Cavalcade
Member
- Dec 16, 2024
- 43
I keep bouncing between being terribly sad, and incredibly furious- which makes sense, as one of the many, many trauma specialists I had seen had indicated to me that anger seemed to primarily be a protective emotion for me- one that would prelude tears and breaking down when that suffocating vulnerability bubbled up. It was a bit of a shock to the system how cruel people could be- and to have people who would have loudly and happily proclaimed that we were friends, and that they adored me and loved me, would silently cut me out of their life and skip away into the sunset with friends I had introduced them to, a hobby I had helped them foster for years, and all of the art and writing we'd done together after an attempt. Not once did she even send me a cursory text checking in. I don't even really care to salvage any of that anymore- I'd feel sick to my stomach reading it over, as I have when poring through old materials from previous friends. But it still hurts.
I have a few friends who have been very kind to me since- my brother, a childhood best friend, an ex-boyfriend. There's one friend I have where we went through a terrible, traumatizing time in coordinating care for my brother after a life threatening car crash this year, where it was uncertain whether he would have lived upon initial intake, and amputation was a serious consideration once they got him stabilized- and he's been checking in on me occasionally, sending me kitty pictures- talking about a mutual hobby we have: providing a sense of normalcy, which is comforting. To be treated like any other person, and not as some basket case to be run screaming from.
It's just- life has been especially cruel to me, this last while, this last year. My brother nearly died, in an eerily similar situation to how I was nearly taken out in a double homicide-suicide attempt as a child at the hands of a caretaker. If I hadn't been such a paranoiac in hoarding the contact info of those closest to him, noticed a change in his routine, coordinated care with the hospital- he could have died in that snowy ditch, and no one would have known until his corpse was eventually dug out from the isolated embankment. Had he been in a slightly different position, his entire leg would have essentially exploded into a fine mist. The truck nearly caught fire with him inside of it. Had it not been a ridiculously sized truck, the emergency personnel said in all likelihood, he would have died on impact instantaneously.
I love my brother- he's such a huge part of my life, my support network: I joke that he's most of my self control, and he helps stabilize me, because he's been through similar shit and knows how to handle it with more experience, on account of being older. I've been an absolute wreck- I was given an emergency course of sessions because of how unstable I was after his crash, and insanely triggering it was for my diagnosed PTSD: while also knowing I was a major pillar in his support system, and had to be strong for him too, to keep things from falling down around his shoulders- medically, financially, socially... Watching him struggle with his new diagnosis of PTSD was also incredibly horrible- it kept reminding me of how bad it was when I'd been coming to terms with the night terrors, the flashbacks... It was so painful, watching him hurt not unlike how I'd hurt, and not being able to do much more than be there for him in ways that felt wholly inadequate.
That's on top of all the other shit I deal with ambiently in the background- a debilitatingly painful genetic disorder that I am stigmatized for because people find it 'disgusting' and 'stomach turning,' and told to essentially shut up because it made them physically ill to read about when it... wasn't directed at them in the slightest in the conversation, and was covered in quite glossing over detail, just plain medical terminology about what was going on- hell, I have bronchitis right now, my health is always precarious. I don't think it's appropriate or reasonable to tell a disabled person that it's disgusting and made you puke when they say 'I've been experiencing an internal hemorrhage so a bit nauseous, but I'll live' or something to that basic effect. Especially when they weren't even talking to you in the first place. It's crazy how personally people choose to take the things you say not even to them, sometimes.
Hell- that was the whole basis for the parasocial hatred someone had developed over the course of years from reading my forum posts, and they attacked me repeatedly, confronting me on and off site, hounding me in spaces I had helped to create- and yet my so called 'friends' allowed the deranged stalker to remain because 'they really liked the people here' and 'it wasn't any of our business.' When I'd had a violent, sexually fixated stalker just this last year- who chased me down on campus even to the therapy practice I was attending, and who I had to have security intervene with because I did not feel safe being on campus after labs with this man intent on following me home- or with him showing up outside of the therapy office! You would think that it's a natural, human inclination to not allow someone who has repeatedly violated the social contract of uh, not stalking and screaming at people who have never once spoken to you, around others- but it was additionally painful given how terrifying that stalker had been, and how it triggered childhood memories of a stalker I had where things went so poorly I had to move entire towns and school districts on next to no notice because I was in so much danger. It is just... breathtakingly cruel.
I can't fathom treating the people I care for like that. I can't fathom treating a fucking stranger like that! I'm still shocked that some of my so called friends would, that they somehow convinced themselves and others they've done the right thing, that I'm the crazy one who needs to be ousted, who doesn't need to be thought of or cared for anymore because it's for the better I'm not around, and that I just 'cause problems.' Like, Jesus Christ- I went through severe medical withdrawal from SSRIs, and even then, I was protecting other people from the emotional fallout of it- and punished all the same! It's all felt like compounding cruelty for being seen as openly crazy. I never once got an apology for how they reacted in the aftermath of that, even though they told my brother they 'felt so bad' and 'were really worried' but didn't give a shit about actually talking to me about it.
