drglenndoyle

Families and cults.

Abusive families resemble cults in many respects— and evoke many of the same symptoms and struggles in their victims. 

Complex trauma is trauma that unfolds over time, is entwined with our important relationships, and is functionally inescapable— and those criteria absolutely apply to abusive families as readily as they apply to cults. 

In many abusive families, individual needs are subordinated to a functionally authoritarian head of the household— in much the same way cult acolytes are expected to subordinate their individuality to the will of an authoritarian leader. 

In abusive families, there is often a “code of silence” that is expected to be maintained by family members to protect the families’ secrets and hide the behavior of abusive family members— much like there is a “code of silence” that is expected of cult followers to protect their leaders. 

Abusive family members, especially adults, often exploit younger family members’ vulnerability in order to gain sexual or other access to them— tactics identical to abusive cult leaders who prey on their followers. 

Abusive families can “brainwash” vulnerable family members just as surely as abusive cults can, and through many the same tactics, even— including the deprivation of basic needs in order to gain compliance and adherence. 

Both abusive families and abusive cults exploit “in group” and “out group” psychological tactics to create fear in family members or followers, to minimize the chances that someone will “tell” on the family or cult to outside authorities.

The pain inflicted by abusive families is rarely limited to one domain, but most often includes a combination of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse; and this is also true of abusive cults, which also frequently mix in spiritual and financial abuse on top of those. 

Victims of familial abuse often feel shame for staying in their family’s orbit for as long as they did— much like cult followers frequently belittle themselves afterward for not recognizing what was going on sooner. 

Both abusive families and cults often cite religious principles or authority as justification for controlling family members’ or followers’ lives—which very often head f*cks family members’ or followers’ attempts to detach from them. 

Family members who have been abused very often struggle to imagine that their attempts to leave the system will be successful— they very often believe that, even if they try to leave their families, they’ll never “really” be able to leave, in much the same way cult leaders convince their followers that there is no salvation or peace outside of the group. 

It can be hard for many people to accept that their family was abusive— but it might help to step back and look at their family’s behavior and dynamics from the perspective of, “would this check out if we were talking about a cult, instead of a family?” 

Taking that step back and seeing those similarities can be a real eye opener. 

Victims of abusive families and victims of abusive cults often experience similar CPTSD symptoms upon leaving they respective situations. 

Both abusive families and cults infiltrate survivors’ beliefs about themselves, the world, and the future. 

Both abusive families and cults do everything in their power to gaslight their victims into silence and complacency, even after they’ve left. 

The culture often thinks of both abusive families and cults as relatively rare phenomena, but victims know: there are far more abusive families and cult-like groups out there than many people realize. 

Both victims of abusive families and cults need to know what CPTSD is and what CPTSD recovery entails. 

And neither victims of abusive families nor abusive cults are to blame for their experience. 

drglenndoyle

What dissociation is and what dissociation means.

Nobody dissociates for the hell of it. 

Nobody dissociates to be a pain in the ass to anybody else. (Believe me, dissociation is a much bigger pain in the ass to trauma survivors who dissociate than it is for anybody else— if we had the choice, we’d find a much less fraught way to annoy you.)

Nobody “chooses” dissociation as a coping tool. 

Dissociation is a reflex— and, like most reflexes, it exists to keep us away from pain or danger. 

Why would we dissociate to avoid pain or danger? 

Usually the reason is because we literally had no other way out of that pain or danger. 

Dissociation is escape for people who can’t physically escape. 

This is what so many people don’t understand— or maybe don’t want to understand— about dissociation: that not everybody can “just leave” a dangerous situation. 

Domestic violence victims very often cannot “just leave” a relationship on which they are economically dependent or in which children are a factor. 

Victims of spiritual abuse often can’t “just leave” a church or community that is their main or only source of social contact and support. 

Children cannot “just leave” a family in which they are being abused or neglected. 

Complex trauma survivors who do not know, in the moment, that they are experiencing complex trauma cannot “just leave,” because they don’t yet realize there is anything to escape. 

There are dozens of reasons why physical escape from pain or danger is simply not a realistic option for many. 

As a result, our nervous system “solves” this “no win” problem by inventing a “back door”— namely, dissociation. 

Sometimes that dissociation looks like just “checking out” or “floating away.” 

Other times, especially when we need to stay or appear highly “functional,” dissociation looks like a “part” of ourselves coming forward to do what needs to be done in the moment, while the rest of us “loses” the time that part is “out.” 

