drglenndoyle

You are up for this.

CPTSD is going to try to convince you you are not up to this life. That you can’t hack it.

It’s going to give you all sorts of “evidence” that you’re just not up to this— and that evidence is going to feel very real, mostly because you’re exhausted.

Exhaustion makes false evidence appear real. You know, “F.E.A.R.”

The reality is, you are up for this.

When I say “up for this,” I don’t mean you’re up to the project of simply continuing to exist— I mean you’re up for the project of creating a life you don’t hate.

The thing is, we’re not really taught how to do that.

Hell, humans are really taught how to do that under the best of circumstances, even when they’re not being abused or neglected.

Look around. How many people do you know who are actually relaxed and focused and happy?

You might know a few— but you probably know a lot more who are tense, scattered, and unhappy.

That’s because we’re not really taught how to design a life.

We’re not taught it in school, and the versions of it we’re “taught” in religion often have nothing to do with what we actually want or value.

So you take that basic skill deficit that most humans suffer from, and you add abuse and neglect that f*cks up our head about whether we “deserve” to live, let alone be happy— and you wind up with trauma survivors who are very vulnerable to hopelessness about our future.

Trauma recovery is going to ask you to understand that feeling for what it is: a feeling.

Even that sense of certainty that you “can’t” create a life is just that: a feeling. A feeling that has been conditioned, programmed, reinforced, by painful experiences that shouldn’t have happened.

We truly shouldn’t be taking our bullies’ and abusers’ word for what we deserve and what we can do.

We truly shouldn’t take on the BS (Belief Systems) of people who didn’t have their own sh*t together— to the extent that they had to make THEIR lives all about making OUR lives hell.

It is my experience that most survivors in trauma recovery are not just creating our recovery from scratch— we’re building our lives and our self-concepts from scratch, really.

The idea that we can create a life that is about what WE want it to be about is this bizarre idea.

Maybe its sounds unbelievable. I get it.

But here’s the rock bottom reality: neither you nor I were “destined” for anything.

We were not destined for misery; nor were we destined for greatness.

We have the life we have. The resources we have. The time we have.

And, yes, you and I have the injuries we have. This fun collection of beliefs and behaviors called CPTSD.

But we get to choose what our life is about.

How to DO that is not easy or effortless, but let me be crystal clear: we GET to learn how to do it. We GET to decide who and what we want to be.

That’s not toxic positivity bullsh*t— that’s reality.

You are up for this. It may not be pretty and it may not be easy— I know my journey hasn’t been either of those, and it still isn’t.

But you and I are up for this.

You have a realistic place in this world and a realistic life you can build that you don’t hate waking up to every morning.

It all starts and deepens with conditioning and reconditioning.

You are not the one human being whose nervous system stopped being malleable after your trauma. I guarantee it.

Breathe. Blink. Focus.

And seek out the next teeny, tiny, recovery supporting micro choice.

drglenndoyle

Recovery work is identity work.

CPTSD shreds our identity.

This is one of the hardest things for many survivors to express or explain.

The symptoms and struggles of CPTSD are not primarily about what happened to us. They’re about what happened to us impacted how we understand ourselves, how we communicate with ourselves, what we believe about ourselves.

If CPTSD was just about what happened, we could heal that by working exclusively with the memories of what happened.

But it’s just not that simple.

We could erase or transform every trauma memory we have— and the damage of CPTSD would still be deeply entrenched.

We would still struggle with our self-esteem.

We would stills struggle with our relationships.

We would still struggle with managing our money and our time.

Those are all things linked to our identity and our relationship with ourselves— which is what CPTSD really goes after.

Realistic, sustainable recovery has to focus on not just what happened to us— but also who we are.

In realistic recovery we have to develop tools to understand and communicate with ourselves in ways that support our authenticity— instead of conforming to others’ expectations or pressure.

The reality is, we humans are not really taught how to intentionally develop our identity.

Most of us, traumatized or not, are living out someone else’s vision of who we “should” be.

For some people, that’s not a problem— if they grew up with adults around them who nurtured a positive, proactive concept of who they should be.

But we survivors of complex trauma grew up with something different, didn’t we?

