drglenndoyle

“Wallowing?” Nope.

Exactly zero percent of the survivors reading this are “wallowing.” 

I know, that’s what the culture tells us— that we “wallow.” 

Maybe there are trauma survivors out there who “wallow.” But I haven’t met them. 

I have met hundreds of survivors who feel stuck in their past. 

I have met hundreds of survivors who would give literally anything— up to and including their life or safety— to NOT be stuck in their past. 

I have met hundreds of survivors who have seriously thought about giving up on recovery— and/or life— because people in their lives misunderstand them to be “wallowing.” 

Being stuck in depression, or flashbacks, or addiction, is not making a decision to “wallow.” 

“Wallowing” implies we’re not trying to change. But the survivors reading this know how desperately we’ve tried to change, again and again. 

Struggling to change is far more often a “skill” issue than a “will” issue. 

Do you know how few realistic tools our upbringing and culture give us to change deeply entrenched patterns of feeling and functioning like CPTSD? 

Our upbringing and culture give us gems like “suck it up.” 

Or “let it go.” 

Or “get therapy”— which, while it’s often a good idea and a useful tool, is not an immediate cure-all for the deep, complicated injuries of CPTSD. 

What looks like ‘wallowing” is very often exhaustion and/or learned helplessness. 

“Learned helplessness” is what we call it when we’ve tried, and tried, and tried to make a change, but we haven’t been able to (often because haven’t had the necessary tools or support)— so we lose all faith in our ability to change, and quit trying. 

But that’s not a “choice.” 

That’s not “wallowing.” 

People who accuse trauma survivors of “wallowing” in their pain are implying that recovery from CPTSD is largely an attitudinal problem. 

Don’t get me wrong, attitude matters. But believe me when I tell you attitude does not fix flashbacks. 

Attitude does not banish self harm urges or addiction cravings or suicidal ideation. 

CPTSD is not an “attitude problem.” 

If you’re a trauma survivor who has been accused of “wallowing,” you should know that that is not how smart, kind people talk about other peoples’ pain. 

Smart, kind people get interested in what someone who is hurting needs. 

They get interested in what has contributed to what they’re seeing in front of them. 

They understand that, for all we may be able to observe of someone’s behavior on the outside, there are dozens and dozens (and dozens) of internal pain points and influences that we simply cannot see by looking at someone. 

Yes, I too love the fantasy that CPTSD could be fixed by something as simple as an “attitude adjustment” or an admonition to “stop wallowing.” 

But I had to stop believing in fairy tales when I got serious and realistic about trauma recovery. 

Let them wallow in their stupid, superficial ideas about how trauma and recovery work. 

You work your recovery today. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

drglenndoyle

Don’t beat yourself up. Just get back on track.

Don’t beat yourself up. Just get back on track. 

I know, that reaction “shouldn’t” have happened. 

Don’t beat yourself up. Just get back on track. 

I know, you “should” be “better” by now. 

Don’t beat yourself up. Just get back on track. 

I know, “other people had it worse.” 

Don’t beat yourself up. Just get back on track. 

I know, you hate having to even think about this “trauma” or “addiction” or “recovery” stuff. 

Don’t beat yourself up. Just get back on track. 

Trauma Brain, the internalized voices of your abusers and bullies, is going to try to get you to weaponize your “fight” response against yourself. 

It’s probably already tried, am I right? 

But that “fight” response is supposed to keep us safe— and attacking ourselves is the literal opposite of safety. 

Attacking ourselves teaches our nervous system we are not safe with ourselves. That we can’t count on ourselves to have our own back, be on our own side. 

When I say don’t beat yourself up, it’s not just because beating yourself up hurts. 

It’s because that pattern of beating yourself up is going to undermine everything else you try to do in trauma or addiction recovery. 

Plus, we need the energy we’d otherwise spend beatng ourselves up, for the project of getting back on track. 

I understand you’re frustrated. 

I understand you’ve been conditioned to believe you “deserve” punishment. 

I understand part of you is champing at the bit to punish yourself before someone or something comes along and punishes you at a time and in a way you don’t choose. 

It will be uncomfortable to push back against all that. No question.

