drglenndoyle

You are not, actually, “incoherent.”

Our CPTSD programming not only makes us feel like sh*t— it often makes us feel incoherent. 

We try to explain what we’re experiencing to others, friends, a therapist, whomever— but it just doesn’t come out right. 

No matter the words we use, or how many words we use, we just…can’t…explain it the way it actually feels. The way it actually is. 

Then…the shame sets in. 

We don’t quite understand why we can’t express ourselves— but we know we feel embarrassed about it. 

Turns out, that’s part of our trauma programming, too. 

Trauma conditioning is real good at convincing us that EVERYTHING is our fault, and EVERYTHING is our responsibility. 

At some point we just kind of give up trying. 

Nobody is going to understand or care about our experience anyway— so we tell ourselves— so why bother? 

You need to know: you are not as “incoherent” as Trauma Brain wants you to believe you are. 

Remember that Trauma Brain not only wants you miserable, it also wants you silent. 

CPTSD does NOT want you reaching out. It does NOT want you expressing yourself. 

CPTSD wants you alone, hating yourself, convinced that no one can relate and no one cares. 

So— it floods you with shame for even TRYING to express yourself. 

It convinces you you can’t express yourself well. 

It convinces you what you have to say doesn’t matter. 

Listen to me: that’s bullsh*t. 

You can express yourself. 

What you have to say matters. 

If I believed Trauma Brain’s bullsh*t, I wouldn’t be writing these words, and you wouldn’t be reading these words. 

Keep trying to express yourself. 

It’s true that not everyone will be able to keep up or appreciate your story or know how to respond— but that’s a them issue. Not a you issue. 

You are not “incoherent.” 

You are smart, you are articulate, and your words are key to your trauma recovery. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

MacGuyver-ing our way through trauma recovery.

Let’s be honest: many CPTSD survivors reading this are doing recovery on their own. 

No therapist. Limited support. Limited community. 

When trauma recovery is discussed on the internet, it’s often in the context of therapy— what works, what doesn’t, what the hot new modalities are, what a good trauma therapist does and doesn’t do. 

But let’s be real: most CPTSD survivors who need good trauma therapy, don’t get good trauma therapy. 

And that’s to say nothing of the survivors struggling with DID or OSDD who can’t find competent treatment.

Affordability is an issue. Availability of decent therapists is an issue. 

For many many survivors, safety is an issue— because they’re still in relationships or situations where it is unsafe or impossible to get to therapy sessions.

Of course it’s preferable for ever survivor to have access to competent trauma work and recovery support— but that’s just not the world we live in, is it? 

So: we have to take seriously the fact that most CPTSD survivors are what I call MacGuyver-ing their way through recovery. 


Gathering resources on their own. 

Connecting with other survivors and communities on their own. 

Adapting what they hear and read about. 

Improvising this whole thing as best they can. 

One of the reasons I do what I do on the internet is, self-help books and resources saved my life once upon a time. 

No joke. I was depressed and and anxious and traumatized and addicted and alone and a teenager— and consistent, trauma informed or focused therapy wasn’t an option for me. 

(Which is just as well, because I wouldn’t have known to call what I was struggling with “trauma” anyway at the time.)

DIY (“do it yourself”) resources got me by. They weren’t perfect, but they gave me enough MacGuyver-ed together tools and just enough inspiration to get me by. 

So many survivors are in the same spot I was.

Doing it on your own. 

I see you. I respect the hell out of you. 

What I offer on the internet may not be perfect or comprehensive, but I want to give you things worth thinking about as you cobble together your DIY recovery. 

Of course I wish everyone had access to good trauma therapy, and I wish good trauma therapists were able to take everyone who needs help at affordable rates. But that’s just not the world we live in. 

So: hang in there, MacGuyver. 

You are not alone. 

And you can do this, even with the limitations of doing it on your own. 

Read, read, read. Be a sponge. Take everything in. Consider ever resource that speaks to you, no mater how silly it may seem to anyone else. 

You can do this. Most trauma survivors in history did it similarly on their own. 

I promise you, you can do this. 

