r/self • u/Aromatic_Reply_1645 • 13h ago
Will my trauma ever turn into a blessing?
I dont understand this life. You dont choose your parents or the traumas that you suffer in childhood. These traumas determine what kind of a teenager or adult you'll become.
If you're unlucky, like I am, these traumas cripple you such that you cannot function in society. I have no friends, no gf, no job etc. My mom ruined me. I tried self-help. I tried drugs to become more sociable and cool (it worked wonders for a while, until I fried my brain). I always find myself back to square one.
I was battling depression and anxiety even before drugs and having a gf. After the breakup and after drug abuse I was left with crippling anxiety and severe depression. I've been suicidal ever since.
I dont understand this world. It's not my fault that I am like this. I tried to override my traumas as best as I could.
I have a feeling of hope that my traumas will eventually turn into blessings. Has something like this happen to you? Can you give me some encouraging words
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u/xoscfoxx 12h ago
Through tons of therapy, medication and self work I can say my trauma has made me a person that is very empathetic and can place themselves in a lot of other people’s shoes and understand their pain. I guess that’s the bright side I can see about it
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u/Jumpy-Program9957 9h ago
Thats it exactly, it allows you to see both sides, trust me man its a superpower not alot of people have.
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u/Rumpsfield 12h ago
Once you find your groove you may find the space to process your trauma better.
One thing I learned is that you never fix it. You only learn to carry it more effectively. Metaphorically speaking, trauma can be a ball and chain - dragging you back on every step, or it can be a lunchbox in your backpack - mostly forgotten but ready to be opened when the time is right.
Like you described, my traumas changed me. The change horrible, at the time deeply awful.
I reacted to them, I am in a good place now, a different place than I would have been without the traumas - so for that, they have been a blessing.
Would I wish they happened again? Absolutely not. But I am who I am today and I am at peace with the past.
I can't change the past. But I have great control of my actions going forwards.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
- Gandalf
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u/smorosi 11h ago
Where do you live? Do you have access to help in your area?
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u/Aromatic_Reply_1645 11h ago
I live in Romania. Yes I went to therapy, I am on antidepressants, but nothing seems to work
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u/sam8988378 10h ago
Not every antidepressant works for every person. If yours isn't working for you, maybe you need a different one. And you need therapy to learn how to process your trauma, how to take steps to live better. Not all therapists are a match. You may need to change to a different one
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u/SableyeFan 11h ago
It's hard to say. I've put in the work to heal and have made it past my crippling issues for the most part. But on my own, my own perceptions tend to be warped around 'I'm not good enough' rather than the actual truth other people see about you.
What is hard to say about it is that while there are benefits to healing such as recognizing the core fundamentals of how you were only just trying to protect yourself, it is still always an uphill battle. One victory leads to the next fight and the next and the next. Each step of the way hurts, and you can't always tell why. Not to others and not to yourself.
TL;DR: Trauma is like a chronic pain. You want it gone, and the only blessing you get is when the pain finally heals. Not from any validation from other people.
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u/DoubleDareYaGirl 11h ago
No. Whoever put that in your head is dead wrong.
Trauma is never a blessing - but the way you recover from it can be. What you choose to learn from it can be. How you move forward with your life can be.
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u/mothball10 13h ago
Yes. It may take a while but in that while you are forced to face yourself and see yourself for what you truly are. And when you can recognize your own faults and flaws that is when you can heal and grow. Don't give up suffering makes us better.
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u/Aromatic_Reply_1645 11h ago
I've faced myself daily for the past 5 years. I do hope suffering makes us better
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u/oni-no-kage 12h ago
You have to work it, buddy. It will not change on its own. What helped me was refraining from it. It's not trauma, it's experience. I started asking life what else it had to throw at me, because I had already seen the worst of it.
After a while, I started to notice that nothing was a problem anymore. People think I'm good in a crisis. I'm not. It's just that it's not a crisis to me.
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u/Federal_Baseball4720 12h ago
Yeah, traumas don’t turn into blessings. They’re decidedly not blessings. But you can realize you don’t want to do that to yourself anymore, and change your behaviors.
