drglenndoyle

We’re Not Gonna Take It.

Leveling up in trauma recovery often involves defining, clearly and emphatically, what we’re done tolerating. 

If you look at your life, chances are any time it’s significantly changed for the better involved a decision to no longer tolerate something. 

Sometimes what we’re no longer tolerating has to do with somebody else. We’re done tolerating their condescension, their disrespect, their neglect. 

Other times what we’re no longer tolerating has to do with our own behavior. We’re done talking to ourselves like our bullies and abusers talked to us. We’re done harming ourselves. We’re done neglecting our physical health. 

This tool— getting clear and consistent about what we will no longer tolerate— stems in no small part from the post traumatic “fight” response. 

What is the “fight” response? 

Ultimately, it’s our nervous system saying, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.” 

Our “fight” response is akin to our “parts” banding together and saying, “Aw, hell no.” 

One of the reasons I think the “fight” trauma response gets such a bad rap is, we survivors have super mixed feelings about aggression in general. 

Often we’ve had terrible experiences with people who cannot regulate their aggression or anger. 

We associate aggression with pain and lack of control— and we assume our “fight” response might make us like those scary, dysregulated people who hurt us. 

Nothing could be further from the truth. 

Yes, sometimes our “fight” response manifests aggressively— but just as often, it manifests protectively. 

Our “fight” response is the engine of most of the boundaries we set in trauma recovery. 

Our “fight” response allows us to tap into energy and focus we just can’t access when we’re cool, calm, and collected. 

And, of course, our “fight” response fuels our commitment to no longer tolerate things that are toxic to our recovery or our life. 

What you’re going to find, as you work your trauma recovery, is that there truly is a place for every trauma response we can experience. 

We don’t have to deny, disown, or ignore any of them. 

Trauma responses don’t actually cause us the biggest problems when they get triggered— they cause us the biggest problems when we try to deny or disown them. To run from them, to shame them. 

If you had the tools and support, what would you no longer be willing to tolerate in your life, starting today? 

What would make nudging toward setting a boundary with that thing .01% more realistic today? 

Now go listen to “We’re Not Gonna Take It” by Twisted Sister, and repeat as necessary. 

Doctor’s orders. 

(Of course that’s a joke, but that is what I’m going to do.) 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Rest and recreation are not “optional” in realistic trauma recovery.

Ever wonder why coercive controllers love to shame rest and recreation? 

It’s because rest and recreation make us less easy to control. 

Rest and recreation literally make us smarter. 

Rest and recreation make us more creative— and thus more dangerous to them. 

There’s a reason why every cult documentary includes the part where the “guru” tells their followers to sleep less. 

And there’s a reason why every grind culture wannabe “guru” tells their audience that sleep is a waste of otherwise “productive” time.” 

(Remember James Arthur Ray telling his “Spiritual Warriors,” three of whom would die by the end of the retreat, that while they could sleep while they were doing the event, he “wouldn’t recommend it?”) 

Trauma survivors are conditioned to have all sorts of negative feelings about rest. 

Not only have we been programmed to believe rest is for the “weak” or “lazy,” many of us are very aware of how vulnerable sleep or relaxation can make us. 

Some of us were primarily abused at night, literally woken from our sleep by our abusers. 

Many of us experience hyper vigilance and intrusive thoughts that make even trying to sleep or rest pure torture. 

When it comes to recreation, things we do for no other reason than we enjoy them and they make us feel good, many of us were conditioned to believe we do not “deserve” the opportunity to either enjoy things OR feel good. 

Some of us were heavily conditioned to believe that recreation was a waste of time— that it necessarily distracts us from being “productive.” 

If you read my material, you know how I feel about that: the things that we like, the things that inspire us, the things that tickle us, the things that make us feel good in any way, shape or form— I feel these things are integral to our recovery. 

They wake up our brain. They soothe our nervous system. They reconnect us to our authentic self. 

Resting and seeking out opportunities for recreation goes entirely against a LOT of our conditioning. Many of us have been programmed to be profoundly skeptical of and uncomfortable with either rest or recreation. 

A very common attitude I see in trauma survivors is that rest and recreation are “nice,” but optional. They truly believe that the “work” of trauma recovery is done primarily in therapy sessions, “processing trauma.” 

