traumastories

[traumastories]

When I was 14, I was sexually assaulted by one of my only friends. It happened at school. It was humiliating and scary.

I felt bad for caring. I felt it wasn't awful enough. I walked out of that bathroom red and shaking and pretending that nothing happened.

The worst thing was that I knew it was coming. I was warned. I spent days trying to avoid it, feeling sick, wondering if I should just kiss them to get them to leave me alone, making up fake stories of flings to get them to go away. Nothing worked. Nor did saying 'no'.

I'm five years on from this event and despite it not being the worst SA I've experienced, it was the most traumatising. The shame I felt and my inability to label what happened to me left me with this burning ball of disgust in my tummy for years.

I still wonder who'd I'd be if it didn't happen.

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[traumastories]

Not sure if this counts as a trauma story, but just last night I realized that the reason I was so shocked to learn that Zuko was older than Azula (Avatar: The Last Airbender) and saw him as having younger sibling vibes is because the relationship dynamic between Zuko and Azula is basically a reflection of the relationship I have with my own (older) sister.

It also explained why I related to him so hard and kinda fixated on the character for several months after watching the show

Scroll down to Zuko for context.

[traumastories]

tw for school abuse/teacher-on-student abuse + graphic description of what happened

When I was in 5th grade (age 10), I was physically dragged to the principal's office.

I don't remember all the details, but I remember that only like 10 of us were in the classroom, doing make-up work or something. The teacher asked me something and I don't remember why, but I got confused and frustrated and put my head down on my desk to collect myself and calm down. She came over and began demanding I look up and answer her or something, then gave me a countdown of 5. When I didn't respond when she reached 5, she grabbed my chair and dragged me out into the hall. The other students watched this happen with horrified expressions.

I ran into the corner (it was shaped like a T, with a classroom on either end of the upper bar, and ours in the middle; the upper bar hallway doubled as a coat rack) and hid under the coats. I was embarrassed furious with her for drawing attention to me like that.

She kept talking to me, but I was in what I know realize was a speech loss episode brought on by the anger and such. She wanted me to stand up and go back into the classroom, and gave me another countdown. I don't remember how long it was, but it wasn't long. Certainly not long enough for a kid to calm down. When I still hadn't responded to her, she went to the classroom on the opposite side of the hall and together she and the other 5th grade teacher grabbed a wrist and dragged me backwards down the halls to the principal's office.

I was mortified and I was angry. I kept kicking, trying to get them to let go as well as to get my feet under me. I did manage the latter once, but they were walking too fast and I fell.

When they finally let go of me, I locked myself in the bathroom.

They called my parents (not telling them what happened; just that I'd locked myself in the bathroom), and they came to school. I actually didn't believe the secretary when she first said my mom was there; I thought it was some sort of trick to get me to open the door. It wasn't until I heard my mom's voice that I actually did open it. They took me home. Apparently I told mom that I didn't like being dragged, but I don't remember this.

The next few days were really confusing. I don't remember much of that time, but I vaguely remember getting Burger King for dinner last night and my siblings not understanding why (I didn't understand why), and the next morning when I went down for school, mom and dad told me to go back upstairs; I wasn't going to school that day. I was relieved (as it meant not having to face everyone after the embarrassment of yesterday), but was really confused about why.

I ended up getting pulled out of public school and mom and dad began homeschooling me. They also talked about sueing the the school, but eventually decided that they weren't able to handle it at that time, and they didn't want to put me through that, either.

At the time I didn't know and didn't really care. But now? I wish they had.

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[traumastories]

if i post this off anon on accident please delete this message. thank you for all that you do here. so... tws for sa, physical and verbal abuse, and age gaps.

a few weeks ago, the system i am a part of began having to deal with an abusive alter who's way older than everyone else and has started abusing my closest friend in the system. at first, it was just emotional manipulation, but it pretty quickly escalated into sa. the system has...never dealt like anything like this before, since we're pretty sure we've never been physically assaulted and we generally don't like to think about the sexual trauma since we're preoccupied by our other mental illnesses most of the time. none of know how to help my friend, including myself, and it's been causing rifts and rapid switching in the system that have been very noticeable to bystanders... we're starting to have to worry about if there are physical signs of this because as it's been escalating into physical harm to the body. it's been hell.

