drglenndoyle

No trauma survivor “likes” chaos.

I’ve never met a trauma survivor who “liked” chaos. 

But I’ve met plenty who are USED to chaos. 

Plenty who get anxious when they’re NOT immersed in chaos. 

Plenty who have returned to chaotic situations after initially escaping them— but that’s not about “liking” them. 

Trauma survivors have very often learned to function in chaos. 

Not just function— to handle it effectively. To be “good” at functioning in chaos, whatever that means. 

We’re good in a pinch. Good in a crisis. 

When things calm down, though, we don’t quite know what to do. 

The adrenaline and sympathetic nervous system responses that feel our decisions in crisis are missing. 

Chaotic situations ask trauma survivors to focus on short term survival, which we know how to do— but less chaotic situations ask us to focus on long term plans and goals, which can be unfamiliar, confusing, or off-putting to us. 

Thinking about or planning for the future is often not a priority for trauma survivors who didn’t even expect to live this long— or who were conditioned to believe that positive long term outcomes never happen anyway. 

So we might retreat back into chaos. 

Chaotic relationships. Chaotic living situations. 

Then we might get sh*t for what looks to other people like a “choice”— but what, in reality, is a trauma-driven retreat into our comfort zone. 

Trauma recovery is going to ask us to confront our addiction to (not our “liking of”) chaos. 

It’s going to ask us to realistically develop the skillset of functioning in NON-chaotic environments, which is a novel concept for many of us. 

Recovery is going to ask us to forgive ourselves for supposed “choices” that landed us back in chaos in the past. 

And trauma recovery is going to ask us to accept the fact that, while we survivors may be good in a crisis, we should never have had to develop that skillset. We should have had safety and support growing up— not to be left on our own to MacGuyver our way through. 

Chaos may be all you know. That’s not your fault. 

But you’re not in recovery to handle more chaos. 

You’re in recovery to realistically learn how to tolerate peace. 

drglenndoyle

CPTSD anxiety is not “normal” anxiety.

CPTSD anxiety is not “normal” anxiety— and if we try to manage it like “normal” anxiety, we’re going to end up exhausted and demoralized. 

That said: lots of people in our life will assume CPTSD anxiety is “normal” anxiety. 

And those people will suggest all sorts of “normal” ideas for handling it. 

It’s not so much that the ideas for handling “normal” anxiety are bad, in and of themselves— it’s that people who assume our CPTSD anxiety “should” be more responsive to those ideas can get frustrated and judgmental when they don’t work. 

Everybody experiences anxiety at times. 

But it’s not the kind of crushing, consuming anxiety that accompanies CPTSD. 

CPTSD anxiety very often feels like we are going to literally die. 

It very often revolves around things we “know” we are avoiding or that we need to face— but we don’t at all feel equipped to face head on. 

Many CPTSD survivors describe their anxiety as being in an impossible bind: we cannot imagine continuing to exist this way, but we also cannot imagine NOT avoiding what every cell in our body is insisting we “have” to avoid. 

CPTSD anxiety feels like we’re simultaneously paralyzed and being pulled apart. 

That’s not “normal.” That’s not “pop a Xanax and think of Christmas” anxiety. 

CPTSD survivors are very often encouraged by the people around us to minimize or belittle our symptoms, including anxiety. 

“You’re making too big a deal of it.” 

“You’re only looking at the negative, of course you’re anxious.” 

“Everybody experiences anxiety, why are you making such a production out of it?” 

Of the things CPTSD survivors need when we’re trying to navigate post traumatic anxiety, judgment and shame are overwhelmingly unhelpful. 

Nobody is “choosing” CPTSD anxiety. 

Realistically managing CPTSD anxiety starts with meeting it with enormous validation and self-compassion. 

Use the tool of self-talk to affirm that this symptom is not “crazy”— it makes sense someway, somehow, to some part of us— and we are going to treat it with the attention and care it deserves. 

Get curious about the “part” of yourself that might be driving the anxiety— what does that “part” hold? What does it want? What does it need? 

