r/trauma

Is it normal to have new triggers after starting therapy? I'm thinking maybe it's because I had repressed a lot of my more traumatic memories and I've been digging them up in therapy, but stuff that only used to mildly annoy me has been causing panic attacks and meltdowns.

Also don't know if I tagged this properly, I don't really post on reddit ever.

I'm 13 and will be turning 14 in September but I've been through so much pain it feels normal. I honestly started dating someone around 20 since he had promised to care for me but instead we fight all the time and he's the least of my problem. Because of my insecurities I actually starved my self for 46hours and an additional 21 hours then I started hurting myself by cutting my hand and I still have the scars since I started a few days ago. And I honestly was excited for a trip to Dubai since I was going there to live with my father and little sister so I arrived today just for my father to tell me that he had another family with two young daughters it honestly hurts me and he told me not to tell my mom now I don't know should I tell her or not.

Hello everyone, im kinda ashamed im posting this on the internet, but i have no one else to ask.

I was 8 (F) years old and had a friend (also F) who went to school with me, we would hang out sometimes and one day we hung out at her Mom's shop(she was a masseuse). Me and this girl were hanging out in the lobby until she tells me to come with her to play a "game", i follow her and we end up in one empty room with only a bed at the center and a tiny shower that was used as a changing room. She tells me to get in the shower and to take all our clothes off EXCEPT our panties, after that she tells me to lay on the bed and i do, and she follows by sitting on me and rubbing our panties together, and as she was doing that she was making noises and pretending to phone someone talking about how "she got a new boyfriend" (keep in mind, we are both girls), and im not sure if anything else happened but what i am sure of is that we both kept our panties on the whole time. and it only happened this once.

During the act i was very confused, but i didnt feel like it was wrong, and i didnt object at all, i should mention that this girl had me quite wrapped around her finger, "manipulating" me over silly stuff (one time she coerced me into gifting her my Ipod until my mom intervened)

I never told this to anyone, but i think at one point my mom figured out something was wrong and by the end of 3rd grade i switched schools

According to my mom, she told me this later in time, this girl's parents were very open about their sexual experiences and according to her even left the door open when they had sex, + they apparently cheated on eachother, and this lead me to believe that she was replicating those acts she saw in them with me (which would also explain why she was pretending to talk to someone on the phone)

After i switched schools, some things changed. I started to watch porn (around when i was 9, i had unlimited internet access)) and im still struggling to let it go, as it has become something similar to an addiction, and i remember that in 5th grade we had sex ED class and it was one of the worst experiences of my life, i kept shaking in my chair and asking to go to the bathroom until my teacher noticed i was uncomfortable and made me leave the classroom to calm down for a bit. But later, when i did sex ED in 7th grade i was pretty damn chill.

When i hit puberty in middle school, i struggled with gender dysphoria and self harm, my porn addiction got worse and i started feeling both ashamed and proud of it, since in classi could understand all the boys' dirty jokes unlike other girls (im not like other girls moment)

Lets flashforward to now, i have a loving boyfriend and since i was a virgin and he wasnt, he told me that he wouldnt pressure me to have sex, and that he would wait for me until i felt like i was ready, the first two times (a few months ago) everything went well, then i got physically sick(and my mental health worsened) and we couldnt for a while, recently (a month ago) we started again but ive been giving really dubious consent despite enjoying the act, constantly scared of something bad that could happen, until one day he sat me down to talk about this since he was very worried about the fact i didnt give very clear verbal consent. i struggled to, but i told him my experience.

Ever since then, ive been wondering if all of these problems i mentioned were because of this unresolved trauma i have, and if it even counts as COCSA, i would appreciate some help. bless you all.

Why is it so hard for them to actually listen to you and not just care or think about themselves all the time. Why do they pressure. Why don’t they care about you as a person. Why do I feel like I was just some sort of service doll.

i apologize if this is inappropriate to post in this subreddit, i don’t know where else to go

so i have a question:

is it normal to have vivid dreams of engaging in sexual activity with family members? i dreamt that a lot when i was like 10. it felt so disgusting and god i wanna rip my skin off and erase my mind. why tf did i do that ??? please help, i feel so ashamed and disgusting and confused. wtf is wrong with me. i was exposed to violent sexual content when i was that age and was sexual as a kid. so i feel really disgusting

So at 14 in freshman year of high-school it was super early into the year, when the school year came by my parents ts lied to me about taking me to this school thats 4 minutes away from the house and i specifically told them I want to go ti that school they actively said okay.