Many people reading this grew up with people mocking them. Or gaslighting them. Or ignoring them.

What results is an identity that is patchwork of negative ideas and stereotypes and assumptions that has almost no relationship to who we actually are.

Then we wonder why we’re such a sh*t show in relationships, at work, in the world?

Some people are confused and frustrated that CPTSD recovery, at least as I teach and support the concept, isn’t entirely focused on eradicating trauma memories.

They don’t want to get into issues of who they are and how they relate to who they are.

But that’s where the real pain is, and that’s where the real movement in recovery is.

That’s why it’s so important in realistic trauma recovery to broaden the conversation from wha happened to us us, to who we are and what we want our personality and life to be about.

CPTSD recovery is identity work, grief work, and life development work— not just memory work.

And it all keeps coming back to, “who do you want to be?”

Breathe. Blink. Focus.

And look inward, without judgment or rush.

drglenndoyle

Trauma recovery and impulse control.

CPTSD survivors can have a real hard time saying “no” to ourselves. And there are reasons for this.

Among the biggest triggers for survivors is often feeling trapped and/or controlled— because many of our experiences growing up were all about us being trapped and controlled.

It makes perfect sense that now, as adults, we’re highly sensitive to feeling trapped and controlled— and not just in overt ways.

Many of our triggers around feeling trapped and controlled are subtle.

If you haven’t noticed, CPTSD survivors’ nervous systems are overwhelmingly sensitive— so much so that many of our triggers may not seem to make sense, even to us.

But we pick up on things. We pick up on MICRO things.

Such as micro-feelings of being trapped or controlled.

When we have to rein in an impulse, say “no” to ourselves, our nervous system often processes that as tonally similar to when we were reprimanded or shamed by our bullies or abusers.

It doesn’t matter if the thing we’re saying “no” to is “bad” for us— what our inner child hears and responds to is the vibe that we’re “wrong” or “bad” for wanting or trying to do that thing.

Making healthy dietary choices gets linked to “good people don’t eat junk food.”

Avoiding intoxicating substances gets linked to “good people don’t do drugs.”

Managing our time gets linked to “responsible people don’t procrastinate.”

All of which toggle those “trapped” and “controlled” triggers in our amygdala and hippocampus— along with the third big trigger of most CPTSD survivors, feeling “in trouble.”

So, while saying “no” to ourselves, reeling in certain impulses, is super necessary to our health and safety in the real world, CPTSD survivors (and definitely survivors who have DID) are tasked with managing a cadre of rebellious internal “parts” that are hell bent on never feeling trapped, controlled, or in trouble, ever again.

Here’s the thing: the backbone of realistic trauma recovery really is the relationship we nurture with ourselves.

It’s that relationship that complex trauma shreds, and it’s the relationship with ourselves that we need to repair.

That means we need to handle things like saying “no” to ourselves with sensitivity, compassion and realism— especially when we get kick back from our “parts,” who bristle at restrictions or limits of any kind.

First thing’s first: no shame.

So saying “no” to ourselves and managing impulses is fraught. We need to understand that for the complex trauma symptom it is— not as a mark of immaturity or lack of “character.”

We need to understand that wrangling our own behavior is always going to be more complex than just telling ourselves, “don’t do that.”

Meeting our own resistance with compassion, patience, and realism needs to become our default setting— which is hard, when we’ve been conditioned to shame and blame and punish ourselves for being “difficult.”

Our job in CPTSD recovery, over and over again, is to push back against the internalized voices and patterns of our bullies and abusers— especially in those moments when shame and punishment feel like “natural” go-to’s to modify our behavior.

It’s absolutely true that managing our impulses, saying “no” to ourselves, is necessary to live a safe, healthy life. Self-discipline is a super necessary tool to achieving our goals.

But it’s also true that if we try to “discipline” ourselves like a drill sergeant, we’re going to end up reinforcing old patterns of abuse and neglect— and damaging the relationship we are here to repair.

I know. I wish managing our own behavior in CPTSD recovery was more straightforward and intuitive, too.

But our trauma-conditioned autopilot is what got us here. It’s not what will dig us out.

Breathe. Blink. Focus.

drglenndoyle

Functional freeze and fawning in plain sight.

