drglenndoyle

Don’t believe what they told you.

You are not stupid. And the most important people in your life shouldn’t have made you feel that way. 

How do I know that you’re not stupid? After all, I probably don’t know most of the people reading this.

Yeah, I may not know you personally. But let me tell you what I do know. 

I do know that many survivors of complex trauma come through our experiences believing we are “stupid”— very often because we were told this, fairly directly, by important people in our lives. 

What we need to understand is that, very often, those people didn’t tell or insinuate to us that we’re stupid because of anything having to do with our actual intelligence. 

They did it because making us feel stupid was an excellent way to make us feel unworthy, and to get us to distrust our judgment.

And making us feel unworthy and untrustworthy to ourselves came in very handy when trying to demoralize and control us. 

Most of what our abusers and bullies told us, about us, was designed to demoralize and control us. 

Many of us came through childhood believing things about ourselves and applying standards t ourselves we would’t dream of foisting on to anyone else. 

The fact, is, I don’t necessarily know you’re smarter than average— again, I don’t personally know most of the people reading this blog— but I do know that many complex trauma survivors arrive in adulthood erroneously believing they suck. 

It’s not just that being told we’re stupid is panful. 

It’s that being told and treated like we’re stupid by the people who should have had our back, who should have been in our corner, who, by rights, should have been our biggest cheerleaders, inflicts a very specific wound on survivors. 

Abuse and neglect are always harmful— but when we’re talking about long term consequences, who was inflicting the abuse or neglect upon us really matters. 

If just anybody calls us stupid, we may or may not be particularly reactive to it. 

But if the people who “should” have our back consistently treat us like we’re stupid, what are we supposed to conclude about our actual intelligence or capabilities? 

We don’t form a positive, realistic self-concept out of nowhere. 

We first develop self-esteem by modeling the “esteem” in which others in our life seem to hold us, most notably by their words and behavior. 

So many people don’t understand: complex trauma is not just about the impact of painful events— it’s also about the opportunities we missed to form a stable, positive sense of ourselves. 

Many people don’t get that it’s not necessarily trauma itself that makes us hate and doubt ourselves— it’s the fact that having to cope with trauma after trauma in our early years leaves precious little time or bandwidth to discover and develop who we are. 

A main reason complex trauma is so devastating is that it interrupts developmental tasks that are really, really important to us as we’re growing and learning about ourselves and the world. 

We’re not born feeling “worthy” (or “unworthy,” for that matter); we need to be taught whether we have worth, whether we “deserve” good things, whether we are capable of learning and growing and succeeding. 

When, growing up, we lack that assurance— or, worse, when we grow up around adults who communicate how “stupid” or “dramatic” or otherwise unworthy we are— that’s what we internalize. 

Then we struggle to connect how we’re feeling to any specific “trauma”— because it’s had to comprehend that the “trauma” that so harmed us was just our everyday lives and everyday relationships. 

You are not “stupid.” 

The fact that you were made to feel “stupid” says much more about the people and institutions you grew up in and around than it does about you. 

Part of your recovery work is accepting the fact that they were wrong about you. 

And, as odd as it may seem, the guy with the blog on the internet who may not even know you, is actually right about you. 

drglenndoyle

Because we feel guilty doesn’t mean a decision was bad.

I’ll spoil the suspense: we’re going to feel guilty about a lot of things. 

This isn’t necessarily because we have anything to feel particularly guilty about. 

This is because enduring trauma has the impact of making us feel that everything is our fault— and everything is our responsibility. 

I’ve worked with trauma survivors who have literally described feeling guilty for the weather. No joke— more than a few. 

Many trauma survivors are conditioned to feel particular guilt about decisions we make— especially decisions we make in regards to self-protection and self-care. 

Many of us grew up conditioned to believe we deserved nether protection NOR care— and we sure as hell had absolutely no right to extend OURSELVES protection or care. 

Many of us were conditioned to believe that boundaries were “mean”— or that the need to set limits with someone simply meant that we weren’t “tough enough.” 

We have the physical, emotional, and behavioral responses we do because of what we believe things mean— and if we believe that we have no right to set boundaries or otherwise take care of ourselves, we’re going to be reluctant, maybe even unable, to take vital steps toward self-protection and self-care. 

It’s not our fault. We didn’t choose the attitudes and beliefs that were conditioned in us. That conditioning is a symptom of what we’ve been through— and the rule in trauma recovery is, we do not shame or push ourselves for symptoms. 

Our abusers and bullies “installed” certain patterns of thinking, feeling, and reacting in us— and guilt very often was their tool of choice to do so. 

So many of the decisions we have to make in trauma recovery are so hard in the first place— but that layer of guilt makes those decisions exponentially harder. 

Guilt makes us fear exposure and punishment. 

Guilt makes us believe that we must have done something contrary to our values, or the values of society at large— that we’re a “bad” person. Otherwise why would we be feeling guilty, hmm? 

We are going to feel guilt about a lot of really important, really necessary decisions and boundaries— but it’s real important we clearly understand: feeling guilt about a decision does not mean it is a bad decision. 

Very often what it actually means is that we’ve run afoul of our trauma conditioning, and old guardrails are kicking in. 

A specific example of what I’m talking about often happens when survivors have chosen to cut off contact, temporary or permanently, with abusive people or institutions (such as a church or community). 

In my experience, very few people take the decision to go “no contact” lightly— and, even if we’re quite sure that we need to do it in order to bolster our safety or stability, we still feel guilty and anxious about it. 

You need to know a few things about those feelings. For starters, you need to know those feelings are normal— it’d be weird to NOT feel guilty and anxious when you’re setting firm boundaries, such as “no contact,” with people or institutions that have been in your life for years. 

You also need to know that those feelings of guilt and anxiety don’t mean you’ve made a bad or unnecessary decision. 

Because a decision is hard doesn’t mean it’s wrong. 

Reinforcing and living our trauma recovery very often means sticking with decisions we know we had to make— but we hated making, and we hate sticking to. 

It takes courage. 

It takes toughness. 

Fortunately, trauma survivors are literally the most courageous, toughest subset of human beings I have ever met. 

This— sticking with our Recovery Supporting Decisions (RSD’s) even when it’s hard, even when Trauma Brain is trying to f*ck with us, even when every scrap of old conditioning is making us feel like sh*t about it— is where the rubber meets the road in recovery. 

You are up to this moment. 

You are up to this task. 

I guarantee it.