One day I was woke up and was told by my mom and dad that they will be taking me to Walmart to pick up some food so I decided to tag along as I gotten dressed they drove their car all the way to the school they knew i was bullied in and left me there for a annual orientation. My face was in complete distraught realizing what my parents have done and how they lied to me. Hours after the orientation I was obviously upset and both my parents were mad that I was upset my dad took me to the store while making shitty awful jokes to try to make me feel better. (It didnt and the jokes were corny)

I was promised ill be leaving that charter school where I was bullied,SA there on December. Yeah. So some time past before my birthday came it was i think September or October but I contacted a hotline worker just venting to her on other issues happening and the next day I gotten a DCFS to visit the home as the women who took me out of class that day to speak with me we talked and then the cops were called and then I was sent to the hospital for a day until my dad sat with me to talk and then a theripist came and she decided I need to be at a mental hospital.

Shortly after I been in that hospital for 2 weeks and I got nothing but judgement and hostility from the workers there as a 14 YEAR OLD KID AS A FIRST TIMER AT SOME FUCKING HOSPITAL TRYONG TO GET HELP. I was treated like i wasn't sick enough and I was wasting their time. Not only that the staff didnt care or believed me. I try to explain my past and basically my life in full detail and I even told them my memory is super bad cause some of the stuff that happened and lead up to now happen awhile ago and they didnt give a fuck.

So a psychologist told me and I qoute from what he actually said,"if I dont corporate I will be staying in this hospital much longer" and he asked the same thing,"what are you REALLY here for?" In a hostile tone. Not only i was scared i was stressed the fuck out and he chalk my issues up as "teen who need to learn how to open up and speak to her parents more" and gave me antidepressants and send me on my way.

Since it was mandatory to give me theripist visits I was sent to one at 15 who quite literally havent seen in much since my parents threatened to take me out of therapy if I pissed them off. So yeah but before I was taken out anyways I was given a diagnosis of PTSD. Not only didnt my parents believed that since they think thats for army men, they joked about it sometime after the therapy visit.

I seen that DCFS worker twice and havent seen her again and from that point on I decided to find love to fill the void which lead to me sending nudes to two guys who convinced me on discord, one called me a ret*rd and also lied about everything and told me im actually really ugly and ill never get a boyfriend and he blocked me. The second guy called me a slur that is against my race and when I told him he cant say the word he self harmed sented the photos to me and punch himself in the face. That image doesnt leave my head. Ever.

Im 17 now and thank you to all the adults that failed me when i tried getting help and I was ignored for crying about my past issues and pouring myself out begging to be listened to.

It’s weird how as an adult, whenever I visit my family at reunions and events (like Christmas or various family celebrations), the dynamics are sooo so different from what it was when I was a child. Everyone is so polite to each other and smiling and pretending that nothing ever happened, like all the violence and all the yelling it’s gone, like all of the abuses that happened jnvolving many (if not most) family members of the extended family never happened, like everyone can act so nicely to each other for a day or two, like nothing ever tormented us to extremes.

It just makes me feel so crazy all the time, like I seem the only one carrying all the trauma of all the violence happening in those houses, like everyone could so easily move on and forget and forgive and I just can’t yet. Makes me feel so invalidated and makes me wonder every time if maybe I remember it all wrong and just overdramatized it all

At a great get together today. Great people, having a good time….then someone mentioned a sad thing from the news (boating accident) and someone says something like “things happen when we put ourselves there” or some such thing.

Maybe it’s a way that people try to make sense of things? To believe that bad things won’t happen to them?

But then right away it’s not a boat accident anymore. I’m right in the middle of my own traumatic event. My heart starts beating fast. Time stops. And now I’m not having a good time at all party anymore. I hate it.

When I was 8 years old, my mom took me with her to a circumcision ceremony for her friend's son. I had no idea what it was or what was about to happen.
It was held in a large room with lots of people praying out loud. There were children crying and screaming i wanted to stay outside my mom refused made me stay beside her.

