Pain Score 10/10

There are things in life that anyone who has been through real pain in life can relate to - how difficult it is to convey just how bad the situation was to someone else. 

Sharing one's trauma is not easy. Don't be surprised if your best friend since many years has been keeping a lot of things from you. Compartmentalising is easier than sharing. People don't need to know how hurt you are and that makes it easier for you to pretend you're not hurt at all. 

But there comes a phase in every traumatized person's life where they feel the need to share their experiences. It is at that moment that we make the (very common) mistake of sharing with the wrong person. 

And then you never feel like opening up again. 

Sharing Pain

I've shared quite a few tales of trauma and sadness on this blog but the truth is, things are actually quite worse than it appears on this blog. 

A few years ago, a lot of bad things happened to me which I don't feel comfortable writing about or sharing on a public forum. Let's just say that was *really bad* and left me at rock bottom in life. 

I realised somewhere along the line that I needed to share what happened to someone. Up until today, I've only told 3 people about what happened and I've regretted that each and every time. 

It's not really their fault (Ok sometimes it is)

Finding yourself doing this means you're basically setting yourself up for disappointment. You see, most people including your best friends or even someone you're in a relationship with are not equipped to understand how to deal with someone who is going through mental trauma. 

So it is somewhat inevitable that you'll feel disappointed. You fall into a vicious cycle of feeling like you don't have anyone to share these emotions with, while at the same time feeling like you should never share anything again for your own good. 

Looking back at how each of those 3 people responded is always a good reminder why I don't share certain things about myself to anyone. 

*Person number 1* responded by saying "You should probably just kill yourself". 1 then proceeded to emotionally blackmail me for the same for a few weeks before I had to block all contact. This wasn't really a surprise since I had accidentally revealed to 1 what happened when I was angry instead of it being some heart-to-heart conversation. 

*Person 2* was one of my closest friends at the time. I felt I needed to tell someone for my own good, especially after what happened with 1. 2's response was 

"You're at fault. You did it to yourself." 

I don't think 2 ever saw me as the same person again. Years later now, we don't even talk. 

*Person 3* - I'm not sure why I shared what happened when I did with her. We weren't even that close at that time. 

"You're at fault. You did it to yourself." The response was heartbreakingly similar. I guess from an outsider's point of view, it did look that way. But it's difficult to convey months of backstory into a single conversation adequately. And people are never slow to judge. 

Person 3 was different in one aspect though. 3 never looked at me differently. She didn't see me as the damaged human I thought I was. We became great friends. And then we fell in love and the year we were together was probably the only time in the past 5 years that I didn't feel alone. It was one of the few times I could look back and saw I was actually happy. 

But then it ended. Abruptly and badly. And it made me again feel bad about sharing things about myself I'm 

really not that comfortable talking about. 

Turning Your Emotions Off (But not forever)

I'm not the same person I was back then. I've become colder. Watching everyone close to you leave soon after your parents pass away kinda does that to you. My expectations of people are by default extremely low. And I sometimes I push people away before they get too close. 

And I know what you're thinking. I did seek professional help at different points over the years. But that doesn't really change the fact that you'll continue to feel a desire to open up to those close to you. 

Ultimately, it was not my friends, my ex or the psychiatrists I met that helped. While I did cling to them at different points, they all left when it was no longer convenient. I had to find my own way out of the hell I found myself. 

Knowing what I know from these experiences, I always try to be there for people who go through similar problems. I try to be there for them and be a good listener who doesn't judge them for what happened to them.  

I don't believe my grief will ever be replaced by happiness but I do find small moments of joy making sure that people going through similar issues don't feel quite as terrible as I did. And sometimes, that's good enough. 

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