What Does Being __ Your Trauma__ Mean To You?

[No More]

I choose to be more.

I don’t want to be defined by it. I don’t want it to leak out of me to the point where that’s how I am known.

I choose to use it to make me stronger now.

The most interesting thing about me isn’t my trauma

 

[Freddyt]

It means that if I want to do therapy and get better,

Back we go, to that damn hospital bed - over and over and over and over and over and over....

Because there was so much trauma and terror it can't be fixed without going back there, to deal with the faceless ghosts, over and over.

 

[DSkyler]

Fighting against overwhelming grief that things could, and should, have been so much different. Letting the hollowness and terror in so I can fully heal and be able to experience the good I have had and have. The trauma of being hurt and abandoned and nearly leaving the body, (nearly dying I guess) means I never had a chance at birth -but now I have a chance.

 

[captain jigglypuff]

I try so hard to not fall apart and have a meltdown and total body shutdown when I’m getting constant flashbacks. Certain sentences and phrases can trigger me easily. I keep silent about my trauma because I don’t know who can actually understand what I’m going through.

 

[Tinyflame]

I was thinking about this, there are so many things that have been traumatic or are, IDK how to begin to untangle them.

What it means to me now is recognizing where it makes what would be to most people a 0-2 or even a positive, for me is an 8-10 feeling and temptation to recoil or react negatively even if only in my thoughts and beliefs or even if really directed only negatively at mostly myself. To recognize it and not want to go down that road. Ideally to replace it with something more sane and reasonable that I can bear.

 

[user27357]

what does being- hypervigilant of possible causes of traumatic injury- mean to you?
I am the guy that sees the possible bad things that could happen, all the time. In my line of work- designing manufacturing process tooling- that usually means figuring out how to keep things from leaving the factory assembled upside down or with parts missing. Over time i have become the guy that designs out the dangers to the people doing the assembling and lifting and packaging because i lose sleep worrying about: Possible causes of traumatic injury. Not billable hours dammit.
I cant drive without seeing victims being pried out of wrecks and prepped for a helicopter ride, that's from doing emt work for a decade. I cant design factory tooling without seeing severed fingers and smashed toes. I cant be around religious zealots without remembering days locked in a basement with periodic beatings delivered by people who were trying to save me from the lake of fire.
I can drive safely in safe vehicles, I can design safe tooling, and i can be the exact opposite of what the closed minded people that tried to raise me to be a follower of a false prophet wanted me to be.
thats what PTSD hyper-vigilance means to me

 

[Shaylee]

What does being ____your trauma___ mean to you?

Too much.
Too much for others to deal with or handle.
Too much for me to deal with or handle.
Too much to sort through.
Too much to fix.
Too much to work on.
Too much to think about.
Too much to analyze.
Too much to read about.
Too much to figure out.
Too much to put together.
Too much to rebuild.
Too much to feel.
Too much to relearn.

 

[3D-Don 1964]

Conversely… what do you think OTHER PEOPLE think your trauma means… or what did you, before you lived it?

When I was 35 years old, I am 60 now, I got this really bad pressure headache so I went to the ER because I knew something really bad was happening to me, they put this gauge on my eyeball, because that is how they measure the pressure inside people's head, they told me that was the highest reading that they had ever seen so they told me that they were going to hold me down and drill a hole in my head while I was awake! They said that I was about to have a stroke if they did not do it. It felt just like it does when a dentist drills on you teeth, it kind of vibrates your whole skull like that but it does not last long because the skull is not as thick or hard as a tooth is. I remember asking the doctors, ' wait a second, won't that kill me" they said not if do it in the right spot so hold real still, followed by " are you religious?" I said" I am now" so this nurse whisper read the 23rd psalm about walking through the shadow of the valley of death. From 2000 until 2003 I had six brain surgeries, two while I was awake and four while sleeping. My condition is call obstructed hydrocephalaus which is caused by 7cmx7cmx5cm arachnoid cyst entangled in my brain stem and can not be removed. I have an old style shunt put in in 2003 by Dr. Michael Hahn at OU medical center here in OKC where I live. I started having horrible sleeping problems and was diagnosed with PTSD because of the trauma I was exposed to, I am so lucky to still be here and able to tell my story, I live by myself and have a perfect driving record, no tickets or accidents for 35 years. My house sits on an acre of land that I take care of, I am so lucky, always remember that if it does not kill you it make you stronger so I feel like the Hulk now, just without the green or the mean.