Trauma Response - Tumblr Posts

Alecto's job as a Fury is castigating the moral crimes (such as anger) of humans, especially if they are against others. Alecto's function is similar to Nemesis, with the difference that Nemesis's function is to castigate crimes against the gods, not mortals. Her punishment for mortals was Madness.

“Be angry and do not sin” is a phrase from the Bible, Ephesians 4:26, which says, “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath”. The verse means that while it is permissible to be angry, it is important to avoid sinning in the process.

Here are some things to consider when dealing with anger:

Be aware of sinful abuse

Anger is an emotion that is prone to sinful abuse, so it is important to be careful not to sin while angry.

Check your feelings

Consider if you are angry at things that God hates.

Put anger away

It is important to put anger away and not let it last until the end of the day.

Handle anger quickly

Anger can be a helpful emotion, but it should be handled quickly and carefully to avoid leading to sin.

Don't give the devil a foothold

Anger can give the devil a foothold in your life, so it is important to avoid letting anger control you.

Why u mad, bro?

Momentai.

what if the vengeful soul of the earth remembered the people who cared about her and braided her hair every morning. what then

(bonus because I know this is what you guys wanted and I'd hate to disappoint)

A comic about the spectrum of responses to stress - we talk alot about the more extreme ends of this and trauma, but the more subtle and every day responses can be harder to spot. if we can understand our own and other’s responses better, problems Are easier to confront and blaming is less likely to happen :) hope it’s helpful!!

This is the reminder card for my follow up appointment after my abortion. I've kept it since receiving it in the last few days of 2016. My woman asked why I've kept so many things that hurt and remind me of terrible times.

These scraps corroborate my story. If I don't keep them, the terrible things that have happened to me just become a figment of my imagination; another false excuse as to why I'm not a better adjusted Adult.

Furthermore, and probably the darker side of my trauma response, I've felt I deserve the misery these memories stir up. Comfort is not something I'm entitled to given my sins and finding reminders of that is part of how I can atone. Real pain is penance after all.

I told her. She said all of the right things. The kind, supportive words we all allow to bounce off of us; so unlike the things he would have said, which I would have allowed to soak into my core.

But I will try a little harder, and today I shredded this damn thing.

My heart softens when I look at these pictures. And I mourn for this little guy.

It's hard to see the man who became of that sweet face.

He did not understand sentimental value. I keep little things that people give me or that remind me of special times.

Some people keep pictures in this way. These things are fabrics in the tapestry of your history But not to him. Junk. Hoarding. Wasting space.

His mom gave him old pictures of him and his family. He didn't care and was really angry when I insisted we keep them. So he made me hold on to them, and here I am still holding on to them out of guilt.

These things are all sacred. I am having such a terrible time trying to throw them out.

Every fall my mental health dissolves. You can set your watch by it.

The flashbacks have eased some over the last 3.5 years. So last night startled me.

She and I are lying in bed winding down watching tiktok on my phone. She reached over me to take my phone out of my hand for some reason and her harm put a bit of pressure on my radius bone ( top of my forearm).

I shouted "Stop!" very intensely and very suddenly. My body went in full rigid alert mode, and she shrunk back like a wounded animal.

I thought about it for a second. He used to grab my arms there and squeeze. It was so painful and I felt so helpless. He'd also grab me there to shake me. There were always little finger shaped bruises on my forearms back then.

I apologised for the sharp response and I explained why it happened. She says she understands, but she blames herself for my reaction

How could she have known something so benign would have triggered a trauma response?

I feel terrible.

Still finding new ones nearly 5 years later!

bitches hate when other people are in the kitchen because they’ve spent their entire lives being criticized for doing tasks imperfectly and having their eating habits policed and now have incredible anxiety about other people judging their cooking choices that can’t be easily explained in a few words as to why they’re acting so hostile about someone else being near them during this very vulnerable process. it’s me, i’m bitches

