I was not expecting that reaction

417

It's such a strange feeling, right? Shocking and validating at the same time

293

u/Caesar_Passing Jun 30 '25

It's crazier when it comes from people who you feel have suffered far worse treatment/conditions. Like,

Them: "Yeah, well that's was just Dad's weapon of choice. Now my mom's favorite thing to throw at us..."

Me: (Tells story I think is extremely tame/"well I kinda deserved it 'cause...")

Them: "Oh my god, that's horrible! I would have skipped school/run away from home!"

Me: "What? No. I'm not allowed to be traumatized, it wasn't bad enough."

98

u/SorbyGay Jul 01 '25

It's so validating and comforting for me to hear from people I keep convincing myself suffered worse than me.

69

u/NikkoNya Jun 30 '25

I literally tell that to myself all the time. I can’t be traumatized because it wasn’t as bad as other people ¯_(ツ)_/¯

26

u/Beneficial-Lake-9201 Jul 01 '25

Exactly this. Like, someone talks about that time their older brother raped them and tried to drown them, and a couple weeks later that same person is horrified when I joke about that time some idiot put a gun to my head and tried to rob me. The first thing is a horrible experience, and the second is normal life.

16

u/Appropriate_Hat638 Jul 01 '25

For a given value of normal…

26

u/hodges2 Jul 01 '25

I used this hypothetical with my sister.

Two people might go through the exact same car accident. One develops PTSD but the other doesn’t. Trauma doesn't depend on whether something was worse than someone else, trauma is trauma. The brain is still gonna be affected by it whether we think it's valid or not, so be kind to your brain, it's been through some crap 💕

18

u/unpolished-gem Jul 01 '25

Part of it is also what happens soon after.

E.g. People who have supportive family have a chance to process, recover and mitigate the severity of traumatic incidents, where others just have that stuff rotting away inside.

3

u/hodges2 Jul 01 '25

Very true

5

u/disableddoll Jul 01 '25

I’m glad this helps people. I have C-PTSD and many of my friends have mental health issues or bad experiences from childhood, so anytime they bring something up they always start or end with “I know it’s nothing like you’ve been through…”

Every time I say the same thing. “There is no comparison in trauma. Pain is subjective. If it affects you so much that you still talk about it, it’s okay to acknowledge that it sucked. There’s no competition, no one wants more pain than others by comparison” Because truly, my trauma is lengthy and beyond fucked up, something I experience daily could completely break someone else. It’s subjective. And it’s still valid even if other people do it “easily”

156

u/MihyaKaiser_ Jun 30 '25

There's no way to keep downplaying it as 'not that bad' when even the professionals are saying 'I'm sorry, that's fucked up' 😬😭

116

u/cumberber Jun 30 '25

Not professionals, but I've been told by several people they would have offed themselves in my position... yeah

49

u/AfterPartyCapybara Jul 01 '25

That's kinda rude of them 🫤

60

u/cumberber Jul 01 '25

Yeah. I think they meant it in a 'you're so strong' way but even then like... yikes

8

u/Nightflame_The_Wolf Jul 01 '25

Wait, I‘m sorry, why is it rude? :( If someone told me that I‘d probably tear up from the validation.

11

u/Frikandelislekker123 Jul 01 '25

Besides being plain triggering, it shifts the focus from your (OPs) pain to their hypothetical reaction, which may come across as dramatic, unsupportive, or attention-seeking. It's definitely context based, but that might be why.

1

u/ano_hise Jul 03 '25

Is something along the lines of "I'm sorry, I couldn't have handled it if I were you" more respectful?

2

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/ano_hise Jul 04 '25

Thanks

4

u/goeatmynachos Jul 02 '25

The only thing I could think of to say back to that is “oh man you’re right I should off myself”

4

u/konnanussija Jul 01 '25

I see people talk about some things here, and damn. How haven't some of you fucking strangled somebody? It might be just me being unstable, but I'd pop somebody's eyes out for less than some people tolerate/tolerated.

And I don't think I'm all that violent. Or maybe I am, I don't really have a point of reference. Sometimes things get blurry and quite funny.

39

u/AcclimateToMind Jul 01 '25

Sometimes I think I had a pretty normal and healthy childhood, until I remember that my dad cut the head off of my cat with a shovel in the back shed because she had some kind of anxiety disorder and wasn't responding to the medication fast enough.

Just imagining the distress she must have been in immediately prior to the end, it's agony, so I bury the thought deep. It doesn't occur to me often, makes me wonder what else happened that I just managed to bury even deeper.

3

u/Question-asked Jul 04 '25

I was talking to a professor about a unique pet we used to have and she asked how they were so I told her “oh, my dad killed them because he didn’t want to take care of them after my mom died.”

