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. 

drglenndoyle

You are not alone in this.

There’s no denying it— trauma and addiction recovery can be incredibly lonely. 

They’re not lonely because we somehow don’t “deserve” support— we do deserve support. 

They’re not lonely because we are unlovable or unlikeable— although Trauma Brain will definitely try to tell us exactly that. 

No, trauma and addiction recovery tend to be lonely because trauma and addiction tend to be lonely. 

It’s ironic— the experiences of both trauma and addiction are incredibly common. More unbelievably common than many people reading this would even believe. 

And yet, both trauma and addiction are extremely private, individual experiences— no two trauma survivors or addicts have exactly the same experience, the same wounds, the same needs.

Trauma and addiction are, by definition, painful— and no two humans carry quite the same pain. 

Consequently, no two survivors or addicts require the same recovery resources. There is no “one size fits all” approach to trauma or addiction recovery. 

(This is one of the main reasons I do not offer super specific advice or recovery programs on my social media— because for the hundreds of thousands of survivors reading my content, every single one needs and deserves an individualized path that I could not mass produce if I wanted to.)

This means we’re functionally doing recovery on our own— even if we do happen to have the support of a therapist, sponsor, or community behind us. 

Trauma and addiction recovery are among the most private— and, subsequently, most lonely— things we’ll ever attempt. 

And make no mistake: that loneliness can get to us. 

There are times when we’re going to feel as if we’re the only survivor or addict on the planet carrying the pain we’re carrying or working the recovery we’re working— and, in a sense, that’s true. 

No one IS carrying our specific pain, or called to work our specific recovery. 

That can be lonely. 

But it does not mean we’re alone. 

No one knows our specific pain, and no one is working exactly the recovery we need to work to stay safe and stable— but there are literally millions who feel just as alone and just as overwhelmed as we do, in any given moment. 

Throughout history, there have been hundreds of millions— literally!— of survivors and addicts who have also believed they, too, were all alone in their pain and in their struggle. 

Trauma Brain and the Addiction Beast have this way of convincing us that we are the first, last, or only person in the history of the universe to struggle with this loneliness— but it just isn’t true. 

History is full of survivors and addicts who have worked successful recoveries. 

Trauma survivors and addicts in recovery have been figuring out how to take back their lives, survive and thrive, long before there was a mental health field. 

I predict that trauma survivors and addicts in recovery will be figuring out how to take back their lives, survive, and thrive, long after the mental health field is no longer a thing, too. 

Even if you are lonely in this fight— you are not alone. 

You are part of a tradition and siblinghood of survivors and addicts in recovery that reaches across the globe, back into history, and far into the future. 

You are one of us. 

Your pain and your recovery needs are unquestionably unique— but you are one of us. 

And it’s because you’re one of us that I can confidently say: you can do this. No matter what Trauma Brain or the Addiction Beast are telling you at this second: you can do this. 

Yes, recovery is a lonely project. 

But you are never alone. 

drglenndoyle

Grieve– and work your recovery.

The three basic tools that get us through every day in trauma and addiction recovery— self-talk, mental focus and visualization, and physiology and breathing— become especially important when we’re carrying grief in addition to our trauma or addiction struggles. 

When we’re hit with grief, it’s tempting to forget everything we know— including our recovery tools. 

When we’re grieving, the very last thing we want to think about is self-talk; or our mental focus; or our physiology and breathing. 

But we need to. 

Those are the building blocks of our recovery— and they’re more important than ever when we’re grieving. 

Make no mistake: grief is a delicate, dangerous time for survivors and addicts in recovery. 

Grief is the kind of thing that is going to try to convince us we “shouldn’t have to” focus on our trauma or addiction recovery— after all, we have other things to think about. 

Grief tries to tell us that we have “more important things” to think about than self-talk, mental focus, and physiology and breathing. That thinking about all that stuff might be all well and good on a “normal” day— but today we have way more pressing things to think about. 

Grief is consuming. 

