Do You Feel Like Your Trauma Doesn't Count?

[Cool Cat]

This idea is one that has often circulated in my head, and for a time, stopped me getting help.

I think though, like the fact I have experienced so many trauma symptoms, and go to therapy, for trauma probably cancels this out.

I think if I heard my experiences from someone else, I would say they certainly are a trauma survivor.

But I feel like it doesn't count when it's me.

 

[J.Nem]

I agree with you, sometimes when I look at all that's happened it's like an out of body experience. For anyone else, I would be heartbroken for them, but for me, it is as if it doesn't have the same weight. Sometime when I talk it all through, I try never to do that now, people start to cry and I am thinking why are they crying, it's no big deal... I heard once that this is kind of like when you hurt yourself badly and go to hospital and the doctor says
"don't look".... We automatically keep things a bit distant, maybe, so we don't disintegrate.

 

[illusionist]

I often come out with something to my partner about my childhood without thinking and he will look at me with shock and disbelief....and that's not the heavy stuff. I know my upbringing was abusive and wrong...but would certainly class it as far more traumatic if I heard it from someone else. I suppose because I've lived it, experienced it, come out the other end, and remained relatively sane most of the time, I don't see it the way others would....I've become sort of immune to the harshness ( for want of a better word) of it all.

 

[ihateusernames]

Yeah, I have always felt that way. No matter what has happened it seems like no big deal to me. Even now I'm constantly thinking what am I doing here and trying to think about this stuff? I'm just making it into something it's not by overanalyzing. Nothing that has ever happened to me is that bad. I survived all of it, I'm fine, I'm probably better for it, etc., etc., etc... I have internalized a lot of a suck it up attitude. I think that's necessary when you're stuck in a shitty situation. What else can you do? But it continues on well beyond it's usefulness.
And even if they weren't a big deal or wouldn't have been a big deal to others I can plainly see areas in which I am broken, for lack of a better term, because of these things. That should be enough to see that it matters, but usually it's not.

 

[holdenmonty]

I remember before I told my story and got positive reactions but still sometimes do doubt my trauma to an extent. I tend to tell myself it was a combat zone it was expected I shouldn't be having these issues but I have to stop myself and counter it and tell myself that it was a combat zone and no normal person comes back not changed from being in a combat zone.

 

[Cool Cat]

I've become sort of immune to the harshness ( for want of a better word) of it all.

Thats a good way of putting it

Do you think it is a defence mechanism?

 

[illusionist]

I've been pottering around the house thinking the same question cool cat and I'm unsure. Part of me thinks yes and the other part thinks I've genuinely immune to it....a bit like exposure therapy.....thanks for giving me something new to figure out.

 

[Cool Cat]

@richter scale yeah sometimes I've walked around my house thinking to myself that I have practically invented the trauma. It isn't true, but it is something that floats in.

 

[reallydown]

I often feel this way. I survived. I didn't see/experience the worst of it, as other people have. I have no right to complain. I have no right to have these symptoms etc.

 

[Go Hungry]

Yeah, I get this from myself a lot. Sort of. I mean, there are plenty of parts of me that are straight out obsessed with what happened to them, but... Sometimes I compare my lot to the things that have happened to other people, and it's like... what on earth am I so upset for? Sheesh, I mean.. it's like.. some people have had the most f*cked up past ever, and here I'm crying about my rough times. It's hard not to compare things.

But ultimately it doesn't matter what I think about it.. One way or another the symptoms are there, and I gotta work through them. So it doesn't make a difference.

But still, yeah.

 

[Ronin]

I tend to think it was expectable, some of it even expected, it's the bits that stood out I'm still struggling where to put and that lead me to go whole the 'but what on earth, none of it should have been that' meltdown route.

 

[ButterflyDisco]

i always feel other ppl got worse then me...so i am undeserving of help/support/therapy/all that...