drglenndoyle

“Everyone is mad at me and everybody hates me.”

Trauma Brain may take time every day to “helpfully” inform you that everybody is mad at you and everybody hates you. 

One of the most common experiences of many trauma survivors is worrying every day— or just feeling certain, every day— that people are mad at us. That people hate us. That people are about to yell at us or turn on us. 

Mind you: someone may very well be mad at you. People do get mad, sometimes for irrational or not terribly understandable reasons, and some peoples’ anger can absolutely be over the top. 

That is to say: Trauma Brain is not necessarily wrong about someone maybe being mad at you. 

What Trauma Brain— what I call the internalized voices of our bullies and abusers, which we unwittingly play on repeat for decades— is distorting, however, is what that might mean. 

First off, we’re usually not in as much “trouble” as Trauma Brain wants us to think we are. 

Even if someone IS mad at us, that doesn’t necessarily equate to being “in trouble” or in danger the way Trauma Brain wants us to believe (which again, doesn’t mean we’re NEVER actually in trouble or in danger due to somebody’s anger— it just  means Trauma Brain is most often distorting things, as it does). 

What’s usually happening when we feel this way is, we’re getting yanked into emotional flashback. 

Emotional flashbacks aren’t quite the same as sensory flashbacks, the traditional yanked-back-in-time experience the world calls “flashbacks.” 

When we’re experiencing an emotional flashback, we’re often aware that we’re in the here-and-now, at least as far as our senses go— but mentally and emotionally, we suddenly feel like we did back there, back then. 

Usually small. Usually dependent. Usually afraid. 

That “in trouble” feeling is real good at evoking emotional flashbacks— making us feel like a kid again, and not in a good way. 

We need to remember, when we’re worried or convinced we’re “in trouble” and about to be yelled at or abandoned, that we may very well be responding from a place of emotional flashback— and we need to manage it with compassion, realism, and patience, not panic. 

Yes, this can absolutely be hard to do. 

But now that you’ve read this, you’re going to have at last a little easier time remembering the next time it happens to you. 

Acknowledge what’s happening, breathe, and turn toward that scared, stuck-in-the-past part of you with compassion and patience. 

Remind yourself that, no matter who may or may not be mad at you now, no matter the “trouble” you may or may not be in now, you will handle it. 

Remind yourself that the days where you had to handle scary situations on your own are over— that the young “parts” of you no longer need to scrap and improvise to survive. 

The “parts” of us that get stuck in emotional flashback need, more than anything, presence and reassurance— not least because they’re used to being shamed, belittled, or ignored. 

Again: I’m not saying that it’s impossible for someone to be mad at you, or for you to be “in trouble” with them. I’ve been in plenty situations where another adult was quite mad at me, and I was definitely “in trouble” with them. 

What I’m saying is that our trauma conditioning will try to spin that into an emergency in our nervous system that it doesn’t have to be. 

(And, not for nothing, in my experience Trauma Brain’s insistence that “everyone” is mad at us is very often exaggerated to the point of qualifying as “bullsh*t.”)

Once again, we’re back to the core of realistic trauma recovery: our relationship with ourselves. Which, for trauma recovery to stick, has to be compassionate, accepting, realistic, and supportive.

A tall order, I know, when we’ve been conditioned by trauma to hate and distrust ourselves. 

That’s why we breathe; blink; focus;  and take all of this one day, one hour, one minute at a time. 

drglenndoyle

We don’t “think” or “decide” our way out of CPTSD.

CPTSD is not the kind of thing that can just be “thought” or “decided” away. 

But the way our culture talks about “overcoming trauma,” you might think CPTSD is the kind of thing we can just “opt out of,” provided we have enough “courage.” 

So many survivors, day after day, are subjected to utter silliness from the the culture, the media, and even people in our lives, when the subject of trauma comes up. 

People who don’t understand CPTSD is a different animal from PTSD will confidently opine that “exposure” is the way to heal trauma. 

People whose only reference point for dissociation is movies in which Dissociative Identity Disorder is dramatized and distorted will confidently describe what DID supposedly looks like and how it woks. 

People who can’t distinguish between self harm or suicidal ideation and self harming or suicidal behavior will confidently discuss how to manage personal risk and safety. 

On, and on. Everybody who has access to the internet, or who otherwise has access to our ears, might seem to have opinions, sometimes strong ones, about how to manage or heal our CPTSD. 

