6 ms·

I'd like to share a perspective that I can't reconcile. I'll start with a quick list of personal childhood(6-16 year old?) trauma: sexual abuse at 12 by a sadis

I'd like to share a perspective that I can't reconcile. I'll start with a quick list of personal childhood(6-16 year old?) trauma: sexual abuse at 12 by a sadistic man 3 times my size that I feared, getting hit with a baseball bat in two separate incidents the second time fracturing a vertebrae, at 12 having an adult hit me so hard it fractured my sternum (to this day my chest has a bony ridge), losing 3 close childhood friends starting at age 10, watching a woman's head get run over by a city bus at age 6. Getting beaten so badly by a gang that my eyelid has a permanent droop (the girls mocked my new asymmetry) Watching a neighbor who I liked get stabbed in the neck and then beg for mercy (he had gambling debts) when I was 10. I could go on. Oddly, at the time none of the above "traumatized" me because the media, movies about NYC and the mob, Catholic school (lots of torture pictures in our study book), other friends experiences, etc. set my expectations that violence and sadism against boys/men is normal and that I am lucky to not have gotten worse. I didn't start to feel anger or trauma until I went away to college in the early 90's and no one seemed to have similar stories. Not even close. Oddly living somewhere safe with decent people made me bitter and resentful. What I can't reconcile is that my new friends genuinely felt bad for me in a way that my NYC buddies didn't. And that somehow created the trauma. Is that typical ? And does that imply that an avoidance strategy, or a wise-cracking support group, might have better mental health outcomes than time with an empathetic therapist ? "Overall, education seems the most important mediator." according the article. Good thing I got that Masters degree.

