drglenndoyle

Trauma responses and the work.

It can be helpful to remember that trauma responses occur in pairs. 

Many survivors are vulnerable to the full range of trauma responses— fight, flight, freeze, fawn, and flop— but it’s my experience that most survivors have one or two that are dominant, and they tend to be linked. 

Speaking for myself, when triggered, I often lead off with a strong “fight” response. 

I get my back up. I instinctively inhabit the aggressive “hurt them before they hurt me” energy that my father modeled. 

But, at some point, a switch gets flipped— and I tend to fall right into a “fawn” response. 

I profusely apologize. I do everything I can to signal that I am submissive, not a threat, not even a presence. 

I summarize my fight/fawn response pattern as “F*ck you; please don’t hate me.”

Mind you, there are absolutely times for fighting and for apologizing— if they’re choices. 

But trauma responses are not choices. 

They’re reflexes. They’re our nervous system getting hijacked. 

(Which can be particularly upsetting, given most survivors’ aversion to feeling controlled— or out of control.) 

Why do we want to pay attention to our characteristic trauma responses? Because our patterns can clue us in to what we need in those moments. 

Fundamentally, what our nervous system needs when we’re trauma responding is to know that we’re safe— but there are different “flavors” of safety, just as there are various “flavors” of trauma responses. 

When we’re “fighting,” we’re not especially in the mood to be soothed. We want validation. 

When we’re “fleeing,” we many not especially care about validation— we want to know there is physical distance between us and the threat. 

When we’re in “freeze,” we want to know we’re sufficiently hidden. 

And when our trauma responses occur in pairs, we can use our understanding of them to anticipate what we might need, and to realistically meet ourselves where we are. 

Trauma responses can be frustrating and overwhelming, and it can be real hard to be curious about them. 

But asking not just what trauma responses we experience, but how those trauma responses pair up— what the pattern is— can give us a framework to explore and understand both our wounds and our needs. 

One of my own issues in trauma recovery is, I feel immense shame about people I may have hurt or alienated over the years with my overdeveloped “fight” response. 

There is absolutely room in trauma recovery for making amends— just like in the Twelve Step addiction recovery tradition, taking responsibility for our behavior is part of healing— but, knowing that I have a fight/fawn pattern, it’s real important I not let the guilt over my past “fight” behavior suck me into prolonged “fawn” responses. 

Pay attention to how your trauma responses shape up and play out. 

There are almost always patterns that emerge, and those patterns connect to our most vulnerable pain points. 

I would not have either a “fight” or “fawn” pattern without my terrifying father looming in the back of my head. 

Which tells me that much of my ongoing work is going to involve supporting the “parts” of me that helped navigate— and how “hold”— the fear and stress of that relationship. 

Your mileage may vary. But this is how we do the work. 


Breathe, blink, focus. 

drglenndoyle

Our stubborn neural architecture.

Our trauma conditioning is constantly, constantly going to try to drag us back to our old patterns. 

If trauma recovery was as simple as just “do different stuff,” 100% of survivors would do different stuff, and never look back. 

But we’re constantly working against deeply conditioned patterns. 

Those patterns aren’t just mental— they’re physical. 

Neurons that fire together, wire together; and the patterns of feeling and functioning that define CPTSD have been physically molded and reinforced inside our skin for years. 

Remember that two of the key components of complex trauma are that it unfolds over time and is functionally inescapable— meaning CPTSD has plenty of time and opportunity to etch itself physically into our nervous system. 

Consequently, when we try to change, we’re going to struggle. 

That struggle has nothing to do with us being “weak.” 

It has everything to do with the fact that we’re working against well-entrenched patterns. 

We CAN change well entranced, physically rooted patterns of feeling and functioning— but it requires us to step back and take the long view of our recovery. 

Which can be hard, when we feel like sh*t and we want to kill ourselves. 

No shame, no judgment. That’s the reality many complex trauma survivors are up against. 

We change deeply etched patterns bit by realistic, consistent bit. 

We change them by getting crystal clear about our goals, and utterly real about what we need to do, day after day after day, to sustainably nudge toward them. 

This is true whether our goals are shifting our patterns of self talk; shifting our patterns of mental focus; or shifting our patterns of breathing and physiology. 

And we have to keep in mind that it’s not a matter of “if” we feel pulled back to our old patterns— that is absolutely GOING to happen. 

We’re going to want to go back to talking to ourselves like we’re someone we hate. 

We’re going to want to go back to focusing on how we suck, how things are supposedly “hopeless,” to the times we’ve tried to change and haven’t been able to. 