We can manage CPTSD anxiety, but not from a place of judgment. 

CPTSD anxiety is no fun, and it is not a “choice”— and it can be exceedingly difficult when the people around us, often the people who should be on our side and have our back, lead off with invalidation. 

Easy does it. Breathe; blink; focus; and start off with validation and self-compassion. 

Just like with very CPTSD symptom we want to realistically manage and reduce. 

drglenndoyle

CPTSD hijacks our attention & dysregulates our emotions.

I think of CPSTD as a hijacker of attention. 

That’s mostly what CPTSD does. Yank our attention toward things and people that do not deserve it and that do not serve us. 

I think of CPTSD recovery as the process of relearning— or, in many cases, learning in the first place— how to retake effective control of our attention. 

Trauma yanks our attention toward memories, thoughts, and beliefs that make us feel like garbage. 

Trauma evokes self-talk that scares and demoralizes us. 

Trauma coerces our attention toward emotional regulation strategies, like substance use and self-harm, that create more problems than they solve. 

Effective trauma recovery is almost entirely about effective attention management. 

Being able to shift our attention away from things that scare and sabotage us, and toward things that support us in dealing with reality. 

Every effective trauma recovery strategy supports us in retaking control of our attention. 

One of the things that makes CPTSD recovery so hard in the fist place is the fact that most of us were not taught how to direct our attention growing up. 

Many of us assume we’re at the mercy of our attention and our emotions— that the only way we can get “over” trauma is by something magical happening, such that our attention is no long drawn toward things that make us feel like sh*t. 

Unfortunately, there is no magic in trauma recovery. 

What there is, is realistic attention management and emotional regulation— which almost always reduce down to making choices about our self-talk, mental focus, and physiology, especially our breathing. 

I wish it was more profound than that— but it’s not. 

Which is not to say any of this is easy. 

Effectively working our trauma recovery means wrangling our attention— which can be a massive pain in the ass. 

Most of us would rather not invest the effort in wrangling our attention or regulating our emotions that trauma recovery requires— and, to be clear, none of this is f*cking fair. 

Neither you nor I should have to even think about any of this sh*t. 

But— we don’t have the option of not having lived the life we lived. We don’t have the option of not having to wake up every morning and staring CPTSD in the face. 

So: wringing our attention and regulating our emotions it is. 

Step by step, day by day. 

You can do this. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

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

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

Does recovery “have” to be the most important thing ?

Something that was, and is, hard for me to wrap my head around in my own trauma and addiction recovery is, recovery simultaneously does and does not have to be the most important thing in my life at any given time. 

Many survivors struggle with recovery because it feels like this overwhelming, all consuming project— and it surely is. 

Done right, trauma and/or addiction recovery will absolutely touch and inform everything and anything we do. 

We do not get days— or even hours— “off” from being survivors and/or addicts in recovery. 

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it hundreds of times: trauma and addiction recovery aren’t just about trauma and/or addiction: recovery is actually about succeeding in life. 

It’s about self awareness. And time management. And goal setting. And self-care. You know, those things that every truly successful human being in the history of the species has more or less figured out. 

So, yes— the tools we develop to recover from trauma and/or addiction will and do absolutely serve us in everything we do, whether or not it’s directly related to our recovery proper. 

That said: I, and probably you, have things we want to do in our lives that have nothing to do with recovery. 

We have goals that go beyond safety and stability and sobriety. 

We have, or want, relationships that do not always revolve around recovery. 

We want to create times and spaces in which we can functionally forget that this big project called “recovery” is even a thing. 

And all that is legit. 

Make no mistake: I do not recommend trying to “forget” you’re a survivor or addict in recovery. That’s not going to end well. (Ask me how I know.) 

But I understand wanting and needing projects in your life that do not center recovery. 

Here’s the thing: I believe we do recovery specifically so that we DON’T have to focus on trauma or addiction 24/7. 

We’re not doing recovery just to do recovery. 

We’re doing recovery because we want to live. 

