drglenndoyle

Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.

Listen to me: you do whatever it is you have to do to stay alive. 

F*ck their expectations. 

F*ck their judgments. 

What you have to do to stay alive may not be perfect and it may not be pretty. 

Other people may not understand, and you may have to distance yourself from some of those people, at least for awhile. 

But this isn’t the time for perfectionism. 

This isn’t the time for insisting or expecting that what you have to do to stay alive aligns perfectly with anyone’s idea of what is “acceptable.” 

Just this week I’ve heard multiple stories about what survivors leaned on to stay alive in difficult moments when their trauma was telling them there was no hope and they “had” to kill themselves. 

The stuff that keeps us alive might seem weird to anyone else. 

It might not have anything to do with what happened to us. 

The stuff we do to stay alive may not be part of our recovery indefinitely. I’ve done plenty of stuff for the sake of making it through a rough night, that I could not hold on to long term, because it would end up destroying me just as surely as suicide would. 

Don’t judge or overthink what keeps you alive. 

Just do it. 

And know there is a worldwide community of trauma survivors who do not judge you, either for what you had to do to survive then, or what you have to do to stay alive tonight. 

No shame. No shade. 

Staying alive when you’re under immense pressure to not is the ultimate act of defiance against our trauma. 

And, yes, it can be exhausting. I absolutely understand that. 

And still I’m telling you: stay alive. 

If you’re reading this, consider that you stumbled across it for a reason. Stay alive. 

If you’re reading this, whether or not you have any idea who the hell I am or why you should listen to me: stay. Stay alive, find out, answer those questions. 

If you’re reading this, and you’re angry that I have the balls to ask you to stay without knowing what you’re dealing with, stay alive and express that anger. I’d rather have you pissed at me and telling me all about it than you not here.

I do not have the power to “make” anyone do or not do anything. I wish I did. But nobody does. 

What I can tell you, though, is there are modes and levels you haven’t unlocked yet, and that are unlock-able to you.

Don’t believe me? Stay alive and prove me wrong. 

Do whatever the hell you have to do. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

Stay. 

drglenndoyle

So maybe you’re disappointing someone. And?

I cannot guarantee that you’re not disappointing someone. How the hell would I know? 

You may well be disappointing someone. I know I am. 

Who am I disappointing? Plenty of people whose vision of life does not align with mine. Which would include my family of origin and my abusers (categories that are not mutually exclusive, but do not overlap completely either). 

I imagine you are, actually, disappointing someone. 

Maybe your family. Maybe people in your spiritual community. Maybe people who strongly align with the culture you grew up in. 

I’ve never loved disappointing people. 

But part of my trauma recovery— and probably part of yours, too— is accepting that disappointing people is not the end of the world. Truly. 

When we grow up without the necessary support and safety to become our own person and develop confidence in our ability to handle life, we get very, very invested in others’ opinions of us. 

That “fawn” people pleasing response doesn’t come out of nowhere. 

It’s not just that we think we have to please and appease others to stay safe; it’s also that we believe if we DON’T conform to everyone’s expectations and desires, that we might actually lose our identity. 

That might sound strange, but many people reading can identify. So to speak. 

Who are we if we’re not checking all the boxes, being who “they” want us to be? 

Many of us grew up without permission to be our own person— to have our own standards and goals about what our life should be all about. 

Hell, many of us were implicitly or explicitly threatened if we DARED to have a life vision that didn’t align with the people who raised us. 

Fast forward to now: OF COURSE we feel all kinds of pressure to be who “they” expect, who “they” want. 


The alternative might feel like being nobody at all. 

As we work our trauma recovery, we’re going to find that one of the most powerful factors in how we think, feel, believe, and behave, is our identity. 

One of the big reasons many survivors struggle to change our patterns is, we have an identity that we believe precludes us changing those patterns. 

Put another way, we may change some patterns for a short period of time— but if we truly believe we’re “just not the kind of person” who continues that new pattern, we won’t. We’ll go back. 

Our nervous system doesn’t like instability in our identity. That’s why it’ll try to drift back, again and again, to our familiar identity— even if that identity is painful. 

It’s also why we’ll cling to the identity that was handed to us by our abusers and bullies— instead of taking the risk of creating an identify of our own in recovery. 

