

You know this move? 

Trauma survivors often struggle with the distortion cognitive therapists call the “mental filter,” meaning we tell ourselves that all the bad stuff about us “counts,” but the good stuff “doesn’t count.” 

It’s as if we go out of the way to filter out of our experience anything that might possibly build our self esteem or support us in our recovery— but we cheerfully usher in anything that makes us feel like garbage or “confirms” our negative self image. 

The b*tch of it all is, it all feels very real. 

When it’s happening, we don’t realize we’re doing it. 

All we know is, it FEELS very right to brush off potential positives— and it FEELS very accurate to accept negatives about ourselves as “obviously” true. 

Here’s the thing: feelings aren’t facts. Not in this case, anyway. 

You might have heard the term “emotional reasoning” at some point in your recovery journey. It refers to another cognitive distortion, wherein we assume that things that FEEL true are “of course” true…when the reality is, how true something FEELS is not a reliable indicator of how true it ACTUALLY is. 

I know, I know. It can be hard to accept that something we FEEL is very true, something that SEEMS very true in our head, may not be true— but this is part of what trauma conditioning does to us. It warps our sense of perspective when it comes to evaluating truth, especially the it comes to judging ourselves. 

Understand: I’m NOT saying that we need to go through the world constantly doubting or questioning our gut. Our gut, what we instinctively feel makes sense, is a super important and valid source of information, especially about what we need and what’s going on inside us. 

Absolutely pay attention to your gut. 

And also: be crystal clear that trauma has brainwashed you and me to be harder on ourselves that is realistic or necessary. 

Be real about the fact that trauma conditioning will absolutely have us filtering out things we do well or right, telling us that our strengths and successes “aren’t real” or “don’t count”— not because that’s the truth, but because CPTSD does NOT want us building self esteem. 

We are not vulnerable to mental filter and emotional reasoning distortions because we’re “stupid.” 

We’re vulnerable to them because we’ve been conditioned. Programmed. Brainwashed. 

I know people don’t love to hear that, but it’s the reality of CPTSD. 

And unless we’re willing to see our trauma programming for what it is and what it does— especially how it mangles our beliefs about ourselves and our worth— realistic trauma recovery is going to be a pipe dream. 

Reality and recovery require us to be realistic and compassionate with ourselves— including (especially!) when our trauma condoning says we do nothing but suck and fail. 

Yes, you struggle. But that doesn’t mean you “only” suck and fail. That’s the mental filter and emotional reasoning distortions tag teaming you, enabled by CPTSD programming. 


Easy does it. Just start noticing when it’s happening. That’s the first step. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Trauma Brain and Relationship Struggles.

Trauma Brain, the internalized voice of our abusers and bullies, very often gives us an enormous amount of sh*t about our relationship struggles. 

So many trauma survivors struggle with relationships— so many HUMANS struggle with relationships— and our trauma conditioning just loves, loves, loves to blame and shame us for our relationship issues. 

The irony is, it’s often Trauma Brain— our complex trauma programming— that created or significantly contributed to those relationship issues in the fist place. 

Relationships can be complicated for CPTSD survivors. 

Complex trauma, by definition, is pain that very often wraps itself around our most important connections and relationships. 

Complex trauma tends to chip away at our sense of fundamental competence and worthiness— which then often sabotages our attempts to be close with (or tolerate closeness from) anyone else. 

One of the most frequently mentioned issues in my comments is how CPTSD does a number on our ability to trust. 

Hell, CPTSD ever often does a number on our ability to even see positives in other people— let alone in ourselves, trying to connect and relate to other people. 

And as we struggle with it all, Trauma Brain is going to becoming at us, blaming and shaming. 

(Blaming and shaming is pretty much what Trauma Brain does best.)

Trauma Brain is going to tell you your relationship struggles happen because you’re “broken.” 

Or because you’re “scared.” 

Or because you’re fundamentally “undesirable” or “unworthy.” 

