The thing about having been emotionally abused is that when a trigger is present, you do an emotional ducking, just like when you have survived physical abuse, when a hand is raised, you duck physically.
This emotional ducking will hinder a lot of actions one will take, because of the imposed albeit false danger.
Even something as small as about to DM a new friend about the record player I borrowed. Suddenly, I was thinking "oh no, what if he knows a lot about record players and tells me mine sucks" in the shit on my parade style.
I mean who tf does that?!
Oh right, people in my past. People I held dear and near in my past.
Then, I push through that thought which was based on the past and only came out to protect me and instead I sent the DM anyways. And of course, it turned out that was not the response. We ended up having a good conversation.
And one more small step (or maybe not so small) away from the toxic patterns. 👏👏
(And if by chance, their response is just like a previous abusive person, then you recognize who the new person is.)
Don't be afraid to find out who people really are!!!
