trauma
At its core, trauma can be thought of as the psychological wounds that persist, even when the physical ones are long gone.
Mental health
Everyone suffers from mental health. It just depends if we get the help or not. I'm here to talk about my mental health journey and hopefully help others. Hello let me start off saying that my name is Samantha. I have dealt with trauma since the age of 4. I suffer from multiple types of mental illnesses. I'll give you a little back story. My mother got with my father when she 18. She was a drug user that got with a pedophile. She knew he was one and even married him. Somehow she thought it was a good idea to have a child with him. That child was me. When I was born, my father wanted to name me after his first victim. Thankfully my mother didn't let that happen. He was also upset that I was born a male. So growing up I was forced to transition as male. My mother even went to the lengths of chopping mine and my older sisters hair off so we would look like the opposite gender. She divorced him when i was 6. Already by than went through a lot. I witnessed my own sister go through abuse with my father. Even went through sexual abuse myself. We had to eat off the floor if we accidentally dropped a piece of food. We were only aloud to eat certain foods and drink certain drinks. After she divorced him, he still got joint custody over me. I went through so much abuse those next 5 years. I wasn't aloud to sleep in my own room. I had to share a room with him. Sadly I was even dealing abuse in my mothers household. She got married again to a pedophile. She was still doing drugs. Mine and my sisters meals were portioned out really badly. If we were still hungry to bad and I ended up developing three different eating disorders. I still have them until this day. They are binge eating, anorexia, and bulimia. At the age of 11 I was really over weight for my height and age. My father somehow got custody of me and took me to a different state. My mother signed her rights away to him. Even knowing what he was and what he was doing. He had moved me all across the map to Utah. I lived with him and my step mom for almost 2 years. He would make me eat everything and proceeded to weight shame me. When he would punish me for not going to church with him, he would starve me. Sometimes would even beat me. He would control everything. I couldn't even talk my mothers side of family, because he thought I would tell them everything. When I hit 13, is when he started to do stuff to me. I found a way to tell my mother and child services on what he was doing. I was pregnant with his child. My mother put me in counseling. I was diagnosed with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), Anxiety, and Severe Depression. When she got custody back over me, it wasn't a walk in the park. She started abusing me. Telling me that I should be doing what I did for my father here. Put me through more mental abuse. I also had to deal with an abusive older sister that would bully me saying she had it worse than me. She told me I shouldn't even be sad. Around the age of 15 my mother got sick. She had left custody of me to my grandmother. She treated me like I was a problem. Even told me I was like my father. The way I do things. Even blamed me for my mothers death. I started acting out. I became more antisocial and started slacking in school. She put me back in counseling to only take me out of it because it wasn't benefitting her. I started to show signs of MPD ( Multiple Personality Disorder). I have a total of 11 alters/personalities. I have 2 males that go by the names Azazel and Samael. They come out if I'm highly stressed or forget to eat. I have 1 non-binary alter and the rest are female. .I suffer from psychosis which is a psychotic disorder. When I turned 21, I got diagnosed with BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) and Bipolar Disorder. In which having all of these have made it really hard for me. To even function in society. I'm 26 now. I can't even drive because I freak out. I can't even work a normal job because I ended up having a psychotic break drown. If I get to stressed out I will either age regress or switch with my 4 year old alter/personality. Neither are fun. Where I'm at in life right now I can't even age regress properly to destress, nor can I switch to my alter like I need. Sadly with all my alters/ personalities, they have to mask. My males have to disguise their voice as mine, so we don't get judged by our family. With all my mental illnesses it has made it hard for me to have stable relationships. I attach myself very easily and also detach myself. I confuse my brain with love and abuse. It can't tell the difference. In my head, I deserve everything I get. I'm pretty self-aware of everything. I overthink stuff. I have a mid-life crisis everyday. Wondering if something actually went differently. Would I even be here? If my mother was smarter? Or even my grandparents on either side? That's the things I think bout everyday. I want to start documenting my journey everyday. I'm hoping I can help anyone out with their struggles with mental illnesses. Even spike someone's interest in my story. I plan on writing more on my past and more on my alters/personalities. How the BPD affects me everyday. I would love to share all of this with all of you. Thank you for reading.
By Samantha Thomas 4 years ago in Psyche
How We Live With Trauma Without Realizing It
Psychological trauma is an experience that goes beyond a person's ability to control a threat at some point. It is accompanied by feelings of helplessness and helplessness and leads to a lasting shaking of self-understanding and the world.
By Tyreke Hart4 years ago in Psyche
How Does Childhood Trauma Affect Today’s Adults?
When we think of childhood, we imagine that time in our life when we should feel safe, protected, and loved, no matter what happens around us. Unfortunately, the reality is that many children go through traumatic experiences, which profoundly influence their mental, emotional and physical development, but also how they form relationships with those around them.
By Kymani Finn4 years ago in Psyche
Run Over
Have you ever felt like you have been run over by a truck? I bet you haven’t. I have been. I do not mean that figuratively. I actually got run over. To add insult to injury it was my own vehicle and I was the one steering it. We were pushing the vehicle and I fell. The front driver’s side tire rolled over me. Fortunately for me it only broke eight ribs.
