When you get a piece of your memory of the worst thing : being SA
I used to wonder why I behaved the way I did.
Why I felt uncomfortable around physical closeness, especially around boys or men. Why I became hyper-aware of people’s behavior, expressions, movements, and tone. Why I wanted connection so badly, yet became frightened whenever someone got too close emotionally. Why I trusted people too quickly, yet struggled to trust them fully at all.
For a long time, I thought maybe I was simply strange.
But slowly, after remembering pieces of my childhood, I began to understand that repeated experiences during my early years affected me more deeply than I realized.
When I was very young, I experienced repeated sexual boundary violations by older children at school. At the time, I did not fully understand what was happening. I only knew I disliked it, felt trapped, disgusted, uncomfortable, and emotionally unsafe. It happened repeatedly over the years, and because I was so young, I did not know how to process or explain what I was feeling.
Even after leaving that environment, my body and mind still remembered , I think.
I noticed that I became emotionally withdrawn while also becoming overly comforting toward others. I became a people pleaser without meaning to. I constantly analyzed people’s reactions and emotions. I struggled with boundaries while also trying desperately to respect everyone else’s boundaries perfectly.
Sometimes I feel emotionally older than people my age. Sometimes I feel disconnected from them completely like also feeling disgusted by looking at your peers acting childish or their age instead of being composed and quiet. I cried so many times remembering..
I also realized that trauma does not always stay as clear memories. Sometimes it remains as:
- fragmented images,
- emotional reactions,
- nausea,
- disgust,
- fear,
- hypervigilance,
- emotional numbness,
- or the constant feeling that you must stay alert to remain safe.
I barely remember many parts of my childhood clearly, even the warm memories. Yet my body still reacts strongly to reminders of those experiences. Seeing certain people again made me feel trapped, disgusted, and unsafe all over again, even years later.
And one of the hardest things to understand was this:
you can want love and connection deeply while simultaneously fearing closeness.
You can crave safety while struggling to trust it.
You can become kind, observant, emotionally mature, and caring because of pain, while still carrying wounds underneath.
For a long time, I believed I was simply “too sensitive” or “overreacting.” But now I understand that many people who experience repeated emotional or sexual trauma during childhood develop behaviors like:
- hyper-awareness,
- people pleasing,
- emotional avoidance,
- difficulty trusting,
- fragmented memory,
- fear of closeness,
- overexplaining,
- anxious attachment,
- emotional numbness,
- and constant self-protection.
And the thing is instead my cousin brothers or male cousins are A bit exception but still I feel uncomfortable even with my cousin brothers or father or uncle.
And what is the worst thing that can happen to you well seeing those who did that to you in your school, your places. Another thing, I observed that among males I fear mostly brown males . I wondered why and remembered that they were brown... I think I remember them every time I see another brown man. I don't fear others, I do.
And exhausting to live like your surviving.
Hi @communicativeKiwi4255.
I admire you for telling us your concerns...
I will say you are not alone here.. Sexual abuse and trauma happened to many of us including myself..
The good news is you are self aware and I think you are very intelligent as well. These talents are going to get you to a better place in time.
Trust yourself more, keep going! Your going to get to where your life improves... I believe in you!!🌟
You've written this so well and unfortunately it resonates with me on different levels, mismash experiences where for some reason, even so-called innocent things, replay in my head and now I'm older I realise back then I couldn't express why I felt so traumatised by it...
I didn't understand and now I see things for what they were. Targeted for being quiet.
What I try to do is limit contact where possible and outrightly say, sorry no offence but hugging/touch is just not my thing. (The real reason being, it just makes me uncomfortable but I'm not going to divulge that).
And I think it always has. See if when you're completely alone, you can start to let your guard down, for even brief moments.
I tell myself I live in a high walled castle and no-one can get to me, that I'm safe and can let all the feelings, good or bad, just completely out.
I can be vulnerable, sad, happy, raw, teary and that's ok, it's part of the healing. But it needs to be vocalised, it can't just keep going around and around in my head.
Thank heavens for writing.
@communicativeKiwi4255
@communicativeKiwi4255
First of all I'm sorry for what you have to live and for your past trauma.
I find myself in most of the symptoms you listed and now I'm thinking that maybe I've lived some kind of trauma too. I know family for me had never been a safe place for me and that I don't like places with many people but I could never imagine that there was something bigger behind this. I'm hypervigilant, I have trust issues, I have fragmented memories, I observe and analize people, I dream of a person with I can let my guard down but never let real people get too close to me, I have anxiety of talking in public and in general of hurting emotionally the people I know, I have an identity crisis because I used to care but now I don't care about anything, because I used to like doing some things that now I don't like anymore, I constantly feel like I'm not living but surviving, I never let people help me in anything but when I'm alone I imagine to be helped by someone because I have a desperate need of help and love, I make fake scenarios in my head where I explain my problems perfectly but I just don't have the courage or the trust of speaking about them out loud, and many more things too complex to write. Maybe I didn't live your same trauma but surely there's something I still don't understand in me causing all of this. And the worst thing is that the darkside of me wants revenge for this, wants to k**l someone and make the cause of my suffering suffer too and I have to keep it down or I may actually hurt someone physically but if I do it permanently I have nothing that keeps me from ki**ing myself because hate and revenge are the only anchors I have, the only things that helped me getting up when I wanted to fall from the 10th floor and leave this terrible world, without them I'm empty inside, there's only numbness, depression, sadness, sufference and pain. Re-reading this, I should probably go to a psychologist, or a mental health centre...