We’re going to want to go back to breathing shallowly and physically crumpling into ourselves like a dying star. 

We’re going to be pulled back to those patterns, not because we LIKE them. 100% of trauma survivors f*cking hate all of it. 

But we’re going to be pulled back because our neural architecture takes time to change. 

If we keep doing the recovery stuff, we WILL build new neural pathways. 

The human nervous system is infinitely moldable. Changeable. We call it “neuroplasticity.”

Hell, the fact that our nervous system changes in response to experience is one of the reasons why we’re hurting in the first place. 

Stay on target. 

Keep with the .01% nudges in self talk, mental focus, and physiology, day, after day, after day. 

Understand that pull toward your old patterns for what it is: evidence of your old, but changing, neural architecture. No more; no less. 

This is how we realistically approach recovery. This is how we make it real and sustainable. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

And do the next teeny, tiny recovery supporting thing. 

drglenndoyle

Self-talk and our most important relationship.

A core principle in trauma recovery is that our relationship with ourselves is the one that needs to be developed and protected more than any other. 

It’s one of the reasons why the Internal Family Systems approach and others like it are so useful in trauma work. 

The relationship with ourselves is what complex trauma f*cks up— and the relationship with ourselves is the one that we have to reformat and strengthen. 

It’s why I focus on self-talk as the first of the the three main trauma recovery tools I emphasize. 

(I know, you’re sick of me repeating self-talk, mental focus, and physiology over and over again— but EVERY effective trauma recovery tool comes back to a combination of those basics.)

Self-talk is not just the noise that happens to occur in our heads. 

It’s how we communicate to ourselves and our “parts” what things mean and what’s going on. 

It’s what CPTSD hijacks, alongside our mental focus and physiology. 

We need the inside of our head and heart to be safe for us. 

We need to know that when we turn toward ourselves to understand and process what things mean and what’s going on, that we won’t blithely repeat our abusers’ and bullies’ talking points. 

We need to know that, if we turn toward ourselves when we’re triggered, we will respond in the voice of a gentle, wise, realistic mentor— not a saboteur. 

Someone who loves us, not someone who hates us. 

I understand that some people think “self talk” sounds like weak sauce in the face of the symptoms and stressors we experience in CPTSD. 

I don’t think self talk solves all our problems. 

I do think it’s a necessary tool to use and the gateway to deeper self-communication and self-support that is the backbone of realistic trauma recovery. 

We manage our relationships through communication, and largely through words— including our relationship with ourselves. 

That relationship we carry with ourselves 24/7/365, that relationship that has been to hell and back thanks to the programming and conditioning of our abusers and bullies. 

What we say when we talk to ourselves really, really matters. 

How we feel when we engage with ourselves really, really matters. 

Safety starts inside. 

We could be in a totally “safe” situation physically, but if we’re not safe inside our own head and heart, if we’re afraid of or expecting an attack from ourselves, our old programming, Trauma Brain— then we’re not truly safe. 

Have your own back. 

Be on your own side. 

Come hell or high water, no matter how our old conditioning is pressuring us to go back to what’s familiar, what we know, the cognitive and emotional and behavioral patterns we’re “good” at. 

If nothing changes, nothing changes. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

And check in with yourself— all of you. 

drglenndoyle

Behaving our way into self-love, one baby step at a time.

Self-love can be a tall order, when we’ve been taught to hate ourselves. 

Self-trust can be a tall order, when we’ve been taught to distrust ourselves. 

That’s what CPTSD does: it teaches us to hate and distrust ourselves. 

It conditions us to believe that self-hate and self-distrust are what we “deserve.” 

CPTSD takes everything that’s ever happened to us that we’re not proud of, everything we’ve ever done that we’re not thrilled about, and it complies all of those experiences into a “greatest hits” reel of why we shouldn’t love or trust ourselves…and then it plays that “highlight reel” in our head, over and over again, on a loop. 

The reality is, you and I are more than the things we’ve done or experienced that we don’t love— but Trauma Brain doesn’t want us remembering that. 

Trauma Brain, the internalized voices of our bullies and abusers, wants our focus to stay squarely on things that “prove” we “shouldn’t” love or trust ourselves. 

When I keep banging on about self-talk, mental focus, and physiology as the basic tools of trauma recovery, this is what I mean by “mental focus.” 

Trauma keeps our mental focus stuck on certain patterns that make us feel certain ways— namely, like garbage— and that make it hard to feel motivated or proud or worthy. 