Many times their suggestions boil down to, “have you tried NOT thinking or feeling that way?” 

Voice some version of this to a trauma survivor, and watch how our expression goes blank. 

Because we’ve heard that a lot. 

We’ve heard that healing CPTSD is a matter of “leaving the past in the past.” 

We’ve hard that healing CPTSD is a matter of “changing our thoughts.” 

We’ve heard that healing CPTSD is a matter of “forgiveness.” 

We’ve heard a lot of things— but what we don’t often hear is any kind of nuance or depth about how any of those “suggestions” is supposed to work in the real world. 

In my experience, real world CPTSD recovery has to take seriously the fact that our symptoms are not “choices”— they are the result of years of conditioning, programming, and coercion. 

Our nervous and endocrine systems CAN change— but only with a recovery blueprint that truly understands and respects our injury. 

I believe the bedrock skills of CPTSD recovery are self-talk, mental focus, and managing our physiology, especially our breathing— but HOW we leverage these tools is not obvious or easy. To try to reduce them to “leaving the past in the past” is ineffective— and insulting. 

Realistic, sustainable CPTSD recovery is going to ask us to tune out  much of the cultural noise around trauma and recovery. 

Realistic CPTSD recovery is going to ask us to check in with ourselves, a lot, and work our recovery day by day, hour by hour. 

Realistic CPTSD recovery is going to ask us to get very real about how little “control” we have over how we feel and function— and very real about how we can leverage the actual INFLUENCE we have over our feelings and choices today. 

Do not get discouraged or otherwise head f*cked by anybody’s breezy assertion that we can “think” or “decide” our way out of CPTSD. 

You’re not “crazy,” “stupid,” or “lazy”— CPTSD is a b*tch. 

Recovery starts by realistically understanding what we’re up against— conditioning— and how long term patterns actually change: one baby step, one day, one hour, one minute, one micro choice at a time. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

F*ck judging our thoughts and feelings.

Judging the sh*t out of ourselves is going to make every “sticky” thought or feeling we have, “stickier.” 

Trauma survivors are very often conditioned to show ourselves no mercy when it comes to what we “should” and “shouldn’t” think or feel. 

Barely a thought crosses our mind without us passing a harsh judgment on it. 

Barely a feeling touches our heart without us excoriating ourselves for feeing things, or feeling things more intensely, than we “should.” 

The truth is, there are no “shoulds” when it comes to thoughts or feelings— we think what we think and we feel what we feel. We like some thoughts and feelings more than others— but none of them are “evidence” that we’re doing this whole “being a human” thing “wrong.” 

But that’s not what Trauma Brain is going to tell us. 

Trauma Brain, what I call the internalized voices of our bullies and abusers that we play on repeat for decades, will tell us we “have” to judge and obsess over what we think and feel. 

Trauma Brain especially likes to tell us that we’re feeling “too much.” That we’re “too sensitive.” That the intensity with which we feel things is evidence we’re “weak” or “broken.” 

That is straight Trauma Brain BS (Belief Systems— but also, you know, the other kind of “BS”). 

Here’s the thing: those thoughts and feelings that we don’t love? Judging ourselves for them is going to make them hang out in our brain and body for much longer than they otherwise would. 

Judgment makes “sticky” thoughts and feelings much “stickier.” 

Nobody reading this judges their thoughts and feelings for the hell of it. We are responding to conditioning. We were programmed to relate to ourselves harshly. 

We do need to decide that we’re tong to change how we relate to ourselves— but changing that pattern requires more than a “decision.” 

It requires us to catch ourselves when we’re doing it, push pause, and choose to talk to ourselves differently. 

To scratch that old record— again, and again, and again. 

Not easy. Worth the effort— but not easy. 

Remember, when you’re tempted to beat the sh*t out of yourself for something you’re thinking or feeling, “this is only going to prolong my relationship with this thought or feeling I hate.” 

Then I recommend inserting this well-validated, very clinical turn of phrase into your self-talk: “F*ck that.” 

Because f*ck judging your thoughts and feelings, you know? 

drglenndoyle

What self-acceptance is and isn’t in trauma recovery.

Why do we emphasize self-acceptance in trauma recovery? 

It’s not because we love where we are in life. 

It’s not even because we love WHO we are at this moment. 

If we’re working a trauma recovery, we by definition want to change both where and who we are. We don’t work a trauma recovery to stay the same. 

