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. 

drglenndoyle

Getting our poop in a group.

The people you think have their sh*t together, don’t feel like they have their sh*t together. 

Trauma Brain— the internalized voices of our bullies and abusers— is particularly good at telling us we don’t have our sh*t together. 

This is true whether or not we especially have our sh*t together. 

I guarantee, you could be the most advanced, most accomplished get-sh*t-done champion of the world, and Trauma Brain would list 1,473,992 reasons why you don’t have your sh*t together— and why you should feel like garbage about it. 

The reality is, we’re all actually at various stages of having our sh*t together. 

Some of us very much have our sh*t together in some areas our lives— but our sh*t goes wildly off the rails in other areas. 

The areas in which we do or don’t have our sh*t together tend to mirror our trauma wounds. 

For example, many trauma survivors tend to be enormously emotionally intelligent— but many of us struggle to make relationships work.

That’s not “evidence” that that emotional intelligence is illusory— it’s probably evidence that there may be a complex trauma wound there. 

Similarly, many trauma survivors are incredibly “book smart”— but many of us seem to struggle with making decisions and anticipating consequences. 

That’s not “evidence” that we’re “stupid”— it’s probably evidence that CPTSD may be f*cking with our executive functioning. 

There are dozens and dozens of examples like this: trauma survivors who are smart and strong, and who have our sh*t together in some life domains, inexplicably struggling to have our sh*t together and “adult” in other domains. 

The world around us often likes to explain that disparity in terms of our “maturity” or “motivation” or “character.” 

But what’s actually going on is, the “holes” in our functioning are pointing to where our wounds are. No more; no less. 

CPTSD’s ability to make us feel like we don’t have our sh*t together, and Trauma Brian’s skill and enthusiasm for being the living snot out of us for it, is one of the hardest things for many trauma survivors to handle. 

We can handle being wounded, though we don’t love it. 

But we really, really hate feeling incompetent. 

(This is especially true if we were “parentified” kids in our family, and our identity was formed around having our sh*t together at an earlier age than we actually should have had our sh*t together.)

When you experience that shame and frustration at not having your sh*t together, remember that you’re probably doing better than you think you are— and you’re certainly doing better than Trauma Brain is letting you believe. 

No, you’re not doing perfectly. No, you don’t have your sh*t together in every way.

But you’re certainly not the train wreck CPTSD is trying to convince you you are. 

You’re like all of us: a work in progress, with strengths, weaknesses, wounds, and possibilities. 

Do not fall into the trap of trying to punish or shame yourself for those areas in which you don’t have your sh*t together. 

After all: even if you don’t have your sh*t together in certain ways, GIVING yourself sh*t isn’t the strategy for changing that. That just gives you MORE sh*t to try to manage, and if you’re already mismanaging your sh*t, where does that leave you? 

I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome new readers to the Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle Facebook community, where trauma recovery meets colorful metaphors. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

“Coercion” can be more than just physical.

Because you were not physically threatened, doesn’t mean you weren’t coerced. 

Because no one had a physical gun to your head doesn’t mean you made a “choice.” 

Because your body responded doesn’t mean you “wanted” or “enjoyed” it. 

You’re going to run into many people who have a very narrow definition of “force” or “coercion.” 

They are going to assume that if there wasn’t physical force or threat directly involved, then behavior must have been a free “choice.” 

These are the people who are going to ask you “why didn’t you just leave?”

They’re the same people who will say, “why didn’t you just set a boundary?” 

They’re the same people who say, “if you hated it so much, why did you repeat the pattern, over and over and over again?” 

That worldview has nothing to do with reality. 

That worldview has everything to do with those peoples’ wishes that reality be that simple. 

You see, if reality was that simple, those people would feel safer. 

They don’t like the idea that we can be forced to do things in ways that have nothing to do with physical coercion. 

They don’t like for example, the fact that true, unforced “choice” only actually exists if all the alternatives are survivable. 

That is to say: if someone “chooses” something because the alternative was not survivable, they haven’t really made a “choice.” 

Those people also don’t like the fact that there are types of survival in addition to physical survival. 

Sometimes we may “choose” something not because our physical life is in danger, but because the alternative was not realistically survivable socially, financially, or even spiritually. 

The actual fact of the matter is, there are dozens of ways to make human beings do things that do not involve threats to physical survival. 

