Weird issue about comparing my trauma to others’ (long sorry)

[LivingInLaputa]

I am currently in therapy - I initially went for general day to day stuff (I’m autistic with ADHD) but pretty quickly it got back to issues from sexual abuse in early childhood, and particularly the feelings surrounding my parents’ lack of reaction, not protecting me etc. I’ve had therapy before (as a teen when I first revealed it) but we’ve never gone this deeply into it. For the first time I feel quite on edge about it all, I am struggling between sessions and even started trying to write about what actually happened.

My husband is an abuse survivor too. And it was far, far worse, all types of abuse from his mother from birth to 15. He is also starting to reluctantly confront this more now - he has developed health problems that now mean he will likely never work again, and his mental health is declining due to this (he’s waiting for a trauma specialist). So we are both struggling. Mine is just more “obvious” to an outsider as I’m back to self harming, not really functioning day to day (worse than normal) and he’s taking on a lot of stuff that I’ve checked out of, which I’m really embarrassed about.

I’m carrying so much shame at the moment about it lately and I realised the other day that much of that is actually due to comparing myself to DH. I don’t feel I deserve to talk about it and the guilt I feel that I’m letting this rule me, when he is carrying the rest of us despite having been through a hundred times worse, is astronomical.

For example our family support worker has referred us both to a trauma recovery course, and I found myself asking her if there was a threshold because mine seemed like nothing compared to what DH went through. I was convinced they’d say no to me. Which is ridiculous because if you look at what happened to me in isolation, of course it was “bad enough”. But I feel ashamed of struggling so much in comparison. Even writing this I feel so ashamed as it feels so indulgent to complain about it.

I also realised it’s similar to the shame I feel over my physical health too - I have had chronic pain/fatigue conditions for a few years now, lost my job over it. Now because DH is suffering so extremely, I feel embarrassed to say I’m in pain compared to him. In particular I am currently wishing I was well enough to take on work again, feeling paranoid that people are judging me for not rushing into work like I did last time he had to stop work temporarily (before I got sick).

To clarify, DH has never said anything of the sort, never acted in a way that suggests he thinks he had/has it worse either with health or history, or anything like that. Literally never. The paranoia and shame is all mine and it’s still there no matter how much he tries to reassure me.

Anyone else experienced anything like this? I don’t even know why I’m posting really, I just feel very alone with it.

OP, everyone experiences life differently and is affected differently by the things that happen to them. Concentrate on your own journey.

I've been sexually assaulted on numerous occasions and shrugged it off without any significant or lasting distress at all. I totally recognise that other people who have had my experience have been deeply traumatised. This is to do with their life experience being different from mine and not due to some innate characteristic I have.

On the other hand, once I was incredibly upset for weeks by a minor bitchy comment from a woman I barely knew. I had tried to say something kind and she had essentially told me to F off. To most people it would have been nothing, but I brooded and felt upset for ages.

I am (perhaps a bit clumsily) trying to say that there is no absolute scale for trauma. Embrace the treatment and be kinder to yourself.

There is a scale for the prevalence of certain trauma reactions after different types of trauma but not in the way you are comparing. You, we, are all individuals and so please just talk to your therapist about these feelings and keep going.

Sounds like you are doing great!

OP it's possible (likely) that the abuse committed against you included the message (implicitly or explicitly) "you/your needs don't matter and are not important." Some part of you would certainly have inferred that toxic message, one way or another. You were a child and you had no effective 'voice' to protest the harm being perpetrated on you. You learned to minimise and rationalise it away.

So it's no wonder you now feel unworthy of treatment and the right support. But you are absolutely worthy of it, and I hope it includes working on the harmful messages you internalised and conclusions you came to about yourself, ie. I don't deserve as much love and care as others. You fucking do

Thank you all.

Yes totally true I ended up with that message peninsula again not so much with the actual abuse but with what happened (or rather what didn’t happen) when I revealed it.

I get very needy towards anyone who actually takes it (or anything I’m struggling with) seriously so having a therapist and a family support worker is bringing up a lot of uncomfortable stuff.

