stupid girl @obscvrvs - Tumblr Blog

trauma nightmares are exhausting. it doesn’t matter if you relive your actual experiences in those dreams or if your brain creates a different scenario based on your fears and emotions, they are always heavy, suffocating, pressing the air from your lungs. you’ll wake up feeling tired, like you haven’t slept at all, like you’ve been running in fear all night. you might find it hard to escape the dream, feel truly awake, it might linger over you and make you lose your sense of reality all day. it’s okay for you to take a break on those days. you went through and are reeling from a symptom of the aftermath of trauma. you’re mentally unwell and need to take care if yourself to recover from the nightmares. you’re not weak or stupid for reacting to them so strongly, they’re not “just dreams”, dreams are your brain’s way of working through what’s gnawing at you and they can be extremely scary and emotional. you deserve to take the time you need to get over a trauma nightmare, you deserve to take it seriously and talk about it to someone who understands. your emotions are real and they make sense in the context of your trauma. don’t belittle yourself for reacting strongly to a dream.

fangirlinginleatherboots

i think something a lot of ppl dont understand is that the effects of trauma are not immediate. its not like you’re fine and then the event happens, and then everything falls apart. yeah, that CAN happen, but so often, that is not the narrative i see.

depending on the event, you may even brush it off the first time it happens. sometimes its not until it reoccurs that it hits you. because if it happened once, it was only that, your life moves on, but again? whats to stop it from happening a third time? a fourth time?

depending on the event, it may not affect you until someone asks about it days, weeks, months, YEARS later. you push it down and decide not to feel anything about it and maybe you even forget, at least on the surface, but it takes only a word to break the barrier you’ve set

depending on the event, you may not even know it’s trauma until years have passed and you’re crying on your bathroom floor. until you meet someone who calls it trauma. until you read someone elses story. until you’re begging your mind to please, please, let life move past that point

depending on the event, you forget entirely. there’s nothing there. nothing happened. and you live like that until something digs in too deep and the floodgates break.

yeah, some of us break down right after it happened. some never go through the dormancy. but god, thats not everyone. im so tired of hearing “but you were fine!” so WHAT? so what if you were fine? you arent fine now and thats just as real a response as those who are impacted in the direct wake of a trauma. dont let anyone ever tell you otherwise.

#i didnt realize how bad getting choked nonconsensually fucked me up until someone accidentally put pressure on my windpipe and i freaked out

g8z

Do you ever just… Casually get flashbacks? Like yeah, I just spaced out for a good minute thinking about the worst thing that has ever happened to me, but it’s chill. It’s not ruining my mood it’s just,,, lurking in my thoughts.

#love when my brain is just like hey we’re focusing on something else but also playing back memories of terrifying + degrading sex lol

frater440-deactivated20180807

Adaptation of Mary Magdalene in the Cave by Hughes Merle (French, 1823-1881)

Frater 440.’. 93 93/93

I don’t mean to talk so loud. I really try to do better.

theentropywe

THIS IS SO IMPORTANT

cassandraclover

i feel like adding in the “was or could be perceived as [insert terrible thing here] is really important when discussing trauma. someone could be diagnosed with a disease that’s mostly benign, but if they percieved it as something that would take their life, it could still be traumatic.

safety-net-did

THIS

this is so important.

my therapist spends so much time reminding me of this

staying in the hospital, as an infant, can be traumatic

moving houses, as a toddler, can be traumatic.

isolation, as a child, can be traumatic.

don’t look at your history through your grown and “knowing better” eyes. you have to look at it through the eyes of the little person you once were, where everything was new, and new can be scary if you’re not properly comforted and prepared.

#wow i uh. did not fhink of this

sjukpojke

survivors of abuse have limits that can change very frequently. sometimes we’re less sensitive to triggers, while other times we’re more sensitive. i want to remind all of you: just because you’re feeling more sensitive today or any other day doesn’t mean you’re weak. it doesn’t mean you’re no longer making progress. it means that today your limits are just a little bit lower than usual. if you panic about something that normally wouldn’t bother you at all, you’re not weak. there are ups and downs in recovery, good days and bad days. you aren’t weak. you’ve made it this far, and just for that, you are so strong. i’m proud of you.

angel-scars

abuse survivor bingo

mymentals

“No Sharon I haven’t tried yoga”

prehistoricmancunt

me, talking about my trauma: haha yeah it was no big deal tho i don’t really care it’s whatever honestly

somebody: validates my trauma and says i shouldn’t have had to go through that

me, suddenly crying: huh. weird

the cruelest thing about trauma that happened when you were already grown or nearly grown is that you can see yourself before it happened. there are photos of you when you had the unknown privilege of not knowing how painful life can be.

i see my face, i see me, but so much has changed since then that the freshness on my face seems at times unbearably remote.