And because it is consuming, the temptation is to let it consume the recovery work we’ve done to this point. 

It’s real important we not let it. 

Whoever or whatever we’re grieving would not want us to lose our recovery because of our grief over them. 

The good news is, every tool we’ve developed to support our trauma or addiction recovery— specifically self-talk, mental focus, and breathing and physiology— will also support us in managing and working through our grief. 

Self talk matters as much when we’re grieving as it does when we’re managing trauma responses. We cannot be in the business of telling ourselves our grief “doesn’t matter” or is “stupid” or disproportionate— any more than we can be in the business of telling ourselves our trauma “doesn’t count” or we should “just get over it” or “isn’t really trauma.” 

Mental focus matters as much when we’re grieving as it does when we’re managing trauma responses. Like trauma, grief tries to hijack our focus from who we are, what we’re all about, and how we can care for ourselves in realistic ways here and now— and it’s real important we not play along. 

Intentional breathing and use of our physical body matters as much when we’re grieving as when we’re managing trauma responses. Grief is a physically exhausting phenomenon, and if we are not caring fo our physical body, when we are breathing shallowly and quickly, when we are “armoring” 24 hours a day, we are no more in the position to manage or process grief than we are to manage and process trauma. 

Self-talk, mental focus, and physiology and breathing will not, on their own, dissipate grief, any more than they will dissipate trauma or banish addiction cravings and patterns. 

But it is virtually impossible to manage or resolve grief, trauma, or addiction, without paying attention to those basics. 

Do not get fooled into thinking that seasons of grief are when you get a “hall pass” to not use the basic recovery tools of self-talk, mental focus, and breathing and physiology. 

I understand— your whole nervous system wants you to do nothing but focus on this pain and emptiness you’re feeling. 

Believe me, I understand. 

But remember: you did not come this far, just to come this far. 

Your person or pet who left, would not want their memory to be associated with you stepping backward in your trauma or addiction recovery. 

Honor their memory by doing what you need to do to bolster your recovery work. 

Honor their memory by remembering the basics. 

Even if you’re crying so hard you can’t see the computer screen as you write. 

drglenndoyle

Does “validation” actually matter in trauma recovery?

Does “validation” actually matter in trauma recovery? 

After all, isn’t “validation” just some kind of touchy feely, but not terribly substantial or important, thing? 

It’s true that a lot of people kind of roll their eyes at the idea of “validation.” 

To hear them talk, the only people to whom “validation” matters are “snowflakes” whose feelings are “fragile.” 

I’ve literally had mental health professionals come at me on social media, declaring “validation” to be a “meaningless” concept. 

So— why are trauma informed and trauma focused therapists always going on about the importance of “validation?” 

The short answer to “does validation actually matter in trauma recovery?” is, yes. It matters a lot. 

To understand why, you need to understand how complex trauma wounds us. 

Trauma generally, and complex trauma in particular, isn’t actually about what happened to us. 

What happened to us is important, but terribly painful things happen to lots of people who don’t develop post traumatic or dissociative disorders. 

PTSD and CPTSD aren’t about the events that happen to us— they’re about how those events impact us in the absence of support and safety. 

Nobody reading this could “choose” to be impacted by their differently or less than they were. We don’t choose the environment we grow up in, or the people around us— thus we do not “choose” our vulnerability to trauma. 

What we call trauma responses are reflections and expressions of how we were wounded by what happened to us— and how those wounds deepened in the absence of support. 

What did the “absence of support” look like? 

First and foremost, it almost always looks like invalidation. 

It almost always looks like somebody refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy or the enormity of an event’s impact. 

It almost always looks like someone either silently assuming or— more frequently— explicitly telling us twe “shouldn’t” be hurt like we are or responding like we are. 

That’s like somebody showing up in the emergency room with a visibly broken limb— and getting a lecture on how the fall or accident we were in “shouldn’t” have been enough to break our leg. 

Whether a broken limb needs care— whether it needs a cast, and rest, and pain medication— is not a function of anyone’s opinion about the event that produced the broken limb.