And the irony about that is, the more we prioritize recovery, the greater our opportunities to live actually are. 

Here’s the way I’ve come to think of it: recovery does not have to be the subject of your every waking thought. 

Recovery does, however, need to become the lens through which we see the world. 

All the other stuff in our life, all our other goals, all our decisions about time and energy management— we have to see them all in the context of recovery. 

Think of recovery as a project, yes— but maybe more importantly, as a tool. 

A master key. 

A key that will allow doors to open to us that do not have to do with the key, per se— but which, without the key, would remain closed to us. 

So— do we have to think about recovery every day? Yes— but only in the way that we “have” to think about any philosophical lens through which we see the world every day.

Recovery does have to be a non-negotiable in our life. We will surely die if we kid ourselves about that. 

And also: our trauma and addiction recovery does not have to become our identity. 

It becomes the TOOL through which we can safely and authentically express and explore our identity. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Trapped, controlled, in trouble.

The three most common triggers I encounter working with trauma survivors are feeling trapped; feeling controlled; and feeling “in trouble.” 

Almost every trigger many trauma survivors experience can be traced back to one or a combination of those. 

A useful recovery supporting question is often, “how is this making me feel trapped, controlled, or in trouble?” 

If you can think to ask that question, if you can get in the habit of asking it, the answer usually becomes apparent— and you can start realistically planning how to unwind that activated state. 

As it turns out, there are many more things that make us feel trapped, controlled, or in trouble than we might realize. 

That “in trouble” one, for me, is a real struggle session. 

For me, it can be triggered by a look, a tone of voice, or something shifting in someone’s energy toward me. 

I’ve literally asked relationship partners if they’re mad at me “out of nowhere,” because my hypervigilant nervous system has detected a subtle shift in their vibe toward me. 

Sound familiar? 

Similarly, it’s real easy for us survivors to feel trapped or controlled by attempts to help or support us— if we feel those resources are somehow trying to “make” us do something, or we feel we have “no choice” but to do it. 

It doesn’t particularly matter if whoever or whatever is making us feel trapped, controlled, or in trouble, actually WANTS us to feel trapped, controlled, or in trouble— if our nervous system is going down that rabbit hole, it’s going down that rabbit hole. 

We may not have a lot of say about whether or not our nervous system goes down the trapped, controlled, or in trouble rabbit hole— but if we understand those are our most common triggers, we can start to pay attention to and understand what’s happening. 

When we understand which triggers or combination of triggers is contributing to our activated state, we can make some intelligent choices about which tools we need to unwind ourselves. 

As with all effective trauma recovery, the key is paying attention, saying present, and knowing what to look and listen for. 

Easy does it. None of this is fun and none of this is a “choice.” 

The “choice” we have is whether to be realistic about our vulnerabilities, or nah. 

drglenndoyle

Feelings and trauma and our relationship with ourselves.

The problem with numbing out our negative feelings and experiences is, we also tend to numb out our positive ones, too. 

Not always, but often. Very often. 

Often enough that, when we’ve spent years, decades numbing out our pain, we often can’t remember what it’s like to feel even sort of good. 

We often settle for feeling some facsimile of good— that, honestly, doesn’t feel all that good. 

Understand: almost nobody reading this made a “choice” to numb out their feelings. 

Almost everybody reading this was conditioned to do it, to some extent or another. 

Blaming ourselves for it is a dead end. 

Realistically regulating our feelings often begins with finding ways to feel our feelings— good, bad, and otherwise— in ways that aren’t overwhelming. 

You have probably gotten all sorts of messages about your feelings over the years. 

You’ve probably been told you’re “too much.” 

You’ve probably been told you’re “too sensitive.” 

You’ve probably been told your feelings are, to one extent or another, just…wrong. 

So— you, like me, probably got in the habit of not feelings things. 

Well…that kind of oversimplifies it, doesn’t it. 

Because, after all, we do feel the things, don’t we. 

Just not…consciously. 

But we feel them. 