If we’re going to realistically recover from trauma, we need to be willing to widen and redirect our mental “spotlight” beyond that— which isn’t easy. 

Don’t try to leap right to self-love, the feeling. 

Start with self-love, the behavior. 

Start by asking yourself the Recovery Supporting Question (RSQ): “if I did love myself, what would I do? How would I behave toward myself? What would somebody who loves me do in this situation?” 

Almost always, if we can think to ask that RSQ, we’ll be able to come up with a reasonable answer. 

We may not quite know what self-love, either the feeling OR the behavior, looks like. We may have next to no experience with either the feeling or behavior of self-love. 

But most of us can take an educated guess as to which, of the alternatives we have available at any given moment, the more “loving” option would hypothetically be. 

Most of the time self-love, the behavior, revolves around self-care. 

That can mean doing things for ourselves when we don’t feel like it. 

It can mean feeding ourselves, even when we’re struggling with appetite or eating.

It can mean refraining from self-injury, even when we really, really, really want to cut or burn. 

It can mean going to therapy or taking our meds (as prescribed), even if we’re in a place of f*ck it. 

Don’t get me wrong: I understand exactly how hard it is to behaviorally love yourself, when you feel anything BUT loving toward yourself. 

I lost entire years of my life to addiction behaviors specifically, that I decided felt more “natural” than the consistent self-care that self-love demands. 

I don’t recommend it. 

Remember that we’re trying to reverse old patterns here, and old patterns, even if they’re painful, feel familiar. 

Our new patterns, even if they’re better for us, are going to feel unfamiliar— and the traumatized nervous system really, really hates and fears the unfamiliar. 

That’s why none of this is easy. Everything we’ve been immersed and conditioned in pushes against us making changes, even changes that will ultimately save our life. 

Start with little things. 

Little, daily acts of self-care. 

NOTHING is “too small” to count in this project. 

Tiny, realistic, consistent acts of self-care are how we eventually behave our way into realistic, consistent self-love, the feeling— but more importantly, how we build the self-esteem we need to fuel our trauma recovery day by day. 

Start small. Keep at it. 

And ignore Trauma Brain telling you right now as you read this that it’s “stupid” or “won’t work” for you. 

Trauma Brain is just fighting for its own survival— which depends on you continuing to kick the sh*t out of yourself. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

drglenndoyle

If nothing changes, nothing changes.

Our nervous system doesn’t do ultimatums. 

Trying to command it to do or not do something is a setup to feel frustrated and overwhelmed. 

Trying to shame it into doing or not doing something is a setup to feel like garbage. 

Our bullies and abusers very frequently tried to control our behavior via shame— so it’s real important we not fall into that trap when we’re trying to shift how we feel and behave in recovery. 

As a rule, if our bullies and abusers did it to us, it’s real important we do the opposite as we work our trauma recovery. 

What hurt us will not be what heals us. 

Many of us have been taught that pressure is an effective way to change behavior. 

The reality is, the more we pressure ourselves, the more tense we’ll feel. 

The more inadequate we’ll feel. 

The more like saying “f*ck it” we’ll feel. 

I feel strongly about keeping us as far away from the “f*ck it’s” as possible— so pressure as a behavior shaping strategy is out. 

Besides, ultimatums only work if we’re willing to walk away from a situation if the ultimatum isn’t respected— and what are we going to do, “walk away” from our nervous system? 

No, we’re not. We can’t. Even the “magic” of dissociation only gives the illusion of walking away, not the reality. 

We live in and with our nervous system. 

The quality of our recovery is going to be the quality of our relationship with said nervous system— and our “parts,” and our inner child, an our endocrine system. 

The quality of our trauma recovery is really the quality of our relationship with ourselves— and many of us have been conditioned to either abuse that relationship or take it for granted. 

It’s not our fault. Whether we developed CPTSD through childhood experiences or experiences in adulthood, we’ve likely never been taught how to relate to ourselves in realistic, respecrful, communicative ways. 

I don’t think anybody reading this wants to relate to themselves like a bully or an abuser. I just think that’s what we’re taught, what we saw modeled. 

And it’s what we need to change. 

It’s what CPTSD recovery is all about changing, actually. 

One of the biggest differences between PTSD and CPTSD is that PTSD symptoms tend to focus on what happened, whereas CPTSD patterns tend to focus on what we’ve come to believe, think, and feel about ourselves and other people as a result of what happened. 

That means realistic CPTSD recovery, by definition, has to get past the level of our reactions, to the level of our beliefs. 