I'm unmedicated, out of therapy- I can't afford the tier of specialist care that I need. I've been through an intensely traumatizing year, I have such severe PTSD that I've been fired repeatedly by trauma specialists not because I'm a bad patient- I've been told I'm a surprisingly insightful, strongly motivated, wonderfully engaged, thoroughly researched and prepared by way of documentation, punctual, polite patient- all sorts of lovely, nice things: it's just that I'm so goddamn fucked up that they don't feel as if they're able to provide the scope of care that I need, and I need to pursue treatment with someone better equipped to handle the severity of my trauma. I've had a therapist throw up and leave a room crying because she heard about one small incident from my past- how humiliating it is, to repeatedly hand other therapists their own fucking box of tissues as they lose their composure, and be made to comfort them awkwardly while feeling almost made inhuman, intolerable, by what other people have done to me.
And yet through all of this- I have tried to be thoughtful, kind, loving, generous- I pride myself on being a good friend, on creating wonderful experiences for other people- and my loved ones will testify that I go above and beyond for people, that I am a life changing person for them- fuck, some of them wouldn't be alive, or want to be alive, without me in their life. That when other people walked away, or turned aside, that I was there for them, unceasingly. That they'd never felt as understood, or as connected, or that they could be so honest and open with someone else- who had known intense suffering, but chooses to be kind, chooses to do better. To be better than the people who hurt me. If I goddamn wanted to, I have more than a million reasons to be the worst human being alive. I try not to be, because it's important to me to be kind, to stand up for my morals and principles- even when it's unpopular, even when it rocks the boat- even, when it costs me an entire creative community, and the painful loss of a friendship of several years and hundreds of hours spent together.
It just hurts. It hurts so badly, because it makes me feel as if I've regressed into being a child- the kid sobbing about what's so wrong with me, why doesn't anyone love me- what can I do to be deserving of that love? One of the most traumatizing things I was ever told growing up from the people meant to take care of me, to love me, was that I was both incapable of being loved, or loving other people- because that was for people, you see- and I wasn't worthy of being a human, not good enough to be a child- I was a thing, an it, a monster, a burden, a problem, a mistake- that I should have been aborted, and it wasn't too late for them to take that matter into their own hands: they brought me into this world, they would gladly take me out of it. It's been a huge issue in my personal relationships, where I chase after emotionally unavailable people in some fucked up recreation of my childhood- and it's always so devastating, feeling like that little kid crying because they just don't understand what's so evil, so repugnant, so wrong with them.
I know that I have people who care about me, who love me. I've been consciously spending more time with them- I've cut off basically all of my social circle outside of those three while I retreat to lick my wounds. But God, I never thought that people- that my friends, one of my best friends, could be so goddamn cruel- or that they would mobilize as a front against me- especially ramping up the cruelty and cutting me off after an attempt. How can someone treat someone else like that? It's unfathomable to me. I don't understand- frankly, I don't want to- if I ever did, if I ever became the kind of person who could so callously justify treating someone I said that I loved like that, I wouldn't be able to live with who I had become. It's just fucking horrible.
I have a few friends who have been very kind to me since- my brother, a childhood best friend, an ex-boyfriend. There's one friend I have where we went through a terrible, traumatizing time in coordinating care for my brother after a life threatening car crash this year, where it was uncertain whether he would have lived upon initial intake, and amputation was a serious consideration once they got him stabilized- and he's been checking in on me occasionally, sending me kitty pictures- talking about a mutual hobby we have: providing a sense of normalcy, which is comforting. To be treated like any other person, and not as some basket case to be run screaming from.
It's just- life has been especially cruel to me, this last while, this last year. My brother nearly died, in an eerily similar situation to how I was nearly taken out in a double homicide-suicide attempt as a child at the hands of a caretaker. If I hadn't been such a paranoiac in hoarding the contact info of those closest to him, noticed a change in his routine, coordinated care with the hospital- he could have died in that snowy ditch, and no one would have known until his corpse was eventually dug out from the isolated embankment. Had he been in a slightly different position, his entire leg would have essentially exploded into a fine mist. The truck nearly caught fire with him inside of it. Had it not been a ridiculously sized truck, the emergency personnel said in all likelihood, he would have died on impact instantaneously.
I love my brother- he's such a huge part of my life, my support network: I joke that he's most of my self control, and he helps stabilize me, because he's been through similar shit and knows how to handle it with more experience, on account of being older. I've been an absolute wreck- I was given an emergency course of sessions because of how unstable I was after his crash, and insanely triggering it was for my diagnosed PTSD: while also knowing I was a major pillar in his support system, and had to be strong for him too, to keep things from falling down around his shoulders- medically, financially, socially... Watching him struggle with his new diagnosis of PTSD was also incredibly horrible- it kept reminding me of how bad it was when I'd been coming to terms with the night terrors, the flashbacks... It was so painful, watching him hurt not unlike how I'd hurt, and not being able to do much more than be there for him in ways that felt wholly inadequate.
