Tag: healing

You can think about all this in terms of, “I have to work my trauma recovery every single f*cking day for the rest of my life”— but I wouldn’t recommend it. 

Rather, I would recommend you think in terms of, “every day, for the rest of my life, the tools, skills, and philosophies I’ve developed in my recovery are there for me. I’m not alone in this.” 

Trauma Brain is going to try to get you to think of recovery as something you “have” to do— but which would you would’t choose to do if you didn’t “have” to. 

Here’s the thing: no one “has” to work a trauma recovery. 

We do “have” to somehow deal with what’s happened to us in our life, and we do “have” to somehow manage the feelings, memories, and reactions we’re experiencing. We don’t get a choice about any of that. 

But we do get a choice about whether or not to work a recovery. No one can “make” us. 

The only difference will be whether we’re trying to handle the overwhelming symptoms and struggles of trauma on our own, with no plan or coherent approach— or whether we’re meeting our symptoms with a blueprint, a realistic game plan, and tools for the task that we’re constantly upgrading. 

I know which alternative I prefer. Because for a long time I tried to wing it, and that got me exactly where it got me. 

As long as we think of recovery as a burden, instead of an opportunity, we are going to resent it. 

The truth is, trauma recovery is not a burden. Trauma is a burden. 

Flashbacks are a burden. 

Body memories are a burden. 

Dissociative splitting that interferes with our ability to function and relate is a burden. 

Recovery is nothing or less than a commitment to meeting our symptoms and needs with radical presence, radical compassion, and a realistic acknowledgement that we are, and probably always will be, vulnerable in certain ways. 

You don’t want to go into a fight not having trained, not having scouted out your opponent, and not having devised a game plan for when sh*t goes sideways. 

That’s what trauma recovery is: your training program for the fight that is your life. 

I would not wish traumatic experiences on anyone. If I had my druthers, my job as a trauma specialist wouldn’t exist. I’d be making a living helping people quit smoking or something. 

But: none of us, not you reading this nor me writing this, had the option of trauma not existing, did we? 

None of us asked for this. The very fact that any of us have to think about the words “trauma” or “recovery” is utterly unfair. 

We can’t change that. 

We can’t deny or disown the utter f*cking unfairness of all of this— nor can we deny or disown the reality of it. 

Trauma recovery is about embracing reality, because we have things to do with our life that have nothing to do with trauma. 

We have relationships that we want to deepen. 

We have have careers we want to advance. 

Some of us even have a world to change. 

If we’re going to realistically do any of that, we need a coherent, effective set of tools, skills, and philosophies that guide how we respond to our trauma symptoms. 

That s to say: we need to work a recovery. 

How long will we need to work our trauma recovery? I honestly don’t know. I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to live my life without learning into a recovery paradigm for my own safety and stability. 

Your mileage may vary. But I’m not sure “how long will have I have to do this” is a particularly useful question. 

Instead, maybe try, “do I need to work my recovery today?”

In my experience, if you need to ask, the answer is very often, “yes.” 

And that’s okay. 

Recovery is not your burden. Recovery is your lifeline. 

Don’t get it twisted. 

Something that holds many survivors back in trauma recovery is, we can’t imagine a recovery that is consistent with the life we’re living now. 

I know, we’re working a trauma recovery to create a new life, that doesn’t particularly resemble the life we’re living now. 

But in the short term, if we can only envision trauma recovery as something that entails a drastic departure from our current reality, it’s likely going to affect our levels of motivation and belief. 

We’ve been around long enough to know that dramatic leaps rarely happen. They do happen, sometimes— but they tend to be the exception, not the norm. 

We’ve been around long enough to know that tomorrow is probably going to look a lot like today. Much like today looked a lot like yesterday. 

In trauma recovery, we are always swimming upstream against hopelessness and our vulnerability to becoming overwhelmed. Trying to envision our recovery as a whole new life, entirely incompatible with or removed from what we’re living now, makes us especially vulnerable to both. 

This is is why I sound like a broken record when it comes to taking baby steps. 

This is why I sound like a broken record when it comes to focusing on .01% shifts. 

This is why I sound like a broken record when it comes to setting recovery goals so small they feel stupid— goals so small it’d almost be harder NOT to achieve them. 

The truth is, I very much want a dramatically different life for you. That’s the only reason I do this work— because I love watching people completely remake themselves and their lives. 

But I want that transformation to be realistic. I want it to actually happen. I don’t want it to remain a fantasy that sounds awesome and is temporarily motivating— but which evaporates when it’s exposed to the pressures and obligations of our current life. 

Something we know very well in the behavioral sciences is that change that takes us dramatically out of our comfort zone is usually unsustainable without a massive level of support. 

I don’t know about you, but I don’t know many trauma survivors working our recovery who have a “massive level of support” handy. 

So: when I say start small, I’m not just talking about making changes you already have the strength and skill to make, although that’s obviously part of the equation. 

I say start small to avoid freaking out your nervous system. 

(If you’re a survivor working your recovery, chances are your nervous system exists at a baseline level of “freaked out”— we don’t particularly need to add to that with unrealistic expectations of recovery, you know?)

What I want for you in your recovery is to make consistent, manageable changes over time. I want, in six months, you to be able to look back on changes that you’ve made in how you think, feel, and behave, and realize, huh, it’s been six months— I didn’t think I could keep any of that up for six DAYS. 

What we think, feel, and do has a lot to do with neural pathways that have been shaped and conditioned over time. If we try to rip out every neural network we have all at once, our nervous system is going to respond to that feeling of chaos and unfamiliarity by reverting back to and doubling down on its old programming. 

That is to say, trying to make too many changes, too fast, not only won’t serve our trauma recovery— it’ll likely set us back.

Again, I don’t know about you, but I don’t have time to be set back in my trauma recovery. 

So: if you want to make radical changes in how you think, feel, and behave in the long term, I’m gonna ask you to make teeny, tiny, barely noticeable— but very consistent and very purposeful— changes in how you talk to yourself, direct your mental focus, breathe, and use your body day by day. 

This is how we realistically rebuild ourselves and our lives. 

This is how we sustainably recover. 

This is how we actually make it happen.