And still other times, dissociation looks like some aspect of our experience, such as our emotions or our memory of specific things, being made inaccessible to us, so we can “function” for a period of time without feeling the “weight” of what’s been dissociatively cordoned off. 

There’s no denying that dissociation is an ingenious strategy for “escaping” situations in which there is no practical or physical escape, at least in the short term. 

I strongly believe any realistic trauma recovery strategy needs to give dissociation and the “parts” of ourselves that have gotten us though tough moments their due. 

Any recovery “strategy” that shames us for dissociating (or shames any other symptom) is not realistic or sustainable. Actual trauma recovery never begins with shame and is never supported by shame. 

It is the case that, if we’re serious about taking back our life from complex trauma, we need to make ourselves less vulnerable to dissociation as a symptom— but that is not the same as shaming ourselves for it or making our “parts” disappear. 

We need to remember that if we’re reflexively dissociating, that means some part of us is in flashback or otherwise feeling panicked or threatened— and we need to look inside to understand what’s getting triggered and how we can be there for ourselves. 

It’s not that dissociation is “bad” or “wrong.” It’s a symptom, and symptoms, while often inconvenient or destructive, are not “bad” or “wrong.” 

It’s that we need to take seriously what dissociation is trying to tell us about what’s going on in our nervous and endocrine system right now— and we need to ask intelligent questions about what we need. 

This isn’t about “staying present” for its own sake. 

This is about committing to not ignoring or abandoning “parts” of ourselves stuck in “trauma time” inside. 

Making the inside of our head and heart is always worth the effort— and when and how we dissociate is going to show us where to start with that commitment. 

drglenndoyle

CPTSD recovery requires more than validation.

Validation really, really matters in trauma recovery. 

The core of our complex trauma wounds was invalidation. 

By abusing us, our abusers and bullies communicated that our humanity was invalid. 

By neglecting us, negligent caretakers communicated that our needs were invalid. 

There is a reason why trauma survivors resound so strongly to validation— because very often we are thirsty for it. 

Parched for it. 

In fact, some times we survivors are so thirsty for validation that something else happens to us: we settle for it. 

That might sound strange— what does it mean to “settle” for validation? 

What I mean is, there are going to be people who may, in fact, validate our experience or our pain, either meaningfully or superficially— and that will scratch an itch for us that we profoundly need scratched. 

But validation might be where their support basically ends. 

What many trauma survivors don’t sufficiently understand is that we do need validation— but we need that for starters. 

Validation of our wounds is not a recovery strategy. 

Validation of our wounds is not the same as tools and ongoing support (though validation is, of course, an element of support). 

Having been in the space of publicly supporting trauma survivors in their recovery for almost ten years now, I’ve observed something: there are many social media personalities who will, in fact, validate our experience as trauma survivors. 

I’m glad we’re in an era where, even as the world continues to largely ignore and invalidate CPTSD survivors’ experiences, many survivors can turn to social media creators and communities for validation. 

However, I want all survivors to clearly understand that validation, as important a tool and experience as it is, isn’t meant to get us across the finish line of our recovery. 

I know of survivors who, even as they find validation-focused trauma recovery content helpful, get frustrated— usually with themselves— for not knowing what to do next. 

Unfortunately, a realistic trauma recovery blueprint needs to entail more than validating quotes. 

A realistic trauma recovery blueprint very much needs to involve more than various kinds of assurances that what happened to us, shouldn’t have happened to us— as true and validating and important as that is. 

Sustainable trauma recovery ultimately has to run on more than validation. 

Mind you: it’s difficult to generate trauma recovery content on the internet that both goes beyond validation, and also applies broadly enough to do numbers. I know, I’m faced with that task every day. 

That is: I understand why so many trauma-focused creators begin and end with validation. 

But what I want you, my audience, to understand is, you’re not supposed to collect all these quotes and suddenly, magically understand what the nuts and bolts of your individual trauma recovery is all about day to day. 

In my content, I do my best to balance validation with applicable knowledge, skills, tools, and philosophies that apply to most survivors, most of the time— but I know I don’t always get that balance perfect. 

The point is: don’t feel bad if all the validating, evocative trauma recovery content you consume online still leaves you with questions or struggles in designing your recovery.

CPTSD recovery is not easy. The nuts and bolts of CPTSD recovery are often counterintuitive. And every survivor’s recovery is highly individual— what worked and works for me may lead you into crisis. It’s anything but one size fits all. 

