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leftunknowncupcake · 2 years ago

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Trauma symptoms caused by childhood abuse

Early symptoms (childhood and teenage years):

Inability to show pain and vulnerability to others

deep belief that you ‘have to be tough’, secretly fearing that you’re weak and pathetic if you ever shed any tears or break down in pain

personality changes from outgoing and social, to isolated and quiet, trying not to be noticed

feeling like there’s something deeply wrong with you, deep belief that you’re some kind of monster who deserves to be punished

fear that if someone finds out about whats happening to you, they will blame you and hurt you worse

anxiety around adults, always being scared you’ll annoy someone and be hurt for it

very low attention to your needs and wants, feeling pride in neglecting your own well being, even neglecting your pain

belief that your value is tied to how much pain and mistreatment you can endure

urge to self harm, or outright hurting yourself

feeling like you want to disappear, or not be born at all, contemplating suicide

self hatred, feeling extremely negative about yourself and feeling like things would be better if you didn’t exist

spending phases of time being emotionless, feeling like a zombie and not caring about anything

foreshortened sense of future (belief that you wont live for much longer, inability to see your future or plan for it)

not feeling the consequences of events in the real time, or not at all; for instance, being completely unphased by a violent outburst or screaming, not feeling pain when you’re hurt, or not feeling the exhaustion when you’re clearly overworked

strong urge to not think about certain topics or events, or inability to do so

fear that your body is wrong and disgusting, anxiety about anyone seeing it but desperate need for validation that you’re normal

deep sense of shame in yourself, your actions and your appearance

strong investment in finding excuses for people who do bad things, always trying to see things from their angle and to forgive them

feeling like the blame for any bad thing in the world can be put on you

not feeling like a human being, belief that you’re less than human

feeling like your home is not here and you do not belong on this planet

feeling uncomfortable being touched and wanting people to back off

uncontrolled ourbursts of rage

looking for anything to soothe your pain or distract you, indulging with obsessions or drugs

early development of anxiety disorder, depression, insomnia, ocd

trying to regress your age and force yourself to stay younger than you are, because you feel like your value is dropping with age and nobody will care for you anymore

trying to desperately take control over some aspects of your life, which can result in overdoing or completely neglecting school, losing yourself in virtual life, eating disorders, self harm or magic thinking that enables you to believe you can control your circumstances

in case of a sexual trauma, innapropriate sexual behaviour, deep shame tied to your body, indulging in sexual interactions even before puberty, feeling like you’re meant to be used, violent or forceful sexual fantasies accompanied with shame, fear of touch, fear of anyone finding out, reaching out for pornographic material to put your experience into perspective

feeling desperate to appear normal and clinging very strongly to the perception that your childhood is normal

Later symtoms, can develop anytime after puberty, can be in 20s or 30s or even 50s:

Emotional

Flashbacks, nightmares, panic attacks, freezing up in terror, beyond average amounts of fear and dread

Trust issues, either trusting without suspicion even when you shouldn’t or trusting nobody and feeling completely alone in the world

Episodes of re-living traumatic events from childhood or later in life; emotional meltdowns

Being unable to leave the past and feeling frozen in the moments of trauma

Emotional flashbacks, feeling the events from past as if they’re happening now, except this time you feel it thousand times stronger and completely fall apart from the horror of it

Feeling unstable, ashamed for not being able to control your emotions, fear of being judged, mocked or humiliated for it, trying desperately to not feel it, using distractions or drugs

Self doubt, struggling to know what is real and what isn’t, doubting your memories and emotions, trying to only feel what you believe is obliged from you

Questioning the past over and over again, trying to find sense and who to blame

Trying desperately to put your relationship with your abuser(s) into perspective, feeling both guilt and obligation towards them, but also rage and desire to take over control from them

Self harm, self-destructive behaviour, suicidal behaviour, wanting to die to end the pain