i think the part that we're having the most difficulty with is reaching out for help. because, well, we cope with humor so we've been referring to it as just a inside joke that we're going through personally because we haven't told anyone that it's insystem sexual abuse. we assumed it wouldn't be lasting this long and that we would never have to admit it to anyone. but it's been going on so long it's beginnning to take a toll on our collective mental health because nothing we try works. the abuser will not stop, be reasoned with, be chased off, or give reasoning to the assaults. we all just lose hours of our life to this alter assaulting my friend. we have difficulty reaching out for help for many reasons, but i think the major one is just that we're afraid of causing a domino effect by broaching the subject, triggering everyone, and causing our whole friend group to break down and leave us with zero support and immense guilt. that isn't guaranteed to happen but we're concerned about it anyway. i just wish this would go away on its own and that we didnt have to go through this.

i would not mind advice from you or your followers i think i need ideas of how to deal with this or simply reassurance. thank you again for listening

I hear you and let me offer a spiritual hug directly. Since you asked for advice from me (and anyone who may have it or want to try to help due to lived experience or indirect experience), I'll provide what I can. I will start by saying that I can't understand what it's like to deal with more than one personalities/alters or people inside your brain at once. But I also tend to cope with my trauma with humor so, I get that part. I really have no idea about having several people living inside you, though. I also don't know if that's a traumagenic system or a DID system, though, from what I gathered from my quick search in academic papers, they're connected.

What I can say is that your system falls under the "plurality" umbrella, because you're plural, if that makes sense. Also, the off the cuff advice people always give when someone shares their mental health issues, is inevitably "seek professional help". But in this case that would, personality, not be my advice, unless you could access a private therapist. Otherwise, there could be a chance, depending on where you're from and your background (financial, family, etc.), that'd they'd lock you up. So, a lot of people resource to online communities and peer support, and for good reason.

Now, you (and I assume this is the narrator or host speaking), are having trouble dealing with this internal turmoil of all these alters (doesn't matter how many, it's at least more than four, I suppose) being sent into disarray. And you say that you (plural) have no memory of ever having been SA'd, however, and that's where I'll be doing some guesswork, there is a chance that it could have happened and you don't remember. It's not uncommon for SA survivors to have gaps in their memories due to that. And you're talking about your experience with a form of DID/Traumagenic System, and that always stems from bad traumatic childhood/early teens experiences with abuse of any kind (from what I'm reading, like I say in the pinned, I'm not a qualified professional. All I can do is assess what papers are legitimate or not). So, what I'm trying to say here is that perhaps this new alter who is much older and is not helpful (which can happen), is the reflection of someone and something that happened in your (host) past that you (host) can't remember because it's too painful. And for that, I believe professional help is needed, if anything, to prescribe medication and allow you (all of you) to think. I've heard of people who did regression therapy and it worked for them, too. I will get to that in the next paragraph.

This type of situation or rather, this kind of system of alters, often arise to protect your mind when you have a predisposition for schizoid personality disorders. Perhaps, if you can, try to see if anyone in your family exhibits any kind of behavior that could be associated with that. And here I can give second-hand examples. I have to friends who are schizoid. One of them is sort of like you, has a system and alters with different voices. Sometimes they lose of control what they're doing because of that and that leads to SH that they only notice when they "regain the reigns" or if someone is around and stops them. They have a history of personality disorders in their family. My other friend is also schizoid and their story is similar, and I'm more familiar with their story. Their mother was narcissistic, very abusive, and had delusions that the house was haunted and would attack my friend, etc. So, my friend ended up exhibiting schizoid traits in their late teens (we have known each other since I was 9, that's around 22 years now. They weren't like that when we met). They got diagnosed and are medicated now, they did regression therapy and it helped, but before that they also had episodes where they'd lose the "reigns" and SH. And they also had hallucinations (my other friend also does).

The difference between them is mostly that my old friend doesn't have alters, but they heard voices and had sensorial and auditory hallucinations. And my old friend sought help (in their 20s, much like me for my issues) and it actually did help, especially because they found they were also autistic. That last bit shouldn't have been a shocker, but it's been proven that AFAB autistic people go undiagnosed for longer than AMAB autistic people due to the socialization and how embryonic the study of autism still is (personally, I think that three levels is not enough). I'm going on a tangent here, but perhaps this will also help, because maybe you (the host? Someone in the system?) is also autistic.

Check out this article, it may help you understand things. And maybe it'll help see what you can do or what could work for you.