That's on top of all the other shit I deal with ambiently in the background- a debilitatingly painful genetic disorder that I am stigmatized for because people find it 'disgusting' and 'stomach turning,' and told to essentially shut up because it made them physically ill to read about when it... wasn't directed at them in the slightest in the conversation, and was covered in quite glossing over detail, just plain medical terminology about what was going on- hell, I have bronchitis right now, my health is always precarious. I don't think it's appropriate or reasonable to tell a disabled person that it's disgusting and made you puke when they say 'I've been experiencing an internal hemorrhage so a bit nauseous, but I'll live' or something to that basic effect. Especially when they weren't even talking to you in the first place. It's crazy how personally people choose to take the things you say not even to them, sometimes.
Hell- that was the whole basis for the parasocial hatred someone had developed over the course of years from reading my forum posts, and they attacked me repeatedly, confronting me on and off site, hounding me in spaces I had helped to create- and yet my so called 'friends' allowed the deranged stalker to remain because 'they really liked the people here' and 'it wasn't any of our business.' When I'd had a violent, sexually fixated stalker just this last year- who chased me down on campus even to the therapy practice I was attending, and who I had to have security intervene with because I did not feel safe being on campus after labs with this man intent on following me home- or with him showing up outside of the therapy office! You would think that it's a natural, human inclination to not allow someone who has repeatedly violated the social contract of uh, not stalking and screaming at people who have never once spoken to you, around others- but it was additionally painful given how terrifying that stalker had been, and how it triggered childhood memories of a stalker I had where things went so poorly I had to move entire towns and school districts on next to no notice because I was in so much danger. It is just... breathtakingly cruel.
I can't fathom treating the people I care for like that. I can't fathom treating a fucking stranger like that! I'm still shocked that some of my so called friends would, that they somehow convinced themselves and others they've done the right thing, that I'm the crazy one who needs to be ousted, who doesn't need to be thought of or cared for anymore because it's for the better I'm not around, and that I just 'cause problems.' Like, Jesus Christ- I went through severe medical withdrawal from SSRIs, and even then, I was protecting other people from the emotional fallout of it- and punished all the same! It's all felt like compounding cruelty for being seen as openly crazy. I never once got an apology for how they reacted in the aftermath of that, even though they told my brother they 'felt so bad' and 'were really worried' but didn't give a shit about actually talking to me about it.
I'm unmedicated, out of therapy- I can't afford the tier of specialist care that I need. I've been through an intensely traumatizing year, I have such severe PTSD that I've been fired repeatedly by trauma specialists not because I'm a bad patient- I've been told I'm a surprisingly insightful, strongly motivated, wonderfully engaged, thoroughly researched and prepared by way of documentation, punctual, polite patient- all sorts of lovely, nice things: it's just that I'm so goddamn fucked up that they don't feel as if they're able to provide the scope of care that I need, and I need to pursue treatment with someone better equipped to handle the severity of my trauma. I've had a therapist throw up and leave a room crying because she heard about one small incident from my past- how humiliating it is, to repeatedly hand other therapists their own fucking box of tissues as they lose their composure, and be made to comfort them awkwardly while feeling almost made inhuman, intolerable, by what other people have done to me.
And yet through all of this- I have tried to be thoughtful, kind, loving, generous- I pride myself on being a good friend, on creating wonderful experiences for other people- and my loved ones will testify that I go above and beyond for people, that I am a life changing person for them- fuck, some of them wouldn't be alive, or want to be alive, without me in their life. That when other people walked away, or turned aside, that I was there for them, unceasingly. That they'd never felt as understood, or as connected, or that they could be so honest and open with someone else- who had known intense suffering, but chooses to be kind, chooses to do better. To be better than the people who hurt me. If I goddamn wanted to, I have more than a million reasons to be the worst human being alive. I try not to be, because it's important to me to be kind, to stand up for my morals and principles- even when it's unpopular, even when it rocks the boat- even, when it costs me an entire creative community, and the painful loss of a friendship of several years and hundreds of hours spent together.
It just hurts. It hurts so badly, because it makes me feel as if I've regressed into being a child- the kid sobbing about what's so wrong with me, why doesn't anyone love me- what can I do to be deserving of that love? One of the most traumatizing things I was ever told growing up from the people meant to take care of me, to love me, was that I was both incapable of being loved, or loving other people- because that was for people, you see- and I wasn't worthy of being a human, not good enough to be a child- I was a thing, an it, a monster, a burden, a problem, a mistake- that I should have been aborted, and it wasn't too late for them to take that matter into their own hands: they brought me into this world, they would gladly take me out of it. It's been a huge issue in my personal relationships, where I chase after emotionally unavailable people in some fucked up recreation of my childhood- and it's always so devastating, feeling like that little kid crying because they just don't understand what's so evil, so repugnant, so wrong with them.
I know that I have people who care about me, who love me. I've been consciously spending more time with them- I've cut off basically all of my social circle outside of those three while I retreat to lick my wounds. But God, I never thought that people- that my friends, one of my best friends, could be so goddamn cruel- or that they would mobilize as a front against me- especially ramping up the cruelty and cutting me off after an attempt. How can someone treat someone else like that? It's unfathomable to me. I don't understand- frankly, I don't want to- if I ever did, if I ever became the kind of person who could so callously justify treating someone I said that I loved like that, I wouldn't be able to live with who I had become. It's just fucking horrible.
