I know someone real close to me who arguably went through things more difficult than I did. While they do struggle with things in life, they’re actually functional. And not just in the “hurtling towards burnout” kind of way, nor in the denying their negative experiences kind of way, but they actually seem content and at peace with what life gave them. They talk about how life was super difficult for them, but in the end look at all the blessings they also have, and they accept that they weren’t going to get more from life than this and they’re not afraid of the future. They genuinely mean it. This person is genuinely the most wonderful person I know, and they seem genuinely well, all things considered. But I find myself feeling guilty a lot because I’m literally not functioning at all. And it feels like a moral failing on my part, or a lack of strength that I just didn’t bother to fix. Like how did they get out okay, but I’m a disaster, even though what they endured sounds worse to me than what I endured.
100% correct. There’s a study about “positive childhood experiences” playing a major role in overall resiliency in adulthood when contrasted with adverse childhood experiences.
Basically, if you have a high ACE score but you also have a range of positive experiences (usually in the form of adults who care, good social network of peer-group friends, a mentor etc), you are more likely to be a functional adult. Even one person, like a grandmother or someone that you can actually trust can make the difference.
On the other hand, even a “moderate” ace score with low-to-no positive childhood experiences can result in trauma/“dysfunction” as an adult.
So OP, we obviously don’t know about your friend’s experience vs yours, but the key may be having a different social support structure.
I learned about this a bunch of years ago, and yeah that's what is true for me as well.
I have a friend who had abusive parents, but had friends and stuff and he has zero trauma. I had abusive parents and got bullied at school and developed a handful of mental health issues that were ignored.
Like two people could go through the same exact experience, but have different responses because their brain chemistry isn't the same.
I did not have abusive parents, but pretty much almost everyone else I encountered in my life outside of family was abusive. Therapy also never worked for me because no one ever looked at treatment through the lens of being trauma informed.
Wow this makes a lot of sense. I had NO one supporting me or helping me, no one I could turn to for emotional support growing up. My therapist had my try to come up with someone the other day and I couldn’t. Just a bummer, suffering in childhood, and also suffering for the rest of my life because of it
This is me as well and also made me go wow, this makes a lot of sense. I often feel guilty for struggling because others have had much worse things happen to them. And it makes it seem like you're really weak or something is very wrong with you.
Except there is almost nothing worse that can happen to a person than having literally no one give a shit about you in childhood. This shit literally kills people, like cancer and car accidents.
I don’t want to forcefully prove you wrong or something, but I want to speak loudly and often about this concept, as well as validate you for what you went through. We all feel like “others had it worse.” The fact is, no they didn’t. People can make it untraumatized through stuff you wouldn’t believe, and basically all it takes is parental+community support.
I’m angry at the world/our abusers for installing this belief in us while we survived the unsurvivable, alone, as kids.
Oh I am glad to have my belief be proved wrong in this case! :) Yesterday after reading this was actually a pretty good day. I felt relaxed, I think because I actually felt validated. I'm grateful that you try to speak loudly about this as it has helped me and will surely help others.
Samesies.
On the other hand, even a “moderate” ace score with low-to-no positive childhood experiences can result in trauma/“dysfunction” as an adult.
Personally, that's what I would use to describe me and most of my more dysfunctional friends. I didn't have a particularly traumatic childhood - but I didn't have a supportive one, either, and that's what fucks me up so much now in adulthood. I have to teach myself a lot of the emotional health lessons that everyone else got to learn naturally in childhood due to having a supportive environment that I did not have.
I know someone real close to me who arguably went through things more difficult than I did.
Like how did they get out okay, but I’m a disaster, even though what they endured sounds worse to me than what I endured.
I've seen people who weren't physically abused sometimes wishing they were and feeling guilty about it, countered by others pointing out they merely wanted 'proof' and it's understandable given how hard it is to prove emotional neglect. I wonder if another part is that when you are very obviously or severely abused, you are more likely to get outside support, versus someone who is "less abused" or only emotionally neglected or whatever.
Again, yes, you’re right! The American Psychological Association found that emotional abuse can be (obviously not always) more damaging overall to mental health in adulthood, for the sole reason that it can go on for longer without being noticed. In fact, kids who were emotionally abused are sometimes super good in school because they fear punishment in the home. Of course it’s not a contest though, physical abuse is a whole other nightmare.
And I feel you on the emotional stuff. I’m 33 years old and I just learned last week that if you are hungry and you don’t eat, it will affect your mood. I had always heard of the “hangry” thing but I thought it was just a joke. My mom used to tell me that if you were hungry, it would just go away, so you just wait until the next meal to eat. . .
I just wanted to say thank you for your posts. They've been really helpful!
I’m glad they helped. Sometimes I feel like an art collector or something, except I’m picking up trauma facts in case they’re useful later.
Museum of Trauma is a useful mental image. It really speaks to the way so many of us don’t understand what happened to us until later and even once we get an idea of the dinosaur we’re dealing with, we keep finding more and more fossils beneath our feet.
I had always heard of the “hangry” thing but I thought it was just a joke. My mom used to tell me that if you were hungry, it would just go away, so you just wait until the next meal to eat. . .
Objectively I know this, but subjectively I have a hard time making myself believe it. XD
Yeah. My best friends, which I am fortunate to have, are my support systems and I'm incredibly grateful for them. I like having living proof that things can be well. I told this to my counselor and she agreed that it can be helpful because they are frames of references I can look back on. I'm trying to create new frames of references at the moment. If I can overcome this hurdle, I'll be certain that next time, I won't be as panicked or anxious for long.