I believe it’s worth the trouble to continue generating trauma recovery content online, and, to be clear, I am so glad there are other content creators who also offer trauma survivors food for thought every day on the internet. 

Just remember: quotes and other nuggets of inspiration do not replace tools and strategies. 

And validation of our past experience, while crucial, is not the same as managing today or designing a future. 

drglenndoyle

CPTSD recovery and others’ reflexive negativity.

Spoiler: you are going to run into plenty of people out there who want to do nothing but criticize. 

You’re going to run into plenty of people who will have nothing constructive to contribute to your trauma recovery journey. 

You’re going to run into plenty of people who can and will do nothing but project their own conflicts and history onto everything you say or do. 

Not “maybe.” It will happen. 

I wish everybody we meet would be understanding and supportive of our trauma recovery journey— but they won’t. 

I wish everyone who felt the need to insert their voice into our trauma recovery efforts used that voice to be supportive or, at the very least, raise questions in constructive ways— but they won’t. 

What’s actually going to happen is, some people we meet along the way will be negative. 

Not “negative” in the sense that “everything that isn’t blindly, over the top enthusiastic is ‘negative;’” but negative in the sense of, they will find something in literally everything to criticize. 

Don’t get me wrong: everybody is entitled to their own attitude and their own energy. Neither you nor I get to tell them how to conduct their life or respond to what they’re experiencing today. 

And we definitely don’t need the people in our life to be unwaveringly, unrealistically, or toxically “positive.” Toxic positivity, in fact, can be a b*tch of a trigger for many trauma survivors. 

This isn’t even about “negative” versus “positive” people, per se. 

This is about who we choose to let into our circle and let into our head in trauma recovery. 

Trauma recovery is the hardest thing most of us will ever do in our lifetime. 

Most of us will feel overwhelmed by what trauma recovery asks of us at multiple points in our journey. 

Many of us will struggle with feelings of hopelessness and helplessness along the way— the voice of Trauma Brain telling us we can’t do this, and we shouldn’t even bother trying. 

While we don’t need toxically positive people in our life to help balance out Trauma Brain’s BS (Belief Systems), we do need to limit, to the extent we’re able, our exposure to people whose reflexive negativity reinforces Trauma Brain’s propaganda about everything we “can’t” do. 

We need to realize that many people’s pessimism about whether trauma recovery is possible or realistic for us is rooted in their own pain and past experiences, and has little or nothing to do with us. 

I believe, strongly, in having people in our life and inner circle who will be real with us and tell us the truth. 

But part of being real and truth telling is being real and telling the truth about what we CAN do and what IS possible for us— not just the rough stuff. 

The further I get into my own recovery, the less patience I have for people who are only here to complain and blame and shame. 

Most of us trauma survivors have had enough complaining, blaming, and shaming from the people who hurt us and the people who enabled them. 

We need people around us now who will support us in undoing the bleak, toxic conditioning that was programmed into us over years. 

It would be great if everyone we met fit that description. 

Unfortunately, they won’t. 

Remember: that has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with them. 

Mental focus, along with self-talk and physiology, is one of the core components of every trauma recovery tool that works. 

To the extent that you can today— even if it’s just a little— leverage your mental focus in ways that realistically support your recovery. Whether or not the people around you understand or care what you’re doing or what you need. 

drglenndoyle

CPTSD and reasons to live.

I am never going to tell anyone their reason for living isn’t “good enough.” 

If it keeps you alive for even one more day, it’s “good enough” for today. 

We trauma survivors have a rough habit of judging, often harshly, our reasons for living (in fairness, we trauma survivors have a rough habit of judging, harshly, pretty much everything about ourselves)— but, truly, any reason for living is better than no reason for living. 

I very often work with survivors who tell me their reason for living today is someone else, usually a person or a pet— and that’s great. I have no problem with that. 

I do, however, encourage survivors to work on expanding their “reasons for living” list. 

Many people have many different reasons for living, but for the vast majority of the people in the world who continue to want to exist, their reasons include experiences that are meaningful and pleasurable to them— and their confidence that they can create or access those experiences on the regular. 

Trauma survivors, however, tend to struggle with this. 

Our painful experiences have convinced us that we cannot, or at the very least will not, create or access experiences that are pleasurable or meaningful. 

