It takes so much more courage than many realize to challenge the story we were told about ourselves by our bullies & abusers. We were conditioned to believe we'd be "in trouble" for believing anything but the worst about ourselves. Swapping in a new story after years takes guts.

That need to figure it out, to "make it make sense," is often more of a trauma response than we appreciate. That "part" of us that wants so badly to figure it out often needs what we needed back then: comfort & presence w/ the reality that there IS no figuring some things out.

A satisfying part of trauma recovery is the fact that, if we're doing it right, who we become flies in the face of everything our abusers & bullies said about us & tried to convince us of. Proving them wrong isn't the point of recovery-- but I'll take that bonus perk.

One imperfect, but useful, way to think of PTSD is the damage that was inflicted by the thing, & CPTSD as the damage done when we had to endure the thing alone-- or, worse, while being abandoned, attacked, or mocked by those we should have been able to turn to for support.

Trauma recovery is not "just letting yourself feel." Survivors often feel things at 1740% intensity. "Letting ourselves feel" isn't the problem-- the problem more often is we've been left to feel overwhelming sh*t w/ no support or tools to realistically process or metabolize it.

Easy does it. I assure you, you're not perfect; & I assure you, you are not the piece of sh*t at the center of the universe. You're a survivor working your recovery one day, one minute at a time. You & I are baby steppers who deal w/ our needs & missteps as they occur. No shame.

Listening to ourselves & taking our needs & pain seriously is the opposite of "selfish" or "narcissistic"-- but we've been programmed to believe there's something "wrong" w/ self care by people & orgs who benefit from us neglecting & belittling ourselves. Don't buy in.

Many survivors feel shame about how our symptoms get in the way of "adulting"-- but you need to know tasks like paying bills, being on time, car maintenance, & even basic hygiene often trip the "Big Three" CPTSD triggers: feeling controlled, trapped, or "in trouble." No shame.

I promise, you are not in pain because you're "choosing" to "hang on" to the past. Nobody reading this is in pain because they are "stubborn." CPTSD mangles our information processing & self-esteem-- & that's not a "choice" or something we quickly or easily fix by "letting go."

CPTSD is not only, or even mostly, about the past. It's about how what happened to us shifted our beliefs & patterns of focus, so we now process & respond to the world in ways that make us miserable. Recovery isn't about "letting go." It's about rebuilding life goals & skills.

Sometimes trauma recovery can involve apologizing to ourselves & forgiving ourselves for times in the past when we weren't as fair, compassionate, gentle, or consistent w/ our own heart & pain as we could have been. And: that does NOT imply our trauma was "our fault."

We are not realistically recovering from trauma if we're devoting energy every minute to denying there's anything to recover from. I understand acceptance is a b*tch. But denial is a killer-- of our recovery, of our goals, of our relationships, & potentially of ourselves.

It doesn't matter that it was "just kids." It doesn't matter that it was "a long time ago." It doesn't matter if our bullies & abusers "had their own trauma." Our wounds are our wounds-- & we're not realistically healing them until we quit listing reasons to minimize them.

There are people reading this who have been convinced by their bullies and abusers that their life is a “failure”— but who are in the middle of redemption arcs and heroes journeys that nobody they grew up around could possibly understand. I see you.

Kids who are bullied by their peers are frequently also being neglected by the adults in their life-- or bullied by them as well. Many (many) survivors' biggest obstacle to sustainable trauma recovery is refusing to acknowledge the impact of childhood bullying & neglect.

Peer group bullying in childhood or adolescence is a complex trauma that is often minimized & belittled in our culture. A trauma recovery blueprint that fails to realistically account for & tend to to those wounds is going to be ineffective.

There is nothing "wrong" w/ us just because we struggle to directly communicate when we're upset. We're responding to conditioning that resulted from real experiences in our past. Realistically moving past it requires patience, not pressure-- from ourselves & others.

"Kind" does not have to equal "passive." Anyone who tries to convince us otherwise is invested in us staying passive-- & it behooves us to wonder why.

The "fight" trauma response isn't always about literally, physically fighting our way out of a threatening situation. Sometimes it's about being seen & heard in a culture-- or family-- that does its best to ignore or marginalize the gentle & quiet.

Our empathy is not a "weakness." Our sensitivity is not a "weakness." Our vulnerability around empathy & sensitivity is not their existence in us-- it's how we've been falsely convinced by our trauma conditioning they are somehow inconsistent w/ boundaries & assertiveness.

What a good day to remember who the f*ck you are— and why your real self has nothing to do w/ what your bullies and abusers tried to make you believe. Breathe; blink; focus.

There is zero shame in the fact that we trauma survivors have to work harder than non-survivors & use specific tools & strategies to focus, accomplish goals, & feel good. We didn't ask to be dealt this hand-- but goddamn if we're not going to play it intelligently.

"Plan A" didn't work out for anybody reading this (or the person writing this). Our trauma is going to try to convince us that means we "can't" create a life worth living-- but all it actually means is that Plan A didn't work. We are still alive, & there are 25 other letters.

The fact that we literally don't remember who we were "before" our trauma doesn't mean we can't recover. It means that, for us, recovery is about starting from scratch & deciding for ourselves who we are-- about building & discovering, rather than rebuilding or rediscovering.

