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The ugliest part about trauma triggered by non-physical abuse is how keeps itself going.

If you’ve been emotionally abused, you start to numb yourself because not feeling anything is the only way to avoid it. Additionally, your trauma tricks you to see emotions as a weakness. Because otherwise, your only coping skill would be gone.

If you’ve been psychologically abused, you either start to justify it by lowering your self-esteem or you build up an unhealthy amount of it to wear as an amour. Additionally, you either think you’re not good enough to deserve anyone’s attention or you’re too good for anyone’s attention because that’s the only way you can integrate your experience.

Trauma is ugly. It tricks you to make false and extreme assumptions about yourself and life in general. And it forces you to keep them up because otherwise your experiences might strain you or break you more than they already did. Trauma protects you. It gives you a false sense of safety because it was the only thing that you could do back then to save (a bit of) yourself.

But honestly, as a cptsd survivor, let me tell you…

Don’t listen to your trauma.

Don’t listen to that voice which tells you emotions are a weakness and kindness is dumb.

Don’t listen to that voice which tells you that you either have to be better or worse then everybody else because otherwise you wouldn’t have had to endure what you did.

Because it’s just not true.

Emotions aren’t a weakness. Yes, they hurt you. And they always will. But they will also offer you so many good things which are completely worth it.

The warm feeling after being kind to someone else. The stolen moment in the morning when the sun is rising and you know that today will be a beautiful day. The happiness of listening to your favorite song…

These are all emotions that trauma is often shutting off, too.

Emotional abuse doesn’t happen because your emotions make you weak. People don’t pick you because they see your emotions as a weakness but rather because they are unable to deal with their own negative emotions by themselves. Abusing you is to them the same thing that numbness is to you – a way to deal with the bad things that happened to them.

And you don’t desrve to be miserable just because other people are. You deserve all the good things emotions can bring.

And I know that your trauma voice is telling you that it’s too dangerous. That feelings are a nuisance. That you’re somehow better than others for not feeling anything because it makes you more rational.

But that’s not true. It’s simply your trauma voice. That part of you which is still so afraid of being hurt and abused again.

But there are other ways to prevent that than being numb. You can learn how to keep these people away from yourself. You can learn how to recognise who treats you and your emotions with respect and who only views them as a tool for themselves to feel better. And you deserve it.

Psychological abuse isn’t an indicator of your worth. It’s nothing but a thing other people operationalize again to feel better about themselves or cope with something they can’t handle. It’s a mirror of the abusers worries, insecurities and weaknesses.

And honestly, believe me when I say that you’re more than that. That your self worth is not, like your trauma voice probably tells you, depended on the actions of your abuser. Because again. That voice is only trying to protect you. It’s nothing but your fear of being treated like that again which turns into an expectation. Because after all – that’s again your trauma voice – it’s better to be afraid and avoid something then to risk being hurt again.

But that’s also not true. The same thing that protects you is now holding you back. It prevents you from trusting others, from getting close to them. And you don’t deserve to spend a life in isolation just because you’re afraid that something will happen which might never happen again.

There’s also a different way. You can again learn how to recognise people who want to abuse you like that. You can learn how to spot people who lift themselves up by putting others down. And instead of avoiding everybody else, of doubting that you’re good enough… You can just avoid those who want you to have this wrong believe because it gives them some sense of worth.

(This whole post is based on my own experience and observations. Only parts of it are based on factual scientific knowledge. If you don’t agree with something, feel free to comment but have in mind that this is my personal experience I’m talking about which I in no way claim to be universal.)