Trained myself when I was young to not say “Ow” or scream in pain when I was physically abused. Realizing I’m afraid to.

[GreenTomatoe]

I feel like I’ve trained myself to turn off my verbal pain responses from when I was being physically abused and now I don’t know how to turn them back on because they’ve been off so damn long.

Not only that but I keep getting this intense fear when I think about expressing my verbal pain responses and I think I know why now. I think that it was a coping mechanism for when I got hit and I’m actually terrified rn thinking about even saying ow out loud…

I also feel crazy because I don’t even do any verbal pain responses like in my mind…like what even are normal verbal responses? I go ah sometimes but it’s low effort even if I’m in horrible pain and it just feels so weird even doing that as if someone is gonna laugh at me and hit me or judge me and ask me why I’m making that sound and threaten to hit me….

And the other problem is that also when I do it’s always silent. Like I’ll silently scream…like in my head or I’ll like basically whisper scream…I know it was coping mechanism when I was younger and got hit etc. but I don’t even know how to stop it now that I’m older…

How the hell do I turn my damn verbal pain responses back on? I can be in so much damn pain and still not have the ability to say, “Ow!!” Or “Fuck that hurts!!”

I honestly scare myself when I’m in pain at this point now that I’ve realized it with my CFS and I don’t know what to do because I downplay my pain so much and then end up in worse pain…

And when I do say Ow! It sounds forced and unnatural to me because I don’t have practice with verbal pain responses.

[greendreamdays]

I can relate to this. I don't know how normal people cry but I cry silently. When I feel emotions I don't usually show it on my face because I figure it's no one else's problem how I'm feeling so why show it to others? I know that's distorted, I pay close attention to other people's facial expression because how they feel is important to me. But when it comes to me it is always seems to much easier to hide the pain and everything else that might make someone else uncomfortable or draw unwanted attention.

[greendreamdays]

Sorry maybe that was not a helpful comment. It took time to learn to say "ow" and not feel wildly awkward or wildly embarrassed about it.

[GreenTomatoe]

Sorry maybe that was not a helpful comment. It took time to learn to say "ow" and not feel wildly awkward or wildly embarrassed about it.

No you’re okay! I just haven’t the time or energy to reply a long and thoughtful reply back but thank you for your comment<3