And I know what I’m talking about. 

drglenndoyle

CPTSD is not only– or even mainly– about “back then.”

What “they” often don’t understand is, the damage CPTSD does isn’t limited to “back then.” 

Even if the abuse ended long ago, survivors have been taking hits every day since. 

Put another way: trying to function and live life with CPTSD is, itself, a complex trauma. 

Living with CPTSD checks all the boxes of what makes for a complex trauma: it happens over time; it is functionally inescapable; and it definitely entwines with our most important relationships. 

CPTSD survivors are often shamed for “still” being “hung up on” things that happened “so long ago.” 

What the world doesn’t understand is that our pain today isn’t entirely, or even mostly, about what happened then. 

Our pain today is focused on our struggles handling today— which is a struggle we’ve been enduring every day since what happened happened “so long ago.” 

What happened then was painful. 

But also painful are the opportunities we’ve missed— or f*cked up— in the years since, due to or trauma symptoms and struggles. 

The relationships we’ve lost. 

Hell, the SLEEP we’ve lost. 

The world doesn’t understand that, while, yes, we did demonstrably survive our trauma, it is still a very open f*ckng question whether we all survive our recovery. 

There is a myth that we just need to “process” the initial trauma we endured in order to recover from it. 

Trauma processing certainly can be a part of our recovery blueprint— but to actually recover from CPTSD, we need to understand that our CPTSD is not entirely about our original trauma. 

It’s often said that pain becomes trauma when we endure it alone. 

So, so, so many CPTSD survivors have been enduring their pain alone— year, after year, after year. 

So many CPTSD survivors have felt unsafe even trying to describe what we’ve been carrying all this time— often because w know we’re going to get sh*t to the tune of, “but that was so LONG ago— you’re still hung up on THAT?” 

So— we keep it to ourselves. 

Which is exactly how CPTSD deepens. In silence. In isolation. 

This is how CPTSD becomes so much a part our daily life that we often actually mistake CPTSD for our personality. (Also why CPTSD is frequently misdiagnosed as a “personality disorder.”) 

CPTSD is not about “back then.” Not entirely. 

CPTSD is also about the long term complex trauma of living with CPTSD— often having no idea this isn’t normal or how things will be forever. 

The good news is: understanding the nature of our trauma— all our trauma, original and subsequent— is the first step to realistic, sustainable recovery. 

You can do this. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

CPTSD and executive functioning.

CPTSD f*cks up our executive functioning— our decision making. Literally, our ability to execute the tasks that comprise our life. 

But many survivors don’t know it’s trauma f*cking with us. 

We assume we just suck at decision making. 

Often we assume we’e “stupid”— because that’s frequently the language our bullies and abuses used, isn’t it? 

“Stupid,” “lazy,” “selfish.” All gems that frequently showed up in how we were talked to growing up. 

What many survives have in common is the experience of feeling that EVERYTHING is our fault and EVERYTHING is our responsibility. 

If something’s gone wrong, it “must” be because we made a “bad” decision. 

If we’re struggling, it “must” be because we somehow chose or set ourselves up to struggle. 

The truth is, trauma often gets in our head and distorts our perceptions, beliefs, and priorities. 

Which, yes, results in us making decisions we don’t love— but many of those decisions aren’t exactly “free.” 

How can a decision be “free” when our sympathetic nervous system is lit up like a Christmas tree? 

Many not-so-awesome decisions we make often boil down to, our “fight” or “fawn” trauma responses were activated. 

When we’re triggered, we end up doing things that are not aligned with our goals our values— not because we’re exactly “choosing” those things, but because some part of us thinks we NEED to do those things to SURVIVE. 

I’ve said it a thousand times: we are not ourselves when we’re triggered. We become who we think we need to be to survive. 

We do not “choose” trauma responses— including those trauma responses that can look like “choices” from the outside. 

Many of us don’t like to admit that CPTSD impairs our executive functioning. It makes us feel powerless. 

We want to believe that we have the “freedom” to choose, at all times. 