Let me tell you what I believe: trauma processing is “nice,” but the REAL work of trauma recovery is day to day self care. 

That means rest and recreation. 

Pro tip: anything that our abusers and bullies shame as much as they shame rest and recreation is probably a POWERFUL recovery tool. 

Get curious about why you were so heavily conditioned to eschew rest and recreation. 

And reframe them from “nice” but optional, to non-negotiables we absolutely have to figure out if we’re serious about trauma recovery. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Scratch. That. Sh*tty. Record.

You are not making a “choice” to talk to yourself like your bullies and abusers talked to you. 

You are responding to conditioning. 

You are running a pattern— a pattern so familiar that it feels “right.” 

Hell, you’re running a pattern so familiar that you’re probably not even aware it’s a pattern. It’s just “the way things are.” 

A lot of trauma symptomatology is like that. 

We do these things because we were programmed to, and we do them very effectively because we have a lifetime of practice at it— not realizing that we’re actually being unkind and unfair to ourselves. 

Then, when some dork of a therapist like myself comes along and tells you it doesn’t have to be like that, you’re skeptical as hell— because in your nervous system, there’s just no other way for it to be. 

After all, what would a day without shredding yourself for the smallest mistake realistically look like? 

What would a day without fantasizing about suicide look like? 

What would a day without denying and disowning feelings and “parts” of ourselves we feel shame about actually look like? 

We don’t know. Our nervous system never really considered the possibility. 

Or, maybe our nervous system DID consider the possibility— but we decided we didn’t “deserve” a day without kicking the sh*t out of ourselves. 

Or we decided that if we failed to kick the sh*t out of ourselves today, then we’d somehow be punished for it— that life would come along and kick the sh*t out of us anyway, so we may as well do it to ourselves first. 

Because then we’d be in “control” of our own ass kicking, right? Right? 

Or something. 

Changing that pattern starts with understanding we’re not making a “choice,” and we don’t need to feel shame about it. 

No one reading this woke up this morning and just decided to talk to themselves like their bullies and abusers talked to them. 

What actually happened was, we woke up this morning, and our patterns of self-talk and mental focus were what they were, what they have been for decades— and we did what every human does, we went along with our conditioning. 

That’s how conditioning works. 

Interrupting that old conditioning means scratching the record— and I’ll spoil the suspense, that’s uncomfortable as hell. 

Every human struggles to change patterns that have been deeply conditioned and heavily reinforced in their history. Just ask any smoker. 

The good news is, patterns can be interrupted and records can be scratched— if we’re willing to pay the price, that is. 

The price of interrupting these particular patterns is called “trauma recovery.” And it’s a hassle. 

It’s often inconvenient and uncomfortable and counterintuitive, and we often end up hiring a professional to help us do it if we can. 

But you don’t have to roll with your old conditioning indefinitely. 

People have been radically changing their patterns and lives ever since ancient times. 

You are not the exception to the fact that realistic change is possible. 

You did not choose your trauma conditioning— but you can choose to scratch the f*ck out of that sh*tty record, minute by minute, choice by choice. 

Breath by intentional breath. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

drglenndoyle

We are not “obligated” to engage with toxic people or institutions from our past. Really we’re not.

Something that happens in realistic trauma recovery is, we realize we no longer want to be around people or institutions that hurt us. 

It can be a weird feeling. Especially if we grew up with those people or institutions. 

We might even be attached to those people or institutions on some level. 

But we often get to the point where the juice just isn’t worth the squeeze when it comes to engaging with them any longer. 

It can be bittersweet. 

It can be especially bittersweet if we have other people in our life encouraging us to reconcile with those people or institutions. 

We all know people like this— who think it’s their job to mend fences, even if they have no idea why those fences are damaged in the first place. 

Some people— including ourselves— hate the idea that there are some things that can happen in relationships that functionally mean the end of those relationships. 

But the reality is, engaging with people or institutions that hurt us exacts a cost. 

We have to expend energy to tolerate being around them. 

We have to expend energy managing the triggers they scrape up. 

We have to expend energy staying grounded, to the extent that we can stay grounded. 

We have to expend energy managing the reactions and needs of the “parts” of ourselves that hold the memories and feelings associated with the past. 

Those energy expenditures add up— and they can be exhausting. 

Add to that the fact that continuing to engage with many people or institutions from our past is simply not value added for many of us. 

