drglenndoyle

Trauma recovery is self-reconnection.

CPTSD tries to cut us off from ourselves. 

I know that might sound strange, but that’s the bottom line of what it does. 

CPTSD tires to drive wedges between the “parts” of us, such that we’re not in touch, we’re not collaborating, and we’re not caring for or about those “parts” of us. 

We’re not making a “choice.” It’s programming, conditioning. 

This is almost impossible to explain to someone who doesn’t struggle with CPTSD, but many survivors reading this know exactly what I mean. 

That sense of self-alienation. 

That sense of not feeling like yourself, for no discernible reason. 

That sense that there are “parts” of us that hold and need things—but which we can’t quite access, and we’re never sure why. 

It can all sound “crazy” to a non-CPTSD survivor. 

But for survivors, dissociation, depersonalization, and derealization are often everyday occurrences. 

They often occur so regularly that we don’t even register them as particularly unusual or remarkable events. 

Dissociation happens when we’re reflexively, involuntarily removed from, cut off from, distanced from, or made unaware of something we feel, need, remember, or otherwise experience. 

Depersonalization is when we don’t feel like ourselves. We know we ARE ourselves— but we don’t feel real. 

Derealization is when the world around us doesn’t feel real. When we feel floaty, or as if everything is unfamiliar, strange, or overwhelming. 

All of these are more common experiences for CPTSD survivors than is commonly acknowledged— even by survivors. 

We often don’t acknowledge these things because we don’t love them. They’re disorienting and inconvenient and sometimes scary. 

And, not for nothing, we sometimes don’t even realize we’re experiencing them in the moment. 

(That’s kind of the problem with symptoms that f*ck with our sense of presence and reality.) 

It all comes back to CPTSD trying to alienate us from ourselves— from our memories, our emotions, our needs, and even our physical reality. 

Realistic recovery from CPTSD always involves reconnection— first and most importantly, with ourselves. 

It always involves rediscovering who we are and what’s authentic and essential to us. 

We are simply not recovering while remaining splintered and scattered and floaty. We have a life to live here.

That’s NOT to say recovery from CPTSD (or DID, for that matter) involves “parts” going away— quite the opposite, actually. 

What recovery DOES involve is lowering the barriers between “parts.” 

It DOES involve giving “parts” opportunities to support each other. 

It DOES involve us being as grounded in the current moment as much as possible— not because the current moment is always great (sometimes the current moment absolutely sucks), but because right here, right now, is where we have our power, our autonomy, our wiggle room. 

CPTSD must fail to divide and conquer us from within. 

We need to have a united internal front— and an internal environment in which “parts” know, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are wanted, needed, listened to, and protected. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Become unrecognizable.

One way I think about trauma recovery is, it’s the process of becoming unrecognizable to our abusers, our bullies, and people who knew us when we were going through the worst of it. 

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with who we were. 

It’s that this project, trauma recovery, is about rebuilding ourselves, from the ground up, at the level of identity. 

We can have all the empathy in the world for who we were then. 

In fact, it’s really important we not blame or shame the person we were then. 

And but also, we need to move on from them. 

Not “abandon” our past self— but evolve beyond them. 

The psychological research tells us over and over again that change “sticks” when we incorporate it into our identity. 

It also tells us over and over again that change does NOT stick when we hold on to our old identity. 

For example: quitting an addiction, like smoking, tends not to “take” as long as one thinks of oneself as a smoker who is trying not to. 

But when one shifts their identity, so one does not think of oneself as any kind of smoker anymore, when smoking becomes something so foreign to their identity that they wouldn’t even think about picking up? That’s when quitting “takes.” 

The same can be said of any time we try to significantly change what we believe, what we feel, and what we do. We can’t think of ourselves as the same-old-person-who-is-trying-to-change. 

We need to shift our identity. 

And then we need to talk to and behave toward ourselves as if our new identity is set in stone. 

All of which is to say: trauma recovery is not about staying the same person and trying to make some tweaks. 

It’s about reformatting our own hard drive. 

The reality is, trauma has ALREADY reformatted our hard drive. It’s ALREADY shaped and shifted who we are, on the identity level. 

Trauma recovery is about us taking that power and autonomy back. 

It’s about “brainwashing ourselves”— with ideas and beliefs that we choose, in the service of an identity that feels chosen and authentic to us. 

That is to say: becoming unrecognizable. 

Understand, your mileage may vary. All I can speak to is the ideas and frameworks that motivate me, focus me, speak to me, in my trauma recovery. 

