1/ In sharing my views/experiences as a trauma survivor, I sometimes worry how many “receipts” I have to show. I don’t talk many specifics. So I wonder do people assume I’m exaggerating & making too much of it? Or make other assumptions about type/severity?

2/ I’m not asking people to tell me if they think that. It’s no ones place. It’s a painful aspect of being a trauma survivor. Either we surrender our privacy or we have to worry about people improperly guessing or we don’t get to share our perspectives at all. It’s exhausting

3/ In fairness, no one has ever demanded to know more or told me that they assume anything in particular. But there’s a kind of self-torment for me when speaking about a category that includes lots of possible things. Anyway just something I torture myself with sometimes.

4/ And because it’s complex trauma I tick a lot of boxes sometimes in straightforward, sometimes complex ways. I did a consultation with a possible new secondary therapist awhile back and she said she’d need to know about the type of trauma before agreeing to work with me....

5/ I couldn’t understand why so this was a red flag—Like why should I ever have to talk about it at all? Or if ever why not wait until I’m ready? Anyway she clarified “I just need a basic sense: eg is it this [type] or that [type]?” The fact that it was presented as an “or” was..

6/ ...another red flag because a whole lot of assumptions were contained in that one word (rather than and/or). Also it was asked within 5 minutes of first speaking. I don’t owe my trauma story to anyone not even a therapist.

7/ Note: my primary therapist knows the whole history. This was someone to be my secondary therapist in a supportive capacity less frequently. I declined that one and found my current secondary one who is lovely and has never once “needed to know”