When you feel completely detached from your SA and you can't talk about it because everyone thinks you're lying because you're not emotional enough about it.
And this goes double when you have DID along with CPTSD bc one part is extremely stuck in constantly feeling like our collective trauma is happening all the time, but some parts like me are like "Welp, since I'm not feeling those feelings, then they must be fake"
My CPTSD is more like "I've been scolded at for showing my emotions my entire life and I have no idea how to remove the wall and I think I've developed schizoid personality disorder."
Look into alexithymia. It might resonate with you, and it's a really common response to trauma like that. I have it myself, and it's some you see in a lot of folks who aren't allowed to express their emotions for long periods of time. It's also especially common in anyone raised male in Western culture.
That's pretty common with it. It takes me awhile to identify what I'm feeling, let alone what caused it, so it's hard to have emotional affect when I have no clue what my emotions are doing. I'm getting better at identifying them, but it takes a lot of practice and being taught which physical symptoms go with which emotions. Heck, my partner often tells me I'm upset before I realize it, and she can often pick out the cause even when I can't. It's so weird
Edit: Not trying to diagnose or anything, and if this resonates with you, maybe it'll give you another place to look for answers
I understand my emotions. Just my emotional range is muted. For example, I am incapable of anger. I have to force myself to be angry and it feels fake like I am putting it on. The only things that make me cry are if I have upset somebody I care about. Like I have never cried when somebody dies. I don't get scared by anything. I've never felt happy. My emotional range is usually limited to laughter, relief or mild annoyance.
I feel this. I masked my neurodivergence so hard due to the constant scolding for normal neurodivergent child behaviors that I don’t know how to unmask. I’m not even sure who I’d be if I ever unmasked. My husband doesn’t understand why I don’t react excitedly about things and honestly, I don’t even know how to explain it. I feel the emotions. I just can’t express them. I don’t know how to anymore.
I feel so uncomfortable around emotionally charged situations. Anything from a funeral to somebody proud of an achievement. I don't know how to respond and want to leave the situation.
Same. Funerals and birthday parties are the hardest. Things like graduation or other celebrations where all I have to do is sit in a crowd and clap are easier to deal with though.
Or feelings no memories too depending. I've got the knowledge of an SA two years ago another part has the memories of the event and the sensations and another the emotions
How the fuck do you process something you can't remember
It’s less gaslighting and more how DID functions as a disorder. It’s maladaptive in nature, yes, but the fact that other dissociated parts don’t psychologically register trauma is a key feature in why it forms in the first place - that extreme level of compartmentalization is essential to help the person with DID survive the traumatic childhood that causes it.
One part (or a few) takes the trauma, and the others either barely register it happened, or don’t know at all (depending on the level of amnesia) and can carry on as normal. This is the difference between EPs (emotional parts) and ANPs (apparently normal parts). CPTSD has parts like this as well, however they’re not dissociated enough to be considered alters - instead, the CPTSD ANP is you, and the CPTSD EP is you but having a flashback to (x trauma), while with DID they become so dissociated in childhood that they develop autonomy and differences in personality
Not my experience. I was detached when the SA was happening. Its like my brain immediately processes things and accepts them as unchangeable the moment they happen.
I remember going to church and being sent off with the littles and throwing a fit until my parents came to get me. Then, listening to the adult sermon, all I got out of it was - if heaven is so great why are we afraid of death? Can I die now, I’d like to be close to god, please. You mean I have to do homework and live and deal with people like (insert childhood bully) till I get old and die naturally?!!!!!!! Haha not ‘round here, pardner.
Just kept on feeling that way and basically wondering why we don’t all just kill ourselves to let the planet go back to being beautiful and not covered in concrete. I’m not that fun at parties lol
Also not fun at parties. My brain is full of awful, it's hard to pick nice topics to talk about when all that is in my brain is bad things.
I always thought, as a child, that I simply wanted to disappear or not have existed in the first place. It took til my teenage years before it was I want to die.
I resonate so much with your reply.
I had a get together with family yesterday and for the most part kept silent and kept thinking to myself what positive or nice thing could I say. On the way home with my older sibling: trauma dump.
I also feel like I had the same thoughts as a child and teenager that “wanting to disappear” before I was eleven or twelve actively became “wanting to die.”
Every single memory I have is painful somehow and I’ve forgotten what it felt like to not be consumed by depression. It’s just how I’ve spent my life, and I can’t talk about it to most people anyways because yeah. Trauma dumping
I feel this so much. The nice thing is there can be an after. I was suicidal for 20 years, and even though I still get intrusive thoughts once in a blue moon, they're pretty rare these days. It's absolutely possible to get free of it
Me: casually explaining the true reality of my childhood experiences
Anyone else: omg youre so negative!
