Minimising your trauma VS facing that it was worse than you thought

[Ecdysis]

So, I realise that minimising trauma, especially childhood trauma is par for the course.

I used to think that I had a relatively good understanding of the trauma in my childhood, but I'm starting to wonder if that's true.

I got traumatised again at 40 and that brought up a ton of childhood trauma material that I'd been logically "aware of" that it had happened historically... but no "sense" of it, all the feelings were off-line... Well, with that trauma at 40, it all came back online in one fell swoop and has been here to stay ever since.

It's been a shit-show beyond words... I've spent parts of the time since basically catatonic... Non-functional in ways that I didn't even know it was possible (for me) to be non-functioning...

A ton of stuff is coming up at the moment that's so dysfunctional, so symptomatic, so messy, so screwed up, that it's making it so much harder to minimise what happened in my childhood... That line of "Yes, it was bad, but it wasn't that bad, I know so many people who had it so much worse" isn't really working anymore...

And I don't know what to do about it... I don't want to admit to myself just how bad it was, because then I have to admit to myself that it's having a far, far worse effect on me than I am able to deal with.

For example, a current issue is whether I'll ever be able to go back to work again, part-time. And there's a ton of stuff coming up, that I don't want to face, that makes that look really unlikely, and I'm not sure how to cope with that. I feel so much shame about the possibility that I may never be able to work again.

And there's so many things like that right now... And while those issues themselves feel bad enough (like maybe not being able to work) what's really hitting home is that it's a direct consequence of how bad things were in my childhood, and I don't want to face that either.

I don't know how to deal with any of it. Minimising it seems to much easier. But I'm getting to a point where it's not working anymore.

 

[arfie]

empathy ecdysis. why can't i **just get over ^it^?** the past is gone. let it stay gone. add on whatever clever cliche is running the social media streams. just just it all.

and yet all those itty ^its^ keep right on whelming at illogical intervals. what's a nutjob to do?

this morning i find myself comparing the phenom to the grief i still feel over the traffic death of my youngest son in 2019. i am raising his 3 young orphans, so those reminders just keep on coming on a daily basis. as with the processing of my childhood trauma, i allow myself to process the attached emotions however many times they arise. a side effect that moves me profoundly is that the processing is not the same on every go-round. my view changes as my healing progresses. those changes are feeling ever more like a blessing.

 

[Susan Jane]

I totally understand. I often downplayed the trauma, because if I accepted it, it meant it happened. That is still hard for me, admitting to myself that it all happened and I am not just making excuses for myself because I am weak.

 

[anthony]

I got traumatised again at 40 and that brought up a ton of childhood trauma material that I'd been logically "aware of" that it had happened historically... but no "sense" of it, all the feelings were off-line... Well, with that trauma at 40, it all came back online in one fell swoop and has been here to stay ever since.

That is what PTSD does though, it brings your past into your present and tries to destroy you. You have to stop looking at the big picture within, start focusing on what it is in your present that is bothering you the most. Is it the new trauma? Is it something from your past? Focus on the specific issue consuming the majority of your brain, and that is what you focus your healing on. Not the noise.