And finally, because like I said, I tend to respond emotionally, which also means writing a lot so I apologize for the mini-essay, this reminds me of Plato's 'Phaedrus' and the Chariot Allegory. Quickly summed up, it involves a chariot pulled by two horses whose reigns are held by a charioteer. The chariot as a whole represents the soul, the charioteer represents reason, and there is a white horse that represents the wish and boldness to ascend to the divine, the spirit, hubris, something that the charioteer can't control. And there is a black horse that represents humanity, the desire for human pleasures and the charioteer can't control it either. The link provides the text but the analysis isn't something I fully agree with, because both horses are part of human nature and neither is better than the other.

Why did I remember this? Because in your case, there isn't one charioteer, but several, and that can help because there are more hands to keep the chariot moving forward and control those horses, but now that there's one overpowering all the others through fear and abuse, it's generating chaos to the point where you (and your alters) are struggling and the chariot is capsizing constantly. Maybe my advice, if you can't access professional help to get medication and calm your mind, would be to try to understand where this alter comes from and what it wants. And then try to understanding what kind of manipulation it's using to maybe connect it to someone who may have hurt you (the host) in the past.

I hope all this helps a bit and that those articles and references also help shed some light on the situation. All the best x

(And the replies are open, so please, do help if you can. And/or correct anything I may have said wrong, please.)

[traumastories]

tw SA, child abuse, child neglect

when I was 7 or 8 or so, my mom sent us to a babysitter. She didn't know the babysitter was bad, she had heard good things. But God, the babysitter was fucking awful. I don't know how she wasn't in prison.

I went with two of my siblings. The worst part was probably the starvation. We didn't get a meal for the whole day. Not one bit of food, except at dinner, when we were home. I developed an eating disorder where I eat things I shouldn't eat. I remember eating the couch. The couch.

Then the abuse. I watched my siblings be beat and I was beat myself. We have physical deformities from the abuse.

Then the sexual abuse. I don't remember much of this but it happened. All three of us were sexually assaulted and God knows what else at that house.

I didn't get a chance to recover because I was so young. I just pushed it down but it's finally coming back to haunt me and it hurts.

I'm glad to have gotten this out

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[traumastories]

tw idk maybe rsd? abuse?

i think most ppl around here will have ptsd or cptsd or something like that so I really don't know if this needs that many tws? I'm not sure. You see what applies. Thanks for this blog because i feel really ashamed of this and can't really say it publicly because I feel like it's stupid. It's that my entire life when someone said something negative about something I did or said, it hit me really hard because it was followed by punishment. So now if it happens, I still feel that and I feel like when someone doesn't like something I did or I'm rejected for whatever reason, it's a rejection of me as a person and that I'm worthless and all I do is shit. And it's not that I can't handle rejection for example in relationships and that makes me go after the person or anything. In those cases I just leave or maybe try to apologize but ultimately I leave because I don't want to be a burden. But when it's in other cases it triggers me and I feel this unreasonable fear of punishment and extreme violence because of my past. And it just sucks and it's been making me feel hopeless and makes me isolate and not speak for fear of upsetting people. It's kind of like idk a mix of not wanting to bother them again and a fear of punishment.

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[traumastories]

https://www.tumblr.com/traumastories/756932420329209856/so-we-arent-ready-to-talk-about-this-quite-yet?

We're the anon who sent in this story and we just wanted to note that we do not have DID 😅

Sorry we should've clarified that better in our post. We are a traumagenic system, at least in part, but it's not DID

Got it. Sorry for assuming that. It's already changed. I'll take this opportunity to say that if the tags aren't right or accurate, or even if I missed something, anyone can send a message and let me know and I'll change them without questioning. I'll only say this here and add it to the pinned. All the best to you x

[traumastories]

TW: CSA, SA, Eating disorder, Knives, Suicide attempts

When I was 19 I was SA'd, not much happened but the remarks about my body and the touches really shook me to the core. I managed to escape because I had a pocket knife that startled the predator. I felt fucking gross and still kind of do even after all these years and because of that I started hating the way I looked and avoiding people and I fell into a deep depression that I never had the proper means to address and developed an eating disorder that 10 years later is still ongoing and shows no signs of improving. I have tried to commit a couple times, almost succeeded once, but nobody even knows about it because I guess it wasn't my time and I was able to play it off as an accident out of shame. It wasn't the only instance of sexual harassment I had to endure, either. It has happened several times and I don't even think I'm good-looking or attractive or whatever. I think I just look like an easy target and it fucks me up real bad. I don't know what to do. I'm almost 30 and I can't see myself in a relationship or even trusting someone enough to try it out. I had to deal with SA as a kid as well, but at the time it was just weird and I didn't think much of it because it wasn't, painful, if that even makes sense. But looking back it left a scar and that's the reason I always got paranoid going out at night alone and started carrying a knife.