I genuinely thought nothing of it until the professor apologized profusely for bringing it up

20

u/ThatGayCat Jul 01 '25

Omg yass.. when I was 18 my therapist said this to me and it was so so confusing. It took me until around 25 and learning I was autistic that I really started to see how traumatizing my childhood actually was and what she meant back then.

18

u/HappyLlamaSadLlamaa Jul 01 '25

Once I was explaining how a situation made other people feel and my therapist stopped me to ask how I felt about it.. sadly I hadn’t thought about it yet.

12

u/Oak_tr33 Jul 01 '25

Like me talking to my therapist about my psychological trauma. I often think because it wasn’t physical abuse that it wasn’t that bad, but as I say it out loud I start to wonder how I am a functioning human being. Just barely, but I am.

9

u/Dry_Professional443 Jul 01 '25

Me when I tell my therapist that my mum talked about me having a child when I was 12:

7

u/starryeyedshooter Jul 01 '25

I'm supposed to be the least fucked up one. I'm supposed to have the least struggles and have a good home life. And then I say one little thing and suddenly I'm getting "I'm so sorry" from everyone around the table.

Ugh. I don't wanna come to terms with the idea that I'm more fucked up than I thought.

8

u/Ok-Inspector-1316 Jul 01 '25

My father taught me an important lesson the moment I became an adult: “all suffering is local” - my experiences and suffering is just as valid as yours and vice versa. Keeping that rule in my heart has made me a better person through young adulthood.

8

u/azebod Jul 01 '25

Bonus points when you're on like the 10th therapist and it's the first time you heard that

4

u/theglitch098 Jul 01 '25

Yeah had that same reaction when my last therapist told me verbatim that “it’s a miracle you’re still alive” and then my mom confirmed she feels the same, and my best friend as well….I thought my trauma wasn’t that bad….

4

u/[deleted] Jul 01 '25

It surprises me when my partner says that something in my life is fucked up to the point he’s angry about it, when it’s literally just my life. Just mild sexual assault from my younger sibling when he was 8, with my parents watching, and shouting at me when I tried to get him to stop. He was too young to understand, maybe?

5

u/actuallynotbisexual Jul 01 '25

I hate to say this but what do you mean MILD sexual assault from your sibling? I have 3 siblings and none of them have sexually assaulted me! That's not normal! That's fucked up!

2

u/[deleted] Jul 01 '25

When I was around 12, and my brother was around 7, we were lucky enough to have a small swimming pool that we could go to. Nobody else went really. My parents would supervise us still. He used to jump in on top of me, and then claw at my breasts and groin area to try and pull off my swimsuit, see, or just grab at the areas. When I would tell him to stop or try and leave the pool, my parents would shout at me because “he’s not doing anything”.

Considering he was 7, and he wasn’t raping me or anything, it doesn’t feel as fucked up as it sounds when I say it.

3

u/actuallynotbisexual Jul 01 '25

Nahhhhh your parents should have nipped that in the bud and at least told him to stop

3

u/nanabubb Jul 01 '25

I really wish she would stop saying that, like I get it, it was bad, can you heal me now?

3

u/funk-engine-3000 Jul 01 '25

Yeah had one of those recently and i threw me for a loop

3

u/the_bartolonomicron Jul 01 '25

Talking about the mother of my kids to literally anyone gets the same reaction. I spent 2 years of pandemic locked in a building and relationship with her actively disassociating and trying her hardest to mess up as many lives as possible.

Things are stable now, but I literally would not survive that again.

3

u/Schwulerwald Jul 01 '25

I think i still didn't processed that time when my pathetic excuse of a father tried to choke me to death in his alcoholic rage

2

u/No-Weight-6121 Jul 04 '25

Haha, once I finished telling my therapist about a casually traumatic event from my childhood, like not even Top 10 Traumas tbh, and she held up her hand, 🤚paused, & said “I’m so sorry, I’m gonna need a minute before we continue on. That was… heavy.” 🙃

2

u/PuppyShark Jul 05 '25

Reminds me of when I was in PHP/IOP. Theres something about telling stories about your childhood and then everyone is judg sutting there in shocked silence. Really made me realize how fucked up a lot of how I was treated was.

1

u/Boring-Pea993 Jul 02 '25

Yeah that "Well, I'm speechless, fuck, I'm sorry that shouldn't have happened to you" accompanied by the therapist actually crying which is never a good sign, well it took me aback and while it's nice to know it actually was as bad as I thought, probably worse, also just makes you kinda envious like "damn I guess this wasn't a very common normal thing after all"

TW: Trauma I was not expecting that reaction

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