germinalphrase 5y ago
I have no idea, but it seems worth exploring deeply.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
It’s a delicate subject to discuss, to say the least. There has been some tangential research in this area, but most researchers want to avoid the perception of questioning anyone’s response to or definition of trauma. We do know that the language used to describe a situation can have profound effects on the perceived severity. There is a famous study in which subjects were shown footage of cars crashing into each other and asked to estimate the speed of the collision. It turns out that the way the collision is described has a significant effect on the estimate of the speed. For example, asking someone how fast the cars “smashed” into each other results in more severe estimates than if you ask how fast the cars “collided”. There has been extrapolation to suggest that merely reframing events as traumas is enough to amplify their severity, which could unfortunately create unhelpful negative feedback loops when others are merely trying to help. There is also a trend toward younger generations feeling that their lives are more due to fate or random chance than their own actions. Reframing outcomes as traumas inherently shifts the outcome to something that is inflicted upon us. Is it possible that prior to your friends’ reframing of those events you viewed the outcomes more as your own successful navigation out of (obviously terrible) random events? Reframing events as traumas can shift the perspective to one of being a helpless victim rather than an active navigator.
- telesilla 5y ago
  >There is also a trend toward younger generations feeling that their lives are more due to fate or random chance than their own actions. Or earlier generations believing it was ordained by God? I'd say there is definitely a massive cultural away from "it's God's will", which I hope leads to higher independence: its a shame to think randomness means no agency.
  - kodah 5y ago
    Both are fatalist ideals, so they'll likely accomplish the same thing in different ways.
- shard 5y ago
  > asking someone how fast the cars “smashed” into each other results in more severe estimates than if you ask how fast the cars “collided” This reminds me of the George Carlin bit about using euphemisms because Americans have trouble facing the truth: https://youtu.be/7n2PW1TqxQk https://youtu.be/7n2PW1TqxQk
throwaway54242 5y ago
I get bitter whenever I think that other people have never had to deal with the problems I have. Similarly, I feel good/lucky when I remember that some people have to deal with problems much worse than mine. I usually think about the second category more, but sometimes people talk about something and it leads me to think about the former category, a switch inside me turns on and I feel like shit, so I try to withdraw from those situations if possible. My point is: comparing my problems with those of the rest of people makes me feel better or worse, depending on the comparison. I wouldn't qualify my situation as trauma, but some inconsequential conversation can suddenly make me feel disturbed it touches on the specific subjects that I feel bad about.
jan_Inkepa 5y ago
There's a book, Laughter out of Place, https://www.amazon.de/Laughter-Out-Place-Shantytown-Anthropology/dp/0520235975 https://www.amazon.de/Laughter-Out-Place-Shantytown-Anthropo..., that talks about gallows humour of people in a particular Rio de Dajeiro favela (amongst other genreal cultural observations). It might interest you or others here; I remember it being pretty well written when I read it more than a decade ago.
pmoriarty 5y ago
This reminds me of a talk by Michael Yapko titled "Keys to unlocking depression"[1], where he said: "My first job was working in a psychiatric facility and I was the admissions person. It was my job to admit new patients to the unit. ... "I would interview people who had been through the worst experiences that you could imagine. People who had been raped, tortured, mutilated, people who had fled their homelands literally with bullets whizzing past their head, people who lost their entire family in one fell swoop in a plane crash or a car crash, people who had suffered the worst adversities you could possibly imagine. "When I would interview these people it would be easy to appreciate why they were broken, why they were so despairing, why they had given up on life. ... But what fascinated me clinically ... was when I interviewed people who had been through these horrific experiences, people who probably should have been depressed but they weren't, and I wanted to know why not. What is it about the way these people are coping that somehow serves to insulate them against depression?"* [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVgQ_tgWMyU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVgQ_tgWMyU
- agumonkey 5y ago
  There's something about depression when your mental model of the world becomes a swamp. I've never been through losses as horrible as Yapko describes, but I'd say these people had still a clear yes/no point of view on how to live. What I'm curious is how these people avoided PTSD though..
  - laurent92 5y ago