“Fawn” and “freeze” in CPTSD often don’t look like we think they should.

When we hear “freeze,” we often think of literal paralysis.

Sometimes that is what “freeze” looks like— but CPTSD survivors tends to be far more familiar with “functional freeze.”

In “functional freeze,” we may not look “frozen” at all to someone observing us.

We may be going about our tasks of the day, doing the things, showing up to work, taking care of the kids.

But inside, we may be at a standstill.

We may be procrastinating on important things that we just cannot get ourselves to do.

It often feels like an internal wall we just can’t get around— and yet, we feel lots of shame about that wall, because we don’t register what’s happening as a trauma response.

It’s easy to mistake a “functional freeze” state for a “choice,” because we’re still doing certain things. We’re not literally, physically “frozen.”

But “functional freeze” is no more a “choice” than any other trauma response.

Trauma responses are not choices.

CPTSD survivors stuck in “functional freeze” would often give ANYTHING to be able to do the things they feel unable to do— even as they’re doing the things they are able to do on autopilot.

A similar thing happens with the “fawn” response.

We may not even realize we’re “fawning” when we are. We may think we’re just engaging with someone in a friendly, accommodating way.

But that line— between “friendly” and “accommodating” in an unchosen way— can be very fine.

We’re told so often to stop “people pleasing,” that we may truly believe we’re making a choice, a choice we could make differently at any moment.

But diverting from that accommodating, people-pleasing default may be harder than it seems.

Our behavior when we’re “fawning” can seem so natural, so freely chosen, that we may not register that we’re actually feeling quite coerced— and quite unable to just choose differently.

Trauma responses that don’t necessarily look like trauma responses can really f*ck with us.

We assume that we would know a trauma response when we see it or experience it— but would we?

After all, many CPTSD survivors are real good at hiding our trauma responses from others.

Who’s to say we’re not equally good at hiding them from ourselves?

It’s true that not every reaction we have is a trauma response.

But when a reaction is a trauma response, even one in disguise, it really matters that we’re able to clock that— because trauma responses can’t be just “unchosen.”

They have to be met with compassion and patience— and, more than anything, tools that create safety, inside and outside of us.

Broaden your thinking about what may be a trauma response.

Functional freezing and fawning in plain sight happen a lot more than anybody realizes.

Breathe. Blink. Focus.

drglenndoyle

Talking– and listening– to ourselves.

You’ve heard me say over and over again that the three main trauma recovery tools are self-talk, mental focus, and physiology.

The self-talk piece is often the one that’s most accessible.

We’re talking to ourselves 24/7/365.

We may not be aware we’re talking to ourselves— but we are. We are in constant communication with ourselves.

We’re constantly telling ourselves stories— some true, some less true— about who we are and what things mean.

What we communicate to ourselves really matters— but how we communicate it really, really matters.

Remember that the backbone of realistic trauma recovery really is the relationship with ourselves— because that’s what takes the hit when we endure complex trauma.

When we endure complex trauma— that is, pain that unfolds over time, is functionally inescapable, and entwines with our relationships—we almost always come out of it with a damaged relationship with ourselves.

We don’t believe we’re worthy.

We don’t believe we’re capable.

We don’t believe we have a future.

And that damaged relationship with ourselves is almost always reflected in our self-talk and other self-communication.

This often takes the form of talking to ourselves like our abusers and bullies talked to us.

We internalize both their vocabulary and their cadences.

And why wouldn’t we? For many of us, our abusers and our bullies were the people we interacted with the most, whether it was our parents or our peers.

Some survivors get skeptical that self-talk plays an big role in either trauma or recovery, because the words “self talk” sound superficial.

But I’m not talking about superficial self-talk.

I’m talking about deep self-talk— the self-communication that is a 24/7/365 live feed inside our head and nervous system. The self-communication that informs and supports our deepest belief systems.

That’s what we have to shift.

Just telling yourself “good job”— while maybe an okay start— isn’t going to do much.

Using your ability to talk to yourself to remind your “parts” and inner child, again and again, that they will not be punished or abandoned— not by you, not inside your own head and heart— can be life transforming.

A good rule of thumb to keep in mind is, you know all the stuff you needed to hear once upon a time, when you were lonely or desperate or in trouble?