Basically this. My aunt and my childhood friend both grew up with two parents and a home . I did too, until my mom bounced in 2008. My life fell apart entirely as I became the breadwinner , while dealing with mental health and filling in the place my mom left. It is just my dad and I. That gave me so much trauma , basically feeling like a stand -in wife .
Anyways, I did my best to stay in community college, work and pay my half of the rooms my dad and I rented . We moved many times and I ended up homeless after graduating university . That led to a very dark path that I barely have clawed my way out , thanks to the support of my significant other (proving your point about even one person making a difference).
Meanwhile my aunt and childhood acquaintance? Their parents are still together. Grandparents have moved only once in the last 15 years . Acquaintance ‘s parents have bought the house they were renting . Both sets of parents are US citizens, mine aren’t. Both have had steady work or sahm , mine both worked low wage jobs or don’t even get paid . aunt and acquaintance have never really suffered, never experienced DV … nothing . Both have steady work. Aunt lives with her partner in a place they rent . Acquaintence lives at home with parents . She is married but her partner doesn’t live at home . Both are pretty well adjusted for the most part. Both drive .
Meanwhile ? I just got my drivers permit for the second time in my life . I am going to be a substitute teacher while I figure out if I want to work with the death and dying process (like a grief counselor ) , go to weaving school or study electrician /wire harnessing for aerospace . Maybe engineering ? (Which is funny because my BA is in comparative literature ). My life has had a while host of drama and issues the minute I came back from Mexico without my mom. The minute she crossed the border in TJ, I knew our lives changed forever.
There is a bit of a Gift in both sides of my family, more so in my mom’s . Sometimes I see glimpses of the future and don’t understand what I’m seeing until it happens . In my youth, I wanted to expand this gift and “See it all”. Now I’m glad I didn’t , because I would not have had the courage to face what has happened throughout the years .
However , I will say that throughout it this , never has my faith in the creator changed . My perception, yes. And love and kindness have always gotten me through. Especially my significant other . His love and patience and acceptance and help….. that makes everything worth it in the end . That we are living together ….. that’s all I want in the end, that’s all what makes this worth it. In a way, that matters more to me then the societal-material successes that the two girls I grew up with have found . The jealousy and anger I feel that I suffered and they didn’t …. Well , am in the process for therapy .
I’m glad you’re doing better. And yeah, I have two siblings. We all had similar experiences but we all have completely different outcomes/levels of dysfunction.
There’s 3 of us too, and we all seem to have processed everything differently and it’s affected us differently. I used to resent them a bit because they seemed more “functional” but realised that actually, it’s just manifesting differently for all of us even if we had the same upbringing. They both seem a lot better out of the house though and I’m hoping that happens for me too when I can leave here.
This thread is reassuring, I spent so long growing up thinking I was such a problem for how my trauma has made me react to things that my siblings wouldn’t. That I had to be the issue for not handling everything how they could.
Lol. And here's me who had absolutely NO support and am floundering in many ways. I manage to have a good career and some friends but my mental health is fucked HARD.
I’m in exactly the same place. But having a good career is so helpful, I was thinking that the other day. I worked in restaurants after college and it’s an environment filled with so much abuse and traumatized people kind end up stuck there. It normalized everything and the low pay kept me from being able to care for myself.
Lucking into a “good job” was the best thing that ever happened to me. I.e. I can afford a therapist now, haha.
Good for you! I forgot to credit my spouse in that post. I would never have gotten here without him. He came from a middle class background and had a good enough job that supported us while I went back to school. We had roommates, things were tight, I did a lot of dog sitting and I still worked, but now I'm an engineer and am doing very well for myself. At least career wise. My mental health is still trash.
What kind of job did you move onto and how? I’m trying to dig myself out of the customer service hellhole now and it seems like my only marketable skill is… fawning. 🙃
It’s a long story but it didn’t have anything to do with me, it was dumb luck. My dad got remarried to someone who took a chance on me and gave me a job in software.
I was in mostly the same place, doing a lot of customer facing restaurant work for 5 years. It’s so draining, you can feel the life getting sucked out of you. If you want advice or tips getting into an office job, dm me.
I am a good example how this actualy makes sens. My cousins are all less functional and had a hardertime getting to the small bit of peace on earth than me. Our expiriences are very similar but my cousins had more siblings and a mother who had less suport and is arguably pretty narcecistic, she had her first child at 18, while I was a singel child for 5 years and my 34 year old mum had more ppl around her, lifing in a comunal hippy hous for the first 4 years of my life. My grandmother also took me as often as she could. Things got socialy bad when I was 6 basicaly, but for my 5 cousins it was always bad plus the mum had a bad accident when the youngest was only a baby. I have a somewhat solid base to stand on so I diden't get in to drugs, managed to not get pregnant and could finish somesort of education.
The generation of my mum is similar proof, her parents died very young and you can see it in the 4 siblings in how it affected each worse the younger theye where when the parents died. My uncel being only 3 when his mum died is the one who was most messed up, followed by my mum who fortunatly diden't have me till she was well in to her adult years, but both where in to drugs, while the two older siblings did somewhat better.
This is what Alice Miller was onto when she described the importance of an “enlightened witness”