Lone wolf trauma response

Sometimes people end up lone wolfing it because when they have asked for help or said what they need it has gone unheard.

I remember one night when I was a single mum going to put my daughter to bed in her room and noticing muddy footprints on the floor all the way to the door to the hallway coming from the window which was now open.

Big, muddy footprints.

Alone as a woman with 2 children I questioned if what I was seeing was real and did I need to worry about it.

I decided to call the police just to be safe.

And you know what the police said when they came?

“Are you sure it wasn’t the children who did this”…

I said to them are you serious look at the size of the footprints and where they are on the window and you want me to believe my little people did this?

Their solution? Call us if anything else happens.

Now I get that there isn’t much they could do.

But they didn’t even try to say a single thing other than it was probably your kids who did it.

So that’s just one experience where I thought to myself cool I’ll just deal with it on my own since no one else is going to be any help.

Sometimes it’s a really hard thing to move past the trauma response of doing things yourself because it seems easier, and, sometimes it actually is easier.

A person who is used to doing things themselves may need time to completely trust that you mean it when you say they can call on you because they have heard that many times and it hasn’t been followed through with.

So think of that next time you off hand say I’m here if you need me, because sometimes that’s just another sign that you actually won’t be.

And if you won’t be, know that’s ok too, you don’t have to be everything for everyone either. That’s another learned response we have in society these days too.

Choose wisely is what I am saying ❤️

Xo S