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?

I’ve experienced many traumas but don’t want to get into a competition on here with everyone else, it’s seems a bit wrong to be doing this. Op if you feel your traumas are causing you distress, seek support, listing them & encouraging others to do this like a tick box exercise doesn’t sit right with me.

My thoughts are with you all.

An alcoholic parent
Sexual abuse
Bullying by what used to be best friend and subsequent loss of friendship
A horrible birth and almost loss of DC
Miscarriage
Death of a parent

Domestic violence in the home
Severe bullying in school
Suicide of a family member
Sexual assault
My chronic health condition
Breakdown of family (siblings cutting off other siblings)

I now have mental health problems, mostly anxiety, which I believe are a response to my childhood. I can also be a perfectionist, people pleaser and shy. I'm trying so hard to not pass this on to my children.

Thinking of everyone x

• Financially abusive relationship
• Coercive rape
• Cheated on which led to depression
• In laws died in tragic circumstances
• PND
• Supporting DH with mental health and addiction problems - this has been the worst

After all of these experiences I live with constant anxiety and I have severe gut issues (gastroenterologist says they're linked). I've just taken stock, started getting more sleep and started on anxiety tablets. Try to focus on yourself OP and work out what you need to heal.

Difficult childhood including illness and addiction in the home.Sexually uneducated leading to teenage problems.Relationship issues, both with ptsd and therapy.
Happiness and calm eventually.

Oh I forgot a side of serious workplace bullying is which left me on the verge.

I grew up with abusive narcissist parents
My eldest sister was the golden child and bullied me
my younger brother committed peer on peer sexual abuse on me
i have never told my parents the above as they would not believe me
I was abused by my Duke of Edinburgh assessor
My parents moved me schools to stop me having friends, my father beat me
My parents persuaded me to dump my first boyfriend as he was a wimp - actually he was normal
married and physically abused by the next man
divorced
few more abusers

then grew a backbones got counselling got a dog and created my own family

My mother had cancer during my school exams.
I moved countries four times before I was 21 (not a trauma as such, but the first two moves had a big impact on my family).
My father had a stroke abroad
(Subsequently died after we flew him home).
I developed type 1 diabetes during first pregnancy.
I came home to find my husband dead in our bedroom, with our young kids in the bath upstairs.
My mother died when I was flying out to see her, but parents die, so while terribly sad it's normal, and she was 89 and not well, so it wasn't really that traumatic.

Grew up in a war zone. Learnt to deal with it

I haven’t read the whole thread but what I have read is extremely tough going - so sorry for what you guys have been/are going through. It’s also tough to list my personal traumas but maybe it will help me in some way to do that :-
Indecently assaulted at age 13, then receiving a Christmas card from my assailant who had somehow found out where I lived
Hit by a boyfriend I had in my early 20s
Bullied ( not physically) at secondary school & in more than one workplace
Emotionally & verbally abused by DH
Two miscarriages & failed fertility treatment
I was in the California earthquake of 1989

There’s a lot

The emotional and physical abuse that comes from having a parent with narcissistic personality disorder.
Being ostracised by the rest of the family because of said parent.
Coercive control in marriage.
raped
Death of the nice parent
5 chronic illnesses

but the worse is being conscious throughout most, and sometimes all, of a tonic clonic epileptic fit. That shit is horrific and I take meds to help with the ptsd from it.

Forgot to add the older teenage nonce next door. (I was 8)

And the failed anaesthetic during c-section. I did recover from that trauma and have a second DC

Childhood physical/emotional abuse/neglect, gun pulled on me, threatened to be killed daily as a child and living in constant fear of actual violence and threats of violence examples include having my face/head wrapped in cling film to try and suffocate me, being dragged in front of cars by my hair to get me run over.

Fucked my education because I fully expected I'd be dead by 16 due to the extreme violence at home so hardly bothered going to school at all. Few weeks before GCSEs he pulled a gun on me and was finally arrested and removed from family home.

Father sexually violent and physically violent with my mum (I believe I was conceived through rape and have major hang ups over this)

Mum had several "weird" boyfriends including one who would press his face against the bathroom window when I was in the bath (even now I feel jittery being naked in the bathroom)

Sexual "relationship" with an adult aged 13 (mainly because they had their own place and it helped me escape abuse at home)

16 - 21yrs in a relationship with a heroin addict who was 5 years older (he's now dead)

21 - 25yrs married an abusive prick who anally raped me (I'd never had anal sex before or after)

26 - * Met sons father. Turned out to be abusive (unsurprisingly given it my was "normal"). Strangled me, threatened to kill me, cheated multiple times, gaslighting me continuously to a point I didn't know what was real and what wasn't any more. Left when I suspected he was a paedophile due to suspicious searches and online activity (nothing conclusive but enough to make me strongly suspect) - he confessed to me (then later the police - though later withdrew police confession despite me giving statements) years later. He then went on to severely beat his subsequent partners, including his most recent partner who is now losing sight in one of his eyes due to the extensive beatings he's endured.