Deep and overwhelming grief over loss of childhood and loss of trust in people you believed wouldn’t hurt you, or believed they were doing it for your good, which now proved not to be true

Depression, loss of joy in anything you used to like doing, loss of optimism in life

Losing the courage to try anything, regardless of how much it would benefit you, if there’s even a slight chance of getting hurt in a way you find impossible to endure, living passively

Feeling irreparably damaged and ruined

Getting lost in maladaptive daydreaming, fiction, or the virtual world, feeling unable to face reality, falling to obsessions or addictions to endure the pain

Feeling other people’s feelings as if they’re your own, especially feelings of pain, anxiety, fear, nervousness, anger or grief; trying to soothe them and especially having strong reactions to anger

Feeling overwhelmed whenever around people, feeling the urge to self-isolate and to be completely alone

Being hit with extreme amounts of rage and struggling to process it; worrying about misdirecting the rage or acting on it, violent fantasies

Getting stuck in a mindset of a child and barely able, or unable to do any grown-up tasks

Struggling to achieve even minimum function, or not functioning at all

Losing the will or the energy to participate in any activities you used to enjoy

Fighting or indulging the urge to normalize what happened or make it ‘not that bad’, trying to re-live it in a way that wouldn’t be traumatic, especally with sexual trauma, needing to perceive it as if it would be normal only if it was ‘consensual’ or more controlled and trying to find a way to frame it as ‘not that big of a deal’ and denying it’s hurting you

Beating yourself up horribly for still being upset and traumatized by events that happened long ago

Inability to have friends or form connections with others, high alert for betrayal and manipulation

Avoding places and people connected to the trauma, getting easily triggered and forced to re-live something that needs recovery time of days or weeks

Losing your sense of reality; not being sure where you are or what year is it for some periods of time, feeling like you’re going crazy

Only being able to focus on surviving a short amount of time (just trying to get thru the day or week)

Physical

Extreme anxety; trembling, spending prolonged amount of time tense and expecting danger and pain at every second, inability to calm down, limbs not working properly, fainting out of fear

Continually activated “fight or flight” response, always feeling endangered, trouble digesting food because your body shuts down your digestion in order for you to be able to escape faster, vomiting, stomach pains after eating

Hyperventilation, problems with breathing, feeling there’s “no air” in small or crowded spaces

Chronic exhaustion, feeling heavy weight over your body, having difficulty moving at all

Chronic pain, tension in your body never leaving, physical pain appearing when you’re experiencing emotional pain, chest pain, heart palpitations

Problems with blood pressure, fainting easily

Dissociation (feeling detached from your emotions and/or body, feeling numb and unreal, your body not feeling yours, feeling outside your body or like you’re stuck in someone else’s body)

Memory issues, not being able to remember whole parts of your life, weak short term memory, not being able to look back on your life in linear way or put the events in they order they happened in, mixing several events into one, remembering feelings but not events

Increased sensitivity to noise, getting very upset at any non recognizable sound, reacting with irritability or rage to background noises, or with terror at loud noises; needing complete silence, or constant soothing background noise

Extreme sensitivity to stress, having to block out stressful things from memory, having physical reactions to stress, like shaking, your hair falling out, feeling incapable of dealing with even minimally stressful tasks

Dry mouth in the night, overheating during the nightmares, getting so distressed after sleep you can’t move from the bed for hours, not calming down for days

Not being able to control your body, falling down and shaking uncontrollably, even trashing around as your body processes violence done to it

Not being able to relax or calm down without experiencing physical pain, feeling addicted to abuse and indulging in self harm, or letting someone else hurt you so that you might gain a moment of not feeling tense, stressed and scared

Feeling sensations of pain or discomfort on your body even when nothing is happening to it, especially the body parts that have been violated in some way; in case of sexual trauma it would mean private parts, in case of overworking yourself or break yourself with effort, pain in all muscles and joints

In case of sexual trauma, reoccurring memories of it, trouble figuring out your sexuality, wanting to escape your body or perceiving it in a distorted way, urge to repeat the trauma to get desensitized to it, hypersexual behaviour or complete lack of interest in sexuality

Weight gain or loss, hatred of your body and desire to change or hurt it, or complete neglect over body, lack of any self care of even acknowledging you need it

Difficulty sleeping or being awake, feeling too high alert to fall asleep or dropping out of consciousness from overexhaustion

Inability to focus or finish tasks, procrastinating or feeling sick just knowing there is a task you have to do.

