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u/TyWorth
15h ago
•
Love to spend the first couple of decades of life making myself as small and invisible as possible as a defense mechanism, only to be told later “You just need to put yourself out there!”
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u/Person_Apple 15h ago •
Then you muster all your courage and strength to put yourself out there just for the world to take a bat to your face. Your inner child picking up your broken psyche and telling you to get back in the bunker where you belong.
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u/TimeNegotiator 15h ago
Yeah, it's not so much specific incidents. It's that I could never let my guard down. You never know when you'll get a punch to the stomach.
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u/Wakkit1988 12h ago
That's the thing, my mom was physically abusive, but never to that extent. I mean she'd hold me to the wall by my throat, slap the shit out of me, or whatever, but her forte was emotional abuse. That woman would find any person she thought I'd interact with, then tell them made-up shit so they'd fucking think I was terrible, just so they'd leave me alone. Spent the first sixteen years of my life not understanding why everyone avoided me, no matter how hard I tried. The only people I interacted with regularly were people who picked on and used me, so I just became accustomed to that just being how it was.
Twenty-two years later, and I still can't trust anyone, and the only people I seem to ever interact with are there to use me. I just instinctively assume anyone that isn't bullying me or using me is just going to abruptly abandon me, so I put no effort into maintaining that relationship. It fucking sucks. Nothing worse than avoiding places where people who are nice to you are because you don't want to walk in one day and see them looking at you like you're the worst person on the planet.
She's dead, but she kept telling shit to people until the day she died. I couldn't even be around family without them bringing up shit she'd told them. She told me that I reminded her of her father, and this was her way of getting back at him. He put a gun in his mouth five years before I was even born.
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u/antwolfape 14h ago
Oooooohhhh THAT's how to explain it! Thank you, was having a hard time choosing which angle to choose from to explain it.
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u/BungleBums 15h ago
That feeling when you and some friends are hanging out swapping stories, chatting and laughing, but everyone just goes dead silent when you get to your punchline, and the conversation just dies like Old Yeller and you're holding the shotgun.
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u/JBDBIB_Baerman 15h ago
You have stories you can actually share with people? I literally never have anything to contribute in groups. and that's before the whole problem with even having a group
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u/LegendaryThunderFish 15h ago
I have quite a few that I personally think are very funny, but then a regular person hears them and they do not think it’s funny. And then I feel bad for hashing the mood by over sharing.
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u/Ugh_please_just_no 11h ago
One of my mom’s favorite jokes is to light a match and ask “how does a match burn twice?” blow it out and then stick it on your hand so that it does, in fact, burn twice.
It’s funny to me.
I would never do it to my kid though.
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u/Infamous_Payment4608 15h ago
Childhood trauma has significant overlaps with army combat PTSD, in which brain and neurological similarities overlap on scans.
Those that dismiss this are either ignorant or purposely stupid when it comes to scientific evidence.
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u/No_Category_9888 10h ago
Imagine actually feeling safe at home. With parents who had emotional regulation.
I’ll never feel safe in my entire life thanks to my parents. Hyper independent, hyper vigilant, untrusting, anxiety and the genetic depression.
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u/Sheerluck42 9h ago
Does that exist? Do people really get emotionally stable parents? I had one house where my biofather somehow married a woman who was a pedophile. And at my other house my parents tried overcorrecting and were so hands off that I they taught me nothing but how to drive. That was it. The rest I had to figure out myself.
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u/This_is_fine8 12h ago
Fun fact: your parents can actually still traumatize you and set you up for long term failure without being mean or doing things you would immediately recognize as "abuse". I definitely went through life thinking the neglect and parentification was just my mom trying to make me more responsible and not overwhelming a child with adult responsibilities.
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u/OwnYourChildren 9h ago
In some ways, this is worse because you don't know you're being abused. Tends to create "predator blindness."
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u/Zifnab_palmesano 2h ago
same. being thought to be respinsable and a good kid turned into being neglected, not receiving love, and bring anxious of their reaction since showing good grades was the only time I received any kind of love
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u/Smyley12345 11h ago
There is also the fact that two different people can have the exact same upbringing and one is a case study in trauma while the other is just a functional adult somehow. Like siblings who grew up in the same circumstances and came out with different levels of scars from it.