I agree 100% with PeninsulaPanic. Please try and take all those feelings to therapy as well, you're definitely not alone in feeling like this. My therapist reminded me very early on that it always gets worse before it gets better. Just remember that you are currently facing your own historical pain, something that most people spend a lifetime avoiding due to how difficult this work is, which is what you are experiencing now, so you need to be so very kind and compassionate with yourself. It just takes time. I wish you all the best.

Dilkhush that’s so true I have had other experiences where my reaction has been either unusually blown up or unusually calm. I’m sorry that happened x

Obviously I’m intrigued about this other scale you mention?

Thank you woolly x

And it is completely understandable that you feel needy, you are (finally) listening to a part of yourself that was effectively stamped on as a child and you are allowing to surface now. So be needy if you need to for now, both of those professionals will have extremely good boundaries and they can cope with your neediness while you need to express it. Keep going.

It's to do with which types of trauma more often lead to PTSD. One off natural disasters are at the lower end in terms of prevalence (although obviously bloody awful and you can still be traumatised!) because there are generally more people who understand it/went through it with you and no shame so it gets talked about lots, then mechanical failures, right up to interpersonal violations where someone else has made us feel e.g. ashamed, powerless, vulnerable and terrified (at the time or after), especially if it was knowingly.

It's not in a competitive way though and doesn't mean we can't recover and go on to lead happy lives, we might just need some support to undo the harm done to us.

Best of luck to you.

Hi, I can be a bit like this, I think it's a coping mechanism.

For instance, like most women I've experienced various sexual traumas etc. I naturally find myself saying 'but it's nothing like women who've experienced X. I'm lucky.'

For me, the thought helps me cope, but I know it's probably also a type of denial maybe.

Please ignore me, I have ADHD with autistic features. :) I realise now that you're feeling guilty/ashamed of your response to what's happened to you.

Maybe it'd help you (it helps me sometimes when I find things difficult) to think you and I don't start on a level playing field to everyone else. We will always find certain things harder- and that's not 100% our fault, we were born with a disability, we can only do the best we can, and forgive ourselves. xxx

Don't push yourself too much when it comes to work etc- I long accepted I can't really work to any great extent- it was hard to accept at first, but I had to adjust. Now and again I'll have ideas for work etc, and will try my best but it doesn't get far off the ground for long. But I try my best, then I acknowledge I have a disability, I can try my very best, but sometimes I won't be able to do something etc, sometimes I will cock up in friendships, all I can do is dust myself down and try again, get back on the wagon etc etc. It does take a bit of drilling in to myself but I think it helps.' So you could try saying something like that to yourself 'I have a disability, I don't start on a level playing field to everyone else. I can only try my best, and forgive myself.'

Sounds like you had enough to deal with without having autism/ADHD. :( Hugs xxxx

Oh and my biggest trauma as far as I knew at one stage was due to bullying. I thought again 'ah, but it's not a real trauma, it's nothing compared to people who experience X' etc, but a therapist I saw took it very seriously (we did EMDR btw, would recommend.)

The actual trauma isn't all that matters- what matters is how it all effected you as a person. x

I don't have much to add to the above responses, other than I can see how it's hard.

I think the more you work through things, with your writing, your therapy and so on, you will come to a point where you feel stronger.

No one is judging you xx

I used to have a old friend who would always keep saying that there were a lot of people worse off than me and that I had a lot to be grateful for. I knew that but it just used to feel so invalidating- pain at the end of the day is pain.

I'm my very first meeting with my current therapist I casually told him somethings my father had said to me. He actually said "oh my G-d". It was normal for me.

It's exactly what Peninsula said.

Thank you all so much. Really appreciate the replies and kindness.

Funnily (!?) enough interested I have generally been saying to people over the last few years that I was far more affected by bullying that happened more recently, luckily I am pretty much through all that to the extent that I probably won’t need to bring it up much, although it certainly left its mark.

But actually now I think about it I think part of the reason I have mostly healed from that is I’ve had friends around me validating that what she did wasn’t ok, a lot of others had run ins with her etc so I guess I got the support I never got as a kid when the abuse happened.