drglenndoyle

Validation, distortion, self-trust, & self-esteem.

Validation gets a bad rap. 

Some people seem to think validation means leaning into everything we think or feel. 

It’s not. 

We are going to think and feel plenty of distorted things, thanks to our trauma conditioning. 

Leaning into everything we think or feel would result in us not even trying to work our recovery some nights that are particularly hopeless. 

What validation IS is, when we think or feel something, we don’t immediately reject it. 

We lead off with how this thing we’re thinking or feeling makes sense. 

We give this thing we’re thinking or feeling permission to exist. We don’t demand it go away or be different immediately. 

Why does validation matter in CPTSD recovery? 

Because most of us survivors have, for years, been told that what we think and feel is by definition INVALID. 

We’ve been told we’re “crazy.” 

We’ve been told we’re “weak.” 

We’ve been told, in various ways, that we’re “bad” for thinking and feeling what we do. 

Leaning into THOSE reflexive judgments will mangle our self-esteem, and keep us from building the self-trust we need to climb out of this CPTSD Sarlacc pit. 

I’m a therapist. I listen to plenty of survivors confidently tell me things that I know aren’t true— things like how they don’t deserve to live, how they are unlikeable or unloveable, how they can’t do “anything” right. 

If I responded to all of those things by immediately saying “you’re wrong, crazy and/or bad for thinking or feeling that,” what impact do you think it would have? 

It would have the immediate impact, at least, of those survivors never telling me anything vulnerable again. 

We don’t tend to confide in people who lean into how invalid our thoughts and feelings are— whether they’re our therapist or ourselves. 

When we have thoughts and feelings, we can’t leap right to trying to invalidate them. Not if our goal is to build self trust and self-esteem. 

Nor do we have to go all in and affirm that everything we think and feel is literally 100% accurate— and by the way, that would be true whether or not Trauma Brain was messing with our thoughts and beliefs about ourselves. 

NO human being has “100% accurate” thoughts and feelings all the time. 

What we’re trying to do in realistic trauma recovery is counteract the gaslighting and belittling of our past by validating what we think and feel— but also supporting our recovery by compassionately reality testing it. 

Many trauma survivors are sick to death of cognitive behavioral therapy responding to every one of their self-statements with condescending skepticism, and that’s completely legit. 

Validation is the key to reality testing our inner world without buying into the distorted, destructive thoughts and beliefs Trauma Brain is pumping into our head. 

Many people want to oversimplify validation. Validation is not, actually, a simplistic or black-and-white recovery tool. 

It’s a perspective shift that hooks into a larger recovery supporting mindset: our absolute refusal to shame or attack ourselves, no matter what we’ve been conditioned to do by our bullies and abusers. 

Validation is not a touchy-feely, pop psychology thing. 

It’s part of a practical, hard nosed commitment to relate to ourselves fairly and compassionately. 

Our thoughts and feelings are 100% valid. 

And, they can get distorted by our trauma conditioning, especially when it comes to how we feel and what we believe about ourselves and the future. 

Investigate and realist test your thoughts and feelings— even as you acknowledge that they make sense, that they’re important, and that they don’t mean anything toxic about you. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

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

Giving ourselves credit, instead of sh*t.

Giving yourself credit will not make you complacent. Really it won’t. 

Trauma survivors often struggle with giving ourselves credit, because we don’t want to lose our edge. 

We get worried that if we actually acknowledge when we do something well, we might get cocky— and then the sh*t will hit the fan, when our guard is down. 

We don’t believe this out of nowhere. Many of us have had experiences that reinforced for us that constant, constant vigilance was incredibly necessary to stay safe. 

We didn’t have time to sit around and pat ourselves on the back. We had to stay sharp. We had to watch for the next threat, be prepared for the next challenge. 

Add to that the fact that many of us were taught that giving ourselves credit was a form of “egotism” or “arrogance” that we have to stay away from if we want to be a “good” person. 

We were taught that it was unacceptable to even think nice thoughts about ourselves at all, let alone give ourselves actual credit for doing something well or right. 

According to our programming, if we start thinking nice things about ourselves, we’re just ASKING for the universe to step in and remind us that we’re not, actually, “good.” That we don’t, actually, deserve good things to happen to us. 

Trauma recovery asks us to step back and be realistic about where all this programming comes from. 

By and large, this conditioning comes from people and institutions that benefitted from us never cutting ourselves any slack, never giving ourselves credit, never giving ourselves a break. 

