Asklemmy

I'm 44 years old and I still can't stand people standing behind me if I'm sitting down. When I was a kid and I did something wrong my dad would sit me at the table while he walked around yelling at me and every so often he would walk behind me and slap the back of my head.

To this day I still get so uncomfortable that I have to get up or ask the person to move. Even if it's my own kids, I can't stand it.

I refuse to say anything that creates any unnecessary expectations of me. If asked whether I know something I will always downplay my knowledge. If asked whether I’m interested in something I will always downplay my interest. If asked whether I can commit to something I will always say something to the effect of “I’ll think about it” rather than yes or no.

I would like to be more open and easygoing but it’s hard to do. I would rather people expect little of me and be surprised than expect a lot and be disappointed. As I have gotten older I’ve started to suspect that this is more like building a wall between myself and the world than I’d like to admit.

I'm a queer person raised in the US but now living in a saner country. I'm slowly realizing how much living in the US has traumatized me.

• Whenever I go to a large gathering I instinctually look for the exits and try to stay near them.
• Still scared to go to the doctor.
• Minor one, there's a lot of apartment buildings around me named "__ Arms". In the US, I would expect anything with that name to be a huge gun store covered in white supremacist branding. I still side eye the sign whenever I pass by.
• Expecting government offices to be heavily armed and require going through TSA levels of security. Turns out other countries aren't police states that treat you like a criminal by default.
• Same thing for small venues
• Driving is its own ball of anxiety and trauma
• Expecting anything with sugar to be sickly sweet. It's no wonder why the US is so obese

Reflexively answering to an innocent question with a harsher tone than I meant to.

If I have access to free food, I eat it. Doesn't matter if I'm hungry, as long as I physically can I will.

I was only broke and homeless for a little over a year, and now I always know wherey next meal is coming from, but I can't seem to shake the mindset of that low point in my life.

I tend to be distrustful and keep people at arm’s length. Sometimes it’s for the best, but other times it has probably cost me the formation of close relationships.

Living like a hermit, go to work go home, maybe go grocery shopping one a month, repeat forever.

Oh, Jesus, never, ever grab or touch me from behind. I will lose my shit, and have hurt people before.

Tbh, since I have a strong brief belief you shouldn't ever touch someone you don't know without a damn good reason, and never from behind, I don't even try to get rid of it entirely. I just work at not hurting the idiots that do it. And it ain't easy. I'm lucky that where I live has a pretty generous self defense interpretation; if you lay hands on a stranger at all, as long as they don't go excessive, it's your fault. Otherwise, I would have a record.

Like, I've worked hard in therapy too get to the point where if I'm at home or in "safe" places with people I trust, I don't do anything more than tense up. And I haven't really injured anyone in over a decade. Only minor stuff, and I stop as soon as I know they're not going to do anything else stupid. But I swear to fucking gods, I want to just start barking and growling and go ape.

There's nothing else that will set my PTSD off like that. Shit, it's only been a month since I got a proper death threat, and I was chill as fuck about that. But don't fucking touch me if I can't see you coming. If I can see you coming, I'll have a chance to tell you to back the fuck off, and it'll be okay as long as you listen.

But if I'm just bebopping through the world, I've worked very fucking hard to not have my head on constant swivel, to be able to just fucking shop for groceries without sweating and watching for every fucking movement. So, when some jackass startles me without even saying anything before the touch, fuck them. Fuck them right in the fucking ear with a stolen dildo. If I happen to swing around and they get knocked the fuck out, that's what they get.

Like, legit, even a simple "hey" right before the touch, and I won't attack. I need that extra second of warning to put a leash on the rage and panic. I can do it, I can hear the warning, and just step away from the person instead of going right at them. I can put the leash on and not lose my shit.

Some days, all I'll do is jump away, which isn't any better for me, because my back can't take sudden movements like it used to; I'll need a day or two of recovery and/or muscle relaxers. But those are the good days, and I can't always guarantee that I'll be able to choose to jump away instead of going after the threat.

And, wtf are people thinking? I'm damn near six feet tall, with shoulders that have trouble getting through narrow doors. Why the fuck are you going to just grab that guy's arm? Like, fuck people, think a little. You shouldn't even be doing that with a friendly grandmother looking person, but when it's fucking sasquatch? How stupid do you have to be? And that fucking arm you're grabbing is as big as some people's thighs ffs, so why? Why the fuck would you risk grabbing it?

Luckily, kids never grab that high. They tug a shirt or something. And older folks still remember good manners and don't just grab strangers. So I've never really fucked anyone up that I would regret. Did, however, break the arm of a guy that was a friend because he didn't believe me when I told him I was touchy. That was before therapy though. I've knocked a couple of people out, knocked them down, left bruises, and one dude was concussed enough to need an ambulance.

So, you might think, "oh, south is talking about something really rare". No! People are fucking stupid! A lot of people on the scale of things. Maybe a dozen or so is plenty, but it's been more than that. I'm trying to count up in my head, and it's close to twenty where someone got some degree of hurt. More where I was able to control things.

Why do people think it's okay to touch strangers? Fuck! I'm stressed as fuck just remembering it.

Like, I'm a pretty friendly guy in public. I don't like people, but I do my best to not let them know that unless they give a good reason to show it. Someone needs help, I'll help. They want to talk, I'll talk. But you don't touch strangers. You can offer touch, like a handshake or even a hug (and thank you so much to that sweet lady that hugged the hell out of me after one of the times I'm talking about. Saw me lay a guy out and still came up to where I was crying and wanted to help me get myself together.), that's just being a decent human.

Holy shit lol. PTSD is no fucking joke folks. I'm laid in bed, with people I love around me, and I'm still shaking a little and trying not to cry just remembering this stuff. People like to joke about being triggered and such, but it can sneak up on you when you aren't expecting it, when you think it can't. And then the whole cascade starts up.

What's really fucked up is that the whole being grabbed/touched from behind thing wasn't even from major events. Like, I was a bouncer for a while, and got hurt doing it, which didn't help the PTSD. But this shit goes back to Jr high where I wasn't dealing with people trying to kill me, just fuck with me and hurt me. Not even bad hurt, "just" punches and such. I can deal with someone coming at me when a knife and stay controlled. Hell, part of me likes the possibility of a fight where I don't have to be nice and hold back. But some rando grabbing my arm lets loose those old memories that got ground into my brain over years, and I don't think that's ever going away entirely.

I will only ever explain myself once. If the person I explained myself to seems to completely misunderstand me, I'll just shut down and search for an escape from the conversation. I'm just so used to never getting through to people, and being misunderstood. No, I didn't mean to upset you, and you insisting that I did is getting us nowhere. Accept that I'm sorry.

But no. Never happens. So I barely try any more.

I keep back any feelings in arguments, most interactions and also intense situations. Makes me loose a lot of arguments because I almost freeze and I appear as a person which distances from others. On the other hand I am able to keep calm in a lot of professional situations and act deescalating.

I think calling it "survival reflexes" alters the truth of the matter. After all, other people live without being paranoid/aggressive/excessively fearful just fine. Better, actually. And this is coming from someone that used to consider some of my more unsavoury behaviour as "survival reflexes"...