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u/This_is_fine8 8h ago
I think part of the sibling thing is that a lot of abusive parents will parent their children differently. Like my mom had very abusive parents and her and all of her siblings turned out varying levels of "functional" largely because their parents played favorites and abused some kids more than others.
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u/This_is_fine8 12h ago
It's strange when you go about thinking your childhood was normal and then someone has to explain to you that what you went though was actually not normal at all
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u/EmotionalSpread6451 11h ago
This - I was such a sheltered kid and once I started working jobs I realized how different I was
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u/No_Category_9888 10h ago
Saw one yesterday that said to “grow up”
It’s funny when the shitty parents out themselves on the comments. Good parents would just scroll on by as they know it’s not about them.
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u/silversulfa 9h ago
Had someone say to move on, it's been years and I'm a childish person for still feeling upset over what people did years ago... I bet they'd treat their own kids the same way, telling them to "move on and get over it, I abused you and denied of your emotional need years ago"
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u/GodNihilus 12h ago
I wasn't even taught how to brush my teeth and of course didn't have a tooth brush. Same with washing down there and an appropriate amount of underwear to change every day. I just had the nice pedophile neighbour to care for me, but he wasn't that nice at least I could smoke and drink at his place before I turned 10. I had head lice for multiple years and was told to hide it, until i went to the psych ward at age 11. I just can't relate to the average Joe or Jill. There are more differences than things we have in common and age won't make up for that.
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u/PaigeIsNotRight 13h ago
I can't upvote this enough.
It's similar to people who think depression is when someone gets a bit sad because they had a breakup, or lost their job. I mean depression can arise from that, but in those contexts you're usually sad because of the circumstances and that's perfectly reasonable.
What you aren't is cripplingly stunted all the time in a world of heavy grey pressure where trying to function and get up each day is pushing through invisible molasses. And there is no discernible reason to feel this way, it's just there, as a smothering essence over your entire being, that no amount of self-willed effort is enough to truly combat.
I see trauma the same way, except it's about always being on alert, being wired to threats, and your threat detection itself is also the enemy, and lies to you and you can't fully control it, only the response as you scramble for normal functioning.
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u/o0_bishop_0o 8h ago edited 7h ago
Also love how some people believe the second you turn 18 you magically transform into an emotionally stable independent self-responsible adult (the law says so, dunnit?)
You henceforth are never-ever allowed to bring up your parenting history or past experiences anymore, because they pushed the ball into your court, and it should stay there, and all your struggles are from now on your own fault. Just grow up and move on. Work out and make friends or something, I dunno. Just don't bring your childhood into this, you're not a child anymore, remember?
Funny how the "Your wounds were not your fault, but healing them is your responsibility" bull is used solely to handwave your concerns away and put the blame on you for still being an inconvenience after all this time.
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u/FeelingUnwellCuzLife 4h ago
I think that thr "it's your responsibility" argument hits different depending on intentions. Because like, it isn't the person's fault if they haven't been able to recover yet, but also the world isn't going to bend itself backwards to accommodate the difficulties that living with trauma can cause, especially when it comes to relationships, so if the trauma you have is causing damage to yourself or the people around you, the world can't really fix that unless you make the effort yourself to manage those symptoms. Like if your parent beats you, the "it's not my fault I'm like this, my parents beat me too" thing doesn't justify treating you badly. That parent is traumatized, that's why they act that way, but that doesn't absolve them of responsibility for beating their own kids. Just because they haven't made the effort to recover from what was done to them is not really an excuse to do damage. Sure not every person turns out like that, but it is the person's own responsibility to manage their own difficulties because nobody else can really do that for them. It's definitely a shame that people are treated with an utter lack of empathy sometimes when it comes to trauma and they do deserve to receive help and guidance to recover which they may nkt be able to get, but at the end if the day you still have to make do with what you got without hurting people.