These people and institutions want us walking around feeling guilty, disempowered, insecure, and uncertain. 

It makes us easier to control.

It makes us easier to sell stuff to. 

And it makes us less likely to speak up about bad stuff that’s happened to us.

The reality is, in working with hundreds of CPTSD survivors, I’ve never once met one whose main problem was that they were too easy on themsevles, or that they gave themselves too much credit. 

I HAVE worked with dozens and dozens of survivors who did not feel they could make a “good” decision, under any circumstances— so they constantly undermined themselves, reversed themselves, or got so stuck in decision paralysis that they lost the chance to actually choose. 

It’s true that neither you nor I make EVERY decision well. 

But it’s also true that our decision making is almost always a mixed bag— which does include some competent, effective, values-congruent decisions alongside the stinkers. 

Giving ourselves credit for decisions we make well and things we do right matters, because realistic trauma recovery requires us to solidify and deepen our self-trust and self-esteem. 

Our “parts” are counting on us to listen to them and keep them safe— and they’re not going to buy into our ability to do either if we’re constantly doubting and trashing ourselves in our own head. 

We do not have to fall into the toxic positivity trap of telling ourselves EVERY decision we make or EVERYTHING we do is awesome. That’s delusional, and trauma recovery is almost entirely organized around realistically seeing what we see and knowing what we know. 

What we have to do, is be real with ourselves. 

Giving ourselves credit will not make us vulnerable in the way we’ve been conditioned to believe it will. 

It will not make us “arrogant” or “cocky.” 

Giving ourselves realistic credit will point us to our strengths— yes, believe it or not, you have strengths, right here, right now— and help us understand where we get stuck, where we miss things, where we need to pay extra attention. 

Giving yourself credit will not get you into trouble. 

Not with anyone who realistically supports your trauma recovery, anyway. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

And give yourself a break and a pat on the back today. 

drglenndoyle

Here’s to your edge.

It comes as a surprise to some trauma survivors working our recovery that this process is not all, or even mostly, love and light. 

Yes, we tend to get “happier” the further we get into our trauma recovery (though that word, “happiness,” has a lot of nuance to it that trauma recovery requires us to unpack). 

But it’s not the case that trauma recovery changes our personality such that we walk around cheerful and smiling all the time. 

Maybe we do, if that’s part of our personality to begin with— but it’s my experience that many trauma survivors come with an edge. 

Does that edge have a lot to do with what we’ve been through? Sure, it can. 

And but also, sometimes we just come with an edge as part of who we are. 

We don’t have to give up that edge in order to recover. 

I know survivors who shy away from the concept of recovery because it’s too “positive.” It doesn’t feel authentic to who they are. 

What I tell them is that the trauma recovery that will be realistic and sustainable for you HAS to reflect who you are. 

Maybe this means your recovery isn’t sunshine and rainbows. 

Maybe it means your recovery is more moonlight and shadow. 

I know my recovery has plenty of darkness. 

We confuse “darkness” and “shadow” with “badness” or even “evil”— but they’re really not the same. 

Carl Jung maintained that evil wasn’t about our shadow, per se— it was about our refusal to meet our shadow. 

And that’s actually what trauma recovery is REALLY all about: meeting our shadow, with realism and compassion. 

What is our shadow? It’s all that pain we carry. It’s all the old patterns we carry, that were conditioned in us by our bullies and abusers, and which we carry forward driven by Trauma Brain. 

Trauma recovery can have very different tones or “flavors,” depending on who a survivor is as a person— but one thing EVERY successful trauma recovery has in common is, it supports us in meeting our shadow in a way we can tolerate. 

Conversely: rejecting our shadow, or the “parts” of us that hold and manage our shadow, can be enormously destructive. 

Many survivors get confused when the word “integration” is thrown around in trauma recovery discussions. Some erroneously believe that “integration” means “banishing” those “dark” parts of us, and embracing only the “light.” 

Nothing could be further from the truth. 

True “integration” isn’t about “banishing,” or shaming, or abandoning, ANY “part” of us, ever. 

We need our shadow, and we need our darker “parts.” 

In recovery we don’t have to meet ANYONE’S standards or expectations about who we “should” be— light or dark, cheerful or contemplative.

In fact, in trauma recovery it’s real important we NOT try to become someone we’re not. 

So: if your darkness or your edge is a load bearing personality trait, let it be. 

In fact, thank it and celebrate it. 

But most importantly, acknowledge it, explore it— don’t neglect or reject it. 