In our bodies. In our dreams. In our fight, flight, freeze, fawn, and/or flop reactions. 

Yeah. There’s no bypassing feelings, not really. And to the extent we try to bypass our feelings, we hand them power over us— notably, the power to interrupt our day, interrupt our relationships, interrupt our goals. 

My point is, trauma recovery often involves reevaluating our relationship with our feelings— and our conditioned strategy of trying to opt out of feeling them. 

Again: it’s not our fault. 

But our feelings have been waiting for us to return to them, to acknowledge them, to care for them. 

Trauma recovery broadly is about repairing and nurturing our relationship with ourselves. 

For my money, every decision we make in recovery comes back to: does this build or chip away at my relationship with myself? With my parts? With my inner child? 

Usually, if we can think to ask that Recovery Supporting Question, we can figure out the answer. 

Don’t fear your feelings. 

Hold them. Sit with them. Be with them. 

Even—especially— the rough ones. 

drglenndoyle

Trauma recovery is improv. “Yes, and.”

Trauma recovery is improv. 

Improv is a form of performance art in which the performers are given broad prompts, and they come up with scenarios, skits, and stores around what they are given. 

Improv obviously requires creativity. It requires focus. It can seem to require a fair amount of confidence, although it’s my experience that many introverts are surprisingly good at improv. 

People who don’t have experience with improv can find it intimidating. 

They can get it in their head that improv is a form of performance art that you’re either good at or you’re not— and if you’re not good at it, you may as well not bother trying. 

It’s true that some people tend to be naturally better at improv than others— though, in fairness, that’s true about literally any activity. 

The real truth is, as freewheeling and instinctive as improv can appear, there are principles that make for successful improv performances. 

It’s not just pure creativity or talent. It’s not all about confidence. 

The ability to perform improv is a skillset— one at which most people get demonstrably better as they work at it. 

Yes, there is a lot of room for potential flexibility within the principles and skills that make for good improv— but there’s no question that performers who know how improv works, what tends to make for successful improv performances, consistently do better at the art form. 

People who don’t think they can do improv very often surprise themselves as they learn the skills and principles of the art— and they increasingly find that they can weave their own personality and creativity into their improv skills. 

All of this can be said of trauma recovery as well. 

Many people assume they can’t “do” recovery because they’re not naturally good at the skills and tools recovery requires us to develop— but those skills and tools can be learned and developed. 

Just like no two improv performances are the same, because different performers have different strengths and styles, no two trauma recoveries look exactly the same— because different survivors have different strengths, needs, and supports. 

My trauma recovery may not look like your trauma recovery, any more than my improv performances may look like yours— but there will be principles and structure that will be common to both. 

The reason I don’t get ultra specific with recovery tools and skills on the internet is the same reason improv coaches can’t get super specific with advice on how to do improv— because each survivor and performer has different strengths, styles, and needs. 

Perhaps most importantly, the success of an improv performance depends upon accepting the implications and limitations of the prompt. In improv this process is known as meeting the prompt with a “yes, and” attitude. 

Performers who do not accept the implications and limitations of the prompt (think Michael Scott in the episode of “The Office” where he continually tries to redirect his improv scene to his own “secret agent” storyline, which had nothing to do with the prompt) can’t explore the possibilities of the potential performance. 

They can’t bring their tools or skills as performers to bear, because they refuse to accept the realty of the prompt— the baseline requirement of the performance. 

This is analogous to the necessity of trauma survivors’ accepting the realty of what happened to us— and the reality and severity of our symptoms. 

If we refuse to accept these basics of our situation— our “prompt”— we cannot bring our skills, tools, or philosophies to bear. None of it will matter, because we’ll be too busy staying in denial, instead of crafting our recovery. 

Designing a trauma recovery is like crafting an improv scene. 

Does it require creativity? Yes. Does it require individuality? Yes. 

But is it more likely to be successful if it follows the principles and involves the tools and skills known to support recovery? Yes. 

Everyone in trauma recovery could stand to learn about the skills and structure of improv. 

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.