Tag: trauma

One of the big reasons I struggled with both trauma and addiction recovery for so long was, I absolutely hated feeling controlled— much like the vast majority of trauma survivors out there. 

Feeling controlled, or coerced, or otherwise “made” to do something, is a very common, very serious trigger for many survivors. 

For some of us, the reason for this is pretty straightforward: we’ve had experiences in our past where we were forced to do things that were painful or we didn’t want to do. 

Many abuse survivors have experience with pathological narcissists in our lives— so we know first hand what it’s like for every interaction with someone to be overtly or subtly coercive or manipulative. 

For other survivors, our aversion to feeling controlled or forced has to do with the fact that we feel the overwhelming need to BE in control of a situation— because that’s the only way we can enforce our perfectionistic standards on ourselves. 

That happens when you grow up conditioned to believe you and you performance need to be “perfect” to avoid punishment or shame. 

For still other survivors, feeling controlled triggers a whole constellation of feelings and reactions connected to our conviction that awful, painful things are always just around the corner. 

Feeling controlled plugs right into our sense of helplessness and hopelessness that we can possibly avoid or mitigate the awful, painful things that are surely coming— and that can lead us to panic or despair. 

For most of us, it’s a combination of all of these things. 

Trauma survivors’ struggles with feeling controlled comes out in a number of ways— some of them pretty overt, others kind of subtle. 

I can personally attest that trauma survivors’ control issues often come out in workplace settings, where we’re expected to follow directions and defer to our bosses and supervisors. 

It’s not that we don’t understand this is a reasonable expectation in the workplace— it’s that required, enforced submission triggers the hell out of us, even IF it’s a “reasonable expectation.” 

I personally am the poster child for subtle, often self-sabotaging rebellion in the workplace as a reaction to feeling controlled. 

Another very common way trauma survivors’ control issues play out is in relationships. 

We know that relationships come with “rules,” either explicit or implicit— but even if we really like a relationship or a relationship partner, we can often struggle to conform our behavior to the “rules” of even the best relationship. 

(This can lead to heartache and the assumption that we don’t value the relationship— when the truth is, our errant behavior had everything to do with an instinctive aversion to feeling trapped or controlled, and virtually nothing to do with our partner.)

Another huge way some trauma survivors’ control issues play out is in our vulnerability to addiction. 

We just do not do well with being told we “can’t” have a substance or engage in a behavior— even if that substance or behavior is observably destroying our life. 

What’s important for you to know is that struggling with feeling controlled, coerced, or trapped is a symptom of trauma. It’s not you being “difficult.” It’s not you being “irrational.” It’s not you being “immature.” 

Yes, we are responsible for our behaviors— but we can only be truly accountable for them if we understand the role trauma trauma responses, notably “fight” and “flight,” play when it comes to our relationship with control. 

If we understand our behaviors, and meet them with compassion, patience, and realism, we give ourselves the best shot at influencing how we feel and what we do in ways that are consistent with our goals and values. 

It was a game changer when I, personally, realized: recovery is not about “submitting” to anyone else’s control or expectation. 

Both trauma and addiction recovery are actually about setting boundaries with ourselves— which, as it turns out? Is the only way we become truly free. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

I wish trauma processing was as simple as, we deal with something, and we never have to deal with it again. 

But the truth is, in trauma recovery we often find ourselves returning to the same memory or the same circumstance from our past, again and again. 

It’s not that we never “get over” certain things. 

It’s that, as we come to terms with what happened to us and how it impacted us, we often uncover layers of feeling and meaning that we were previously not aware of— but which were affecting us nonetheless. 

Something we trauma survivors know every well is that, often, the most hurtful aspects of certain events aren’t the most obvious aspects. 

Often, we haven’t really had the safety or stability to really dive into what something meant to us or how it affected us— and we’re surprised, as we start to really get into it, exactly how and why we were hurt or harmed by it. 

It’s hard to “get over” something when we don’t fully appreciate how it hurt us. 

It’s hard to “move on” from an event the meaning of which we haven’t truly digested. 

