drdoylesays.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

I love a good joke at my own expense, & there's definitely no lack of comedic material in my choices-- but it's real important, when we're making jokes about ourselves, to not echo or reinforce our bullies' & abusers' mockery. It's a fine line, & we really need to be mindful.

submitted 1 hour ago • 0 comments

Punishing yourself now will not change what you were or weren't able to do then. Don't lose the plot now because you're cringing about then. Breathe; blink; focus; & bring it back to your identity, goals, & values today.

submitted 4 hours ago • 0 comments

What they think of our struggles or our recovery is none of our business. Chances are they profoundly misunderstand both-- & attempting to explain it to them would be like trying to explain physics to a terrier.

submitted 5 hours ago • 1 comment

If you wouldn't want your kids, real or hypothetical, saying it about themselves, you have no business saying it to our about yourself. How we talk to & about ourselves matters-- for the same reasons it matters how our kids talk to & about themselves.

submitted 18 hours ago • 5 comments

You have worth even on days you feel worthless. You've been conditioned to feel like garbage about yourself, but that has zero to do w/ your actual value. Remember. Remember. We can't trust what we've been conditioned to believe, especially about ourselves, by bullies & abusers.

submitted 19 hours ago • 4 comments

Some people won't support your trauma or addiction recovery because they don't identify with it. They've never had to do something as hard as you do in waking up every morning & choosing recovery. They don't recognize the specific strengths & intelligence you've had to evolve.

submitted 21 hours ago • 1 comment

There will always be distractions. Always. Our culture is not built to make trauma or addiction recovery easier-- it's built to make us easer to control & anesthetize. Working our recovery in the modern world is literally a radical act of mental, emotional, & spiritual defiance.

submitted 22 hours ago • 1 comment

You get to choose what you want your body to look like. Abuse & neglect try to convince you your feelings & preferences about your appearance, energy, & identity don't matter-- but they do. Recovery involves remembering & embracing what you want & value for yourself physically.

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

It's hard to keep trying if we never acknowledge our progress; & it's hard to acknowledge progress when we're constantly giving ourselves reasons why what we've done "doesn't count" or "isn't enough." It's not our fault; we're doing what we saw modeled. Scratch the record.

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

Retraining & reprogramming ourselves to no longer tolerate people, situations, or treatment we were trained & programmed for years to tolerate is a big, involved project. Give yourself grace. We need recovery to stick more than we need it to happen fast.

submitted 1 day ago • 3 comments

Somebody else experiencing success in their recovery or life is not an indictment of where you are in your recovery. You don't know their story & they don't know yours-- not really. Wish them well & come back to managing your feelings & needs, today, w/ compassion & realism.

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

For my money, boundaries & intimacy (physical & emotional) are the hardest areas for many trauma survivors to navigate effectively & feel comfortable navigating-- & also the areas many survivors feel the most shame in struggling to manage. Myself very often included.

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

Don't hold yourself hostage today to a version of you who wasn't able to make better decisions w/ the tools they had in a past moment. Grace over guilt-- just make the best choice you can, here, now, w/ the tools you have, here, now. Easy does it.

submitted 1 day ago • 4 comments

You were not abused or neglected because of anything about you-- & you're not experiencing symptoms because you're "weak," "stupid," or any other name Trauma Brain is trying to call you Vulnerability is not your fault or flaw-- & recovery is not about "fixing" you as a person.

submitted 1 day ago • 5 comments

There are trauma survivors reading this who have never felt refreshed, ever, by a night of sleep-- & who have been made to feel inadequate & broken by the cultural assumption that "sleep hygiene" choices explain most sleep problems. (They don't. Not when it comes to trauma.)

submitted 2 days ago • 9 comments

Because you have been forced to heal without the support of people who said they loved you or were supposed to support you, doesn't mean you don't "deserve" love or support. Their failings do not reflect or diminish your worth. It does suck, though. And shouldn't be that way.

submitted 2 days ago • 4 comments

If people who aren't working a recovery think you're "over the top" in how far you're willing to go to understand your "parts," reassure your inner child, respect yourself, & meet your needs-- you're doing it right. Keep going. Double down.