But don’t beat yourself up. 

Just get back on track. 

Again, and again, and again, and again. 

drglenndoyle

Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.

Listen to me: you do whatever it is you have to do to stay alive. 

F*ck their expectations. 

F*ck their judgments. 

What you have to do to stay alive may not be perfect and it may not be pretty. 

Other people may not understand, and you may have to distance yourself from some of those people, at least for awhile. 

But this isn’t the time for perfectionism. 

This isn’t the time for insisting or expecting that what you have to do to stay alive aligns perfectly with anyone’s idea of what is “acceptable.” 

Just this week I’ve heard multiple stories about what survivors leaned on to stay alive in difficult moments when their trauma was telling them there was no hope and they “had” to kill themselves. 

The stuff that keeps us alive might seem weird to anyone else. 

It might not have anything to do with what happened to us. 

The stuff we do to stay alive may not be part of our recovery indefinitely. I’ve done plenty of stuff for the sake of making it through a rough night, that I could not hold on to long term, because it would end up destroying me just as surely as suicide would. 

Don’t judge or overthink what keeps you alive. 

Just do it. 

And know there is a worldwide community of trauma survivors who do not judge you, either for what you had to do to survive then, or what you have to do to stay alive tonight. 

No shame. No shade. 

Staying alive when you’re under immense pressure to not is the ultimate act of defiance against our trauma. 

And, yes, it can be exhausting. I absolutely understand that. 

And still I’m telling you: stay alive. 

If you’re reading this, consider that you stumbled across it for a reason. Stay alive. 

If you’re reading this, whether or not you have any idea who the hell I am or why you should listen to me: stay. Stay alive, find out, answer those questions. 

If you’re reading this, and you’re angry that I have the balls to ask you to stay without knowing what you’re dealing with, stay alive and express that anger. I’d rather have you pissed at me and telling me all about it than you not here.

I do not have the power to “make” anyone do or not do anything. I wish I did. But nobody does. 

What I can tell you, though, is there are modes and levels you haven’t unlocked yet, and that are unlock-able to you.

Don’t believe me? Stay alive and prove me wrong. 

Do whatever the hell you have to do. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

Stay. 

drglenndoyle

Just…just…just…

“Just get over it.” 

Because it’s supposed to be that easy? 

“Just get past it.” 

Because there’s an obvious path to that? 

“Just let it go.” 

Because we never thought of that? 

You’re going to encounter lots of “helpful” advice when it comes to your trauma symptoms. 

By the way, when I say “trauma symptoms,” I’m not just talking about intrusive memories and flashbacks and nightmares and triggers directly related to our trauma. 

I’m talking about all the many, many (many) forms “fight,” “flight,” “freeze,” “fawn,” and “flop” manifest in our lives. 

It can often be difficult to identify a pattern as a trauma response matching one or more of those “F” reflexes— but once you see it, you can’t un-see it. 

Lashing out and struggling to let an issue drop can be a “fight” response.

Bolting a situation (a date, a conversation, a relationship) can be a “flight” response. 

Laughing at a joke that isn’t funny or you didn’t get can be a “fawn” response. 

Your mind going blank when it’s your turn to speak in a meeting (or at the fast food drive thru) can be a “freeze,” or even a “flop” response. 

We often think of trauma responses as these dramatic, cinematic occurrences, but the reality is more of then are woven into our every day lives and interactions than we realize. 

Maybe that’s why so many people feel so entitled to give us superficial “advice” about them. 

We get told to let an issue go— but we can’t, because we’re not holding on to it for no reason, we’re deep in a “fight” response. 

We get told to talk about our feelings before hitting the “eject” button— but we can’t, because we’re not bolting for no reason, we’re being propelled by a “flight” reflex. 

We get told to just relax and speak— but we can’t because we’re “frozen” or “flopping.” 

We get told to just be ourselves— but we can’t, because the “fawn” response won’t let us. 

Our vulnerability to trauma responses can and does get less intrusive and intense as we work our recovery— specifically, as we improve our emotional regulation and build our self-esteem— but we need to understand that trauma responses are not choices. 

Lets say it again, for those at the back: trauma responses are not choices. 

