If you are a survivor of abuse, a difference in opinion can feel like a threat and here’s why…

Because it can trigger memories of past trauma where your feelings and perspectives were invalidated or dismissed. 

This reaction stems from a survival mechanism where any perceived conflict or disagreement can evoke feelings of vulnerability and fear.

This reminds your entire system, mind and body of the imbalances and lack of control that you experienced during the abuse. 

If you don’t heal from what hurt you, you will bleed on people who didn’t cut you. 

This happened to me. Yes, even though I am a guide and trauma informed, I too am still on the journey to recovery. 

I was chatting with my partner about a situation with my son, and we didn’t agree on something. There was no anger, and it was just simple conversation. Yet, because he didn’t agree with me on how I felt the situation should be handled, I took it as threat. I took it to mean that I must be stupid, and not capable. I took it personally. 

I took it to mean something about me, when he was just trying to show me a different perspective. My partner had zero ill intentions, and by no means was out to make me feel all the bad feelings that surfaced. 

I had a flashback. A episode of where the past meets the present. Trauma survivors have complex trauma, that can cause PTSD. This shows up when this feeling is re-triggered in the NOW, and it feels like what happened in the past is happening RIGHT now. Even if that is not the case. 

In my experience in this moment, he was not abusing me. He was not dismissing me, nor was he invalidating me. But it sure as hell felt like it. So, that is when I went into defensive mode. When my trauma response of fight or flight kicked in and said defend or run. I chose to defend myself, when really I had nothing to defend. My partner was not the threat. What happened to me in the past had been the threat, but that is no longer my reality. I am safe now. 

It was just simply my nervous system reacting to what it thought was a perceived threat. When I finally could come back to a centered space, I allowed myself to cry. I felt the sadness for my mind, and my body. How it had been just simply doing it’s job, to protect and keep me safe. It had always felt under attack, just waiting for the next blow to hit. Just waiting for the next time I had to be in fear or defend myself in the past. Now that I am safe, it still can react in old ways if triggered by the same emotions. 

My abusers had made me feel that my voice didn’t matter, and that I wasn’t smart enough to know what I am talking about. My father used to tell me only he knows best, and then I was drilled into me by the doctrine of my church that you couldn’t trust yourself. You can only trust God, and his appointed men that he gives all the prophecies. The abusive partner I had always made me doubt myself and my abilities . That I would be nothing without him, so I believed him. As an abused women, I never felt like it was safe to be me and I definitely didn’t feel respected.

So, yes something as simple as a difference of opinion can cause you to react defensively. Where old beliefs, and old ways of being will resurface because those traumas still exist within you. You cannot extract them from you body, but you can rewire you mind and your body so you gain more awareness. 

Awareness of your automatic reactions helps you witness how your past conditioning, and your past beliefs are still operating you now. Awareness gives you the ability to come back to a deeper truth of what happened to you, and walk yourself outside of that story. 

I did just that. In the past, if I was triggered it could take me days sometimes to come out of the anxiety and the anger. I didn’t have any clue why I was reacting, and most of the time I would blame it on the person who had triggered me. This is why healing yourself gives you freedom. 

I can now observe my emotions, and feel them because I am now finally safe to do so. This is what doing the real inner work is all about. Becoming self aware, so that you can have real, authentic connections which leads to you be connected to an authentic version of you. NOT the version of you that had to survive it’s environment, but now you can actually thrive. 

We have to step outside of our comfort zone or we will never learn to soar. Get your wings up in the air, so you can begin to see from a higher perspective. 

“ The path isn’t a straight line, it’s a spiral. You will come back to things you thought you understood and see deeper truths.”

As always, thanks for being here with me.