Very often our nervous system has been in such a state of dysrgulaton for so long, that it’s been basically impossible to really explore certain feelings or memories— we’ve been left with virtually no choice but to avoid or dissociate them in order to stay sort of functional. 

My experience of trauma processing is that it usually happens in waves. 

That first wave will hit, and it’ll be powerful, and we’ll think, man, that was hard— but at least it’s over. 

Then, we do a little bit of work shoring up our safety and stability. We regain our balance— just in time for the next wave to hit. 

The next wave that hits isn’t quite like that first wave;  may be as powerful (or more powerful, or maybe less powerful), but it hits different. 

That’s because our recovery work has equipped us to recognize and work through different aspects of the trauma we’re processing— aspects that we couldn’t process in the first “wave.”

Then, once again, we regain our balance. We back off; we reinforce our safety and stability; we allow things to settle in our nervous system. 

Then the next wave hits— with still different things to process than either of the previous two waves. 

Lather, rinse, repeat. 

Understand: with each “wave” of trauma processing we do on a particular event or circumstance, it’s not that we’re retreading the same ground. In fact, far from it. 

What we’re doing when we process our trauma in layers is getting closer and closer to the fundamental truths of how and why it f*cked us up to begin with. 

Many people who have never experienced trauma think it only f*cks with us on the level of “some things really suck.” 

It’s true that some things really suck— but no survivor I’ve ever met has been struggling just because of that fact. 

Processing trauma isn’t about coming to terms with the fact that “some things really suck.” We all know that. I don’t know a trauma survivor who hasn’t been deeply aware and accepting of this fact. 

Processing trauma is about understanding and coming to terms with how those things that really suck, have affected us in profoundly personal ways. 

It’s about coming to terms specifically with the significant losses that those “really sucky” things have burdened us with. 

We can’t do that all at once. 

We can only do it in waves. 

But the good news about that is, waves come and go. It’s not just that we “can’t” do all of this processing at once; it’s that we don’t HAVE to. 

Waves, by definition, are rhythmic. They give us the chance to regain our footing and catch ou breath before we have to deal with the next one. 

Realistic, intelligent trauma processing is best conceptualized as happening in waves. 

And successfully navigating trauma processing is all about making hat rhythm work for us, rather than against us. 

The quality of our trauma recovery is the quality of our recovery supporting rituals (RSR’s). 

Rituals are things we do every day, usually in some structured way. 

Our trauma recovery is not going to succeed or fail based on what we do every now and then. 

Truth is, we can have some pretty rough days in trauma recovery, and still be on an upward trajectory. 

But it’s also the case that interspersing the occasional recovery supporting behavior into a regular behavioral “diet” of recovery interfering behaviors won’t amount to much. 

If we’re serious and realistic about trauma recovery, we need recovery rituals. 

Your specific trauma recovery rituals are going to be unique to you. The things I do every day may or may not support you in your recovery. 

A big task of trauma recovery is getting curious and specific about about what habits of thought, focus, and behavior actually support our recovery, and turning these into rituals. 

Remember: in trauma recovery, the name of the game is rewiring our nervous system. 

We’ve been conditioned to think, feel, believe, and do certain things that, right now, are inconsistent with our recovery. 

If we we want to think, feel, believe, and do things that will support our recovery, we’re going to be up against the power of conditioning. The power of programming. 

Our nervous system isn’t going to like that we’re trying to change those particular neural pathways. Our nervous system never likes when we try to rewire conditioned neural pathways. 

Our nervous system would prefer we leave it the hell alone, to function the way it’s been conditioned to function, thank you very much. 

Interrupting old neural pathways that make make us vulnerable to trauma responses, and rerouting those neural pathways to very different places entails making making changes in the physical architecture, the physical structure, of our nervous system. 

We don’t do that by doing a different thing once or twice. 

We do that by doing a different thing over, and over, and over again. 

The whole process is similar to what happens when we strength train in the gym. At first, the whole process hurts. 