The fact that trauma responses sometimes don’t look like obvious trauma responses can seem to muddy the waters a little bit around this subject, but in trauma recovery we often need to look closer at our behaviors and needs. 

The superficial “just do (X)” advice handed to us by the muggles usually won’t work— and, more often than not, it’ll hit us as condescending or shaming. 

We unwire and rewire trauma responses by acknowledging the wound they’re connected to, with compassion and patience and realism. 

Don’t let someone get up in your head about how “easy” it should be to “just quit” trauma responding. 

If we could eradicate trauma responses with one big, sweeping decision, to no longer “let” ourselves do that, we absolutely would. We would have by now, in fact. 

We have to stay real and compassionate and present with our symptoms and wounds. 

That’s the realistic way out. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

drglenndoyle

Eh, maybe you ARE “in trouble.”

I don’t, actually, know if you’re “in trouble” with anyone right now. 

I do know that “in trouble” feeling is a CPTSD symptom. 

It may not be part of the official diagnostic criteria, but an overwhelming majority of CPTSD survivors with whom I’ve worked experience it. 

Our brain will jump through all kinds of hoops to convince us we’re “in trouble” (and also that people “hate” us, by the by). 

Even if we can’t think of anything we could possibly be “in trouble” for, Trauma Brain will close that loop by declaring we’re probably in even BIGGER trouble than we thought, and it’s going to be ESPECIALLY bad because it’ll catch us by surprise. 

(CPTSD survivors tend to be ambivalent as hell about surprises, if you didn’t know.) 

And here’s the thing: every now and then someone, knowing about this CPTSD symptom, feeling “in trouble” all the time, will try to comfort us by telling us we’re NOT in trouble. 

But how would they know? 

That’s not just my Trauma Brain talking: I mean it literally, how the hell would they know? 

I’ve been in plenty of trouble in my lifetime. 

One of the reasons why my brain finds it so easy to convince me that I’m CONSTANTLY in trouble is because, growing up, I constantly WAS in trouble. 

Whether I “deserved” to be in trouble all those times, especially growing up, is a different question— and, honestly, not a very relevant one. 

If my father decided I was in trouble, I was in trouble. Whether I “deserved” it wasn’t a question he asked. 

Later, as an adult, I created plenty of personal and professional situations that caused other adults to be irritated or angry with me. 

I’ve lost jobs, I’ve ruined relationships. And it would be absurd for me to assert I didn’t RICHLY deserve at least SOME of those painful experiences. 

My point is, it may not be particularly helpful to tell a trauma survivor who has the “in trouble” thing activated that they’re NOT “in trouble”— because maybe they are, with someone, somewhere. 

So: I have no idea if you’re “in trouble” or not. 

Here’s what I DO know about that “in trouble” feeling: we’re going to feel it, jacked up to 11, whether or not it’s reality based. 

And Trauma Brain, the internalized voices of our bullies and abusers, is going to use that feeling to make the case that we “have” to dissociate, hurt ourselves, maybe even kill ourselves, certainly hate ourselves. 

THAT’S the bullsh*t part of this “in trouble” thing. 

Even if we ARE “in trouble,” self-hate doesn’t lead anywhere we “deserve” to go. 

When I WAS in trouble with other adults, it was real easy to use those feelings (and the reality that someone really WAS mad at me) to justify substance relapse and self-harm. 

That’s what we have to manage. 

The “in trouble” feeling does get less intense as we work our recovery, build our self-esteem, and strengthen our interpersonal effectiveness skills. It really won’t be like this forever. 

But in the meantime, know that even if you are “in trouble,” with someone, somewhere, that feeling probably doesn’t mean what Trauma Brain is trying to convince you it means. 

You STILL deserve support. 

You STILL deserve empathy. 

You STILL deserve to have your own back and be on your own side. 

Your worth does not change, even when you feel or are “in trouble.” 

Understand that feeling as the trauma response it is— and remember trauma responses are neither choices, nor character defects. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

drglenndoyle

Recover for sixty seconds (only).

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tanked an attempt at trauma or addiction recovery because I freaked myself out about what might happen tomorrow. 

Or next week. Or next month. Or next year. 

