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

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

Getting cozy with our fear.

Fear is not the enemy.

Fear, properly understood and managed, can actually be quite useful.

Animals that lack fear don’t tend to last too long in the wild. There are definitely things worth being afraid of out there.

What we’re shooting for in trauma recovery is not to become fearless.

What we’re shooting for is to relate to our fear differently.

To not be controlled by our fear.

To not be overwhelmed by our fear.

All that is going to start by acknowledging that fear is not the enemy.

Our enemies were our bullies and abusers.

Conceptually, our enemies now are the beliefs and other conditioning our abusers and bullies have left behind in our nervous system.

That’s what we’re up against— the echoes of old voices, that spike fear responses in us in the present.

Our old conditioning will make us feel more vulnerable than we are.

Our old conditioning will make us feel less resourceful than we are.

Our old conditioning will work, hard, to make us forget who we even are, what our life is all about.

It will work to reduce us to what we’re feeling right here, right now— notably, our focus on and fear of the awful scenario we think is going to happen.

Understand: I’m not saying the awful scenario is never a risk. I’m not saying things will always work out, or any such bullsh*t. They won’t. There are definitely scenarios and situations that will suck, that will be painful— that are worth fearing.

What I am saying is, we manage those scenarios and situations by nudging our focus from our fear, to our resources. Our recovery tools and philosophies. Our safe people and pets.

The problem is not that fear doesn’t feel good.

The problem is, we’ve been conditioned to focus on the fear to the exclusion of everything else.

You, survivor, are more than your fear.

Your fear is real and valid, even if it is being “spiked” by trauma conditioning. But you are not reducible to this feeling or this experience of fear.

Let the fear exist.

Validate it. Thank it, even. It is, after all, trying to do a good thing— it’s trying to keep you alive.

I know this sounds counterintuitive, and I know it’s way, way easier said than done (much like anything anyone can say about any subject).

But embrace your fear. Meet it gently. Breathe into it gently. Acknowledge what it’s doing for you— and also acknowledge that it’s being amplified by old pain and old patterns.

What we very much don’t want is to be making decisions out of fear.

We want our decisions to reflect our goals and values— not our fear.

To do that we’re going to have to be willing to coexist with our fear, sit with it, get to know it.

I know. Easier said than done.

But it beats the hell out of the alternatives, namely, letting fear trigger “flee” and “freeze” responses that put us at even more risk.

Breathe. Blink. Focus.

And nuzzle up to your fear.

It is, after all, October.

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

Trauma recovery is hard. But not impossible.

Yes, trauma recovery is hard. 

But Trauma Brain, the internalized voices of your abusers and bullies, is trying to tell you it’s “impossible.” 

Trauma recovery is not impossible. 

There have been survivors recovering from their trauma for centuries. Long before therapy or Twelve Step were things. 

And, there will be survivors recovering from trauma long after therapy, Twelve Step, or any other recovery tool we use today is long forgotten. 

You, working your trauma recovery, are in some incredible company. 

Some of the most brilliant, important people in history were survivors who figured out the “combination lock” to their own trauma recovery. 

Hell, some of the greatest human accomplishments have been achieved specifically because survivors took their recovery seriously. 

Trauma recovery is hard. 

But it is possible. 

And the extent to which we do recover is largely within our control.

Do not, do not, do not misunderstand me to be saying that all we ever have to do is work on ourselves. That’s not what I believe. 

The world absolutely needs working on, too. 

There are ongoing traumatic situations in the world that, I believe, can only be meaningfully altered by survivors working our recovery. 

Because who else is going to do it? 

Who else has the tools and the focus and the determination to do it? 

It’s going to be trauma survivors working our recovery. That’s who will change things. That’s almost always who changes things. 

But my point is, I’m not trying to see you some version of radical personal responsibility (though I do lean toward the “radical personal responsibility” in my own, personal recovery frame, for what it’s worth). 

I’m not trying to see you some bootstraps fantasy. 

Of course there are things outside of us that come to bear on our recovery. It’s not all up to us. It’s not all about our choices. 

But a lot of it is. 

And it’s our job to find that proportion of trauma recovery that we can meaningfully influence (not “control”). 

That’s why we start with self talk, mental focus, and physiology. 

That’s why we keep turning back toward self-esteem and our relationship with ourselves. 

Trauma recovery is hard. 

But it is not impossible. 

And it starts as an inside-out job. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

drglenndoyle

Working our trauma recovery makes us less vulnerable to manipulation.

Working your trauma recovery will make you less easy to control. 

Why? 

Because working your trauma is going to require you to get real clear and serious about who you are— who you choose to be, not who they told you you were “supposed” to be. 

