Trauma From Betrayal
Infidelity isn’t the only betrayal that causes trauma. No one talks about the trauma that comes with your female “friends” betraying you. Let’s keep this conversation going. And keep raising awareness.
I’m all for women empowerment and boosting one another, especially if you read enough of my posts. But this subject hits to the core for me because over the years I’ve been betrayed so much that I’m careful with who I trust. I got several circles, but who’s in my inner circle is a different ball game. And I make it hard to get into for good reason. I can like you personally, but trusting and loyalty is huge to me.
Everyone is not your friend, and I experienced the worst betrayals from girls in grade school and higher ed. (Thank you cousin for originally posting this, otherwise I wouldn’t have found it).
My first childhood best friend tried to turn my family against me, which is a huge no no. You don’t try to divide families up. You stay in your lane. period. Her mom passed away, and I was on the receiving end of a lot of vicious behavior, and I only tried to be a good friend. The second one spent years trying to destroy me, and was always secretly jealous. She managed to turn the whole class against me. They spent high school trying to say we were cool but I could never trust any of them. The worst friends are the friends that are secretly jealous of you. If they don’t root for your successes and don’t want to see you do well, this is not a friend.
And to this day, they wonder why I don’t get in touch. These are the type of people that are so destructive that I could not see them in the same way, I would be looking over my shoulder. With “friends” like this, I would not need enemies. It would be a form of self-disrespect to take them back in my life. I have “real” people that are “actual” friends. We need to start a conversation on what a friend is.
I’ve given them multiple chances in the past, and I choose to keep them in my past. They have crossed the point of no return.
I’ve written plenty of stories, but I rather be by myself in the middle of the dessert than be friends with them.
I got my girls (and guys), but I’m very careful with who I trust. I prefer to be a cat lady and hermit nowadays. I’m not kidding about this. I started a Youtube channel to document my adventures taking care of animals.
This could be a sign that you’ve had your heart broken in the past.
The pain you felt after a breakup was so bad that now you are more protective of who you let into your heart.
When around your friends or family you are very social, easy to talk to, and extroverted. Yet, other times you are reserved, quiet, and tired.
When you meet someone new it takes time before they become part of your “inner circle” of friends. They need to earn your trust first. You are selective of who gets to know the “real” you.
There’s a lot of people that know me, but who I trust is a whole different deep level. It takes years for some people to get there, and some people I know will never get in there. I keep them at arms length for my safety.
The same can be said for your romantic relationships. Your heart has been broken too many times and you cannot bear to think about going through another painful breakup.
Protective and selective is an understatement.
Some of these girls were shitty towards me because the guys they liked wasn’t into them. I’m like the f****.
I’m not the jealous sort. If my girls got all the attention from guys, all the power to them. If they are more successful than me in any given moment, all the power to them. I’ll be there Miss Nigeria, and root for their successes like it was my own.
I’ve even written articles on how to keep jealousy at bay.
Even if I’m having a hard time, I’m not going to gossip on someone, not going to make their life miserable, take out my grief on people, or be vicious and cruel towards people. I’ll just pull them aside and say hey I’m having a hard time lately, can we just go out? (A lot of times without sharing all the details, I’m not going to bring someone down because my life is shitty!). But just because I’m like that towards others I can’t expect the world to be the same way.
See with all this drama, I’m to the point where I rather be around animals and my solitude nowadays. I got my people, but I also like my alone time.
Trust and loyalty is BIG. I remember at a pivot points in my childhood, I felt like I couldn’t trust anyone or get close to the people around me, because they were backstabbers, mean and jealous. Trust is also frequently influenced by trauma. I wasn’t safe with two of my so called “best friends” the people in your life that you are supposed to be able to trust, love, and feel at home with. Those experiences especially after all that interfered with my ability to trust like I did, I remember the last time I had a easier time trusting was back in the 3rd grade. Being at that grade school, I found that my basic sense of safety in the world has been altered way back when.
