Wings of Life

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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
starsgivemehp
bloodyl1ps

image

this post hasn't left my mind since i've first saw it

sonicrainbooms

people jest but this is literally how i worked out i was gaslit for like 15 years of my life

aphony-cree

People who “want trauma” are recognizing, on some level, that they were traumatized but in a way that’s not “socially recognized” as trauma. What they really want is for people to see that they’ve been traumatized and be on their side

respected-demon

Hold up

portraitoftheoddity

I think it’s also important to talk about mental illness, and how the pain and trauma of being mentally ill as a kid is often diminished because of the lack of outside actors. If you spent your childhood being suicidally depressed because your wee little kiddo brain decided to be a chemical shitshow, it doesn’t matter how much mom and dad loved you, that kinda thing fucks you up. And having people only look at your external surroundings and argue that “nothing bad happened” ignores all the pain you went through internally. So wishing you could have something external you could point to in order to justify that pain and enduring stress -- just so people could understand -- makes sense. 

elfwreck

It's not so much "I wish I had been traumatized" as "I wish I had a name, an event, an explanation for my trauma that other people would understand and accept."

amuseoffyre

Also, just because a home seems happy and healthy to an external observer does not mean that it was.

ktempestbradford

One thing I've noticed about the questionnaires that are used to identify if you've experienced trauma ignore major areas of child life where trauma happens. The ones I've taken always ask about home and family. That's not where I was most traumatized. It happened at school.

And even if you have a loving, supportive family, you still have to leave them for several hours a day and be at the whim of bullies, terrible teachers, administrators who treat you like trash, and more. No questions about any of those people or experiences come up in those questionnaires.

I have spent YEARS going: why do I have so many trauma responses? I haven't experienced trauma.

welp

And this is not even to get into how Western society low key constantly traumatizes everyone who isn't white or neurotypical or abled or cisgender or straight.

roach-works

i used to wish, regularly and shamefully, that i had cancer. i knew cancer was bad. i knew no one should want cancer. but i fantasized that doctors could reach into me--into my brain, or my breasts, or my guts--and cut away some enormous hairy stinking tumor and everyone would say ‘oh wow, so that’s what was in you, so that’s what was making you so sick and unhappy’ and then i would be sewn back up and get an I Survived t-shirt and everyone would be so proud of me.

i didn’t really want to have cancer. i don't want anyone to have cancer. what i really wanted was to have a problem that i could trust someone else to fix.

hazel2468

I used to regularly wish that my father would "just fucking punch me".

I would wish that, looking at it now in hindsight, because I felt if he did, I would FINALLY have proof.

Have proof that he was hurting me. Have proof that he was not the wonderful, sociable, amazing father everyone thought he was. I would be able to point to my black eye and say look, LOOK! See? He does DAMAGE. He HURTS me! Here is the proof that I go home and I am hurt. I have REASON to hate him, I have a REASON to fear him, I'm not a whiny spoiled brat, I am being ABUSED.

But because words don't leave marks? To this day. I barely speak about it. And when I do? No one believes me. Because he's just "such a nice man" and, in the words of my mother, "He may have been harsh, but that isn't abuse."

Maybe if he had laid hands on me, she would have seen that it wasn't okay. And she would have left long before he started turning his anger on me as a child. Instead, because it was all just words, just shouting, only posturing and threatening and never actually crossing that line. She stayed and let him abuse me.