Yet, that’s how some people approach trauma— by reflexively invalidating it. 

By judging it. 

By declaring it “illegitimate,” if it doesn’t fit their definition of “trauma.”

Validation matters because we cannot and will not do what we need to do to recover from trauma, if we cannot or will not accept the extent of our injury. 

Validation matters because trauma recovery, in the end, is us refusing to do to ourselves what our bullies and abusers did to us for years— namely, deny, disown, belittle, or ignore our pain. 

Validation matters because, for many people reading this, the words “your feelings are valid, and I believe you about your experience” were never, ever said to them growing up. 

We are not going to realistically recover from trauma if we cannot validate that our pain is beyond our ability to just “power through.” 

We are not going to realistically recover from trauma if we cannot validate that our pain is not a function of our moral “goodness” or “badness.” 

We are not going to realistically recover from trauma if we cannot validate that we are as deserving of safety, stability, recovery, and forgiveness as any human being who has ever existed. 

So, yes. Validation matters. And it is not some abstract, warm-and-fuzzy, or “meaningless” term. 

Validation is an essential trauma recovery tool. 

Trying to recover without it is like trying to build a house without a hammer. 

drglenndoyle

Recovery, choices, and “choices.”

You did not “choose” trauma. 

You do not “choose” trauma responses. 

It’s true that we have plenty of choices to make as part of trauma recovery— but for us to realistically make the choices we can, we have to be clear about the choices we didn’t and don’t have. 

So often trauma survivors are made to feel responsible for our trauma and for our reactions. 

We are often told stories about how others have “chosen” to “get over” their trauma. 

We are told we should “choose” to “let go of the past.” 

I promise: if “letting go of the past” was a one time choice any or all of us could make, I would post step by step instructions on how to do so. 

But it’s not that easy or simple. 

“Letting go of the past” entails dozens of choice points every day, most of which involve confronting our old self talk, our conditioned mental focus, and our ingrained physiology and breathing patterns. 

We did not “choose”  our conditioning. 

We do not “choose” to behave consistently with our programming— that’s what “programming” is, actually. Patterns that we reflexively play out, independent of thought or consent. 

The actual “choices” we have in trauma recovery involve what we do AFTER we’re hit with a symptom, memory, or trauma response. 

We did not “choose” to be trauma survivors— but we can choose to be trauma survivors working our recovery. 

Shame about our supposed “choices” is a brick wall that many survivors hit, numerous times, in our recovery. 

Our culture is obsessed with accountability— but what passes as “accountability” in our culture often lacks meaning or depth. 

It’s easy to say to someone they should be “accountable” for their choices and life experience. 

But when we scratch the surface of what many people seem to mean when they use the word “accountability,” it turns out they mean “take the blame for literally everything you think, feel, do, and experience”— which is both impossible and unnecessary (and, not for nothing, probably not something those people do in their own lives). 

Things happen to us that we did not plan for, that we did not expect, that we did not want. 

Even if, superficially, it seems we contributed to those things occurring, that doesn’t mean we “created” them or “asked” for them or “caused” them. 

(This is especially true when we were kids— but it remains true throughout adulthood as well.)

Our real choice is what we do once we realize we’re grappling with a symptom, memory, or trauma response. 

Do we do what our trauma conditioning wants us to do— lay down and get our ass kicked? 

Do we do the other thing our trauma conditioning wants us to do— blame and shame ourselves for struggling? 

Or do we meet our symptom, memory, or trauma response with compassion, patience, and realism— as we’re learning to do, day by day, in recovery? 

Do we accept this situation for what it is, not demand it be different, not blame or shame ourselves for struggling with it— and get on to leveraging our self-talk, mental focus, and physiology in order to effectively manage it? 

Do we check in with our “parts,” our inner child, our values, and our recovery goals, to make sure the next micro decision we make is consistent with the recovery we’re designing? 

Trauma is not a choice. 

Recovery is. 

