What other really shitty things does trauma do to you?
I haven't been keeping track, list-wise, so maybe I've mentioned a few dozen random things and we can say this is #13.
13) You live a life that isn't real. Your responses to most things are altered. Think of all the stimuli you process daily, all the micro-decisions, the relational moments, the decisions, the choices. Most of the energy around all that is altered. It's altered because your brain has predetermined ways of dealing with and responding to things, all based on trauma.
Trauma laid down your automatic responses and triggers. It feels comfortable or "normal" but it's not. Does that make you angry? It should. It should make you angry and then motivated to say, "Get the fuck out of my head, you nasty trauma bastard, and all your tricksy little thoughts and feelings that aren't real. I don't know what's coming but it's better than this breakfast of the non-champions every fucking day."
Let's try another because this is pretty interesting and I feel like swearing.
14) You don't develop healthfully over time. Being frozen from trauma means you don't develop a robust emotional schema. When you should step up and learn something, you withdraw. When you need to admit you made a mistake, instead you blame someone else. When you should be doing something new, you retreat and claim an illness.
And all this really sucks to discover when you're fifty years old. You realize so, so many of your decisions were based on the pain that kept you in a paper prison.
One of our old, horribly disgusting business partners said this one wise thing: "Success in the marketplace is the best form of revenge."
Success in living will be my best form of revenge against the abusers and harrassers that circled my life for too long.