I am so triggered right now

hugs

Hi Strongforgood,

I agree with this. It is so frustrating to think that our past dictates our future, even years after - and that our abusers somehow continue living without even thinking about us - and the fact that somehow, we also feel shame and guilt for suffering from that abuse... Such injustice... Drives anyone into darkness.

I like what you said about how suffering feels like letting them win. I have really had a tough time adopting that concept, but it feels true. No matter how hard I have tried to forget the trauma, or move past it and let it go - it still remains. In fact, the harder I try to forget it and put it in a box, the more pronounced it gets. I cannot repress the memories anymore, instead I have found that being in touch with it - reminding myself of the trauma generates anger - which I have learned to channel into motivation that can be used to advocate, spread awareness and fight for change where it is required. If I choose to forget or ignore these memories - distract or repress it - it always comes back stronger.

The part you wrote about feeling guilty about suffering after the trauma - you are not alone in that! I think we all have some amount of survivor's guilt and even shame! Such a travesty that we should carry the burden of the initial traumas, but also feel shame for having emotions surrounding it! I wonder if this is a product of our traumas and or having lived in toxic shame, or having been invalidated when we reach for support from loved ones... We really got handed a crappy deck of cards and my heart goes out to each and every one of you! We are survivors. We deserve to NOT feel shame and guilt - we didn't do anything to deserve the abuse! I hope that we can set aside the secondary emotions / tertiary emotions and provide ourselves with much deserved self-validation. Of course, this is a skill that we must practice and it is SO hard to self-validate when we have not received it from others.

You are so right about the frustration around not knowing when a trigger will ruin our day! Yesterday I experienced this very thing and I raged on a distress line (not AT a distress line worker, just TO one) and luckily, they listened and validated the emotions and said, "you have been through a lot. You are entitled to your emotions and to be quite honest, you should be angry! You've been screwed over by a lot of people that you trusted and you have every right to be upset!" I want to send those same words to each and every one of you! Those kinds of interactions is what we need - we need to be nurtured, validated and given the opportunity to express the anger about our immense trauma! It breaks my heart to know that when people express their emotions - they are met with guilt and shame because those around them don't understand that venting and expressing themselves is a necessary part of healing!

Some distress lines believe that talking about trauma is re traumatizing - so their approach is to say, "talking about this trauma is clearly upsetting you, you are becoming dysregulated and therefore, I think we should shift topics." While this may be helpful for some of us, complex trauma literature has suggested that for many survivors, verbally venting about the trauma is a means of healing because it puts us in touch with our emotions. Shifting the topic whenever anger is expressed inadvertently becomes invalidating and unfortunately, many professionals fail to recognize this because they have been trained that speaking about trauma is re traumatizing. Of course speaking about it is re traumatizing - but that doesn't mean it cannot be effective! Talking is the entire premise of talk therapy and the foundation for almost every form of psychotherapy - how can they not see their own failings? We also crave for someone to bear witness to our traumas and want desperately for someone to validate the experience as well as acknowledge the damage it incurred. This seems so simple, yet is so hard to find.

I am so happy we all have one another to lean on. It makes me so happy that so many of you have posted on here to support me. Thank you for taking time to do it. My heart goes to all of you.



Thanks,
HD7970ghz

I was interrupted from venting the other day, because my conversation needed to be more "focused." But I think decluttering your emotions works like decluttering your closet. You have to first dump everything out of the closet, and then you can start organizing! I need to get all the emotions out before I can start processing them one by one.

We are always here for you too. Let us know when you get your pet. (I'm thinking about getting a cat myself).

Thank you for this Ennie,

I like how to described the process of de-cluttering emotions - I will keep that in my memory.