We emphasize acceptance in trauma recovery not because we don’t want to change, but because we DO want to REALISTICALLY change— and realistic change does not start with self-rejection or self-hate. 

If self-rejection or self-hate were successful or sustainable change strategies, most trauma survivors would have zero problems changing. 

But self-rejection and self hate are not— either sustainable or successful change strategies. 

Self-acceptance is not about approving of where or who we are. It’s about acknowledging that we are starting exactly where we’re starting. 

It means being realistic about what we’re up against. 

It means being realistic about our strengths and our vulnerabilities. 

But most of all, self-acceptance means we are not going to relate to ourselves like our bullies and abusers did. 

It means we are not going to try to influence our own behavior via shame and pressure— even if that’s what we were taught or what we experienced growing up. 

Many people new to the Twelve Step recovery tradition are confused by Step One, which emphasizes not only acceptance, but powerlessness. 

How on earth are we supposed to recover, if the price of admission to recovery is “accepting” that we are “powerless” over our problem? 

That’s the thing: we are not accepting that we are “powerless” OVER our problem. 

We are accepting that we are powerless over the fact that this is exactly where we are right now. 

That things are exactly as bad as they are, right now. 

That the past happened exactly the way the past happened. We are powerless over that. 

We are NOT “powerless” over our next micro choice. 

We are not required to “accept” the lie that Trauma Brain keeps trying to tell us— that we don’t “deserve” a different life, or that it’s just “too hard” to recover from trauma. 

Self-acceptance is a starting point that, most importantly, differentiates us from our abusers and bullies. 

It’s not where we stay or where we end. 

It’s one necessary, important tool, especially in early recovery— but one tool does not a strategy make. 

The recovery STRATEGY is to accept where we are so we can maximize our chances of realistically CHANGING. 

drglenndoyle

Why are trauma survivors so hard on ourselves?

Why is it so hard for trauma survivors to give ourselves a break? 

Why is our first instinct always, always, always to beat the sh*t out of ourselves? 

It’s not because we love it. 

It’s usually because we’ve been CONDITIONED to do it— and to be afraid of what would happen if we didn’t do it. 

Our self-aggression very often happens so instinctively, so reflexively, that we don’t even know we’re doing it much of the time. 

Many of my patients tell me they don’t even realize how hard they’re being on themselves until I have them track their self talk for a day, or even a couple hours. 

But even after we realize how hard we’re being on ourselves, we get anxious when we think of NOT being so mean to ourselves. 

We get to thinking that we “need” to be hard on ourselves— or else we won’t be “motivated.” 

We get to thinking not being so hard on ourselves will result in us getting “soft.” 

We get to thinking we “have” to be so hard on ourselves, because “self-compassion” is this touchy feely concept that isn’t REALLY important— that “real” adults talk to themselves harshly. 

“That’s just the way it is,” we tell ourselves. 

We might even tell ourselves that OTHER people might “deserve” more compassionate treatment— but not us. 

We deserve the “tough love,” maybe minus the love. 

That’s what our conditioning tells us. And most CPTSD survivors have been conditioned, over and over, year after year, to talk to ourselves in very specific, very harsh ways. 

If we stay on autopilot, we don’t stand a chance against that conditioning. That programming. 

The good news is, we don’t have to stay on autopilot. 

The bad news, or mixed news, anyway, is that going off autopilot is a b*tch. 

It’s tiring. It’s annoying. It’s a distraction from the other sh*t we have to do in our life, like work, raising kids, and caring for pets. 

Our brain will keep trying to drag us back to our old conditioning, our old programming, because that’s the pattern it knows. That’s the pattern that is etched into our nervous system. That’s the path of least resistance. 

Working our recovery means turning away from that familiar path of least resistance. 

That’s why I say trauma recovery requires courage and determination and focus that most non-survivors can’t even fathom. 

We can change our habitual self talk, as surely as we can unlearn any old way of being and learn any new way of being. Humans unlearn and learn new patterns every day, every year. 

Once upon a time it was the most natural, normal pattern to go to the bathroom in our diapers. In order to learn to use the actual toilet, we had to change everything that was “natural” to us once upon a time through repeated practice. 

Changing our brain in trauma recovery is no different. 

We’re just a little older now, and saddled with more BS— Belief Systems— than we were then. 

drglenndoyle

Notice.

Notice when you’re telling yourself a story about how their behavior, is your fault. 

Notice when you’re telling yourself a story about how you’re “only” suffering because you are “weak.” Or “stupid.” Or, or, or. 

