I don’t even know if I can count this a trauma, I feel invalid

[justanotherhuman237]

ok starting off by saying: I'm a weird person. i say some very unhinged things sometimes and that causes a lot of people to dislike me. Now that I've got some context let me just say how it started. All the way back in elementary school, I had close friends who would constantly belittle me and Insult me and that impacted me to a point that to this day, I insult people as a way to show affection and have awful self imagine. Sadly those were the best years though, in middle school I met a girl who for privacy reasons I'll call "A". So A was not very mentally well and cut herself often. she was also one of those people that has to one up you in everything so when I told her I was sad, shed say something like "that sucks but at leas YOU didn't have to…". anyways one day I got a suicide note from her and me and my other friend called the police to stop her but it took a toll on me. Things turn a really sharp turn however as after that incident, me and A started fighting and I reluctantly cut things off with her. In response, she called the police on me and lied to them and said I was planning a shooting (as I said, she wasn't mentally well). Now for the fun part! highschool. Around this time, my self Image and depression were worse than ever and I took to the internet to look for validation, which I got when a man reached out to me. he was 41 and I was probably about 16 at the time and he told me that people would tell me how pretty I was if I pretended to be 19 and posted nudes of myself. So I did. He then told me he'd give me validation if I scratched my skin off and sent him photos of the aftermath. So I Did. he exposed me to a lot of shit like gore and videos of people dying. and I still see the affects of seeing that to this day. After we talked for a while, one day he admitted to raping his six year old daughter and I remember feeling helpless and unable to do anything. I think that was the final straw for me as I blocked him and called the police. now I'm really shy and get upset easily. I'm 19 now and Whenever I hear mentions of rape or death i start to shake and feel extremly uncomfortable. People say whats happened is bad but I can't help but think it's not actual "trauma" Because some people have actually been the ones who got raped, some people have actually had friends who committed suicide… I just wanted to tell someone how I felt because I can't tell my own friends. Thanks for reading this (also this is repost because sometimes the feelings that I'm invalid come back to me again and again and sharing my story helps me cope slightly)

 

[Anonymousa]

That all counts as trauma. Trauma just has to be an event thats caused a significant long term negative effect on you which this definitely applies to you as you feel really uncomfortable from the mention of triggers that relate to these past events and as you said the videos effect you to this day. Also from your interactions with that friend in middle school have made you feel like your problems don't matter cus of her saying she potentially having it worse and downplaying and comparing your problems when everyones problems do matter actually no matter how big or little they seem to be. Also that man that was asking you to do that stuff was disgusting and having been manipulated to do that stuff and know about him raping someone is of course going to really negatively effect you. Stuff like dealing with a suicide attempt and arguments can cause quite a negative effect too. I understand why you feel like this doesn't count tho as I felt like my trauma wasn't good enough to be considered that as they weren't extreme enough but there is always going to be people worse than us so that doesn't mean our problems are less valid for that as our lives are still bad from these things happening to us.

 

[Pale_Rider]

It's traumatic if you say it was.

 

[s00ngone]

It's traumatic if you say it was.

Moreover, it's traumatic if you experience it as traumatic. For what it's worth, being preyed upon by an older man demanding sexual favors and exposing you to inherently disturbing media is a traumatic thing. Whether you're able to perceive it that way or not, I'm sorry. You deserve to be treated with care and taken seriously.

 

[southofsomewhere]

If it's still affecting you then I would absolutely say it's traumatic, if it wasn't then you wouldn't think about it too much, you should never feel invalid about what you're feeling