drglenndoyle

Experiencing anger doesn’t make you an “angry person.” But denying and disowning it…

You’re going to hear it said that anger is just “sadness’s bodyguard”— but I don’t believe that. 

I believe that anger, while it frequently occurs alongside sadness, is its own thing— as real and valid and independent as any experience, emotional or otherwise. 

Remember that anger evolved for a reason. 

The cave-people who could get angry when other cave-people tried to encroach upon their territory and steal their mates and wooly mammoths and stuff, had a survival advantage over those cave-people who couldn’t. 

Anger, evolutionarily speaking, gives us a rush of focus and energy to defend our territory. 

Anger is important. Anger is valid. Anger matters. 

It it sometimes the case that our anger in a specific situation is actually about a different situation, maybe from the past? Sure— but that doesn’t make it invalid. 

The worst thing we can do for and with our anger is to dismiss it as nothing more than the “bodyguard” of another feeling. 

Anger, properly understood and responsibly managed, can be one of our most important trauma recovery tools. 

Of course, denied, disowned, misunderstood, and mismanaged, our anger can be as destructive to us as our abusers’ anger was back then. 

That’s why it’s so important that we take time to understand, validate, and manage our anger— precisely so we DON’T become our abusers in how we react (instead of respond) to our anger. 

Sometimes I get sh*t for being pro-anger— but I don’t know what to tell you. Anger is as important and valid as anything else we can experience. 

Meeting our anger with denial or shame is psychologically and even physically harmful to us. 

I recommend meeting anger just like we meet anything and everything else in trauma recovery: with compassion, patience, realism, and respect. 

Experiencing anger doesn’t make you an “angry person.” 

But denying and disowning your anger probably will. 

drglenndoyle

All we can do, is what we can do.

All we can today, is what we can do today. 

We can’t go back and re-do yesterday. Or last year. Or ten or twenty years ago. 

Have you ever made decisions you’ve regretted? I have. 

Have you ever been your not-best self? Same. 

Are there things you’d do differently, all the way up to this last minute, if you had a time machine and could re-do them? There absolutely are, for me. 

But— we can’t. 

Our past was what it was. 

Our choices in the past were what they were. 

We have to accept that what has happened up until now, has happened. 

We don’t have to LIKE that fact— but we have to accept it, because it IS a fact. 

All we can do is the next right thing. The next thng that is aligned with our goals and values. The next authentic thing. 

My own Trauma Brain gets absolutely vicious with me about decisions I made in the past— about the person I was in the past. 

It’s real easy to get into a spiral about how I “deserve” to be punished for it all— and how I don’t “deserve” the opportunity to feel good or better here, now, in the present. 

Sound familiar? 

Here’s the thing: punishing myself now does not erase what happened then. 

It doesn’t erase any of the things that happened to me, and it doesn’t erase any of the not-so-great decisions I made. 

The me-of-back-then was doing the best he could with the tools he had— and while I wish he had different tools and more support than he did, that doesn’t change how things actually happened. 

All we can do is what we can do, now. 

All we can do is get really clear about who we are and what we want out of our life, day by day, now. 

All we can do is make the next decision in front of us in as goals-and-values aligned way as we can, with the tools and support we have, now. 

I was not perfect in the past, and I am not perfect now. There’s a very good chance I won’t be perfect tomorrow, either. 

But that doesn’t mean I, or anybody else shouldering regret about the past, deserve open ended punishment going forward. 

That doesn’t help anyone. That doesn’t make anything “right.”

I will never feel good about some past decisions or some past versions of myself.

But I don’t have to feel good about them, to extend myself grace. 

All we can do is what we can do. 

We create our future one day, one minute, one decision at a time. 

Real accountability is not self punishment; it is changed behavior. 

Everybody reading this could stand to extend themselves a little more grace— and to focus on making amends, if they need to, by doing the next right thing. Not agonizing over their last not-great choice.

drglenndoyle

Every day in trauma recovery– and every survivor– is a mixed bag.

Every day in trauma recovery, including today, is going to be a mixed bag. 

What that means for you is that if you happen to be having a garbage day today, that’s okay. 

It’s not preferable, we don’t love it— but it’s okay. 

It’s not evidence you’re “failing.” 

It’s not evidence you’re screwed. 

Why does this matter? Because you, like me and every other trauma survivor, are likely super vulnerable to perfectionism. 