Actually, you know what? Sometimes I didn’t even have a timeline for the freakout— I freaked myself about what could happen “eventually.” 

Like, all this self-talk, mental focus, and physiology stuff takes an awful lot of effort— what if, someday, I’m just exhausted, and I can’t do it? 

Well then, Trauma Brain responded to me: you probably just shouldn’t even try, my man. 

Remember that this is how Trauma Brain, the internalized voices of our bullies and abusers, operates: it will always, always, always err on the side of giving us an excuse to not work our recovery. 

Including something as stupid as “someday you might struggle with this stuff.” 

The thing is, OF COURSE we’re going to struggle someday. Maybe tomorrow, next week, next month, next year; maybe “eventually.” 

We’re going to struggle with it because recovery is hard, and we, being human, have a limited supply of energy and focus.

But that’s kind of like saying, there will be days when I’m going to struggle to brush my teeth or take a shower, because I’m going to be tired or depressed, and I’m not going to feel like it. 

Would the move then be to not bother brushing my teeth or showering tonight, because at some point I might have a hard time with it? 

Come on. 

Many survivors do this all the time. We get all up in our head about what might happen in the future, whether we’ll stay committed to our recovery, whether we’re going to relapse. 

Trauma Brain and/or the Addiction Best leap right in and tell us that if we do struggle with our recovery in the future, it’ll mean we “wasted” all this time trying to work our recovery— and most people really hate wasting our own time. 

Understand what our pain is doing to us in these moments: it’s making up a story just to get us to quit. 

The reality is, we might struggle with the recovery stuff. Hell, I might even relapse on the substances or behaviors of addiction that have taken a pretty fair run at ruining my life in the past. 

Any or all of that might happen— but will it happen today? This minute? 

Will I self harm, make a suicide attempt, or relapse by the end of this blog? Maybe— I can’t tell the future, even one minute into the future— but I doubt it. 

The fact that I might (or might not!) struggle with any or all of those in a future moment does not mean I have to collapse the wave function and give in to them in THIS moment. 

I will die on the hill of, do not f*ck your head up about what might happen next. 

Do what you can with what you have, i.e., this minute. This one, right here, right now. 

Maybe tomorrow you’ll be exhausted. Maybe tomorrow you’ll be psychotic. Maybe tomorrow you’ll make a different decision about whether you even want to be in recovery. 

So what? 

Can you influence your self talk right now in a supportive, realistic way? 

Can you influence your mental focus right now in a recovery supporting way? 

Can you influence your breathing and physiology right now in a centering way? 

Then do that. 

Your recovery lives in this minute. This one, right here. 

The past is history, tomorrow’s a mystery. 

Work your recovery this minute. Again, and again, and again. 

One of the most brilliant truths ever pointed out to me in my own addiction recovery is that life, as it moves forward, is just a series of present moments— and it’s only ever in the present moment that we have ANY kid of wiggle room. 

So grab it. 

And let the “you” of sixty seconds from now deal with the next moment. 

drglenndoyle

So maybe you’re disappointing someone. And?

I cannot guarantee that you’re not disappointing someone. How the hell would I know? 

You may well be disappointing someone. I know I am. 

Who am I disappointing? Plenty of people whose vision of life does not align with mine. Which would include my family of origin and my abusers (categories that are not mutually exclusive, but do not overlap completely either). 

I imagine you are, actually, disappointing someone. 

Maybe your family. Maybe people in your spiritual community. Maybe people who strongly align with the culture you grew up in. 

I’ve never loved disappointing people. 

But part of my trauma recovery— and probably part of yours, too— is accepting that disappointing people is not the end of the world. Truly. 

When we grow up without the necessary support and safety to become our own person and develop confidence in our ability to handle life, we get very, very invested in others’ opinions of us. 

That “fawn” people pleasing response doesn’t come out of nowhere. 

It’s not just that we think we have to please and appease others to stay safe; it’s also that we believe if we DON’T conform to everyone’s expectations and desires, that we might actually lose our identity. 

That might sound strange, but many people reading can identify. So to speak. 

Who are we if we’re not checking all the boxes, being who “they” want us to be? 