By Sam Howell4 years ago in Psyche
Building Castles in the Sky
"Yes, the world is broken," a voice descended from the attic, disgusting and fragile, "but you and I will survive." I was bending at the waist. The trash was strewn across the floor. I pushed aside a pile of junk mail to kneel on the hardwood. I spotted a mass of delicate feathers beneath the dining room table. The house was actively crumbling around me, like so many other things in my life, at a pace so slow it was imperceptible. At least, until I held my breath and truly watched the process. I passed the hole in the living room wall as I fetched a clear plastic box and its lid. I scooped the white feathered object inside. Upon further inspection, I made out the shape of a baby owl, somewhat distorted by rigor mortis. The owl’s eyes were hidden in the ruffled fluff of its face. “By 2050, the polar ice caps will be totally depleted,” the voice from the attic was saying, “Maybe sooner.” I was still examining the deceased owlet several minutes later, when someone knocked at the door. Suddenly, I remembered that I had been planning to kill myself yesterday. I had never gotten around to it. Why does that always seem to be the chore that gets put on the back burner? I answered the door. It was a three-foot-tall pile of violet slime with a semi-human face. I groaned quietly. My mother is in the hospital, dying, I thought, I have so many better things to do than talk to my ex-boyfriend right now. “What do you want, Charlie?” I spat. “I’m busy right now.” A greasy purple tendril stroked my face. “Baby, I want you. I want you back in my life. I’m so sorry.” In my mind, I saw a skillet hit a cinderblock wall beside my head, chipping the stone. “I don’t want to talk to you. Please, just leave me alone.” “We can work this out,” Charlie was saying, his voice thick with fake pleading, “I can make it up to you.” I began to close the door in his face-ish area. I wondered, not for the first time, how I had failed to notice the ugliness of this man for so long. Not physically, I’ve loved worse-looking men. Charlie was spiritually ugly in so many ways. A pair of rusty scissors were being waved threateningly at me in my mind. In reality, Charlie’s shiny boot was blocking the door from closing. “Don’t do this,” he whispered, “I love you.” He pulled a phone from a fold of goo near his waist. Three taps and the phone was loudly playing what had once been 'our song'. I closed my eyes. Behind their lids, I was in a cheap hotel room in Asheville, NC. Charlie was slimy drunk. He was attacking me with a champagne bottle. The champagne had been intended as a gift for Greg and Laura, our friends who were getting married that weekend. My wrist began to hurt, distantly. Some part of my brain tried to escape the memory, to find a happy moment to dwell on. That was no longer as easy as it had once been. I opened my eyes, and it seemed that my ears opened at the same time. Bill Withers was telling me, "To make those rainbows in my mind, when I think of you sometime, and I wanna spend some time with you, just the two of us…" "Charlie, stop it. I'm not in the mood. Please, just leave." I fought to keep anger out of my voice. He reacted as if I'd slapped him. He broke into a gush of tears and screamed. "No! Baby! Please, no! Let me in!" He sank into a shapeless puddle, his glistening muck muffling the sound of the phone, still playing its song. I shook my head and tried to push his puddle back out onto the porch with the door. He pushed back and wailed, "Biiitch! Let. Me. In!" This was when I started to get really irritated. I set down the box containing the expired barn owlet. I kneeled down and rested my hand softly on his greasy tentacle. "Shut up, Charlie. Shut up right this instant," I whispered placidly, "or else I will call the fucking police on you. You're disturbing the peace. This is where I live now, and I don't want my neighbors pissed off at me." I shoved his appendage out the door and slammed it shut. I sighed heavily and slumped face first against the door, reaching up to lock it. Charlie was pounding with a splattery fist on the outside, shouting obscenities. I jumped. From behind me, I had heard Bill Withers' smooth voice start up again, clear as crystal, "I hear the crystal raindrops fall on the window down the hall, and it becomes the morning dew, and darling when the morning comes…" For a moment, I had the crazy thought that Charlie had gotten inside, maybe oozed through the big hole in the wall of the living room. This was not the case. What had once been our song was now belting out of the dead owl's box, as if the box were a quality subwoofer. The baby owl's eyes were still hidden, but its beak waggled feebly with every word. It was actually a really good song, I thought, and Charlie could not have it. I refused to think about him every time I heard it. For the rest of my life, I would think about this owl instead. I propped the box up on the dining table and grabbed a broom from the closet. It was time to get to work on the mess in here. When my Mom got home from the hospital, the place was really going to look nice. The owl made it through a whole album of classic hits before the attic voice sounded again. "There is no reason to worry. There is only worry to reason," the voice boomed, sounding strong and pleased with itself.
By Sean B. Monett4 years ago in Psyche
Relive & Rewire
My name is Tyler Franklin, I’m 32 years old, married, divorced, married again, currently a stay at home dad to my son, and live with anxiety and depression… great to meet you. The honest to god truth, I can’t believe I have lived the life I’ve lived. Sometimes I step back, and shake my head at the choices I’ve made that I now have to live with. Some good choices, some terrible, and some that are still t.b.d. The past decade has been a series of dramatic swings of highs, lows, and eventually rock bottom. Beautiful moments now memories as gorgeous as the pink sky before the sun disappears. While other moments have challenged the values I’ve tried to bring to pass.
By Tyler Franklin4 years ago in Psyche
