I was wondering how many of you found that, on top of suffering from the various physical and psychological consequences of trauma, there's another layer added to this: the isolation caused by not really being able to share the trauma with others.
Because let's face it, trauma by it's very nature is exceptional, not because from a global perspective it doesn't happen often but because normally it doesn't happen in most people's life.
The consequence is that if you try to share it with others they don't really understand what you're talking about and, if you're like me, their reaction is looking at you as if you're dropping down from the moon and later with that glaze in their eyes as if you're trying to make them understand the intricate details of nuclear physics.
And, again for me at least, I'm pretty sure some of them considered me as an outright liar (and I can understand as my experiences were so much outside what was normal for them).
So the result is that very early on I learned to just shut up about my traumas and deal with them as best I could.
So not only did I feel isolated because of the variety of my coping strategies but also isolated because I couldn't really share.
And yes I know I can share with my therapist, which I'm now doing after suffering for a long time while PTSD was slowly getting discovered by science, but it's not the same as sharing with friends, relatives or other people close to me. And that for me is an isolation from which I definitively suffer.
So again, wondering if that's also true for others.
Because let's face it, trauma by it's very nature is exceptional, not because from a global perspective it doesn't happen often but because normally it doesn't happen in most people's life.
The consequence is that if you try to share it with others they don't really understand what you're talking about and, if you're like me, their reaction is looking at you as if you're dropping down from the moon and later with that glaze in their eyes as if you're trying to make them understand the intricate details of nuclear physics.
And, again for me at least, I'm pretty sure some of them considered me as an outright liar (and I can understand as my experiences were so much outside what was normal for them).
So the result is that very early on I learned to just shut up about my traumas and deal with them as best I could.
So not only did I feel isolated because of the variety of my coping strategies but also isolated because I couldn't really share.
And yes I know I can share with my therapist, which I'm now doing after suffering for a long time while PTSD was slowly getting discovered by science, but it's not the same as sharing with friends, relatives or other people close to me. And that for me is an isolation from which I definitively suffer.
So again, wondering if that's also true for others.