this may be early, don't worry about it, pin it whenever
First mega wooo, now I get to have my inbox flooded!
Friendship ended with coffee, now tea is my best friend. No promises but I'll try to post about a different tea each day!
Join our public Matrix server!
https://rentry.co/tracha#tracha-rooms
As a reminder, please do not discuss current struggle sessions in the mega. We want this to be a little oasis for all of us and the best way to do that is not to feed into existing conflict on the site.
Also, be sure to properly give content warnings and put sensitive subjects behind proper spoiler tags. It's for the mental health of not just your comrades, but yourself as well.
Here is a screenshot of where to find the spoiler button.
spoiler
view the rest of the comments
traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns
Welcome to /c/traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns, an anti-capitalist meme community for transgender and gender diverse people.
-
Please follow the Hexbear Code of Conduct
-
Selfies are not permitted for the personal safety of users.
-
No personal identifying information may be posted or commented.
-
Stay on topic (trans/gender stuff).
-
Bring a trans friend!
-
Any image post that gets 200 upvotes with "banner" or "rule 6" in the title becomes the new banner.
-
Posts about dysphoria/trauma/transphobia should be NSFW tagged for community health purposes.
-
When made outside of NSFW tagged posts, comments about dysphoria/traumatic/transphobic material should be spoiler tagged.
-
Arguing in favor of transmedicalism is unacceptable. This is an inclusive and intersectional community.
-
While this is mostly a meme community, we allow most trans related posts as we grow the trans community on the fediverse.
If you need your neopronouns added to the list, please contact the site admins.
Remember to report rulebreaking posts, don't assume someone else has already done it!
Matrix Group Chat:
Suggested Matrix Client: Cinny
https://rentry.co/tracha (Includes rules and invite link)
WEBRINGS:
🏳️⚧️ Transmasculine Pride Ring 🏳️⚧️
Can you have C-PTSD for things that weren't really that bad, all things considered?
confused childhood issues
Living with my then-stepmom from around 11 to 14 was pretty stressful at times. I didn't know anyone in the town she lived in so I just stayed in the house on a laptop when I had to go there every other weekend. I was younger than my new step siblings by several years and couldn't really connect well, especially because I was so awkward. Two of them were nice enough but the third was pretty belligerent and abrasive so I tried to avoid him.One time the stepmom didn't talk to me unless absolutely necessary for like a week. She and my dad had me and my siblings talk to this guy that I figured was a therapist and so I could be honest with him? But apparently he wasn't and told everything I said to them and she got angry that I, as a ~12 year old, wasn't being communicative enough.
I got a phone in like 4th grade because I was taking the train to get to their house. One time the "family" dog (didn't really feel like my dog because I could only see him on occasion and couldn't take him anywhere) snapped at my stepsister's face and I texted my mom about being scared. My dad and the stepmom went through my phone without me knowing and sat me down to basically tell me not to be so dramatic when talking to my mom about such things. To be fair I had been a little hyperbolic but it was scary to me.
I was also a picky eater, I think chiefly due to sensory issues. The stepmom cooked much more diverse fare than I was used to which made me dread dinnertime because I knew she'd be watching. One of the compromises was that I would eat raw spinach instead of whatever salad or vegetable had been prepared (couldn't do salad because the dressings and vinaigrettes disgusted me). I ate so much raw spinach that I can't really have it anymore. Made my teeth all squeaky too.
Sometimes it got bad enough that I would just skip meals altogether to not have to deal with the rigamarole. Usually I would offset by squirreling a bunch of pretzels from the pantry to eat while in my room. Other times I would eat nothing at all out of spite. I think I went like 36 hours without eating there once?
None of these things really seem that bad, such to the point that I feel a little sheepish posting about this because it seems so tame. But I was always a sensitive kid so maybe I'm just susceptible to even mild "trauma"
This may be tik tok psychology but AFAIK the whole point cPTSD exists as a distinct diagnosis in the first place is that it is not caused by that one big life destroying event, but by constant microtrauma exposure.
And it is extremely common to downplay that kind of trauma as "not really that bad, all things considered". That's so typical to say that my friend group has a "don't compare trauma" rule. Yes, somebody will always have had it worse, there's people being trafficked or abused as child soldiers or whatnot. That does not mean you have no right to be in pain just because your childhood environment was damaging in more subtle ways. Your stepmom sounds genuinely abusive, you do not have to apologize for being traumatized by her. You being a sensitive child doesn't excuse that, either, adults should notice when a child is sensitive and treat them accordingly instead of doing shit like giving them the cold shoulder treatment for a whole week, jfc. I'm sorry you were put through this. Lots of love and hugs to you comrade
Was taking about all this with my therapist this evening and realized it probably was probably a bigger deal than I thought... yippee
Ty btw
I feel that "it's probably a bigger deal than i thought" thing, i've had that a lot during the last year or so.
When aiding a wounded person, what matters more is the severity of the wound. The nature of the device that caused it is useful to know, but that alone does not determine the seriousness of the cut it made.
Traumatic experiences are much the same.
Discussion of trauma and mentionings of child abuse
Im going to explain some things off the top of my head. I strongly encourage you to take what I say with a grain of salt and seek assistance from a professional as well as read books on the subject. Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine is an excellent read (be warned that there are a few descriptions of traumatic experiences in there) and Pete Walker's books and website are also very good.Ideally, a traumatic experience is supposed to go like this:
Appearance of stimuli (i.e. a car crash) -> stress response activation -> disappearance of stimuli (i.e. escaping to safety) -> stress response deactivation -> recovery period -> resumption of normal functioning.
Generally, traumatic disorders develop from the disruption of this cycle, especially the recovery period. This is why even "mild" cases of the repeated abuse/neglect of a child by a parent can be so damaging. The child often has no means of leaving the situation and can't really recover from the event.
Emotional neglect is also a possible vector for c-ptsd but I don't feel well-read enough to discuss that at length.
Edit:
To answer your question more directly, yes. Repeated little-t traumatic experiences can cause lasting effects similar to big-t traumatic experiences.
I fully relate to the trauma around being a picky eater, in my case it was literally an involuntary gag response to raw tomato. Not only did they make fun of me about it but they would constantly try to "trick" me by putting it in my food but the smell alone would make me queezy and I always caught them.
I was also not allowed to cut my hair because my mom is a weird hippy and so I got bullied for being a "boy" with long hair til I was around 8 years old.
I was finally allowed to get my hair cut, not because I wanted to conform to the gender I was expected to perform, but because my aunt didn't want me to have girly hair in a tuxedo as the ring bearer at her wedding.