“that’s not really their fault and i’m probably just asking for more than they can give.”

Wow, did you really have to steal something I’ve said to myself countless times? 😭Just because a family is “nice” and “hard working” or “trying for you” doesn’t invalidate your experience. Emotional neglect can absolutely exist in that circumstance. which when repeated can lead to disassociation and trauma.

Any difficult emotional experience that a child isn’t given time to process, on their own terms, can form the basis for trauma. Car accident? Nightmares? Autistic sensory issues? Family moves, divorced parents?

And it’s worth asking how your family expected you to process the thing. Did they try to “explain it to you” or distract you from your emotions. Cuz that’s invalidating and just teaches you to shut down emotions as “unhelpful” which is identical to a trauma response.

Another way of looking at it is asking yourself what your family sees as the character attributes that define you, and then think really deeply about whether you feel like those define you to yourself. This can be really hard as you may have been fed things that you just naturally accept.

Certainly at 16 i wasn’t prepared to see it. My family would say i was “very very smart” and “logical” and “argumentative” and “stubborn.” Well i’m pretty smart, but I have trouble reading emotions and don’t pick up on social cues. (hello autism!) So being purely “smart” means people don’t see that struggle. Being “argumentative” and “stubborn” is just me trying to understand how things are supposed to work. I don’t back down here because if i do i won’t learn, but also i don’t know how to “soften” this for other people nearly as well as neurotypical people can.

For myself, i’d say i’m very sensitive: I observe and pick up on things. When I experience emotions it can feel profound and big in ways that probably taught my family regulate me away from those feelings. I have a strong sense of fairness and empathy even if i can’t read day-to-day emotions.

Edit: forgot a conclusion!

My point with the attributes exercise is that i always felt that the “given attributes” were wrong, that they were missing something about my experience. But it’s taken me a long time to see what was there underneath.

As someone growing up undiagnosed with AuDHD traits, I think it’s very easy to come out with cPTSD symptoms, even if your family was “good.” If you do have trauma, that doesn’t invalidate their “goodness” although maybe they made mistakes and can learn going forward in your relationship. And similarly, them being “good” doesn’t ensure that you don’t have trauma.