I feel like what some of you guys don't understand about the whole discussion of what is and isn't a trauma response, is that, like... Different people understand different experiences to be traumatic to different extents. Most people's idea of trauma is literally just "you were abused as a child", but some people might develop severe dissociative symptoms from getting stuck in the middle of their parents' divorce, some people get C-PTSD from growing up with an undiagnosed condition that got them into the status of an alienated failure for their entire childhood, some people get their entire personality shaped by medical trauma! I was born with my throat fused in with itself in a way that made it impossible for me to eat and breath like a normal person, and that took a series of surgeries that kept going until I was six years old in order to solve. I have no memory of that, despite the fact I do have other memories from that time period. The doctors said I was "the most well-behaved child they've ever seen", because I was quiet and polite and didn't cry. In hindsight, the most likely explanation was just that I kinda left my body to get through that experience, which might explain why my relationship to physical pain nowadays is the way that it is- whenever my body starts getting pain signals, my mind kinda activates total shutdown, which is why I never felt like I was fully present while doing physically painful things (and I'm not just talking SH, everything from working out to pinching myself to stop a train of thought. One time when I was a kid, I saw a shattered sheet of glass on the sidewalk, and I started taking apart pieces from it with my hands because I thought it was cool that I could do that, and it hurt a bit, but only after my mom came and screamed in shock I realized my hands were actually completely covered in blood. Stuff like that). I've had one professional suggesting that the thing that's wrong with my brain is that the medical trauma from that basically caused symptoms parallel to BPD, except without the ones about fear of abandonment and unstable relationships, because the trauma that caused it wasn't an interpersonal one, which is what is usually expected. And if that happened to me, to how many other people could that have happened?

I guess what I'm trying to say is. Our idea of mental issues being cleanly sorted into neat little boxes is just really flawed. Different people react differently to being put in situations. And maybe it would be more useful to start thinking "what experience did I have, given the knowledge I have of my own mind, that could make my brain develop instincts that cause this behavior" (which is a line of logic that can usually be used to understand almost every human behavior, clinical or otherwise) instead of "x trauma leads to y trauma response".

Is "irrational" anger a trauma response?

I only feel like it might be because I'm always bothered when this person enters the room. I'm almost enraged when they try to speak to me, more often than not. I try to keep it to myself only because I know I would look utterly insane otherwise.

It's almost like I've gaslit myself into thinking I've been overly dramatic this whole time and nothing they ever did was so terrible. Then, I feel guilty for being mad at them, even though I look back in it and see how much it affected me or how badly my younger self wanted to leave and cut contact.

I almost feel like I'm losing my mind just thinking about this.

I've gone from refusing to call what I experienced trauma to looking into finding a psychiatrist to see if I have cptsd.... (Over the course of several years unfortunately)

2006: "No. My parents aren't hitting or beating me. They're spanking me, and for good reason. :/"

2010: "I don't think you should spank kids, but what my parents are doing isn't bad. I think a pop on the hand makes more sense, but these spankings aren't abuse."

2014: "Well now I'm depressed. My parents definitely have a lot to do with it, but I don't think they were physically abusive. Definitely verbally and emotionally but I have no trauma."

2016: "it could have been so much worse, but it's all stuck in my brain and I can't get it out. It's definitely me being sensitive. That stuff doesn't cause trauma."

2019: "So it is trauma... But it wasn't that bad. I heard about little t trauma. That's what it is. I still have no right to complain."

2020: "Trauma is trauma. Why am I comparing? They messed up and I should've left by now. They were physically abusive, but still not that bad. Little t trauma still counts."

Very recently: "Nevermind. Big T trauma. It is most certainly that bad. I wouldn't have reacted that way back then if it wasn't."

Suck that it took me so long

What if it was years ago, and they didn't exactly try to change, but things aren't as bad as they used to be.

I still feel the pain, but she's has been too terrible recently so I would feel bad if I finally left after all this time. After being a jobless shut in due to depression and possibly autism....

You don't have to feel bad for not wanting to be around the people who hurt you.

No, "but they're your family."

No, "but you used to be friends."

No, "but you have to put up with it because they're your partner."

No.

If someone hurts you repeatedly and there is no indication of them trying to do better, you are allowed to dislike contact with them.

So many people feel guilt over not wanting to be around people that intentionally hurt them.

It's not wrong of you to want distance.

It's not wrong of you to want to be treated well.

Sometimes, I don't want to heal. Healing almost feels like a betrayal to myself. I know what they've done, and the damage will never be fully healed. It almost scares me to think that I might forget or become numb to it. As long as the wounds stay open, and I still feel the burning pain, it's real. I can't trick myself into thinking it's not.

There are other times when I don't want to heal because people might not believe me. I've already plenty who don't, but it would be so much worse if someone saw evidence of my trauma but didn't believe me because the rest of my personality and coping mechanisms seem normal. If I stay broken, the smaller cracks are less noticable, and they're easier to explain. Obviously, a shattered window is going to have both big and small cracks and might even be missing some pieces.