We truly believe that if today doesn’t go exactly to plan, we’re in trouble. 

We’ve been CONDITIONED to think in very black and white terms about things like “success” and “failure.” 

Just today I worked with multiple survivors who thought that because their sessions weren’t picture perfect, they “must” have “failed” me, or themselves, or their recovery. 

What BS. (Belief Systems— but also, you know, bullsh*t.)

The truth is, some of the most ultimately productive therapy sessions are wildly unpredictable and imperfect. 

The broader truth is that some of the most productive recovery days are wildly unpredictable and imperfect. 

It’s okay. 

What I want to communicate to every trauma survivor reading these words is, you are working a real world recovery. We want it to be realistic and sustainable— and that means we have to give up these fantasies about having “perfect” recovery days. 

Trauma recovery does not have perfect days because life does not have perfect days. 

If you or I happen to have a “perfect” recovery day in terms of choosing and using our tools and skills, that’s completely accidental, insofar as humans almost NEVER have “perfect” days. 

(No, you are not The Exception.”) 

Acknowledging that nearly 100% of our recovery days will be a mixed bag is not “making excuses” for underperforming. 

It’s acknowledging reality— which we survivors can struggle with, when reality isn’t great. 

When reality isn’t great, our default is often shame and self-blame— which makes perfect sense, insofar as we were often shamed and blamed growing up for…well, a lot of things, very few of which we actually our fault or responsibility. 

Trauma recovery asks us to scramble that pattern of reflexively shaming or blaming ourselves when our day or our choices are imperfect. 

Trauma recovery is a mixed bag. You and I are mixed bags. 

And that’s okay. 

The task in font of us is still the same: baby steps that are congruent with our recovery goals and values. 

Just do the next right thing— and forgive yourself. 

Again ,and again, and again. 

drglenndoyle

So what do we actually DO with these “feelings,” anyway?

So what do we do with all these feelings we’re experiencing with all this intensity? 

CPTSD does a real number on our emotional regulation— meaning if we feel anything at all, we feel it with, you know, the white hot intensity of a thousand suns. 

We get to the point where we’d really rather not feel anything. 

We get to hate and fear our emotions. After all, they don’t seem to do much of anything but f*ck us up. 

Then we get into trauma recovery, and we’re told that it’s not a solution to deny or disown or dissociate our emotions anymore— but that begs the question: what the hell are we supposed to DO with these “feeling” things, huh? 

Often, the very best thing we can do with those “feeling” things is to hang out with them. 

Sit with them. 

Let them exist. 

Most importantly: do not deny them, disown them, or demand that they not exist. 

CPTSD survivors have had our feelings invalidated, attacked, ignored, and disrespected for most of our lives. 

The key to CPTSD recovery is scrambling all those old patterns. 

That means we can’t treat our feelings like the people in our lives treated them— or us. 

Even if we don’t yet quite know how to regulate or understand our emotions, we can’t be in the business of abusing them. 

Abusing our emotions is abusing ourselves. 

Neglecting our emotions is neglecting ourselves. 

Sit with them. 

Be with them. 

Treat your emotions like the “parts” of yourself that they are— maybe difficult to understand, maybe difficult to contain, maybe difficult to cope with…but important. Valuable. 

In my experience, if we sit with our feelings long enough, without overreacting, without demanding anything of them, without insisting they not exist or go away, without judging them— our feelings will tell us what they’re all about. 

They’ll tell us what they need from us. 

But it all starts with the willingness to sit with them. To hang out with them. 

To validate them. 

What a concept, huh? 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

You get to decide.

You have the right to determine what your life looks and feels like. 

This is a revolutionary concept to many survivors of trauma. 

Many of us have been conditioned to believe that we don’t get any say in the shape or feel of our life. 

Many of us have only ever felt NOT in control of our life. 

Many of us have lost any kind of faith in our ability to affect the direction of our life. 

It’s a thing called “learned helplessness”— which doesn’t mean it’s our fault, even though it’s “learned.” What it means is that we’ve had the experience, again and again, of trying to affect or change things in our life, and we haven’t been able to. 

So of course we lose confidence in our ability to change things. 

That’s not our fault. 

Trauma recovery is going to ask us to believe in our ability to actually shape and choose our experience of life— and, no doubt, that can feel like a risk. 

Letting ourselves experience hope absolutely feels risky. 

