Trauma Comes In Many Forms, Even More With The Triggers

Just the other day, I got a friend request… a simple friend request on one of my socials. My whole body went rigid when I saw his name and his face; a small, very barely visible photo on my phone. As I hit delete, for an instant, I am 19 again and my mind is transported back to the end of my freshman year of college…

It should not come any surprise to anyone that trauma can come in many forms and levels. The triggers that remind you of the pain that occurred from that trauma can come from the slightest of things at any time in your life whether it was a song that was playing; a certain aroma of cologne or perfume; or even the mention of a person’s name that can send shivers down your spine and goosebumps on your arm.

In 1996, my freshman year was nearly over and I had only made 2-3 friends in college. I still had several friends from high school that I talked to regularly. This was a bit unlike me to have only a few friends in college because I have always been pretty outgoing and don’t typically shy away from trying to meet as many people as possible. I had spent the entire first year of college obsessed with my boyfriend, who was a year younger than me and overly jealous of every moment I spent away from him. He was only okay with my friends he already knew from high school. As our relationship progressed, he started with only the little mean jabs that would sometimes stop me in my tracks and slowly start making me believe that nothing I said or did was worthwhile. Then he moved to the comments about my body and how no one would ever want to be with someone who looked like me other than him. And like a lightning strike, his behavior became more angry and aggressive and someone I could not recognize. He came from an abusive background so an outsider should’ve been able to see the signs as everything got worse, but my mind was so turned upside down and inside out by his mental and emotional abuse that my thoughts often didn’t even feel like my own.

His friends started looking out for me more than him. When his behavior became more aggressive, I began to tell me rumors of a new girl at school who was paying him more and more attention which may be why his behavior toward me had changed so dramatically.

Luckily, throughout my freshman year in college, those few friends I had made actually helped me in ways that I’m sure they had no idea. They were outsiders from the drama, the craziness and the mayhem happening in my life outside of school. These friends helped me to continue to feel human. The late night piano sessions in the Music Building or the hours of talking in the dorm hallways – those memories are the ones that kept me going that year when often times I didn’t even feel like myself. Near the end of the year, I found myself wanting to break the glass cage I felt like had been encased with his daily battery of comments and insults. I made the decision to slowly put myself out there, make more friends, join student groups, and become a part of the Student Welcome Group for the incoming freshmen class for the next year.

All of these things angered him because he was losing control of his hold on me. When we later broke up, I would find out he had long wanted to end our relationship, but he just wanted to know that he still had control over what I did and how I felt.

After an abrupt break-up with a lot of screaming and crying, I began to feel so unhinged and insane in my own skin, believing I didn’t know how to function unless he told me what to do because I had spent the entire year being moved around like a puppet under his control. The mental and emotional abuse had been so great that I felt like I was literally losing my mind.

Unable to understand how to let go of him or the relationship, I did things that were not me. At the time, I didn’t feel like I had anyone who would understand what was going through my head because my friends just thought I was just having issues getting over him. Except it wasn’t that at all, it felt like my thoughts, my actions and even myself – nothing felt like it was of my own free will.

Then it happened… One night, while at a friend’s house, he and his friends just showed up out of nowhere late in the evening. This was several weeks after we had broken up, and I was literally a broken shell of myself. I truly didn’t recognize him either, though. He was drunk, angry, and agitated. He forced me back into my friend’s room, locked the door and I fought my way to get out of the door. He picked me up and slammed my body onto the floor where my head hit against the floor like a brick. Stunned and in a fog, this 18 year old boy climbed on top of me and assaulted me as I kicked and screamed even though I only had half my strength after being slammed down. After he was finished, he simply stood up, unlocked the bedroom door, and just shut it behind him like nothing had happened as I lay crying hysterically on the floor. When I heard his friend’s car start, I suddenly became enraged and came running out of the room, half clothed. My friend didn’t even say a word as I ran out the door with my keys and no shoes. Like a mad woman, I followed them back to his friend’s house over 20 minutes away. As they pulled in and he just stared at me like I was a crazy fool, I just put the car in reverse and drove back to my friend’s house, sobbing, barely able to see the road through my tears, and realizing it was literally the middle of the night.

The next 72 hours were a blur. There was a lot of sleeping, alcohol and then fighting and screaming because of a run-in with him at a mutual friend’s house later in the weekend. Two of my closest high school friends stepped in that night because of my incessant level of intoxication. My father contacted my best girlfriend’s father and ended our friendship because of the earlier events at her house the previous weekend. Friendships were torched, bridges were set aflame, and my life was left to start over. For months after, his cologne from that night saturated my nostrils like the smell of rotten food. His hollow eyes staring through me haunted my thoughts along with his piercing cold words still cutting me down in my mind.

My life was forever altered from the events of that weekend. The walls I began to build around myself because of him were as strong as steel and as high as mountains. All I wanted at that point were friendships to help me feel whole again because I felt like only a quarter of a person. I started my sophomore year, unlike myself – timid, shy, quiet and unsure of who I even was. Most people thought I was a freshman. But, I quickly regained my footing, made so many incredible friends who helped me through the next three years of college, and helped me become the person I have continued to develop into today. Many of those friends never even knew what happened my freshmen year or even that night. It was better to just leave in it the past. Moving forward… none of it happened overnight or even without a lot of pain, grief, counseling and definitely not without help.

I would still flinch from time to time if the smell of his cologne passed in front of my nose years later, or when someone who even remotely resembled him came anywhere near me until I could see for sure it wasn’t him.

I am now 46 years old, happily married, mother of three, grandmother of two and believe myself to be a successful businesswoman too. This happened 27 freaking years ago, and just seeing his name and his face pop up on a friend request brought back every horrible memory that one night in May of 1996.

Trauma comes in many forms, and the triggers from that trauma come in even more…