Oh, sure, sometimes we’ll have an experience that is okay, or even great— but those positive experiences often come at a complicated emotional cost for us. 

The moment we become aware we are experiencing something pleasurable or meaningful, we start to feel anxious. 

Part of us often gets activated that is thoroughly convinced that that this pleasurable or meaningful experience is about to be yanked away from us— and we’ll somehow be in trouble for daring to feel good for a minute. 

One of the bedrock beliefs that trauma cultivates in us is that good experiences don’t last. 

I hear variants of this every day. “Nothing gold can stay.” “Everybody leaves.” “Don’t get happy.” 

When we survivors happen to experience pleasure or meaning in our life, we tend to immediately anticipate losing it— while at the same time telling ourselves a story about how we never really “deserved” that moment of meaning or pleasure in the first place. 

There is a cognitive distortion called the “mental filter” that Trauma Brain is very good at leveraging against us, that will have us believing that any positive experience we have is basically an accident— that while we are responsible for every bad thing that happens to us, the “good” stuff comes and goes unreliably and completely independent of our own efforts. 

I know. What a bunch of BS (Belief Systems). But that’s what CPTSD does to us. 

If we’re going to consistently manage our suicidal ideation, we need to realistically chip away at Trauma Brain’s insistence that it is “pointless” to try to create or experience meaning and pleasure in our life. 

Yes, many pleasurable or meaningful experiences are, in fact transitory— but it doesn’t follow that the are not worth creating, pursuing, or enjoying. 

When we start to understand how CPTSD mangles our beliefs about ourselves, other people, the wold, and the future, we begin to see that we’ve been conned out of creating reasons to live that don’t depend entirely on other people or our pets. 

Again: I have zero problem with living for others or our pets. As I say: any reason to live is better than no reason to live. No shame and no shade. 


But as we continue to work our trauma recovery, we’re going to come up against our beliefs about the possibility of meaning and pleasure in our life again and again— and sooner or later we’re going to have to confront Trauma Brain’s lies about our ability to create a life worth living. 

You have as much ability to create and experience pleasure and meaning as anyone who has ever existed. No matter what has happened to you, and no matter what your life has been like until now. 

You might be new to developing the skillset that supports you in creating a life worth living— but the good news is, you’re right here, right now, reading this. 

That means it’s not too late. 

That means there is a life of pleasure and meaning out there for you. 

That means there are skills and tools that will work for you. 

Your reasons to live will not always be a short list. Just keep woking your recovery. 

drglenndoyle

No, you’re not “too old” to recover from CPTSD.

Some of the most meaningful trauma recovery work we will ever do occurs in our later acts. 

One of Trauma Brain’s most persistent, pernicious lies is that we’re “too old” to meaningfully recover. 

This lie often goes hand in hand with the lie that there’s something “shameful” about struggling with trauma reactions and symptoms after a certain age. 

This is particularly the case when our trauma originates in our childhood— “that was so long ago, how are you not over it by now?”— but it’s also true when we’ve been traumatized as adults, for example by domestic violence or coercive spiritual control. 

Our culture just loves this beliefs that adults “shouldn’t” be vulnerable to traumatic stress— and that if we are, it represents some kind of “immaturity” or “weakness” on our part. 

Traumatic stress responses are injuries. 

Very infrequently do serious injuries heal on their own, with just the passage of time— especially when we’re doing things that tend to make them worse. 

Trying to deny, disown, or ignore trauma wounds, we’re functionally trying to walk on broken limbs. 

Yes, we might be able to limp along, and we might even be able to dissociate the pain of doing so to a greater or lesser degree— but in the end, it can only make the injury itself worse. 

What many people fail to understand about CPTSD in particular is that the experience of living with complex trauma reactions, is itself a trauma. 

Part of what makes complex trauma “complex” is the fact that it rarely stems from one time incidents— something that happened, but is definitively “over” now. 

And even if the “main” part of the trauma happened in the past, the experience of CPTSD symptoms tend to be so dysregulating, so life-disrupting, that living with them creates its own level of complex trauma. 

Complex trauma, by definition, unfolds over time, entwines with our important relationships, and is functionally inescapable. 

The experience of CPTSD, just like the experience of chronic medical illness or chronic pain, very much ticks all the “boxes” of complex trauma. 

So: why on earth should we assume that CPTSD, which itself imposes a daily experience of complex trauma, would get better with time, or as we age? 

Why on earth would we assume adults are less vulnerable to CPTSD than children, regardless of when the original trauma occurred? 