Notice when you’re telling yourself a story about how you don’t “deserve” better than you’re experiencing now. 

Notice when you’re telling yourself a story about how you’re The Exception to the fact that human brains and nervous systems can change with experience and guidance and support. 

Notice when you’re telling yourself a story about how because certain things happened to you, you “must” be “destined” for pain and misery for the rest of your life. 

Notice when you’re telling yourself a story about how none of the recovery tools that work for other survivors, will work for you. 

Notice when you’re telling yourself a story about how you “should” be further along in you recovery by now. 

Notice when you’re telling yourself a story about how you “should” be fairer or kinder or give another chance to people or institutions that hurt you. 

Notice when you’re telling yourself a story about how recovery is too complicated for you to wrap your head around. 

Notice when you’re telling yourself a story about how you don’t have the “willpower” or patience or focus to meaningfully recover from trauma. 

Notice when you’re telling yourself a story about how you “can’t” let on to anyone, under any circumstances, how much you’re struggling.

Notice when you’re telling ourself a story about how the “memory holes” in your past “must” mean that there’s nothing there. 

Notice when you’re telling yourself a story about how what happened to you wasn’t “bad enough” to result in your current symptoms and struggles. 

Just notice. 

Notice, and remind yourself: this is BS. Belief Systems. 

They’re Belief Systems so common to trauma survivors that I can list example after example just now, and know that it will resonate with most of the survivors reading my page. 

None of those are true. 

Some of them start out with kernels of truth, but Trauma Brain— what I call the internalized voices of our bullies and abusers, that play in our head on repeat for years— effortfully, very effectively, warps them into self-defeating assertions that we buy hook, line, and sinker. 

Why do we swallow Trauma Brain BS? Not because we’re “stupid.” 


Because we’ve been brainwashed. Conditioned. Programmed. 

Realistic trauma recovery is about scratching the record. Waking up. 

Seeing the stories for what they are. 

And creating new stories for ourselves that are more reflective of reality and more relevant to who we are and what we’re all about. 

drglenndoyle

Your recovery is more important.

Your recovery is more important. 

More important than what just happened. 

More important than what happened back then. 

Your recovery is more important than what they say. 

More important than what they think. 

Even more important than what they may or may not do. 

Your recovery is more important than what you feel. I know that may sound strange, but often we might feel as if we can’t do this, as if we don’t deserve this, as if there’s no point to this. 

That’s all trauma conditioning BS (Belief Systems)— and your recovery is more important than trauma BS. 

Your recovery is more important than your grief. I know that might sound strange, too, but we very often experience our grief as overwhelming, and get the idea in our head that we can’t continue on in recovery because our grief is so overwhelming. 

Your grief is important. Your grief matters. Your grief needs to be acknowledged and honored and mourned. 

But your recovery is still more important. 

Your recovery is more important than all of these things, because it’s your recovery that enables you to functionally care about any of these things. 

Your recovery is more important than anything that might come along trying to derail your recovery— and, believe me, there will absolutely be people and events that are going to try, effortfully, to derail your recovery. 

They will try to convince you you “have no choice” but to put your recovery on hold. Put it on the back burner. 

That’s simply not true. 

I don’t care what the person or event is that is trying to convince you to disrespect your recovery — it’s wrong. 

You don’t “have to” pause or give up on your recovery for anybody or anything. 

Your recovery does not take bandwidth away from any relationship or any project you care about. 

That said, your recovery absolutely will take bandwidth away from certain projects and relationships— namely, projects and relationships that are detrimental to your authenticity, safety, or stability. 

Yeah. Your recovery is not consistent with THOSE things— and that’s the good news, actually. 

Your recovery is more important than your past. 

Your recovery is more important than your fear. 

Your fear is real, and, much like your grief, it deserves to be acknowledged with respect and clarity. 

But there is no fear that is worth abandoning your recovery over. 

There is no news that is worth abandoning your recovery over. 

There is no loss, or potential loss, that is worth abandoning your recovery over. 

Even if you’re looking at losing the most important, most treasured, most loved thing in your world, that loss is not worth abandoning your recovery over. 

To the contrary: that loss or potential loss is worth honoring and maintaining your recovery over. 

No reason or excuse or heartache is a “good” reason to abandon your recovery. 

There s no NEED to abandon your recovery. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

It’s a long walk back to Eden. Don’t sweat the small stuff.