Sufferer Thinking of addressing my past trauma head-on

[RubyBlue]

Well, I am not. This entire thread is real.

I didn’t ask if you were, only for you to use some introspection.

Revenge seems like it will feel amazing. So does being heard. But it truly doesn’t. I think everyone here has had a point that they wished they could make others feel their pain or feel some snippet of what those people put them through. But it never goes according to plan.

 

[Sideways]

to chatting directly. I think it really starts there, and I owe them the opportunity, plus I have plenty of questions for them to understand their thought process at the time.

For your sake? I hope they are (they'd be crazy to, since you're a writer!).

For me? One of the things I learned (painfully) was - stuff I've been holding onto to, recovering from, hurting from, for years? The other people have moved on. Couldn't care less. Or plain old don't remember.

That hurts, all by itself. And is confronting, because it highlights how much this has ruined our life, while the other people got to move on, put it behind them, build enjoyable lives.

Good luck. Sounds like you want to write a book. If that's the case? Go for it. Just - be mindful that when you put your private life in the public arena? There are no take-backs. And while individuals are often compassionate and empathetic, "people" tend to be cruel.

 

[Ronin]

Plus the whole 'Hurt you once... and you want to give them *more* ammo by now, and show the old one is still good as still wrecking you?" thing.

"Confrontations" can be useful if you have nothing to lose, or that loss is worth it to you.

Both sounding easier than they get.

 

[joeylittle]

Temporarily locking this so I can catch up.

I'm not taking any action at this time. Members who don't want to engage with the OP are free to leave the thread.

Concerns (about trolling or otherwise), raise them via Contact Us.

Thanks.

 

[Deleted member 49882]

Temporarily locking this so I can catch up.

I'm not taking any action at this time. Members who don't want to engage with the OP are free to leave the thread.

Concerns (about trolling or otherwise), raise them via Contact Us.

Thanks.

Thanks.

I still don't know what I said that was disrespectful. But I gather it has to do with me asking if someone else deals with other mental illnesses besides PTSD. I'm going to let you all know--with respect here--that if that's what bothers you, then you don't understand autism. That's ok, most people don't. Check out the show Atypical on Netflix if you want. It's done quite well, and it's entertaining.

Beyond that, thanks for the latest input even if you think I’m a troll. Totally agree, they've all moved on. It's not even a memory now. It's tough for the abused. And when you have no legal recourse, it's even harder.

I think I mentioned before that I talked to an old professor about this situation recently. If not, I think it's worth mentioning it. His take, besides being incredibly empathetic, was that he wished he'd done more at the time to tell the powers that be that they were treating me unfairly. Turns out he also suffers from some mental health challenges, and his take was to write the article, convert it to a book, and name names. I for one am not so certain of naming names. It feels like stooping to their level.

Anyways, I didn't mean to offend anyone. And if you're wondering what it's like to be autistic in our society, in cases like this where an autistic's honesty rubs the other person the wrong way, it's the autistic person who is left feeling alone because few people understand them. Next time you meet someone who lets you know they're autistic, remember that. It'll help you and it'll help them.

 

[joeylittle]

@Dailyshifts - offering, as an observation:

In your OP you are clear that you did something - you made a mistake.

I was dealing with severe depression at the time and I made a mistake in school that ultimately resulted in public humiliation, a brutal Google record, a severely tarnished academic record, major consequences to my career and grad school aspirations, and most importantly my mental health, which was already very complex before the incident occurred.

When the trauma happened, I was in fight or flight followed by intense self hate. I never explained the truth about why I made my mistake, that I was severely ill.

So, you were suffering from depression, and as a result of that, made what must have been a big error in judgement. And then, this:

I was trapped at that time, and all I could do was acknowledge my mistake and apologize, which I did repeatedly. It didn’t matter. I was pulverized in the press, by administrators etc and even threatened with expulsion. There are still articles out there to this day.

(bolded for emphasis)
You say you apologized - but whatever penalty had been set in motion, it wasn't affected by your apology.

You believe you weren't responsible for your actions - and if you had told them you were suffering from depression, you believe that would have changed the outcome. Is that right?

I'm curious - has anyone ever talked with you about the usefulness in accepting that you did actually make a mistake, and that it's not completely out of the ordinary to have to deal with consequences?

