In the past two days I have been told *so* many traumatic stories coming from two of my coworkers. The first day it was from the coworker that I’m relatively good friends with, and she was mostly telling the other coworker while I was right there. I couldn’t help but think “Why is she telling this woman all of this? She just met her! How does she know it’s safe or smart to blurt all of this out right now?” while simultaneously absorbing all of the traumatic and wild things this woman grew up experiencing. She lost her Dad when she was about 16, and felt like it was her fault for a long time because the last conversation she had with him was one in which she exchanged mean words with him. She explained how her brother stopped talking to anyone for about 8 months after their father’s death, yet he would talk to her only at about 2 am most nights. A bit ago she had told me that she was raped, but did not go into details. She told me about all of the horrific stories from her previous jobs in the mental health field with violent individuals. She explained being attacked on multiple occasions, and she talked of several stories in which she held hands with people while they were dying.

I couldn’t believe how much she was sharing. I didn’t think too much of it when she told me because people tend to open up to me when I’m not expecting it. I was mostly shocked that she told this brand new coworker about most of the same stories. I noticed it happened a few days in a row, when it was the same 3 of us working together. I was trying to put it together. What is she trying to achieve by telling this woman all of these intense, highly personal stories? Why is she telling her this soon, essentially only days after first meeting her?

I used to be like this. I used to be that person that would spill my guts and upbringing stories to in one long slew almost immediately after meeting someone. I used to do it almost unconsciously. I don’t do that so much now, well atleast not with new people I meet that are coworkers. I have yet to really meet anybody new outside of work for awhile. I suppose I did tell my current boyfriend a hell of a lot of personal things when I first met him, but most of this occurred via chatting online. In a way I think I have more of a tendency to do this with potential boyfriends. I think without realizing it I’ve had a history of doing this with potential boyfriends because I am unconsciously testing them. I’m seeing if they are comfortable with my heavy and traumatic upbringing, because they will have to be if they are going to be with me. They’d have to be able to handle my random freak outs, the way that I am in arguments–which is just like the way my father was. I suppose I am testing them to see if they are open to hearing this stuff as well, and to see whether or not they are going to judge me. I’m also testing them to see if they are just as intense of a person as I am, because if they are they likely will take the stories in stride and/or will share traumatic stories of their own. I’m testing to see if they can and truly want to be with me, despite my baggage. I can’t pretend that that won’t come out at some point, I know that it will and I’d rather debrief the person right away instead of after the fact when it’s too late. 

I have only shared very small amounts of traumatic history with the residents I take care of and with some of my coworkers. I have never gone into detail though. I have never really explained the worst stuff and I have certainly never gone into detail enough for them to truly know what I’ve been through. I think with my new friend from work, who is extremely extroverted and outspoken, the half or so of my personality that is that same way, comes out when I’m around her. We laugh a lot, we make a lot of jokes and do and say a lot of ridiculous and silly things. We have fun. I am more expressive and open when I’m around her. I am much more like the person I was as a young kid–the extroverted one, who wanted to be friends with everyone, who was always laughing and being maybe a bit too open and friendly with complete strangers. I had a loud personality when I was little, and it is a lot less loud now.

I think after I’ve just worked with this friend a bunch, I kind of forget that I’m not that wicked extroverted person anymore. As primarily an introvert, I rarely share my true feelings and I rarely open up to people about my emotional background. I don’t talk very much about myself with most people, and I spend a lot more time listening to them. I keep a lot to myself and I keep myself very self controlled. I am guarded, but not so much that I don’t talk to or initiate interacting with anyone else. I have learned that when I opened up to much in the past, especially in workplaces, I have ended up being fired. I have ended up expressing my craziness a bit too much, and it must have made my bosses view me as emotionally unstable. It must have made them think I’d be incapable of being a good, balanced worker. 

I realize now that I don’t really trust people. I don’t trust that I can open up about my traumatic childhood at my workplace, even though I work for people that had very traumatic upbringings and life experiences themselves. I don’t trust my coworkers enough to open up to them there, because I feel that somehow sharing that information with them will end up exposing me too much, and I’ll lose my job. I fear that someone somewhere will open their mouth to the wrong person and the whole image my boss and other management employees will be shattered. I’d rather keep it so that they only see the good, balanced, well adjusted version of myself.

Maybe I have finally learned what is appropriate to say at work, and what is not. Maybe I have finally established the boundaries that I’ve been trying to establish for so long. Maybe I have become balanced enough now that I don’t need to pour my emotional baggage all over anyone that is around me. Maybe I have realized that it is not safe nor smart to share that info in that kind of environment. 

The next day the other, new coworker told me personally a lot of insanely traumatic information about her past experiences. She brought it up somewhat out of nowhere, and told me so much of it right before my shift finished and I left work. In a way it made me feel good that I give off the vibe that I can be trusted and that I will be understanding and not judge what I’m being told. In another way between hearing the two traumatic histories of these two women I work with, it changed my perspective on my own upbringing a little bit. In yet another way, it made me feel kind of bad in that I felt like if I shared my story to the same degree that they did, mine would seem like nothing. I felt like my story wouldn’t keep their attention as much and that they wouldn’t think I went through all that much. The difference between my story and theirs is that theirs contains a lot of very defined, actual traumatic events that involved things that most anyone would believe to be traumatic. They experienced loss of people close to them via those people dying, they experienced physical and sexual abuse, etc. In my story, it went a bit differently than that. I have never seen anyone die, or been physically or sexually abused. I have been severely emotionally abused, I was raised like I was a soldier in bootcamp, I lived under the roof of two parents who were much more messed up than the public eye would ever see. What I dealt with was *chronic*. I went through many traumatic events but since they were traumatic in ways that only I and my brothers can truly feel, I believe they would not be viewed as such by anyone else. My parents fought all the time, I mean every day for as long as I can remember, and they fought very badly. It always felt like it was on the verge of truly into physical abuse, or on the verge of someone attacking another. BUT mostly what occurred was this underlying, ongoing, insane pressure and expectation that I be perfect and always well controlled in manner and actions. There was also an ongoing expectation that I be the therapist. There was so much control, so much force, and so little freedom. I was symbolically yet essentially physically boxed up, kept home, kept inside around the family all of the time, to do nothing but constantly absorb the chaos that was around me. I observed a lot of it, and I personally went through a lot of it.

I have to leave for work now but, I wanted to say one last thing. As I was just writing my last passage I realized that what I just described is essentially the same dynamic that I’m in now except in a very different manner. I am working a job for disabled and previously abused people, and I am working with people who hold a lot of chaos in them and who share it with others. In a way I am still there, except this time I am not trapped in it, but I am doing the same thing. I am the observer, the absorber, the sponge that takes it all but rarely lets anything out of my own. Compared to them I look pretty fucking balanced, I seem much more put together, I likely seem like I grew up in great circumstances. I’m glad I appear this way to them, but I wish I felt safe in being able to share my stories with these women. I wish I could trust that they feel empathy for me like I have for them. I wish I could express that same baggage to them without it getting me in trouble in one way or another.