Her friend's son was 6 years old.
They put him on a table while his mom and my mom held him down.
There was no anesthesia. They started cutting the foreskin while he screamed. I remember it getting to the point where he seemed like he couldn't catch his breath, and people started blowing air into his face before continuing. Afterward, they used what looked like a hot metal instrument to cauterize the wound

Watching that terrified me. I became convinced that I was next. I started crying and panicking and m not even kidding my mom didn’t even look at me Everyone else seemed happy, smiling, and treating it like a celebration while the children were screaming in pain.
I'm an adult now, and that memory has never left me. I can't see a child crying in pain without immediately thinking about that day. Even seeing a child get a vaccination is sometimes enough to make me feel nauseated. It has affected me for years and has even impacted my sex life in ways I struggle to explain.

I know circumcision is considered normal or important in many cultures and religions, and I'm not trying to attack anyone's beliefs. I'm only talking about what witnessing that has got me to.
I cannot go to therapy maybe in the future but for now it’s impossible.

when i was a teen around maybe 13-16 i used to hit myself whenever my parents would argue or try to hit me and i was wondering if that was sh? i used to wake up with bruises whenever i hit myself and, another thing i used cut my face is that normal??

Lately ive been struggling sleeping because i have ptsd. Its not the fact that i dont want to sleep its just when i try to sleep and close my eyes i get flashbacks to what happened to me. When i get flashbacks the only thing that really helps is staying awake and fighting sleep. I really dont want to talk to someone about it. My mom wants me to talk to someone about it.

It’s not working anymore. I try to drug myself out or drink myself silly to forget and make these thought go away, but they don’t. I don’t know how to get rid of them. The drinking and drugging just makes me think about it more. I want all of it, everything, to just stop permanently

I'm a 19-year-old male, and my sisters and I grew up in an extremely abusive household. Out of the three of us, I had it the worst. The only form of abuse I never experienced from my parents was sexual abuse.

Growing up, I was constantly insulted, humiliated, and told I was useless. Both of my parents repeatedly told me they regretted having me. My father treated me like an errand boy, constantly sending me on long trips just to satisfy his own needs. My mother was never innocent either. She always defended my father's behavior and had her own ways of putting me down. Living with them felt like growing up with two narcissistic, emotionally unstable people.

Last year, my father traveled away for almost a year. During that time, I finally found peace. I found happiness, hope, dignity, and a sense of self. It honestly felt like I had reached enlightenment. For the first time in my life, I could look at myself in the mirror and smile.

I tried to earn enough money to move out, but I couldn't. School was supposed to be my escape, but my parents kept frustrating my education, so I ended up stuck at home and depressed.

In May this year, my father came back. Almost immediately, that familiar feeling of fear and uneasiness returned. The peace I had worked so hard to build started disappearing. By this point, my siblings and I had matured enough that we no longer cared about his manipulation or attempts to control us. I think that made him feel powerless because control has always been his biggest obsession.

Last Friday, during one of his angry outbursts, he suddenly started throwing punches at me. At this point, I was physically stronger than him, but I chose not to fight back because I didn't want to become violent or risk making the situation worse.

When he realized I wasn't afraid of him and that I was blocking his punches, he became even more enraged. He went into his room, grabbed a long machete (thankfully it was blunt), and repeatedly struck me with it. Throughout the whole thing, my mother stood there laughing at me and defending him.

Eventually, he used the machete to force me out of the house.

I ran to my neighbor's house, and that's when everything hit me. I wasn't crying because of the physical pain. I was crying because the weight of my entire life crashed down on me all at once. Years of abuse, humiliation, and trauma finally caught up with me.

I spent one night at my aunt's house before having to return home because I had nowhere else to go.

Since then, both of my parents have been acting as though nothing happened. They try to speak to me normally and pretend the assault never occurred. It's honestly making me feel like I'm losing my mind. I'm living in the same house as the people who traumatized me, and every day I see them, it feels like the wound is being reopened.

Before this happened, I genuinely liked the person I was becoming. I had hope, confidence, and self-worth. Now I feel like I've lost all of that. This incident has shattered the way I see myself and left me feeling constantly anxious, uneasy, and traumatized.

Has anyone else experienced something similar? More importantly, is there any coming back from this? Right now it feels like everything I worked so hard to heal has been destroyed.

