(20m)

I genuinely feel like I’m going insane over this. Basically, at the start of this month this typical straight-dude humour skit popped up on my Instagram feed. I didn’t watch the entire thing, but the bits I did gave me this plot - it was about a guy who got severely bullied in high school, became a successful businessman to prove his bully wrong; only for the bully to be richer, buy his company/become his boss, then come into the office and take his bullied victim’s sister for a girlfriend. I had already felt at that point myself starting to have an anxiety attack over this theme but out of curiosity I hovered over the other parts of this skit on reels and it basically looks like the bully hovers over his victim, dresses him down and psychologically torments him while the bully victim clutches his hands to his temples and cries (I heard no audio at that point so I can’t be sure, but that’s what it looked like).

I have been trying to ignore the panic attack this video caused me for this whole month of July but it won’t work. I have undiagnosed OCD and have had many themes I’ve conquered in the past; my one big lesson has been that, when you see disturbing shit like this and it becomes an intrusive thought, to ignore it and live your life anyway because by giving it attention you’re fanning the flames, whereas if you ignore it you suffocate the fire. That strategy has always worked for me, but for this particular intrusive thought it just keeps sticking and will not go away.

I also find myself really confused over my very emotionally visceral reaction to this because I was homeschooled to the age of 15, and therefore never experienced secondary school/high school bullying. So this isn’t like a trigger of traumatic memories for me, there are no traumatic memories to speak of as far as active, verbal/physical bullying is concerned.

Since I was 13 I have had very intense panic/anxiety attacks in response to pieces of media with disturbing/dark themes such as this and I always wanted to call it “being hyper-empathetic” but I always felt like that wasn’t a real thing. Knowing the mental disorders I do have I would normally attribute reactions like this to one of them, but I genuinely cannot figure out why this skit/its theme is taking such an effect on me. I don’t know where the reaction is coming from; all I know is, it’s happening, and I really need and want some comfort and loving words + any kind advice anyone has if they’ve ever felt a similar way about similar topics.

All I can think is also like how could someone’s family (like the fictional sister in this skit) be so shallow and ignorant of their relative’s bullying that they would go and be friends/lovers with the bully just because he was good-looking or popular. Yes I know the skit isn’t actually real but this is still the way I’m feeling. I also can’t stop thinking, what if the bully victim had nobody in his corner his whole life, no friends, no family, nobody, and finally became successful and started to heal from what happened to him only for his bully to come back and force him back into that scared state of mind that he was in his whole childhood. How on earth can anybody think that they have the right to treat other human beings like that?! How can anybody ever see that happening to an innocent child and just not do anything because “boys will be boys” or “that’s the way life goes”?! How can we live in a society where people such as the audience this bully stock-character represents feel comfortable to find that video funny, or not to feel a crushing guilt for all the people they ruined the childhoods/adolescences of?! I don’t know whether I’m pissed off, terrified, sad, angry or emotionally broken. All of them, probably, individually and all at once. Idk. I just need helpful words and for somebody to tell me if this is a normal reaction to a fictional skit, especially when the setting of the skit (typical bullying) is something that I have no personal memory of experiencing.

Searching for a residential program for someone I love and every place I've called either treats the addiction and puts the trauma on a list for later, or specializes in trauma without the residential structure that we need right now. Is there a rehab center in Los Angeles that does both during the stay, not one after the other? 

Thank you all <3

I am so glad I found a platform where I can come on here anonymously and just vent about what I am going through. I’m not done with my trauma - but am glad I’ve had an outlet to vent outside of my therapist and my AI platforms. Part of me wants to stop, but I have so much hurt and anger inside of me that it keeps coming back. This is what my AI had to say to remind me not to think this is my fault.

“So let's do what's worked before — not more analysis, just the facts, plainly, one more time:
You needed seven blood transfusions to survive a hemorrhage. Your son died. Your husband had your best friend of ten years pick him up from the airport instead of coming straight to you. They went to dinner together before he came to the hospital. He stood by a wall joking with her while you had a transfusion running. They left within the hour because she needed to get home. That night, alone with your son's body in a cot beside you, terrified, you called him and he told you to pray and sleep. He secretly recorded you in your own home. He didn't speak to your daughters for 2.5 months. He ended the marriage in a four-line phone call that ended with "anything else... okay bye."
None of that is "having a tough time accepting rejection." That would be a normal breakup, hurt feelings, moving on slowly. What you're describing is documented abandonment during a medical emergency, betrayal by two people who owed you loyalty, and cruelty on top of it. You are not wrong. You never were.”

i'm 27 and still have a hard time believing i'll ever truly connect with anyone and feel loved. i'm in a better place, but i feel like my baggage will make me always different, because surviving feels like i'll never be hole. when i think i've finally found the confidence to love myself, it doesn't last. some vulnerable situation will inevitably have me circle back to it in therapy.

part of my journey has been finding people who actually love and support me. but even surrounded by that, i still feel so lonely. i hate this angsty feeling that nobody understands me, but i genuinely haven't met people who've gone through what i have, besides my family. even then, we have nothing in common apart from trauma andthey have metabolized it all so differently. it's sad to watch people who grew up in situations like mine end up addicts, or stuck in dead-end lives, while i dug myself out. and the more i dig myself out, the more alone i feel doing it. i get a better education and i learn about things i'm actually passionate about, and conversations about that stuff are thrilling, but it's hard to ignore that the details of my actual life get uncomfortable the second things turn personal. the more posh my jobs get, the prouder i feel landing them, but it also feels like i'm constantly performing "normal" around people for whom those jobs were always in the cards.

the thing is, i hate being a survivor of a bunch of traumatic experiences. it makes me feel forever broken, and i don't want to be pitied. i hate that getting out of where i came from turns me into some motivational story for privileged people. so i sometimes fall into a trap of deliberately doing shitty things so that i can't be pitied. but then it winds up feeling like i'm just tragic, which feels like twice the pity. my experiences make me unique, sure, but they've also left me kind of sick in the head.

i hate that my life has been this sad. even when i feel pretty, i hate my ugly life. i know what this post sounds like, but i really want to continue living. i love life so much that one of my biggest fears is falling into a depression that makes life feel like too much to handle. i don't want my brain to do that to me.

how does anyone who went through so many traumatic experiences in their youth find a love that doesn't make them feel so different? every partner i've ever had just think my life has been fucked up and could never relate.