If you struggle(d) with 5 or more of early ones, or 5 or more of later ones, you’ve been dealing with trauma.

#child abuse #abusive childhood #trauma #trauma symptoms

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leftunknowncupcake · 2 years ago

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Abusive childhoods can make us feel like we’re fundamentally unlovable, but also, like there’s maybe a chance that we will become lovable, but only if we do x and y and fix x and z in ourselves. We’re not allowed even to ask for any attention or acceptance until we do these exact steps, because if we do, we’ll just get reprimanded for not doing those steps.

And it can be really idiotic things, like, you have to look a certain way, you have to respond a certain way, you aren’t allowed to have any trauma or any symptoms or emotional wounds, you’re not supposed to be emotional or get upset, ever, or be justly angry when the situation calls for it, and you have to do everything perfectly on your first time, never get tired of being devalued, ignored, neglected and excluded, never think of yourself first, be exceptional at sensing everyone’s needs and fixing them, never have any needs of your own, never have opinions that clashes with someone else’s, each and every one of these does not describe a human being. None of this is a pre-requirement for being loved. If you can’t be any of this, that means you’re normal, you’re human, you’re incredibly lovable.

It goes beyond childhood as well; once you attempt to enter adulthood, you’ll easily get informed that you’ll be looked down upon (that translates to ‘unlovable’ to us) if you are not independent, extremely skilled, having a job, always fun to be around, in a relationship, into the same things everyone else is into, social, looking a certain way - you’ll get told that without these qualities, you’re low value, to be ignored and cast aside. It can make you feel like you’re not even allowed to be proud of yourself, you’re not allowed to even like yourself, for who you are! If feels again, like you’re fundamentally a failure and that everyone else must be right not to like you or want to be around you, because you’re ‘no good’ and ‘only a burden’.

But this also isn’t true. None of these qualities are a pre-requirement for being loved either. And I know this, because I know people who have none of these qualities, and they are loved. All of these things are based on a construct, and we do not love others based on how well they can fit to a construct, or based on how well they can obey us.

We love others because it’s in our nature as a social species. We like spending time around humans who are warm, who have kindness in their hearts, who pose no threat to us; who are capable of making us think, or making us laugh sometimes. We bond based on experiences together, situations we worked thru together, helping each other. We like sharing our happiness and grief alike, we like knowing there’s someone we can rely on when we’re lost, confused, or alone in our troubles. We also like seeing others being free to be who they are, we like spontaneous joy and passionate ideas, we like to be engaged and be filled with hope, or even just enjoy moments that would pass unnoticed if someone else didn’t point them out. We like knowing someone else’s opinions and perspectives, we like feeling like we’re alike. We like hearing stories. We like witnessing things together.

And none of this demands for any of the participants to have a certain skill, job, appearance, behaviour. Not for any of this do you need to be subservient, convenient, or perfect. You’ve been lied to. You’ve been good as you are, capable of bonding and being loved the whole time. There was nothing that needed to be fixed.

People are loved when they’re struggling. People are being loved when they’re sick, addicted, impoverished, demanding, imposing. People are even loved when they’re manipulative and abusive. So you are not unlovable. Convenience is not the key of love. You do not have to maximize how convenient you are to everyone in order to be loved. You are lacking in nothing.

#abusive parents #child abuse #feeling unlovable #consequences of child abuse #feeling broken

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