Here’s to your edge. 

drglenndoyle

Us and our shadows.

We all have a “shadow” self. 

A version of ourselves that is a little— or a lot— dark. 

This is a normal human thing, but CPTSD survivors can have particularly complicated relationships with our shadows. 

We’ve often been assailed, for years, with messages about how “bad” we are. 

We’ve had shame used to control our thoughts and behavior for years. 

Even when we try to recover, we often get messages about how bad our “attitude” is. About how we should “smile” and “engage” more. 

All of that can make us especially sensitive to, and conflicted about, our shadow self. 

We need to understand that our “shadow” self is not evidence we’re “evil,” or even “bad.” 

The concept of a “shadow” self has been around so long that versions of it crop up in the earliest psychological theories, long before Carl Jung popularized the idea. 

Freud’s entire body of work is all about how we engage with our “shadow” drives— most prominently our sexual and aggressive instincts. 

Everybody has a “shadow self.” It doesn’t make anyone a predator or an abuser. 

Predators and abusers are not predators and abusers because their “shadow” selves exist. 

They’re predators and abusers because of how they relate to their “shadow” selves (and for lots of other reasons). 

For trauma survivors working our recovery, how we understand, relate to, and manage our “shadow” selves really, really matters. 

It can be enormously destructive to our recovery if we deny and disown our “shadow.” 

Realistic trauma recovery doesn’t tolerate the refusal to see what we see and know what we know— including our “shadow” self. 

Acknowledging our “shadow” doesn’t mean we let it run the show or make decisions for us. 

It doesn’t mean we become mean, impulsive, or otherwise destructive. 

It means we accept that we are human beings, with the full spectrum of human feelings and experiences— including the darker ones. 

The quality of our trauma recovery is the quality of our relationship with ourselves— including our “shadow” self. 

The intensity of our “shadow” doesn’t mean we’re bad or broken. 

It almost always speaks to safety and guidance we didn’t get once upon a time when we were vulnerable. 

We’re not getting gout of this trauma maze while denying or disowning aspects of who we are— even aspects that make us anxious, aspects we’re conflicted about, aspects we don’t love. 

We don’t have to identify with our “shadow” self. 

But we don’t have to pretend it doesn’t exist, either— or assume that it means something about us that it doesn’t. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Our islands of misfit “parts.”

It’s the “parts” of us that get muzzled every day, in real time, that need us the most. 

Those are the “parts” we’ve been conditioned to deny and disown. 

Those are very often the “parts” of ourselves we’ve been conditioned to distrust and even hate. 

We’re not making a “choice” to do that, understand. Conditioning is not “choice.” 

Why were we conditioned to deny, disown, distrust, and/or hate “parts” of ourselves? 

Often it’s because of what those “parts” hold. 

We don’t develop “parts” for the hell of it. They evolve to “hold” memories, feelings, and other patterns that we can’t integrate at the moment. 

There may be lots of reasons why we can’t integrate something— but most often it’s because it’s just too painful. 

An example of something that is often too painful to integrate is betrayal. 

Our brain just might not be able to wrap itself around the idea of someone we love and trust choosing to hurt us, especially again and again over time. 

We just reject that idea. We can’t integrate it into our model of the world, our understanding of reality. 

So we split that knowledge and experience and those feelings off into a “part,” that holds it for us. 

And there that knowledge and those experiences stay, stuck, unprocessed, unintegrated— held by that “part” of us that is also frozen in time, most often at the developmental stage we were when what happened, happened. 

It’s not exactly a mystery why we don’t love that “part” of ourselves, or what it holds. 

So we learn to deny it. Disown it. 

Over time, we learn to distrust it— to not even be sure what that “part” holds is even real, insofar as it feels so hazy to us (except when we get pistol whipped with flashbacks, which feel hyper real and overwhelming). 

And we definitely learn to hate it. Because its existence represents something we powerfully resent. 

For as painful as all of that undeniably is— it’s all pretty normal. 

Most every CPTSD survivor is walking around with “parts” of us feeling muzzled and “stuffed” every hour of every day. 

We may not love the idea of acknowledging, let alone engaging with those “parts” of ourselves that hold such pain— but it’s exactly those “parts” of us that need our patience, our validation, and our compassion the most. 

How we hold and engage with those “parts” of us determine the realism and sustainability of our recovery arc. 

Because we’re NOT getting out of this maze while also continuing to deny and disown our pain. 

We’re NOT managing or resolving our CPTSD while also “stuffing” wounded “parts” of ourselves. 

