it is very difficult when people who are supposed to care about you don't properly deal with a situation that often has long-term consequences for a person.

i went through a lot of trauma, some my mom and sisters did too and some not related to family where they were not involved. but because i was different from them personality wise (quiet, shy, cautious, sensitive, etc.) and the youngest, they were better able to deal with certain situations as they were older, could remove themselves from situations, fight against whoever might have tried harming them sometimes, etc. and because i have limited memories of some of my trauma, i was accused by one sister of my brain making things up because of other trauma/stress in the house growing up or my mom telling because i couldn't remember things 100% or at all that it simply didn't happen.

over the years, as i have had things come back to me or rare times where a family member will actually validate my experiences (i never talk about details to them), it can be very triggering and cause similar reactions where i will dissociate or have other emotions come up that i didn't existed. i just had my psychiatrist after 12 years of seeing her and sharing one thing with her tell me that i was abused. as much as i knew that in my head, hearing it out loud was strange.

it is definitely a healing process i would say for you because you maybe cannot believe after so long someone actually believes you..and the association of it all does a lot to the body and mind. once you have that validation, it will open up a lot of things emotion wise you have felt for years which will overwhelm you and cause you to shut down because it's so hard to process now. it seems to me to be a normal reaction and then needing to rest your body because of the emotional toll it took on you and needing time to process things, sometimes even behind the scenes in ways you might not consciously know.

i often think of my head as a computer where i can be focused on things externally in the here and now, but i sometimes can feel things going on in my head, like a computer program running in the background except doing its own thing which i'm not aware of...reconnecting things related to memories, processing things, etc.