A choice you are up to making— one teeny, tiny, recovery consistent baby step at a time. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

“Struggling” does not equal “failing.”

Struggling is not “failing.” 

Being in pain is not “failing.” 

Being ambivalent about recovery is not “failing.” 

Being unsure what the next step is is not “failing.” 

Those are all normal things that happen in trauma and addiction recovery. Every survivor or addict in recovery is going to experience versions of all of them. 

We don’t need to overreact to them. 

We don’t want to make judgments about our entire recovery arc when we experience them. 

Our old programming, however, is very much going to want us to believe anything negative we experience in recovery is a “failure.” 

Our old programming wants us to believe this, not because it’s true, but because it really, really wants us to give up— and it knows how sensitive we are to the sense that we are “failing.” 

Many of us have been told, straight up, that we’re a “failure.” 

Many more of us have been made to feel like we’re a failure, even if it hasn’t been explicitly stated. 

The culture does a fantastic— that is, horrible— job of making us feel like a failure when we’re not succeeding to its standard or conforming to its norms. 

Media and social media in particular are full of images and stories about people who “succeed.” 

Media and social media LOVE to bombard us with images of people who are conventionally attractive, economically successful, and/or talented in their field— and they invite us to compare ourselves to them. 

Turns out, most humans feel pretty sh*tty when compared to hot, rich celebrities. 

But trauma survivors also tend to compare ourselves, not just to celebrities, but also to the other human beings around us— who we invariably imagine to be feeling and functioning far “better” than we are. 

Much of the time we really have no idea how anyone else is really feeling or functioning— but nonetheless Trauma Brain is right there, cheerfully listing all the ways we’re falling short in comparison to our neighbor across the hall. 

It’s important we understand that Trauma Brian will never run out of ways to unfavorably compare us to literally any other human we encounter— and also that we understand, this is mostly propaganda. 

Don’t get me wrong: we survivors and addicts in recovery absolutely do experience comparably more pain and heartache than many people who have not been wounded as we have. It’s not a competition, but that is a fact. 

But that doesn’t mean we are “failing.” 

That doesn’t mean we are “hopeless.” 

That doesn’t mean we’re doing recovery “wrong.” 

And it certainly doesn’t mean we are “weak,” “stupid,” or any of the other colorful pejoratives Trauma Brain likes to toss at us when we’re down. 

Even being ambivalent about recovery, or for that matter staying alive, is not an indicator of “failure.” 

It’s an indicator of exactly what it’s an indicator of: we’re struggling. 

Of course we’re struggling. This is recovery. 

If you’re alive to read this, you’re not done. You haven’t “failed.” You haven’t “screwed up” your recovery. 

Even if you’re at a point in your recovery arc where the thing to do is press the “reset” button and functionally start over, that’s not a failure— that’s a necessary adjustment. 

Struggling does not equal “failing.” 

No matter how Trauma Brain tries to spin it.

drglenndoyle

The old thing and the new thing.

You don’t need to figure it all out today. 

You don’t need to do everything perfectly, or even competently, today. 

You don’t need to be particularly “productive” today. 

You don’t need to face every memory or feeling you’ve ever struggled with, today. 

You don’t need to confront everyone who ever bullied or abused you, today. 

There may be times and places for some or all of these in your trauma recovery— but all you have to do today, is manage today. 

One of our biggest vulnerabilities in trauma recovery is getting overwhelmed. 

We look at all that’s on our plate, everything that would need for change for us to consider our recovery “successful,” and we surmise— probably accurately— that we can’t do all of that today. Maybe we can’t do ANY of that today. 

The goal isn’t to all of a sudden be able to do any and every recovery task immediately. 

The goal is to nudge, nudge, nudge closer to realistically being able to do the most important of those tasks. 

To get clear on what, realistically, needs to happen for us to do the most important of those tasks. 

Whatever else trauma recovery is about for us, it is absolutely about our safety and stability today. Sustainably shifting how we feel and function so we are not at high risk of hurting or killing ourselves today. 