Trauma Brain is going to tell you that if you weren’t so “broken” or “unworthy,” you’d “obviously” be surrounded by friends and lovers— and you’d find it easy to connect and relate to them. 

Here’s the truth: yes, CPTSD makes relationships (and attraction, and sex, and consistency in relationships) complicated— but that’s not about your fundamental worth. 

Some of the most amazing people in the world struggle with relationships because of old patterns and old pain— and that does not make them less amazing. 

Remember: you are not fundamentally “broken.” You are injured— but your injury is not fundamental to who you are. 

Your injury is not your “personality.” 

And, importantly: your injury is not permanent. 

Your current relationship struggles do not represent your ultimate relationship destiny. 

But most importantly: your relationship struggles are not your fault. 

Blame and shame, Trauma Brain’s favorite tools, miss the mark on this one. 

There’s no denying you are injured, and in need of support and tools to heal— but that’s very different from “your’e just bad.” 

Or “you’re just gross.” 

Or “you’re just destined to be alone.”

Remember: Trauma Brain is not interested in truth or reality. It just wants you to feel a certain kind of way— and it fully understands that your pain points around relationships are a fast track to getting you to feel that way. 

You are not the first, last, or only survivor to struggle with relationships. Ask me how I know. 

And your current struggle is not a life sentence. Regardless of what Trauma Brain just whispered in your ear as you read that. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

“Fake it till you make it?” Nah.

I’m not a big fan of “fake it till you make it.” 

For CPTSD recovery to be realistic and sustainable, I prefer “practice it until you’re better at it.” 

Here’s the thing: the habits that trauma recovery requires of us do not come easy to most survivors. 

Self-respect? Self-trust? Self-care? Are you kidding? 

Trauma programs us to find all of those pretty abhorrent. 

Our trauma conditioning most often wants us talking to and behaving toward ourselves more or less like our abusers did— and respect, trust, and care do not fit that bill. 

So recovery is necessarily going to ask us to try on and get better at self-nurturing things that we have spent an entire lifetime NOT doing and feeling. 

It’s going to be awkward. 

Hell, sometimes those new habits themselves are going to create anxiety in us. 

Understand: recovery habits are not awkward or anxiety provoking because we don’t “deserve” respect, trust, or care. It’s because self-respect, self-trust, and self-care are UNFAMILIAR. 

Of COURSE we’re not good at them. Of COURSE they don’t feel “natural” or “right”— yet. 

We need to practice them. 

Practice is not “faking” anything. It’s trying something. 

It’s starting where we are, and doing our best to do the thing— even if the best we can do today is an awkward, half-assed, cringey mini-version of the thing. 

Practice changes our brain and nervous system. 

Things that we repeatedly think, feel, and do, we get better at thinking, feeling, and doing. It’s called “neuroplasticity.” 

I will never ask you to “fake” anything in trauma recovery. 

I will ask you to step out of your comfort zone— and to remember that our comfort zone was most likely shaped by our experiences with abuse and neglect. 

I will ask you to practice self-care habits like self-respect, self-trust, and self-care, even though they’re hard right now. 

Practice does not make “perfect.” I am utterly UN-interested in the fantasy of “perfection,” at least when it comes to CPTSD recovery. 

Practice makes skill. 

Practice makes progress. 

Practice turns CPTSD and DID recovery from this hypothetical thing you’re reading about on the internet, to a lived reality that you are creating day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute. 

Don’t “fake it till you make it.” 

Practice it, knowing that every time you do the new thing, you incrementally, microscopically, realistically change your nervous system. 

Neuroplasticity is real— and so is trauma  recovery. 

drglenndoyle

You are not, actually, “incoherent.”

Our CPTSD programming not only makes us feel like sh*t— it often makes us feel incoherent. 

We try to explain what we’re experiencing to others, friends, a therapist, whomever— but it just doesn’t come out right. 

No matter the words we use, or how many words we use, we just…can’t…explain it the way it actually feels. The way it actually is. 

Then…the shame sets in. 

We don’t quite understand why we can’t express ourselves— but we know we feel embarrassed about it. 

