Today, sharing a mini essay I wrote for another platform, where controversial perspectives are the topic of conversation.

In so much of this “trauma recovery game” we’re inspired to hunker down against past patterns. But is that really healing?

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Transcript / Blog Version:

Hardening against trauma isn’t healing from trauma.

Alllllright, got a controversial one coming at you that you might hate. I don’t expect warm and fuzzy feelings around this one. And I’m sorry if it hits in a hard way. I expect a lot of manager and protector parts are going to be very uncomfortable with what I’m about to say. Reem me if you’re inclined, I don’t mind. I expect a lot of protector parts to be pissed here.

So. What I’ve been seeing a lot in this whole trauma-recovery game is that… people often aren’t really trying to heal from trauma. At all.

Well, maybe they’re TRYING – that’s an unfair statement to make. But what’s actually happening is…. they’re strengthening their defense systems. Their managers. Their trauma roles and reactions.

I don’t know, maybe I’m reading this wrong but in the common collective of information and people sharing their CPTSD stories on the social medias… “Trauma recovery” seems to be broadly akin to “don’t be a fucking sucker anymore”

… which… sure! You know, that’s turning away from old patterns. Saying no to fawning and falling into abusive situations on repeat. Being done with using humans for escapism or a sense of safety. That sort of thing.

But… is that really recovery? Or, is that just black and white thinking?

Saying “people have hurt me before in this way… so I’ll never give anyone the chance again.” “I detected something that made me squirm, so I’m cutting this out immediately.”

I mean. I think it’s a STEP in trauma recovery – noticing your system reacting, paying attention to it for once, getting distance and freedom from those triggers to establish conditions that allow a brain and Self reset.

… But I don’t think it reflects actual, full, RECOVERY.

It reflects PROTECTIVE STRATEGIES which were developed from the experiences of trauma, now extrapolated into these rigid, reactionary, shutdowns. Really, just trauma swinging the opposite direction. But still an echo of the original trauma, imprinting on the present and future indefinitely.

If you were always a people pleaser and now you refuse to please anyone. Okay, that’s a problematic pattern, broken. But it’s a new problematic pattern that’s been created. Just, in a completely polarized direction. “I won’t participate in relationships at all. They will serve me, I will serve no man.”

Yeah, Fuckers, I GET IT. I’ve done it and still do it.

BUT to me, that strategy says “a new manager hath been born.”

NOT “I’m working with my system to find broader and more middle grounded perspectives.”

NOT “the Self is in control.”

If the Self was in control, you’d be hearing from parts who felt the opposite. You’d be negotiating with them to find out what their pain points are and what they really need. There would be gray tones available. There would be compromises between the parts who are programmed in such different ways, to find the solution that works for everyone, rather than the solution that the biggest, baddest, protector part is forcing into the psyche.

You know?

So, I’ve seen this a billion times over now. Including, in my own system, intensively, throughout last year. I WAS shut down and stuck in my manager/protectors. But they felt like they were ME based on how they were showing up consistently, every day.

I said “NO FUCKING WAY” to everything that was reminiscent of past trauma patterns. Every red, orange, or yellow flag was an immediate “SHUT IT DOWN. Yer not gonna get me this time, assholes.”

And you know, don’t dismiss those flags… but my referees were really going wild. Often throwing handkerchiefs before the players had made a move.

But that’s just where my system was at. Hardened against the world and all possible sources of pain. It felt better than being as open as I had been, say, when I pranced into the dead dad house and tried to an optimistic and loving buddy to my brothers. So I decided it was the right thing to do, putting up my shields as I hid away from everyone.

But… that’s not trauma recovery. That’s living in the shadow of trauma. I felt terrible. I was scared all the time. I was living THROUGH fear, by letting these parts of me dictate all my actions.

And an approach like that? it closes out new opportunities to find balanced, harmonious, healthy ways forward. Because it doesn’t allow your system to do the same. It’s like continually relying on protective guy – a dude built FROM trauma – but declaring your brain healed. AND, again, of course, it keeps you from experiencing the gray tones, rather than living in the extremes.

All we know is the extremes. All or nothing. Relationships and certain people are ALL good or ALL bad. And that’s… again… not healing those extreme views. It’s just diving further into them.

When we can’t lay down the protector, we can’t get into our Self. When we can’t show up with all our parts, we’re not allowing our lives to fully flourish. We don’t heal them, we just go the opposite direction into a different trauma coping strategy.

So, I’ve seen this, say… in this instagram post I just made last night. (remember, this was weeks ago now) It was a screenshot of a casual friend who I’ve known for about 6 months calling me the fuck out for being shut down and self-protective against the danger that other people signify to me.

The message on my part was, “holy shit, people can read this on me from 100 miles away, literally, and that means I’m definitely not “recovering” my relationship patterns. Clearly, I am shut down when I don’t even mean to be, and extremely self-protective… which is not the vibe if you want to make new connections that matter. And I do. So what have I been doing here?

And the response from the instagram followers was? …. Not that. Instead, it was people saying “how dare that person say you’re closed off! You deserve to be! This really bugged me!”

