What traumas have you experienced?

[JamSandle]

I've been reflecting on my life and trying to figure out how much trauma I've experienced. This is because i feel like the impact of these things is lingering along inside me and I'm trying to figure out if its because I've had an adverse response to normal life events and have poor coping strategies.I've kept it vague to avoid being outing. Obviously also what people define as trauma is variable and not necessarily the dictionary definition.

I've listed:

• death of a parent (young)
• several relationship breakdowns including partners with addiction, infidelity and sociopathy
• chronic mental health condition
• marriage breakdown

I'm curious. What have you experienced that you consider to be a trauma?

My mum had PND
I had cancer
my marriage broke down

Thank you for sharing. Do you feel you've been able to weather your traumas well or do you actively have to work on it?

I'd definitely say these are traumas. No one can say whether your coping strategies are poor or not. I tend not to believe people who say "it didn't do me any harm"

I've lived with violence inside and outside the home, witnessed and experienced abuse.

Physical and emotional abuse from my mother.

Several sexual assaults including the aftermath and how others dealt with it.

Two really fucked up relationships.

My partner suggested to me id been through trauma and I shot it down so its helpful to reflect and see that I've been through some traumatic experiences. They were mostly clustered around a very tight period of time as well.

I note when I feel I'm losing someone I dip into feeling suicidal, have panic attacks and fall apart completely. I wonder if it takes me to the grief of my parent, marriage and relationships.

I've gone through
Traumatic health event
Domestic violence
Rape
Death of a partner
Death of a parent

My traumas :
witnessing domestic violence
parental separation
changing schools several times
growing up in poverty
single depressed mother emotionally unavailable
bad experiences with drugs
emotional financial and physical abuse from partner
🥲🥲🥲

Oh gosh too many

If I had to count them I’d have to rock myself to sleep
life can be shit at times
sometikew I think all we can do is try to be good parents to try and stop the cycle of trauma

Death of a sibling when I was 17 and becoming the adult of the family as my parents were lost in grief for years

Divorce due to exh cheating with a close friend

Severe health condition

Obviously named changed for this.

Followed around as a teen and flashed at repeatedly
Boyfriend attempted to kill me
Raped by my husband
Divorce
Workplace bullying

It's not surprising I have PTSD.

As a child, my mum told me often that she was only here because of me (she was sectioned after a suicude attempt and then found out she was pregnant), and followed that one up with several more suicide attempts when I was a teenager. I had to drop out of uni to deal with this.

My dad had minimal contact, but was really proud of his step-kids that were the light of his life. He never really seemed to know what to say to me, I think he was just one of those guys who want nothing to do with the kids other than take the credit and be proud.

My boyfriend I was living with at 17/18 just didn’t come home one day, ghosted me, never saw or heard from him again. Pretty much left with the clothes on his back and a few items he valued (he didn’t have much tbh). I suspect our “mutual” friends knew more but denied it.

Trauma is all in how it's experienced by the person not in the seriousness of the events per se. Though of course certain experiences can be so terrible we describe them as traumatic without question. Losing a parent while young counts as an ACE. Experiencing life long or important MH issues would also be - almost inevitably - traumatizing. Seems to me OP that you have certainly had your fair share of significant life problems likely to lead to some degree of trauma. Your reaction to potential loss for instance speaks volumes to your inner world.

I've been through:

A mother who is clearly a paranoid schizophrenic (I got blamed for EVERYTHING) and choosing men over me my entire life
Childhood sexual abuse
Abandonment from my bio father
Domestic abuse witnessed inside the home and out- neighbours
My mother being raped and then having a mental breakdown. I was 12 at the time and I worked every Saturday so we could eat/ put electric on the meter
Bullied for not having the right clothes/ right body shape.

Some of these are worse than others but helped talking to a psych as they told me I'd witnessed pretty traumatic situations and been involved in many myself.