Turns out, that’s part of our trauma programming, too. 

Trauma conditioning is real good at convincing us that EVERYTHING is our fault, and EVERYTHING is our responsibility. 

At some point we just kind of give up trying. 

Nobody is going to understand or care about our experience anyway— so we tell ourselves— so why bother? 

You need to know: you are not as “incoherent” as Trauma Brain wants you to believe you are. 

Remember that Trauma Brain not only wants you miserable, it also wants you silent. 

CPTSD does NOT want you reaching out. It does NOT want you expressing yourself. 

CPTSD wants you alone, hating yourself, convinced that no one can relate and no one cares. 

So— it floods you with shame for even TRYING to express yourself. 

It convinces you you can’t express yourself well. 

It convinces you what you have to say doesn’t matter. 

Listen to me: that’s bullsh*t. 

You can express yourself. 

What you have to say matters. 

If I believed Trauma Brain’s bullsh*t, I wouldn’t be writing these words, and you wouldn’t be reading these words. 

Keep trying to express yourself. 

It’s true that not everyone will be able to keep up or appreciate your story or know how to respond— but that’s a them issue. Not a you issue. 

You are not “incoherent.” 

You are smart, you are articulate, and your words are key to your trauma recovery. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

For CPTSD recovery to work, sometimes we have to give up on a relationship.

Sometimes we’ve gotta give up on certain relationships, personal or professional. 

It sucks, but it’s a fact. 

Some relationships just do not meet our needs— any need we have. 

Some relationships we entered into when we have different needs than we have now. 

Some relationships we entered into not quite knowing what we were in for. 

Some relationships we entered into under false pretenses— that is, we were deceived about what would be expected and asked of us in the relationship. 

I’m not talking only, or even mainly, about romantic relationships. 

All of us have dozens of relationships we engage with daily. Our job is a relationship. Services we use are a relationship. If and how we engage with our church is a relationship. 

Our very identity is a relationship— with ourselves. 

We even have relationships with “parts” of ourselves that determine many aspects of how we feel and function that we’re often not even all that aware of. 

And sometimes we need to reevaluate if or how we engage in those relationships. 

Now, the relationships with “parts” of ourselves, we can’t opt out of. We need those relationships to be positive and trustworthy. 

But, other relationships, personal and professional? Well— sometimes they need to significantly change, or even end, if our trauma recovery is to be realistic and sustainable. 

Sometimes we outgrow relationships. 

Sometimes we heal, and a relationship we entered into when we were wounded no longer fits. 

Sometimes a relationship that once upon a time served a need for us, just doesn’t anymore. 

I wish I could tell you we could work our CPTSD recovery and never have to confront leaving a job or limiting contact with a person or going no contact with a person or leaving a church or breaking up with a toxic partner. 

I wish I could tell you that we can do all of this without making significant changes to our beliefs about who we are. 

But that’s not reality. 

Turns out CPTSD recovery is full of realities that are going to make us uncomfortable, at least in the short term. 

And the fact is, many of the relationships that have been a part of our world have also maintained and depend our trauma. And we have to be uncompromisingly real about that. 

It is okay to have mixed feelings about giving up on some relationships. Especially if they’ve been part of our world for a long time. 

It can be bittersweet. And it’s often anything but “easy.”

(Yes, “easier said than done.” Let me say it first.)

But what we’re building in CPTSD recovery is too important.

Our recovery has to come first. 

drglenndoyle

CPTSD is not only– or even mainly– about “back then.”

What “they” often don’t understand is, the damage CPTSD does isn’t limited to “back then.” 

Even if the abuse ended long ago, survivors have been taking hits every day since. 

Put another way: trying to function and live life with CPTSD is, itself, a complex trauma. 

Living with CPTSD checks all the boxes of what makes for a complex trauma: it happens over time; it is functionally inescapable; and it definitely entwines with our most important relationships. 

CPTSD survivors are often shamed for “still” being “hung up on” things that happened “so long ago.” 