Almost every CPTSD survivor struggles with this. You’re not alone in this. It’s what CPTSD does: it hijacks our identity, and makes us believe that to disappoint or confuse someone with our new behavior is dangerous. 

Changing our patterns IS dangerous— to CPTSD’s ability to make us miserable. 

Screw it. Disappoint “them.” Confuse “them.” Create and deepen an identity and life they have no clue how to process. 

Losing the prefab identity life handed us without our input or consent is one of the most amazing things that can happen to us. 

One of the scariest, too. So no need to rush it, or shame yourself for struggling with it. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

And go disappoint someone today. 

drglenndoyle

It’s your gentleness vs. the sh*t show.

For many CPTSD survivors, it took a lot of pain and chaos to make us as gentle and mindful as we are. 

We’ve seen, we’ve experienced, the sh*t show. 

We have no desire to visit the sh*t show on anybody else. 

Sometimes, though, that “fight” response makes us seem a little combative. 

Sometimes that “flee” response makes us seem like we don’t like people. (And, of course, sometimes we don’t like people— and there’s nothing wrong with that.) 

Sometimes that “freeze” response can make us feel like we’re holding back or holding out on people. 

That is to say: sometimes trauma responses are going to make us feel or seem like people we aren’t. 

And yet, we still want to be gentle with the world, with other people, especially with animals. 

The vast majority of the CPTSD survivors I’ve ever met have wanted nothing more than to heal the world. 

We’ve decided the sh*t show stops with us. Which is why we go through the hassle of working a recovery. 

We don’t want to be like our abusers. 

Our abusers could not fathom doing the amount of kind of work we do in trauma recovery. 

I don’t care who your abusers were, whether they were people or institutions— they were gross.

The sh*t show actually belongs to them, even though we’re the ones who pay the price for their chaos. 

It’s actually a f*cking miracle we’re as gentle as we are. 

If you’re reading this, you’re doing something your abusers could not fathom. You’re reading, studying, taking in material to improve your life, to make things different. 

Remember that. 

Even when it feels like it’s an uphill battle, if when it feels like it’s not working, even when it feels hopeless and pointless— you’re committed to, and working to definitively, end, the sh*t show. 

I admire and love your gentleness. 

It’s not a weakness, it’s a superpower. 

And I’m not just saying that as a bullsh*t therapist trope— I mean I want and need more people like you in the world to push back the sh*t show. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

drglenndoyle

You get to choose who you are sexually.

I think it’s real important, in trauma recovery, that we not pathologize our needs. 

That temptation is real, though— to chalk everything we feel or do or need up to a trauma response. 

Many of us have been so overwhelmed by trauma responses for so long, in fact, that we’ve come to kind of believe trauma is our personality. 

(This is one of the reasons I think CPTSD is real easy for some clinicians to misdiagnose as a “personality disorder”— you need to not only know what you’re looking at, but accept what trauma is and understand what it does to really see it.)

But not everything in our lives is a trauma response— even if many of our patterns and preferences have been shaped by pain. 

An example that comes up often is sexuality. 

It’s no secret that, for survivors of sexual trauma in particular, our experiences can play a role in how we experience our sexuality and what we want, need, and seek out in our sex lives. 

(By the way, this isn’t just confined to survivors of sexual trauma— people who have been subject to emotional abuse and coercive control, among other forms of complex trauma, can also find their sex lives profoundly impacted by what they went through, even if their trauma wasn’t explicitly sexual.)

Some survivors of sexual trauma come through the experience never wanting to consciously engage with sexuality again. 

Some survivors come through with preferences and response patterns that are shaped by the abuse— which can cause enormous shame or confusion. 

Some survivors may think they’re “fine” as far as dealing with sexuality goes— until they wind up in a sexual situation where “fight,” “flight,” “freeze,” “flop,” or “fawn” are suddenly running the show.

Some survivors, for whom dissociation is a primary pattern, compartmentalize their sexual memories and needs into “parts,” which may in turn vary widely and wildly when it comes to what they like, hate, seek out, or avoid at any cost. 

Add to all this that the memory “glitches” experienced by many trauma survivors are very often especially glitchy around sexual experiences, both past and present. 