Conditioned denial and self-hate are literally what got us sick. 

They are not going to heal us. 

Don’t try to rush self-compassion. You don’t have to figure it all out today, let alone reverse decades of conditioning today. 

Just start softening toward those “parts” of you you dislike, are afraid of, or don’t understand. 

Think becoming 1% less judgmental of them. 1% less resentful. 1% more open to them. 

It’s a long walk back to Eden. Don’t sweat the small stuff. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

You don’t have to chase. You are the prize.

You don’t have to “chase” anything. 

You don’t have to chase people. 

You don’t have to chase validation. 

You don’t have to chase status. 

You don’t have to chase any of it, in order to be worthy. 

Lots of us grow up believing we really had to “chase.” To “hustle” our way to worthiness. 

Many survivors reading this right now honestly don’t believe we’re worthy unless we’re producing, or achieving, or earning. 

The chase has been so ingrained in us, that to even consider giving it up feels dangerous. 

How on earth could we be “worthy” if we’re not hustling for it? 

Why would anybody like us, let alone love us, if we’re not “productive?” 

Here’s the thing: I love striving. I love goals. I love high standards. 

I love setting a goal and working toward an achievement. I find goal setting and achievement fun and interesting. 

But the only reason I can find that kind of thing fun and interesting now, is I quit staking my entire self worth on it. 

I stopped chasing. 

And it’s a good thing, too, because I was f*cking exhausted from the chase— emotionally and physically. 

The emotional exhaustion that comes from chasing peoples affection in particular is brutal. 

It never lets up, even if and when somebody tells us they love us. 

Turns out: if we think of love as something we necessarily have to “earn,” we’re never going to be secure in it— because in that model, love disappears if we happen to be too exhausted or compromised to keep hustling for it. 

Realistic trauma recovery requires a perspective shift when it comes to chasing, namely: we no longer chase. 

We don’t chase to “prove” our worthiness, or our desirability, or anything else. 

We are, actually, the prize. 

Yes, I’m talking to you. You are, actually, the prize. 

You don’t need to chase. 

You don’t need to “earn.” Not the basics, not respect, not safety, not dignity. 

Anybody who makes you FEEL like you have to chase those things down, to “earn” those things, is only going to reinforce Trauma Brain’s messaging about the conditionality of safety and worthiness. 

F*ck that. 

You don’t chase. 

You attract, in your authenticity. 

Put it on repeat. 

drglenndoyle

Post traumatic self-esteem: an anti-bullsh*t operation.

One thing realistically raising our self-esteem is NOT about, is bullsh*t. 

Sometimes trauma survivors can get tripped up when trying to raise our self-esteem, because we think that we have to say or think nice things about ourselves that we don’t really mean. 

Raising our opinion of ourselves seems to us to be inauthentic, because we just don’t believe those nice things. 

The good news is, I can assure you, actually raising our self esteem, especially after we’ve experienced trauma, has absolutely zero to do with bullsh*tting ourselves. 

For that matter: not only does bullsh*tting ourselves NOT build self-esteem— it actually tanks our self-esteem further. 

Raising self-esteem doesn’t really have much of anything to do with gassing ourselves up. 

It’s true that sustainable trauma recovery does require us to quit using the tool of self-talk to beat the living sh*t out of ourselves— but that doesn’t mean we need to turn around and start saying things to or about ourselves that we don’t mean. 

Real self esteem is never, ever built on bullsh*t. 

What it is built on, is living consciously. Living responsibly. Living with integrity. 

None of that requires bullsh*t— in fact, quite the opposite. 

When we are bullsh*tting ourselves or other people, we are way afield of integrity and personal responsibility— and our self-esteem very often pays the price. 

I don’t know who sold us on this lie that self esteem was about approving of everything we do, or saying things to our about ourselves that we don’t really mean— but whoever it was didn’t know the first thing about self-esteem in the real world. 

To actually build or rebuild self-esteem after surviving trauma, focus on being present and making decisions that align with your values— not the preferences or desires of other people. 

We build real self-esteem when we quit blaming ourselves for sh*t we had no control over— and lying to ourselves about how we somehow caused our own abuse or neglect— and shift our focus to things we CAN influence (not “control”— key difference) now. 

We build real self esteem when we get OUT of the habit of checking out when triggers hit. 

We build real self esteem when we commit to radically accepting ourselves, just as we are— even as we work to change aspects of ourselves or our lives we don’t love. 

That’s what real self-esteem is about: living life on purpose, not on default. 