In a much better place now in the sense that I'm "safe" although DS dad lives local and I do worry sometimes he might come and burn my house down (he's done this to previous businesses and threatened ex partners with it before). I don't live in constant fear though. Not like I used to. Besides, he's in prison a lot of the time these days.

There's a lot more "minor" (minor by comparison at least) traumatic things I've been through. I've been seeing psychiatrists on and off since 18 (in large part due to suicide attempts in my late teens) and although I've no formal diagnosis I'm certain I have PTSD. I was diagnosed as bipolar years ago but believe it was a misdiagnosis. Obviously I'm also left with huge anxiety and depression. On the outside I look "normal" but I struggle with the simplest of things some days, I find myself so repulsive that at times I find it hard to leave the house. I can't work due to my mental health but feel judged for it. Reading about everyone elses trauma makes me so sad that so many have been through similar things, how does everyone else cope daily? I feel like a complete failure at being a proper adult.

@ElEmEnOhPee I don’t see you as a failure but a survivor and a strong bloody survivor at that. I completely understand the misunderstanding of a “normal” marriage. Ask your gp with help for your anxiety, I did and the meds make a massive difference to my life. 💐

Survivors and to break the chain. You can be the difference to your child and partner. The wrong things are awful, but the joy in the most boring normal life is what I live for.

1. Parents separated aged 3 - moved home

2. Childhood neglect (single parent with MH issues in bed all day, left to fend for myself alone all day, not fed etc) - ages 3-7 probably most traumatic age.

3. We lost all our possessions aged 7, including most of my beloved toys and all my baby stuff which I loved.

4. Ongoing homelessness, poverty, lack of food/heat/light unt age 18. Never enough to eat, having to borrow money from teenage school-friends to eat. Smelling of hoarded house. Parent hoarding seriously bad, encrusted animal feces etc. Evicted on 2+ occasions, almost always close to being homeless. Revising for exams by candlelight.

5. Disappointing final year Oxbridge exams leading to suicide attempt.

6. Relationship breakdown. Ten years ‘love of my life etc’

7. Managerial bullying/crying at work (3 individuals at different times) totally destroyed confidence. One time was during grieving breakup above.

8. Clearing hoarding parent’s insanely disgusting hoarded homes on 4 occasions. First occasion involved a lot of encrusted cat feces.

9. sudden death of estranged father, never had a chance to reconcile after split from parent. Had hoped to.

10. Burn out/health crash due to insane levels of overwork. Autoimmune disease/iffy thyroid.

11. All at once: Covid lockdown, ADHD crash and diagnosis.

12. During and since 11), 12 pregnancy losses, 5 disappointing rounds of IVF and impending childlessness at 40.

13. Health anxiety arising out of 10, 11, 12

14. Autistic partner unable to fully emotionally connect, hates physical contact/hugs/kissing so all of the above done without adequate affection/attention. Loneliness.

Quite a lot - good to write it down!

15 Oh and emotional manipulation from mentally unwell parent, temper tantrums and narc behaviour if crossed. Lashes out etc.

• Born 3 months prematurely and weaned off heroin at birth.

Adopted and had a fantastic upbringing and feel very fortunate to have been lucky in this respect.

• My main traumatic experiences over the past few years are a mild traumatic brain injury and post concussion syndrome, then getting an iatrogenic (medication induced) neurological involuntary movement disorder called tardive dyskinesia that was caused by some prescribed off label antipsychotic for a breakdown after the head injury.

• Living with this permanent neurological disorder

• An ectopic pregnancy and surgery

• Watching my brother pass away aged 35 from bowel cancer

• Contacting my birth mum and then she passed away from throat cancer last year

I suffered CSA at an early age and several further times throughout my life.
My dad left my life at 4, not before exposing me to his poor Mh and addiction issues.
I was physically abused at home.
My mum was neglectful.
I never felt safe until I was 24.
I've been in multiple abusive relationships.
I spent mu childhood fulfilling parenting responsibilities for my siblings, who were the n not allowed to see me when I was disowned by my family when I was 17.
I have been alone since I was 17.
I have I'll health.
I think it all counts as trauma.

A serious car accident in my teens that still causes me pain 8 years later
Friends suicide attempt
Being bullied out of my first job by an insecure supervisor who took a dislike to me from day one.

Feeling totally traumatised by so many things that have happened but gaslighted by the support network I have including family and health professionals. I have a lot of trust issues now and feel very wary of the medical establishment and Big Pharma as a whole, in spite of the amazing neonatal care I received ❤

Domestic violence as a child by my step dad, against me and my mum, from age 9 to 17.

Constant bullying at school.

Rape age 15 and then 4 other occasions,.most recently 2013.

Domestic violence for 10 years by my ex fiance.

3 miscarriages.

Sexual assault by colleagues at work.

PTSD - reliving traumas through triggers and nightmares of the same things happening over and over again.

Having an undiagnosed borderline personality mother who's fallen out with every therapist she's ever had so relies on me to offload her every waking thought to. The constant shame that comes with being raised in a very strict Christian household. This isn't a religion I've chosen to pursue in adulthood but its hard to let go of that stigma around enjoying anything outside the church. I feel awful even including myself in this as these are nothing compared to others who have shared here.