What the world doesn’t understand is that our pain today isn’t entirely, or even mostly, about what happened then. 

Our pain today is focused on our struggles handling today— which is a struggle we’ve been enduring every day since what happened happened “so long ago.” 

What happened then was painful. 

But also painful are the opportunities we’ve missed— or f*cked up— in the years since, due to or trauma symptoms and struggles. 

The relationships we’ve lost. 

Hell, the SLEEP we’ve lost. 

The world doesn’t understand that, while, yes, we did demonstrably survive our trauma, it is still a very open f*ckng question whether we all survive our recovery. 

There is a myth that we just need to “process” the initial trauma we endured in order to recover from it. 

Trauma processing certainly can be a part of our recovery blueprint— but to actually recover from CPTSD, we need to understand that our CPTSD is not entirely about our original trauma. 

It’s often said that pain becomes trauma when we endure it alone. 

So, so, so many CPTSD survivors have been enduring their pain alone— year, after year, after year. 

So many CPTSD survivors have felt unsafe even trying to describe what we’ve been carrying all this time— often because w know we’re going to get sh*t to the tune of, “but that was so LONG ago— you’re still hung up on THAT?” 

So— we keep it to ourselves. 

Which is exactly how CPTSD deepens. In silence. In isolation. 

This is how CPTSD becomes so much a part our daily life that we often actually mistake CPTSD for our personality. (Also why CPTSD is frequently misdiagnosed as a “personality disorder.”) 

CPTSD is not about “back then.” Not entirely. 

CPTSD is also about the long term complex trauma of living with CPTSD— often having no idea this isn’t normal or how things will be forever. 

The good news is: understanding the nature of our trauma— all our trauma, original and subsequent— is the first step to realistic, sustainable recovery. 

You can do this. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

CPTSD and executive functioning.

CPTSD f*cks up our executive functioning— our decision making. Literally, our ability to execute the tasks that comprise our life. 

But many survivors don’t know it’s trauma f*cking with us. 

We assume we just suck at decision making. 

Often we assume we’e “stupid”— because that’s frequently the language our bullies and abuses used, isn’t it? 

“Stupid,” “lazy,” “selfish.” All gems that frequently showed up in how we were talked to growing up. 

What many survives have in common is the experience of feeling that EVERYTHING is our fault and EVERYTHING is our responsibility. 

If something’s gone wrong, it “must” be because we made a “bad” decision. 

If we’re struggling, it “must” be because we somehow chose or set ourselves up to struggle. 

The truth is, trauma often gets in our head and distorts our perceptions, beliefs, and priorities. 

Which, yes, results in us making decisions we don’t love— but many of those decisions aren’t exactly “free.” 

How can a decision be “free” when our sympathetic nervous system is lit up like a Christmas tree? 

Many not-so-awesome decisions we make often boil down to, our “fight” or “fawn” trauma responses were activated. 

When we’re triggered, we end up doing things that are not aligned with our goals our values— not because we’re exactly “choosing” those things, but because some part of us thinks we NEED to do those things to SURVIVE. 

I’ve said it a thousand times: we are not ourselves when we’re triggered. We become who we think we need to be to survive. 

We do not “choose” trauma responses— including those trauma responses that can look like “choices” from the outside. 

Many of us don’t like to admit that CPTSD impairs our executive functioning. It makes us feel powerless. 

We want to believe that we have the “freedom” to choose, at all times. 

We might have the “freedom” to choose— but when our brain is awash in stress chemicals and our nervous system is on fire having been triggered, we may simply not have the ABILITY to choose in that moment. 

It’s okay. You’re working on it. 

First thing’s first: pay attention to how trauma and triggers distort your executive functioning. Your decision making ability. 

You’re definitely not alone. 

(Ask me how I, personally, know.) 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

CPTSD and DID are injuries. Not judgments.

CPTSD is going to try to convince you your struggles and symptoms mean there’s something fundamentally “wrong” with you, personally— but you need to know that’s not true. 