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

Whether or not anyone from your family of origin understands, likes, approves of, or loves the identity you've carved out for yourself as you've healed, I want you to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that you are absolutely worth being proud of, affirming, & celebrating.

submitted 2 days ago • 4 comments

What an excellent moment to remind yourself that you are there for you-- and you will be there for you, regardless of what happens next. That you are not in the business of attacking, shaming or abandoning yourself-- not anymore. Not ever again.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

We're not going to find sustainable recovery outside ourselves-- & that's the good news. Most everybody reading this has been burned by someone or something outside of us-- like a substance or church-- promising something they can't deliver for the sake of keeping us dependent.

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

We get to call ourselves whatever unkind things we want-- but we have to be real about how talking to ourselves like our bullies & abusers talked to us is going to impact how we feel, function, & relate to ourselves. If nothing changes, nothing changes. Scratch the record.

submitted 2 days ago • 7 comments

Our trauma conditioning wants us thoroughly convinced we "can't" handle basic tasks of living-- & it will try, effortfully, to make us forget or discount every time we've successfully navigated a tough moment or every tool we've ever used to survive. Don't let it. Remember.

submitted 3 days ago • 8 comments

People aren't going to get it. They're going to call parts of our trauma or addiction struggle "crazy" because they don't understand them. That doesn't mean we are "crazy"-- it means we can't get in our head about what does or doesn't make sense to the "muggles." Recovery focus.

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Hey. It's just a day. Breathe; blink; focus; and work your recovery. That's all that's on your plate today. Anything else is gravy.

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Easy does it. The goal is to make the mental & behavioral choices we realistically can today to support feeling & functioning in ways we choose-- not ways conditioned in us by our bullies & abusers. Don't overcomplicate it-- just breathe & focus on the next micro choice.

submitted 3 days ago • 2 comments

The very idea of "joy" or "happiness" can make trauma survivors queasy. We've been conditioned to believe that positive feelings or experiences usually come w/ a catch, requiring us to "pay" in unexpected ways. Trauma BS (Belief Systems) are hard to shake. No shame.

submitted 3 days ago • 7 comments

Developmental tasks we didn't have the safety or support to handle when we were kids don't just go away. We don't just get to "skip" them. Trauma recovery involves revisiting those developmental stages-- without shame or self-blame-- & giving ourselves now what we needed then.

submitted 3 days ago • 2 comments

Because you were put in the position of being your parents' "therapist"-- & because you got kind of good at it-- doesn't mean it didn't harm you to be put in that role, that it's not harmful to you now, or that you're obligated to continue in it indefinitely.

submitted 3 days ago • 3 comments

Meaningful progress in trauma or addiction recovery is almost always accompanied by grief & anger. Feeling grief & anger does not mean you're doing it wrong. It means you're growing out of a past version of you, & have raised your standards for what you deserve & will tolerate.

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Trauma survivors don't share their story for "attention." Most of the "attention" most survivors have ever received for speaking out has been profoundly negative. If they're taking the risk to share their story, they're doing so hoping it can connect them w/ care, not "likes."

submitted 4 days ago • 4 comments

Trauma survivors are vulnerable to self-harm addiction for lots of reasons, but a big one is: physical pain that we cause & "control" (sort of, we think, anyway) is preferable to emotional & relational pain that we don't understand & feels utterly beyond our ability to influence.

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

No question: working our trauma &/or addiction recovery often means doing it without adequate support-- even from people who say they "love" or "support" us. We can do it-- but we can also acknowledge that having to do it alone or undersupported is frustrating, unfair, & sad.

submitted 4 days ago • 5 comments

Don't let the fact that you're not in a position to set big, important boundaries right now keep you from setting the little boundaries that you can-- with you attention, your time, your social media feed, or other things you can manage. Do what you can w/ the tools you have.

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

You get to miss & grieve the chaotic, toxic people & situations you are no longer a match for now that you're working your recovery & committed to realistically managing your vulnerability. I miss aspects of the chaos, too. Recovery is lifesaving-- but undeniably bittersweet.