Sometimes healing just doesn't seem worth it because I feel like my life should be perfect once I'm past that point. People have it worse, and the worst is behind me, so I have no right to be this way.

I don't know. I'm not sure I want to heal

Your self sabotage and self neglect are one of the biggest signs you're in state of self hatred. You might think that you love yourself apparently. But when you don't do the things you're supposed to do for your betterment...rather...you keep subjecting yourself to stuff that's ruining your physical and mental health... you're basically pulling up the hate on your being. The shame, guilt and sense of inferiority that's hidden in you. Deep down you think you don't deserve good things so you keep plunging into the bare minimum and worse, the evil things. When you know you should sleep enough to heal but you keep staying up late at night dwelling on actions that aren't good for your body and soul. You know you should maintain a diet that can meet the needs of your body but you keep skipping meals or binge eating junk. You know you should limit your screen time, stop scrolling randomly on your apps but you keep wasting time to distract yourself from stuff that's bothering you. You avoid facing your thoughts with conviction and let them wreck havoc in your mind. You allow negative assumptions and patterns to repeat. You don't allow yourself to get up after a relapse thinking you deserve to suffer. You avoid healing. You take care of everything and everyone around you but keep putting your needs aside. You don't rush towards Allah as you should. You think you're far away from Him and not good enough to stand before Him.

You do all of it subconsciously yet in a state of complete persuasion.

~ mashriqiyyah

GOOD POST. LONG POST BUT GOOD POST.

This book- The Haunted Self is available online as a pdf if you know where to look :)

Why Alters Are All You, & The Formation Of DID

Tw for talk of abuse (implications to different types), trauma, unsafe caregivers, trauma responses, homophobia, and brief talk of death. We're talking about the formation of DID, childhood trauma, please be cautious if you continue.

Let's discuss what people say is the basics of Dissociative Identity Disorder, its formation. The current leading theory is the Theory of Structural Dissociation (ToSD). Yes, we still need to know more about this disorder, but this is the current leading theory and was written by Ellert R. Nijenhuis, Kathy Steele, and Onno Van Der Hart. They took some research, ideas, and words from other authors and researchers, added their research and ideas, mixed it all together and presented us with the ToSD in their book: The Haunted Self.

Now, there are plenty of problems with the theory, and I know that Hart and other researchers you see in this field haven't been the best people. However, it is currently the leading theory. Colin A Ross spoke about numerous problems with the theory, but he even states that this theory is a significant contribution. While yes, it isn't perfect, and any scientific theory can and should be constantly improved on, its pretty damn good. What I understood from reading Ross' response, the understanding it gives us of DID is good, the issue is when it addresses other disorders, or lack there of. I will state, before going onto my point of the post, that Ross mentions that there is confusion of what counts as an emotional part (EP). In the sense of, how differentiated does an EP need to be, to count as a separate dissociated state?

I don't want to go into that all today, because I'm not a professional and cannot confirm what would count, at least in Ross' eyes.

What I want to talk about, is what the ToSD does give us, and why it explains that all parts/alters are You.

Now, I know I will get a lot of hate for this. So all I'll say is that: I'm willing to discuss this matter further, however I will not tolerate any insults, threats, belittlement, or any other kinds of hate. If you are mature, I'm open to discussion.

The ToSD states that everyone is born with ego states. These states are in charge of meeting specific needs. A child needs love, affection, food, comfort, sleep, etc etc. If a child is able to dissociate to a high level, has a disorganised attachment to their primary caregiver (which is inherently traumatic), and experiences repeated childhood trauma, they can potentially develop DID.

If a child experiences trauma, their brain is going to do its absolute best to protect them. They may fight, flight, or freeze (especially if it is repeated). Maybe all three. That child may subconsciously think that if they were a different gender, or a different age, or maybe if they were stronger or scarier, they could prevent this from happening to them. Maybe they felt like they deserved this pain, that they're an awful monster, or just a toy or an animal to their abusers. Maybe they just refused to accept this was happening to them because if it did, they would be dead.

Their brain will do anything it can to try and prevent and explain this trauma.

They may try to seek help from caregivers, but remember, in the case of DID, that child will have some kind of disorganised attachment. That child will not feel safe enough to tell them about this trauma, or if they do, they aren't supported in the way they need to heal and process. Maybe their caregivers are the source of this trauma, they have already tried to tell them to stop.

Nothing is working, this child is essentially trapped.