We only do that by relating to ourselves in consistently safe, patient, self-compassionate, and realistic ways. 

Don’t try to pull out ultimatums on your nervous system. 

When you notice yourself trying to pull out ultimatums on your nervous system, press pause. Breathe. Blink. 

And focus in on communicating and collaborating with your nervous system, instead of trying to command it. 

Easy does it. This is a new skill and you’re becoming a new person. Give it time. 

drglenndoyle

Outer safety requires inner safety.

It would be awesome if we could somehow guarantee that others won’t try to attack us— that we’re truly safe from external threat. 

But, we can’t. 

We can’t guarantee our safety from anyone else, because we can’t control anyone else’s actions. 

If we could control anyone else’s actions, we wouldn’t have endured what we’ve endured. 

But, again, we can’t. 

Any assertion that we’re “safe” that depends on someone else doing something or not doing something, is not rock solid. We just never know for sure what is in someone else’s mind, or what they might do. 

All we can do when it comes to external safety is maximize the odds that we’ll be relatively safe, and minimize the odds we’ll be in a vulnerable position— while still living life, still having relationships, still going out in the world and living life. 

We can’t make a guarantee of “safety” our requirement for going out and engaging with the world— because there are no guarantees of external safety. 

We’ll be waiting for ever. Sequestering forever. 

(I know, there are some people reading this saying, “I don’t see the problem with sequestering forever?”)

We can’t guarantee external safety. Some survivors reading this are in positions where they can’t even influence their external safety all that much— who are in danger situations or abusive relationships that are not yet safe to leave. 

Realistic trauma recovery has to account for the potential lack of external safety out there. 

We can’t pretend “it’s safe now.” We don’t know. 

What can we do when it comes to safety, then? 

The most important thing we can do when it comes to safety is make sure that, if a threat is coming at us, it won’t be coming from us. 

We can make sure the threatening phone call is not coming from inside the house, so to speak. 

Many of us have been conditioned by our bullies and abusers to be mean to ourselves. 

More than that, even: many of us have been conditioned to respond to our painful situations by shaming, blaming, or harming ourselves. 

Many of us even have experience with responding to painful situations by threatening or trying to take our own lives. 

But if we’re serious about trauma recovery, we truly need to make our head and our heart safe territory, especially for our “parts” and our inner child— and that means we have to put a hard limit on the self-aggression. 

It doesn’t matter how we earned those patterns of self-aggression, or how long ago we learned them. We NEED our nervous system to be able to trust us. 

We need our “parts” to know they can feel what they feel and express what they need to express, without us freaking out and trying to harm or kill ourselves. 

We need to be truly safe with ourselves— even in a world that is not objectively “safe” otherwise. 

I want you to be safe from threats out there in the world. 

But the only true, relative safety from those threats comes from our commitment to handle them when they arise— and we can’t do that if we’re busy kicking the sh*t out of ourselves. 

The ability to protect ourselves from threats “out there” hinges on our self-trust. 

Can we trust ourselves to handle those threats, fight when we need to, flee when we need to?

Can we trust ourselves to stay present, size up the threat, and do what we need to do to keep our physical body, our “parts,” and our inner child safe? 

Remember that the primary impact of CPTSD is to damage our relationship with ourselves— and that has a direct impact on our overall safety. 

The world outside of us is not safe. We have to realistically manage that. 

And the only way we can is by making the world inside of us meaningfully safe— and that means no self-aggression, even if it is a long standing pattern. 

Even if self-harm or suicidal ideation is a comforting pattern. You know what I’m talking about. Even then. 

Realistic safety in trauma recovery is an inside out job— and a non-negotiable one. 

Sorry, that’s just how this “recovery’ thing works. I don’t make the rules. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

What to do about that pesky “freeze” response.

When we’re trying to shake out of a “freeze” response, we have to think small. 

After all, frozen things don’t “melt” all at once. 

And, for that matter, you can’t “force” a frozen thing to melt. 

To me the best way of getting out of a freeze state starts with wiggling my pinky finger. 

Not even a wag— just a little, teeny, tiny movement. 

The essence of “freeze” is that a part of us believes if we move, we’ll be seen, and we’ll be in danger. 

It’s like that scene in “Jurassic Park,” when Dr. Gran asserts that the tyrannosaurus’s vision is based on movement— so to staying still means staying safe. 

Our nervous system has no interest in suddenly, charismatically bursting out of that “freeze” state. That would feel overwhelmingly dangerous. 