I gotta say… Well, look… first of all, tough love moment… if it’s bugging YOU, that means it’s your unhealed parts, screaming, on my behalf, because it’s something that they’re too intimidated by to consider without shame. You’re probably carrying parts that need some serious attention if they’re this reactive. Guessing there was an exile that popped up, and a manager that shortly followed to silence that danger. But that’s on you, about you.

Secondly, look… Yeah… I CAN be as closed off as I want to be. It’s my right. My boundaries are my boundaries. But I wasn’t trying to lay these boundaries. And therefore this person wasn’t crossing them in a way that requires backlash.

This wasn’t someone trying to break down the doors I put up. It wasn’t an unhealthy exchange. I took zero offense, I laughed out loud, replied “YEP, YOU NAILED IT,” and then got somber and deeply reconsidered what my actions had been. Where those actions were coming from.

The answer was, “trauma brain.” Manager parts, shutting out other human beings because they had wounded me. And to me, that isn’t trauma rehabilitation. That’s actually erasing the entire point of life, from my perspective.

Like, take my mom for example. She’s (quote) “not traumatized.” Because she’s closed off from all her emotions and the human race. As I keep saying, she’s just a hardened exterior around a soft interior that’s increasingly impossible for her to contact around others. And, I’m sad to say, I totally get it. I feel myself becoming the same at times. I’m certainly in that general area now. And it comes with intense isolation in order to feel okay.

No contact with certain people can be healthy. But no contact with certain people because we can’t face the pains that they’ve created in the past… isn’t healing those parts or helping managers to set down their pitchforks. It’s perpetuating the wound. AND, of course, having no contact with ALL HUMANS after a few have injured you… well… that’s making the wound grow even larger.

Trauma recovery isn’t seeing what patterns you’ve enacted in the past and how they’ve fucked you… and then doing the exact opposite, without compromise. That’s just another trauma response to the original trauma response. A part born to shut down the other parts, which have been assessed as dangerous.

A continuation of a split, polarized, unharmonious system. Strengthening of the hard parts.

And to me, the hard parts signify adaptations to trauma at the expense of the soft parts… which signify the innate experience of being a living, breathing, connective, emotional, human animal.

Another way to put this, because I think it’s hard to see in our own selves or species…

Look. Marcus is afraid of other dogs after having his face and ears chewed apart by at least one in the past. He’s reactive to them. Comes at them with a really hard and distrusting approach. He’s taken a “all dogs will eat my face” belief under his collar. It’s easier just to keep him away from them. Keeps everyone happier and less triggered.

But… is it TRUE that all dogs will try to destroy him? Absolutely not. It’s just an extreme reaction to something that happened, echoing as a protective strategy through his daily life to this day.

So is the answer to never let Marcus near other dogs again? To let his protector parts continue telling him “all dogs are danger, so now we just stay away.” Or is that stunting his experience as a dog by harshly avoiding a thing that hurt him in the past, so he never connects with his species again?

When, in reality, he just needs to learn to let down his guard SOMETIMES, in the right company. It’s a skill. It’ll be slow moving to develop. But wouldn’t it be better for him if he could run with some other pups at a park or meet them on the trails, rather than stringently assessing all dogs as danger points as his head sinks below his haunches in a freeze state, and, thereby, living in the shadow of whatever happened to him in the first place?

And, similarly… his literal scars from those past traumas, strewn across his face… you know, they present openly to others. People see him and cross the street or pick their dogs up off the ground for protection.

They do the same thing BACK to him, exiling him because of his past. Removing opportunities for him to prove himself as being more than his prior abuse experiences, to others and to himself. And isn’t that fucking sad? For everyone? All the opportunities for new perspectives and healing that aren’t taking place? All the old assumptions, continuing to march forwards, just because everyone is too initially judgemental and scared to let their guard down for a second?

Just saying.

I think true trauma recovery isn’t “trauma hardening.” Presenting our scars to the world to let everyone know we’re not down for their lashing. Hunkering down even harder, to banish all the things that could hurt. Especially when it comes to social engagements.

To me, it’s the exact opposite. Realizing that these things hurt and have historically hurt. But finding ways to reapproach them, anyways. Developing balanced and gray toned strategies to keep moving forwards, rather than shut-down methods that amount to perpetual avoidance.

And yeah, you’re going to hit bumps along the way. And yeah, you’re going to have to work to manage your trauma brain when you’re putting yourself in the way of potential harm. And yeah, there are going to be times that the harder parts – like the Punk Rock or Fuckthis guy – get involved. That’s healthy too.

But for me? Leaning IN to those fears and hypotheticals, acknowledging them through all your relevant parts, and reassuring the parts that it’s worth trying anyways and these same factors can’t hurt us again in the ways they have before, because we’re different now? Because we’re not living in freaked out parts, we’re living from our Self, now.

THAT. Is trauma recovery. To me. Opening up to the soft shit. Finding how to calibrate parts so you’re not in harms way… but you’re also not shutting down every single fucking thing that could sting.

Not, living behind ever-higher walls and calling it “recovered.”

And that’s my rant for the day.