trauma

I feel like after years of living in survival mode from various back to back traumas, I don’t know how to turn off my brain. It’s always in some sort of overstimulated cycle of overthinking, rumination, self checking, and seeking reassurance. I know there will be more peace after treatment. But just hating like I’m stuck in always feeling like I’m waiting for the next shoe to drop when so many shit things have happened to me early in life. How am I suppose to be excited about what’s next?

When I was 5, I met my best friend in kindergarten. Ever since, she had not really been allowing me to hang out with other kids because she wanted me all for herself, which I thought was cute at the time, but then she also began completely leaving me for another friend whom she'd become obsessed eith, and when she got bored of them, she'd then come back to me. Many times she's insult me, but if I ever dared say she's even doing something wrong she'd get mad. I always had to do what she wanted, and every time I said no and wanted to do something she'd barge into my bedroom (because this was mostly in my house when we used to play), slam the door, and throw things at me when I came in to talk. Once, I found a horseshoe (I can't remember if I was with her or if I told her about it?) but anyways I was the one who found it, and she demanded I give it to her. I told her no because I loved it and wanted it and I found it, and she told me that if I didn't give it to her she would h**ng me with it. I didn't even know what that meant but I knew it meant something terrifying. I also began developing OCD around 8 and she and basically everyone made fun of me because I had a lot of physical compulsions and they reanacted my compulsions, and for that I always felt stupid and weird. I began to hide my compulsions, only doing them when no one was watching or when I was alone. I normalised it all by the time I turned 13, but my relationship had gotten so bad with her that I was actually absolutely terrified of going to her house to hang out, and for her birthday, she invited me out with another friend she hung out with. They ONLY spoke about things they were interested in like books and that's fine, but they knew that I wasn't interested in that stuff at all and asked me "Why don't you talk?" Like always, I felt left out because the only time my ex bsf spoke to me was when she embarrassed me in front of the other friend. Anyways I couldn't take it anymore that summer and stopped talking to her because I just couldn't do it anymore. Thoughout those years (and now still) I've been using Maladaptive Daydreaming SEVERELY every day to cope. I remember it reached the point where I would be actually talking to them in my head, like using my tongue to talk as if I was speaking physically but not opening my mouth or letting out any noise so nobody thinks I'm weird if that makes any sense, and I'd just be listening to music ALL day and pace for hours and hell, my OCD began targeting my MD, which was LITERALLY the thing my brain was using in order to protect my brain from loneliness AND OCD which os crazy lol, but I feel so stupid because I feel like with the MD i should've just sucked it up and changed fandoms instead of letting my OCD keep targeting the characters of the fandom I was Daydreaming to, even though I would spend days feeling physically hot, head and thoughts spinning, overanalyzing the game I daydreamed to over and over again to make sure that the character I roleplayed as was loved by the other characters that brought me comfort. I was so obsessed with the characters and the Daydreaming that it probably became the only thing that made me feel genuinely understood and loved and they were in my very own head! Does what happened even count as trauma lol? It feels kinda stupid cus it was just a childhood friend being a kid like yea sure she was toxic, but I never hated her. My parents loathe her because of this, but I feel like I'm just over exaggerating everything and don't want to be saying that this girl has traumatised me because I don't want to be blaming someone for something severe.

My real-events are terrible. I'm plagued daily by multiple awful things I did as a child / teenager (please don't downplay it.) I've grown into a better person, but the memories won't let me see any progress. It feels as if my insides are dying from grief and shame. How do you go day to day not picturing yourself as a monster?