David, thank you for bringing your virtual voice forward. Communicating transparently with your therapist is a great way to make progress with your healing. I’m glad to hear that you’ve never shied away from telling others who you are.

Jenny, who you are absolutely matters, but not everyone has earned the right to hear your story. The challenge for us, as trauma survivors, is that meeting people is often all-or-nothing. Either we reveal everything about ourselves or nothing at all. The key is to tell them surface stuff at first and see how they handle it. If they would like to know more and are curious, you can take them to next level, and so on. I hope that helps.

I often feel the freeze/fawn response striking back when meeting people. It becomes even harder when I feel they have limited or no interest in who I bluntly am. And when I find the courage to tell, they don’t get it correctly, they find it abnormal or worse : avoid it