Vulnerability is described as a kind of sword that you freely give to someone else. It’s practically giving another person an opportunity to deeply wound you with what you share. I’ve learned everyone is not safe or trustworthy, and it’s good to be choosy. It’s good to be choosy about who you share things with. It’s like the saying — “don’t cast your pearls before swine.” After being burned multiple times, I changed how I did things.
And truth be told. I adopted hardness out of necessity. Suppressing emotions at the place in question became a survival mechanism. My home was great, school not so much. Letting them see you sweat was a death wish, because they used the opportunity to kick you down into the ground further. Just to see how much you can take and how much diabolical pain you can go through. Middle school girls can be some of the meanest people on the planet. Shit.
When a person grows up in an unsafe environment, where the threat of violence is pervasive, there is little opportunity to establish a sense of safety in the world at all. Such an individual might go into adulthood assuming they are never safe, that it is normal to never feel safe, and that vigilance to potential threat is the only way to live.
Many people who experience trauma see the world in a different way, from being triggered by an event that unearths those painful moments, to traumas negatively affecting a person’s ability to trust, to not ever going back to the way they once were.
Many people who experience trauma find that their basic sense of safety in the world has been altered. This can be quite clear in the case of a person who has survived a traumatic car accident, whereas individuals growing up in an abusive home may find it difficult to articulate. When a person grows up in an unsafe environment, where the threat of violence is pervasive, there is little opportunity to establish a sense of safety in the world at all. Such an individual might go into adulthood assuming they are never safe, that it is normal to never feel safe, and that vigilance to potential threat is the only way to live.
Meanness begets meanness.
Not only did one best friend keep upping the stakes on how mean she could be, other bystanders joined in. They really were unselfish and caring.
It’s interesting because when reunion times come around, I keep my distance, because they are a part of my past that I do not want to re-visit. And trust me, I have too many good people in my life. Why waste it on people that was mean and emotionally abusive?
Memories of previous traumas can surface in all relationships. Those reliving them may feel as if they are happening again in the present. They may mentally regress to the age they were when the trauma occurred. From that more powerless perspective, they are more likely to feel the original fear, immobilization, and hopelessness of the original trauma.
Another form of trauma is receiving a friend request from the girl in question, and another one is one of your former friends that was destructive in nature going around telling everyone that you are friends in 2022. And that you just talked recently. And we haven’t talked in years. F*** help me. I wouldn’t let either one of them back into my life, and I wouldn’t touch them with the thousand foot pole.
Ok here’s the conversation I would have.
The Safety Net I Wish I Had Growing Up (And What I Will Provide To My Loved Ones).
- If someone tells me a secret, I tell no one under any circumstances. (Unless they are threatening self-harm).
- You can talk to me about your friend/family member that passed whenever you want — in 5, 10, 30 years. “Grief has no expiration date.”
- Saying nothing, just be with the person. Give a hug instead of saying something. Sometimes, they don’t want to talk. Sometimes I don’t have the right words either. Being there makes the difference. Letting that person know that you see them and that their feelings are validated is important.
- Befriending someone that royally screwed me over will make me trust you a lot less. This is not middle school, and while I can’t tell you who you can and can’t be friends with, I will look at you with raised eyebrows. I demoted a best friend to outer circle friend for this reason. Loyalty and trust is very big to me. I keep seeing the angel number 222, and one of the things it keeps telling me is:
This could be a sign that you’ve had your heart broken in the past.
The pain you felt after a breakup was so bad that now you are more protective of who you let into your heart.
When around your friends or family you are very social, easy to talk to, and extroverted. Yet, other times you are reserved, quiet, and tired.
When you meet someone new it takes time before they become part of your “inner circle” of friends. They need to earn your trust first. You are selective of who gets to know the “real” you.
The same can be said for your romantic relationships. Your heart has been broken too many times and you cannot bear to think about going through another painful breakup.-222, Ryan H, thank you!