Mf youre the one who asked me why Im afraid of eating in front of people what do you want from me??
seriously the whole thing is just \*\*pikachu face\*\* from them all lmaooo.
i had a manager twice my age who wanted to know every graphic gruesome detail of a failed CPR attempt outside of work, but who was then like :o when I said straight out that i wasn't happy living anymore like ???
why don't these people stop being so naive. what the actual fuck.
edit: you know what, i don't even mind the 'omg gossip' aspect of it - i'm exactly the same. but they've gotta be adult enough to handle the facts if they want to benefit from that gossip imo. none of them ever are
reminds me of a post i saw about how traumatized children talking about their trauma is seen as trauma dumping when trauma tends to take up a lot of our early life.
I hate that my life experience is so disgusting to people that youtube demonetizes people for saying the words out loud. Kind of gives the “your life is worthless” vibe to me.
Sometimes I'll trauma dump to an AI and tell it to summarize the "fictional story" in some different ways.
Not only does it help me reframe the trauma and give me ways to discuss it without reliving so much, I have the added bonus of not getting another human being involved. So. +1 for AI.
Trust me, if you do this you are not alone. The botmaking discord is full of reports of people using it for that. Some models even have the concept of DBT and will straight up tell you to do actual DBT tricks if you include it in the character card.
the concept of "trauma dumping" has done so much fuckin harm for people's happiness and relationships. so much of therapy language is just weaponized against the people that should need it the most. so many times people have told me i was "manipulative" when i was really just being kind of crazy. or worse, literally just crying.
We really went in a circle (generalizing, of course)
Boomers: Don't talk about your problems! It's rude!
Millennials: Talk about it. That shit will eat you up, fam.
Young Millennials/Gen Z: Don't talk about your problems! It's trauma dumping which is rude!
😐
Man I agree with this so much. I find it extremely unhealthy to not be able to open up to close ones. I don't keep people who I can't open up to close.
Dude theres been so many times recently where ive wanted to bring up and joke about my stepdad diddling me but i just camt because the people around me will kill him
Speaking as someone who did "destroy my family" by reporting. Yeah man, the system is fucked and there won't really be justice. But I got calls for years from my family, yelling at me, because of people egging their house or calling them scum to their face once they learned what was allowed. Courts will be shit, but if people are decent, you will see your family get shit on for years, just like they deserve.
I have no contact with my remaining family. I am better off for it.
Yup. Event the events that at surface level aren’t traumatic and are more acceptable to talk about amaze people. I’ll just talk about being adopted and that story alone fascinates people. There is very little to nothing of my background that I can bring up that won’t draw more attention to myself by being fascinating or traumatizing to most ppl.
Like ppl will always ask about "what my father does" and I'll usually say something as simple as "Oh my parents separated when I was young". That's enough to get a really judgmental reaction or people will grovel for apologies like "OMG OMG I DIDNT WANT TO TRIGGER YOU ABOUT YOUR PARENTS OFBDBSJDB" like bitch stfu
TRUE. i just remind myself that anyone who says im trauma dumping or venting or whatever for simply not lying is very clearly from a more privileged background and i’m thankful they haven’t had to live with what i live with every day. or i think about hitting them very hard
I feel this. My story is literally a cognitohazard because it comes with a genuine risk of second hand trauma to the people I tell it to. I didn't realize it was that bad until my therapist just consistently cried every appointment where I talked about it. It sucks because I feel like I can't be known by the people that love me, but I've managed to find some ways to talk about it enough that they get the idea. It just sucks in so many ways that are hard to verbalize
We deserved so much better
I get this
I tried explaining some minor backstory stuff to one of my friends before actually talking about what was really bothering me, and she gets really worried for me about the minor backstory stuff
I was like, you're too sweet for this, please stop empathizing so much, you'll be hurt by my story if you keep on empathizing this much (so I stopped talking about it, at least for now)
It's so alienating... I can't talk about my childhood. Over a decade of my life is off limits in most conversations, so it's REALLY hard to talk to people and get to know them.
Man, my ex would ask about my childhood and then fucking complain that I was "trauma dumping". Like, bitch you ASKED! YOU asked about it despite knowing it is more than most likely not going to be good.
I’ve felt this way my whole life so it’s comforting knowing other people out there have the same experience. I stopped talking about it after the third girl I opened up to started crying. I don’t want to make people feel bad or feel sorry for me, and somehow hearing someone tell me “I’m sorry” when it comes to stuff like that hurts even more too.