Shifting how we talk to ourselves so that we consciously, purposefully refuse to echo how our bullies & abusers talked to us is a daily discipline that we're not going to be great at at first-- & that we get better at w/ time & practice. Just keep trying. It's all practice.

Our trauma conditioning wants us to believe that meaningful recovery is beyond us-- that our problems are too big & entrenched to change by shifting our self talk, mental focus, & physiology day by day. It wants us to forget & disbelieve that our brain can change-- but it can.

Our routines & rituals will either deepen our rut or support our recovery. Trauma Brain wants us to believe our habits "don't matter," because it wants us to keep unconsciously doing what keeps us stuck-- but what we do consistently, day & night, can make or break our recovery.

Whether life is going as planned or working out for us at this moment is NOT a reflection of our worth or value as a person. If we're serious about living our values or improving our life, we have to get past the myth that anybody's results reflect their inherent worth.

No one reading these words "expected" a "perfect" childhood, or is pissed that we didn't get "perfection" from our caretakers. Many reading this are, however, coming to terms w/ the fact that for some of our caretakers denial was & is more important than our pain or healing.

My own heroes in trauma recovery are not people who always got it right-- they're people who kept trying, kept learning, struggled w/ demons they weren't sure they could overcome, but showed the f*ck up for their "parts" & inner child anyway. Give me those warriors.

In CPTSD recovery, we need from ourselves and our supports now what we needed from our caretakers back then: assurance that we will not be abandoned or suddenly unloved-- even when our behaviors are less than lovable, even when we feel bad, even when we're less than perfect.

Maybe who you were conditioned to believe you "should" be bears no meaningful resemblance to who you are actually supposed to become. That happens a lot, especially to trauma survivors-- we're programmed to believe we "should" be someone completely irrelevant to our actual soul.

Counting & breathing, counting our breaths, breathing at a chosen, even pace-- these tools may seem simple or stupid, but they literally turn on areas of our brain that make emotional regulation possible. Managing triggers is about what works, not what sounds cool in theory.

Our commitment to realistic, consistent self-love (or, if we can't get there just yet, self-care) is more important to our trauma recovery than any skill, resource, or therapist.

Yeah, we invest a lot of time & energy in CPTSD recovery trying to change how we feel & function-- but it's real important we remember that changes made out of self-hate only reinforce trauma BS (Belief Systems-- also bullsh*t). Self-hate is not a recovery tool. Even for you.

Many of us got exactly the wrong thing reinforced when, as kids, we were praised as "mature" or "good kids" for shutting down. That didn't teach us how to process or contain anything. That just "taught" us no one wants to hear about it or help us when we're struggling.

If someone in your life needs to be working a recovery & isn't, that's going to significantly impair their ability to contribute to your recovery-- or to be a significant part of your life. It sucks, but it is what it is. We just don't have the luxury of coddling their denial.

Sustainable CPTSD recovery means getting serious about values clarification & goal achievement strategies in ways that many normies never do. It's not just symptom management. It's life development on a level that the "just leave the past in the past" people can't understand.

Maybe you didn't f*ck up. Maybe you responded to that trigger w/ skills & bandwidth you had at the time. Maybe that's not an "excuse"-- it's a description of reality. Maybe your abusers have programmed you to reflexively beat yourself up to keep you distracted & discouraged.

When we are f*cked up & discouraged, we don't need a lecture, from ourselves or anybody else. We need presence, realistic compassion, & reconnection to our goals & values in language that reminds us that everybody who has ever successfully recovered has been where we are.

One of the most exhausting experiences for CPTSD survivors is trying to work our recovery in a world where many people think the degree to which we're affected by trauma or struggle w/ symptoms is determined by "character" or "attitude." (It isn't.)

Trauma recovery that pretends all trauma, or potential sources of trauma, are in the past, is not sustainable. Our recovery strategy & tools have to realistically account for ongoing traumatic stress, complex & otherwise.

Managing trauma responses almost always starts w/ talking to ourselves like a realistic, supportive coach-- not minimizing, not catastrophizing, focusing on what's actually happening & the resources we have here & now to handle it. Don't sleep on self-talk as a front line tool.

CPTSD is not a "moral failing." You are not struggling or suffering because you "deserve" it or "attracted" it or "weren't strong enough" to avoid it. Having CPTSD or DID does not tell the world a goddamn thing about your intelligence, character -- or even your "mental health."

Ignoring or overreacting to suicidal thoughts doesn't help anyone's CPTSD recovery. Suicidal ideation is one of the most common symptoms of CPTSD & DID, & we're kidding ourselves if we think we're "healing" while pretending it's dangerous or too taboo to acknowledge.

Not all our choices have been perfect-- but the choices we've made have kept us alive, & have brought us to exactly this moment, in which we have the opportunity to meaningfully think about what we want & need next in our trauma recovery. That's not nothing. That's significant.

It's not our fault that for years we used the only emotional regulation "tools" we knew, including dissociation. We couldn't use tools we weren't taught or modeled. We weren't "choosing;" we were running the only patterns we had available. Trauma responses aren't "choices."

If we didn't make a decision or do a thing that would have supported our CPTSD recovery in the past, that means exactly one thing: we couldn't at that time. No amount of shame or self-punishment is going to reverse time or change that. Grace over guilt.