We might have the “freedom” to choose— but when our brain is awash in stress chemicals and our nervous system is on fire having been triggered, we may simply not have the ABILITY to choose in that moment. 

It’s okay. You’re working on it. 

First thing’s first: pay attention to how trauma and triggers distort your executive functioning. Your decision making ability. 

You’re definitely not alone. 

(Ask me how I, personally, know.) 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

CPTSD and DID are injuries. Not judgments.

CPTSD is going to try to convince you your struggles and symptoms mean there’s something fundamentally “wrong” with you, personally— but you need to know that’s not true. 

CPTSD is an injury. We didn’t ask for it. We couldn’t avoid it. 

Neither CPTSD nor DID reduce to something being fundamentally “wrong” with us as people. 

We are not struggling with CPTSD or any of its symptoms— dissociation, depression, anxiety, self harm urges, suicidal ideation— because we are “weak” or “bad.” 

CPTSD and DID occur when the human psyche is subjected to specific kinds of pressure without support or escape. It’s just like what happens to a tendon or a bone when it’s subjected to certain kinds of pressure— they break. 

That’s not a design flaw with the tendon or bone— of COURSE they break when subjected to certain kinds of pressure. 

And the fact that CPTSD or DID develops when our nervous and endocrine systems are subjected to certain kids of pressure is exactly the same— it’s not due to a flaw or weakness in us. 

It’s just what happens. 

It’s tempting to get up in our head about why we developed CPTSD in response to our experience, whereas others didn’t— but what I can tell you, definitively, is that that difference has absolutely nothing to do with “character” or any other measure of “goodnesss” or “toughness.” 

We did not ask for this. 

Our vulnerability to trauma responses does NOT have a moral component. 

And we do not heal injuries by returning again and again to our insistence that we “shouldn’t” be injured. 

So we’re injured. We can’t deny or ignore our way out of it. 

We CAN care for our injury as best we know how— in the case of CPTSD, leveraging the tools of self forgiveness, self talk, mental focus, and physiology, especially our breathing. 

Yeah, I said self forgiveness. Not because we need “forgiveness” for things that happened TO us. 

But sometimes it helps to use that language with ourselves, to the tune of: “I forgive myself for being vulnerable to injury. 

I forgive myself for being human. 

I forgive myself for needing care. 

I forgive myself for every symptom and reaction today— even the ones that frustrate the hell out of me.” 

Neither CPTSD nor DID means YOU are “wrong,” or “bad,” or “weak.” 

They are injuries. Wounds. 

Care for them as such, with compassion and patience and realism. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Why recovery supporting self talk is hard.

When we fist start paying attention to our self-talk in trauma recovery, it can be kind of shocking. 

We can be really f*cking mean to ourselves. 

We can be really f*cking mean to ourselves, without intending or trying to. 

Very few trauma survivors wake up in the morning and say to ourselves, “I’m going to beat the sh*t out of myself today.” 

Most of the time, that’s just how things work out— because we, like most of humanity, navigate most of our days on autopilot. 

We let our old programming run how we talk to and behave toward ourselves— and guess how our old programming has us talking to and behaving toward ourselves? 

Most of the time our old programming has us talking to and behaving toward ourselves like our bullies and abusers did. 

Mind you: this isn’t because we WANT to be like our bullies and abusers. 

Most of the survivors reading this would actually do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to NOT be like our bullies and abusers. 

But many of us learned how to relate to ourselves through the example our bullies and abusers set. 

We internalized it. Unwittingly “downloaded” it into our nervous system. 

That’s why it’s so easy to be so hard on ourselves: we have lots of practice at it. 

We experienced it for so long, it kind of sunk in. Became part of our operating system. 

Then kicking the sh*t out of ourselves became so second nature, we stopped noticing when we were doing it. 

Years and years of that sh*t— is it any wonder that our “parts” and inner child don’t feel safe?

That conditioning is also why it’s so hard to STOP kicking the sh*t out of ourselves— because when we start intentionally trying to talk and relate to ourselves with compassion and kindness, it feels…weird. Wrong. Awkward. 