Our body would very much prefer we let it continue on not lifting those heavy weights, thank you very much. 

Strength training is painful because we are literally changing the physical structure of our body, and bodies resist being changed like that. 

The only way it’s going to work is to make going to the gym and lifting those weights a habit. A ritual. 

No one who ever built significant strength in their body did so by strength training every once in awhile, or when they felt like it. 

Similarly, no one who ever realistically, sustainably recovered from trauma did so by work their recovery every once in awhile, or when they felt like it. 

I know. I hate all this, too. 

I would much rather just go with the flow, and let my mood dictate my behavior. 

Many of us who grew up coerced or controlled get resentful when we’re told we “have to” do anything. 

Here’s the thing: none of us has to do, well, anything. 

We are completely free to keep living the way we’ve been living. 

But we are also free to decide that the cost of not working our recovery has gotten way too high. 

We’re free to choose the pain and hassle of recovery— of mental and spiritual “strength training”— over the pain and hassle of trauma responses and symptoms. 

If you care about it, ritualize it. 

If it works, ritualize it. 

If it’s essential to your trauma recovery, ritualize it. 

Rituals are how realistic trauma recovery is constructed. 

There may be many reasons why we struggle to feel like we can express ourselves accurately— including complex trauma. 

Complex trauma is trauma that endured over time; that was functionally inescapable; and that entwined with our important relationships— that is, trauma we had to adapt to, that just became the context of our everyday life. 

After awhile, we may not have even realized complex trauma, was trauma. It’s one of the reasons so many complex trauma survivors struggle as adults to acknowledge themselves as “survivors.” 

When we grow up immersed in complex trauma, what we express, how we express it, and to whom we express it can become particularly fraught. 

If we’re growing up in an abusive family, church, or community, how we express ourselves mgt have ben heavily scrutinized. 

It may not have been safe or advisable to express certain things— including the easily observable reality of what was going on. 

A prolonged period  of heavily policed expression can do a real number on our beliefs about self-expression and our ability to express ourselves. 

One of the ways many survivors adapt to complex trauma is by internalizing the rules, attitudes, and beliefs of our abusers— because if we can police or punish ourselves, our nervous system reasons, we run less risk of getting into trouble with the people around us. 

Over time, self-censorship and self-punishment become so conditioned in us that we barely even realize we’re doing it— much like trauma became such a part of our everyday existence t became hard to recognize as “trauma.”

This conditioning then follows us, even after we’re away from our family or church or community— and we and ourselves out in the world, struggling to express things we feel should be “easy” to put words to. 

What’s more, even when we are able to put words to things, we often find ourselves doubting and questioning whether the words we’re using— or the body language and/or facial expressions that go with those words— are actually conveying what we think they are, or what we want to convey. 

So many survivors carry around such shame when it comes to our struggles with self-expression. 

We tell ourselves that communication should com “easy” to humans— after all, doesn’t it come “easy” to everybody else we know? 

We tell ourselves there must be something “wrong” with us, to have such anxiety about what seems to be such a normal behavior for so many other people. 

In trauma recovery we need to remember that we don’t, actually, know how “easy” or “hard” anything is for anyone else. We know how hard something, like self-expression, is for us, and we assume that everyone else must have it figured out. 

(They don’t, by the way. Lots of people struggle with self-expression for lots of reasons— whether or not they “seem” like it’s a problem for them or not.) 

We also need to remember that, even if we struggle with self-expression, that struggle makes sense given what we grew up with. It’s not a matter of intelligence— and it’s certainly not a “choice.” 

It’s not unusual for trauma survivors to be so anxious about self-expression that we literally practice what we’re going to say in advance, sometimes a lot. (I guarantee there are some survivors reading this who assumed they were the only ones who did that.) 

We get better at, and more confident with, self-expression as we get more practice at it— and as we get better at extending ourselves patience, compassion, and grace when it comes to ALL of our complex trauma symptoms and struggles. 

As with all of our symptoms and struggles, what is most important is that we not judge or belittle ourselves for it. 