(If you’re interested, my thinking about self-esteem was heavily influenced by a psychologist named Nathaniel Branden, whose writing I can’t recommend highly enough). 

Yes, building self-esteem does require us to quit attacking, harming, or abusing ourselves like our bullies and abusers did. 

But it does not ask us to pretend to be or do anything that we’re not. 

We build self-esteem by getting MORE real, not by saying or doing things because we think we’re “supposed” to. 

drglenndoyle

Just notice.

As we work our trauma recovery, we get less attached to who we’ve had to be and what we’ve had to do to survive. And that can be bittersweet. 

It’s not that we necessarily “like” those patterns and coping mechanisms. Some of them we very much dislike, actually. 

But we feel somehow…loyal to them. 

After all, those patterns and coping mechanisms got us through some gnarly sh*t. 

It’s one reason why we can get more than a little defensive when people get on our case about our habits— it’s not that we necessarily like those habits either, but those people don’t understand how important those habits have been to us. 

Nor do those people often understand how afraid we are to give those patterns and coping mechanisms up.

You’re going to run into plenty of people who will try to tell you that giving up old patters that no longer serve us “should” be easy, or at last straightforward. 

After all, if it’s not serving us anymore, if it’s creating more problems than it solves, why are we hanging on to it? 

 Because loyalty. And more than a little bit of fear. 

The reality is, shifting away from old patterns and tools and habits is complicated. And we have to let it be complicated. 

It’s not going to work to try to shame or pressure ourselves out of those old patterns. 

What we can do is just notice as we start to be less attached to them. 

What we can do is meet our own complicated and bittersweet feelings with compassion and patience. Which, I know, isn’t always the biggest strength of us trauma survivors. 

Go easy on yourself. 

None of this “recovery” thing is particularly easy or obvious. And that very much applies to how we surrender old patterns. 

Just pay attention. Just notice. 

Just notice as those old patterns and coping mechanisms and habits feel less like you— day by day, hour by hour. 

No pressure. No rush. 

It’s a long walk back to Eden. Don’t sweat the small stuff. 

drglenndoyle

Trauma recovery is a multitude of little choices. Dammit.

The bitch of trauma recovery is, we have to it ourselves. 

No one’s going to do it for us. 

No one can do it TO us. 

We actually have to make choices and endure discomfort to realistically recover from trauma— which, I don’t know about you, pisses me the hell off. 

After all, we’re only IN this position because we’re ALREADY enduring a rather HIGH level of discomfort. 

For that matter, we’ve been conditioned to believe that it’s often our fault that we’re suffering— which, we understand in recovery, is just BS (Belief Systems— but also, you know bullsh*t), but many survivors still struggle with feelings of shame and self-blame about our symptoms. 

To me, it f*cking rankles to be told that the key to recovery is making choices. 

The truth is, the choices we have to make in order to realistically recover from trauma are choices that cut against and scramble our trauma conditioning. 

We have to become aware of how exactly CPTSD is f*cking with us, and we have to consciously, purposefully, consistently make choices that scratch that old record. 

Before someone says it in the comments, let me: “easier said than done.” 

OF COURSE it’s “easier said than done.” Literally everything is “easier said than done.” 

This is especially true when we’re talking about conditioning. 

Conditioning, programming, brainwashing— the way these all work is by making it easy, almost effortless, to think, feel, and act in certain ways. 

Trauma conditioning, for example, makes beating the sh*t out of ourselves feel “normal,” “natural.” 

Trauma conditioning makes talking sh*t to ourselves and kicking our own ass seem like the easiest, most effortless thing in the world. 

Pushing AGAINST trauma conditioning, in how we talk to ourselves, how we direct our mental focus, and how we use our physiology? That seems hard, exhausting, and pointless. 

This is exactly how CPTSD traps and tortures us. It makes the old sh*t seem effortless, if painful— and the stuff we need to do to recover, hard. 

There is no doubt: doing trauma recovery sh*t IS hard. Especially at first, and especially when we’re triggered. 

 I will never lie to you and tell you ANY of this is supposed to be easy. 

But the realistic way we rewire, recondition, reshape our nervous system, is by noticing when we’re on CPTSD autopilot, and consciously CHOOSE to do something different. 

We’re just not going to recover on autopilot. 

I know. It sucks exactly as much as it sucks. 

Anybody who tells you trauma recovery is without suck, especially when it comes to making new, uncomfortable choices, is selling something. 

Selling something that smells, methinks.