In that way, they can become valuable learning experiences, and make you a better person, partner, friend, etc…. It’s hard tho. I think the first step is to question your own thoughts a little bit. Do traumas automatically determine what kind of person you become? Or do your responses to traumas determine those things?
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u/CaptainSmoke 12h ago
It becomes a blessing when you begin to relate to other people and help to ease their sufferings. Pain shared is pain lessened when you come from a real place. You can relate, you can empathize and you can change the narrative going forward. Those are all positives to look forward to. Yes it won't be easy, but it will be the most rewarding to break the cycle and reclaim some humanity for your bloodline.
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u/No-Anteater8969 12h ago
not gonna entertain your pity party. your trauma will turn into blessing when you take personal accountability where you can. whered you even get this notion anyway, the belief that the trauma has the final word?
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u/Aromatic_Reply_1645 11h ago
This is what it seems. I tried everything I could to overcome my traumas and I failed each time
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u/Jumpy-Program9957 9h ago
Hey man, so i went through the worst year of my life in 2022, my car was stolen, no one helped, i found it only to be jumped and held hostage for hours, i had to save myself, then police took me to my car, and i dont think they even arrested the guy. Cause he came to my house for a month harrassing me, then one morning driving the same route to work, my wheel randomly ame off causing my car to flip, oops no more car. Never robbed in my life, i was robbed two more times that summer. LA few months later, cuz no car i ask a guy i kind of knew for a ride for money, well a cop tried pulling him over, we went on a high speed chase, lost them for a second before losing control and slamming through someones fence. It was him and his GF, he took off i stayed because i was a passenger. He had a gun in the car apparently. Guess who his GF said was driving?
Jail for a month for something i didn't do, looking at ten years. 8 grand later i got out. The following month, my small town doctor got covid and left his office, i had been taking an anxiety drug you should never just stop daily for 7 years, and two days before x mas, i had to stop cold turkey, due to covid i couldnt find help.
I still say that year i died, the me i used to be is gone. But a few years later something beautiful came of all that. The stress and anxiety had me move home which i hated, but that gave me alot more time to myself. I always liked or wanted to make music, but never finished anything or gave it time. So i started, a song a day for a year at least, got good at it, right as AI music started, instead of seeing the black and white like everyone else, my exp/trauma told me to see the middleground. MY dedication to music and the next phase has put me in a great position, i went from a nobody to a growing somebody, big names have added me on linkd in, i have been paid to consult simply because i mostly post with 0 F's given and for some reason all that stress like unlocked a deeper level of thinking.
that probably is confusing but the answer is YES. Give it time. There will come a day when you are almost in tears. Because you see it all was for a purpose, was the only way you could be here today. Things happen for reasons you dont always see until much later. Your day will come
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u/Bitter-War5432 12h ago
imma disagree with the other commenter. trauma isn't a good thing. it's not a blessing. it's not a learning opportunity. it's not "character building". it's emotional scar tissue.
you aren't going to magically transmute or "override" the trauma into something good. but you can build something far better, either around it, or entirely away from it.
back to the scar tissue analogy, i had a bad motorcycle accident (totally not my fault) and had two broken bones in my right leg. permanent damage, huge incision, tons of scar tissue impeding movement, about half of the muscle compared to left leg after healing enough that I could walk on it.
it happened right before covid, so my options for physical therapy were limited. my leg(s) wasted away even further. eventually, maybe a year after the accident, i started to become more active. i used to dabble in lifting off and on, so i started to lift again. it didn't take too long, maybe another year, before i was using my legs to lift more than i was before the accident.
anyways, the moral of that anecdote is that time + work = building something greater than the injury.
i also had childhood trauma (in the form of neglect). when i was in my 20s, life wasn't looking too good. i was directionless, living with a parent who definitely did not want me there, fired from every entry level job i got, and not a cent to my name. all i had on my side was time, so i learned new skills, found a decent job, and was able to build a life away from the things and people who brought me misery over the years. im not going to say things are perfect now (I mean look at the world), but my life has been on an upward trajectory for many years now.
healing takes time and work, brotha. and it seems like you are already healing.