We don’t get anything positive from it. We don’t need it. 

All engaging with those people or institutions does for us is allow us to pretend we’re somehow “over it.” Which, news flash, we almost never are. 

(Even if we were or are “over it,” that STILL doesn’t mean the juice is worth the squeeze when it comes to engaging with certain people and institutions from our past.)

Make no mistake: you and I are under absolutely no obligation to continue engaging with people and institutions that hurt us. 

We don’t have a “duty.” We don’t have a “responsibility.” 

And anyone who has the expectation that we’ll continue engaging with people or institutions that hurt us just because we “should” (or, at least they think we “should”) is delusional. 

We can set that limit with ourselves— “no looking back.” 

Even if it means we’ll have to break some longstanding traditions. 

Even if it means we might disappoint or confuse someone. 

Even if it means someone might decide we’re “difficult” or “high maintenance” or “dramatic” to set that limit. 

By the way, choosing to no longer engage with people or institutions that hurt us isn’t “difficult,” or “high maintenance,” or “dramatic.” 

But even if it was? F*ck it. Be “difficult.” Be “high maintenance.” Be “dramatic.” 

But do not be a human being who feels trapped or controlled by others’ expectations. 

Not anymore— not ever again. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Complex trauma, complex recovery.

You’re not struggling, with either trauma or trauma recovery, “for no reason.” 

This sh*t is hard. And complicated. And sneaky. 

How is CPTSD “sneaky?” Because it masquerades as other things. 

Often complex trauma masquerades as “personality.” 

Sometimes it masquerades as aspects of neurodivergence (that can intersect with aspects of very real neurodivergence). 

Sometimes CPTSD can masquerade as organic cognitive dysfunction (which, again, can intersect with very real organic cognitive dysfunction or brain injury). 

But the sneakiest thing of all about CPTSD is how it will pretend it has nothing to do with what we went through. 

Many of the signs and symptoms of complex trauma don’t superficially point to what happened to us. 

CPTSD is different from PTSD, insofar as many PTSD symptoms directly link back to the “main” trauma, in the form of explicit flashbacks and other intrusive memories. 

But with CPTSD, the symptoms mainly point back to us. 

To our beliefs about ourselves. 

To our reflexes in our relationships. 

To our emotional regulation in situations that don’t seem to have anything to do with our trauma. 

To our reasons to triggers that don’t seem to “make any sense” in the context of our trauma. 

This is what makes complex trauma “complex”— the fact that CPTSD struggles can engulf so much more of our life and functioning that “should” be affected. 

(One of the things this means, by the way, is that realistic RECOVERY from CPTSD has to involve more than just “processing the trauma”— it often involves rehabbing our whole life and identity.)

When we’re up against something as sneaky as CPTSD, we can’t afford to minimize. 

We can’t get up in our head about “okay, but was it really ‘TRAUMA,’ though? Am I really ‘eligible” for these terms and tools?” 

Don’t overthink it. If you’re reading this, I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt: you’re “eligible” to be a member of the trauma recovery community. 

(And, even if you really don’t think you are, I’m willing to give you a pass— stick around anyway. Everybody also reading these words really wants you to recover from WHATEVER pain you’re trying to manage and heal, “traumatic” or not.)

CPTSD is sneaky, and realistic CPTSD recovery requires daily, hourly vigilance and skill. 

You’re not wrong or “weak” to be frustrated with it, exhausted by it, over it. Big same, some days. 

Acknowledge that, validate that, allow all that to exist. 

And then: do the next recovery supporting thing. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Consistency and recovery.

There is zero shame in struggling with consistency in our trauma recovery. 

Everybody struggles with consistency. I struggle with it. 

It doesn’t mean we’re not committed. It doesn’t even mean we’re not focused. 

What it means is that CPTSD tends to jerk us around a lot. Hijack us. 

If you’re reading this, you likely know exactly what I’m talking about— what it feels like to be a puppet on a string. 

One minute we can be more or less okay— then we get yanked in the direction of anxiety. Or depression. Or self-harm urges. 

There might not even seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. No particular trigger. 

Realistic, sustainable trauma recovery requires a lot of attention to our self-talk, our mental focus, and our physiology— and it’s real hard to consistently pay attention to what we’re saying to ourselves, what we’re focusing on, and what our body is doing, when we’re getting jerked around by triggers and memories. 

