Recognizing my own trauma has helped me understand how my reactions once served as proof of “insanity” and lack of credibility—for the people who needed me to be seen that way, and even for those who didn’t. A non‑emoting, unreactive person could do anything to me and then deny it, calling me crazy or a liar. And every time I melted down in response to something nobody else witnessed—often something from the past that wasn’t clearly connected to the present—I forfeited my credibility.
Hearing this described as “Boxing With Ghosts” brought me immense comfort. I can have intense emotional reactions to a smell, a sound, a sight, a tone—anything reminiscent of unresolved trauma. In recovery, I learned that trauma has two parts: the event itself, and then the way it’s handled (or not handled). And nobody gets to decide how deeply or how long a person feels affected by something. In a safe relationship, someone asks, “What happened?” instead of “What is wrong with you?”
I’m grateful to recognize my triggers now, and grateful for the freedom—offered only by adulthood and recovery—to choose distance from abusers and shamers who weaponize sensitivity. I can finally say, “No,” and “I don’t like that,” and “That won’t work for me.” Abuse, denial, and shaming were traumatizing and alienating for me, and they would still be happening if I had stayed in relationships that relied on my “insane” reactions to prove someone else’s sanity, resilience, and uprightness. I was never upright or resilient in those dynamics. I was spinning or curled up in a ball. And honestly, it was needed—and resented—for me to be exactly like that.
When I learned to speak truth—naming what was visible and observable, without volume or profanity—it was treated as an act of war. And then things from my past were dragged out to discredit my personhood, sanity, and honor.
I am “crazy” in some very good and lovable ways, and also in some ways that are more difficult—but still not punishable, unless you’re a punisher. I became deranged from not knowing how to deny or manage impossible pain, and from having no witness or ally from my earliest days. My pain was always labeled as imagined, made up, or deserved. There was no comfort, no safety, no peace inside that system. That absolutely messed me up and made me an “insane” person. I’ll take crazy any day over sneaky, mean, pretending, or entitled. Nothing about how I live my life today suggests I am any of those things—though I learned and practiced all that nasty stuff before recovery. We learn what we live. I own all of it.
Today, I’m thinking about how I am “too much” for some people. Too direct, too intense, too sensitive, too hungry, too picky, too demanding, too controlling, too awkward, too protective of my space and quiet time. None of this is a problem unless someone needs me to be different. I accept these things about myself and choose relationships only with people who are safe for me to be exactly as I am. Should a person pretend or contort themselves to maintain unsafe relationships? Recovery says no. I’m going with that.
Should I be punished for that? Abusers will unanimously—though not always openly—say yes.
You know what is insane? Staying in optional relationships with people who need to diminish you for any reason at all. I still have some hard‑to‑extinguish ways of being diminishing when I’m bothered. I’m working on that. I’m no longer justifying it.
