Comments on: The Loneliness and Grief of a Traumatized Child https://cptsdfoundation.org/2018/07/24/the-loneliness-and-grief-of-a-traumatized-child/ The Foundation for Post-Traumatic Healing and Complex Trauma Research Tue, 22 Jul 2025 22:03:55 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Heidi Edmonds https://cptsdfoundation.org/2018/07/24/the-loneliness-and-grief-of-a-traumatized-child/#comment-38449 Tue, 22 Jul 2025 22:03:55 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=747#comment-38449 Thank you for sharing these exceptionally important feelings. They are all consuming & so powerful. As an empath, I really struggle to understand how humans can’t feel Katie’s pain. It’s is so pure / natural / innocent. Normal. I want to tell her so many things. Help her. Hug her. Be her continuity.
Reparenting her almost needs several people including your therapist who seems like an Angel sent from heaven btw.
I can’t express enough how courageous & inspirational you are Shirley.
I worked as a sex offence & child abuse detective for many years & I have my own lived experience. You are needed in this world, more than you will ever know.
Thank you for how you are, & how you will change this world for the better by sharing your incredibly invaluable & intelligent lived experience x

]]> By: Elizabeth Woods https://cptsdfoundation.org/2018/07/24/the-loneliness-and-grief-of-a-traumatized-child/#comment-21569 Mon, 06 Nov 2023 16:40:20 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=747#comment-21569 I’ve just come across this article. Thank you for writing it. It must have been really hard. In a lot of ways, reading your words was like looking into a mirror of my own childhood. I was this child for years. Trapped in a horrific environment without any support from anyone. I was lonely and scared and those feelings are with me even now 30 years later. I am healing but some feelings take a very long time to “re-wire”.

]]> By: James Cappio https://cptsdfoundation.org/2018/07/24/the-loneliness-and-grief-of-a-traumatized-child/#comment-21518 Thu, 02 Nov 2023 18:30:20 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=747#comment-21518 “It takes a lot of hard work, time and patience.” Not as encouraging to this 70-year-old as you may like to think.

]]> By: Lisa https://cptsdfoundation.org/2018/07/24/the-loneliness-and-grief-of-a-traumatized-child/#comment-16210 Wed, 22 Jun 2022 16:23:33 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=747#comment-16210 In reply to Nolan.

Wow Shirley a very horrifying and a raw piece of writing.

I can relate in so much of your story. I remember wanting to die at the age of 10, seriously it’s so daunting and scary to look at my 11yr old son and crazy to think all I wanted was to die.

Chronic loneliness consumes me, no matter how many loved ones I have around me.

I’m an Adult survivor of 25years of Child sexual and emotional abuse. I have many Dissociative tendencies with many other mental health disorders.

Thankyou for sharing

#victimsstandtogether

]]> By: Nolan https://cptsdfoundation.org/2018/07/24/the-loneliness-and-grief-of-a-traumatized-child/#comment-16176 Sat, 18 Jun 2022 21:26:25 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=747#comment-16176 Thank you so much! Your vulnerability really helped me today as I’m really struggling with childhood abuse and my own chronic sense of unsafety and isolation. Thank you for offering what is really needed for healing in my eyes, the empathy, care, emotional reciprocity, validation and believing of the depth of the pain, ah so nice to hear. I haven’t found my support system yet(and my family are my abusers and they all deny what really happened) but my therapist and other supporters shall follow the guidelines you spoke of here! Thank you again!

]]> By: Richard Jones https://cptsdfoundation.org/2018/07/24/the-loneliness-and-grief-of-a-traumatized-child/#comment-15701 Sat, 30 Apr 2022 15:13:47 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=747#comment-15701 At sixty five years old I still suffer from the effects of a – what I call, “quiet abuse that lasted fourteen years.”

The perpetrator was a second cousin, only about a year older than me. A bully to the core.

I can’t go any further….this hurts too damn much and no one in my family believes me and write me off as crazy.

My hope is that when I die, I’ll be buried and or creamated before they know I’m gone… I’d hate to cause them to display their hypocrisy by showing up to fawn loss and heartache because of my death.

]]> By: Michelle https://cptsdfoundation.org/2018/07/24/the-loneliness-and-grief-of-a-traumatized-child/#comment-12197 Mon, 22 Nov 2021 21:25:46 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=747#comment-12197 Thank you for your vulnerability and courage to publish this.

My experience was one of a chronic desire to run away. I remember packing a bag and making a plan as young as 4 years old. I can relate to the deep loneliness and feelings of being trapped and helpless. I wanted to escape but couldn’t. Through trauma bonding and fear that I’d just be sent back home, I was unable to leave until I was 18, but I was always ready to go. In my marriage, this pattern has continued, and although I should have left the first time I wanted to/had good reason to, I find myself after 29 years of dissociation and denial finally gaining the strength to leave. Still haven’t yet though. I’m close.

]]> By: mendel https://cptsdfoundation.org/2018/07/24/the-loneliness-and-grief-of-a-traumatized-child/#comment-5035 Wed, 26 May 2021 15:39:48 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=747#comment-5035 In reply to Angela.

To Angela: Thank you for maintaining yourself until and then finding the strength to repair the damage to you perpetrated by others when you were helpless. I hope you have a more satisfying and fulfilling life forward.
To Shirley: Thank you for your courageous journey and sharing it with vulnerability.

I have yet to discover my supporting apparatus to a more stable and robust self, but your sharings indicate it might be possible.

]]> By: Angela https://cptsdfoundation.org/2018/07/24/the-loneliness-and-grief-of-a-traumatized-child/#comment-3503 Wed, 03 Feb 2021 18:40:45 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=747#comment-3503 I was adopted in infancy to a world of ritual abuse, medical experiments, and trafficking. I was locked into that world for 23 years with hundreds of people having the opportunity to notice and help.

I too have DID. It took 58 years to get the diagnosis. Mental health professionals who follow the crowd of disbelief do us so much harm. Many of us simply disappear by suicide. It is written off as mental illness, depression, and selfishness.

What we are looking for is to be believed, helped, and affirmed. I find the mental health system to be the most damaging.

]]> By: List of My Published Work – The Davis Integrated Writing Services https://cptsdfoundation.org/2018/07/24/the-loneliness-and-grief-of-a-traumatized-child/#comment-1917 Wed, 26 Aug 2020 12:21:58 +0000 https://cptsdfoundation.org/?p=747#comment-1917 […] https://cptsdfoundation.org/2018/07/24/the-loneliness-and-grief-of-a-traumatized-child/ […]

]]>