Shout out to everyone who is raw dogging trauma recovery, no therapist, next to no support system, just gathering resources on your own & trying to MacGuyver them together into a survivable plan. Hang in. It's not fair you're in that spot, but you can do this.
You didn't "fail" to make an unworkable situation work. It was not on you to make the unworkable work. You should not have been put in the position of believing that it was your job to make the unworkable work. You don't deserve to be punished for the unworkable not working.
Mocking trauma survivors for struggling is such loser sh*t. Mocking vulnerable people for not fitting in is loser sh*t. Scapegoating entire genders, orientations, races, or ethnicities for your life sucking is loser sh*t. Get a life.
Nobody, not a therapist, not a guru, not an influencer, not a sponsor, is going to have the 100% bulletproof solution for you never backsliding or struggling in your trauma or addiction recovery-- & that's okay. Take what each mentor offers, adapt it, use it for what it is.
You are not the first or last trauma survivor to be caught in this place of not necessarily wanting to die-- but not seeing how you can keep living like this, either.
Easy does it. Come on back to this minute, this next teeny, tiny, recovery supporting micro choice. Breathe.
One reason why crying ishard for trauma survivors is, we truly believe that if we let ourselves, the flood of tears will drown us. We can't imagine ever stopping.
Thing is: we won't drown in tears we let ourselves cry. Really.
Tears we try not to cry, though...
You can feel safe w/ someone, you can trust them, they can be doing all the right things...and it still may take awhile for you to feel comfortable telling them everything about what happened. It's okay. Take the time you & your "parts" need-- & when in doubt, slow it down.
If you try to change too much too fast, your nervous system's going to slam the brakes, maybe cut the power to the whole grid (a "freeze" response), or even go into active rebellion against the changes you're trying to make (a "fight" response). Sustainable change is incremental.
If you think CPTSD or DID survivors working their recovery are prone to "blame" others for their pain, you have a superficial knowledge of what trauma survivors are really like. I've seen more "victim mentality" bullsh*t from cooler-than-thou trauma "skeptics" than I ever have from survivors.
Our "fawn" response will have other people thinking we like & approve of things we very much don't-- & when we get out of the habit of "fawning," that may cause some confusion w/ them. That's okay. Their confusion is a small price to pay for our authenticity.
hi guys
Wanting to quit is normal in trauma & addiction recovery. Recovery is a pain in the ass. It asks us to be present w/ sh*t that we have been conditioned to believe we cannot handle. Of course we're going to want to quit.
And but also: we don't have to quit.
You don't owe anyone an apology for the fact that you're a work in progress. The reality is, any change worth making in your life is going to involve stretches where you're working on it, but not quite there yet. No shame.
Just keep working on it, w/ realism & self compassion.
You deserve more out of life than exhausting yourself to fit someone's mold of what you "should" be or do or look like.
We can be grateful to the "fawn" response for keeping us alive once upon a time-- & also move past it as we design our REAL life going forward.
You're not "stupid" for having made self-sabotaging decisions in the past. That's just what trauma & addiction do to our executive functioning. It has zero to do w/ intelligence-- & making better decisions has zero to do w/ punishing or shaming ourselves for our past ones.
You are not "ungrateful" for having complicated or negative feelings about someone who has helped you along the way. You get to feel what you feel about the people in your world--full stop. You don't "owe" anybody positive feelings if the vibe is just off for you.
It's okay.
That thing you're feeling, that you don't feel safe telling anyone about-- it doesn't make yo "bad." Nothing you can feel makes you "bad." Human beings have feelings, some wholly "irrational"-- none of which we asked for or "control." We cannot be defined by what we don't choose.
I have no problem honoring the version of myself & behaviors that kept me alive in the past. Thank God they did what they had to do.
And, I have to be very real about whether that person & those patterns work for my life today-- or whether I need to relapse them w/ gratitude.
CPTSD is telling you a story right now about how you can't POSSIBLY handle what's on your plate. It's bullsh*t. Let CPTSD say what it's gonna say-- you focus on just the next teeny, tiny chunk of what you're doing.
Breathe, blink blink blink, & focus on what's in front of you.
The intensity of our feelings is just the intensity of our feelings-- not a reliable barometer of what's happening in the world.
Our feelings absolutely deserve our attention & respect-- & also our realism about what they can & can't tell us about what's actually going on.
Our anxiety is not always wrong about the fact there's dangerous sh*t out there to be wary of. It's often not right about how reactive we need to be to manage that dangerous sh*t-- but ignoring or belittling our anxiety is never the move in sustainable trauma recovery.
If you're reading this, I want you to know that every tool, skill, & philosophy I talk about re: recovering from CPTSD is also applicable & available to you, whether or not you or anyone else thinks what you went through was "trauma."
Don't sweat the labels. Build the skills.
How you talk to yourself, ABOUT yourself, really will change your brain. That's real. It's happening now.
Every minute of every day we're either reinforcing what our bullies & abusers told us & made us feel about ourselves-- or we're scratching that old, sh*tty record.
You've been conditioned to be mean to yourself in your head-- but no one can keep you from working to change that. No one can force you to KEEP being mean to yourself.
No one can choose FOR you, how you talk TO you-- once you decide to go off autopilot.
Some of the most competent, "grown up" people you meet every day are actually psychological kids terrified they'll be shamed, rejected, or abandoned-- but the've gotten awesome at masking, so you'd never know.
Maybe don't compare your insides to anyone else's outside.
Part of what happens w/ CPTSD is, we get convinced the voices of bullies & abusers we "hear" in our head are somehow more real than the voices of therapists, mentors, & other "good guys" we can also "hear"-- but the truth is, w/ practice we can CHOOSE who to "listen" to inside.
Working our trauma recovery very often means losing any ability or inclination to perform someone else's idea of "fine"-- that is, we lose our capacity to bullsh*t to make other people more comfortable. And that's a beautiful, if frequently messy, thing.
There's no one experience of dissociation. Some experience it as hard & fast, like the power suddenly cutting out or a door slamming shut. Others experience floating, falling-- or drowning. Because your experience doesn't match someone else's doesn't mean it's not dissociation.
You don't "have" to do that thing that Trauma Brain is telling you you "have" to do. You can CHOOSE to do it, but know you don't "have" to just because you have the old voices of bullies & abusers whispering in your ear.