    That is a good observation. Nothing so bad for me (except 15 years battling) but I had always assumed everyone with a higher education was more or less decent, until my breakup at 23. I’m 38. The violence of it stunned me. And the worst violence, is that everyone is fine with what women do to men at breakup - when the same people would be up in arms if a male were a “pervert narcissist” telling truths in a vexating way, while they don’t mind that my girlfriend asked me to move to another country only to dump me there without notice, without remotely thinking that I would be homeless for 3 days and it was winter, and would be too disoriented to recover abroad or to choose to come back. I know, expecting people who say “I love you” to mildly care for you after breakup is a childish expectation. I… I didn’t know. I had been fed popular songs usually saying “We broke up but I wish you the best”. I didn’t know someone who loved me could suddenly make me homeless because I wasn’t pleasing her in bed anymore. This is violent. And society is fine with that, and people don’t tell that normal girls might do that, while they warn all the time about pervert narcisssists. For 15 years I oscillated between good person, gay, misogynist, or worse, and cut ties with 98% of my friends and all my family. But clearly, my mental model of people’s interactions is a swamp: I both understand nothing of why people are unnecessarily mean gratuitously, and both understand very clearly that we are pieces of meat. I could now strangle kittens without any feeling right now, and yet I don’t do that and still donate to charities, because I try to believe in a world of decent people. Which the world clearly is not. My mental model is a swamp, this is correct. Sorry for going out of topic.
agumonkey 5y ago
It's only slightly related to your whole experience (and sorry you lived through such things).. but IMO "emotional relativism" (for the lack of a proper term) is probably a big part of our brains pain ladder. Injustice is mostly relative-based, for instance. if everybody gets through shit you feel it's painful but okay, if you're the only one getting bad treatment then you feel a lot worse.. abandoned, isolated, alienated, lied to .. the pain and anger can be amplified a lot in those cases. And in general it's a big issue in society. Many people resent the world because their reality seem worse than whoever is next to them, most of us don't know each others lives, we pretend things are ok a lot but unless we discuss things with some depth, we never know and we can feel unjustly treated and go crazy our peers. Your comment about the empathetic friends is interesting. Was it a matter of "you say you feel for me but you have no idea what it was, so it's just words" while NYC guys may not care but they know, they went through it.. that's enough for you to feel fair ?
- throwaway803453 5y ago
  It definitely wasn't just words to my new college friends as the stories are bad but not so extreme that one can't imagine having such an experience. But as a way to form closer friendships it failed. It was the first time I ever felt someone pitied me. That oddly made me feel ashamed. I'd question if a woman can ever really be attracted to man they pity or a man who has been sexually abused, for example.
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    I kinda see what you mean, you don't want that kind of bond with others, you want a more honorable role somehow ? Or maybe you expect too much of yourself and thought "I should have made my life better earlier" ? The woman aspect I can't answer, every psychology can be different, some will never love with pity, some may only love with pity (I for instance, have a mental block on loving someone just because of fun times.. as if it's not enough somehow)
  - watwut 5y ago
    Basically, you used abuse as a shared bonding experience with other kids in the same position. That probably created strong bonds. But that benefit went away when you talked with non-abused people. For whatever it is worth, the normalization of abuse is one of negative aspects that keeps influencing people long after. Kids that were abused can grow to think it is normal which then leads to them directly into abusive relationships as adults. > I'd question if a woman can ever really be attracted to man they pity or a man who has been sexually abused, for example. Why? This seem more related to gender roles or blaming yourself for abuse. Or you think that being sexually abused transforms men? Or it is purely about womens lack of capacity to be into someone vulnerable?
JamesBarney 5y ago
Here is an interesting and insightful blog post by someone who was abused as a child, but due to being homeschooled didn't realize she was abused until a year after leaving home. And once she realized she had been abused she started suddenly experiencing an enormous amount of anxiety and depression. https://knowingless.com/2018/09/21/trauma-narrative/ https://knowingless.com/2018/09/21/trauma-narrative/
- madaxe_again 5y ago
  Mm. Seconded. I had an unhappy childhood, but there was one teacher in particular at my boarding school who looked out for me - he was kind, when nobody else was - he didn’t beat me as the other masters would, he’d have me and other boys who were having a hard time over for cocoa and board games in the evenings. He’d take us swimming at the lake on Sundays, where we’d all do our best to out-daredevil each other as he took pictures. He was sent to prison the year before last, as it transpires that he wasn’t just a nice old man, he was a pederast, grooming his prey. That, more than anything else, has bought me unwelcome trauma - the one thing in my childhood that didn’t suck, turns out to have sucked after all - and it changed the context from childhood fun to “actually, that was weird”.
  - loa_in_ 5y ago
    It could be framed as you being about to get scammed (like in a pyramid scheme), getting the little starting profit they give all new members to entice, but actually leaving before you get scammed.
  - throwaway53954 5y ago
