Early Traumas, No Safety Or Connection

[Chava]

It seems mostly like I keep coming back to bits of medical traumas as a kid (the more obvious life-threatening stuff) But I have some meltdowns at times if I feel like my therapist has "disappeared" or given up on me (like doesn't respond to my e-mail fast enough...I realize this isn't rational and that it's a part of what I'm working on with her), and yet it's been hard to feel a connection with her a lot of times, or like she is real, which is all me. I think she's a good therapist. Anyway, I think the life-threatening stuff was bad and scary but I wonder if it was significantly worse because I couldn't feel safe around anyone or any comfort.

My mom was in the hospital sometimes with me and she did come once when I started screaming. But I honestly remember her as a sort of stranger. The only early memories I have of her weren't good or comforting (she was raging, disconnected, and likely dissociative because sometimes it was like I really wasn't "there" when she was like that) but I don't want to go into those details about her here. I remember I strongly wanted to disappear. She was supposedly meant to be my source of safety, especially when it was really bad, but I just had nightmares about her (anything from her driving me off a cliff to molestation...and I think represented as a stranger murdering a family and dressing the dead people up nice for a photo)

I know I've read that kids can recover from medical trauma but it depends a lot on the love and support they have. Sometimes I've felt half dead or unreal. And very often disconnected from other people and not usually interested in even connecting. But it's sometimes crushing and depressing to be so isolated too. I won't probably ever have my own family. A little part of me wants one, but mostly not, like I can't feel normal with closeness to humans. It's hard to unravel complex trauma but I think for me it was this medical trauma plus my seeming non-attachment and abuse...the inability to feel safety or reassurance anywhere. My siblings have had some issues and one is quite the hermit, but none of them have been so outright self-destructive. I started beating my legs with a hammer when I was a teenager and I just felt f*cked up beyond belief. Then cutting, starving, really serious drinking (lots of ER trips). This was all before sexual assault and just seemed sort of out of the blue at the time and made me really hate myself for being so f*cked up (after assault I started suicide attempts and loads of rehab trips).

It's the regulation and safety I'm still trying to get (notice some progress, so that's hopeful). But also any ability to connect or form close relationships. For most of my life there has been no internal or external way to deal with pain. The self-destruction has been either about emotional regulation or control...learning how to contain everything all on my own.

I was able to hold my therapist's wrist a little bit when I was feeling like I was breaking down the middle and choking from the inside recently. That was really bizarre for me. Reaching out for support or connection was probably scarier than the choking. I think that's partly the point I'm having a hard time organizing into words.

Do any of you relate to early traumas being compounded by negative attachment (zero safety anywhere), not like you know that happened but feel it affecting you now? Or early traumas relating to self destruction? I think that has been the crazy part because I even stumped past therapists which seemed to increase my feelings of shame, isolation, and hopelessness. Previous therapists never seemed to connect the dots (though I didn't talk about my family or sometimes any of it, so there you go...I didn't trust the therapists) but my current therapist understands complex trauma pretty well and that perspective helps me not feel so fundamentally messed up (like I am wrong within my being).

 

[MichiganMeanderer]

Hi Chava,
I want to first thank you for being brave and sharing some of your experiences. I have found it is very difficult for me to share interrelated things and I think I understand the "compound effect". Sometimes I feel so isolated and exhausted of having to talk through things with people in my life and my therapist- i often ask myself what the point is of them trying to "understand me" although I know they are trying to help me . I also have a hard time reaching out for help and support. A lot of people who I have tried to open up to say "it will get better", "its not that bad", or similar things and that has really shut me off to opening up- even some therapists did this to me. I think that each person will have different experiences in life and sometimes those experiences are lovely, other times they are the complete opposite but all experiences provide an opportunity to connect to others. I have found reading this forum has helped me not feel so alone in my day-to-day struggle dealing with life because I know that I am not alone in my pain, trauma, and seemingly isolation. I wish you the best of luck.

 

[Chava]

Thanks a lot @MichiganMeanderer . Glad you're here.

 

[greycrayon]

I also had very early trauma due to prematurity. I was in an incubator for a long while and I think it really affected my relationship with my mum...emotionally I don't have that mother/daughter connection to her, she might have well as adopted a random baby from the street. Up until about two years ago I found it extremely difficult to have that instinct for socialisation (they thought it was autism). My early trauma I think related massively to my self destruction because all my life it seems that I couldn't escape from a body that seemed to want to destroy itself...or seemed convinced that death was somehow implacably in the future. I've also had a body memory of what I reckon is the feeding tube been put down into my stomach/taken out.

 

[Chava]

I relate to a lot of that @greycrayon

What helped you find it easier to feel social connection? (I also am not autism spectrum, but relate to similar symptoms that are probably more like vagal shutdown and attachment issues). You mentioned it was extremely difficult until a few years ago. Has therapy helped?

I've also had lots of body problems and while I do remember episodes of abuse or assault from the outside I seem to panic a little bit more when things feel way off track internally, like I will be suffocated from the inside. It's very hard to trust my body.

 

[greycrayon]

I can only say what worked for me, my therapist was/is very good....it may sound incredulous (well, not here anyway) but she was probably the first person who was comfortable to hear about how I was feeling, until then I had only been around people who tried in some way to shut it down or tell me what to do. Also learning boundaries, I'm still just practicing but it helped a great deal with my social confidence knowing that it was actually okay to have some sort of barrier between people who I had a bad gut instinct about. I have found that since my own feelings have been acknowledged strangely enough, there's less of a "glass wall" effect when I'm with other humans.

Yeah I get the whole inside strangulation bit too, not as vivid as it once was, which it sometimes comforting.

 

[Chava]

okay to have some sort of barrier between people who I had a bad gut instinct about. I have found that since my own feelings have been acknowledged strangely enough, there's less of a "glass wall" effect when I'm with other humans

I relate to this but carry it so far...I have a barrier between myself and totally harmless, kind people. Glad you've noticed some of this can change a bit. I feel like I'm less disconnected but generally lost because it doesn't feel like it used to...so feeling very isolative as I figure out who/where I am.