The big tasks on our plate in trauma recovery are probably going to require a skillset that we just don’t have yet— and that’s okay. Truly. 

Chances are, if you’re reading this, you’re very used to being shamed, or even punished, for not being able to do something yet. 

Chances are, if you’re reading this, you’re pretty hard on yourself for not being able to do something yet— because that’s what we do. We take on the attitudes of our bullies and abusers, talk to ourselves and behave toward ourselves like they did— which means plenty of shame and impatience with ourselves. 

It’s real important, in trauma recovery that we clearly understand and remind ourselves: that was the old thing. This is the new thing. 

The new thing is accepting exactly where we are in this process, with no judgment or self-aggression. 

The new thing is meeting our struggles today, big or small, with compassion and patience. 

The new thing is commenting to ourselves, including our “parts” and our inner child, that we are unequivocally on our own side— that we will not take our frustration and embarrassment to on ourselves, physically or emotionally. Not if we can help it. 

If you’re reading this, you may struggle with feeing like you’re “not doing enough” to move your trauma recovery forward. 

That has nothing to do with whether you objectively are or aren’t doing “enough”— chances are it has to do with old conditioning, which has programmed you to call yourself “lazy” and punish you for any and all delays or setbacks. 

Just going with the flow of old, shame bound, self-aggressive conditioning was the old thing. 

Leveraging the tools of self-talk, mental focus, and physiology to interrupt old patterns— even partially, even imperfectly, even inelegantly— is the new thing. 

Neither you nor I need to play out our entire trauma recovery today. Really we don’t. 

We just have to identify the next teeny, tiny baby step forward. The next teeny, tiny micro decision that supports our recovery. 

The next thing we CAN influence, as opposed to the many, many, many (many!) things that are emphatically, demonstrably out of our control. 

We can do that. 

You can do that. 

Yes, you can. No matter what Trauma Brain is telling you right now. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

How not to get hijacked by the “fawn” reflex.

Many trauma survivors, every day, are vulnerable to interactions with people who will, purposefully or not, hijack our focus. 

We’ve all experienced this— entering into a conversation or other interaction with someone, and suddenly feeling yanked away from who we are and what we’re all about. 

This can happen when somebody’s vibe or behavior triggers us; or it can happen when the content of the conversation or interaction is distressing or distracting to us; or it can happen for reasons we may not be able to identify in the moment. 

All we know is: we don’t feel like ourselves when we’re interacting with this person— and, often, we don’t like how we feel. 

Sometimes this “hijacking” happens unpredictably— that is, we find ourselves quite unexpectedly off our game when we engage with a person. 

Other times, however, we know from past experience with a person that they’re highly likely going to trigger us, or that interacting with them is likely to evoke feelings and responses in us that we do not love (or 100% choose, for that matter). 

There’s no shame to any of this, by the way. It happens to everyone. 

I DEFINITELY have interactions with people that yank me quite away from who I am and what I’m all about. 

I DEFINITELY find myself responding in ways I don’t love to dynamics I didn’t anticipate in certain conversations or interactions. 

Very often what’s happening to us in these moments is a form of flashback and/or dissociation. Somebody’s vibe or behavior has triggered us, because it’s punched a “replay” button installed in us from the past. 

We may not fully realize that’s what’s happening, because we think of flashbacks as fully immersive sensory experiences, or dissociation as “switching” between “parts”— but the truth is, both flashbacks and dissociation occur along a spectrum, and many survivors hang out in the mild-to-moderate range of that spectrum every day without being aware of it. 

It’s real important, when we can, that we prepare ourselves for conversations or interactions that are highly likely to trigger us. 

Remember that managing trauma responses always involves a combination of three basic tools: self-talk, mental focus, and physiology. 

When we know we’re headed into a potentially triggering conversation or interaction, we can leverage all three of those tools in order to minimize the chances we’ll get “hijacked.” 