You still need to hear that stuff.

But now it needs to come from you, to you— from the conscious, verbal “part” of you, to the more vulnerable, less verbal “part” of you.

(If you’re paying attention, you’ve probably already figured out that self-talk is the way most people get started with “parts” work in trauma recovery.)

Breathe. Blink. Focus.

And talk to yourself.

Talk to yourself like it matters— because it really, really does.

drglenndoyle

Parentification is coercion and neglect. No exceptions.

Anybody who has children knows they can be incredible emotional supports, mostly by accident, mostly in ways that would be impossible to engineer even if one wanted to.

But it’s not the job of kids to be emotional supports for adults.

And kids shouldn’t be put in that position— or the position of doing any job or fulfilling any role that actually requires an adult.

At the heart of the whole thing is consent.

Kids can’t meaningfully consent to being emotional supports for adults— let alone taking on other adult roles.

They couldn’t understand what’s involved if they wanted to.

That’s not to disrespect any children— of course there are remarkably bright and industrious kids out there.

But kids lack the neural wiring to wrap their heads around adult roles.

I don’t care if a kid is an “old soul.”

I don’t care if a kid has triple the raw IQ of their parents.

I don’t care if a kid fervently believes in their own ability to take on an adult role or do an adult job: it’s not for them.

And we, as adults, need to make sure kids are not put in that position.

There are many people reading this who are well aware, who know by experience, what happens when kids are put in the position of being emotional support for adults, or coerced into being “little adults” in other ways.

Yes, I said “coerced.” Because that’s what it is.

Some parents are going to have feelings about this. They’re going to make the case that what they coerced their kids into wasn’t harmful. They’re going to say that it depends on the kid, that there are smart and mature kids out there who can handle it.

One, being smart and mature, even adult-like— in intellect, appearance, or otherwise— doesn’t mean a kid is able to take on adult roles.

Two, adults and kids are not operating on level playing fields, power wise.

Not only are kids incapable of taking on those adult jobs and roles, they are incapable of consenting to do so, due to that power differential. Especially so if the adults in question are their parents, caretaker, or other important people in their lives, such as teachers or clergy.

It harms kids to take on adult roles— especially repeatedly, especially in relationships where refusing to take on those roles is awkward or impossible due to the power dynamic.

Why am I writing about this on my trauma page?

Because more than a few people reading this were harmed by the coercion I’m describing.

Raise your hand if you were ever described as an “old soul.” “Mature for your age.”

Raise your hand if it was up to you to take care of your parents.

I understand a certain percentage of survivors reading this are going to say I’m overstating things, that what happened to them wasn’t abuse or neglect, that they were capable of being the emotional or logistical support their parents needed at the time.

I’m not going to tell you what your truth is.

But I am going to tell you, many survivors of this specific kind of neglect, parentification, don’t register it as neglect— but they are impacted by it all the same.

That “fawn” response? The people pleasing, the perfectionism, the anxiety, the guilt?

The vulnerability to relationship conflict, that “freeze” response when things get tough between you and your partner?

Yeah, none of that comes out of nowhere.

Parentification is coercion and neglect. I don’t care who you are or who your parents were.

And by the way, coercing kids to be “adults” in certain spheres, like emotional support, kicks open the door to rationalizing kids fulfilling other “needs” for adults, with the same arguments for it all. “Some kids are mature enough to handle it,” blah blah blah.

Kids deserve better.

You deserved better.

drglenndoyle

The stupid sh*t “they” say.

It’s easy for other people to say “let it go.”

Or “don’t let it bother you.”

Or “leave the past in the past.”

But trauma survivors often feel immense shame that it’s not quite so easy for us.

We feel we SHOULD be able to just “let it go.”

We wish we COULD just “not let it bother us.”

And we’re desperate for someone to show us how to “leave the past in the past.”

But the reality is, no trauma survivor is making a choice to run any of those patterns.

Those patterns were conditioned into us. Programmed into us. Sometimes beaten into us, quite literally.

People who suggest that it’s a “choice” to just “let it go” are implying that we’re suffering because we’re “choosing” to “hang on” to our past or our pain.

Conditioning is not a choice.