    Since you’re experiencing trauma as a result of learning that new information, I’d like to provide some food for thought on the off chance that it might help you. I do this with the best of intentions; it’s how I would try to look at the situation if it happened to me. I believe that the way we as a society currently respond to things like abuse often results in way more trauma and victimhood than what victims would experience without that reaction. Needless to say, abuse is unacceptable and deserves punishment. However, I think we would end up with less suffering in the world if we’d become more reserved in deciding what qualifies as abuse, especially when it comes to (otherwise consensual) sex. Morality is subject to fashion after all. I’m of the opinion that an act is not abusive if it’s not experienced as such, on the condition that the people involved in the act are aware of the possible consequences of it. In your case, both at the time and up until recently, you didn’t experience the events as abusive but as actually positive. Like you said, the teacher was kind and comforting. What you learnt about him later doesn’t change that fact, and it doesn’t have to reduce him to an abuser. To put things in perspective: in Ancient Greece, pederast relationships were completely accepted; strongly encouraged even! There’s no evidence that these relationships, a cultural tradition in a highly developed civilization, were experienced as abusive. They were also about love, education, and doing activities together, so it seems like your teacher would fit the definition of an erastês. It’s very possible that he wasn’t evil, just a man looking for love and intimacy in the wrong era/culture. What I assume has given you trauma is the mere potentiality of sexual abuse, at a time you were suffering actual physical abuse. From what I can gather it didn’t end up actually happening, so there’s no telling whether he wanted more from you, and if he did, whether he would have acted in a way that felt abusive to you at the time (coercion/threatening). Maybe I’m too open-minded by today’s Western moral standards, but when it comes to youth-adult relationships, I don’t think we should equate sex to abuse. It’s suffering we want to prevent, and suffering is the result of abuse. If you look at it like that, what you experienced and now view as grooming could actually be seen as a way of avoiding abuse. You might disagree with my definition of abuse and argue that it would’ve been abusive in any case, but again, given the information you provided this is how I would personally look at it in this situation. I hope these different perspectives can help at all.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
thejackgoode 5y ago
(Armchair psychologist here) The absence of perceived trauma while still in the environment that can produce similar traumatic experiences is normal and makes sense. You are adapted to your environment as a child. But, once you leave the said environment for something safer and more comfortable (note that it’s a historical anecdote, not many people could do that say 150 years ago), you also face the need to re-shape your identity in a way so that you can thrive. This points out to you the fact that previous experiences were in fact traumatic and need to be emotionally processed, re-lived and understood in a way.
- watwut 5y ago
  > note that it’s a historical anecdote, not many people could do that say 150 years ago It might actually be. 1871 is just few years after civil war in United States, many people were moving away from severely abusive situations. Whether soldiers, former slaves, citizens in places where armies went through. Plus, people in past did moved to other cities just to escape abusive parents too.
zasz 5y ago
My parents went through the Cultural Revolution, which involved being sent to a labor camp for a couple years, having various relatives harassed into committing suicide, and even though everyone in their age cohort experienced equally horrific things, I could tell something wasn't right about them, even as a kid. They, however, would not think of themselves as traumatized. I don't know about your case in particular, but in general, I think psychological injuries tend to leave a mark, even if they are normalized, and even if the sufferer is not necessarily aware of them.
buro9 5y ago
> I didn't start to feel anger or trauma until I went away to college in the early 90's and no one seemed to have similar stories I've got stories like yours. And I too thought I wasn't traumatized, at least not too much. But I was wrong. The trauma was a weakness below the surface and given the right mix of pressure (the pressures of startups don't by default provide a safe environment for mental health) it gave way almost 35 years later almost ending my story. A year of therapy later and I live a simpler life now. I survived my past, few could and there's strength in that. I concur with you that a kind of anxiety exists due to people who just shrug it off, and this was worse and seems to keep the past more present. A few kind individuals heard me, didn't dismiss, and didn't judge, and have been more support than leagues of others. And being heard by those few people who are softer and gentler, has been absolutely restorative. I'm glad others don't have stories like ours, but sad that means most people can't connect with survivors who do have these stories.
ddorian43 5y ago
Some people have their schizophrenia awakened by stressing in their finals. While some people get much brutal stressors like rape and don't have any lingering issues. > And does that imply that an avoidance strategy, or a wise-cracking support group, might have better mental health outcomes than time with an empathetic therapist ? See fight-flight-freeze-fawn response: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/addiction-and-recovery/202008/understanding-fight-flight-freeze-and-the-fawn-response https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/addiction-and-recove.... But generally, yeah, that's a lot. Try going to therapy. Or reading a book like "The body keeps the score" that explains how trauma affects people (including things that happened to you). I think you might find yourself in some pages of that book.

