These 20 common trauma experiences that I list in today’s essay are my attempt to make visible the invisible. 

The thoughts, worries, concerns, lived experiences, and situations so many of us who come from abusive, neglectful, or chaotic backgrounds often struggle with, contend with, and face as adults.

20 Common Experiences When You Endure Relational Trauma.

1. Things that are not life and death can feel like life and death. Having had our literal survival and safety at risk early in our lives, our memory networks are established for perceiving peril where there may be none and our bodies register that perceived peril with unbelievable amounts of anxiety and stress. People tell us we’re okay but we just don’t believe them…
2. Early on you may attach to a substance or behavior (or both or many) in the absence of having someone safe, consistent, and stable to attach to. And when stress overwhelms you now, you may revert back to your old coping mechanisms. And you feel so much shame for doing so (“Shouldn’t I know better by now?”).
3. You may sometimes feel like you’re failing at life and like everyone else got handed the “Handbook to Life” besides you. You wonder if you’re the only one having such a hard time…
4. You often wonder what life would have been like if you had had loving, emotionally responsible, and responsive, stable parents. And you debate back and forth if you’d be as strong, capable, and independent as you are if you had had that. You sadly realize you’ll never know.
5. You wonder and worry if you’re “too broken to be loved” and dread what would happen if the people you care about knew about the background you really came from, who you’re related to, and what your gene pool is. So you mostly keep yourself from being known. Really known.
6. You feel as if you’re constantly racing from something. The poverty you grew up in, the bad name, the memories, the nightmares. The mistakes and poor choices you made in efforts to survive. And the racing is exhausting. You are worn out. Bone tired.
7. You know the states of anxiety and depression. Even the painful reality of questioning if life would be better if you weren’t here. You live with these realities. They’re a part of you as much as your brown hair or birthmarks. You know them well, but still, you hate, resist, and dread these states.
8. You may have (had) a tendency to sabotage your closest relationships. And there’s a part of you that watches what you’re doing, tries to warn you. And yet you still do it. You may hate that part of you.
9. You want so badly to be and do differently than your biological parents but may eventually see their dark parts in you and feel awful. You fear that you’re not so different after all, despite all those years of therapy. And when you glimpse their face in your face in the mirror, you feel scared, defeated, and maybe even a little disgusted.