trauma traps (includes personal development)

[trenton]

I am becoming increasingly clear about how my vulnerabilities have been used to manipulate me because of the insecurity created by various traumatic situations. The vulnerabilities created by my trauma included deep shame and self-doubt concerning my morality, my need to justify my existence through a higher purpose, and various attachment wounds. This made me susceptible to various traps in my family relationships, but also in my approach to life in general including personal development.

Starting with my family, they realized that I could be manipulated through pseudo moral appeals. They would want me to be the bigger person, and be forgiving even if the perpetrator was unrepenting. This was not actually about morality, it was about control and maintaining a dysfunctional family system which I now refuse to participate in. I see how my desire to do the right thing was ultimately capitalized on to place undue blame on me while permanently placing approval out of my reach. No amount of commitment to being good would have ever been enough. No matter how much I walked on eggshells to avoid a temper tantrum, there would always be an inevitable fuck up that leads to a disproportionate response. Now that I refuse to continue participating in this dynamic, my family insists that I simply let go of the past even though this dynamic is still in place. They simply do not understand narcissistic abuse dynamics and although they admit they are "fucked up" they want me to work on myself while simply accepting them for who they are. I will not allow people to guilt trip me and capitalize on my shame and my need to prove that I am good person worthy of existence. I especially refuse to tolerate my sister intentionally weaponizing my trauma around my father against me in an effort to cause maximum psychological harm while I am expected to just take it and move on because a family loves each other.

I also had various attachment wounds because of my dysfunctional family and my father abandoning me in childhood. Part of me wanted to avoid relationships altogether which led to isolation. However, I part of me deep down still wanted some kind of connection. This made me vulnerable to manipulation when my father changed his behavior and suddenly took more interest in me after the initial abandonment. His tone changed to the father-son bond being sacred as he wrapped himself up in religion to make himself seem virtuous when in reality he was a drug dealer involved in countless crimes. He then threatened to disown me if I told anybody about his crimes. He added to this that I was special because the family comes from a long history of crime and that I would be the one to break the cycle and change the fate of the family. It created a hero narrative of me being the chosen one who would carry on the Hamann name while protecting my family from the abusive situation with my step father. He therefore wanted me to gather information for him on Mom and my step father claiming that he cared for me wanted to know what I was going through. He then used this information in court to get out of paying child support while I took significant risk confessing to homicidal thoughts to the school because of the abusive situation. The fallout from this was significant with me being blamed for my siblings being sent to the foster care system, but ultimately they were allowed to come home after my step father was evicted and my mom was finally clean from the drugs. In this case my desire to justify my existence through a higher purpose is what made me vulnerable to this hero narrative in which I would do everything in my power to protect my siblings from this abusive situation even though I simultaneously stayed quiet about my father's crimes believing that he would somehow help me in this situation. I remember vividly that my struggle with nihilism and meaning making drove me toward the position of family values even though deep down I knew these values were broken in this kind of family system.

The reason I wanted to discuss this is because this applies to why trauma survivors fail in personal development. Personal development often involves virtues like personal responsibility or being the best person you can be. These virtues strike at our deep insecurity about our own inherent goodness because of our internalized shame. He feel the need to prove that we are worthy through becoming better with the help of these self-help books, but we operate from the fundamental sense that we will never be good enough even if we logically understand that this isn't true. In the case of actualized, it also includes themes like life purpose. Once again this strikes at my vulnerability around justifying my existence as a consequence of my shattered identity and resulting struggle with nihilism. I have been avoiding relationships and dating because i feared they would lead to more abuse, but also I devalued love because of how easily it could be betrayed. I therefore elevated meaning making and purpose above intimacy. I thus became deeply philosophical and intellectual because I thought intelligence would help restore my sense of self-worth.

My specific trauma explains perfectly why I would be drawn to a place like actualized. I wanted to find answers, and this site seemed to have them. However, despite trying the life purpose course I still feel lost. I of course had some improvements from all the books I read, but it never felt like enough. I would have a lot of intense emotional release from the forgiveness exercise or from the emotional mastery books, but it never felt like enough. I was not dealing with normal emotional problems, so I eventually realized that these books and more education would not be enough to help me.

This is my experience with falling into trauma traps. Would anybody like to explain how they fell into trauma traps, or if you can relate to this kind of predicament?

I will give one update. I know this forum is annoyed with me when I talk about these wounds. The good news is that I finally have better medical insurance that covers trauma therapy so I can talk to them instead and do EMDR. The bad news is that due to medical complications from seizure causing anti-depressants I am now unable to work and I am on a leave of absence. Hopefully after the trauma therapy I will finally no longer feel the need to talk to the forum or Claude about my problems. Maybe then I will finally uncover my authentic values so that I can actually get serious about personal development and get results. For now the nightmares from PTSD and the insomnia that accompanies it are still a pain in the ass. At least I have come to realize that most of the people on this forum are poorly informed when it comes to trauma responses, and that is why most of the advice I get here fails.

If you are a trauma survivor there is no real alternative to trauma therapy. Just be warned that if you get a general therapist instead, then you will likely be disappointed and waste a lot of money like I did on poor treatment. The mental health system is also profoundly broken and targets the very insecurities of trauma survivors by telling them they are brave for seeking help and working on themselves only to drain them financially with poor treatment. The recovery centers and hospitals are for the most part not good enough and the institutions will retraumatize you and gaslight you about your abusive relationships because most therapists are not taught about trauma responses even though 60-90% of the mental illness they treat can be explained by trauma or ACEs as in the body keeps score. In my case multiple therapists tried to make me pray to Jesus.

[Puer Aeternus]

Just want to say congratulations on making it to a place where you're insured! Glad you can get the therapeutic modalities you want and accelerate your progress 

[theleelajoker]

When I read your post, this resonated: 

Personal development often involves virtues like personal responsibility or being the best person you can be. These virtues strike at our deep insecurity about our own inherent goodness because of our internalized shame.

I have been avoiding relationships and dating because i feared they would lead to more abuse, but also I devalued love because of how easily it could be betrayed. I therefore elevated meaning making and purpose above intimacy. I thus became deeply philosophical and intellectual because I thought intelligence would help restore my sense of self-worth.

My specific trauma explains perfectly why I would be drawn to a place like actualized. I wanted to find answers, and this site seemed to have them. However, despite trying the life purpose course I still feel lost.

You just need to scroll through the dating sub forum, or the spirituality sub to see how many people say "truth" and "God Realisation" above everything else while avoiding or condeming intimacy. There is a "teaching" on this site and this teaching allegedly solves your problems. Why it can help to a degree, I also find that misleading.

There are so many stories created in this forum, saying that if you contemplate this, understand that, do this then you attract and get this and that. And if all these stories were true, I never would have had any happiness, any friends, dates or even girlfriends. But actually I get more and more the impression that people and girls like me not despite, but because I don't meet all these lofty criteria.

Recently I was in a bar, I met a guy, he said "man you look lost". I said "yes" and talked to him a bit. A third guy entered the conversation. "Is there anybody that isn't lost?"

So yes, I can relate. I am not sure I see through my trauma responses as clearly as you do, but I as of now it's like you said in the OP about the self value: it all comes down to the believe that I need to get somewhere, need to be different than I am now. That I get judged if I am just the way I am now, that I need to be ashamed for who I am. 

As soon as I manage to drop this believe and act out of the present moment, things align

All the best on your journey!