Pretending that physical threat or coercion is the only way “choice” can be taken away from us opens the door to us feeling shame about many things we “chose” for the sake or survival along the way— but which, upon examination, were not actually “free” choices. 

I get it: you don’t love some of the things you did once upon a time. Neither do I. 

We don’t have to love all our “choices.” 

But we also don’t have to pretend all of those choices were truly “free.” 

You and I did plenty of things to survive— again, not just physically— that don’t particularly align with our values or self-concept now. And again, we don’t have to love that. 

But we don’t have to hold those “choices” against ourselves, either. 

We can realistically and self-compassionately acknowledge the truth: that we were forced to do sh*t we don’t love and wouldn’t “freely” choose. 

I know, that can feel helpless. And many people would rather feel ashamed than helpless. 

I’m going to ask you to sit with the helplessness that comes with acknowledging we haven’t, actually been “in control” of our “choices” for a very long time. 

That’s not an excuse. That’s reality. 

And that’s the starting point to actually making some real, values-congruent choices: forgiving ourselves for not being as “in control” as we thought we were. 

Easy does it. None of this is easy. 

And, we deserve a recovery that restores our autonomy and dignity. No matter what “choices” we did or didn’t have in the past. 

Breathe; blink; focus.  

drglenndoyle

“Needy” is not an insult. Or it shouldn’t be, anyway.

Yes: as we work our trauma recovery, we will get better at identifying and expressing our needs. And that’s awesome. 

It’s also not a guarantee others will be at all interested in meeting our needs. 

Unfortunately, there’s no magic to expressing our needs. I wish there was. 

But we’re going to run into plenty of people who just don’t care. 

Not everyone, mind you. We’ll also run into people who will be supportive and invested. 

But we want to be realistic. That won’t be everyone. 

Does that mean there’s no point to expressing our needs? 

No, it does not. 

Identifying and expressing our needs is vital to our self-esteem. 

Identifying and expressing our needs is important to our self-respect. 

Identifying and expressing our needs is necessary to identify the subset of people who actually WILL help us get our needs met. 

If there’s anything you take away from my writing about trauma recovery, it’s that recovery needs to be realistic and sustainable. 

That means we can’t be hanging on to fantasies that the world is kinder than it is. 

The world is not kind. 

But some people in the world can be kind. 

It may not be the case that we’ll have people lining up to help us get our needs met, even if we identify and express those needs. 

But it is the case that if we’re going to realistically recover from CPTSD, WE need to be in touch with those needs—especially if years of abuse and neglect have made us believe we “can’t” or “shouldn’t” be clear and expressive about our needs. 

What the hell are our needs, anyway? 

The theory I like about human needs is that there are six basics: predictability, novelty, significance, connection, growth, and contribution. 

In my experience, most human needs reduce to one or a combination of those. 

Abuse and neglect sever our connection with our needs. 

Which leaves us no less “needy”— just less able to make a realistic plan to meet our needs. 

Your needs are not “bad” or “weak.”

“Needy” is not an insult. Or it shouldn’t be, anyway. 

Get clear about what you need. Put words to your needs. 

Not because there’s “magic” to any of this— but because things that matter deserve specificity and expression. 

And make no mistake, your needs matter— because you matter. 

drglenndoyle

“Love” and “safety” shouldn’t be conditional.

Trauma survivors know: it is exhausting to constantly feel we have to earn, and re-earn, and re-earn again, love or safety. 

In fact, it can be so exhausting that we figure it’s not even worth it. 

The belief that love or safety is conditional, that we have to keep earning and re-earning it, often comes from childhood neglect— and it hooks hard into our “fawn” trauma response. 

When we’re kids, we’re not wired to understand that what we’re getting— or not getting— is not our fault. 

We assume that, if we’re starved for our basic needs (emotional or physical), that it probably has to do with us. 

Hell, sometimes we’re basically told as much by our abusers or bullies, especially when the needs in question are emotional. 

We don’t grow up believing that our caretakers had blocks of their own or made choices that resulted in us not being loved— we assume it was us who wasn’t “lovable.” 

This pattern has lots of variations. For example, if we grew up feeling invisible, we may assume that we simply weren’t attractive or entertaining enough to “deserve” attention— not that our caretakers just didn’t do their job. 