So, like I said earlier, this child's subconscious is working on overdrive and trying its absolute best to survive this. Dissociation is a very complex and extraordinary coping mechanism.

So the child pushes away the trauma, dissociating so chronically they disconnect to everything happening, and themselves. This dissociation is keeping those different ego states separated, preventing from them integrating during childhood. Instead, this dissociation basically creates amnesiac barries between each ego state. If that dissociation wasn't there, those states would try to integrate, but because some experienced trauma, they cannot harmoniously coexist. This is the differentiation between ANP's and EP's. ANP's (apparently normal parts) are the parts that are in charge of daily living, they are disconnected from any trauma. EP's (emotional parts) are the parts that remember or are connected to different traumas. EP's dont have to be emotional, it simply is to refer to the parts that are connected to trauma.

Anyway, mini ramble aside. ANP's and EP's are separated from each other, they still are aiming to meet certain needs for the child/person now. That's why it is so helpful or common for systems to catagorise alters into roles. Some parts are simply trauma responses, some exist to make friendships and connections, some have very specific roles/needs they meet, some alters exist to soothe, or protect, or whatever. They are still dissociated parts, aiming to meet needs.

All alters are still dissociated from each other, and some may believe they are the only one there, or the "original" because they are an ANP or host. Again there is not an "original" because the full personality was never whole to begin with. You started with different ego states, and you still are different ego states (obviously alters have grown and developed (but still not fully)).

So with that being understood, lets address the title of this post. All alters are You. Thinking about everything I have addressed for far, all alters are dissociated from each other, so what do you mean there can be a "You"? Again, I'm not talking about an "original", I'm talking about all aspects of the Self that is being dissociated from.

I used to find this fact absolutely ridiculous and hurtful and dismissing. But after starting to learn more about this disorder, working on self validation, and starting on trauma processing, it has made it so much easier to understand.

I, Virgil, am a part of Clem and Skye. Clem and Skye are parts of me. And this is the same for all alters. We are all different ego states that are dissociated from each other, from the Self.

So, what happens if we all fuse? And no, I'm not saying that's the only way to heal, I'm just trying to put this in perspective. If we all fuse, we would be dissociating so much less, we would be fused ego states and we'd create a fully formed and developed personality. We are all parts, and if we fuse, we create a whole.

A whole that we are no longer dissociating from. We will be the whole Self, the whole "You". We will not be dissociating from each other.

I cannot express this enough, fusions happen when you no longer need alters to be separated, they can exist harmoniously, they share emotions and thoughts and feelings and they are not dissociated from each other. There is no memory amnesia, or identity amnesia between them.

Again to clarify, all alters are dissociated ego states that grow and develop, and then if you all fuse, that is when the Self is no longer dissociated from. You'll finally be a complete You.

Another thing I want to address is differing opinions of alters. Let's use another hypothetical. Let's say you have like five different alters that are all queer in some way, but you have five that are cisgender and straight. Two of those cishet alters are homophobic and transphobic. So, if you all fuse, what will you identify as? While I cannot say anything for certain, I can take a big guess and say that no matter what you identify as, you may not be homophobic/transphobic. In this hypothetical, I'm assuming those alters have those beliefs because of things they experienced growing up. Internalised homophobia and all that. As you process trauma and become more accepting of yourself, and you fuse, I would guess those parts are no longer dissociated from that queer identity, whatever that identity may be.

I hope this makes sense. While alters can and do grow outside of trauma, those foundations are shaped because of the experiences of the child. Age, gender, opinions, personality, species, and even sexuality, can all be based and rooted in that trauma and experiences.

Healing from that trauma means reconnecting with the Self, whatever that looks like for you. It may not be the singlet persona many systems use, it may not be the host, it may be something different than what you originally thought. But it will be You and it will be right. It will be the Self that you've finally reconnected with.

Anyway, I think I've rambled enough. TLDR: all alters are You, and if you fuse, you will reconnect with the Self that was originally being dissociated from.

small edit: it is okay if you aren’t ready to accept alters and trauma. but that doesn't change the fact that you're all dissociated parts ✌️

Do people with autism and/or ADHD come prepackaged with RSD or is this shit a trauma response

Secret third option: some fucked up mixture of both

So, this weird thing happens after I cry where I start to act and talk like a kid. Kinda? Idk how to describe it other than that.

I think it's a trauma response? Couldn't say for sure, though

Oh! I forgot to mention the subsequent shut down that happens, too.