At the core, I never felt safe around most of the friends I had growing up. I always had to keep my guard up, and I felt like I couldn’t get close to most of them, because they were toxic and gossip queens. They made up lies left and right, and people believed it at face value. And I felt this way in higher ed, sometimes my gut instinct just told me I couldn’t trust them. Too many times I opened up I got hurt and experienced all kinds of betrayal. If I can be that safety person for my loved ones that I wish I had growing up, I’ll be a happy camper. To be honest, I don’t let my guard down so easy because I also don’t have enough experiences telling me that I’ll be safe if I do. I felt betrayed often by friends and some family too many times. I want to feel safe when I’m around someone, so letting me know that you’re there for me (and not sharing my secrets) is really reassuring. Due to my experiences, it takes me a while to open up and get close with someone. On the other hand, if they need time to trust me as well, I totally understand. I’m patient and let them know that I’m there for them, and when and if they are ready, I’ll wait until they are ready to talk about how they feel. And maybe they may not want to tell, but I can just be there and give them a hug. I’m not the best of being vulnerable myself, but I find that people are vulnerable with me easily.
5. Safety, safety, safety! It’s crazy that I would come across this in a relationship article. To the core, my friendships at a pivotal age, (as I stated above). I couldn’t trust them. My school life felt turbulent.
6.
- I was in several emotionally abusive, toxic and unsupportive environments from many sides (both grade school and upper ed, more on this below). Unfortunately, this came from some female friends. This is truly one of the earliest experiences where I did not feel safe, and I had to adopt hardness, and suppress my emotions to cope with what was going on around me. I had a lot of friend-enemies, and these people were not trustworthy, letting them see that they effected you, shed a tear or letting them see you sweat was bad. They got a thrill of seeing you suffer. Many times I couldn’t trust and get close to anyone, and felt like no one had my back for years (and sometimes it still feels this way, hey I know the animals got my back at least). I didn’t act black the way they acted black. I liked Dragon Ball Z while they chased boys down. I attended cosplay (I do not dress up like some of my Gen Con friends and Comic Con. These people did not care about me. Instead of giving them the license to make fun of me in an already bad situation, I kept it to myself.
The people who matter most will be there to protect, comfort, or console them. In theory. The people what was supposedly supposed to be there was the enemies. This happened a lot.
Inadvertently learned that they have to take care of themselves because no one has their back. I inadvertently learned that I have to take care of myself because no one had my back. And it has happened multiple times in my life, and while I wasn’t happy or necessarily prepared for it, I saw it before.
Anxiety due to their inability to seek comfort from others. Can I point out that the people in the situation(s) were the main source of the pain. Seeking comfort from them was like shaking hands with the devils. They were not good people or good friends. It’s better to get it on your own, than seek it (support, comfort, your needs) from bad people.
Life has taught them to believe that their voice isn’t likely to be heard, anyway. They solve the issues by removing themselves from the situation. Is someone hanging up on you and not returning phone calls when you need help supportive? No. Is them stabbing you in the back the minute you leave the room and pretending to be a friend in your face good? Hell no! You have to know the difference between giving up and knowing when you have enough. When something is out of your control and no matter what you do, it’s not going to work out and it’s time for a change. Sometimes, the damage is beyond repair, and it’s best to cut your losses and walk from the situation (s). I’m going to tell you, cutting lies with some things I’ve loved for years is one of the best things I’ve ever done. If something is not serving you, why keep beating yourself up, revisiting the places, retriggering and keep bringing back those bad memories, and keep trying to make it work with situations and people that’s not working? Sometimes holding on is more damaging than letting go.
Who don’t believe their needs will ever be met. they lose trust in their environment or circumstances. Attachment styles develop in infancy and early childhood as involuntary biological behaviors that help us stay safe. After a certain period of their needs not being met. Feeling unsafe or unprotected. They are more easily able to disconnect from people and circumstances.
No one acknowledges the effects that childhood trauma or trauma generally speaking has on you, nor do they care. Especially the people that dished it out don’t care, and people underestimate the PTSD that can come from your friends (in my case female) friends betraying you.
References:
It’s 2022 🔥🙌
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