For most of our lives, we try to operate on that basis: being who we were told we were, or who we were “supposed” to be. 

Our earliest self-judgments are us comparing who we were to who our parents or teachers said we “should” be. 

In the best possible world, childhood and adolescence are about breaking free of those ideas, and defining our own identity. 

But what happens if our childhood and adolescence was mostly comprised of us trying to stay alive, physically or emotionally? 

What happens if we lack the safety and support to do what we’d have to do to figure that out? 

Speaking for myself, my childhood and adolescence was mostly spent just trying to not hurt (which, ironically, often involved literally, physically hurting myself). 

I spent much of my childhood and adolescence— and young adulthood, and not-so-young adulthood, for that matter— trying desperately to manage emotional states that I didn’t understand, and didn’t have much help in understanding. 

Figuring out who I really was, independent of the parental expectations I was constantly falling short of, wasn’t really on my radar screen as a project. 

I was too busy hating myself for not being whoever I needed to be to keep my family and my peers from bullying me. 

Which is to say, when I finally came around to understanding that my life had to be about working a recovery, I had some work to do in learning who I was and what I was all about. 

As long as we’re unclear or conflicted about that, though— as I was, and as you may be— we are incredibly vulnerable to manipulation. 

This has nothing to do with intelligence. It has everything to do with unmet emotional needs. 

When we grow up abused or neglected, we often have at least one “part” of us that would do anything for validation and safety. 

We feel the instability of never having had real safety or support, and that makes us vulnerable to “fawn” flavored responses that will have us people pleasing like our life depends on it (because “part” of us might honestly believe that our life DOES depend on gaining others’ approval or affection). 

As long as “fawn” is a central organizing principle of our psychology, we are vulnerable to manipulation. 

We’re vulnerable to false promises. 

We’re vulnerable to love bombing. 

We’re vulnerable to young, lonely “parts” of ourselves taking the wheel, especially when it comes to relationship decisions. 

Working our trauma recovery doesn’t immediately solve this problem— but it puts compassionately, realistically managing that “fawn” trauma response squarely at the center of our focus. 

Proving to ourselves, again and again, that we WILL be there for ourselves; that we DO have our own back; that we ARE on our own side— that’s what progressively insulates us against manipulation. 

We are vulnerable as long as “they” have something— approval— that we really, really want. 

We may still want approval— but the self-esteem work we do every day in trauma recovery keeps us from needing it to the point of self-abandonment. 

Yes, the work involved in trauma recovery can be a hassle. 

But it is infinitely less exhausting— and less dangerous— than letting our “fawn” response make our decisions for us.

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

And have your own back today. 

drglenndoyle

Caterpillars and butterflies.

Something many people don’t understand about trauma recovery is that it is a crash course in a lot of things. 

Psychology. 

Philosophy.

Health. 

Art appreciation. Music appreciation. 

Sociology. Hell, even history. 

You know how I keep saying that trauma recovery is about life, in some ways even more than it is about trauma? This is what I’m talking about. 

People who succeed at trauma recovery don’t learn everything there is to know about trauma, and find themselves recovered. 

Knowledge about what we’re up against is always useful. Know thy enemy. 

But what many trauma survivors find even more useful is learning about life. 

Much of trauma recovery is actually learning life skills that we didn’t have the safety or support to master once upon a time. 

Very few people were taught a straightforward course of “how to regulate emotion.” 

They were taught about life— if they were lucky. 

Many of us had to figure out the “life” thing on our own— to the extent that we figured it out at all. 

By the time we get around to working a trauma recovery, we have become field experts on a lot of things.

Successful trauma recovery means becoming an expert on applied psychology. Applied philosophy. Applied art and music therapy. 

And here’s the thing about all that: the stuff we trauma survivors have to meaningfully think about every day can make us difficult to relate to, to people who haven’t had to think about all that stuff. 

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably had the experience of running into many people who just don’t dive as deeply as you do. 

Who don’t feel as deeply as you do. 

Whose sense of life isn’t as gothic or neoclassical as yours. 

And the reality of that is, it can feel isolating at times. 

Of course they don’t relate to us— they haven’t had to dive as deeply as we have into what makes humans and reality tick. 

Another way of expressing it: caterpillars don’t speak butterfly. 

Which doesn’t, of course, mean there’s anything wrong with butterfly speak. 

So don’t let the caterpillars convince you you’re “crazy.” Or weird. Or “dramatic.” 

You keep working your trauma recovery, one day, one minute at a time; and remember all the tools you have at your disposal to help regulate. 

I’m not just talking about tools I or another mental health professional gave you. I’m also talking about the type of tools Beethoven and Nietzsche and Jung and Lennon passed down to us survivors to help get us by. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

And don’t look back at the chrysalis.