What that feeling ACTUALLY  is is, “unfamiliar.” 

CPTSD recovery is going to ask us, over and over again, to scramble old patters. Scratch old records. 

That starts with our self-talk. 

It’s real important we get OUT of the habit of talking to ourselves like our bullies and abusers did— even (especially!) if we’re deep in that habit. 

Yeah. Easier said than done. 

But real important to do, if we want our trauma recovery to be realistic and sustainable. 

Easy does it. Breathe; blink; focus. 

Just start by paying attention to your inner monologue. 

drglenndoyle

On a rough night.

Some nights you’re going to be in a terrible mood. 

Some nights words won’t even seem to make sense. 

Some nights your motivation is going to be garbage. 

And, let me spoil the suspense: Trauma Brain, the internalized voices of our bullies and abusers, is going to use how we struggle on some nights to try to tell us WE’RE garbage. 

Mind you, that doesn’t mean we’re garbage. It means we’ve been CONDITIONED to feel like garbage when we struggle. 

It means we’ve been CONDITIONED to attribute the fact that we struggle to some inherent quality of our being— or the supposed “fact” that we’re just “failing” at life. 

I don’t care if you feel like garbage tonight, if you feel scattered tonight, if you’re in a terrible mood tonight, or if your motivation is dog sh*t tonight— none of that means you’re “failing,” at trauma recovery or life. 

It means what it means. It’s a rough night. They happen. 

What we say to ourselves really, really matters— ESPECIALLY on a rough night. 

It’s when we struggle, when we’re triggered, that our trauma conditioning really kicks in. 

Trauma Brain can do a reasonable job of quietly lurking in the background much of the time, only to rear right up when we’re having a tough night. 

Know why that is? Because rough nights make us vulnerable. 

We tend to go on autopilot when we’re having a rough night. 

And guess who and what experiences programmed our autopilot? That’s right— our abusers and bullies. 

Trauma Brain, in other words, does exactly what abusers and bullies always do: attacks us when we’re the most vulnerable. 

We need to remember that on our rough nights. 

We need to remember how we’re feeling on a a rough night is not the same as how we’re DOING, overall, in our recovery. 

(An old mentor named Andy taught me that: “don’t confuse how you’re FEELING with how you’re DOING.”)

On a rough night we need to remember that there is no rule that says we MUST feel good or better. We’re not going to be in trouble for having a rough night. 

On a rough night we need to remember that our biochemistry and psychological functioning fluctuates throughout the day and night— and the fact that we happen to be feeling like crap right now is part of that fluctuation.

On a rough night we need to remember that there is nothing in the world wrong with just getting by, leveraging the recovery tools of distraction and containment. 

If there is anything that is universal to EVERY survivor’s experience of trauma recovery, it’s that we are GOING to have rough nights. Not “maybe;” we absolutely will. 

It doesn’t mean what Trauma Brain wants you to think it means. 

So you’re feeling like sh*t. It happens. 

Don’t overreact. Don’t make long term decisions. Don’t make short term choices that will leave you feeling sh*tty tomorrow. You know the kind of decisions I’m talking about. Play the tape forward. 

Easy does it. Breathe; blink; and focus. 

Get through tonight. 

Then push the “reset” button tomorrow. 

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. 

drglenndoyle

About that “safe relationships heal trauma” thing…

You’re going to hear it said again and again that you need to experience safe relationships in order to heal trauma— and, yes, safe relationships can sure help heal trauma. 

But I wouldn’t go so far as to say safe relationships are “the” thing that heals trauma. 

There isn’t really one universal thing that does heal trauma, unfortunately. 

But specifically when it comes to safe relationships: you can have all the safe relationships in the world, but they won’t help heal trauma unless you can internalize that safety. 

That is to say: unless you can use those relationships as a model for how to relate to yourself. 

The essence of CPTSD is that we don’t feel safe in our own skin. 

Yes, that lack of safety inside does mirror the lack of safety outside, especially in the past— but it’s the lack of internal safety that we’re carrying around, into every situation, into every relationship. 

