like. i would be traumatized even if i were healthy, probably. but my disabilities created the conditions of unending, unrelenting anxiety within my body -- pain, racing heart, wooziness, weakness, confusion -- in many ways indistinguishable from a panic attack! -- from a very early age and with no clear cause. i was in a state of constant hyperarousal. which is how you end up traumatized. like, clinically, when you are in states of hypo or hyper arousal for unsustainable amounts of time with no ability to regulate and return to your window of tolerance.
and then you add the psychological effects of that -- the fear, the insecurity, the inability to trust your own body, the not knowing what's wrong but knowing with certainty that something is wrong. and then you add the everyday external effects -- trying to navigate the world while experiencing all that. and then you add the medical trauma -- being disbelieved, gaslit, mis-treated, mis-medicated as you try to seek treatment.
BEING DISABLED IS INHERENTLY TRAUMATIZING. and that makes ANYTHING ELSE you're dealing with in your life, any other stressors, any other difficult circumstances, way more likely to be ALSO traumatizing.
