Have you been struggling to make meaningful progress? Well, these global events don’t help. Especially when they feel so… family-iar… to our trauma brains. 

Let’s talk about the semi-accepted phases of trauma recovery – destabilization, processing, and integration. And how societal systems keep bringing us back to square one.

To check the full 300+ episodes that spawned these learnings, check patreon.com/traumatizedmotherfuckers and jump into the private community.

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Transcript / Blog Version:

Hey there Motherfuckers! So, tough times out there, eh? Looking at the past 2 or 6 or 20 years, we’ve all seen a lot.

And I think it’s important for all of us to remember – even those of us with significant “healing” under our belts – that triggering times are still triggering. That all the work we’ve been doing and still are putting our best effort towards… is regularly being unraveled, no matter which side of the social issues you’re on. You’re affected by them, no matter what.

Though, around here, there’s definitely “a side of the social issues that we’re on.” Grab a nazi punch their face.

Anyways, these days, there’s a lot to be upset, triggered, and even retraumatized by. A lot that can shake your progress. A lot that can prevent you from making any glorious new strides, even when you were fucking SPRINTING through treatment and life re-development before.

A huge part of trauma recovery is re-establishing a sense of safety, and there just… hasn’t been one? Collectively, it’s been a frightening, exhausting, and grief-filled time… if you’re “sensitive to the collective” or just have some basic human empathy, there’s no doubt you’ve been impacted (even if you’ve been staying afloat through the inflation and social discourse).

But maybe even worse, question mark, has been the counteractive shaming and gaslighting about who’s to blame. WHY is everything so tumultuous? WHY is the economy so janked? WHY is the world burning, flooding, and shaking?

Well, if you’re immersed in the loudest of the screamers’ opinions… Obviously, it’s we, the individuals who are struggling the most in this failing system. Just not wanting to work, just living lives of gluttony, just demanding to have special genders and equal rights. A real living wage. Healthcare. The ability to do anything besides work and scrounge for dimes.

It’s not the overlords mutating the system into something even worse. It’s not late stage capitalism, dying it’s last exploitative breaths. It’s not years of social discourse, fostered by the media and government conglomerate, to ramp up followings for their own growing fortunes.

Nah, it’s us. And if you have anything to say about the conditions around here, it’s because you’re weak in the backbones. Similar to our last conversation, “it’s not trauma, it could be worse, and you caused it anyways.”

And we just can’t forget about how much that fucks with our heads, as we tread water every day trying to get through it.

Point being… we can’t expect ourselves to function like it’s a normal time, when it’s not a normal time. And I’d wager, that’s especially true in this community.

When all of this is dragging us down, pulling us backwards in our lives, we’re in recovery trouble. But, consider how much deeper this goes. We’re experiencing backslides and retriggerings in our recovery from… exactly the same things. Right?

This global situation sounds a lot like the failing family systems we all emerged from. We’re talking large, unchangable, chaotic structures that make life a constant hypervigilant guessing game while also undermining our justified reactions to it as the folks at the top yell “everything is fine, stop complaining because this is your fault anyways.” And that sounds a lot like home.

Which is to say, yeah, our old traumas are being triggered by these new traumas.

We’re being directly and indirectly affected by this common cult.ure of trauma that’s taking over the planet, because it intermingles with what we’ve all been trapped in before. And you’re not alone if you’ve been feeling destabilized.

And that’s where today’s conversation really comes in.

Actually, we learned this year that we can’t do a whole lot for our t-recovery until we’re stabilized. As in, the phase of treatment “restabilization,” in which we get our nervous systems and doom-screaming brains to chill out and return to some homeostasis. You know, when we get our F responses to calm on down and stop feeling poignantly terrified as the major mood of the day. When our hearts stop two-stepping and rejoin the pace of the world and our brain stops buzzing ten steps ahead of current reality.

We can’t do inner work unless we’re in a meat suit. And we can’t be in our meat suit if it’s flying off the handle, already in a trauma state. That’s grounds for dis-associating and revisiting unwanted memories, not reconnecting and putting those thoughts in the right place.

So when we’re continually destabilized by wild changes in our local and planetary environments…. What are we doing? Just memory tripping through times that felt similar to this modern day bullshit as our systems get short circuited by all the survival reactions. That’s what.

Now, if we can get out of it – successfully stabilize ourselves and return to a healthy baseline – this phase is followed by the stage of “processing,” or, the condition in which our brains are now trying to make sense of what has happened. To understand it and link it up with our larger life story. To put those traumatic memories into place, rather than carrying them around in our unsolved mystery section of the brain.