I don’t get all that motivated by the idea of making some minor tweaks in how I feel or behave. 

I do get motivated by becoming someone my bullies and abusers would not recognize. 

I get motivated by the idea of reshaping myself so completely that, while I love and accept and forgive my past self, it would be hard to believe I grew into the powerful, autonomous, self-responsible “recovery me” I did. 

Don’t play small. 

Become unrecognizable— and more authentic than you’ve ever been. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

See it.

Not for nothing, but you and I have spent an awful lot of time focused on the wounded version of ourselves. 

That’s not our fault. We’re not voluntarily “fixated” on our wounds. We’re not making a “choice.” 

We’ve been focused on our wounds because our wounds have been our life. 

We haven’t had the option of a day without our wounds f*kcing up our job, our relationships, our life. 

People who don’t struggle with CPTSD don’t know— that’s not a “choice.” We’re not being “difficult” or “negative.” 

That’s just what we’ve been handed by life, and it’s been on us to cope with it as best we can and stay alive. 

No shame, no shade. 

And but also— if recovery is going to be realistic and sustainable for us, we need to devote some focus to the healed version of ourselves that we’re trying to create. 

I’m not talking about bullsh*t “positive thinking.” 

I’m talking about getting clear and visceral about what we’re shooting for. 

What does a “healed” version of you look like? 

What do they feel like? What sorts of experiences do they have in their life every day? 

Many trauma survivors are surprised to find we haven’t really thought much about that.

After all, why would we? A “healed” version of ourselves has seemed so unrealistic over the years, that to envision it might even be more depressing. 

Add to that the fact that many of us have been told, implicitly or explicitly, that we “can’t” meaningfully recover from what we’ve experienced. 

Many survivors reading this haven’t had a particularly robust cheering section as we’ve tried to change our life, have we? 

So— visualizing that “healed” version of us might have been bittersweet at best, or a profound bummer at worst. 

But I’m going to ask you to put that “healed” version of yourself back on the radar. 

Our nervous system functions much better when we give it a clear goal. 

Most humans have real trouble “locking in” if a goal is abstract. Hard to hit a target you can’t really define. 

So, in your journal, on a Pinterest board, wherever: flesh that healed version of yourself out. 

What do they look like? What kinds of things do they think about? What kinds of things do they believe? 

What is it like inside the head and heart of the “healed” version of you? 

I understand: this is not an easy exercise for many survivors. We’ve been hit over the head so often and so rudely by the “toxic positivity” crew that envisioning a “healed” version of ourselves may feel silly, like a waste of time. 

But I’m telling you: the mind develops the pictures we hold in it. It’s not magic or metaphysics; it’s neuroscience. 

Dopamine flows where our focus goes. 

You are not struggling because you’ve been thinking “negatively.” That’s not at all what I’m saying. 

What I’m saying is that giving your brain something to shoot for as you design your trauma recovery is worth the effort. 

Our wounds and limitations will always be there to think about. 

But mixing our pattern of focus up to include what we’re driving toward is a value added tool. 

No pressure. Just experiment with it, like you would with any recovery tool. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

“Try harder” is not a trauma recovery strategy.

The secret to trauma recovery is not “try harder.” 

And your problem in trauma recovery is not that you haven’t been trying hard enough. 

“Try harder” is not even a strategy. It kind of sounds like one, but it’s not. 

“Try harder” is the kind of thing people say who don’t understand trauma or recovery. 

Most people reading this, especially if they’re recovering from CPTSD, already feel an enormous amount of guilt for supposedly “not trying hard enough.”

This tends to be true no matter how hard they’ve been trying. 

But this isn’t an effort problem. 

If you’re reading this, you probably didn’t have the safety or support you needed to develop effective strategies for living. 

Note I said “living”— not just “surviving.” You obviously survived, since you’re reading this.

But if you’re reading this, odds are you haven’t really been living. 

You’ve probably not had the safety or support to really define or work toward your goals. 

You’ve probably not had the safety or support to really engage and enjoy what you like. 

Hell, you may have been expending enormous bandwidth just staying alive. 

No shame, no shade— but that’s not really “living.” 

And the problem has not been you “not trying hard enough.” 

The problem has the lack of safety and support. Tools and philosophies that you should have been taught by the people who said they loved you—but you weren’t. 

It doesn’t matter how hard we want or try to build a house, if we don’t have a hammer. And a lot of other tools and materials, for that matter. 

Where did that “try harder” thing come from, anyway? 

