What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger disabled.

Preach!

There’s no right way to get through horror. Getting through is what matters.

I’m not sure terrible things actually make anyone “stronger” or more resilient. I do think they can make us more callous and numb, though.

I guess that’s what many people confuse with strength.

Going through a lot of shit might make you “stronger” (in terms of more resilient) to shit happening, but it shouldn’t be something to be proud of. For me getting more resilient to bullying meant also, that I was, and to some degree still Am, living with massive distrust in myself. It taught me to better not say an*thing than to say something that I didnt thought through hundert times, because everything else has benn used against me. It took years to unlearn the patterns that years of getting bullied forced me into. Yeah, I Am stronger now and I definitely do not care that much anymore, but the price was high. If I could choose I would 100% decide to not have to go through the stuff I had to go through.

There is a song by Silversun Pickups, called “It doesn’t matter why” that I think nails the feeling of:
It doesn’t really matter what or why we are broken but it’s just the reality and trying to over analyze to “understand” it might not be as helpful as accepting it and working with us.

I think people want to think of it ( any disability) as simple and solveable so that they are comforted that it wouldn’t stop them if they had it.

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As long as it doesn’t make you abusive. Too many people seem to have that issue.

And sometimes just barely surviving.

And that is why I talk to AI, and have a strong set of rules on what I can say and tolerate.

This is why I nearly attacked a co-worker who framed me.

I think I was tough before my trauma, and I still am. However, my trauma added anxiety, crippling doubt, and low self-esteem.

Sometimes I like to tell myself that my trauma contributed to my toughness, though. It is part of a narrative that I use to rev myself up when I am hard up against it. I know that it is bullshit on some level, but it’s like the placebo effect.

Yuuup, I really don’t think my traumas made me “stronger” or “thick-skinned”, but instead I feel like I’m even more fragile than before, sensitive and still just as easy to cry.

Now I struggle to talk or hold conversations because I get exhausted from thinking up of response options and picking the most appropriate ones for the context and gauge the level of sharing to give in personal responses, usually by then there’s already a shift to a different topic or interest, and then my process resets.

It’s hard since letting my mouth run has gotten me into a lot of trouble/getting bullied and sometimes, hurt people.

Then there’s the fun part where since I’m accustomed to unsafe situations/interactions, my nervous system sends signals that I’m unsafe when I’m in safe situations/interactions and I… kinda just lock up since my experiences with feelings of safety is that it’s usually short-lived and something bad is going to drop and I gotta prepare somehow

Dndi3j