This is something nobody knows and I'm not really ready to talk about but I needed to say it somehow because it's always there when someone shows interest in me for whatever reason. Thanks for this blog.

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[traumastories]

So, we aren't ready to talk about this quite yet in therapy, but I kinda want to share it here anyways. (We did previously share this on one of our blogs; please do not draw attention to that post or refer to it or anything. Just act like you never saw it before)

(We're a system, but at the time this happened, our host was unaware of this, so this is technically her story, but for clarity I'm going to tell it from just a general first person)

TW kinda graphic? / possibly unreality triggering/description of unreality trigger

When I was a young teenager, my sister told me that I had murdered our infant sister when I was a kid. I've always been really sensitive to unreality stuff and she was being a really good actor and I was actually starting to believe her.

She said that she, mom, and dad had all been in the other room when they were a noise like a muffled cry or something coming from the baby's room and they all ran to see me holding a pillow over the baby's face. Apparently her name was Lily. They told me to stop but I just looked up at them, smiling sweetly, and said, "No <3" She said that I was a "psychopath" and that they put me through intensive therapy to make me forget that it happened.

By this point I was very firmly telling her "Stop" and "No, I didn't" and similar things, but it was mostly because I was starting to panic that she was actually telling the truth this time. She ignored me and kept going with the story, even at one point lowering her gaze to the floor and saying "I miss her" in a heartbroken whisper.

I don't remember if I refuted it more or if I was just silent or what, but shortly after this she looked up smiling and admitted the whole thing was made up and it was just a joke. At the time, I* was too relieved to be upset and I made the mistake of trying to ease the tension by saying, "You almost had me/I almost believed you" or something (which was true).

She instantly reacted with "What! I/You did? No! Argh!" She kinda did one of those self-berating/self-frustrated gestures. "I guess I'll just have to try harder next time."

Fortunately, she didn't try to convince me of anything like this ever again (that we remember), but I was worried she would try for a long while after that. We sometimes still wonder if it was true anyways, or will question other things she's said to us (the narrator especially). It's awful and miserable not knowing if you can trust someone to actually tell you the truth, especially when you know they've purposely tried to get you to to believe a falsehood before.

When I told my mom about a month ago, she was horrified and that's when I found out my sister was abusive towards me!

*Me personally: I'm furious. The one this happened to, the one the story is written in the perspective of, isn't, but is upset by it. Just not mad, per se

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[traumastories]

I know this is just for stories so I get not posting this but this is a really nice thing you’re doing. thank you

And I know it's nice when our messages aren't ignored (though, as stated, hateful, rude, and general off-topic messages will be thoroughly dismissed). I will take this chance to thank you back for your time coming in here to say that. I appreciate it. I'm the kind to try to help, and I saw that April was high-strung, what with giving advice and sharing all those things. She helps a lot (me included), so I decided to try to help back. I will be posting as many stories as possible. Only one person has shared their story at the time of me responding to this, and that is why there aren't more stories yet. I created this blog yesterday without a lot of thought, just the bare bones, so that I wouldn't forget. But I will be adding more information to the pinned post today. Something that I will not be adding there is that I used to be on Reddit, where there are several peer support communities that are quite nice. I believe that it will be easier to manage here since the notification system is better, and I will be keeping an eye on replies, if this gets traction. But I will be counting on people to practice compassion and support the people who send their stories and try to flush out any negative comments and bad actors. We know that hate really is louder than love, and one mean message can ruin someone's day. All I want is that people try to focus on the positive. And if there is no answer to their particular post, I hope that me posting it, is sufficient to let them know that at least one person cared enough to read it. Once again, thank you. I hope you have a great day and let's try to create a safe space around here for people like us to vent without having to do so on their main. x