Some people will answer that question by explaining that adults have more resources, development, experience, and physical size than children, and are thus better able to cope with CPTSD— and that might be true for many people, but “coping” is not the same as “resolving.”

Adults are human— and humans are vulnerable to traumatic stress, regardless of when they are exposed to it. 

Adults who are exposed to complex traumatic stress are often at an even greater risk of developing CPTSD, insofar as they often feel cultural pressure to hide and minimize their experience rather than seeking support. 

All of which is to say: most of the life changing CPTSD recovery work I do is with adults in their 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, and even 70’s. No joke. 

It’s with adults who have decided that they’re not “too old” to work a trauma recovery— but they ARE “too old” to let another day go by with the voices of their bullies and abusers in their head, calling the shots. 

The culture will absolutely try to shame you to of seeking support fo CPTSD, and it will often collaborate with your Trauma Brain to do it. “You’re too old” is one of its most successful tools, because it hooks right up with the cultural shame we already feel about aging. 

Don’t lose the forest for the trees with all this. 

If you are reading this, you are at exactly the right age to recover from trauma. 

Starting today, if today is when you’re starting. 

drglenndoyle

Our symptoms are not our identity.

CPTSD has this way of convincing us that our wounds are our identity. 

They’re not. 

Our symptoms often masquerade as who we “really” are, and sometimes we’re sufficiently confused or exhausted by them to buy in to it. 

Our symptoms are not the “real” us. 

They are our real wounds. 

They are the scars we bear from having survived situations and relationships humans are not built to survive. 

But we don’t “choose” our symptoms. 

Our symptoms have nothing to do with our preferences, values, or goals— so they cannot, by definition, be our identity. 

Our post traumatic wounds, up to and including dissociation, do not define our personality. They hijack it. 

Yes, they hijack our personality again and again, in relationship after relationship— but that still does not mean they somehow “become” our personality. 

Often we spent so much bandwidth managing our symptoms for so long, that we have trouble remembering who we really are and what we’re all about. 

We can’t remember a time when we made a choice simply because we liked something or something resonated with us beyond our trauma struggles. 

We can’t imagine what it might be like to live a day, let alone a life, centered around what we want, what we like, what gives us pleasure, what creates meaning for us. 

CPTSD doesn’t just hijack our personality at times— it often hijacks our life. 

And yet: we are not our CPTSD. Or DID. Or BPD. Or any other diagnosis that we happen to meet criteria for today. 

For my money, a huge, under-discussed focus of trauma recovery is rediscovering and rebuilding ourselves. 

For many survivors it’s not even about “rebuilding,” insofar as we don’t have a “before” the trauma to “rebuild” or even “remember.” 

For many survivors “rebuilding” ourselves actually means “building” our sense of self from scratch. Discovering who we are for the first time— without CPTSD calling the shots. 

That process often starts out with a fairly simple question: “Who would you be, if you didn’t have to spend all day managing trauma symptoms?” 

The truth is, many survivors have been convinced by CPTSD that they don’t get any meaningful say in who they are or what their life looks like. 

When we get into recovery, and realize that we do, actually, have more agency than we ever thought we did in choosing our personality and crafting our life experience, we often don’t have any idea wha the hell to do next— and we often feel unworthy of the opportunity. 

After all, who am I, to “choose” anything about my life? 

Won’t I just f*ck it up? 

Don’t I “have” to choose a life that everyone else will approve of, and that meets everybody else’s needs and priorities? 

No, you will not f*ck it up. 

You’re going to have all the struggles every human has in designing a life, and you’ll definitely have moments where you’re not your best self. Ask me how I know. 

But you won’t f*ck it up. 

And no, you don’t have to choose a life that suits ANYBODY but you. 

I know, I know. That goes against every scrap of programming that’s been pumped into your brain and seared into your nervous system for years. 

But maybe that’s the good news. 

After all, a life consistent with your old programming— you have that right now. How’s that working out for you? 

Your struggles are not your identity. You are not your symptoms. 

You are what you choose to do next. 

Easy dos it. Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Trauma recovery is not about “the past.”

Trauma recovery isn’t about the past— either “holding on” to it or “letting go” of it. 

Trauma recovery is about the present and the future. 

It’s about defining ourselves, including our personality and our choices, in terms we choose, consistently with values that resonate with us— not by what has happened to us or our reactions to it. 