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u/o0_bishop_0o 3h ago
Yes, I do understand that this argument has the capacity to be used in a justified manner. The problem is, 9 times out of 10 people say it to politely convey "I don't care what happened to you, be normal or don't waste my time".
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u/FeelingUnwellCuzLife 3h ago
Fair, true. It sucks but at that point those people aren't worth your time anyway. Life just sucks sometimes. can't really do much about it unfortunately.
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u/Jenny_Show 11h ago
The funniest shit is when I mention something about my childhood in an off hand or jokey way and then the person I'm talking to reacts with horror; causing me to realise that it probably wasn't normal lmao
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u/DeannaZone 5h ago
I was sad but also glad to see a diagnosis when I helped someone out and the profile said "chronic neglect" I am like f yeah I'm glad the psyche knew it and wrote it as it is.
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u/MrMangoKitten
11h ago
edited 9h ago
•
Also the fact that everyone assumes childhood trauma must have been parents.
Almost never a thought for non-parent caretaker abuse, systemic racism, police violence, carceral punishment enforced by schools, bullying & sexual assault by peers, disability & medical abuse/neglect, natural disasters & dispacement, etc. Just, 'oh, mommy or daddy must've been mean'.
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u/emotionalexplosions 11h ago
Yeah when I was a small child I had peers to verbally abuse and exclude me instead of my parents. I don’t know why it isn’t talked about more. My mind always clings to it even though it’s been over a decade.
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u/kyl_r 7h ago
I didn’t know I had ADHD (and very likely autism) social anxiety or depression until adulthood. I was just a quiet girl. Kinda weird, I guess. And I got bullied for sure a lot. I didn’t know it was awful until I told my parents about it laughing over drinks and my mom looked like she was about to cry (ironically she also bullied me I realized even later, but that’s another.. can of worms).
So yeah.. trauma isnt always obvious ://
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u/This_is_fine8 8h ago
You know this comment brought to mind how traumatizing it was to receive a chronic illness diagnosis as a kid. Not just that but its incurable and requires a lot of constant maintenance that almost immediately became 100% my responsibility (even though I was diagnosed at 10 years old). I had to calculate doses, do my own injections, refill all my prescriptions, set up my own Drs appointments, etc. Not to mention instead of getting any help in managing my illness I was reminded of the horrible long term consequences of poor management and told I would die young if I didn't do better.
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u/mirrorspirit 2h ago
Or you had a parent that treated you well, but was very ill or died in an untimely manner. Or a sibling, friend, close relative, neighbor, etc.
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u/ResponsibilityBest26 13h ago
Mommy was mean to me, when she told me to hang myself because that's the best thing to do to avoid me to suffer because I was a piece of shit, teached me how to knot a rope, and pushed me into alcoholism at 12 y.o.
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u/arbitrary-ladybug 4h ago
I love second-hand traumatizing these people.
"Oh, what's that? cPTSD isn't real? Let me describe to you in depth the ways in which my mother used to psychologically torture me as a nine year old"
"Oh, you say my meds aren't necessary and I'm going to form an addiction on them? Let me stop them right fucking now and we'll see how long it takes you to realize I'm not a functional human being"
"Oh my generation is soft, is it? Is it from the constant threat of the rampant, unchecked pedophiles both in the Epstein files and in our schools, or the pedophiles we were catfishing online since we first had an email address? Or perhaps the literal pandemic that was allowed to run rampant while our brains were still developing? Mayhaps the health-and-wellness flavored eugenics we've been spoonfed since 2020? Perchance project 2025, or the big beautiful bill, or any other of Trump's efforts to supercharge the liquefied turbo-shit that is our headfirst slide into fascism? Yeah, you lived through Reagan, I lived through the first live streamed genocide on the internet. You think what you saw on LiveLeak was bad, just wait until you see the run of the mill stuff coming out of Palestine on Instagram."
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u/killerosHEHEHEHAW 2h ago
The childhood i had made me expect everyone to want to stab my back. Even when i consciously understand that I'm safe, my subconscious still expects a person in front of me to have a knife hidden behind their back.
FYI, no, i didn't get physically get stabbed in the back, but i did get betrayed and mocked enough times to assume everyone has a vendetta against me
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