It’s the lack of INTERNAL safety that drives our trauma responses, irrespective of how much safety does or does not exist around us. 

(Mind you, I’m NOT saying that external safety “doesn’t matter.” It’s just not what I’m talking about here.) 

If we’re going to realistically recover from our CPTSD, we have to find a way to internalize a feeling of safety— and that can only be generated by how we talk to ourselves, how we consistently leverage our mental focus, and how we use our physiology, notably our breathing. 

Safe relationships can HELP us develop self talk, mental focus, and physiology that support us feeling safe in our own skin— but I get real annoyed whenever I see someone pretending that “safe relationships” in themselves “heal” trauma. 

Why does this matter? It matters because if we try to put all our recovery eggs in the basket of “safe relationships,” we’re misunderstanding the task in front of us— and we’re setting ourselves up for potentially unhealthy dependence on others. 

I used to have a therapist to whom I felt very positively attached. He offered a great deal of modeling when it came to consistency, honesty, and kindness. But for a long time, even with this experienced, skilled therapist, I stayed stuck— because I had this idea that it was something about him that would somehow “heal” me. 

I now understand that that therapy relationship, like any healing relationship, was a tool— useful, but not in itself what was going to complete the project. 

The project is a DIY project— a Do It Yourself one. 

Many people don’t love hearing that, but it’s the f*ckin’ truth. 

I want everybody to have safe relationships. Everybody reading this DESERVES safe relationships. There is no denying the power of safe relationships to support us in learning and practicing new ways of relating to ourselves. 

But we need to be crystal clear on the fact that it’s the “relating to ourselves” part that does the heavy lifting. 

Easy does it. Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

You are not “lazy.” That’s Trauma Brain f*cking with you.

You are not “lazy.” That’s Trauma Brain f*cking with you. 

Trauma Brain, the internalized voices of our abusers and bullies, is real good at giving us pat explanations for our behavior like that— “you’re just lazy”— that chalks what we do up to who or what we ARE. 

Oh, and it usually gets us feeling like garbage. 

Here’s the thing: Trauma Brain is not interested in reality. 

It’s not interested in helping you live a productive, happy life. 

Trauma Brain is mostly interested in you feeling exactly like you did when you were being abused: small. Helpless. Hopeless. 

It’s true that many trauma survivors struggle with motivation— but that has zero to do with “laziness.” 

Often, our struggles with motivation have to do with a “freeze” response. 

When we’re triggered, our nervous system might reflexively default to standing still— which, from the outside, might LOOK like a “choice.” 

But believe me when I tell you: trauma responses are not choices. 

When we’re stuck in a “freeze” response, the very idea of taking action might seem overwhelming— and it’s almost impossible to “think” or “will” our way out. 

Trauma survivors can get sh*t for lacking motivation, procrastination, missing deadlines— when the fact is, we’re “frozen” in a state of sympathetic nervous system activation. 

And we’re not going to bully ourselves out of it. 

Here’s the other thing about Trauma Brain calling us “lazy:” it’s not just sh*tty because it makes us feel like garbage. 

It’s also sh*tty because calling ourselves “lazy” doesn’t actually help us solve the problem. 

Say we accept Trauma Brain’s label of “lazy.” Okay, what then? What’s the solution? “Quit being lazy?” 

That’s about as effective as a therapist responding to a patient’s pain with, “have you considered just not feeling that way?” 

Trauma Brain— or anyone else— calling us “lazy” doesn’t help us design a solution. 

Considering whether we’re in a functional “freeze” state— perhaps exacerbated by what I call Post Traumatic Exhaustion— actually helps us understand both what’s actually going on and what we actually need to do about it. 

Trauma responses only diminish when we feel safer— specifically when we take realistic steps to help our inner child and “parts” feel safe. 

There are many ways to approach that, but they all involve self talk, mental focus, and physiology, especially breathing. 

Do not accept Trauma Brain’s blithe assertion that you’re “lazy.” You’re not. 

Most trauma survivors are among the hardest working humans on the planet. We have to be, just to exist in our skin. 

Easy does it. Breathe; blink; focus.