on trauma

second blog post the day after the first one and he's already resorting to venting. incredible world record pace

"trauma" is one of those internet buzzwords that's been flanderized so much that people no longer take it seriously (like dementia). or, well, they do take it seriously, but that seems to be a very specific group of people who are far too obsessed with it for it to be healthy. either way, it's more used as a byword for "bad memories" than what it actually is.

this past summer, i had a very... unpleasant experience with someone (no, it wasn't grooming or anything, for which i count my lucky stars). they treated me extremely poorly, and since i'm a sensitive snowflake, it got to me far more than it should've. or maybe it was warranted. either way, i still haven't emotionally recovered in full since.

after the final argument i had with them, something weird began to happen. i desperately wanted to reach out, to try and reconnect, but every single time i tried, i would have borderline panic attacks. everything in my body screamed at me with conflicting signals until i forced myself to stop reaching out. seeing the person's name shuts down my brain until it's off the screen.

and the absolute worst part is that i can't explain this to anybody. it's not my place to ask people to stop mentioning one specific person by name, and i don't want to breed any bad feelings towards them just because i can't get over my own. but just seeing them mentioned in passing is enough to completely shut me down emotionally. i can't barely think of this person without my mental state collapsing.

that is trauma. it's not only bad memories. it's something that pervades your life until you can learn to cope with it. hell, i can't even enjoy the things that person associated themselves with! and i used to like a lot of their same interests! now i have to look the other way because those things remind me of them so much that it makes me physically ill.

trauma is a physiological response meant to prevent future traumatic events from reoccurring. admitting that i've even had trauma has taken me a long time, and i still don't like the idea that i have any at all. am i really that delicate that a single bad argument is enough to reduce me to an emotional blob of suicidal depression? apparently so, because that's exactly what happened.

as we hit the middle of the month and approach two full months since everything fell through, i find that i'm still barely any better than i was around the end of september. i hate the fact that i'm barely getting better, and that i'm improving slowly. i just want everything to be over with so i can move on, but tiny little reminders (such as seeing their name) send me right back to the emotional hellscape of august.

despite all my doom and gloom, i am getting better. i've started writing again along with updating my website, and being able to do any creative endeavors at all is extremely encouraging. i'm still not back to 100%, but i'm better than i was.

i am so thankful to have friends willing to support me through all this. even if i'm terrified of them just cutting me off for terrible and self-serving reasons, i'm still thankful that i have anyone at all. i write pokemon mystery dungeon fanfiction, and a good reason for that is because it has friendships that stand the test of time and manage to persevere through everything. it's something i crave deeply, and still do. just sucks that my first attempt at friends ended so catastrophically.

i pray that i never have to see that person again in any context. they really don't know who they are deep down and i feel like i should've not trusted them so wholeheartedly. the person they were underneath their friendly persona was just as horrible as one would expect, which just makes me sad. may God forgive them, because i cannot.

overall, i'm just exhausted. i haven't been bottling up all my emotions, but keeping any sort of restraint on them is wearying. i just don't want to fly off the handle and change my pfp to completely black and doompost before deleting my account. (for one thing, my parents would notice, and that's a whole other can of worms.)

if you managed to get through all this, thanks for reading. processing your thoughts after an event is always difficult, especially when ex-friends are involved. hopefully the next blog post is less depressing.