Why do acquaintances/friends treat me differently when I mention I have childhood trauma?

[Weebster]

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[Someone123]

I think that this or other serious subjects are things you work up to gradually with people, because trying to help with this is a lot to take on, not really something for a casual acquaintance in most cases. Once you get to know someone for a while you might mentino something like- growing up was not that great, and see if they show interest and make some comments about something tough they went through. Taking on a heavy subject like that takes a lot of mental and emotional energy, so you usually need to know someone pretty well before they would want to get that in depth. That's a lot of mental and emotional effort to ask of a casual acquaintance.

 

[loopyloo]

A lot of people are afraid to face their own trauma or anything that reminds them of it. Some never deal with it.

 

[Someone123]

A lot of people are afraid to face their own trauma or anything that reminds them of it. Some never deal with it.

And a lot of people really don't have trauma. In my extended family of thirty plus people who I know well I am 99% sure none of them have had even 10% of the trauma I've had- I had really, really bad luck with the way things fell- it's complicated, but it's true.

 

[Weebster]

And a lot of people really don't have trauma. In my extended family of thirty plus people who I know well I am 99% sure none of them have had even 10% of the trauma I've had- I had really, really bad luck with the way things fell- it's complicated, but it's true.

Hey I was wondering. How come some people I encounter in public look at me like I'm the devil? It's uncomfortable

 

[narval]

I think that's a mix of ignorance, good intentions (but bad handle due to first point) and be politically correct.

they've fear of saying something wrong, hurtful or messing something.

Suddenly you are a broken toy and they can broke you even more with an unfortunate comment, so let's be super careful. Maybe even go away because, oh, you know, i've fucked up.

Agh, those people are very irritant. It's tiring to see people saying sorry and so and so. Oh crap, it never was a problem. Why it should be? You even didn't know about that 5 minutes ago. Context: my dad died when i was 6yo. Damn it, I got over it more than 20 years ago. Perhaps not a big trauma, but still some.people seems to get little crazy about it

 

[Weebster]

I think that's a mix of ignorance, good intentions (but bad handle due to first point) and be politically correct.

they've fear of saying something wrong, hurtful or messing something.

Suddenly you are a broken toy and they can broke you even more with an unfortunate comment, so let's be super careful. Maybe even go away because, oh, you know, i've fucked up.

Agh, those people are very irritant. It's tiring to see people saying sorry and so and so. Oh crap, it never was a problem. Why it should be? You even didn't know about that 5 minutes ago. Context: my dad died when i was 6yo. Damn it, I got over it more than 20 years ago.

I do feel like a broken toy. Not fun anymore

 

[Someone123]

Hey I was wondering. How come some people I encounter in public look at me like I'm the devil? It's uncomfortable

I think that people would have to see how you are presnting yourself to try to judge their reactions. Maybe your facial expression looks angry even if you think it loooks neutral, and this could be the case that they feel threatened. Maybe you are crowding into their space rather than being considerate- like if you're walking down the sidewalk and two other people are walking the other way normally a person would move a little to make room for the two- it could be a million things. But there are a lot of little ways in public that people show consideration for each other in public, and maybe you're not doing some of these- a person would have to see what you are doing to try to figure out what is going on.

 

[Lost Magic]

Because they don't want to think about their own trauma. Childhood trauma is rampant and a lot of people don't want to be reminded of it.

 

[Nolan96]

It sounds like you have a lot of worry about how people interpret and react to you. In some cases people can just be callous. Alternatively they could just be walking on eggshells and not sure how to help.

 

[toseeyousmile]

Intuitively mentioning that you got childhood trauma would lead people to start being careful as to what they say because they don't wanna offend you or make you feel bad. Think of it like this, if somebody just casually asks you "hey how you doing?" in place of a greeting, your options to answer are A. "good, you?", "fine", etc. or B. "Bad" and start telling your story or something along those lines. Most people when faced with option B have no idea how to approach it because why would they? Not like it's the most common thing to know about the adversities of everybody they've met, you'd mostly just exchange pleasantries.

 

[Weebster]

It sounds like you have a lot of worry about how people interpret and react to you. In some cases people can just be callous. Alternatively they could just be walking on eggshells and not sure how to help.

I'm hyper vigilant. That's why I worry. How do I stop?

 

[Someone123]

I'm hyper vigilant. That's why I worry. How do I stop?

Are you worried about being physically attacked? Does this happen often to people in the areas that you walk around in?

 

[Weebster]

Are you worried about being physically attacked? Does this happen often to people in the areas that you walk around in?

Physical or verbal. No it doesn't happen often here, but it's still always on my mind.

 

[Someone123]

Physical or verbal. No it doesn't happen often here, but it's still always on my mind.

Well, you said you're a big guy and tough looking, so that helps some. Learning some basic self defense things can help- you can learn some things from youtube videos that will help for basic self defense. As far as verbal, working on your verbal skills can help, there are videos on youtibe for this. Also youtube has videos for how to de-escalate a situation. These things could help. YOu can learn a few things that you can practice and they should help your confidence some.

I'm not big as in super muscular (or fat). I have a large frame that takes up space. I've wondered before why people in public who look like prey are able to walk around without fear while I am not.

Learning self defense from a video doesn't work. You need to spar. Verbally I'm good actually and that's thanks to reading, but verbal ability drops when anxious.

It is suprising the number of cases of people who have learned self defense from a video ro a book who have successfully implemented these lessons in real life. Sparring is not needed as much as people think unless you're going against a highly trained fighter, which most people are not.

I'll explain one interesting example I read in a self defense book. A lady was just starting out in a training class, this was right at the beginning of the class before she had any training. She was five feet tall, 100 lbs, and middle-aged. The class was in how to defend against knife attack, and the instructor was over six feet tall, muscular, and he had been teaching this class for over twenty years. The authors of this book strongly believed in the power of mind-setting for self defense, and they were in class in order to teach some people about this. They really thought that the instructor was somewhat arrogant about his skills. So the idea is tha the instructor is going to attack this lady with a rubber knife but that before he did these instructors would help her with her mindsetting. She had no previous self defense training. So they took her aside where no one else could hear and helped her with mindsetting. They told her to think of herself as an American Indian woman, since they are known for fierce fighting, and that this man was coming to kill her kids, and that she was the only one who could save them. They gave her no specific instructions for what to do, they just worked on her mindset and got her into a really frenzied state where she really believed that this man was coming to kill her kids. So then they got those two together in the gym. The lady came at this guy in such a frenzied state that he was totally unprepared for it. She charged in and knocked the rubber knife from his hand before he knew what hit him and it dropped to the ground. She picked up the rubber knife and stabbed him a half dozen times in the groin and then jumped up and knocked him to the ground and stabbed him in the neck and heart oevr and over very quickly. This guy had been training people for over twenty years how to do things in a certain way and nothing like this ever happened before, but he had never been faced with such a frenzied, out-of-control attack. So mindsetting is often a lot more important than training.

You can learn a lot about palm strikes, hammerfists, and other strikes to the neck and face and gron that you can do quickly and then run. You don't have to spar, most of the things you do for self defense can't be doine in sparring anyway, like attacks to the groin and eyes, and attacks that could break the neck, etc. You can learn a lot from videos and books that can help for self defense. If you can go to classes this will help in addition, but they are not needed to learn important things that you can use for self defense.