It’s okay to be anxious about feeling hope. 

It’s okay to be reluctant to let ourselves feel hope. 

But we can be open to it. 

As you and I work our trauma recovery, we slowly start to believe in our ability to realistically, meaningfully change things in our life— bit by bit, choice by choice. Not all at once. 

Don’t think of this “recovery” thing as requiring huge leaps of faith or belief. 

Just focus on the .01%. 

Just focus on making one teeny, tiny choice today that can help your life feel better, more comfortable, more authentic, more livable. 

How your life looks and feels is truly up to you. 

It won’t transform overnight, and that’s okay. That’s better, actually. 

We want change to stick. 

We want your new life to be realistic and sustainable. 

You get to choose what it looks like. 

You get to choose what it feels like. 

You get to choose who does and doesn’t have access to your new life. 

You get to choose what your new life is all about. 

You have the right and you have the ability. 

Don’t let anyone tell you different. 

drglenndoyle

Slow down. You’re doin’ fine.

I want your CPTSD recovery to be realistic and sustainable. 

Not dramatic. Not cinematic. 

And not stupid fast. 

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want any survivor to suffer for a second longer than they have to. 

But I have seen trauma recovery go up in smoke because survivors pressured themselves to do it fast. 

Part of that is an artifact of how many of us were raised. 

Many of us were conditioned to believe that fast is good and slow is bad. That if we’re “good” at something, we can do it fast, and ideally more or less perfectly the first time. 

Many trauma survivors (and many humans!) very much HATE feeling like we’re not good at a thing we’re trying to do. 

We feel embarrassed. We feel humiliated. 

We feel like we want to quit this thing we’re trying, because we believe we’re “failing” at it— and we want to not try at it anymore, because who needs to feel like a “failure,” am I right? 

The truth about trauma recovery is, we tend to be better at it the slower we take it. 

And the real truth about trauma recovery that many survivors don’t want to hear is, we only ever get REALLY good at it by embracing the fact that we are, every day, beginners at it. 

That might sound weird. Isn’t the goal of this whole thing to achieve mastery? 

You bet it is— but we only ever achieve anything approaching mastery at trauma recovery by approaching it every day as a beginner. 

Whenever a survivor starts making noises about how “good” they are at trauma recovery, that sends up a flag for me— a flag that there’s something off about their recovery. 

Trauma recovery is too delicately balanced for us to get a big head about any of it. 

True masters, of recovery or anything else, approach EVERYTHING as a learning opportunity. 

I approach every day in my own trauma and addiction recovery as a student. A beginner, who has things to learn from this day. 

Not only does that take off some of the pressure of having to “perform” recovery, it reminds me that I am never, ever, so strong or so skilled that I have nothing to learn from this day. 

Part of being an eternal beginner, an eternal student, is going slow. 

After all, if we go too fast, we can’t really learn things— we’re too busy keeping up and plowing ahead. 

Mind you: I’m a big believer in self-improvement and goal setting. 

Yes, I want to improve constantly. A core principle of my life is CANI— Constant And Never-ending Improvement. 

But to realistically achieve CANI, I have to slow down. 

To really look and really see. 

To really take in what this day in recovery has to teach me. 

To really internalize and reinforce the skills, tools, and philosophies that will keep me safe and stable today. 

Wanna go fast in trauma recovery? Me too. 

So go slow. 

Slow is steady. 

Steady is fast.

And beginner mind is mastery. 

drglenndoyle

So no one told us life was gonna be this way.

Trauma and addiction recovery bring us face to face with the fact that our life did not go as planned. 

Maybe nobody’s life does. But our life really, really didn’t. 

And, we’re going to have feelings about that fact. 

There’s going to be anger about that fact. 

There’s going to be sadness about that fact. 

And if you’re like me, there’s going to be plenty of just…f*cking…amazement at how spectacularly off the rails life has gone. 

Many survivors in recovery really struggle with accepting that we’re this far from where we thought, where we assumed, we’d end up. 

We weren’t supposed to be HERE by now. 

We were supposed to be…who knows where, but not HERE. 

We can get real up in our head about where we ended up at this point in our life. 

It’s real easy to get into a spiral about the fact. 

Reeling ourselves in when we get all freaked out by how f*cking far we feel from the path we “should” be on, is a recovery skill. 

We get to feel whatever we feel about it. Sad, angry, incredulous, whatever. 

