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One of the worst parts of being traumatized by something else than familial abuse is the empty and hollow feeling I experience in relation to the identity of a trauma survivor. I cannot separate myself from something that shaped me as a person in such a fundamental way, it just has to become part of who I am, who I see myself as. But when there is a clear disconnect in my lived life experience as a traumatized person and the image the rest of the world wants to project, how am I supposed to find myself whole?

character maker.

Picture yourself creating a Sim while playing the Sims video games. In the third installation of the game franchise, you could pick an end goal for your Sim, a life-long wish they want to make their reality. Along with the life goal, you could choose five different character traits that would determine the kind of person your Sim was going to become  – how they will interact with other Sims, what their values in life are, how they react to emotional triggers etc. Some life goals have certain requirements for the kind of person your Sim has to be, and some character traits are mutually exclusive with one another. The only way to know them is to start picking and choosing the traits and life aspirations you want to give your Sim. 

You are creating your Sim, you have chosen their life aspiration and the traits you want to give them. Suddenly, you get a red error message: you cannot pick one of the traits, because it contradicts with the life goal or with one of the other traits you have assigned to your Sim. You are forced to pick another character trait, or remove the contradicting one. 

The good thing about video games like the Sims is that you can start again if you want to. You can create another Sim with more appealing traits, or you can randomize new traits and life aspirations to the Sim you are in the works of making. You can fabricate an entirely different life story for them, you can make them out to be a completely different person from the one you initially wanted them to become. Because your Sim is not a real person, they are not you. 

Imagine this level of contradiction, but for your own damn self. There are certain characteristics you possess that are in complete disagreement with something that defines your character in a fundamental manner, making it difficult for you to live with yourself, to be recognized as the kind of person you actually are, to feel like you are a whole person and not just a collection of misplaced puzzle pieces. That is how it feels to be a victim of childhood trauma that doesn’t come from home. 

I have always been close with my family, especially with my parents. I don’t have a problematic relationship with my mom or dad like many other childhood trauma survivors do – for an obvious reason. This has proven to be a major contradiction for me, because every time I meet up with a new healthcare professional and tell them I have childhood trauma, they always assume I have a fractured home and am not in contact with my parents. It leaves me with the stinging sensation of being misplaced, a gnawing feeling of emptiness within my core as a human. 

So many factors of me being a victim of childhood trauma are in open contradiction with the stereotype of such a person. It has led to me not receiving the treatment I need, with constant trauma invalidation, with misdiagnoses, with sheer neglect. It is because of these pre-conceived notions of what it means to be someone with childhood trauma that leaves people like me outside of the treatment we so desperately need. Until the medical field and society at large understand that childhood trauma comes in various shapes and sizes, we will always be lacking in the treatment and validation people who have been traumatized by their peers abusing them desperately need and deserve.

Rebooting,

ichigonya