Usually it came from someone who wanted to blame us for our own pain. 

After all, if our suffering reduces to a problem of effort, they don’t have to take any responsibility for it, do they? 

Then we survivors take that “not trying hard enough” BS (Belief System) and apply it to ourselves, because on some level we actually like the idea that we can do more or less ANYTHING if we just “try hard enough.” 

We would rather feel guilty than powerless, as an old Dialectical Behavior Therapy saying goes. 

No one, and I mean no one, is harder on trauma survivors than we ourselves are. 

It starts out with us imitating our bullies and abusers— who were often our primary caretakers and models— but we sure take it and run with it. 

We don’t do this because we “like” it. We do this we lack alternatives. We don’t relish the idea of building a house without a hammer, but we’ve never been given a hammer to work with. 

We’ve only been told “try harder.” 

Taking realistic responsibility for our trauma recovery is a good thing, a necessary thing, a beautiful thing. 

But we’re not going to “try hard” our way into building a house with our bare hands. 

We need tools. 

Think stacking your toolbox— with tools other than shame or pressure. 

Breathe; blink; focus. 

drglenndoyle

Sick and f*cking tired.

Getting sick and f*cking tired is a tool. 

It’s often a very necessary tool. 

Sometimes we don’t actually change anything until we’re sick and f*cking tired. 

I don’t love feeling sick and f*cking tired, understand. And I imagine you don’t, either. 

I also imagine there are plenty of people reading this who are so f*cking sick and tired that they literally can’t express it. 

If there’s one thing almost all of the survivors who have come to me for support in their journey have had in common, it’s that they are sick and f*cking tired. 

And if there’s another thing many of them have in common is, they often have very mixed feelings about being sick and f*cking tired. 

Many survivors don’t feel we have the “right” to feel sick and f*cking tired. 

Many survivors are ambivalent about whether what we’re feeling is “enough” to affect us like it has. 

Many survivors tell themselves over and over again that what they’ve been through isn’t “bad enough” to either produce the symptoms they’re experiencing— or to require them to work a trauma recovery. 

On, and on, and on…we very often invalidate and minimize and deny and disown our experience and our needs. 

None of which changes the fact that we’re actually quite sick and f*cking tired of all of this. 

The reality is, we need to meet that sick-and-f*cking-tired experience with radical acceptance— it is happening, whether we love it or not and whether we feel we have a “right” to experience it or not— with enormous compassion, patience, and realism. 

And I also find it helpful to think of sick and f*cking tired as a tool. I think of it as fuel. 

When I get sick and f*cking tired, I remind myself that if nothing changes, nothing changes. 

If I keep doing what I’ve always done, I’ll keep getting what I’ve always gotten. 

None of that is to shame or blame myself for my pain. That’s not the point of thinking of sick and f*cking tired as a tool. 

That’s to face the reality that I can only influence— not “control”— finite corners of my experience, notably my self talk, mental focus, and physiology…and that if I am truly sick to death of living the same day over and over again, “Groundhog Day” style, I’m going to need to realistically leverage the wiggle room I DO have. 

The truth is, I am sick and f*cking tired of dreading feeling sick and f*cking tired. So I insist on doing something with it. Turning that feeling into a tool. Into rocket fuel for my recovery. 

Your mileage may vary. 

But I do not recommend just sitting in the sick and f*cking tiredness of it all. 

I recommend using it as a tool to focus and propel you. 

Because f*ck this, you know? 

drglenndoyle

Conditional value isn’t “love.”

People who only value you as long as you’re playing along with their narrative, don’t value you. 

They value your function— as “evidence” that their story is true. 

This happens all the time in abusive or neglectful families. 

The minute you stop playing along with their story, their attitude and energy toward you changes. 

These are often the same families that claim “family should come first” or “family is everything.” 

If “family should come first,” then why is their positive attention contingent upon you affirming them as “good parents?” 

If “family is everything,” then why do they blame and shame the family “scapegoat” over and over again instead of taking responsibly for their limitations? 

Their own behavior proves their words are empty. 

Here’s the thing: we don’t need “perfect” parents. 

No one reading this is hurting because our parents weren’t “perfect.” 

No one reading this is “mad” because our parents weren’t “perfect.” 

What we needed were parents who were trying. 

What we needed were parents who were attuned— or, at least, doing their best to attune to us. 

CPTSD and DID do not result from “imperfect parents” or childhood pain that “everybody” experiences. When you hear someone say some version of “everyone has childhood trauma,” they are wrong.