Trauma responses are not choices.

CPTSD and DID are not “choices.”

If we had “choices” in these matters, we would choose something different, every single time.

Most of us don’t even realize we’ve been conditioned in these pattern soft believing, thinking, feeling, and behaving.

Rather, we think it’s just “how we are.”

We assume the way we’ve been experiencing the world is just our experience of the world— and we can’t imagine it being different.

Which is exactly what Trauma Brain, the internalized voices of our abusers and bullies, wants us to think.

The truth is, we can recondition our patterns of believing, thinking, feeling, and behaving— but, realistically, it’s going to take both time and some specific tools and support.

It’s not as simple as making a one time decision to “let it go.”

It’s not as simple as just deciding “something doesn’t bother us.”

And it’s nowhere near as simple as “leaving the past in the past.”

The vast majority of trauma survivors I’ve ever met would happily let go of the past— if only the past would let go of us, of our nervous and endocrine systems.

All of that stuff is going to be easy for other people to say.

But remember, the stuff they say has zero to do with the reality of your situation or your needs.

Rather, the stuff people say is about their projection, their biases, their fantasies, their misconceptions.

Your project is rewiring yourself, reconditioning yourself, building sustainable habits and routines and tools that will realistically impact how you feel and function.

Don’t let their stupid sound bites distract or discourage or shame you.

Stay on target.

Breathe. Blink. Focus.

drglenndoyle

When the little things are not so “little.”

It’s one of the most normal things in the world for trauma survivors to struggle with seemingly “little” tasks.

This includes tasks that you wouldn’t think would have anything to do with surviving trauma.

Going to the grocery store.

Keeping our space clean and organized.

Personal hygiene.

Many people take these tasks for granted— which can amplify survivors’ shame when we struggle with them.

For many CPTSD survivors, these tasks have subtle triggers embedded in them that we don’t fully appreciate.

The variety of items at the grocery store and people all around stoke anxiety.

Being at the grocery store scrapes up memories of being there with a parent when we were young.

Trying to keep our space clean and organized stokes shame and feeling trapped, controlled, or in trouble.

Attending to our personal hygiene requires looking in a mirror— which many survivors hate— or reminds us we have a physical body about which we have conflicted beliefs and feelings.

Non-CPTSD survivors may be oblivious to those sorts of triggers— but for CPTSD survivors, they’re the kind of thing that rules our world.

They’re also the kind of thing that is virtually impossible to explain to someone not in our head or our nervous system.

You need to know there’s zero shame in struggling with these kinds of “little” things.

You need to know that just because you can’t immediately or directly trace a trigger back to what happened to you, doesn’t mean your reaction is invalid or not a trauma response.

We meet any and every symptom spike we experience with compassion and patience and realism— including those symptoms we don’t quite understand, and especially those symptoms about which we feel reflexive shame.

There is no symptom that indicates we’re “too broken” to recover. Really.

We do not choose trauma responses or other symptoms.

Trauma responses and other symptoms are not resolved or managed by insisting we “suck it up” or “get our sh*t together.”

For each “little” task you struggle with, break it down into its smallest component tasks, then use the tool of self talk to supportively, realistically talk yourself through it.

Imagine I’m there, on your shoulder, in the grocery store. What would I say?

Probably not “suck it up.”

I’d remind you to breathe. To blink blink blink. To focus on just the next thing.

And I’d also remind you that this is not your fault— and that this will get better with practice and self-compassion.

Easy does it.

You are not the first, last or only CPTSD survivor for whom the supposedly “little” things are not so little.

drglenndoyle

It was not on you to change them. Even if you wanted to.

Something many CPTSD survivors have in common is our strong desire to fix things we couldn’t possibly fix if we tried. 

You know, like our families of origin. 

Something many CPTSD survivors also have in common is the steadfast belief that the only reason we “couldn’t” fix those things is because we didn’t try hard enough. 

Again and again, we survivors tend to blame ourselves. 

I’m not talking about taking realistic responsibility. 

I’m talking about constantly erring on the side of assuming that it was our fault things weren’t different in our family or environment growing up.

The difficult truth is, most of us did not choose the environment in which we grew up. 