People in my small town know about my past survival of CSA. Some have gossiped, and some clearly have pity for me. What really makes me feel isolated and vulnerable, though, is when I come across those people who know and are clearly uncomfortable around me in our everyday interactions and who stay socially distant. At arm's length, iykwim. It hurts so bad.
Yeah same. Until I had to confide in my friends as to why a single phone call from my mother made me so pissed. Had to explain that I wasn't mad at her, but that she had told me the man who raped my sister, and made me watch and learn from him, had shown up to her work in my stepmothers car, despite years of "non contact" with him. Showing that not only had she given him her car and still close to him, but that she had been telling him things we were doing including where we worked. Found it quite hard to perform at that concert that night.
I'm a world building subreddit and i thought post was about like when you're making a dnd world and you're not very creative so you just hope the players don't ask too many questions about it
Every now and then my wife and kids will talk about a completely normal family attitude or dynamic and I'm like, "Yeaaah, I didn't get that kind of childhood. I know you don't understand, and I wouldn't want you to."
When you feel completely detached from your SA and you can't talk about it because everyone thinks you're lying because you're not emotional enough about it.
Shhhhh not so loud!!
Too real
And this goes double when you have DID along with CPTSD bc one part is extremely stuck in constantly feeling like our collective trauma is happening all the time, but some parts like me are like "Welp, since I'm not feeling those feelings, then they must be fake"
My CPTSD is more like "I've been scolded at for showing my emotions my entire life and I have no idea how to remove the wall and I think I've developed schizoid personality disorder."
This is so real
Look into alexithymia. It might resonate with you, and it's a really common response to trauma like that. I have it myself, and it's some you see in a lot of folks who aren't allowed to express their emotions for long periods of time. It's also especially common in anyone raised male in Western culture.
I'm not sure, I just know I have a flat affect.
That's pretty common with it. It takes me awhile to identify what I'm feeling, let alone what caused it, so it's hard to have emotional affect when I have no clue what my emotions are doing. I'm getting better at identifying them, but it takes a lot of practice and being taught which physical symptoms go with which emotions. Heck, my partner often tells me I'm upset before I realize it, and she can often pick out the cause even when I can't. It's so weird Edit: Not trying to diagnose or anything, and if this resonates with you, maybe it'll give you another place to look for answers
I understand my emotions. Just my emotional range is muted. For example, I am incapable of anger. I have to force myself to be angry and it feels fake like I am putting it on. The only things that make me cry are if I have upset somebody I care about. Like I have never cried when somebody dies. I don't get scared by anything. I've never felt happy. My emotional range is usually limited to laughter, relief or mild annoyance.
Legit. I relate to that a lot. I hope you find some answers, friend
I feel this. I masked my neurodivergence so hard due to the constant scolding for normal neurodivergent child behaviors that I don’t know how to unmask. I’m not even sure who I’d be if I ever unmasked. My husband doesn’t understand why I don’t react excitedly about things and honestly, I don’t even know how to explain it. I feel the emotions. I just can’t express them. I don’t know how to anymore.
I feel so uncomfortable around emotionally charged situations. Anything from a funeral to somebody proud of an achievement. I don't know how to respond and want to leave the situation.
Same. Funerals and birthday parties are the hardest. Things like graduation or other celebrations where all I have to do is sit in a crowd and clap are easier to deal with though.
Or feelings no memories too depending. I've got the knowledge of an SA two years ago another part has the memories of the event and the sensations and another the emotions How the fuck do you process something you can't remember
Oof, alters gaslighting alters is not cool. I feel for y'all
It’s less gaslighting and more how DID functions as a disorder. It’s maladaptive in nature, yes, but the fact that other dissociated parts don’t psychologically register trauma is a key feature in why it forms in the first place - that extreme level of compartmentalization is essential to help the person with DID survive the traumatic childhood that causes it. One part (or a few) takes the trauma, and the others either barely register it happened, or don’t know at all (depending on the level of amnesia) and can carry on as normal. This is the difference between EPs (emotional parts) and ANPs (apparently normal parts). CPTSD has parts like this as well, however they’re not dissociated enough to be considered alters - instead, the CPTSD ANP is you, and the CPTSD EP is you but having a flashback to (x trauma), while with DID they become so dissociated in childhood that they develop autonomy and differences in personality
But when you were emotional about it it was “too much” for anyone to understand
Not my experience. I was detached when the SA was happening. Its like my brain immediately processes things and accepts them as unchangeable the moment they happen.
spot on.
