u/Bros17911

I started a community a couple weeks ago! The goal is to build a cozy, judgment-free sanctuary for people who want to share their personal experiences, heavy/complicated thoughts, and mental health struggles without any filters. This is a space dedicated to mutual support, healing, poetry/art, advice, affirmations/quotes, therapy tools, and meaningful connection. Philosophy and thoughts or struggles about finding who you are, especially after trauma, are welcome as well. New or anonymous accounts are always welcome!!! Everyone is seen and each and every user matters dearly to me and in this subreddit 💛

If you are interested, feel free to pay r/growfromtrauma a visit and join if what you see resonates with you!

I love the taste of blood. It’s euphoric. I feel so blissful when I finally get that unique, salty, irony taste on my lips. Around my teeth. Spread across my tongue. God. There’s nothing quite like it. It’s fucking addicting. Just imagining the taste is simply wonderful.

This is called “Auto-vampirism”.

It is one of your body’s natural, but unhealthy, coping mechanisms when your nervous system physically cannot handle any more stress or emotion. I have battled this urge several times, and occasionally I have lost to myself. I have the scars to remind me to be grateful for my body.

Changing coping mechanisms can be difficult and scary. It may take a long time, but now those scars are fading and I no longer feed that urge inside me. It took me more than 8 weeks to just lessen the urge. It hasn’t quite gone away, but now that I am more self aware, I have a responsibility to not allow myself to make that same poor decision. Choose consistency over indulgence. Wisdom over short term pleasure. You will be okay, just as I am working to be now.

I am an open book. I promise you, nothing you say to me or confess here on this subreddit will surprise me. I’ve come to realize just how limiting it is to both parties when I refuse to care for someone that thinks they are beyond help or too far gone. You are not, and especially not to me. Never to me. I will not report anything, I will not try to fix you or change you. I simply just want to support you guys ❤️‍🩹 let’s just exist together and share what needs to be shared with nothing but openness. That’s how healing actually happens. When the person sharing doesn’t have to worry about an adverse reaction. 💛

Distress tolerance is the ability to navigate highly stressful snd frustrating circumstances in life. It is a part of the human condition to experience low frustration tolerance occasionally. The key is adaptability in the face of distress. Persons with low distress tolerance often self-sabotage their circumstances further. In contrast, a person with high distress tolerance can tap into their resources accordingly.

✨ Distress tolerance tolerance is not the same as repression ✨

“How much can you carry vs how much you can work through while you carry it?”

“How much can you avoid vs how much can you process?”

Example: You hold a basket of rocks with both hands while people add more rocks (avoidance) vs holding a growing basket of rocks in one hand while simultaneously taking rocks out of the basket with the other hand (distress tolerance). Anyone can hold a basket normally with both hands, but using only one arm is harder—just as improving distress tolerance is harder than avoidance. Holding the basket and removing the rocks simultaneously is harder than simply holding the growing basket of rocks with both hands.

In the morning, sit down at a desk or table and grab a sheet of paper. Draw a circle and in it, write: Things I am grateful for… (put the date as well). Then, draw mid-sized triangles all around the circle until your drawing looks like a flower. Put at least 5 or 6 big petals on your flower! Inside those petals, write one thing you are grateful for. You can be as vague or specific as you want, just so long as what you write resonates with you :)

“Enjoy the ride your emotions take you on. Sit down and see where they take you! Allowance for yourself to feel fully, anything and everything, is truly a beautiful occurrence. Be grateful for how much you can feel.”

“I can be in distress and still have a high distress tolerance.”

- Being in a state of distress doesn’t mean you are failing to regulate yourself ❤️‍🩹 it’s simply a chance to ‘grow through what you go through.’

- Dialectics can teach you many things. It can teach you about self worth, like the quote above, and it can also teach you to be your own mediator of situations.

Hey everyone! I'm u/Bros17911, a founding moderator of r/growfromtrauma.
This is our new home for all things related to \[GROWING from trauma, trauma STORIES to release in a safe place, getting VALIDATION that you deserve to help guide you towards healing, COPING STRATEGIES\]. We're excited to have you join us!

What to Post
Post anything that you think the community would find interesting, helpful, or inspiring. Feel free to share your thoughts, photos, or questions about \[people’s experiences (if they are comfortable answering questions), insights or advise, snippets of wisdom, interesting/inspiring quotes, affirmations, coping mechanisms, general positive vibes and healing messages!\].

Community Vibe
We're all about being friendly, constructive, and inclusive. Let's build a space where everyone feels comfortable sharing and connecting.