There’s no question: our experiences can profoundly shape who we are sexually. 

And but also: there’s no need to chalk EVERY sexual desire or dislike up to what we experienced. 

Maybe our trauma shaped who we are sexually in some ways— that doesn’t necessarily mean we have to reject who we are sexually (assuming we desire to connect with other consenting adults in non-harmful ways). 

In my experience there’s a strong temptation on the part of many survivors to reject anything and everything in their lives that they remotely suspect was shaped by trauma— and, sure, you can do that. 

But in doing that, you might be setting your nervous system up to feel more shame and self-rejection than is necessary or helpful. 

Put more simply: you get to like what you like and be who you are, including sexually, without the fact that your sexual self was partially shaped by your trauma polluting it. 

There are going to be many aspects or ourselves that have been at least partially shaped by our past and our pain that we don’t necessarily need to reject— and that we certainly shouldn’t shame. 

So your sexuality was influenced by what you went through. You get to sift through that understanding, and decide what you want to do about it. There’s no rule that says you “have” to reject things about yourself you’ve come to like or value. 

The core concept behind trauma recovery is autonomy. Autonomy, self-determination, psychological independence, is what was ripped away from us by our trauma. EVERYTHING we do in recovery NEEDS to be grounded in respect for our absolute right to choose who we are and what we’re all about. 

That includes our sexuality. 

Choose what to embrace and what to deemphasize about yourself. It’s your life. 

But don’t start out from the premise that you “have” to embrace or reject anything, just because of the experiences that shaped it. 

You get to choose. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

ATTACK of the SH*ITTY MOOD!!!

Where are all my survivors in sh*tty moods? 

I see you. I’m in one myself as I write this. 

Now: what does Trauma Brain tell us about sh*tty moods? 

Trauma Brain, the internalized voices of our abusers and bullies, tries to tell us that if we were working our recovery “right,” we wouldn’t have them. 

What a load of sh*t. 

Let me tell you something: the most successful trauma recovery is going to involve some sh*tty moods. 

The most successful trauma recovery is going to involve us not feeling great— about life, about our body, about whatever. 

The most successful trauma recovery is definitely going to involve more than a few “f*ck it” moments. 

NONE of that means we’re doing recovery “wrong.” 

In fact, as we work our trauma recovery, we tend to learn something pretty f*cking interesting: we can have sh*tty moods, and not do what we used to do. 

You know what I’m talking about. Get high. Cut ourselves to ribbons. Blow up our relationships. 

Oh, am I the only one who did that? (No, I am not.) 

A great deal of this trauma recovery thing actually hinges on what we DON’T do when we feel sh*tty— and how we meet ourselves when we feel like sh*t. 

Our default mode is often to meet ourselves with judgment. Maybe even abandon ourselves. 

Just now I had a series of moments when I felt like absolute sh*t about my body. And once upon a time, there would have been absolutely no other option I saw than hurting that body— partly because I hate how it looks and feels, partly because I “deserve” some sort of punishment for gaining a few pounds. 

And, yes: I had a flash of that old sh*t. Trauma Brain tried to tell me that I “had” to do something sh*tty to myself, to externalize and concretize this sh*tty feeling, instead of letting it bang around inside myself. 

The fact that I had that flash doesn’t mean my trauma recovery is f*cked. 

It means I have a choice in how to talk to myself, where to focus, and how to breathe and use my body now. 

I choose to meet this sh*tty feeling with acceptance and compassion— and let me tell you, it is f*cking hard. 

I don’t WANT to meet this feeling with acceptance and compassion. I WANT to go throw up everything I’ve eaten in the last twenty four hours and run about thirteen miles. Or, you know, figure out the fastest and cheapest way to get an opiate cruising through me. 

But— I choose to not do any of that. 

Why? Because that’s my trauma trying to control and hurt me. 

Remember: CPTSD’s “helpful” suggestions only serve its goal to make us feel like garbage. 

This feeling I’m feeling now is not fun. But I didn’t choose it. And I am not going to punish myself for something that happened TO me. 

My nervous system, my “parts,” my inner child— none of them asked for that. None of them need or deserve that. 

They are all looking to me to see how I handle this. 

And I choose self-compassion. Goddamn f*cking self-compassion. 