We can remind ourselves, via our self-talk, of who we are, what we’re all about, what our goal is in the interaction, and what to pay attention to. 

We can use our mental focus to reinforce our identity, our own vibe, and our interactional goal with this person, so we don’t get caught up in their personalty or their goals. 

We can utilize our breathing and physiology to stay grounded and somatically present in thee conversation, instead of letting the anxiety or other emotions of the moment jack up our sympathetic nervous system and make it harder for us to be ourselves. 

The reason I feel it’s important that you know about these kinds of vulnerabilities and these kinds of tools is, these are exactly the kinds of things I wish someone had told me as a teenager. 

I remember, vividly, feeling at the complete mercy of every situation I was in— especially social situations. 

I felt like my identity as basically malleable, depending on who I was interacting with and what they wanted from me— and it was hell on my self-esteem. 

Taking a few minutes to utilize our recovery tools to affirm our identity, our values, and our goals for the interaction can help us stay grounded in and focused on who we are and what we need. 

That is: it can help us manage our vulnerability to the “fawn” response— and give us valuable experience in wrangling flashbacks and dissociation that aren’t obvious or overwhelming. 

It’s never the wrong call to leverage self-talk, mental focus, and physiology to remind ourselves who we are and what we’re all about. 

And it’s never the wrong time to do whatever we need to do to not accidentally lose ourselves in someone else’s vibe. 

drglenndoyle

Our trauma responses are not “stupid.”

Our trauma responses are not “stupid.” 

Calling our trauma responses “stupid” doesn’t help us resolve or transform them— in fact, it does the opposite. 

We cannot resolve trauma responses we belittle. 

Our trauma responses doesn’t come out of nowhere. They don’t exist to frustrate us— even though they are definitely frustrating. 

Belittling our trauma responses is essentially telling our nervous system that we “shouldn’t” be experiencing them— it’s essentially invalidating our nervous system’s experience. 

We’re not going to resolve symptoms and invalidate them at the same time. 

Why do we reflexively invalidate our trauma responses? Mostly because we’ve been conditioned to. 

We’ve had our feelings and responses mocked and invalidated by others— so that’s what we’ve seen modeled, and that’s what we’ve internalized. 

We’ve also often come to believe the very fact that we have feelings is the problem. 

But the problem is not, and has never been, that we have feelings, or even reactions. 

The truth is, our nervous system is reacting the way human nervous systems react to trauma. Those reactions may be painful and inconvenient— but they are not “disordered.” 

What is “disordered” is the trauma that produced them in the first place. 

What is “disordered” is the mockery and other cruelty that we experienced because of our feelings and reactions— and that we’ve been tricked into recycling on our own time. 

What is “disordered” is that we’ve been conditioned by our culture to believe that our normal human reactions to trauma are pathological. 

YOU are not “disordered.” You are injured. 

We heal injuries by caring for them, not by belittling them. 

Trauma responses are many things— sad, infuriating, scary— but calling them “stupid” nudges us dangerously close to calling ourselves “stupid.” 

And you are definitely not “stupid”— especially not for experiencing or struggling with trauma responses. 

One of the undeniably hardest tasks of trauma recovery is rebuilding our self-esteem. 

Multiple variables affect how we think about ourselves, what we believe about ourselves, and how we relate to ourselves— but one of the most important of those variables is literally how we talk to ourselves. 

Abuse survivors very often grow up being told versions of “we’re stupid.” 

We’re told we’re stupid, our feelings are stupid, our reactions are stupid, our needs are stupid. 

That’s very often the script that has sunk into our bones. That’s our baseline. Believing we’re stupid, feeling like we’re stupid, calling ourselves stupid. 

That’s what we’re up against. 

That’s the programming we have to take great care not to play along with. 

It may seem like a semantic point, but calling our trauma responses “stupid” is moving in the wrong direction.

Compassion and care over casual cruelty. 

I don’t love my trauma responses, either. 

But I don’t call them “stupid.” 

The normal responses of my nervous system deserve better than that. 

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.