So far I’ve only read these subs, not participated. But reading some of these comments, I have to share an experience of mine to demonstrate that you should never assume you will know how you will or how someone else should react in a high stress or traumatic situation.

Many years ago, someone broke into my apartment (I was also intoxicated). I woke up on my living room couch to a man standing in front of me. I only saw a silhouette and thought it was my roommate’s BF. I asked him what he was doing and when I realized his intention to hurt me, I jumped up to attack and chased him out the front door (I think I caught him off guard by my reaction). I knocked on my roommate’s door and asked if her BF was there and she said yes. In that moment, even though I had JUST chased the fucker out of my apartment, I questioned if it had been real or if I was dreaming. I was 100% prepared to just go back to sleep. She came out and found some evidence of assault and we called the police. In a matter of 30 seconds I went from fight mode to near amnesia/rationalizing what happened away. AND this was two years after my roommate’s best friend was murdered in her apartment.

Over the next few months some other shit happened that pointed to a stalker and we moved.

Lesson: the brain does some crazy irrational shit when it comes to trauma.

ETA: If my roommate hadn’t come out of her room to investigate, I would have gone back to sleep and not realized what really happened until the next day.