Healing from Childhood Trauma is Extremely Difficult Without Friends

Comments · 379

• JA

  @jasonz9902 · 1 year ago

  Finding a friend may be harder to achieve than healing trauma, at least for me. But thank you Daniel, I find more understanding and acceptance here than anywhere else.

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• TH

  @thedeepfeeler.7890 · 1 year ago

  The real genuine friends are hard to find, this is the fundamental reason why i remained alone even in the most grievous moments of my life as a young person.

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• PA

  @panumbra · 1 year ago

  I've never had a safe friend.

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• PO

  @pod9363 · 1 year ago

  Making Friends Is Extremely Difficult With Childhood Trauma

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• KA

  @katehampstead6024 · 1 year ago

  "They created me to violate me"

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• FI

  @finegoldstones · 1 year ago

  Daniel, I owe you a comment. When you speculated that perhaps your videos have served as a friend to someone who didn&apos;t have one, you were correct, and that describes my situation. Two years ago, when I stumbled across your videos, you changed my outlook on life. You gave me a path forwards, you gave me reasons for my suffering that validated the true core part of me, and gave real causes that didn&apos;t merely feed me back into the capitalist-sculpted mental health field. It&apos;s been two years, it&apos;s been a long two years, but I&apos;ve grieved a tremendous amount because of you. I&apos;ve been able to do the impossible, which is to spiritually break from my mother whom I still live with (because of me being in graduate school earning a degree in mental health counseling). You provided validation to all of my traumas and experiences and attachment wounds without even mentioning them--all you had to do was be honest, to be yourself, to speak from the Self, and I strongly believe that the Self is contagious, it allowed mine to start to take center stage. I have wonderful friends who love me and validate me, but none with the same understanding you have. <br>Not only have you touched my life, but through my life you&apos;ve touched the lives of countless others. I was in a 2 year romantic relationship that recently ended, and it ended because my partner got into touch with everything she needed to grieve--surviving sexual assault, being neglected and abused by caregivers, abandoned by her father, losing her grandmother, resorting to binge eating to ease that grief, then resorting to anorexia, then resorting to smoking weed, then losing her uncle and her beloved cat. While she was with me, she felt the presence of my Self and hers started to come out, and as it did, it came into contact with everything she had to grieve, which she couldn&apos;t feasibly grieve while still participating fully in the relationship. When i met her, she would&apos;ve never been able to be assertive enough to carve that space out for her. I&apos;m so proud of her for doing so, and I truly believe it&apos;s because of the impact I had on her that would&apos;ve never been possible without you speaking your truth.<br>For work, I work for an organization that pairs high school aged students with elementary school kids that need extra support (many are lonely at school, are abused at home, raised by grandparents while parents fight drug addictions, and so on). With what you&apos;ve taught me, I&apos;ve been able to advocate for these kids over and over again, to create a space where they aren&apos;t pathologized or rejected for their true selves or taught that their acting out makes them unlovable. I&apos;ve even had to fight against the school, whose &quot;rules&quot; spread this exact message, and whose teachers aides are incredibly cruel and unloving. I&apos;ve been able to lead the high school students to adopt a style in light of your message. I&apos;ve seen it change these elementary aged kids, they glow up when they see me or they see the student they are matched with when we see them once every week to play games and talk with them. We&apos;ve given these kids an ally who loves them unconditionally, and I&apos;ve seen firsthand how it changes these kids lives. They go from eating lunch alone and struggling with conversation or acting out, to being involved in the school, having lots of friends, and feeling the freedom to express themselves--to see their Selves come out. Not only this, but the high schoolers get a lot out of the program too, and I see it change them as well, help them feel more capable and led by that true core part of themselves. <br>Your kinship, albeit mostly one-sided due to the formatting of online videos, has given me my life. I say this with tears of gratitude in my eyes. You&apos;ve given me my life, Daniel. And in return you&apos;ve asked nothing. You&apos;ve never asked for a dime, or for me to &quot;like or subscribe&quot;, or to sign up to your newsletter, absolutely nothing. What I owe you, which is an immense amount, I will continue to pass onto my friends, my future romantic partners (hopefully the last one finds herself ready to date again but I&apos;m also happy with myself), the mentees and mentors in my program, and Godwilling I&apos;ll be able to pass it onto future psychotherapy clients with the same unconditional love you&apos;ve showed us all. There&apos;s more for me to mention, like how my graduate school nearly expelled me for speaking the truth about the program in a feedback survey they solicited me for, which held me back from starting my internship for 8 months--but perhaps I&apos;ll expand on that another time. In the meantime, words cannot express the gratitude I have for you. I hope you feel my love burgeoning through this post, love that would surpass any words I could come up with. Thanks again.

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• UN

  @UnexpectedAmy · 1 year ago (edited)

  I mean, it was only when I got sick and was bedbound for most of a year and all my friends, my chosen family, abandoned me that I was able to overcome my trauma.<br><br>It was the best thing that ever happened to me, the veil lifted, and my inner child found her best friend ever: my healing self.<br><br>I was more of convenience to these friends, I offered so much and expected nothing from them except their presence. My love came so easily, but the people-pleasing and codependency, lack of discernment did so much damage. I only have time for individuated and intentional people now, it&apos;s lonely, but less painful than ineffectual familiar acquaintances that you can know for 20 years and who still don&apos;t open up to intimacy.<br><br>Always put the abandoned child first, it had no-one, and has no-one without us. Friends and lovers are ideal, but it&apos;s still us who has to do the big work ourselves.

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• BO

  @bobbysgirl8365 · 1 year ago

  I&apos;ve never had any friends, I have no family either. Tough being completely alone decades.

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• MR

  @MrReality2026 · 1 year ago

  I have c-ptsd and i related a lot to this, thank you for the hope daniel.

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• MI

  @MilenaEtc · 1 year ago

  Thanks and please don’t stop posting these videos

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• TR

  @TracyNewton-q3b · 1 year ago

  Thank you. Journaling calms me straight away. I found a friend at bible study. We both have dire depression etc. We shook hands on helping eachother. We have never missed a once a week meet up for a year and a half.my confidence has risen and he brings me comfort and safety. Like God &nbsp;i love him for that. Honesty and trust is wonderful again. We are so lucky to have eachother. Im 60 and hes 29. Age means nothing.😊

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• WH

  @whatdoyoulivefor735 · 1 year ago

  It can be so retraumatizing to find an amazing friend who is so fun, sympatico, understanding, open about themselves and about their trauma, a great, empathic listener for yours, amazing at analyzing things together with... and then they decide one day that they don&apos;t like you anymore and then they&apos;re gone. I&apos;ve had that happen, and I&apos;ve been in both roles. The rejector and the rejected. &nbsp;It&apos;s really tough to lose a great friend! Cherish them! I hope one day I can trust in a great friend again.

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