Many of us grew up without permission to be our own person— to have our own standards and goals about what our life should be all about. 

Hell, many of us were implicitly or explicitly threatened if we DARED to have a life vision that didn’t align with the people who raised us. 

Fast forward to now: OF COURSE we feel all kinds of pressure to be who “they” expect, who “they” want. 


The alternative might feel like being nobody at all. 

As we work our trauma recovery, we’re going to find that one of the most powerful factors in how we think, feel, believe, and behave, is our identity. 

One of the big reasons many survivors struggle to change our patterns is, we have an identity that we believe precludes us changing those patterns. 

Put another way, we may change some patterns for a short period of time— but if we truly believe we’re “just not the kind of person” who continues that new pattern, we won’t. We’ll go back. 

Our nervous system doesn’t like instability in our identity. That’s why it’ll try to drift back, again and again, to our familiar identity— even if that identity is painful. 

It’s also why we’ll cling to the identity that was handed to us by our abusers and bullies— instead of taking the risk of creating an identify of our own in recovery. 

Almost every CPTSD survivor struggles with this. You’re not alone in this. It’s what CPTSD does: it hijacks our identity, and makes us believe that to disappoint or confuse someone with our new behavior is dangerous. 

Changing our patterns IS dangerous— to CPTSD’s ability to make us miserable. 

Screw it. Disappoint “them.” Confuse “them.” Create and deepen an identity and life they have no clue how to process. 

Losing the prefab identity life handed us without our input or consent is one of the most amazing things that can happen to us. 

One of the scariest, too. So no need to rush it, or shame yourself for struggling with it. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

And go disappoint someone today. 

drglenndoyle

It’s your gentleness vs. the sh*t show.

For many CPTSD survivors, it took a lot of pain and chaos to make us as gentle and mindful as we are. 

We’ve seen, we’ve experienced, the sh*t show. 

We have no desire to visit the sh*t show on anybody else. 

Sometimes, though, that “fight” response makes us seem a little combative. 

Sometimes that “flee” response makes us seem like we don’t like people. (And, of course, sometimes we don’t like people— and there’s nothing wrong with that.) 

Sometimes that “freeze” response can make us feel like we’re holding back or holding out on people. 

That is to say: sometimes trauma responses are going to make us feel or seem like people we aren’t. 

And yet, we still want to be gentle with the world, with other people, especially with animals. 

The vast majority of the CPTSD survivors I’ve ever met have wanted nothing more than to heal the world. 

We’ve decided the sh*t show stops with us. Which is why we go through the hassle of working a recovery. 

We don’t want to be like our abusers. 

Our abusers could not fathom doing the amount of kind of work we do in trauma recovery. 

I don’t care who your abusers were, whether they were people or institutions— they were gross.

The sh*t show actually belongs to them, even though we’re the ones who pay the price for their chaos. 

It’s actually a f*cking miracle we’re as gentle as we are. 

If you’re reading this, you’re doing something your abusers could not fathom. You’re reading, studying, taking in material to improve your life, to make things different. 

Remember that. 

Even when it feels like it’s an uphill battle, if when it feels like it’s not working, even when it feels hopeless and pointless— you’re committed to, and working to definitively, end, the sh*t show. 

I admire and love your gentleness. 

It’s not a weakness, it’s a superpower. 

And I’m not just saying that as a bullsh*t therapist trope— I mean I want and need more people like you in the world to push back the sh*t show. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

drglenndoyle

Try a little love.

Many CPTSD survivors get hung up on this idea that we’re supposed to love the person we were when we were hurt— whether we were a child or an adult when that happened. 

The fact that complex trauma unfolds over time means that many of us were hurt both as children and as adults. 

But CPTSD survivors often want to instinctively hate or reject that person. 

CPTSD survivors are often told that it was somehow that person’s fault. 

We’re told that so frequently, in so many direct and subtle ways, that we often come to believe it— to just download that belief into our nervous system. 

It’s not that CPTSD survivors wake up and make a “choice” to hate or reject the person we were when we were hurt. 

We just wake up and register that’s how we feel. What we feel we’re “supposed” to do. 

