Why Changing Your Patterns Feels Impossible (And Why You Should Keep Trying Anyway)
Why returning to old patterns under stress is a brain event, not a failure of willpower
Your Trauma Therapist by Lauren Auer, LCPC is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. For more content follow me on Instagram.
She looked at me with the look of someone who is tired of their own patterns. Someone who understands what they’re doing and keeps doing it anyway. Who knows the healthier response and watches themselves choose the old one. Who feels like they should be further along by now.
I pulled out my favorite metaphor. The one I use more than any other because it captures something that explanations about triggers and trauma responses somehow miss.
Picture your coping mechanism as water running down a creek bed.
Not just any creek bed. One that’s been there for years. Maybe decades. The water has been flowing in the same direction for so long that it’s carved deep grooves into the earth. The path is worn smooth. The banks are steep and defined.
That’s your pattern. The shutting down. The drinking. The people-pleasing. The frantic busyness. The endless scrolling. Whatever your particular water does when it needs somewhere to go.
The old path is deep
This creek bed didn’t form overnight.
It formed because when you were younger, when things were hard, when you needed a way to survive something, the water started flowing in this direction. Maybe you were eight and learned that disappearing inside yourself kept you safe when parents fought. Maybe you were fifteen and discovered that staying busy meant you didn’t have to feel anything. Maybe you were twenty-two and found that a few drinks could quiet the noise in your head.
The water kept flowing. Same direction. Same path. Thousands of times.
