Meme: Gif of Pedro Pascal and Nicholas Cage riding in a convertible with the top down and looking at each other. Pedro’s expression looks like he just shared something humorous. His caption is, “Abuse survivors sharing funny stories about their childhood.” Nicholas’ caption is, “Everyone else,” and looks bewildered.
Damn, I just recently learned that my stories about growing up are considered trauma dumps by my partner. It makes sharing stories of getting through childhood something I can’t talk about anymore. It’s hard to talk to people when so much of what forged me was the heat of short tempers.
Oh no! I’m sorry that you’re in that position. Maybe you can find an avenue to discuss them with someone? I read (actually heard) the book The Body Keeps the Score. Even if you repress the memories or think you’ve moved on, that stuff is in there affecting everything, whether you’re aware of it or not.
Just wanna give a big ol’ +1 to The Body Keeps The Score. My partner read it and it was a game changer for her.
This is really sad. While it’s valid and understandable to not always be able to hold space for that kind of a conversation or story, at a minimum there are far kinder ways to communicate that than for your partner to just say you’re trauma dumping and leave you feeling like this is stuff you should never talk about. A good partner cares enough to listen to those things, and when they ask you not to share, it’s more of a, “not right now, let’s talk about this later.”
I’m not trying to draw any conclusions because there’s no way I’d have enough information anyway, but survivors of abusive upbringings are more likely to end up in abusive relationships because so much of that has been normalized (among other reasons). If your partner really accuses you of trauma dumping, that’s a bit of a red flag to me and it might not be a terrible idea to talk to friends, family, or a therapist as a sanity check to see if it’s nothing or if it’s a pattern of how you are treated. If you don’t want to do that, journaling can also help a lot with organizing your thoughts and feelings, plus it gives you a record of things in case you forget, downplay them, or are told otherwise and start to doubt yourself.
I really just hope everything is okay though. Stay safe out there, stranger.