You were most likely accused of trolling because of this:

I like cliffhangers so I think it’s worth mentioning my abusers include some powerful people—the wife of a man who ran for governor, the head of a large university, a few top professors, reporters at a couple major papers, and a major national professional society.

Referring to "cliffhangers" in a thread about trauma trivializes the exchange with other members. We all know that disclosure is a big deal, a big step. This comment of yours just reads like attention-seeking, which is a trolling behavior.

 

[Deleted member 49882]

@Dailyshifts - offering, as an observation:

In your OP you are clear that you did something - you made a mistake.

So, you were suffering from depression, and as a result of that, made what must have been a big error in judgement. And then, this:
(bolded for emphasis)
You say you apologized - but whatever penalty had been set in motion, it wasn't affected by your apology.

You believe you weren't responsible for your actions - and if you had told them you were suffering from depression, you believe that would have changed the outcome. Is that right?

I'm curious - has anyone ever talked with you about the usefulness in accepting that you did actually make a mistake, and that it's not completely out of the ordinary to have to deal with consequences?

You were most likely accused of trolling because of this:

Referring to "cliffhangers" in a thread about trauma trivializes the exchange with other members. We all know that disclosure is a big deal, a big step. This comment of yours just reads like attention-seeking, which is a trolling behavior.

Good to know. The trolling bar is lower than I thought. The other day someone on FB called me a Nazi for suggesting we wear masks. I wonder if that sentiment carries over to some members of this forum.

I don’t think sharing my health issue would’ve changed any of the consequences. In fact, I think it would have just added more risk that the powers that be would’ve thought I was shirking responsibility. I was a high achiever and maintained well till that last month when I made this mistake. I was one of the top students at my school and it was well known by the main people in power and the administration.

When you maintain well and achieve, it makes it even tougher for people to understand that you have a disability.

I took full ownership of my mistake and even brought what I did to my professors on my own accord. It didn’t matter. The powers that be showed zero mercy and the coverage of my mistake in public forums endured for five months.

I fully accept what I did. I made a mistake. The part I don’t fully accept and never will is the inequality between the offense and the consequences on career, personal life, and health.

I remind myself often that despite being in my own prison—my brain—I’m also a free man. There are so many people behind bars or gone forever who didn’t deserve the consequences they received, whether or not they were guilty of the charge.

BLM resonates with me and the civil rights movement has always hit me hard, despite not being directly affected by it. I have much to learn myself about the black American experience and while I’ve written about it, and have been published, I know I’m never going to understand it fully.

I always rooted for the underdog since I was a kid. My psychologists always said it was a natural response to suffering.

I experienced the divorce of my parents, the divorce of my mom and my step-dad, and the suicide of my mom all by 6. My mom was pregnant with me while battling breast cancer but due to a misdiagnosis by her OBGYN, she didn’t know she had cancer till her 8th month. I was born early so she could start chemo, was never breastfed, and missed a lot of physical and emotional contact with my mom from day one because she battled cancer in both breasts over the first 6 years of my life before she had enough and ended hers. I learned only recently about the misdiagnosis. Had she not been misdiagnosed, she would’ve likely aborted me. Back then doctors thought going through with a pregnancy while battling cancer was a very bad idea for the baby and the mother.

So yeah, whether your troll bar is very low or not, I’m not a troll and I’m a little bummed by the experience I’ve had here today. But I will remember it’s just a couple people and the world is large.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been misunderstood by people who have their own behavioral health challenges. It happens a lot and it’s why I don’t go to support groups anymore. Having a multitude of conditions makes it tough to find solidarity. Being high functioning also complicates matters because people doubt my illnesses. And it gets trickier in person because as an autistic, my tone of voice and facial expressions don’t always match my emotions. It means people misread me all the time. Many autistics experience this.

 

[Ronin]

My personal objections weren't even for the mentions of powerful people etc - heck, many people with more power or perceived power are abusive, so that is not raising alarm flags on my end.

Neither is feeling / describing the feeling a world doesn't understand... typical for trauma, abuse, and a wide variety of issues.

My reactions were to the style you turned comments to @insignificant into personal, and on her neurotypicalness or not, and mental health.

And then when called out on it, proceeded to tell me to not interfere.

While a newcomer.
That looks like a manipulative bully to me, trying to pin a community against each other, enjoy the attention, and move on.