There are, of course, some things that are conditional. We choose our playmates, and later our friends, based at least partially on how they make us feel— and we’re not “unconditional” in it. We’re very conditional. 

But a parent taking care of a kid and providing for that kid’s needs should be held to a different standard than a kid choosing their playmates or friends. 

The bottom line, though, is that may CPTSD survivors arrive in adulthood feeling the crushing weight of what we think is our “failure” to “earn” the love and safety that we should have been entitled to growing up. 

Consequently we rarely feel secure or calm when it comes to love or safety, no matter what happens to be going on— because our nervous system is thoroughly convinced that there IS no such thing as “secure” love or safety. 

Our traumatized nervous system thinks it can never rest, because to do so would be to risk losing the love and safety we have. 

This is how the trauma symptom of “hypervigilance” shows up in CPTSD: never being able to relax, for fear of loss. 

The reality is, “love” or “safety” we have to earn, and re-earn, and re-earn again, is not actual “love” or “safety.” 

“Love” is not the same as affinity or attraction, both of which can vary. But “love” is a deeper level of investment and commitment, that cannot be “lost” that easily. 

Similarly, “safety” should not, cannot be dependent on someone else— we have to create it for ourselves and inside ourselves first and foremost. Otherwise it’s never truly “safe.” 

Do not let your early conditioning convince you you have to exhaust yourself “earning” love or safety. 

There are plenty of tasks in trauma recovery that require plenty of effort— but if someone says they love you, they don’t get to make you feel like you’re constantly auditioning for their love. 

And if someone represents that they’re a “safe” person, that safety should not be contingent upon their attitude toward you today. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

See it.

Not for nothing, but you and I have spent an awful lot of time focused on the wounded version of ourselves. 

That’s not our fault. We’re not voluntarily “fixated” on our wounds. We’re not making a “choice.” 

We’ve been focused on our wounds because our wounds have been our life. 

We haven’t had the option of a day without our wounds f*kcing up our job, our relationships, our life. 

People who don’t struggle with CPTSD don’t know— that’s not a “choice.” We’re not being “difficult” or “negative.” 

That’s just what we’ve been handed by life, and it’s been on us to cope with it as best we can and stay alive. 

No shame, no shade. 

And but also— if recovery is going to be realistic and sustainable for us, we need to devote some focus to the healed version of ourselves that we’re trying to create. 

I’m not talking about bullsh*t “positive thinking.” 

I’m talking about getting clear and visceral about what we’re shooting for. 

What does a “healed” version of you look like? 

What do they feel like? What sorts of experiences do they have in their life every day? 

Many trauma survivors are surprised to find we haven’t really thought much about that.

After all, why would we? A “healed” version of ourselves has seemed so unrealistic over the years, that to envision it might even be more depressing. 

Add to that the fact that many of us have been told, implicitly or explicitly, that we “can’t” meaningfully recover from what we’ve experienced. 

Many survivors reading this haven’t had a particularly robust cheering section as we’ve tried to change our life, have we? 

So— visualizing that “healed” version of us might have been bittersweet at best, or a profound bummer at worst. 

But I’m going to ask you to put that “healed” version of yourself back on the radar. 

Our nervous system functions much better when we give it a clear goal. 

Most humans have real trouble “locking in” if a goal is abstract. Hard to hit a target you can’t really define. 

So, in your journal, on a Pinterest board, wherever: flesh that healed version of yourself out. 

What do they look like? What kinds of things do they think about? What kinds of things do they believe? 

What is it like inside the head and heart of the “healed” version of you? 

I understand: this is not an easy exercise for many survivors. We’ve been hit over the head so often and so rudely by the “toxic positivity” crew that envisioning a “healed” version of ourselves may feel silly, like a waste of time. 

But I’m telling you: the mind develops the pictures we hold in it. It’s not magic or metaphysics; it’s neuroscience. 

Dopamine flows where our focus goes. 

You are not struggling because you’ve been thinking “negatively.” That’s not at all what I’m saying. 

What I’m saying is that giving your brain something to shoot for as you design your trauma recovery is worth the effort. 

Our wounds and limitations will always be there to think about. 

But mixing our pattern of focus up to include what we’re driving toward is a value added tool. 

No pressure. Just experiment with it, like you would with any recovery tool. 

Breathe; blink; focus.