HI Jexa

I went back and read again when you said this >> I feel selfish and awful, weak and disgusting, and just flat out ashamed of myself for even CALLING something "trauma" let alone deciding that it's something I should work on or grow from.

it seems that you self-stigmatize on the word "trauma" - but why? It's not a reflection on you; trauma is more or less defined as something coming at you from outside, which you are not able to deflect or defend from.

That's a pretty broad category! it covers big things like accidents, attacks, natural disasters, 9/11.... and it covers things that are big to children like a parent leaving, or a string of abuses or mishandlings during growing up years. The fact that a person of any particular age encounters an event which she cannot defend from is not a reason for her to be ashamed or to consider herself weak or disgusting. We can't control everything.

Please don't be so hard on yourself.

If you want to call it by some other name that doesn't carry the load of shame that this one seems to, fine; but those types of things that happen to us do shape us (or misshape us), and there's nothing wrong with asking for help to deal with it.

I know, you maybe are thinking that this is all easy for me to say; but I know myself how hard it is, I have my own struggles with working on it. Still, it's the way to healing. Jexa these are for you