Which I rarely accept around me, whenever I get any say.

So for that.

 

[somerandomguy]

We see people who blame powerful people for their mental issues here frequently. The problem is that most of them are apparently in the throes of psychotic episodes. So while it's entirely possible that you were hassled by some powerful people, be aware that adds zero to your argument and may well cause folks here to give you the side-eye.

In my opinion, you don't appear to be psychotic, but you do write in a fashion similar to many folks with autism.

 

[Deleted member 49882]

We see people who blame powerful people for their mental issues here frequently. The problem is that most of them are apparently in the throes of psychotic episodes. So while it's entirely possible that you were hassled by some powerful people, be aware that adds zero to your argument and may well cause folks here to give you the side-eye.

In my opinion, you don't appear to be psychotic, but you do write in a fashion similar to many folks with autism.

I’m not posing any arguments when I mention that detail about the people in power. I conveyed it simply to show more about why the idea of disclosure is tricky whether it’s published or done directly.

I’m a pretty balanced guy with a lot of good support and I manage a lot.

As for being psychotic, just curious—how would you define that and what would it mean to you if a person on the forum fit that bill? No judgment here, but I wonder what it makes you think if you think someone is psychotic. Are you saying it hurts the credibility of their story?

 

[RubyBlue]

When you’ve been on the forum for a bit, you start to recognize psychosis. It’s fairly unique in how it presents. He’s not saying it hurts their story per se, it’s more that accomplishing anything won’t happen until after the psychosis is healed/gained control of. It shifts priorities. That’s similar to what Frieda was referring to about healing first. Everyone goes through a period off and on of wanting to shout from the rooftops. But, that desire, is a pretty clear indication that you are not ready to do that.

Powerful people are not the only ones who pose trickiness when opening up about trauma. As I mentioned, I have people on my Facebook who are tied deeply into my traumas. If I were to speak out on Facebook about it? It won’t accomplish anything good for me. It would result in people turning their backs either on me, or on those people. Those peoples lives could very easily be destroyed, and then I’m left with the guilt of doing that. I’ve sat one of them down and spoken with them, it was fairly successful, it went as planned except the feeling after wasn’t what I expected and it wasn’t good. There are others I have spoken out about, nothing positive resulted. They’re glorified while I’m the crazy one shoved to the side.

***Edited to add, I went through the thread again to reread. Please don’t assume you are the only dealing with multiple mental illnesses. The vast majority of the people on this forum are. The vast majority are dealing with extremely difficult illnesses, even worse traumas that have haunted them their entire lives, so please understand that the people here are not necessarily “simple” while yours is so much worse. That can come across as very invalidating. But I will stop there before I get in trouble.

 

[Deleted member 49882]

When you’ve been on the forum for a bit, you start to recognize psychosis. It’s fairly unique in how it presents. He’s not saying it hurts their story per se, it’s more that accomplishing anything won’t happen until after the psychosis is healed/gained control of. It shifts priorities. That’s similar to what Frieda was referring to about healing first. Everyone goes through a period off and on of wanting to shout from the rooftops. But, that desire, is a pretty clear indication that you are not ready to do that.

Powerful people are not the only ones who pose trickiness when opening up about trauma. As I mentioned, I have people on my Facebook who are tied deeply into my traumas. If I were to speak out on Facebook about it? It won’t accomplish anything good for me. It would result in people turning their backs either on me, or on those people. Those peoples lives could very easily be destroyed, and then I’m left with the guilt of doing that. I’ve sat one of them down and spoken with them, it was fairly successful, it went as planned except the feeling after wasn’t what I expected and it wasn’t good. There are others I have spoken out about, nothing positive resulted. They’re glorified while I’m the crazy one shoved to the side.

***Edited to add, I went through the thread again to reread. Please don’t assume you are the only dealing with multiple mental illnesses. The vast majority of the people on this forum are. The vast majority are dealing with extremely difficult illnesses, even worse traumas that have haunted them their entire lives, so please understand that the people here are not necessarily “simple” while yours is so much worse. That can come across as very invalidating. But I will stop there before I get in trouble.

Thanks for that. You mentioned the feeling after the successful talk wasn't what you expected and wasn't good. What did you expect and how did the chat make you feel? If you're open to sharing it, that'd be cool.

I understand what you're saying, and I appreciate how you're saying it.