Hola a todos, me llamo Gabriela, tengo 14 años, además tengo autismo severo, estos últimos días an sido feos para mí ya que eh Sido violada y abusada sexualmente por un grupo de jóvenes que me obligaron a mantener relaciones sexuales (ellos tenían entre 18/17 años) ya hable con carabineros Pero aún no puedo dormir sin pensar en lo que me pasó ellos me dejaron con problemas en mi útero por lo que me dice el doctor y quiero saber si algunas personas me podrán ayudar dandome ánimos para seguir así ya que no puedo mas, quiero matarme

When I was 11 years old, my father made me watch To Catch a Predator. I think he wanted to keep me safe from the internet, but I believe this traumatized me.

I’m 33 now, but I remember the episodes vividly. A rabbi who sent photos of himself having sex with a dog to what he thought was a 13 year old boy. (They showed the photos, but blurred out his penis) A father who said he couldn’t trust himself to change his daughter’s diaper…

This show had a profound impact on me. It made me distrust men, even into adulthood.

As an adult I realize the show wasn’t meant to be an educational program for children.

Did anyone else’s parents do this to them? How did it affect you at the time, and did it have a lasting impact?

Before I go into detail if you are religious, privileged and don’t wanna read disturbing things I suggest to leave.

this is my throwaway account

I lived in a country that was at war for 9 years before I fled the war.
Growing up it was a luxury to even take warm showers and have electricity and the hardships I went through I still don’t understand how I survived. Ever since I was young I worried about me or my family dying from a bomb rather than having my favorite toys like most other kids.

God watched and watched but did not do anything, god is a fucking bitch. He sees me and people like me suffer and don’t do anything to stop it, WHERE THE FUCK IS GOD? Where is his ass when I was getting abused physically and emotionally as a child, bombed, and went through literal hell on earth?

My friends mom died in a bomb explosion and for these privileged people it’s gods fucking plan and collateral damage. Why is gods plan always making us suffer but give these people the most perfect life possible? Another time I was beaten so badly by my own father that my nose was bleeding, but it’s ok because it’s gods plane.

All I do in my life is sit cry over my fucking situation and talk about how unfair my life is. And post these stupid posts on this damn app because I have no other shit to do.

my classmates from school always pop up into my fyp, they have the best lives, they don’t have abusive parents, never went through trauma, rich, beautiful, best social skills, the only worry they have is their grades and some dumb drama in their fuckass lives.
These people are living their best life, always having fun, going on trips, achieving so many things because they’re so privileged and lucky everything is simply handed to them, their parents are supportive and their life is so easy.

These people have the life I could only dream of, simply for existing, these privileged pieces of shits never went through hardships in life, never had to suffer and simply have the best life for no fucking reason.
How the fuck does that even make sense? What is the point of trying if life is just unfair at the end of the day?

I could work my ass off for years and not even be close to these peoples life.
I jsut don’t get it why, why is it me? Why could I not have the same privileged life SO MANY people have so many people come from good family’s, childhood, money and are so lucky and happy.

Even if I some how manage to make it I don’t think I’ll ever be happy, the resentment I hold is so much, so much. My life has destroyed me, I’ll always grief my childhood, the shit I went through and ofc survivors guilt. I’ll always think about my disabled sister, my friends, my family and so many people that I love.

I really need an explanation to my questions , and what is even the point of living if it’s unfair and most of the time I’m just gonna suffer.

Hi everyone,

I'm writing this because it's been really hard for me to talk about my trauma, and lately I've even struggled to trust myself enough to open up to friends.

I've been dealing with intense self-hatred and emotional spiraling for a long time, and it's been exhausting. About a week ago, I had an experience that made me realize how much deep shame I've been carrying from my past. Since then, I've been trying to work through it, but a small, unintentional comment from a friend recently touched one of my biggest insecurities and brought a lot of those feelings back.

I grew up with extremely controlling parents and was taught beliefs and behaviors that I've had to unlearn as an adult. Even though I'm trying to change, I still struggle with overwhelming self-hatred whenever I'm triggered. Sometimes those moments become so intense that I start having thoughts that life isn't worth living, and that really scares me.

Has anyone else experienced something similar while working through trauma? How did you learn to quiet that inner voice that constantly blames and hates you?