germinalphrase 5y ago

I have no idea, but it seems worth exploring deeply.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

It’s a delicate subject to discuss, to say the least. There has been some tangential research in this area, but most researchers want to avoid the perception of questioning anyone’s response to or definition of trauma. We do know that the language used to describe a situation can have profound effects on the perceived severity. There is a famous study in which subjects were shown footage of cars crashing into each other and asked to estimate the speed of the collision. It turns out that the way the collision is described has a significant effect on the estimate of the speed. For example, asking someone how fast the cars “smashed” into each other results in more severe estimates than if you ask how fast the cars “collided”. There has been extrapolation to suggest that merely reframing events as traumas is enough to amplify their severity, which could unfortunately create unhelpful negative feedback loops when others are merely trying to help. There is also a trend toward younger generations feeling that their lives are more due to fate or random chance than their own actions. Reframing outcomes as traumas inherently shifts the outcome to something that is inflicted upon us. Is it possible that prior to your friends’ reframing of those events you viewed the outcomes more as your own successful navigation out of (obviously terrible) random events? Reframing events as traumas can shift the perspective to one of being a helpless victim rather than an active navigator.

telesilla 5y ago
>There is also a trend toward younger generations feeling that their lives are more due to fate or random chance than their own actions. Or earlier generations believing it was ordained by God? I'd say there is definitely a massive cultural away from "it's God's will", which I hope leads to higher independence: its a shame to think randomness means no agency.
- kodah 5y ago
  Both are fatalist ideals, so they'll likely accomplish the same thing in different ways.
shard 5y ago
> asking someone how fast the cars “smashed” into each other results in more severe estimates than if you ask how fast the cars “collided” This reminds me of the George Carlin bit about using euphemisms because Americans have trouble facing the truth: https://youtu.be/7n2PW1TqxQk https://youtu.be/7n2PW1TqxQk

throwaway54242 5y ago

I get bitter whenever I think that other people have never had to deal with the problems I have. Similarly, I feel good/lucky when I remember that some people have to deal with problems much worse than mine. I usually think about the second category more, but sometimes people talk about something and it leads me to think about the former category, a switch inside me turns on and I feel like shit, so I try to withdraw from those situations if possible. My point is: comparing my problems with those of the rest of people makes me feel better or worse, depending on the comparison. I wouldn't qualify my situation as trauma, but some inconsequential conversation can suddenly make me feel disturbed it touches on the specific subjects that I feel bad about.

jan_Inkepa 5y ago

There's a book, Laughter out of Place, https://www.amazon.de/Laughter-Out-Place-Shantytown-Anthropology/dp/0520235975 https://www.amazon.de/Laughter-Out-Place-Shantytown-Anthropo..., that talks about gallows humour of people in a particular Rio de Dajeiro favela (amongst other genreal cultural observations). It might interest you or others here; I remember it being pretty well written when I read it more than a decade ago.

pmoriarty 5y ago

This reminds me of a talk by Michael Yapko titled "Keys to unlocking depression"[1], where he said: "My first job was working in a psychiatric facility and I was the admissions person. It was my job to admit new patients to the unit. ... "I would interview people who had been through the worst experiences that you could imagine. People who had been raped, tortured, mutilated, people who had fled their homelands literally with bullets whizzing past their head, people who lost their entire family in one fell swoop in a plane crash or a car crash, people who had suffered the worst adversities you could possibly imagine. "When I would interview these people it would be easy to appreciate why they were broken, why they were so despairing, why they had given up on life. ... But what fascinated me clinically ... was when I interviewed people who had been through these horrific experiences, people who probably should have been depressed but they weren't, and I wanted to know why not. What is it about the way these people are coping that somehow serves to insulate them against depression?"* [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVgQ_tgWMyU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVgQ_tgWMyU

agumonkey 5y ago
There's something about depression when your mental model of the world becomes a swamp. I've never been through losses as horrible as Yapko describes, but I'd say these people had still a clear yes/no point of view on how to live. What I'm curious is how these people avoided PTSD though..
- laurent92 5y ago
  That is a good observation. Nothing so bad for me (except 15 years battling) but I had always assumed everyone with a higher education was more or less decent, until my breakup at 23. I’m 38. The violence of it stunned me. And the worst violence, is that everyone is fine with what women do to men at breakup - when the same people would be up in arms if a male were a “pervert narcissist” telling truths in a vexating way, while they don’t mind that my girlfriend asked me to move to another country only to dump me there without notice, without remotely thinking that I would be homeless for 3 days and it was winter, and would be too disoriented to recover abroad or to choose to come back. I know, expecting people who say “I love you” to mildly care for you after breakup is a childish expectation. I… I didn’t know. I had been fed popular songs usually saying “We broke up but I wish you the best”. I didn’t know someone who loved me could suddenly make me homeless because I wasn’t pleasing her in bed anymore. This is violent. And society is fine with that, and people don’t tell that normal girls might do that, while they warn all the time about pervert narcisssists. For 15 years I oscillated between good person, gay, misogynist, or worse, and cut ties with 98% of my friends and all my family. But clearly, my mental model of people’s interactions is a swamp: I both understand nothing of why people are unnecessarily mean gratuitously, and both understand very clearly that we are pieces of meat. I could now strangle kittens without any feeling right now, and yet I don’t do that and still donate to charities, because I try to believe in a world of decent people. Which the world clearly is not. My mental model is a swamp, this is correct. Sorry for going out of topic.