Many people misunderstand trauma recovery, or even the term “trauma survivor.” 

They think that acknowledging trauma means we are “defining” ourselves by it. 

No one acknowledges their trauma to “define” themselves. 

We acknowledge it because we have to understand our wound if we’re going to realistically heal from it. 

Our trauma conditioning tells us the lie, over and over again, that we “must” feel and believe certain things about ourselves because we’ve been through trauma. 

It tells us we “have to” make all our decisions through a lens cracked by our past pain. 

Trauma recovery supports us in grasping the truth: we do not have to contextualize our personalty in terms of what has happened to us— but we do need to realistically understand and deal with the fact that what happened to us, hurt us. 

The core of trauma recovery is accepting reality and rebuilding our relationship with ourselves. 

The biggest obstacle to trauma recovery tends to be our normal human vulnerability to denial. 

Denying that we’re hurt robs us of the opportunity to heal. Denial is seductive— but destructive. 

Realistically recovering from trauma asks us to acknowledge our pain and develop skills, tools, and philosophies that support us in constructing our life— instead of buying into Trauma Brain’s lies about how we “can’t” do or be certain things because of our past. 

Most trauma survivors I’ve ever met would happily never think about the past again— and most survivors who successfully recover from trauma think about the past way less than you may think. 

Even processing trauma in therapy doesn’t mean we “fixate” on the past. 

In sustainable trauma recovery we only ever engage the past to the extent that it impacts our willingness and ability to function in the present. 

Trauma recovery doesn’t focus on the past because we cannot change the past. 

Trauma recovery focuses on what we can change. What we do have influence over. Where we actually have wiggle room— not on things that will never change, no matter how much we focus on them. 

We cannot change the past. 

We CAN change our relationship with the past— which is what trauma recovery is all about. 

We CAN change how we talk to ourselves, what we think about ourselves, what we believe about ourselves and how we manage trauma responses that are rooted in the past. 

We CAN influence— not “control,” but influence— what we feel and do today. 

Fixating on the past or our abusers is worshiping the problem. Nobody who is in serious, successful trauma recovery believes in or does that. 

Don’t get up in your head about what the world does or doesn’t understand about trauma or trauma recovery. 

Don’t even get up in your head about the word “trauma.” Use or don’t use it. It actually doesn’t matter. 

What does matter is that you’re clear and consistent about what trauma recovery is all about: protecting and nurturing your safety, stability, and functioning. Here, now, and going forward. 

It’s not that the past “doesn’t matter.” 

It’s that the past doesn’t matter as much as or in the way that Trauma Brain is trying to convince you it does. 

Breathe; blink; focus; and do the next right thing. 

drglenndoyle

What are emotional flashbacks?

Many trauma survivors are drowning in emotional flashbacks every day, but don’t fully realize it. 

We think of “flashbacks” as immersive sensory experiences that rip us from the fabric of the here-and-now— and sometimes that’s exactly what they are. 

Sometimes flashbacks do hijack our senses, and we’re suddenly back there, back then, in what we’re seeing, hearing, smelling, even tasting. 

But not all flashbacks are sensory flashbacks. 

Emotional flashbacks are similar to sensory flashbacks in that they do convincingly yank us away from the here-and-now— but they don’t utilize our senses to do it. 

Emotional flashbacks hijack us psychologically and emotionally. 

Instead of seeing, hearing, and otherwise experiencing the past through our senses, we’re suddenly thinking and feeling like we did back there, back then. 

For most of us, that means thinking and feeling like children. 

It often means feeling small. 

Confused. 

Overwhelmed. 

Afraid. 

We generally associate sensory flashbacks with “classic” or “simple” PTSD. In popular culture, they are depicted as violent “attacks” of imagery from specific traumatic events from the past. 

People who have survived all sorts of trauma can experience sensory flashbacks, but they’re most commonly associated with physical or sexual violence. 

Emotional flashbacks, by contrast, can be harder to identify as flashbacks— and less obvious in how they “attack.”

I’ve come to understand emotional flashbacks as central to, and pervasive in, complex trauma and dissociative disorders. 

Many complex trauma survivors spend much of the day immersed in the thoughts and feelings of helplessness, confusion, or fear that characterize emotional flashbacks. 

For survivors who dissociate, emotional flashbacks are overwhelmingly among the most frequent triggers of “parts” stepping forward in unplanned or unpredictable ways. 