It’s energy expensive, this period of recovery, and may last a very long time. This is what we typically think of as “therapy” – examining what’s in our brains and trying to edit those brain cells. It’s hard because you might have to cycle back and forth between processing and restabilization, as your memories that are being processed can kick you right back into a trauma state.

So we’re really not being assisted by everything else that’s taking place around us. If we can’t control our circumstances (or fear that we can’t control the trajectory of our lives) we continue to live in fear, and regularly disturb the system into a destabilized place again.

And that’s important to remember, because recovery is a very long game. There will be many opportunities for cyclical revisits to treatment phases you’ve already experienced. And even after years of recovering, backslides are still possible. Restabilization, reprocessing, reintegration… all over again.

If you’re wondering, we’ll get to reintegration another time. It’s the “results” section of the recovery process.

The point today is, we’re so sensitive and prone to retriggerings and retraumatizations – not because we’re weak or doing something wrong… but because new events continue to trigger our old t-events that have a similar stimulation effect on you. They drudge up the past and your brain responds as if it’s all happening at once.

And yeah, this convinces us we’re in a swirling shithole of doom. Our pasts, feeling very present. Our present, feeling very dangerous. Our future, looking absolutely fuuuuucked, if we can see it at all.

We, in a big way, are “reliving” and expanding on prior experiences… and that’s bound to lead us back to destabilizing.

So. Yes. If you’ve been hiccuping through treatment lately, or ever… know that it’s NORMAL, you aren’t ALONE in that, and in these times… it’s no wonder that so many of us are struggling. We might as well be living back in the childhood home.

And this is why, to a large extent, trauma recovery is so nonlinear. When we lose progress, we cycle back through the steps. At the time, it certainly feels like losing it all. Losing your healthier thoughts, emotional awareness, emotional control, and intentional behavioral programs… feeling like you’re paddling upstream, trying to force yourself back into a better place.

Which, can be a trauma all its own, feeling like you’ve lost yourself and all your hard work, only to be replaced by a shallow version of survival self.

But that’s what we’re all going through these days, Motherfuckers. Unless you’re somehow having a great time these past couple years – then forget I said anything and carry on. Sorry for the bummer talk.

Just know, our brains are the conduit between our Selves – our energetic, spirit-thing, beings. And the world. They only know what they detect to be real, and they react to it. Once those brain cells are firing, drudging up the past and filling our consciousness with messages of certain peril or defeat… well… in a very real way, this becomes the only reality we can tap into.

And the problem we often face? Is that we aren’t allowed to honor our own perceptions, emotions, and thoughts, in order to accurately pinpoint what’s disturbing us and sending us backwards. We aren’t “allowed” to experience what we think we experience – from childhood traumas, to rising cost of living, to concerns about what right will be stripped next. Instead, we’re broadly – personally and societally – gaslit about our… perspectives.

And that’s where we’re going to leave off today, as we set the stage to talk in greater detail about perspective. Refer to prior conversation on the cause behind PTSD, if you want to get ahead with your reflections now.

But til we meet again – remember, you’re not alone in feeling weird lately. You’re not the only one who’s hit a progress wall or felt yourself slipping further away from the recovery stage you were once at. It’s normal. These times aren’t. But they might feel awfully… family-iar. And that’s why everyone’s feeling it, especially, around the CPTSD community.

So. Be kind to yourself. Give yourself time, space, and energy to stabilize and process. Add in reintegration as it becomes possible, over time. Don’t see everything as being lost, just because there’s been a setback. And don’t try to force your way to feeling better – it’ll only make you obsess shamefully over what you’re doing wrong. Be gentle. Be compassionate to your weathered system.

Do what you can to impart a sense of safety in your immediate environment. Take real care of your self. And for the love of satan, get off the fucking news scroll. Note when having too much information is actually crossing the line into self-destruction.

It’s a slippery slope out there when you’ve got a t-brain.

But the good news is, we’re all in this together. And you don’t have to go it alone.

None of us can, even if we wanted to. Everyone is affected deeply by the events happening around the globe – whether we’re distracting and disassociating away from them… or doomsdayingly diving right in. Everyone is a part of the show.

I think we all know, our flailing society is ready for a reboot, just like our individual brains have been. The good news being? Each recovered brain is one step closer to that ultimate goal – a less traumatized world.

So. Hands up, fists high, stand up for the new world we’re creating. One revolution, started by one Motherfucker at a time.

Hail your Self.

Hail your progress, even when it’s nonlinear and requires the indignation to push back on societal narratives, fears, and fuckery.

And hail Archie, who was my comrade through the early throes of our fallen democracy.

Take care, y’all. And cheers, Motherfucking revolutionaries.