How to Get Started

1. Introduce yourself in the comments below.
2. Post something today! Even a simple question can spark a great conversation.
3. If you know someone who would love this community, invite them to join.
4. Interested in helping out? We're always looking for new moderators, so feel free to reach out to me to apply.

Thanks for being part of the very first wave. Together, let's make r/growfromtrauma amazing and healing for many unique and profound people.

Hey everyone! I'm u/Bros17911, a founding moderator of r/growfromtrauma.
This is our new home for all things related to \[GROWING from trauma, trauma STORIES to release in a safe place, getting VALIDATION that you deserve to help guide you towards healing, COPING STRATEGIES\]. We're excited to have you join us!

What to Post
Post anything that you think the community would find interesting, helpful, or inspiring. Feel free to share your thoughts, photos, or questions about \[people’s experiences (if they are comfortable answering questions), insights or advise, snippets of wisdom, interesting/inspiring quotes, affirmations, coping mechanisms, general positive vibes and healing messages!\].

Community Vibe
We're all about being friendly, constructive, and inclusive. Let's build a space where everyone feels comfortable sharing and connecting.

How to Get Started

1. Introduce yourself in the comments below.
2. Post something today! Even a simple question can spark a great conversation.
3. If you know someone who would love this community, invite them to join.
4. Interested in helping out? We're always looking for new moderators, so feel free to reach out to me to apply.

Thanks for being part of the very first wave. Together, let's make r/growfromtrauma amazing and healing for many unique and profound people.

I started a community a couple weeks ago! The goal is to build a cozy, judgment-free sanctuary for people who want to share their personal experiences, heavy/complicated thoughts, and mental health struggles without any filters. This is a space dedicated to mutual support, healing, poetry/art, advice, affirmations/quotes, therapy tools, and meaningful connection. Philosophy and thoughts or struggles about finding who you are, especially after trauma, are welcome as well. New or anonymous accounts are always welcome!!! Everyone is seen and each and every user matters dearly to me and in this subreddit 💛

If you are interested, feel free to pay r/growfromtrauma a visit and join if what you see resonates with you!

“The strongest beings you know can still bleed.”

“Some truths are meant to be carried, not spoken. They are heavier when they are real to you alone.”

“Stripping away the years to someone’s name takes away all escape from the existential accountability that comes with radical freedom.”

“I measure my life in endings, not years. Years are meaningless. They are a human measure, small and neat. But life is not neat. I do not remember my existence by numbers. I remember it by what was lost... and by what changed after. More specifically, I mean I have stood at the close of a thousand chapters. Watched the final breath of things that once seemed endless. Kingdoms. Civilizations. Lives. Connections. Beliefs. You will measure your life the same way, in time. Not in how many days you lived — but in how many times the world you knew ceased to be.”

“I believe in active listening, which means one must balance listening with expressing a desire to understand more. The end goal is to be picturing the same image inside the other person's mind. Though, that image is often not quite perfect. That is okay. Imperfection is human."

MOST
- Loss and endurance

“Loss is the most common occurrence throughout time, throughout a lifetime. Friends fading. Stars dying. But the things that endure are as well. Rivers carving valleys. Seeds becoming forests. A single act of kindness outliving the hand that offered it."

———————————————————————————

LEAST
- True peace and mercy

“True peace is the least common occurrence throughout time, throughout a lifetime.
A silence without fear in it. It is rare. So rare, that a being might count the times encountered on only one hand."

"Mercy is the least witnessed choice or gift in the world. Both the least received and the least given. And sometimes, the absence of mercy is inevitable in the end. Both ignorance as well as malice can be causes."

“Acceptance of current circumstances can lead to clarity. Clarity leads to a path forward. Do not fight what you can work through instead.”

“Sometimes, stillness is not about being stone. It is about listening until you disappear into what is around you. And in that… you find you are not alone.”

“Silence that draws on too long can break a man’s mind. But, if I do not make stillness, the weight of what I’ve witnessed and endured will crush me.”

“Stillness tells me more than motion ever could. When you stop… the world speaks.”

Hey redditors! I want you to know that if you need someone to hear you out, someone to tell you you’re not crazy or sensitive, or if you feel drawn to sharing your story and experiences, this is the place!!! 💛
I felt empowered to start sharing my story, so you can find that post in r/growfromtrauma as well as strategies I have learned to cope. I kinda just felt a pull, like it was the right time for me. Now, I want to post all the therapy concepts I learn here that I find useful and the goal is to have this subreddit be one big collection of people’s experiences and tips! Please share this with people you think would benefit or be interested if you’re comfortable sharing.
Remember, you will heal, even if healing means achieving just stability. That stability becomes your new normal, and the ups and downs will smooth out. The jumps will get smaller and smaller. You will heal 💛