What our nervous system needs is a little, teeny, tiny bit of proof that it’s safe to move. 

We can give that to it, by wiggling our little finger. 

It’s such a teeny, tiny movement, and usually one we can manage, even when we’re “frozen.” 

Not only does wiggling our little finger start building momentum, but, more importantly, it demonstrates to our nervous system that movement is safe. 

We wiggled our little finger, and the world didn’t end. The T-Rex didn’t eat us. 

That being the case, our nervous system might let us wiggle a few adjacent fingers— just testing the waters, seeing if it’s safe. 

That’s how we get out of “freeze”— not by telling, but by showing, our nervous system that movement is safe. 

We wiggle our little finger; then a few more fingers; then maybe we open and close our hand 

Then maybe we move around our wrist a little; then maybe we move our forearm. 

Bit by bit, body part by body part. Imagine your body parts warming up, after being physically cold and frozen. 

Imagine how you might gently, gingerly move your body parts, to get warmth and circulation moving again. 

You wouldn’t aggressively jerk or shake your fingers or other body parts if they’d been frozen or had fallen asleep. You’d be gentle. You’d move from little appendage to progressively bigger ones. 

We need to meet every trauma response, including “freeze,” with validation and respect— not a demand that it immediately change. 

Trauma responses are not “choices,” and they don’t happen for the hell of it. 

Meeting our “freeze” response with gentle, tiny movement that gets progressively bigger is us meeting it with care. It’s us working with our nervous system and “parts,” not against them. 

So— don’t overthink “freeze.” 

Just wiggle your pinkie finger. 

And then go from there. 

drglenndoyle

Trauma, choices, and “choices.”

Ever not been your best self? Me too. 

Ever had your trauma symptoms contribute to you not being your best self? Me too. 

The fact that sometimes our trauma symptoms contribute to us not being our best self, doesn’t negate our responsibility in those situations. 

And, the fact that we’re responsible for our behavior doesn’t negate the fact that trauma can contribute to our vulnerability to certain moods and decisions. 

It’s complicated. 

Many of us walk around feeling guilty for even having trauma symptoms. 

Those aren’t, actually, our fault or “choice.” 

The choices we DO have often get obscured by our trauma symptoms— by how overwhelming they are, by how painful they are. 

Some of us made poor “choices” because we truly didn’t see any survivable alternatives. 

Some of us made certain choices because we did not have the safety or support to realistically choose otherwise. 

And some of us made certain choices because we were never taught how to make different choices. 

As a rule, I’m not a fan of shaming ourselves over our supposed “choices.” 

Whether we could have made different choices or not— we didn’t. And we can’t change the past. 

Shame is just not an effective behavior change lever, in my experience. Not for long, and not without destructive side effects, anyway. 

And but also, I am a big fan of identifying choices we do realistically have. 

We do have choices when it comes to self-acceptance. 

We do have choices when it comes to living consciously or going on autopilot. 

We do have choices when it comes to learning about our basic needs— predictability, novelty, significance, connection, growth, and contribution— and making teeny, tiny micro choices every day that move toward meeting our needs. 

We do have choices when it comes to acknowledging, validating, and communicating with our “parts,” including our dissociative self-states. 

We don’t have the choice to just not have CPTSD or DID. 

We don’t have the choice to forget or “stuff” our past experiences indefinitely. 

We don’t have the choice to just not do any of this “trauma recovery” stuff, and expect to be safe and stable. 

Sometimes we’re not our best self, and sometimes our trauma symptoms contribute to that. That’s reality. That describes everybody reading this, and definitely the person writing this. 

Realistic trauma recovery hinges on identifying and leaning into the choices we realistically have. 

(Notice Trauma Brain piping up right now, telling you you actually don’t have any meaningful choices? That’s Trauma Brain being predictable and tiresome— and a pretty good indication that you have more choices than Trauma Brain has let you believe over the years.)

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Go ahead. Be needy.

Realistic trauma recovery is ultimately about self-care. Radical self-care. 

And radical self-care requires radical acceptance— but that’s a different subject. 

What do I mean when I say self-care? I don’t mean it in the abstract way it’s often thrown around. 

I mean self-care in the literal sense: are we caring for ourselves? As in, are we meeting our needs? 

Trauma survivors often have a complicated relationship with our needs. 

We’ve often been conditioned to believe our needs don’t matter. 

We’ve been conditioned to believe even HAVING needs, let alone expressing them, makes us “too much.” A “burden.” “High maintenance.” 