Why? Because I am not my father. I do not hurt people because I feel sh*tty— including myself. 

I offer this to you as an example of what goes on inside someone who is successfully working his recovery. 

Recovery is not about perfection, it’s not about never feeling bad, it’s not about never wanting to do the self-destructive thing. 

It’s about staying on track, even when the track is on f*cking fire. 

Easy does it. Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

And be on your own side. Have your own back. 

drglenndoyle

Handling Wednesday.

Not all of our triggers are these huge, dramatic, obvious things. 

Sometimes we’re just getting the sh*t kicked out of us by, like, a Wednesday. 

Sometimes it really is just a day that’s hard for us— no special reason. 

Those days can be confusing. 

In trauma recovery sometimes we can extend ourselves some grace for getting triggered by something obviously related to our trauma, or something particularly stressful— but just, like a weekday? 

Those moments can be dangerous for our recovery. 

Those are the moments when we’re at risk of minimizing or belittling our triggers. 

The reality is, there are going to be lots of times when we’re not quite sure why we’re triggered. 

Something is obviously going on with us, but we can’t quite put our finger on it. 

In those moments our old programming can take over, and we can really sh*t on ourselves for supposedly being “weak” or “dramatic.” 

“What’s the matter with you, you can’t handle a normal WEDNESDAY?”, Trauma Brain will sneer at us. 

But the fact that we can’t identify quite why we’re struggling on a weekday isn’t all that weird— and it’s not a reason to ignore or belittle our struggle. 

So we’re struggling on what appears to be a pretty “normal” day. And? 

That doesn’t mean we’re “weak” or “dramatic.” 

It means something’s happening beneath the surface that we’re not quite consciously aware of— but our nervous system is responding. 

It’s real important we approach those moments with compassion, patience, and realism. 

Compassion matters because sustainable trauma recovery requires us to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt— to be on our own side when symptoms spike, whether or not we understand or like what’s going on. 

Patience matters because we’re not always going to immediately understand what’s going on— we’ll need to sit with it until we understand it a little better, until it tells us what we need to know about it. 

And realism matters because we can’t get swept up in our fantasies about how we “should” feel or respond to life— we have to deal with what we’re actually experiencing. 

Struggling with a “normal” day or night is one of the most common experiences of trauma survivors. 

It doesn’t mean we “can’t handle” life— it means that our trauma symptoms and struggles get their hooks into our everyday existence. 

That’s really kind of the essence of CPTSD (and DID, for that matter): it’s trauma that permeates into our minutes, our hours, our days, often in ways that aren’t “obviously” related to what happened. 

Struggling with Wednesday happens. Don’t overthink it and don’t over interpret it. 

Just keep coming back to the tools you have every day in trauma recovery, including on a hard Wednesday: self talk, mental focus, and physiology. 

We’re not going to shame ourselves into being able to handle Wednesdays better. 

After all, if shame worked to positively or permanently change before, it would have worked by now, don’t you think? 

Easy does it. Breathe; blink; focus. 

Wednesdays will get easier. 

drglenndoyle

Trigger me this, Batman.

Not feeling heard or accurately understood can be a particularly intense trigger for many CPTSD survivors. 

Many of us grew up feeling invisible— or, worse, visible, but disregarded. 

Many of us grew up with people making all kinds of erroneous assumptions about what we’re thinking, who we are, what we need. 

Even now, some of us experience difficulty expressing ourselves, which can lead to others misunderstanding us— or, worse, feeling angry or hurt because of something we said or how we said it. 

All of this means that our nervous system is very sensitive to those feelings— feeling unheard or misunderstood. 

Our traumatized nervous system is all about sounding the alarm when something feels off. 

And our nervous system isn’t particularly shy or subtle about it, either. 

The classic trio of CPTSD triggers are feeling trapped, controlled, or in trouble— but feeling unheard or misunderstood are right up there, too. 

All this matters because it goes to the most effective strategy for soothing and managing our feelings when we’re activated. 

A really useful Recovery Supporting Question (RSQ) tends to be, “What’s getting triggered right now— trapped, controlled, in trouble, unseen, misunderstood?” 

