Trauma's fun little side effect of convincing you that you're overreacting comes with its own fun side effect that I don't see talked about very often.
Like one of those awful times you find yourself craving for more terrible things to happen to you.
You start with feeling stupid about being traumatised. You feel like you're overreacting, like what you went through "wasn't bad enough" and that you "have no right to feel this way."
And when there's the slightest possibility for more trauma, emotional or otherwise? A tiny part of you wishes for it to happen.
Walking down the streets at night? Maybe there's a creep waiting for me at the turning. Dog needs surgery? Maybe he won't wake up from it. Friend feeling suicidal? Maybe they'll go through with it. Family member's chest hurts? Maybe it's a heart attack. Empty threats from neighbouring country? Maybe it'll lead to a war. Stranger just standing on top of a building, minding their own business? Maybe you'll watch them fall.
And it sucks, it sucks so much, because you wind up feeling horribly guilty about feeling this way. That "disgusting" 0.001% of you that sort of hopes your loved ones would be hurt or would pass away or something makes you feel like a heartless, soulless monster.
You start feeling self centred, start loathing yourself for wishing pain on someone else, just so you'd get to feel grief or agony like you crave. You start to feel downright evil.
Let this post be a reminder for you to stop feeling guilty.
Because this isn't you putting your own feelings over someone else's well-being. This isn't you wishing the worst on someone. This isn't proof that you're a bad person.
This is you dealing with your trauma. This is your brain being so warped by something outside your control that it's making you think things you wouldn't be caught dead thinking about, if you weren't traumatised.
This is you wishing pain upon yourself. Not your friends. Not your family.
Yourself.
This is you being so exhausted with having your trauma-related pain invalidated again and again and again (by yourself, or by others) that you hope for something traumatising to happen to you again, so you'll finally be "allowed" to feel the pain you're feeling already.
You are not the person your trauma makes you out to be. You are not a monster.
Don’t you love it when you remember an old therapist laughing in your face because you told her how you were sexually objectified as a child by a family member🤪😜😂🤣😇😛🤪🤪🤓🤓😉😎😌🤨😏😎🥳😇🤩😒😞🧐🤪🤪😃😃😛😆😝😆😝😚☺️
Neurotypicals: Don’t let your condition bother you or affect your life in any ways! I know you have x disorder, but the symptoms shouldn’t really impair your life!
DSM Diagnosis of Literally Every Disorder: The symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.