We certainly didn’t choose the parents to whom we were born. 

And if that environment or those parents were f*cked up, there was realistically very little— in fact, usually nothing— we could do about it. 

This is true even if we fell into “parentified” roles in our family— being expected to function as adults, despite the fact we were children. 

This is overwhelmingly common among CPTSD survivors. 

Despite the actual, literal fact we were kids, we might have been expected to care for either the adults or other kids in our environment— often, both. 

And the fact that we could kind of pull it off might have f*cked with our head about fault and responsibility. 

I have ment so many survivors who, even if they can concede the fact that they were expected to be “adults” in their childhood environment, struggle to see the harm it caused them. 

They truly think they were the one kid that didn’t affect. The one kid who could or did pull it off. 

The fact that you were put in the position of being a caretaker or problem solver for your family growing up doesn’t mean that level of responsibility was appropriate. 

And it certainly doesn’t mean that you had the power the meaningfully change how your family or environment operated back then. 

You were a kid. 

Your family and the environment were happening TO you. 

That’s not an “excuse;” that’s reality. 

Here, now, as an adult working your trauma recovery, you’re working to be proactive and accountable— to no longer let life happen TO you, but rather FOR you. 

But that’s hard when you’ve been made to feel, over and over again, that you “failed” to change what you “should” have been able to change in the past. 

I truly believe that if we could have changed it, we would have. 

If we didn’t, it’s because we didn’t— and by the way, that’s not weird, considering the fact that we were kids. 

Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know, and not being able to do what you couldn’t do, back then. 

I understand that what I’m saying right now is going to make a subset of survivors roll their eyes. It’s a little touchy feely for some. 

What I need you to understand is, that’s as much of a CPTSD symptom as anything else— specifically, an artifact of trauma conditioning. 

It was not on you to change them. 

It was not on you to change that world. 

You couldn’t have, if you wanted to. 

And that’s not a “failure,” in any sense of the word. 

Sad— but not a “failure.” 

drglenndoyle

Feeling good is a recovery priority.

A trauma recovery priority that not enough sources talk about is developing ways to feel good without hurting ourselves. 

You don’t hear much about feeling good in trauma work. 

You hear a lot about coping with feeling bad— but not so much about feeling good. 

I happen to think learning non-toxic, non-self-destructive ways to feel good is really important. 

We trauma survivors often have a fraught relationship with feeling good. 

Some of us get suspicious of feeling good. We don’t trust it. 

If we start to feel too good, we get anxious— wondering when the other shoe will drop. 

Other trauma survivors were taught that feeling good leaves us vulnerable. We let down our guard. 

Still other trauma survivors were taught that it was “selfish” to feel good. 

Who are we to feel good, after all, when other people are so miserable? 

Yet other trauma survivors get all up in our head about feeling good to the tune of, “could it really have been abuse or trauma, if I’m feeling good in this moment?” 

Our complicated relationship with feeling good often leads to us trying to stay away from it entirely. 

Which, in turn, has us feeling all these trauma-driven states— depression, anxiety, fear— without anything to even sort of balance them out or take the edge off. 

I happen to think feeling good is more than just nice— it’s a human need. 

And to the extent that trauma recovery is about more than just coping with trauma symptoms or resolving trauma— it’s actually about restoring and enhancing our quality of life— we really, really need to develop ways to feel good that are accessible and sustainable. 

This is why I believe it’s so important we incorporate more than just talking or writing about our trauma or symptoms into our recovery. 

I believe we need pleasure and release, too. 

We need art. 

We need music. 

We need poetry. 

We need movies and shows that make us laugh, make us cry, make us think. 

We need books that keep us up all night reading because we just HAVE to find out what’s going to happen next. 

Feeling good can get trivialized and overlooked in a culture that tends to overly medicalize mental health care. 

For many of us, the only “tools” we’ve learned to help us feel good put us at risk. 

But we deserve pathways to pleasure and release that don’t harm us. 

Coping skills are important. Trauma processing is important. I’m not telling you to avoid those in favor of chasing dopamine or serotonin. 

But I absolutely think if were realistically going to cope or process trauma, we need tools standing by that can take the edge off. 

Prioritize feeling good. 

You deserve it and you need it.