I've had trauma but now avoid stress hateful people and will cut out anyone or anything that causes friction pain or stress. Something I should have done years ago . I also listen to my gut instinct. If I had of done I would have saved myself so much trauma.

@JustAnotherMonday my mum did that.
Did you feel resentful or guilty? It used to make me really angry because it was like I was being blamed for her still being here. In her mind she probably thought I'd feel more loved about her sticking around for me. When in fact I just felt like it was my fault she was still here.
That sort of shit fucks your kids up massively.

Have you been able to deal with the trauma well?

I'm sorry you had to go through so much 🌼

Going to see my newborn daughter in NICU thinking she was just been taking for observation due to 'shock' from a quick birth to be told she had two seizures during the night.

Then she got diagnosed with bacterial meningitis (which has hideous mortality/long term effect rates).

Then I was told after a MRI that parts of her brain had effectively died during the seizures, with no real way of knowing what effect it would have.

The worst of it is when the doctor turned to me and asked "if I had ever felt unwell". It was like a stab to the heart and I spiralled wondering if I had been unwell but dismissed it. Did I eat something bad? Did I dismiss a high temp?

While I was never set on having more than one, this event solidified it for me. I genuinely could not spend nine months growing a baby and be shit scared every minute thinking I was unwell and potentially harming my unborn baby.

Thankfully my daughter seems perfectly well, but the true test is still to come with schooling. At least I know by having her as an only that we have the resources to give her whatever support she needs.

Father died when I was two
Multiple unnecessary surgeries
Mother with serious mental health problems (and Munchausens by proxy I now realise)
Abusive first marriage
Abandonment issues caused by the first 2
Alcoholic for 25 years (possibly due to the above!)

Abuse by ex-husband :-
Sexual including rape, various forms of physical, emotional and psychological, verbal and coercive control .
Alcoholic partner and all that goes with it, also physical and verbal abuse
Death of a parent whilst I was fairly young
I have a serious and complex mental illness as a result of these plus genetic factors
Severe bullying at school.
There is more but I'm struggling to concentrate right now.

It's likely you won't remember the most important traumas because they happened in the days, weeks, months immediately after birth.
A baby whose belief system hasn't yet been formed can be severely traumatised by a neglectful parent.

In childhood:
Parent with severe mental health issues and multiple partners.
physical, sexual and emotional abuse towards me.
neglect.
MH breakdowns and hospitalisations (mine)

In adulthood:
abusive relationship
MH breakdowns and addictions
child undergoing multiple surgeries and extensive time in NICU
decades working in trauma work (child protection etc)

Oh and death of other, protective parent in childhood.

Death of a teenaged brother
Death of a mother very young

Rape
DV
Coercive control
Traumatic birth while being abused
Some very hard casework in work too 😢

deaths - childhood friends and family from causes like heat failure, suicide, RTA and acts of god.

Bullying at school- threats of violence, being ostracised etc.

Betrayal - friends doing breathtakingly nasty things

Diagnosis of child with a rare disease

Discovery of an affair.

The worst traumas were piled on top of each other . So the diagnosis was happening at the same time as the affair discovery.

NC for this
Physical abuse & neglect by alcoholic parents endless list of ACEs
CSA by pedophile uncle (church defrocked him as he eventually was caught)
Bullied at school (8 schools from reception to Yr11)
Terror attack in U.K. as a child
Suicide of parent when in twenties
Homeless teen living in a tent for months
Raped x2
Attempted rape & murder (that bastard stabbed me)
Strangled (got this bastard on GBH)
Assault…ha too many to count
Dog attack requiring stitches
Riot with looting/burning cars and buildings
Loss of friend to cancer
Survived melanoma skin cancer
Miscarriage in 2nd trimester
In plane that almost crashed- 2 engines were on fire
Fell into class IV rapids and almost drowned
Serious car accidents x2

Work related:
Being at a FOB in a war for six month deployments & all that x5