Did childhood trauma leave you feeling like you're a freak?

[Deleted member 47099]

So one of the most distressing effects of my childhood trauma was that it left me feeling like a freak. No, it left me feeling like a FREAK.

I was reading someone's thread on the forum the other day about what being gay and coming out, or not coming out used to be like.
And that's actually a really the best description I've come across that explains how childhood trauma left me feeling.
Back in the day, being gay was a liability. It could make you a social outcast. Society viewed it as "there is something wrong with you".
I am so grateful for how far we've come in that respect, even tho I know things are far from perfect.

Childhood trauma has left me feeling basically the exact same way ^^.
Like there's something fundamentally "wrong with me", like I have to "hide" what's wrong with me, if I don't want to be a social outcast, like I have to be fake and pretend I'm "normal" to be accepted.

I don't know if it's the stigma of mental illness? That's probably a part of it.
But I think more fundamentally than that, the abuse made me feel like "there's something wrong with me" and "I'm not normal" and "I don't belong".

I find this very hard to overcome.
I've managed to overcome a lot of it, throughout years of trauma therapy.

But a big chunk of it still remains.
This feeling that I'm an absolute freak and once everyone finds out, I'll be ostracised.

Just wondering if this is a common feeling for people who have experienced (especially childhood) trauma?

 

[bellbird]

My trauma isn't from childhood.

But yeah, it can still make me feel. Yep. A freak.

Dissociating in my office and flashing back to some time in the Abuse Years where I used to hide in the bathroom from him, and suddenly getting up from my office desk and decking it to a bathroom cubicle down the hall, apparently sprinting past my supervisor who was speaking to a visitor I'm the corridor.

Or physically hiding under my office desk out of fear from flashbacks.

Etc.

Like there's something fundamentally "wrong with me", like I have to "hide" what's wrong with me, if I don't want to be a social outcast, like I have to be fake and pretend I'm "normal" to be accepted.

Pretty much makes me feel ^this.

 

[Deleted member 47099]

Thanks @bellbird :hug:

And yeah, I wasn't meaning to exclude others with different kinds of trauma. :tup:

I've gotten the feeling-like-a-FREAK thing to get less during trauma therapy. I hope it'll go away completely eventually.

For you and everyone else too, hopefully! :hug:

It's a rotten feeling, isn't it.

 

[NatBird]

YES! a very deep, pervasive feeling that something is very wrong with me and up until my recent initiation into being human, the general sense was a feeling of being subhuman or superhuman but never human and all that it entails

coming to terms with the traumas (on going) seeing my own humanity, showing more of my vulnerabilities, plus a good therapist has led to this feeling reducing. it's slooooo work

thanks for posting this @Sophy

 

[ILoveLife]

Yeah, I mean... I've always been the outkast in family settings, I just don't belong between them, like light years apart kind of thing.

I found commonalities between other addicts and other outkasts such as activists and folks from the graffitti scene and also writers and artists in my life.

Then I had a psychotic episode that lasted years and let me tell you, thank dog for the idea of normality. Like, it being an actual goal for me and achieving it by working on myself and then realizing I'm actually normal and always have been because there is actually no such thing, and being human is being normal whether we like that definition or not, in the grand scheme of things.

Obviously, being normal as a goal is good when you're recovering for something as a psychotic episode, but not as good as when you no longer have psychosis and are still hanging on to that goal like a lifeboat in the titanic.
I think this applies to any mental illness really, the idea of recovery can definitely save someone's life - I've seen it happen - in mental health settings. It definitely saved mine.
And there is no recovery really if you don't want to achieve any sort of normality in yourself.

Despite all this, I have my own particular brand of crazy and I've always enjoyed being the outkast, so it's difficult for me now being a grown up, away from my previous environments and still think of myself in the same lens.
I figure that the same goes for the traumaland lens, and it is incredibly difficult to disconnect that cord.

I dunno, I like my idea of normality maybe, and that's definitely my goal.
That means being away from the insanity of my family and eventually having a family of my own, for me at least. If that doesn't happen, I'll stay away from my family all the same.
Job, school, etc, all things I couldn't do before that represent a normal life. While recovering from psychosis I could barely move from the couch to the bed and vice versa as the depression was so huge.

Simple normal things to attain are good goals. The whole societal idea of normality varies between cultures too, what's normal for you might not be my normal, and my normal isn't the same as the girl from my café either, etc.

 

[Teasel]

Another yes vote here :tup:

 

[Kubash16]

Without a single doubt. I knew that I was different but the abuse was so “normal” that I couldn’t figure it out. But I knew deep down I wasn’t a single thing like any of the other kids. Still feel that way with other adults my age.

 

[Invisible Fire]

Thank you for posting this. Yes I have always felt like a freak. I have not told anyone except my therapist my story. And I’ve yet to tell him the full story. I still hide who I am. Because if anyone was to find out then everyone would know I’m not just a bit awkward ....I’m a freak. I don’t belong really anywhere. I can sympathize with others who don’t fit the social norms. And have a lot of respect for anyone who “comes out” and says who they are

 

[Deleted member 47099]

Thank you for your responses guys :hug:

This journey is such a layered thing, isn't it?

I was surprised to unearth this layer of "I feel like I'm a FREAK" even thought I knew it was there. But I guess it's like an archeologist... You know stuff is there... But when you unearth it, it still makes it more real.

I think this layer of "I'm a freak. Something is wrong with me." has been a subtle, but very damaging layer. And a very isolating and lonely one.

Just seeing you guys say that you feel that way too is going a long way to cut through that feeling of isolation and "there's something wrong with ME".

So thank you :hug:

 

[Friday]

And yeah, I wasn't meaning to exclude others with different kinds of trauma.

If you’d like the title edited, simply use Contact Us :D

Just wondering if this is a common feeling for people who have experienced (especially childhood) trauma?

No childhood trauma.

Freak? No.

Broken? Yep.

Ostracized? Depends. My university, for example, won’t hire professors with my trauma history, despite being far more qualified than other applicants. Illegal? Sure. But like most universities it’s very liberal minded. Which, in this case, means narrow minded. In other places it won’t just cost you a career if people know, but paint a target on your back, or a bounty on your head (in some places as high as 2 million, last I’d heard). So it’s a very real concern, in many ways.

 

[Ronin]

Not quite a freak, but not belonging or broken, I do struggle with, time to time.

Depends quite a lot on how much I want to fit in any particular group, and what the sense / purpose is for me. If I am around for something else with that group, could not care less. If I am around for the people themselves, and want to share experiences and we have vastly different ones? Yeah, that bites, hard.

The childhood bits to this are complicated.
I was fine with outcast as long as I had things to be doing. Did not give a damn about the adults & other kids as long as those under my protection were all well, and those that hated me shut up and stayed alive and healthy, aka exactly what I wanted them be doing.
And then any time I had/have teachers. Others to learn from, something I do not know or cannot do yet, wonders. :)

 

[TTC18]

Like there's something fundamentally "wrong with me", like I have to "hide" what's wrong with me, if I don't want to be a social outcast, like I have to be fake and pretend I'm "normal" to be accepted.

Yes very much. I figured out how to play the game (what I called it in my head) when I started high school - I could be SO STINKING NORMAL that I out-normaled the normies, haha! Clued-in moms could tell, and tended to caretake me, but everyone else thought I was just as normal as could be. I never learned how to be anything other than faking it.

I used to hide in the bathroom from him

Me too. :( I would cower in the furthest corner of the bathtub. And have a little mini flashback every time I sit down to take a bath because of this. :(