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

Breaking cycles, whether in our own behavior, our family, or our culture, is f*cking painful. There's no need to pretend it isn't. Most often we have 577,103 variables effortfully working against us-- & often the only thing going for us is our determination that this stops here.

submitted 4 days ago • 2 comments

Others' choices do not reflect, create, or diminish our worth. Others' words & behavior toward us can dramatically impact how we feel about ourselves, but that is about our conditioning-- not about our actual value, worth, or future. Remember. Don't go down the rabbit hole.

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

It is not an intelligent expenditure of our bandwidth to try to regulate another adult's emotions for them. We can do what we can to try to support them, but we need to remind ourselves, again & again: we don't have the power-- or the right-- to regulate them, for them. If only.

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

Regulating our nervous system is often about slowing down & experiencing stillness-- which can be counterintuitive & scary to trauma survivors who've been conditioned to believe that slowing down or standing still will allow abusers, bullies, or predators to catch & hurt us.

submitted 5 days ago • 4 comments

In my experience, a profound connection often exists between trauma survivors' personal recovery & the world they want to help create-- for their kids, for their pets, for the human species. Social & political passions can be the spiritual backbone of many survivors' recovery.

submitted 5 days ago • 5 comments

The times we're present & focused are as or more important to explore in our recovery work than the times we're dissociated out of our gourd. There are no variables too silly or insignificant to consider when it comes to realistically feeling safe to be here, now, & ourselves.

submitted 5 days ago • 2 comments

Rest is not the enemy. You weren't abused or victimized because you were tired or sleeping. Your body's need for rest is not plotting to make you vulnerable. Your need for rest isn't evidence you're "weak." It's not your fault rest is scary or difficult. Ease up.

submitted 5 days ago • 2 comments

Hobbies & interests & passions are about more than recreation or relaxation for trauma survivors. They help us feel like ourselves-- in a world that is often hell bent on tearing away anything that supports us in feeling like our own (worthy, stable, independent) person.

submitted 5 days ago • 4 comments

It's not your fault that you've struggled to honor your body's signals, when you've been conditioned to numb, hate, or fear your body. Coming to love & trust your body in trauma recovery is a process. Don't rush it. Pressure harmed us-- it's not going to heal us.

submitted 6 days ago • 2 comments

Feeling "seen" in our close relationships isn't worth much if we don't also feel valued & loved. Many of us had the experience of feeling plenty "seen" in certain personal or professional relationships-- & that visibility made us a target. We'd often rather have been invisible.

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

Getting clear about what brings us pleasure & joy, & how to realistically create & facilitate more of those experiences in our life, is as important to sustainable trauma recovery as any trauma processing or symptom reduction work.

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

There is nothing wrong w/ making access to you-- physical, emotional, or spiritual-- selective & arduous. You are under no obligation to be an open book, & maybe expending some effort isn't unreasonable to ask of anyone who says they want to be close to you.

submitted 6 days ago • 4 comments

"Them" having a preference for how you "should" think, feel, or behave, does not constitute an emergency or command to you-- & it's real important you (gently, compassionately, patently) remind your nervous system of this on the daily.

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

Many trauma survivors will do mental & emotional backflips to avoid accepting the truth that the people who should have loved us-- who often said they loved us-- did not behave toward us in any way that could be described as "loving." And that discrepancy wasn't about us.

submitted 6 days ago • 7 comments

Many survivors assume the "basic life stuff" we struggle w/ has little nor nothing to do w/ our trauma-- but you need to know that you're not "incompetent" or "immature" for struggling w/ hygiene, organization, or time management. Those are often trauma responses in disguise.

submitted 6 days ago • 2 comments

Recovery that doesn't realistically account for how trauma scrambles our appetite, sleep, & attention span isn't going to be sustainable. People don't understand that trauma is far more than a mental struggle, & recovery has to be a truly holistic project-- but survivors know.

submitted 6 days ago • 2 comments