drglenndoyle

Recovery requires reality based relationships.

One of the main things that makes safe people safe, is that they won’t lose their sh*t when we try to take care of ourselves. 

When we set boundaries. 

When we confront them about an aspect of their behavior. 

Unsafe people tend to weaponize the fact that we trauma survivors can get triggered by anger and other reactivity. 

They tend to use that fact to, literally, scare us into not standing up for ourselves, sometimes in the most basic ways. 

Contrary to what you may have been conditioned to believe, every safe relationship involves boundaries. Including the most warm, loving, communicative relationships. 

Contrary to what you may have been conditioned to believe, every safe relationship at some point involves confrontation— which, contrary to what you may have been conditioned to believe, doesn’t have to be aggressive or relationship damaging. 

Safe people get all that. 

A certain amount of anxiety when we’re standing up for ourselves is normal, especially if we’ve had experiences in the past when standing up for ourselves didn’t go so well.

But if someone is safe, really safe, they won’t weaponize that anxiety to get us to back down. 

One of the staggering realizations many survivors make when we finally start seriously working our recovery is the fact that many of us haven’t experienced much safety, at all, in our relationships growing up. 

That realization sucks. 

And, as we get further into recovery, that realization is increasingly undeniable. 

The fact that we had to make do with unsafe relationships is actually part of what makes complex trauma complex. 

That’s where trauma bonds become a way of life. 

That’s where we get into blaming ourselves for the fact that we never feel truly safe. 

It’s not your fault if all you had growing up was unsafe relationships. It’s not your fault if most of your relationships now are unsafe. 

(Another staggering realization many of us make in recovery is the fact that many of the “choices” we thought we were making along the way actually weren’t all that “free”— but that’s a topic for another time.) 

Recovery asks us to be unflinchingly real about the safety, or lack thereof, of our relationships with others. 

Recovery also asks us to reshape our relationship with ourselves to make it safer— and that means no trying to control our own behavior through shame or punishment.

Broadly, recovery asks us to give up lots of illusions that we thought were reality. 

That may be the toughest ask it makes of us. 

Easy does it. Breathe, blink, focus. 

You can figure this out— one day at at a time. 

drglenndoyle

We only ever “let go” of the past in increments.

If there was a dramatic, one time “letting go” technique that let us “let go” of the past once and for all, believe me, I would tell you all about it.

I very much wish there was one. 

I very much wish “letting go of the past” was as easy as all those people who tell us to “let go of the past” seem to think it is. 

But— it’s not. 

People who tell us to “let go of the past” don’t actually understand the injury of complex trauma. 

It’s not us who won’t “let go of the past.”

It’s the past that won’t let go of us. 

No survivor is out there right now voluntarily ruminating on the past. 

No trauma survivor is out there right now cheerfully cataloguing ways they’re going to “let” their past interfere with their attachments and relationships now. 

No survivor is out there right now gleefully anticipating how they’re going to “let” their past make them anxious, tense, and inexplicably angry around their superiors at work. 

That is: no survivor “hangs on” to the past. 

Those who have survived complex trauma find ourselves impacted by the past— and in trauma recovery, we intentionally set out to learn how we were impacted, and crafting daly habits of self-talk and mental focus to negate that impact. 

People don’t understand: complex trauma, by definition, unfolds over time. 

That means that complex traumatic stressors had hundreds of opportunities to make a dent in our nervous system. Hundreds of opportunities to condition and program us, over years. 

That conditioning doesn’t just disappear with a one time “decision” to “let go of the past.” 

Trauma recovery is about daily reconditioning and reprogramming— first and foremost, of our beliefs about and behavior toward ourselves. 

That’s a day by day by day task. Not a dramatic, one time thing. 

That’s why I keep saying: recovery is a lifestyle, not a goal. 

Recovery IS the overall tool we use to realistically craft a quality life. 

Don’t look for or hope for or bank on the dramatic “letting go” moment where you can leave all this behind. 

Instead, focus on the minute by minute micro choices, especially in how you talk to yourself; focus your attention (the sliver of attention you can influence, anyway); and utilize your physiology, especially your breathing. 

We let go of the past in increments— and those increments look like teeny, tiny changes in behavior. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

How to handle it when Trauma Brain makes you feel “crazy.”

You are going to run into a bunch of stuff in this CPTSD recovery journey that won’t seem to make a lot of sense. 

You’re going to run into memories that don’t seem to fit in with the rest of your life story. 

You’re going to run into feelings that seem wildly disproportionate to anything you’re thinking or anything that’s happening to you right now. 

You’re going to run into reflexive relationship behaviors that leave personal and professional bonds you value in tatters. 

You’re going to find yourself twisted up in knots over self-care behaviors, even down to bathing and brushing your teeth, that other people seem to take for granted— and you’re going to have no earthly idea why. 

One of the frustrating things about struggling with complex trauma is, so much of what we’re dealing with is just outside of our conscious awareness. 

The conditioning that is ruining our life is mostly implicit— that is, we don’t wake up every morning and “decide” we’re going to think, feel, and do things that kick our own ass. 


