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Psychologist; SEEK Safely board president; marathoner. Realistic, sustainable trauma & addiction recovery.
One day at a time.
Know that Trauma Brain is going to try to get you to dissociate, hard, through some of the most important moments in your recovery.
It does not want you going certain places-- which usually means going to those places, w/ compassion & skill, are what we truly have to do.
The fact you haven't done CPTSD recovery "perfectly"-- join the club, by the way-- isn't a reason to quit. You're not supposed to do it "perfectly." This isn't a command performance.
This is you figuring out what realistically works for your life, not what looks good on Insta.
We're not getting out of this CPTSD thing without making time to care for ourselves-- to soothe, to process, to rest, to regroup, to plan. That's not "aspirational"-- that's reality.
There isn't a realistic version of CPTSD recovery that doesn't involve investing quality time.
Remember: you "not living up to the expectations" of people & institutions who abuse & gaslight is the GOOD news.
We wanna live our life in such a way that those people & institutions are profoundly "disappointed" in us, every day. That means we're doing it RIGHT.
Today your recovery tasks fall into two categories: leaving old, toxic patterns behind, & following through on building new patterns that are consistent w/ the life you're trying to build.
Both require patience, realistic baby steps, & self-forgiveness for not being perfect.
Your story is going to have lots of moments & choices you wish you could erase. So does mine. That doesn't man you're not "worthy" of compassion & support-- that means you're a human being w/ a human story.
No shame. Just breathe; blink; focus; & do the next right thing.
Remember: the way they behave toward you is a reflection of their personality, character, & resources, not yours.
Take their attitude & behavior toward you as the reflection on them that it is. You stay focused on choices that affirm your values, goals, & personality.
You don't need validation from the people or institutions who caused your pain.
If their validation was meaningful, they would not have caused that pain in the first place-- let alone gaslit you about what happened.
Their validation is worthless currency. Monopoly money.
Yes, CPTSD spikes our baseline anxiety, pops our hypervigilance, & poisons our beliefs about us & others.
No, that doesn't mean our intuition is invalid. At all.
It does mean we have to contextualize our intuition w/ respect to our wounds-- which is is a skill we can learn.
Listening to yourself, especially your body, & extending yourself grace are daily non-negotiables in realistic CPTSD recovery.
You're not going to be the survivor who figures out how to recover from trauma while ignoring & invalidating yourself. (No, that's not a challenge.)