agumonkey 5y ago

It's only slightly related to your whole experience (and sorry you lived through such things).. but IMO "emotional relativism" (for the lack of a proper term) is probably a big part of our brains pain ladder. Injustice is mostly relative-based, for instance. if everybody gets through shit you feel it's painful but okay, if you're the only one getting bad treatment then you feel a lot worse.. abandoned, isolated, alienated, lied to .. the pain and anger can be amplified a lot in those cases. And in general it's a big issue in society. Many people resent the world because their reality seem worse than whoever is next to them, most of us don't know each others lives, we pretend things are ok a lot but unless we discuss things with some depth, we never know and we can feel unjustly treated and go crazy our peers. Your comment about the empathetic friends is interesting. Was it a matter of "you say you feel for me but you have no idea what it was, so it's just words" while NYC guys may not care but they know, they went through it.. that's enough for you to feel fair ?

throwaway803453 5y ago
It definitely wasn't just words to my new college friends as the stories are bad but not so extreme that one can't imagine having such an experience. But as a way to form closer friendships it failed. It was the first time I ever felt someone pitied me. That oddly made me feel ashamed. I'd question if a woman can ever really be attracted to man they pity or a man who has been sexually abused, for example.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  I kinda see what you mean, you don't want that kind of bond with others, you want a more honorable role somehow ? Or maybe you expect too much of yourself and thought "I should have made my life better earlier" ? The woman aspect I can't answer, every psychology can be different, some will never love with pity, some may only love with pity (I for instance, have a mental block on loving someone just because of fun times.. as if it's not enough somehow)
- watwut 5y ago
  Basically, you used abuse as a shared bonding experience with other kids in the same position. That probably created strong bonds. But that benefit went away when you talked with non-abused people. For whatever it is worth, the normalization of abuse is one of negative aspects that keeps influencing people long after. Kids that were abused can grow to think it is normal which then leads to them directly into abusive relationships as adults. > I'd question if a woman can ever really be attracted to man they pity or a man who has been sexually abused, for example. Why? This seem more related to gender roles or blaming yourself for abuse. Or you think that being sexually abused transforms men? Or it is purely about womens lack of capacity to be into someone vulnerable?

JamesBarney 5y ago

Here is an interesting and insightful blog post by someone who was abused as a child, but due to being homeschooled didn't realize she was abused until a year after leaving home. And once she realized she had been abused she started suddenly experiencing an enormous amount of anxiety and depression. https://knowingless.com/2018/09/21/trauma-narrative/ https://knowingless.com/2018/09/21/trauma-narrative/

madaxe_again 5y ago
Mm. Seconded. I had an unhappy childhood, but there was one teacher in particular at my boarding school who looked out for me - he was kind, when nobody else was - he didn’t beat me as the other masters would, he’d have me and other boys who were having a hard time over for cocoa and board games in the evenings. He’d take us swimming at the lake on Sundays, where we’d all do our best to out-daredevil each other as he took pictures. He was sent to prison the year before last, as it transpires that he wasn’t just a nice old man, he was a pederast, grooming his prey. That, more than anything else, has bought me unwelcome trauma - the one thing in my childhood that didn’t suck, turns out to have sucked after all - and it changed the context from childhood fun to “actually, that was weird”.
- loa_in_ 5y ago
  It could be framed as you being about to get scammed (like in a pyramid scheme), getting the little starting profit they give all new members to entice, but actually leaving before you get scammed.
- throwaway53954 5y ago
  Since you’re experiencing trauma as a result of learning that new information, I’d like to provide some food for thought on the off chance that it might help you. I do this with the best of intentions; it’s how I would try to look at the situation if it happened to me. I believe that the way we as a society currently respond to things like abuse often results in way more trauma and victimhood than what victims would experience without that reaction. Needless to say, abuse is unacceptable and deserves punishment. However, I think we would end up with less suffering in the world if we’d become more reserved in deciding what qualifies as abuse, especially when it comes to (otherwise consensual) sex. Morality is subject to fashion after all. I’m of the opinion that an act is not abusive if it’s not experienced as such, on the condition that the people involved in the act are aware of the possible consequences of it. In your case, both at the time and up until recently, you didn’t experience the events as abusive but as actually positive. Like you said, the teacher was kind and comforting. What you learnt about him later doesn’t change that fact, and it doesn’t have to reduce him to an abuser. To put things in perspective: in Ancient Greece, pederast relationships were completely accepted; strongly encouraged even! There’s no evidence that these relationships, a cultural tradition in a highly developed civilization, were experienced as abusive. They were also about love, education, and doing activities together, so it seems like your teacher would fit the definition of an erastês. It’s very possible that he wasn’t evil, just a man looking for love and intimacy in the wrong era/culture. What I assume has given you trauma is the mere potentiality of sexual abuse, at a time you were suffering actual physical abuse. From what I can gather it didn’t end up actually happening, so there’s no telling whether he wanted more from you, and if he did, whether he would have acted in a way that felt abusive to you at the time (coercion/threatening). Maybe I’m too open-minded by today’s Western moral standards, but when it comes to youth-adult relationships, I don’t think we should equate sex to abuse. It’s suffering we want to prevent, and suffering is the result of abuse. If you look at it like that, what you experienced and now view as grooming could actually be seen as a way of avoiding abuse. You might disagree with my definition of abuse and argue that it would’ve been abusive in any case, but again, given the information you provided this is how I would personally look at it in this situation. I hope these different perspectives can help at all.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

