Feeling helpless or having no sense of control are common experiences for trauma survivors, particularly when dissociation is involved. This isn’t the “I have too many things to do” kind of overwhelm. This is the “Life is happening, and I have no say in it” experience.
Finding your choice even in the harshest situations
There are moments where:
- you can’t leave the situation
- your body is reacting on its own
- you feel dependent on people who aren’t safe or stable
- you need to function, but your system isn’t cooperating
In those moments, control may feel completely absent.
This tool is not about changing those situations.
It is about finding any place, no matter how small, where you still have some say.
A small place that can still belong to you
There is a concept that has been written about in very different contexts.
Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist who survived Nazi concentration camps, wrote about how—even in conditions where almost everything was taken from a person—there could still be a very small form of choice that remained.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude…”
Not control over what was happening.
But a small space where a person could still decide something for themselves.
This is not meant to compare situations.
It is meant to show that even in extreme conditions, people have described finding small places where they still had some say.
That is the kind of “control or influence” this tool is referring to.
These may seem small, but they can interrupt the feeling of complete helplessness. When the nervous system is less overwhelmed or shut down, the brain can think more effectively. These small places of control or influence can interrupt the feeling of complete helplessness.
What this tool is (and is not)
These are not ways to fix the situation.
They are small places where you may still have some control or influence within it.
These small places of control or influence can interrupt the feeling of complete helplessness.
Ways You May Still Have Some Control or Influence
🔹 Internal Stance
• I can decide what this means about me
• I can decide not to agree with what’s being said
• I can decide what I believe about what’s happening
• I can decide not to take this on as my fault
• I can decide: “this is happening, but it is not all that I am”
🔹 Time Framing
• I can decide: “I can get through this moment”
• I can decide: “I can get through today”
• I can decide what “long enough” means right now
• I can decide not to solve everything right now
• I can decide: “not today” / “not in this moment”
🔹 Internal Alignment
• I can decide not to fight what I’m feeling right now
• I can decide to acknowledge what’s happening inside
• I can decide not to abandon myself internally
• I can decide to recognize that different parts of me feel different things
🔹 Response (small but real)
• I can decide how much I say
• I can decide whether I respond now or later
• I can decide to pause, even briefly
• I can decide to say less instead of more
🔹 Attention
• I can decide where I place my attention
• I can decide not to focus on one part of what’s happening
• I can decide what I allow myself to stay with
These are not big forms of control.
They may not change the situation.
But they are still places where you have some say.
And sometimes, that is where a sense of power begins.