One of the characteristics of CPTSD, as opposed to traditional PTSD, is that if f*cks with our sense of who we are. 

The symptoms experienced by CPTSD survivors don’t always center on what happened, like in PTSD. 

Rather, many of CPTSD survivors’ symptoms focus on us— specifically our identity and our worth. 

That’s what happens when you’re taken advance of in relationships that should be safe, as almost every CPTSD survivor has been. 

Realistic recovery from CPTSD asks us to extend grace and patience to the person we were when we were hurt. 

We don’t have to love the fact that we were hurt— but it’s real important we not let our hatred of the situation spill over on to us. 

There are CPTSD survivors reading this who will respond to what I just wrote by saying, “okay, but I DID do things that made me more vulnerable. I may not be totally responsible for what happened to me, but I DO bear SOME responsibility.”

We have to be really, really careful how we engage with that idea— that there may have been something we could have done different. 

The reality is, whether we could have done something different or not, things unfolded the way they did. 

There is absolutely no realistic benefit to going back and kicking the sh*t out of ourselves for what we “could” or “should” have done. 

Most CPTSD survivors have been immersed in shame and self-blame for as long as we can remember— don’t you think if that helped, it would have helped by now? 

Shame and self-blame are never going to be realistic, effective tools in CPTSD recovery. Never. 

Instead of coming at your past self— again, whether you were a child or an adult— maybe try holding your past self. 

Just hold them. Don’t judge them; don’t yell at them; don’t rush them. Don’t demand they be different. Don’t demand the past be different. 

CPTSD tries to get us constantly demanding that we somehow be different. 

Turns out our nervous and endocrine systems don’t give a sh*t what we “demand.” 

Try a little love instead. 

You know, just see how it goes. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

drglenndoyle

Your sensitivity is not a flaw. It’s a world changer.

You need to know that your sensitivity is not a flaw. 

I know, it can feel like it. It can feel like your sensitivity makes you vulnerable. 

And there are definitely people who will try to take advantage of how sensitive you are. 

But that doesn’t mean your sensitivity is a flaw, or even necessarily a weakness. 

Let’s be real: there are people who will try to take advantage of ANY quality we happen to have a lot of. 

And ANY quality that hooks into who we are and what we’re all about, including but not limited to our sensitivity, is potentially exploitable. 

So many trauma survivors walk around feeling like a raw nerve— and we so often feel ashamed of that. 

It doesn’t help that we have an entire culture around us glorifying “toughness” and portraying emotional non-reactivity as the essence of heroism. 

Let me tell you, real heroes are plenty sensitive and plenty emotional. 

I happen to think the way our culture glorifies emotional non-reactivity is kind of an exercise in wish fulfillment: we humans desperately wish we weren’t so sensitive or emotional, so we invent heroes who are defined by their ability to “suck it up.” 

The reality is, the world desperately NEEDS people who are sensitive and empathic. 

We don’t WANT an entire culture created by people who are out of touch with their feelings and intuition. That world would be a cold, hard place. 

CPTSD tries really hard to convince us we’re “damaged goods.” 

So many of us really, truly believe there is something fundamentally “wrong” with us— beyond the post traumatic injuries we’ve sustained and the CPTSD patterns we involuntarily run. 

An injury is not the same as a “flaw” or a “weakness.” 

The strongest, toughest athletes in the world get injured. 

The best designed bridges and buildings on the planet get damaged by earthquakes and storms. 

It is likely you, like me, are more sensitive than most. Things hit us harder. We have harder time compartmentalizing and moving on than many (which is why many survivors develop the psychological defense of dissociation— it seems to do the heavy lifting of compartmentalization for us, though relying on it in this way eventually creates more problems than it solves). 

That doesn’t mean we’re “immature,” “weak,” or any of the other dozen things Trauma Brain tries to call us. 

It definitely doesn’t mean our job is to somehow banish our sensitivity. 

We very much NEED our sensitivity. 

We also need to develop tools and philosophies that support us in managing that sensitivity so it doesn’t overwhelm us. 

Your sensitivity is not a flaw. 

It’s one of the best things about you. 

People like us are going to change the world in ways people not in touch with their sensitivity cannot. 

I truly believe that.