thejackgoode 5y ago

(Armchair psychologist here) The absence of perceived trauma while still in the environment that can produce similar traumatic experiences is normal and makes sense. You are adapted to your environment as a child. But, once you leave the said environment for something safer and more comfortable (note that it’s a historical anecdote, not many people could do that say 150 years ago), you also face the need to re-shape your identity in a way so that you can thrive. This points out to you the fact that previous experiences were in fact traumatic and need to be emotionally processed, re-lived and understood in a way.

watwut 5y ago
> note that it’s a historical anecdote, not many people could do that say 150 years ago It might actually be. 1871 is just few years after civil war in United States, many people were moving away from severely abusive situations. Whether soldiers, former slaves, citizens in places where armies went through. Plus, people in past did moved to other cities just to escape abusive parents too.

zasz 5y ago

My parents went through the Cultural Revolution, which involved being sent to a labor camp for a couple years, having various relatives harassed into committing suicide, and even though everyone in their age cohort experienced equally horrific things, I could tell something wasn't right about them, even as a kid. They, however, would not think of themselves as traumatized. I don't know about your case in particular, but in general, I think psychological injuries tend to leave a mark, even if they are normalized, and even if the sufferer is not necessarily aware of them.

buro9 5y ago

> I didn't start to feel anger or trauma until I went away to college in the early 90's and no one seemed to have similar stories I've got stories like yours. And I too thought I wasn't traumatized, at least not too much. But I was wrong. The trauma was a weakness below the surface and given the right mix of pressure (the pressures of startups don't by default provide a safe environment for mental health) it gave way almost 35 years later almost ending my story. A year of therapy later and I live a simpler life now. I survived my past, few could and there's strength in that. I concur with you that a kind of anxiety exists due to people who just shrug it off, and this was worse and seems to keep the past more present. A few kind individuals heard me, didn't dismiss, and didn't judge, and have been more support than leagues of others. And being heard by those few people who are softer and gentler, has been absolutely restorative. I'm glad others don't have stories like ours, but sad that means most people can't connect with survivors who do have these stories.

ddorian43 5y ago

Some people have their schizophrenia awakened by stressing in their finals. While some people get much brutal stressors like rape and don't have any lingering issues. > And does that imply that an avoidance strategy, or a wise-cracking support group, might have better mental health outcomes than time with an empathetic therapist ? See fight-flight-freeze-fawn response: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/addiction-and-recovery/202008/understanding-fight-flight-freeze-and-the-fawn-response https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/addiction-and-recove.... But generally, yeah, that's a lot. Try going to therapy. Or reading a book like "The body keeps the score" that explains how trauma affects people (including things that happened to you). I think you might find yourself in some pages of that book.