The isolating experience of having childhood trauma

A rant. I’m aware it’s up to me now to work on healing, as I have been for years.

It’s exhausting. Isolating. It’s an experience not many people talk openly about.

Growing up you weren’t even aware it wasn’t normal. That your way of living wasn’t healthy. You grow up and have the realization that rocks your world…

What you went through wasn’t okay. That’s not how all parents are. That’s not how parents should treat their children.

sigh

Having to unlearn and relearn. Parent yourself. Rewire your brain. Go to therapy. Be vulnerable.

Be aware of what you missed out on. Feel resentful about it. Then feel bad for being resentful. Trying to count your blessings and be grateful. But grieve for the inner child that went through so much. Mourn the love you never had.

The guidance you never had. The conversations you never had. The memories you never had.

Having to accept our parents for who they are. Forgive them. They were doing the best they could.

sigh

Missing out on a universal experience that everyone assumes you had. Seeing others have an actual relationship with their parents. A relationship with depth. A relationship that doesn’t trigger them.

Enduring the awkwardness when family is brought into conversation. When childhood is brought up.

Do you lie and give a surface level answer? Or make the listener feel uncomfortable and get that look of pity that makes you wish you lied.

ugh

Questioning if you’re capable of loving because you were never shown a healthy way of doing so. “Am I too much? Is my mind fucked up? Am I overthinking? Do I even know how to love the way I want to be loved??”

Constantly going back and forth from “I’m worthy of love” to “maybe I’m not ready for a relationship”.

Hearing others talk down on those with mommy and daddy issues. Like if it’s your fault for the parents you have.

Wondering if your date will consider you a red flag for having trauma. Can you blame them?

But what a lot of people don’t understand is, so many of it is subconscious. A lack of control over your own reactions because you don’t know how else to react. Your nervous system is all fucked up. Your body was raised and accustomed to a certain way of thinking and being. Now you have to change all of that? No wonder some people just stay in the victim mindset, repeating cycles.

They want to be better but don’t know how. They don’t have the time or energy to work on themselves.

We have to put in more work just to reach a level of equilibrium that other people are naturally at.

sigh

Anxious. Angry. Sad. Resentful. Helpless.

Emotions I know all too well ever since I was young.

But I will not let them overcome me. My trauma has made me into the strong, resilient, unique person I am today.

I couldn’t control the life I was born into. Or the way I was raised.

I didn’t have control then, but I have control now. Control over my life. The power to break generational cycles. I am not my past.

We are not our past. We are not our trauma. We are complex human beings who are inherently worthy.

Worthy of love. We are filled so much of it. We crave it. We have a right to feel whatever we feel. But you can alchemize that pain into motivation, strength, love…. greatness.