That’s not our fault. Nobody reading this “chooses” to get hijacked by trauma memories and trauma responses. 

Our job is to not overreact to our difficulties being consistent. 

To not overinterpret it. 

To not tell ourselves a story about how it means we “can’t do this.” 

Our job, when we struggle with consistency in our trauma recovery, is to be compassionate and realistic with ourselves. 

Maybe even gentle with ourselves. 

Maybe even (GASP) FORGIVING of ourselves, for struggling with consistency. 

What a concept, right? 

Don’t get up in your head about it. Consistency is hard. And it’s especially hard when we have CPTSD f*cking with us. 

When you get off track, push pause, breathe, blink, focus…and just do the next right thing for your recovery. Just get back on track when you can. 

Consistency is a long game. 

Keep coming back to center. To your recovery goals and your recovery values. To your recovery self. 

Easy does it. Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Hero in a crisis; struggly on a Tuesday.

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re real good in a crisis. 

Maybe calm, maybe decisive, maybe organized. 

CPTSD survivors very often keep our sh*t together when the sh*t hits the fan. 

Which makes it all the more mystifying why we sometimes can’t keep our sh*t together when, you know, everyday life happens. 

So many trauma survivors get so frustrated when “everyday” things trigger us. 

Sometimes we don’t even know what triggers us— all we know is, nothing seems to be happening that “should” be activating us. 

And yet, we’re activated. 

Why can we keep our sh*t together and be absolute heroes in a crisis, but Tuesday kicks our ass? 

First thing’s first: it’s not your fault, and it’s super common. 

We trauma survivors have lots of experience managing life-or-death situations— or, at least, stations that feel like life or death. 

When our sympathetic nervous system locks in, everything else falls away— which, by the way, is how that system was designed. 

Our nervous system is supposed to let all the peripheral stuff slide when it’s time to survive. It evolved to turn down the noise, so we could focus and function. 

What we’re not so good at, though, is managing the psychochemical hangover that follows sympathetic nervous system activation. 

When we get triggered, that state of activation and focus is mediated by neurotransmitters and hormones that produce alertness and energy when they’re surging through us- but which leave us exhausted and flat when they filter on out. 

It’s a literal hangover. And it definitely feels like a hangover. 

Do you know anybody who feels and functions well while hung over? I don’t. 

Not everybody does well when their sympathetic nervous system is activated. People who haven’t experienced trauma after trauma, in particular, often don’t know what to do when they feel that surge come on. 

But we know what to do, don’t we?

Many of us have been living with sympathetic nervous system activation on the daily for years. 

So we’re good at managing it. They’re not. 

But, the flip side also applies: the “muggles” feel more calm and focused when their parasympathetic nervous system kicks back in— but we trauma “wizards” often experience that as anxiety provoking.

After all, we “know” that another stressful situation is just around the corner— so we can’t afford to be hanging out with an un-activated sympathetic nervous system, can we? 

All of which is to say: there are lots of reasons why we’re good in crises— but we’re confused and disoriented when we don’t have the adrenaline and cortisol flowing. 

Part of trauma recovery is getting good at functioning, no matter what our nervous and endocrine systems are dong in the moment— which takes patience, realism, and self-compassion. 

You know— like every other trauma recovery skillset. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Trauma recovery and the zen of not overreacting.

If you’re reading this, you know that one of the hardest parts of trauma recovery is not overreacting. 

We don’t “choose” to overreact— we’re conditioned into it. 

We’re conditioned to believe we “have” to massively respond to many thoughts, feelings, and sensations. 

We’re conditioned to believe we “have” to punish ourselves for failures. 

We’re conditioned to believe we “have” to give up when we hit certain speed bumps or pot holes. 

The truth is, we don’t “have” to do nearly as much as our nervous system is convinced we “have” to— but we struggle to believe that, because so many of our reactions feel so urgent and unmanageable. 

Learning to not overreact, to not panic, takes a minute. 

And it also takes a steadfast willingness to not shame ourselves for the overreactions we’ve been conditioned into in the past. 

We didn’t ask for this conditioning. We don’t want it. 

The fact that we were conditioned to overreact to body sensations, thoughts, memories, or stimuli out there in the world— triggers— doesn’t make us “dramatic.” 

It makes us vulnerable to conditioning— just like every other human. 