Our symptoms are our symptoms. They can be frustrating, and they can present certain obstacles to our day to day living goals— but they are what they are. 

Our symptoms are not indictments of our “character,” or condemnations of our “intelligence;” and the are certainly not “choices.” 

Grace over guilt. As we work our recovery, we’re going to get lots of opportunities to practice self-expression. And hopefully, along the way, we’ll encounter people who are safe and trauma informed enough to prove us with useful, compassionate feedback on how we express ourselves. 

It’s a symptom. No more; no less.

And just like every symptom, we have to meet it in recovery with the patience, understanding, and care that its core wound requires. 

Sometimes our trauma responses will be directly traceable to things we clearly remember happening to us— but not always. 

Often our trauma responses can be triggered not by anything specific to our trauma— but by the “vibe” or “feel” of a situation. 

Our trauma responses always make sense, some way, somehow, at least to a part of us— but the “sense” they make isn’t necessarily logical or linear. 

This is why techniques of psychotherapy that try to get us to “logic” our way out of a feeling, like cognitive behavioral therapy, have never been my favorite tools— because trauma responses aren’t always, or even usually, about “logic.” 

Trauma survivors know well that the things we think and believe when we’re triggered into trauma responses have little or nothing to do with logic— even though we may “know,” in the moment, that we’re not responding “rationally.”

The fact that trauma responses are frequently triggered and depend by “vibes,” rather than any explicit connections to anything we remember experiencing, is also why I’ve always been kind of “meh” about exposure therapy for PTSD. 

There truly are some people out there who believe that trauma symptoms and struggles are mostly, or entirely, about how we remember and explicitly reexperience things from the past. 

Trauma survivors know: there are many ways to reexperience something— and many of those ways don’t have anything to do with an explicit memory. 

Post traumatic struggles are not just about what happened to us, or how we remember them. 

They’re about how what happened to us, affected us— notably our baseline level of anxiety, our beliefs, and our self-esteem. 

If trauma symptoms and struggles were “just” about what happened to us or our memories, PTSD would be easier to resolve. Maybe we could straightforwardly logic or expose our way out of it. 

But vibes? Vibes are harder to wrangle. 

We need to understand that our nervous system pays attention to context and subtext.

The details of a situation may or may not resemble anything we’ve ever experienced in the past— but our hypervigilant nervous system isn’t just sniffing for details. 

It’s sniffing for the “feel” of a situation or person. 

It’s sniffing for danger that our conscious mind may not register as danger. 

It’s sniffing for things we haven’t thought about or paid attention to. 

It’s sniffing for things that we may not even have the words to explain why they feel familiar in an awful way. 

If our nervous system becomes reactive to a trigger that we can’t quite put our finger on, or we can’t quite understand how it’s related to anything we’ve experienced, our job is to not deny, disown, or reject that reaction— but to get curious and respectful. 

Our first temptation, when a trauma response hits us, is often to list reasons why our response is illegitimate. Why it “doesn’t make sense.” Why we “shouldn’t” be having it. 

I need you to resist that temptation. 

The fact that we don’t understand a trauma response in the moment isn’t nearly as important as how we respond to it. 

We are not going to diminish the intensity of a trauma response by invalidating it, any more than we’re going to banish the thought of a pink elephant by repeating, “don’t think about a pink elephant, there’s no reason to think about a pink elephant.” 

The skill involved here is what we call “radical acceptance.” Radical acceptance doesn’t ‘mean we LIKE a particular response— it means we accept the reality and legitimacy of a response even, especially, if we don’t like it. 

If we’re serious about decreasing our vulnerability to trauma responses, we’ve gotta give up this BS (Belief System) that we “need” to understand them, or that they “need” to have a clear connection to our trauma history to be “legitimate.” 

Lead off with acceptance. 

Lead off with the assumption that this response makes sense— some way, somehow, to some part of you. 

Lead off with compassion and patience. 

You know— like with any symptom, thought, feeling, response, or need you have in trauma recovery. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

You’re getting better.