I’m going to tell you the exact opposite: getting in touch with our needs and taking realistic steps toward meeting our needs is essential. Non-negotiable. 

What are our needs, beyond survival needs like nutrition and hydration and rest? 

Different theorists are going to have different answers to that question, but the framework I like the best posits six psychological needs that are shared by almost all humans: predictability, novelty, significance, connection, growth, and contribution. 

Most psychological needs I hear expressed by most people trace back to one or more of those. 

Predictability is a particularly important need for trauma survivors, insofar as our experiences have “taught” us that the world is unpredictable and uncontrollable— often in tragic, painful ways. 

But we also have a psychological need for novelty— to not have EVERY event of our life scripted out in advance, which would lead us to becoming bored and unmotivated. 

(In my experience, the tension between our needs for predictability and novelty often help explain our relationship and career choices— for better or worse.) 

Similarly, trauma survivors tend to have a conflicted relationship with our need for significance— to know we matter, that our existence and happiness is important— because we’ve been told over and over again by our bullies and abusers that we DON’T matter. 

The need for connection can also throw us survivors for a loop— I’m not sure we simultaneously crave and fear anything as intensely as connection on a daily basis. 

Growth can be a tricky need for trauma survivors, especially when we’ve gotten the sh*t kicked out of us by Trauma Brain to the tune of, “your life is over, don’t bother trying to learn anything new or develop any new skills.” 

Likewise, Trauma Brain can get us sideways with our need to contribute, insofar as it can convince us we don’t HAVE anything to meaningfully contribute to other people or the world. 

There’s no denying that we trauma survivors can have enormously tumultuous, complicated relationships with each of the six basic psychological needs— but we cannot let that stop us from taking each need seriously, and taking realistic steps to meet each need in some way. 

We do not recover from trauma by pretending certain of our basic psychological needs “don’t matter.” 

We don’t recover from trauma by deciding we’re just going to ignore needs that we feel weird or icky about. 

Radical self-care of the kind that heals trauma asks us to take our needs seriously. 

I recommend writing them down— predictability, novelty, significance, connection, growth, and contribution— and keeping them handy. Check in on them every now and then, and ask how your life patterns are or aren’t serving them. 

We can’t escape our needs. 

And, as it turns out, we don’t need to. 

Regardless of the bullsh*t Trauma Brain is whispering in your ear right now. 

drglenndoyle

Depression, self-esteem, and trauma recovery.

Experiencing depression does not make you “weak.” 

Weak? Are you kidding me? 

Depression is a killer disease. 

Depression kills more people every year, every day, than anyone will ever acknowledge. 

Living with depression, surviving depression, is a testament to your strength— not your supposed “weakness.” 

There are lots of reasons why people struggle with depression. But “weakness” is not one of them. 

Depression is real. It feels more real to many people than recovery, especially early on in their recovery journey. 

Depression does not just result from “distorted thoughts”— though depression absolutely does distort our thinking. 

Depression is not our fault. 

Depression is not something anyone asks for or wants. 

You’re going to hear lots of bullsh*t about depression. 

You’re going to hear depression framed as a “choice,” and you’re going to hear lots of victim blaming, both implicit and overt. 

Let’s be clear: we do have choices in how we talk to ourselves, where we direct our mental focus or “spotlight,” and how we breathe and use our body— and those choices can impact how we experience and recover from depression. 

But that doesn’t mean you are depressed because of your “choices.” 

Risk factors for depression run the gamut, from genetics to trauma to economic vulnerability to discrimination. Factors that maintain depression can be internal and external, conscious and unconscious. 

There tends to be nothing simple about most peoples’ depression. 

And managing and healing it is almost never a matter of “just do (X).” 

Managing and reducing depression tends to mirror the basics of trauma recovery: we begin with self compassion, patience, and realism. 

Depression tends to meaningfully shift when we start seriously working on our self-esteem— which is also the driver of realistic trauma recovery. 

The six “pillars” of self esteem— living consciously, self-acceptance, personal responsibility, living purposefully, self-respect, and assertiveness— are a roadmap to realistically working on our depression. 

They’re also not f*cking easy. Don’t put up with anyone suggesting they are. 

Both trauma recovery and reducing depression take commitment and time. 

But if you’re a trauma survivor working your recovery— which you probably are, if you’re reading this— you know about commitment and time. 

Easy does it. You can do this. I believe in you. 

Even if I don’t know you, I’m prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt— because I don’t believe anybody is reading these words by accident. 

Breathe; blink; focus.