The aftermath of trauma (rant)

Hey all, so I experienced a good amount of trauma in my childhood and teen years… I meditated, I exercised all the time, I worked hard, I dove into work, I breathed, I relaxed, I had a social life going. There was even a period of a couple years where I was absolutely stellar. Literally walking on sunshine. Besides a years-old PTSD diagnosis that I all but forgot about 3 days after receiving it, it was like I never even had trauma.

And then I woke up one day and it all hit me like a truck. I was a workaholic because I had no friends. Those friends I thought I had? They always went up in flames. It was like I was a magnet for people who wanted to take advantage of me. Emotionally, sexually, mentally. I didn’t see the red flags because I lived around them my whole life, and I didn’t think I had a problem because THEY were the problem, and when things reached a head I always knew how to escape a bad situation, be firm and strong willed and all that. As if them failing to take advantage of me somehow made it any better that those were the only people I attracted 😵‍💫

I just woke up one day and realized most people don’t have to escape their friends or be ready for things to go south all the time. Most people don’t have to go from 0 to 100 at the drop of a hat because most people somewhat know when something feels off, but the things that feel off to the feel right to me. New, exciting, absurd, interesting. And I’m probably not making good friends because I carry around those red flags. I feel like I walk around wearing this mark of, "don’t talk to me, I’m preoccupied with wasting my life away" that’s healthy people repellant.

That was a few years ago. Since then, I’ve been completely lonely. I slip right under the radar, just completely silent everywhere I go. I sing in the car because if I don’t then my voice croaks. Don’t get me wrong, I love singing in the car, but imaging singing being your warm up to TALK to people.

I have my fiance, but he has friends and I don’t. It makes home life imbalanced. He’ll be talking to friends or hanging out with friends and I’ll be just coasting, waiting for my one person in the world to talk to. And silently, since I don’t want to make him feel bad for having friend or personal time. When he and I talk, I’m so silly and bubbly and I actually talk a ton, but the contrast between that and the rest of my life just makes me feel even more… just low when I’m not with him. I feel like I’m not good enough, or like Im disgusting.

I tried, I made one friend in college. And he ended up (trigger warning?) catching feelings, drawing a picture of me without a shirt, telling his other friend that I was having an emotional affair with him, once took my phone in the car and got t*rned on when I begged for it back, oh boy the list goes on. It was once again a disaster. And I left, and I have not had a single friend since.

Ive been trying to make friends, but I feel like maybe I’m too aloof? Even when I try to talk these days, it feels like it isn’t really registered the same way other people talking is. I just…. can’t connect to people. I’m also a math major, so maybe everyone in my major is kind of lonely. It seems that way when I try talking to them, like they are just as aloof and clumsy as I am and I guess they arent getting my hint just as much as I’m not giving one 😒 Why’d I have to love math?? Whyyyy 😭 I’ve even been talking to this one guy after class all the time, we text since last semester and STILL have not broken the ice. All this talking and we have not divulged a single bit of remotely personal information. He even waits for me outside of class 😅 I asked to be friends and he said yes and our dynamic has not changed in the 6 months since.

Im ranting a lot but basically yeah I feel devoid of normal human-ness because of my trauma despite not even caring about the trauma itself. Like an empty shell. And I’m lonely, and I think it’s all compounding to make me feel like not even a person. I just feel like a form sitting at a desk or a background figure but never, yknow, a person. Just a spectator. I don’t know how other people seem to be a person so effortlessly. But I just feel like a creature slinking in the shadows. I used to be the opposite, I was a bold person, people around me liked me or noticed me even if we didn’t become best friends. People admired me or complimented my personality, I wasn’t worried or scared of anything, wasn’t lonely even when I was alone. I don’t know what shifted, but suddenly it all fell out from under me and I’ve just been lost and reliving the same disassociative nightmare from when I was-

Ohhh…. 😯 I’m slow.