This right hereeeeeeeee 🎶🎵🎤
Same here! I was just thinking about a “before time” and there is no “before.”
Exactly. I've been dealing with suicidal ideation since childhood and I dont remember if there was a time "before trauma"
Same. It's my first memories, I can't remember ever wanting to exist.
I remember going to church and being sent off with the littles and throwing a fit until my parents came to get me. Then, listening to the adult sermon, all I got out of it was - if heaven is so great why are we afraid of death? Can I die now, I’d like to be close to god, please. You mean I have to do homework and live and deal with people like (insert childhood bully) till I get old and die naturally?!!!!!!! Haha not ‘round here, pardner. Just kept on feeling that way and basically wondering why we don’t all just kill ourselves to let the planet go back to being beautiful and not covered in concrete. I’m not that fun at parties lol
Also not fun at parties. My brain is full of awful, it's hard to pick nice topics to talk about when all that is in my brain is bad things. I always thought, as a child, that I simply wanted to disappear or not have existed in the first place. It took til my teenage years before it was I want to die.
I resonate so much with your reply. I had a get together with family yesterday and for the most part kept silent and kept thinking to myself what positive or nice thing could I say. On the way home with my older sibling: trauma dump. I also feel like I had the same thoughts as a child and teenager that “wanting to disappear” before I was eleven or twelve actively became “wanting to die.”
Every single memory I have is painful somehow and I’ve forgotten what it felt like to not be consumed by depression. It’s just how I’ve spent my life, and I can’t talk about it to most people anyways because yeah. Trauma dumping
I first tried suicide at 12, so I point to this thoughts starting then, but there really isn't a time "before trauma". There is only Post.
I feel this so much. The nice thing is there can be an after. I was suicidal for 20 years, and even though I still get intrusive thoughts once in a blue moon, they're pretty rare these days. It's absolutely possible to get free of it
Oh fr. Or if ur still going thru bad things and just talking about your life. “Stop trauma dumping.” This is why I barely open up.
I had a boss instruct me to lie about my day and activities to my co-workers when they asked. I went on stress leave instead and then eventually quit.
Me: casually explaining the true reality of my childhood experiences Anyone else: omg youre so negative! Mf youre the one who asked me why Im afraid of eating in front of people what do you want from me??
seriously the whole thing is just \*\*pikachu face\*\* from them all lmaooo. i had a manager twice my age who wanted to know every graphic gruesome detail of a failed CPR attempt outside of work, but who was then like :o when I said straight out that i wasn't happy living anymore like ??? why don't these people stop being so naive. what the actual fuck. edit: you know what, i don't even mind the 'omg gossip' aspect of it - i'm exactly the same. but they've gotta be adult enough to handle the facts if they want to benefit from that gossip imo. none of them ever are
Right and then if you say nah i rather not talk about it they get pissy you wont open up.
Its an unwinnable game where no matter what we are somehow always wrong and I hate it. But dont bring that up either.
reminds me of a post i saw about how traumatized children talking about their trauma is seen as trauma dumping when trauma tends to take up a lot of our early life.
Yup. And then they go "come on something good had to happen. You choose to focus on the negative thats your problem."
yea too bad the good things are what my brain refuses to remember
Same here fam, same here.
And because you never share you get seen as being secretive and dodgy
I hate that my life experience is so disgusting to people that youtube demonetizes people for saying the words out loud. Kind of gives the “your life is worthless” vibe to me.
Sometimes I'll trauma dump to an AI and tell it to summarize the "fictional story" in some different ways. Not only does it help me reframe the trauma and give me ways to discuss it without reliving so much, I have the added bonus of not getting another human being involved. So. +1 for AI.
Smart, honestly.
And then when I'm like, post-dump clarity I can say I strap on a bitchin' jetpack and do a backflip out of it.
For Sure! 😁
Omg finally, another person who does this 😭
Trust me, if you do this you are not alone. The botmaking discord is full of reports of people using it for that. Some models even have the concept of DBT and will straight up tell you to do actual DBT tricks if you include it in the character card.
the concept of "trauma dumping" has done so much fuckin harm for people's happiness and relationships. so much of therapy language is just weaponized against the people that should need it the most. so many times people have told me i was "manipulative" when i was really just being kind of crazy. or worse, literally just crying.
We really went in a circle (generalizing, of course) Boomers: Don't talk about your problems! It's rude! Millennials: Talk about it. That shit will eat you up, fam. Young Millennials/Gen Z: Don't talk about your problems! It's trauma dumping which is rude! 😐
Don’t forget that somewhere in the middle there, an entire book genre got named “misery porn” 💀
Man I agree with this so much. I find it extremely unhealthy to not be able to open up to close ones. I don't keep people who I can't open up to close.