If we can think to ask that RSQ, almost always we can strategize around what we’re experiencing— as opposed to randomly throwing coping skills at it. 

When we’re triggered by feeling unheard or misunderstood, it’s often a young “part” that’s hurting. 

It’s often— not always, but often— a “part” of us that “holds” memories and feelings associated with feeling uncared for, unimportant, or abandoned once upon a time. 

Whatever “part” of us is stinging, we need to meet it with compassion and patience in those moments. 

Getting triggered is not our fault. Trauma responses are not choices. 

But we DO have choices once we realize what’s going on— specifically, choices in how to talk to ourselves, how to direct our mental focus or “spotlight,” and what to do with our physiology, specifically how to breathe. 

Triggers happen. Don’t shame yourself and don’t overthink it. 

Breathe; blink; focus; and remember what the most common triggers are. 

Then ask yourself what a kid who was experiencing those emotions might need from a consistent, gentle adult right now. 

Easy, easy does it. 

drglenndoyle

Trauma recovery is a no-bullsh*t zone.

Realistic trauma recovery is mostly about not bullsh*tting ourselves. 

Because Trauma Brain is real good at getting us to bullsh*t ourselves. 

We bullsh*t ourselves about the fact we do “everything” wrong or bad. 

Sometimes we bullsh*t ourselves about how something is “fine.” 

Sometimes we even bullsh*t ourselves about not needing to work on something or improve at something. 

As a rule, if we’re leaning toward bullsh*t, either in telling ourselves we’re awesome at everything or we suck at everything, we’re off track in our trauma recovery. 

One of the biggest barges of bullsh*t Trauma Brain— the internalized voices of our bullies and abusers— shovels at us is about how EVERYTHING is our fault, and EVERYTHING is our responsibility. 

That’s just not true. 

It’s also patently untrue that we’re at fault or responsible for other peoples’ choices— including our abusers’ choices to hurt us. 

We absolutely DO have choices in trauma recovery— but that DOESN’T mean we were abused or neglected because we made poor choices in the past. 

But Trauma Brain will push that load of bullsh*t, every day. 

And we often run with it, because the alternative can feel so powerless. 

Put another way: we figure that if we truly did nothing to “attract” or “allow” our abuse, if we truly had no control over it, that means we were powerless— and we might be powerless now over certain things, too. 

Our traumatized nervous system HATES that. 

So it tells us a story about how we we could have avoided it. How we could have escaped, fought back, done or said something to make it stop or not happen. 

It’s bullsh*t. 

(Someone’s going to argue in the comments about that one, and you’re entitled to your feelings— but in my book, any version of “we are responsible for our abuse” is bullsh*t. Your mileage may vary.)

Not bullsh*tting ourselves takes courage. 

Not bullsh*tting ourselves takes persistence. 

Not bullsh*tting ourselves takes energy. 

Most of us would MUCH rather just run with Trauma Brain’s bullsh*t than push back against it every day— because, as painful as Trauma Brain bullsh*t is, we’re utterly unsure what the world might look like if that bullsh*t turned out to be, well, bullsh*t. 

If we’re serious about trauma recovery, we have to take that risk. 

We have to consider the idea that what we’ve believed and felt to be true about how much we suck, how at fault we are, how everything is our fault and everything is our responsibility…is bullsh*t. 

None of that means we don’t have choices or responsibilities in trauma recovery. You bet your ass we do. 


But if we’re going to make those choices well and take those responsibilities seriously, we have to get real. 

We have to see and smell Trauma Brain’s bullsh*t for what it is. 

It’s bullsh*t that feels “right,” mostly because it’s familiar. 

But it’s not about reality— it’s about our bullies and abusers still making us feel like garbage inside our own head and heart, sometimes years after we’ve left them behind. 

I, personally, am over letting them have a vote in what I believe or how I feel. 

So: activate the anti-bullsh*t measures in your head and heart. 

That space is a no-bullsh*t zone. 

Replace the bullsh*t with realism and self-compassion. 

Our abusers would HATE that. 

drglenndoyle

Codependence and spontaneous combustion.

One of the main reasons we keep doing that f*cked up codependent dance with certain others in our lives is because “part” of us truly believes it’s necessary for safety or survival. 

Codependence is frequently rooted in the “fawn” trauma response. 

