I mean is it possible for someone to experience more than five traumatic events all before they even turn 30 years old? I feel like I have too much trauma for anyone else to deal with and help me heal.
Absolutely. We’re not on trauma rations, whatever happens, happens. A lot of people here have a variety of traumatic events to carry, and a lot of folks here come from systemically traumatic situations… So year(s) of repeated trauma, which can be bundled into one “thing”, but are really a collection of events, just happening under the same roof/context/person.
You’re doing a disservice to yourself by counting, for validity purposes.
For me, trauma isn’t really countable, because it comes in various different formats:
Something traumatic can be a single event, like being in a life-altering car wreck, being raped/assaulted, brutalised in the street… But it can also be systemic, like being in an abusive household, with an abusive partner, being a prisoner of war… these situations have traumatic events baked into them, perhaps to the point where it feels “normal”, there’s no counting or keeping track of each and every act of abuse in these situations.
And then things can also be cumulative… a collection of things, which may not be traumatic on their own, but together, are. I was molested as a kid, and I think I would be significantly less traumatised/unwell now, if my parents had
not emotionally neglected me, and effectively swept it under the rug in hopes I’d just get over/forget about it. And a few other events/qualities, that could have been shrugged off if handled differently, are now baked into me and how I navigate/perceive my struggles and getting help. Some of them isolated and instilled fear into me much more, around the time of my initial trauma, which also hampered my ability to cope with it.
Trauma is very complex, and you may find certain things are much less cut and dry than “x traumatic event happened to me, so now I’m y”. It’s like spaghetti. Things are connected, and tangled, and messy.
That being said, this is a very common experience, feeling you have too much trauma (am I beyond help/connection?), feeling you are too traumatised for what has happened to you (am I just weak/dramatic/stupid?), or feeling you’ve been affected for too long now (others have it far worse than me, it wasn’t *that* bad, why can’t I just get over it by now?). All very painful, disheartening, but common feelings to experience. People from all walks of trauma can feel “broken”, etc. But you have the trauma you have, and it isn’t your fault… and from experience, finding connection is possible regardless.
