Trauma Response

[Raggamuffin]

So I watched Joker (2019) last week. I brought it up in today's therapy session and it made me tearful multiple times.

His trauma response is uncontrollable laughter. The way people react reminded me of how people react when they see my physical or verbal tics. It hit home hard. This is how I process stress etc. but when people see it, they mock, they laugh, or they have a threatened or scared look on their faces.

Reminds me once again of a line from Prayer of Saint Francis: "to be understood as to understand."

It's difficult when you're repeatedly misunderstood, but when you find your voice, you get gaslighted. Happened throughout childhood and continues to this day with my parents. It is what it is I suppose. A product of your environment. Not to say all is set in stone. Realising it, learning about trauma and trying to heal and adapt.

Anyway, it was on my mind, so I posted it here.

Ed

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

The chronic trauma I felt from social isolation had me internalizing so many negative messages about myself. I guess you can say that my response was to beat myself up over things I couldn't understand.

 

[OkRad]

Extremely powerful movie. Jarring to say the least. Don't watch it alone is all I have to say.

 

[Raggamuffin]

@OkRad why not alone? I watched it alone. I'll admit, I found the ending rather beautiful when the joker was born.

Ed

 

[Raggamuffin]

The chronic trauma I felt from social isolation had me internalizing so many negative messages about myself. I guess you can say that my response was to beat myself up over things I couldn't understand.

The book my therapist recommended says trauma physically changes the brain, and how we perceive the world, as well as hormonal responses in day to day life etc. Quite a fascinating read. Well, I say read - I got the audiobook of it instead.

Ed

 

[Suzette]

@Raggamuffin, I laugh during funerals. I smile broadly when people die. Obviously people are uncomfortable with that. I am not insenitive or lack empathy. But laughing is both an automatic response and because I see death differently.

 

[Raggamuffin]

@Raggamuffin I see death differently.

How so?

Ed

 

[Suzette]

How so?

Ed

We just quit the earth. But there is continued consciousness well past your earth experience.
(And you don't even have to spell it right).

 

[OkRad]

@OkRad why not alone? I watched it alone. I'll admit, I found the ending rather beautiful when the joker was born.

Ed

Yes, good point. Alone might actually be better because then you are free to feel what you feel without having to explain. I watched it with a very good friend first time and was free to cry or feel whatever, but second time with an emotionless clod and that was awkward.

 

[Slim Jim]

I had a traumatic experience. I saw funny red paint and people lying around, but I knew something was happening, because I could dig the vibrations of the people around me. And all of a sudden I realized that they didn't know what was happening any more than I did. That was the first time I tasted fear.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

I responded to the trauma of being sexually assaulted by trying to pretend it had never happened and doing things to keep it from happening again by using avoidance. No one understood that I obviously didn’t want to talk about it or ready to talk about it and when their attempts to force me to talk about it, they said I was fine and it was my fault for refusing to interact with my classmates. But it was only one class where I refused to let anyone near me and that was the class where I kept being sexually assaulted. In my mind, I believed if I had pretended that I was never sexually assaulted and acted like everything was normal then it would be true and it would stop because the person who was doing it would see it wasn’t bothering me and stop doing it. But it never happened and I tried so hard to make the trauma go away by repressing it for years.

 

[Raggamuffin]

The more I read of this book about trauma, the clearer the picture it paints - that for over a decade my brain has clearly been affected and changed by trauma. The aches, the pains, the emotional regulation issues, the feeling like you're simply existing rather than living and truly enjoying your life.

Quite strange that a book that clarifies so much has also left me feeling rather surreal. Truth be told, since last week's therapy session my aches, pains and symptoms have been off the charts. I actually feel like a wreck.

Ed

 

[Homulilly]

The book my therapist recommended says trauma physically changes the brain, and how we perceive the world, as well as hormonal responses in day to day life etc. Quite a fascinating read. Well, I say read - I got the audiobook of it instead.

Ed

Can you share the title of the book?

 

[Raggamuffin]

Can you share the title of the book?

Ed