Just Sad! Why Loneliness Is Often the Only Refuge for People Who Have Experienced Trauma!
Surviving trauma, in most cases, means somehow getting out alive. This may refer to the physical component, but also to our psyche. You've survived, but life afterward doesn't feel particularly alive. Most sufferers of traumatic experiences find some way to cope with what they have experienced. Life almost never returns to how it was before. Those affected develop very different coping strategies in order not to be caught up by their dark memories and flashbacks more than absolutely necessary. Such painful experiences from long ago tear deep wounds in our heart and soul. Above all, they affect our everyday lives with cruel persistence, so much so that some people see loneliness as their only refuge. We'll show you why that is in this article.
1. You fight a daily battle.
Trauma is never truly over or finished. Thanks to professional help, some people manage to live a good life in the shadow of that wall of gloomy memories. But there is never true closure, including a fresh start, for trauma victims. Every day they recognize the visible signs that this dramatic event has carved into their souls. But trauma is not just a generous dispenser of unwanted long-term effects. We must sacrifice some things to it as well. These include our sense of security, our self-worth, our light-heartedness, and not least our motivation to move forward in life. We all struggle to escape its long arm, because at some point it defines every area of our identity and our lives. It claws its way into our daily lives and wreaks havoc with our peace of mind in ways we can't always immediately recognize. Inexplicable physical and psychological symptoms are among them, as are avoidance strategies, emotional outbursts, inability to bond, and the constant feeling that we are no longer safe or welcome anywhere on this planet.
2. No one understands you
Carrying around trauma is like an invisible brand that stigmatizes us and makes us outsiders. While no one but us often knows what we've been through, it still feels like there's no room for someone like us at the table of the happy and content. Trauma victims spend their lives feeling caught in the middle. Every moment of happiness must be immediately questioned because it could be deceptive and not last. Building trust with other people is exceptionally difficult, and the constant fear that the experience could repeat itself is omnipresent. Even those people who manage to talk to others about the experience at some point will not meet with sufficient understanding. How could they? Most of what trauma does to its victims is indescribable anyway. The most likely way to succeed is to exchange experiences among fellow sufferers, for example in self-help groups. Realizing there that you are not alone with your burden is already a significant step forward for many of those affected. Partners and family often don't understand for years what is different about their loved ones until they finally open up to them.
3. Getting to know other people challenges you
Particularly in cases where specific people were the perpetrators of trauma. As in cases of abuse, violent crimes or accidents, survivors are on guard against other people for life. Anyone who has had to experience what humanity is capable of will have a hard time ever trusting it again. But even when no specific people were involved in the traumatic event, as in the case of natural disasters, one thought remains constantly in the back of victims' minds: what if history repeats itself? Some victims experience the aftermath of their terrible experiences like a curse that weighs on them. The risk of exposing their fellow human beings to it is too great. That's why trauma victims prefer to keep their distance and, if in doubt, stay alone, even if this supposedly safe path drives them straight into the arms of loneliness.
4. It's hard to stay optimistic
Trauma catapults us into the very abysses of life. Once you have experienced and survived what seems impossible to others, you will never be able to return to the ease of a carefree life. Knowing what fate is capable of understandably does not bring with it a positive outlook on life. Coming to terms with trauma is like a sword of Damocles that constantly hovers over the heads of those affected. Even those who don't give up hope for recovery and normalcy will have to struggle for every ounce of optimism from life. Some trauma victims then train themselves to have something like a fake identity. They practice purposeful optimism and feign a kind of ideal world to those around them. In doing so, they may deceive others, but not themselves. Once you have looked into the abyss, it will be extremely difficult for you to look into the future full of hope and enthusiasm.
5. You are afraid of facing new challenges
If you've had to experience life at its worst, you won't face new, uncertain opportunities very lightly. Safety absolutely comes first once you've been exposed to its dramatic opposite. Unfortunately, this persistence in rigidity leads to the fact that no further development is possible. Trauma victims rarely manage to build a professional career or a significant personal life if they cannot shake off the shackles of their experiences. For them, every day without special incident represents the best possible thing they can expect. Thus, seizing opportunities or facing new possibilities feels more like a threat to them than a good opportunity. Some traumas even run through several generations. In such families, the burden of this experience weighs heavily and inhibits future development.
6. What used to fill you with joy is now meaningless
Trauma not only robs us of our peace of mind and security, it takes away the joy of everything that once made us happy. Being with family and friends, hobbies and travel, nurturing creative passions or helping out wherever possible take on a stale flavor. The constant fear that all happiness is fragile and that we may not deserve it holds us back. Trauma literally paralyzes its victims and muffles all their senses. It prevents those affected from indulging in the happy moments because they may be fleeting. Survivors of traumatic events remain on the defensive for life. They stay in hiding from life and any disaster that feels like it could be lurking around the next corner.
Today's Conclusion: scarred for life
Everyone feels the severity of trauma differently. What may be chalked up to a bad experience for one person is associated with a lifetime of echoes of pain and dark memories for another. There are no 2 people in the world who feel traumatic experiences the same. Good advice is as useless here as pity. The only viable way out of this eternal imprisonment in a spiral of debilitating memories and agonizing symptoms is professional help. Those who can face the demons of days long past in the here and now have a good chance of not taking them with them into the future. Trauma is essentially pain, and pain must be felt and processed in order for it to subside and perhaps even heal at some point. That's it for today.