Emotional flashbacks are manageable, and they don’t necessarily represent “backsliding” in our recovery— but they can be enormously disruptive to our ability to function, sometimes even more so than sensory flashbacks. 

It can be super difficult to identify an emotional flashback when it’s happening. 

Many survivors think that the feelings of helplessness, confusion, or fear they experience in emotional flashbacks are a result of their lack of skills or progress in trauma recovery— but that’s just not true. 

Survivors who are very successful working their recovery can experience emotional flashbacks. 

Survivors who have made a lot of progress in recovery can experience emotional flashbacks. 

Very often, emotional flashbacks occur while a survivor is working the second stage of complex trauma recovery, in which we process trauma— which makes perfect sense. It’d be weird to engage with trauma memories in a therapy session, and NOT then be vulnerable to a trauma “hangover” in everyday life. 

Ultimately, managing emotional flashbacks comes down to realizing when they’re happening, and then approaching them with patience and compassion— just like every other trauma response. 

The “parts” of us that are active in emotional flashback need us. 

What they don’t need us is shaming, ignoring, or trying to punish ourselves for having what is a very common complex trauma symptom. 

A good place to start is breathe, blink, focus. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

Breathe. 

Blink. 

Focus. 

That’s it. 

drglenndoyle

The lies trauma and addiction tell us.

Trauma and addiction make us vulnerable to believing lies. 

What kind of lies? Lies about ourselves, mostly. 

Trauma makes it very easy to believe that we are worthless. 

That we are powerless. 

That we are helpless. Hopeless. 

Addiction makes it very easy to believe that we have few, or no, options. 

Addiction makes it very easy to believe we “have” to do certain things or consume certain things, in response to certain thoughts or feeling states. 

People talk about trauma as if it’s something that happened “in the past”— but many trauma survivors don’t experience it that way. 

Yes, trauma is something that happened in the past, or it might also be happening in the present— but the trauma responses we struggle with are a reflection of how what happened to us wormed its way into our beliefs and reflexes. 

People talk about addiction as if it’s this “character flaw”— but, in my view, this isn’t a particularly accurate or useful way to think about it. 

Yes, addiction has to do with our decisions and values— what may be said to define our “character”— but the addiction cravings and patterns we struggle with are a reflection of how the experience of addiction has wormed its way into our beliefs and reflexes. 

I’m sometimes asked why I so often discuss trauma and addiction in many of the same terms— and the answer is not just, “because I struggle with both.” 

The real reason is, I have never, ever, seen a case of complex trauma that has not also had significant symptomatology of addiction— and I have really never, ever seen a case of addiction that has not been fundamentally rooted in trauma. 

Trauma and addiction conditioning are entwined with each other. They mirror and feed and enable and support each other— especially when it comes to the lies both tell us about ourselves. 

The truth is, almost none of whet trauma or addiction condition us to believe about ourselves is true— but it all feels very, very true. 

Trauma and addiction make us very vulnerable to what cognitive therapists call “emotional reasoning”— the belief that if something FEELS very true, it “must” be true. 

Most of us hear that and are like, I mean, of course it’s not true that something “must” be true just because it FEELS true— but when it comes to things trauma and addiction whisper into our ear? We are complete suckers for it. 

We often can’t even imagine challenging the sh*t trauma and addiction tell us, in our own head, all day— because, well, it just FEELS true. 

Emotional reasoning. It’s sneaky, and it’s sticky. 

The reason why neither trauma nor addiction recovery is simple or straightforward is because it’s more than just “don’t do that.” 

Trauma and addiction beliefs are constantly gnawing at our self-esteem, our relationships, our motivation, and even our physical health. If we could just “choose” to “opt out” of them, we would— but that’s not how beliefs change. 

Beliefs only change when they are consistently, effortfully challenged and reality checked. 

Beliefs change when we construct and reinforce an alternative set of beliefs— in this case, recovery beliefs— to swap out for them. 

Beliefs change when we finally wrap out head around ideas like “acceptance” and “surrender” as tools of change— not staying stuck. 

Make no mistake: trauma and addiction are some of the most panful things that human beings experience— and recovery from trauma and addiction is one of the hardest projects many humans ever attempt. 

(Ask me how I know.) 

And but also: meaningful, sustainable recovery from both trauma and addiction is absolutely possible— if we prioritize recognizing and effectively challenging the lies our conditioning tells us every day to keep us hating and harming ourselves. 

Breathe; blink; focus.