Our nervous system believes that if we aren’t who “they” want or need us to be, we’re in danger. 

It’s not that we “choose” it, exactly. 

It’s more that we don’t know how to not do it. 

We don’t know how to tolerate the anxiety that would come with not doing it. 

We may not even know who we are if we didn’t do it. 

The reality is, our identity is very often entwined with who we are to and with others. 

For example, many of our beliefs about who are are are overwhelmingly influenced by who our parents and family believe we are. 

Even now, the easiest way to evoke an emotional flashback in me is to toss me back into a situation with my family of origin— my nervous system, my personality reflexes, even my physiology will start responding to who I was to and with them, decades ago. 

We don’t choose those intellectual and emotional and behavioral reflexes, any more than we “choose” any other trauma responses. 

And breaking out of those codependent loops requires a ton of effort, because it requires us to tolerate a ton of anxiety. 

“Anxiety” kind of undersells it, actually. “Doom-certianty” is closer. 

Our nervous system and “parts” truly believe that certain doom is imminent, if we opt out of those old interpersonal patterns. 

The thing is: it’s not. 

No one has ever spontaneously combusted beucase they opted out of a codependent dynamic, choose not to be who someone else expected them to be. 

We’ll survive opting out of a codependent dance, at least physically. Our anxiety might try to convince us otherwise, but we will. 

And but also, the fact that we’ll survive physically doesn’t speak to what the person we refused to “dance” with might say or do. 

They might, in fact, try to make us feel guilty. Or wrong. Or selfish. 

And, yes: they might try to damage us socially, for the “sin” of abandoning our codependent dance with them. 

I’ll never be flippant about the real costs of opting out of a codependent “dance” with someone who has relative influence in our life. It might not be pretty. 

But you know what else isn’t pretty? Feeling trapped in a self-defeating “dance” with someone we may not even like, just because we’ve been conditioned to keep the beat. 

That’s not pretty for our self-esteem, our values, or our goals— you know, those things that define our trauma recovery. 

No— codependent patterns are not a “choice.” 

But breaking out of them has to be. 

And of course, choices do have consequences— but not all of those consequences are bad. 

Some of them can be quite liberating, even if others mean them to be destructive. 

“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” as Ms. Joplin reminds us. 

drglenndoyle

Our abusers were not “strong” or “powerful.”

Many of us remember our bullies or abusers as larger than life. 

That has nothing to do with how big or powerful they actually were. 

It has everything to do with how vulnerable and powerless we felt— how vulnerable and powerless we were made to feel. 

The reality is, abusing or bullying someone doesn’t make someone “strong” or “powerful.” 

Some of us had abusers who were respected or celebrated by the community around them. 

Some of us had abusers who were objectively “powerful,” at least as far as cultural norms go. 

But the fact that they abused us tells the truth: they were not “strong.” 

Abuse is a behavior perpetrated by weak people. 

I don’t care if our abusers were staples of the community of the church. 

I don’t care if they will go down as relatively “powerful” people among the people who knew them. 

They were weak. 

And their “achievements” do not make up for what they did. 

Sometimes we survivors can get up in our heads about the fact that our abusers were “complicated”— and I can heavily identify with this. My father was more complicated than most. 

And, the fact that he was complicated does not take away from the fact that his hurtful behavior made him weak. 

There is nothing in abusive behavior that contributes positively to anyone’s legacy. 

There are plenty of “complicated” people in history who have not harmed other people. 

You and I can’t crawl inside the head of the people who abused us, so we’ll never quite know what their deal is. 

We can speculate all day about who they “really” are or were, but in the end, we’d just be guessing. 

Which is all for the best, because to be hoenst, I don’t especially are. 

There’s nothing I could learn about an abuser’s inner world that would make what they do acceptable. 

Even as a psychologist, someone who is utterly fascinated by the human mind and human motivation, I just don’t care. 

Abusers are weak. 

No matter how “powerful” the world may pretend they are, they are weak. 

No matter how “strong” they pretend to be, they are weak. 

Survivors are strong. 

Survivors are brave. 

Survivors working our recovery are worthy. 

And survivors working our recovery are the reason why the world continues to contain humanity and grace. 

That’s what I think, anyway.