It’s not easy to know we weren’t, or aren’t, valued by the people who were supposed to love and protect us the most. 

And it’s very easy to assume, to believe, that it was somehow our fault. 

It wasn’t. 

It wasn’t on us to “make” them love us. To be “lovable” enough for them to do what parents are actually supposed to do. 

It wasn’t your fault. 

And it’s still not. 

So they only value us conditionally, instrumentally. So what. 

What they do or don’t value, what they can or can’t do emotionally, has zero to do with us. Less than zero. 

I wish I didn’t have to say any of this, and I wish none of it applied to you or me. 

But here we are. 

And we have the option of creating a life going forward that has nothing to do with them. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

It’s a long walk back to Eden. Don’t sweat the small stuff. 

drglenndoyle

Why compliments can be tricky for trauma survivors.

To many trauma survivors, compliments often are not compliments. 

To many trauma survivors, compliments feel like traps. 

They feel like setups. 

They feel like someone trying to get us emotionally vulnerable. 

It doesn’t particularly matter how sincere the compliment, or how trustworthy the complimenter— compliments can trigger us. 

To understand what’s going on, you need to know that many CPTSD survivors only ever received backhanded compliments growing up. 

For many of us, the people closest to us only ever complimented us for the purpose of somehow making us feel bad. 

Do you know what a “neg” is? 

A “neg” is a manipulation tactic, wherein someone gives you a backhanded compliment for the purpose of kicking you in the self-esteem. 

Why would somebody do that? Because many people— and especially trauma survivors— will respond to that kind of thing by feeling a need to earn that person’s respect or approval. 

That is: “negs” work because they evoke a “fawn” trauma response. 

Do you know the kind of psychological harm that results from a parent “negging” a child, over and over again, at some of the most developmentally sensitive periods of that kid’s life? 

Actually, I suppose you might. 

Anyway— compliments often feel suspicious to us. And we come by that skepticism honestly. 

We’ve come to understand compliments as potential manipulation. 

We’re not “choosing” to be “difficult” about compliments. We’re not “ungrateful.” 

We’re not trying to push people away— though sometimes pushing people away does feel safer, doesn’t it? 

That sensitivity to compliments won’t last forever. Though many of us do struggle with wondering when the other shoe will drop, or when we’ll be “found out” for the “imposter” we are, for awhile. 

Don’t get up in your head about it. 

Just work your recovery today. 

Self-talk, mental focus, physiology. Micro choices. 

(I’d tell you “good job,” but…you know.) 

drglenndoyle

You don’t have to chase. You are the prize.

You don’t have to “chase” anything. 

You don’t have to chase people. 

You don’t have to chase validation. 

You don’t have to chase status. 

You don’t have to chase any of it, in order to be worthy. 

Lots of us grow up believing we really had to “chase.” To “hustle” our way to worthiness. 

Many survivors reading this right now honestly don’t believe we’re worthy unless we’re producing, or achieving, or earning. 

The chase has been so ingrained in us, that to even consider giving it up feels dangerous. 

How on earth could we be “worthy” if we’re not hustling for it? 

Why would anybody like us, let alone love us, if we’re not “productive?” 

Here’s the thing: I love striving. I love goals. I love high standards. 

I love setting a goal and working toward an achievement. I find goal setting and achievement fun and interesting. 

But the only reason I can find that kind of thing fun and interesting now, is I quit staking my entire self worth on it. 

I stopped chasing. 

And it’s a good thing, too, because I was f*cking exhausted from the chase— emotionally and physically. 

The emotional exhaustion that comes from chasing peoples affection in particular is brutal. 

It never lets up, even if and when somebody tells us they love us. 

Turns out: if we think of love as something we necessarily have to “earn,” we’re never going to be secure in it— because in that model, love disappears if we happen to be too exhausted or compromised to keep hustling for it. 

Realistic trauma recovery requires a perspective shift when it comes to chasing, namely: we no longer chase. 

We don’t chase to “prove” our worthiness, or our desirability, or anything else. 

We are, actually, the prize. 

Yes, I’m talking to you. You are, actually, the prize. 

You don’t need to chase. 

You don’t need to “earn.” Not the basics, not respect, not safety, not dignity. 

Anybody who makes you FEEL like you have to chase those things down, to “earn” those things, is only going to reinforce Trauma Brain’s messaging about the conditionality of safety and worthiness. 

F*ck that. 

You don’t chase. 

You attract, in your authenticity. 