So much of early trauma recovery especially is meeting our overreactions with acceptance, compassion, patience— and reminding ourselves that while there is no shame in this reaction, we can sit with it, breathe into it, manage it, and not amplify it. 

We don’t choose our reflexes. 

But we have some choices when we clock what’s going on. 

We don’t often have the choice to simply shut the reaction down— but we can choose how we talk to ourselves about it, how we explain it to ourselves, how we meet it, and what we do with our body and breathing in response to it. 

“Easy does it. Don’t overreact,” is one of my go-to self-talk statements. 

Putting some time and space between trigger, reflex, and reaction is a game changer for many trauma survivors. 

It all starts with acknowledging our vulnerability to overreaction— and getting curious about how we can reel it in, without getting judgmental or aggressive with ourselves.

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

This is your brain on CPTSD. Any questions?

Trauma responses literally scramble our brains. 

Well, “scramble” may not be exactly right. But trauma responses really do hijack specific areas of our brain— specifically the hippocampus (memory central) and the prefrontal cortex (decision making central). 

Most brain functions and areas aren’t quite as well understood as many sources seem to advertise— but we do know a few things about how fight, fight, freeze, fawn, and flop seem to impact our brain. 

For example, we know that when triggers slam into us, the hippocampus doesn’t process, consolidate, or retrieve memories particularly effectively. 

It’s one reason why post traumatic memory seems to “behave” so much differently than other memories— it’s being “regulated” and filtered by a brain structure that is on the fritz after being triggered. 

We also know that, when the sympathetic nervous system— the branch of our nervous system that throws the switch on trauma responses— is active, the prefrontal cortex seems to go largely offline. 

That is to say: we literally can’t think straight when we’re gripped by fight, fight, freeze, fawn, or flop. 

I’m not, actually, a believer that neurobiology can explain everything we need to know about trauma or recovery— but I do think a baseline knowledge of what CPTSD physically, chemically does to our brain can be helpful in easing off the self blame. 

How we feel and behave in the midst of trauma responses really are not “choices.” 

They’re the product of cortisol and adrenaline and dopamine surging through our most sensitive tissues, and knee-caping the organ that creates and consolidates our integrated experience of identity. 

Nobody’s “choosing” their way out of that neurochemical onslaught. 

Give yourself a break. 

You’re up against alterations in brain chemistry, structure, and function that ANY human, regardless of intelligence or “character,” would have trouble managing. 

The situation is not hopeless— but we need to be realistic where we actually have choices, and where we really, really don’t. 

Focus on the moments right AFTER you realize a trauma response has kicked in— when you start to regain some meaningful influence over your self-talk, mental focus, and physiology. 

That’s where your wiggle room is. 

That’s where we can start hacking back into our brain. Not before. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Just notice.

As we work our trauma recovery, we get less attached to who we’ve had to be and what we’ve had to do to survive. And that can be bittersweet. 

It’s not that we necessarily “like” those patterns and coping mechanisms. Some of them we very much dislike, actually. 

But we feel somehow…loyal to them. 

After all, those patterns and coping mechanisms got us through some gnarly sh*t. 

It’s one reason why we can get more than a little defensive when people get on our case about our habits— it’s not that we necessarily like those habits either, but those people don’t understand how important those habits have been to us. 

Nor do those people often understand how afraid we are to give those patterns and coping mechanisms up.

You’re going to run into plenty of people who will try to tell you that giving up old patters that no longer serve us “should” be easy, or at last straightforward. 

After all, if it’s not serving us anymore, if it’s creating more problems than it solves, why are we hanging on to it? 

 Because loyalty. And more than a little bit of fear. 

The reality is, shifting away from old patterns and tools and habits is complicated. And we have to let it be complicated. 

It’s not going to work to try to shame or pressure ourselves out of those old patterns. 

What we can do is just notice as we start to be less attached to them. 

What we can do is meet our own complicated and bittersweet feelings with compassion and patience. Which, I know, isn’t always the biggest strength of us trauma survivors. 

Go easy on yourself. 

None of this “recovery” thing is particularly easy or obvious. And that very much applies to how we surrender old patterns. 

Just pay attention. Just notice. 

Just notice as those old patterns and coping mechanisms and habits feel less like you— day by day, hour by hour. 

No pressure. No rush. 

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