[traumastories]

tw sa

hey. i’ve got a story to share. im stupid broke right now. like STUPID broke, so i’ve been doing a lot of less than ideal things. i met this person on grindr and she offered to pay for my uber over and for dinner the first time i came over. i was just bored and hungry at home so i took her up on it. we ended up getting really high and having mediocre sex. part of the mediocrity was some frankly creepy things she said and her not being good with boundaries. fast forward a few more times plus some chatting, eventually we end up falling into a weird relationship where she says she can’t afford to be my sugar mommy, but sends me money sporadically. we feel into a routine where i usually go see her after she sends me money. she’s also bought content from me at this point, so i would really love if i could just push her more into client territory. she claims sex is not a necessity, but every time without fail, we get high, i let her do whatever. i’m just not comfy around her sober and i have to be high to get through it. well about two nights ago i was on my bs again, i came over, we were high, i was letting her touch me, but she was being way too much. (i’m into kink, the only reason this is relevant is bc of the stoplight system). i say yellow; she stops for a second, and then starts again. this happens a few more times. she has me under her heavy blanket while choking me and i literally can’t breathe and have to cough, choke, and scream out RED before she stops. even THEN she tried to start again once she thought i was good. at this point i was throughly rattled and called an uber and said i needed to sleep in my own bed. i’m glad i got out and i never want to see her again. i’ve blocked her in the past and then seen her send me money and unblocked out of guilt. i need to just block her again, and even if she sends me something, i need to stand my ground. we don’t officially have a relationship where she’s paying for that anyways. it’s this weird unspoken thing. she only sees me as a sex object, despite what she says, which i really hate and makes me feel dirty. anyways. that happened, and it sucked, and i’m gonna try to not go back to it.

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[traumastories]

This blog is not run by user traumasurvivors (April). I have decided to take the burden off her shoulders.

Some information about me, for anyone who needs it: I am 30+. If you must refer to me, my pronouns are he/him. I am a transgender and white-passing Latino. I am a fellow trauma survivor/endurer with diagnosed Level 1-2 Autism and Inattentive Type ADHD along with (C)PTSD. I also live with chronic pain as well as the chronic disabilities that come with those congenital and mental issues.

This is meant to be a place to encourage peer support, and hope it becomes that. I understand how beneficial it is to be heard and able to vent your story anonymously when you can't access mental health care or aren't quite ready to speak up openly yet.

Adding this on the 30th of July, because it seems to be a concern. All stories will be anonymous. If someone accidentally sends it off anonymous, I will let them know and will not post it. Further, if that happens, you can be sure that your identity will not be revealed to anyone. The exception to this rule can be someone using a burner account in order to get direct interactions from other users, in which case, the person should let me know it's a burner, that is, an account not associated with them. An alternative to this, in case you want direct responses, could be a burner email account. That is a risk, though, so you must consider the possibility of having to take responsibility for potentially triggering messages.

By sending your story/ask, you must understand that the internet is unforgiving and there are chances of people being rude and mean. By submitting your story, you take responsibility for the possible triggering remarks of other users. I say this, not to shake off the responsibility, but because I cannot control what other people say.

I will not respond to the stories, only tag. I will not judge, but if your story is posted, you can be sure that you have my support.

The purpose of this sideblog is so that people can have a place to share their stories without having to do it with their face attached to them. Venting is allowed. Supporting the person is strongly encouraged. But I will ask that people who want to give advice in the replies or reblogs, do so respectfully.

Again, all that is being asked for is respect for the people behind the screen. We don't know where someone is coming from and their circumstances. Practice kindness and compassion.

If you must judge, as people do, judge with compassion and understanding. Hateful or rude asks and off-topic asks will be thoroughly ignored and deleted. The same will happen with inflammatory replies. Depending on how rude it is, it may warrant a block.

Sending stories and directly asking for advice from other people who may want to give it is allowed (specify if you want mine as well, but I will say that I am not a qualified mental healthcare professional and I have the tendency to react emotionally and go above and beyond, so really think if that's what you want).

I hope this anonymous venting place helps more than it harms.

Again, everything will be tagged appropriately and if you see your story and the tags aren't accurate, send a message and I'll change them. Further, if you read a story and feel that something wasn't tagged, let me know and I'll add it. I won't reply to more asks about that. I will just make the changes. More personal replies will be tagged as "not a story" and "info". Trauma stories will be tagged as "trauma story". And requests for advice will be tagged as "advice request" as well as "trauma story", if it applies.

Finally, remember that while you didn't ask to be born and endure the trials you have had to endure, you are worthy of compassion, of life, and of wanting to find happiness. Love is stronger than hate, even if hate is louder.