Trauma responses are not “choices.” 

The very nature of conditioning is that it grooms us to think, feel, and do things without thinking, without choosing, and often in opposition to what we actually want or value. 

The reason why I keep using the term “Trauma Brain” is to drive home the fact that what can look to others like “choices” are not, actually, being “chosen” by us— they’re conditioned responses installed by the abuse and neglect of our bullies and abusers, often years or decades ago. 

Our conditioned trauma responses may very often sen “crazy” to us. 

So many survivors have the experience of thinking, feeling, and doing things that seem to have absolutely nothing to do with what we actually want or value— and having absolutely no idea why. 

That’s how conditioning works. Trauma Brain is coercive, by definition— even if we seem to be “doing it to ourselves” in the absence of any obvious external threat. 

When we’re caught in cycles of thinking, feeling, and doing things that we don’t understand and seem to be ruining our life, it’s temping to get frustrated with or aggressive toward ourselves. 

Again and again and again I’ve met survivors who berate themselves for their symptoms or their choices— which doesn’t seem to have any affect on what they think, feel, or do. 

I’m going to ask you, no matter how frustrated you are with yourself, to try to reel that in. 

I’m going to ask you to not call yourself “crazy.” 

I’m going to ask you to not try to shame or punish yourself out of these thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that, I know, I understand, don’t seem to have anything to do with who you actually are or what you actually want for your life. 

The core of trauma recovery is rebuilding— or maybe just building for the fist time— a safe, supportive relationship with ourselves. 

That means, no matter how incomprehensible our thoughts, feelings, or choices are, we don’t flip over into shame or self-punishment. 

If we want our nervous system, our endocrine system, our “parts,” our subconscious mind, and our inner child to work with us, instead of against us, we need to make the inside of our head and heart a safe place for ourselves. 

That is: we can’t have our own body and mind living in fear or expectation of an attack from the inside out. 

“Self trust” and “self love” may seem like kind of fluffy, abstract terms, but in my book, they are fundamental to CPTSD recovery— and they are only created when we engage with our own thoughts, feelings, and behavior with compassion, acceptance, and patience. Even— especially— when we don’t like our own thoughts, feelings, or behavior. 

Yes, you’re going to run into plenty on this recovery journey you won’t quite understand, that will confuse you, annoy you, exasperate you. 

I’m going to ask you to do something hard with all of that— something your abusers and bullies would NEVER do. 

I’m going to ask you to accept it. 

Not like it, not love it, not give up on changing it— but accept it. Radically accept it all. 

What’s more: I’m going to ask you to validate it. Validate where those “crazy” thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are coming from, anyway— the pain and survival needs that gave birth to this thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. 

If you really want those thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to start working with you instead of against you, if you really want to understand and transform them— begin by accepting and validating them. 

Just try it on. See how it feels. 

Drop the rope, as we say in Twelve Step recovery. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

No contact, no shade.

No one goes “no contact” for the hell of it. 

I’ve never met a survivor who went “no contact” with family “impulsively.” 

The vast majority of survivors know perfectly well how profound a step going “no contact” is. 

We are not oblivious or callous. We know what a big deal it is. 

Which is what makes it so frustrating when people insist on reminding us what a big step going “no contact” is— and suggesting that we take time to think about it. 

Believe me: few humans think about anything as often or as deeply as trauma survivors who are considering going “no contact” with family members or others with whom they have established relationships. 

If someone is going “no contact,” that is not evidence that they are letting their emotions get the bette of them. 

To the contrary: it’s usually evidence that a relationship has become intolerable. 

Many people cannot imagine the level of pain or unsafety that would make going “no contact” a viable option for them— so they assume such a level must not exist. 

They then assume that if someone else has set a “no contact” limit, that person must be mistaken or exaggerating. 

Trauma survivors, as a group, are not prone to exaggeration. 

And almost always, when someone is thinking about going “no contact,” they’ve already tolerated a painful, unsafe relationship for for longer than they should have.

That is to say: they are not “mistaken.” 

Nobody gets to decide for you what appropriate boundaries in any given relationship “should” look like. 

Nobody but you knows what it’s like to be you in a relationship. 

Nobody but you knows what being in a particular relationship does to your safety and stability. 

Nobody but you knows the specific challenges engaging with particular people evoke for your nervous system. 

That is to say: nobody else’s opinion on how you “should” handle particular relationships is valid— and that doesn’t change even when somebody has very strong feelings about the subject. 

If you need to set a strong limit in a relationship that is putting your recovery at risk, you get to do that. 

You don’t have to explain. 

You don’t have to justify. 

You don’t have to defend. 

You can choose to do any or all of these— but you don’t HAVE to. 

Going “no contact” with family members or others who compromise your safety, stability, or recovery isn’t “breaking up a family.” 

Their behavior did that. Their choices did that. Your self-protective, recovery supporting response did not. 

Nobody goes “no contact” for the hell of it. 

And nobody should be made to feel the incredibly difficult, culturally stigmatized step of going “no contact” is impulsive, immature, or a bigger problem than an abuser’s behavior.