Put it on repeat. 

drglenndoyle

Nope. Not “stupid.”

That thing you think or feel, that you keep telling yourself is “stupid?” Is not stupid. 

There is nothing you can think or feel that is “stupid.” 

What we think and feel is just what we think and feel. No more; no less; no shame. 

Why do we hurl those labels at ourselves? “Stupid?” “Childish?” “Pointless?” 

Mostly because we’ve had those labels hurled at us. Sometimes over a long period of time; sometimes by people who claimed to “love” us.

We’re doing what we saw modeled. 

It’s true that we can, and often do, think and feel things that get in the way of our goals. 

Sometimes we think and feel things that make us feel not so great. 

Even those things aren’t “stupid.” Or “childish” or “pointless,” for that matter. 

If we’re serious about trauma recovery, we’re going to have to get out of the habit of mocking or dismissing or disparaging what we think and feel. 

Even when we don’t understand it. Even when we don’t love it. 

Here’s the thing: we don’t think or feel the things we think or feel on accident. 

They all make sense. 

They’re all tied to something important. 

Even the ones that seem “stupid” or “childish” or “pointless”— they’re important. They’re hooked into “parts” of us that are important. 

I don’t love everything I think or feel. There’s actually a lot that I think and feel that seems to work against my goals, that gets me behaving in ways that almost sabotage myself. 

It took a long time to get out of the habit of attacking myself when that happened. 

Our nervous system, our “parts,” our inner child— they’re not trying to sabotage us with the thought and feelings they throw our way. 

They’re just experiencing what they’re experiencing. They didn’t ask for those thoughts or feelings any more than we did. 

Meet thoughts and feelings you don’t love with acceptance and patience and realism. 

For that matter, meet the “parts” of yourself you don’t understand or love with acceptance and patience and realism. 

I’ve said it before: the quality of our trauma recovery is the quality of our relationship with ourselves. 

And good relationships are not built by hating on the things the person we’re trying to have a relationship with thinks or feels. 

drglenndoyle

Positive thinking won’t save us from CPTD– but.

Positive thinking isn’t going to save you or me from CPTSD. 

I wish it would. 

I wish I could tell you that all this CPTSD bullsh*t was a bad dream, that we could think our way out of. 

I wish I could tell you that all you or I had to do to recover from CPTSD is to fix our attitude. Because attitude is everything, and everything is attitude…right? 

Well. Not quite. 

Positive thinking doesn’t save anyone from anything. 

That said, what we think does matter. 

I’m not saying that we can think our way out of CPTSD, or that the only reason anyone suffers from CPTSD is because they’re “choosing” the “wrong” thoughts. 

(Though I’m sure someone in the comments who didn’t read this far into the post is probably going to say that. Stay toxic.) 

What I am saying is, we have a little bit of wiggle room in our thoughts. 

We have a little bit of wiggle room with how we talk to ourselves. 

We have a little bit of wiggle room in how we direct our mental focus. 

Mind you, that wiggle room may seem impossible tiny some days.

Some days it may very much feel like CPTSD is hijacking every goddamn thought in our goddamn head. 

(By the way, shout out to everyone who has ever asked if, strictly speaking, I “need” to use profanity on my posts. It’s a very f*cking good question that I will f*cking think about very f*cking hard, and get back to you. Thanks for reading.) 

I’m not saying we we have complete freedom inside our head or heart. 

I’m saying we have wiggle room— and, if we’re serious about trauma recovery, we need to take advantage of that wiggle room. 

If we use that wiggle room to focus on and amplify our limitations and our deficits— that’s going to have consequences in how we feel and function. 

Understand: negative thinking doesn’t CREATE CPTSD— but it can sure as hell be its biggest cheerleader and benefactor. 

Conversely, if we use that wiggle room to focus on and amplify our strengths and resources— that’s going to have consequences in how we feel and function as well. 

It will not “solve” all, or probably any, of our problems, and it will definitely not “cure” our PTSD. 

Positive thinking will not save us. 

But it will support our recovery a hell of a lot more realistically than negative thinking. 

I’m not saying bullsh*t yourself. 

I’m not saying “good vibes only.” 

I’m not saying your habitual thinking is your fault, or the “cause” of your pain. 

I’m just saying, get mindful and intentional about how you use your cognitive “wiggle room.” 

I’m saying that, for all the choices we DON’T have when it comes to self talk and mental focus, there are absolutely some choices we DO have. 

And I don’t believe in throwing away ANY tool that could potentially help us crawl out of this pit called CPTSD.