CPTSD is an injury. We didn’t ask for it. We couldn’t avoid it. 

Neither CPTSD nor DID reduce to something being fundamentally “wrong” with us as people. 

We are not struggling with CPTSD or any of its symptoms— dissociation, depression, anxiety, self harm urges, suicidal ideation— because we are “weak” or “bad.” 

CPTSD and DID occur when the human psyche is subjected to specific kinds of pressure without support or escape. It’s just like what happens to a tendon or a bone when it’s subjected to certain kinds of pressure— they break. 

That’s not a design flaw with the tendon or bone— of COURSE they break when subjected to certain kinds of pressure. 

And the fact that CPTSD or DID develops when our nervous and endocrine systems are subjected to certain kids of pressure is exactly the same— it’s not due to a flaw or weakness in us. 

It’s just what happens. 

It’s tempting to get up in our head about why we developed CPTSD in response to our experience, whereas others didn’t— but what I can tell you, definitively, is that that difference has absolutely nothing to do with “character” or any other measure of “goodnesss” or “toughness.” 

We did not ask for this. 

Our vulnerability to trauma responses does NOT have a moral component. 

And we do not heal injuries by returning again and again to our insistence that we “shouldn’t” be injured. 

So we’re injured. We can’t deny or ignore our way out of it. 

We CAN care for our injury as best we know how— in the case of CPTSD, leveraging the tools of self forgiveness, self talk, mental focus, and physiology, especially our breathing. 

Yeah, I said self forgiveness. Not because we need “forgiveness” for things that happened TO us. 

But sometimes it helps to use that language with ourselves, to the tune of: “I forgive myself for being vulnerable to injury. 

I forgive myself for being human. 

I forgive myself for needing care. 

I forgive myself for every symptom and reaction today— even the ones that frustrate the hell out of me.” 

Neither CPTSD nor DID means YOU are “wrong,” or “bad,” or “weak.” 

They are injuries. Wounds. 

Care for them as such, with compassion and patience and realism. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Why recovery supporting self talk is hard.

When we fist start paying attention to our self-talk in trauma recovery, it can be kind of shocking. 

We can be really f*cking mean to ourselves. 

We can be really f*cking mean to ourselves, without intending or trying to. 

Very few trauma survivors wake up in the morning and say to ourselves, “I’m going to beat the sh*t out of myself today.” 

Most of the time, that’s just how things work out— because we, like most of humanity, navigate most of our days on autopilot. 

We let our old programming run how we talk to and behave toward ourselves— and guess how our old programming has us talking to and behaving toward ourselves? 

Most of the time our old programming has us talking to and behaving toward ourselves like our bullies and abusers did. 

Mind you: this isn’t because we WANT to be like our bullies and abusers. 

Most of the survivors reading this would actually do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to NOT be like our bullies and abusers. 

But many of us learned how to relate to ourselves through the example our bullies and abusers set. 

We internalized it. Unwittingly “downloaded” it into our nervous system. 

That’s why it’s so easy to be so hard on ourselves: we have lots of practice at it. 

We experienced it for so long, it kind of sunk in. Became part of our operating system. 

Then kicking the sh*t out of ourselves became so second nature, we stopped noticing when we were doing it. 

Years and years of that sh*t— is it any wonder that our “parts” and inner child don’t feel safe?

That conditioning is also why it’s so hard to STOP kicking the sh*t out of ourselves— because when we start intentionally trying to talk and relate to ourselves with compassion and kindness, it feels…weird. Wrong. Awkward. 

What that feeling ACTUALLY  is is, “unfamiliar.” 

CPTSD recovery is going to ask us, over and over again, to scramble old patters. Scratch old records. 

That starts with our self-talk. 

It’s real important we get OUT of the habit of talking to ourselves like our bullies and abusers did— even (especially!) if we’re deep in that habit. 

Yeah. Easier said than done. 

But real important to do, if we want our trauma recovery to be realistic and sustainable. 

Easy does it. Breathe; blink; focus. 

Just start by paying attention to your inner monologue.