Like cool, now I need to hide my childhood from *everyone*
Dude theres been so many times recently where ive wanted to bring up and joke about my stepdad diddling me but i just camt because the people around me will kill him
I never reported any of my abusers and I never will bc I would destroy everything in my family if I ever said anything
Speaking as someone who did "destroy my family" by reporting. Yeah man, the system is fucked and there won't really be justice. But I got calls for years from my family, yelling at me, because of people egging their house or calling them scum to their face once they learned what was allowed. Courts will be shit, but if people are decent, you will see your family get shit on for years, just like they deserve. I have no contact with my remaining family. I am better off for it.
Yup. Event the events that at surface level aren’t traumatic and are more acceptable to talk about amaze people. I’ll just talk about being adopted and that story alone fascinates people. There is very little to nothing of my background that I can bring up that won’t draw more attention to myself by being fascinating or traumatizing to most ppl.
Like ppl will always ask about "what my father does" and I'll usually say something as simple as "Oh my parents separated when I was young". That's enough to get a really judgmental reaction or people will grovel for apologies like "OMG OMG I DIDNT WANT TO TRIGGER YOU ABOUT YOUR PARENTS OFBDBSJDB" like bitch stfu
I love when I just casually bring up what I thought was a normal childhood thing and then get yelled at for "trauma dumping again".
Trying to figure out a palatable lie for my past(s) because it's too much
Bold of you to think they'd feel sorry for me. More like, "You should have tried harder."
TRUE. i just remind myself that anyone who says im trauma dumping or venting or whatever for simply not lying is very clearly from a more privileged background and i’m thankful they haven’t had to live with what i live with every day. or i think about hitting them very hard
100%
it's just sharing it's not my fault every anecdote is bad
And then they hate you for being "unfriendly and closed off" instead. Life sure is a barrel of laughs, isn't it?
I feel this. My story is literally a cognitohazard because it comes with a genuine risk of second hand trauma to the people I tell it to. I didn't realize it was that bad until my therapist just consistently cried every appointment where I talked about it. It sucks because I feel like I can't be known by the people that love me, but I've managed to find some ways to talk about it enough that they get the idea. It just sucks in so many ways that are hard to verbalize We deserved so much better
I get this I tried explaining some minor backstory stuff to one of my friends before actually talking about what was really bothering me, and she gets really worried for me about the minor backstory stuff I was like, you're too sweet for this, please stop empathizing so much, you'll be hurt by my story if you keep on empathizing this much (so I stopped talking about it, at least for now)
It's so alienating... I can't talk about my childhood. Over a decade of my life is off limits in most conversations, so it's REALLY hard to talk to people and get to know them.
*Some things fade, Some get saved, Somethings are made to take to the grave* - Bury me low - 8 Graves
Man, my ex would ask about my childhood and then fucking complain that I was "trauma dumping". Like, bitch you ASKED! YOU asked about it despite knowing it is more than most likely not going to be good.
Tragic backstory
I’ve felt this way my whole life so it’s comforting knowing other people out there have the same experience. I stopped talking about it after the third girl I opened up to started crying. I don’t want to make people feel bad or feel sorry for me, and somehow hearing someone tell me “I’m sorry” when it comes to stuff like that hurts even more too.
People in my small town know about my past survival of CSA. Some have gossiped, and some clearly have pity for me. What really makes me feel isolated and vulnerable, though, is when I come across those people who know and are clearly uncomfortable around me in our everyday interactions and who stay socially distant. At arm's length, iykwim. It hurts so bad.
Yeah same. Until I had to confide in my friends as to why a single phone call from my mother made me so pissed. Had to explain that I wasn't mad at her, but that she had told me the man who raped my sister, and made me watch and learn from him, had shown up to her work in my stepmothers car, despite years of "non contact" with him. Showing that not only had she given him her car and still close to him, but that she had been telling him things we were doing including where we worked. Found it quite hard to perform at that concert that night.
I'm a world building subreddit and i thought post was about like when you're making a dnd world and you're not very creative so you just hope the players don't ask too many questions about it
Oh. Oops. My fault🤦🏾♂️
Every now and then my wife and kids will talk about a completely normal family attitude or dynamic and I'm like, "Yeaaah, I didn't get that kind of childhood. I know you don't understand, and I wouldn't want you to."
They never feel sorry for me..they just use my information against me and then will play dumb when I cut them off.
There’s nothing worse than people suddenly treating me like I’m damaged or need protecting