And, we get to not let whatever we feel about it drag us away from working our recovery today. 

The truth is, there’s no guarantee we were EVER “supposed” to life ANY specific life. 

Hell, I did not even imagine I’d be alive today, let alone on a particular life path. 

Whatever “path” we thought was for us, just wasn’t in the cards. 

So be it. 

Apparently that life was never supposed to be a thing. 

This is the life we have. This life, right here, right now. 

Not our life as a victim of trauma or an addict in active suffering— but our life in recovery. 

The teeny, tiny recovery supporting rituals we do today are more important than anything that “could have been” or “should have been.” 

What we do next is infinitely more important than what we did or didn’t do at any moment in the past. 

So life didn’t go as planned. So what. 

We have today. 

We are alive today. 

We have a chance to influence today, with our self talk, our mental focus, and our physiology. 

We’re here. 

That’s all that matters now. 

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

Try this Recovery Supporting Question over “positive thinking.”

I do not believe in “positive thinking.” 

“Positive thinking” has never done much other than annoy and distract me on my trauma and addiction recovery journeys. 

Your milage may vary. But it’s not a tool that I find useful. 

I don’t believe in superficially “positive” thinking— but I do believe in asking intelligent, recovery supporting questions of almost everything that happens to me. 

In my experience, the most useful RSQ (Recovery Supporting Question) in any situation is almost always: “How can I use this to serve my recovery?” 

I suppose that’s catty-corner to “positive thinking” in a way, in that it assumes there IS a way to use virtually everything that happens to us to support our recovery. 

So be it. That’s one of my rock solid beliefs: that we can use literally anything that happens to level up in our recovery. 

Mind you: I’m not talking about the gaslight-y thing where we insist we’re “grateful” for everything that happens to us. 

I once knew a self help demagogue who blithely insisted that the true definition of “forgiveness” was getting to the point where you could honestly say, “thank you FOR GIVING me that experience.” 

F*ck that. 

There are absolutely experiences that are not worth being “grateful” for. That we wouldn’t ask for; that just suck. 

But that doesn’t mean we can’t use them. 

I’ll be the first to admit: sometimes I have to bend over backward to figure out a way to use the sh*tty situation that just happened to somehow support my recovery. 

Right now, as I write this, I’m dealing with a frustrating health symptom that almost surely developed out of my past addiction behavior, and my brain is, to put it mildly, struggling to find a way to use this development to support my recovery. 

But I will find it. Because I am committed to not wasting pain. 

If something is going to suck, you’d better goddamn believe I’m going to find some way to use it. 

Again: don’t confuse that commitment to some positive thinking fantasy that we can or should be “grateful” for even the painful situations we’ve endured. 

What my commitment to USING everything is about is acknowledging the reality that sh*tty situations are, in fact, going to happen— and we have at last a little wiggle room in how we process and respond to those sh*tty situations. 

“Positive thinking,” in my experience, doesn’t resonate with many trauma survivors. 

Try on the realistic RSQ “how can I USE this to support my recovery?” instead. 

drglenndoyle

Your vs. “their” mission statement.

Remember: you are on a different life path, a different mission, than “they” are. 

Of course they’re going to misunderstand you. 

Maybe mock you. 

Certainly communicate to you in dozens of implicit and explicit ways that you’re “doing it wrong.” 

You’re not, actually, doing it wrong. 

But, in working your trauma recovery, you’re definitely doing life much differently than “they” are. 

Hell, you are doing life much differently than they ever COULD. 

You and I know the kind of focus and courage working our trauma recover takes. 

Do you think “they” could actually do that? 

I don’t. 

Chances are, anyone who gives you sh*t about your recovery needs and habits is light years away from realistically being able to do what you do every day. 

They don’t even know how much effort you’ve had to expend at various points in your journey just to stay ALIVE. 

So, yes. You are on a very different path than they are. 

Your mission statement is very different from theirs— not least because people who aren’t working a recovery often don’t even bother having a mission statement for their life. 

Don’t let “them” get in your head. 

Their judgments have exactly zero to do with what you’re actually doing in your life. 

Don’t hold yourself to “their” standards. Don’t take “their” opinions any more seriously than they deserve to be taken. 

You are on a different path, a different mission— and that’s the good news. 

The path you’re on, the mission you’re on, is keeping you alive and creating a quality of life “they” could never. 

Don’t doubt it.