Trauma and Isolation

So a lot of horrible things, like extreme violence I won't go into, happened and continued for years several years ago. It all began in 2020 and ended in 2023 for the most part. Since then I have not been the same. I am guarded, always vigilant looking for danger. I have cut out every single person in my life so that all is left is machines. I think that is contributing to it. The lack of human connection. It was the betrayal and circumstances of what happened that has made me not trust people and I always see the ulterior motives of people and distance myself from people. Perhaps most troublesome is the crying. It happens every day. Often because of memories, but sometimes I don't even know where it comes from. That is something that was never there before, but yet it is a central part of my life now. So much that I isolate further worrying about what will happen in public. The anger. Always angry. Blowing up at people. Screaming in their face. I never used to do that. It has been years. And it has not improved at all. If anything the isolation, pain, and loss of my cat, and breaking my spine has made the current time even more stressful and difficult. It feels like no matter what I do, I can't go back to where I was before. Each day is just filled with pain and suffering with no real relief. The only relief I get is when I smoke weed and forget for a moment. But that is expensive and not a great habit. I thought it was the weed, so I quit, but that didn't do anything but make it so that I never have any relief ever. What am I supposed to do? I want human connection. I have no people in my life now. Only machines. I really want to just have a friends. But people are dangerous and parasitic and I can't unsee what I have seen about human nature. So instead I can go all month without talking to anyone. I have tried to be social and make friends since then. But no one believes me about so many aspects of my life. They say, that didn't happen, or that they never heard a news story about it... but it did happen, people just don't like the fact that there is no justice in the world. No one understands. And I get angry. These people have it so easy and have never really had to fight violently just to survive, they live the privileged life I used to have, maybe I feel jealous, of the people who can still stand people and don't just see them as a threat or a liability. The reason I am posting this, is that I just am tired of facing all of this alone. I just want some human connection, but all I have are machines I build. Reddit is not really that much better. I blow up at people here too. So my question is, is there any recovery from this, or am I just always going to be this way now? I have seen zero improvement over the years. It feels hopeless. Also the medical establishment is not an option nor is therapy for a lot of reasons I won't go into, I want to solve this myself. I am an autodidact so this is just another thing I want to handle on my own. Is it just as simple as forcing myself to make friends again? It is too late. I have cut out every last person and burned all bridges so there is no going back. Could something like a free support group work, or where would I make friends? I get banned everywhere I go, so there are a lot of places I can't go back to, because again, the anger and blowing up at random people. So if anyone can relate to anything I wrote, is recovery possible? I don't want to go to a support group. I don't know. I just want a close friendship like I had before this all happened. To be able to not just view people as a threat. Mostly I am just venting this frustration. No one understands, so I was hoping that maybe someone here would. And if you do, was there a turning point where it improved? I am not looking for a cure. Just relief, relief that is not a drug and that doesn't cost anything. Because I don't have health insurance at all. There must be something that helps or that helped. It is mostly the crying and angry outbursts that really bother me the most since that is why I isolate even further. Not looking for medical advice, just want to know if anyone can relate and how I am supposed to connect to people again. Please don't ban me, I get banned everywhere I go. That is why I am posting here. Thank you if you read this. Have a nice day.

First, I’m really glad you wrote this. Seriously. A lot of people carry things like this for years and never say it out loud anywhere. The fact that you did means some part of you still wants connection and change. That part of you is still alive. And I want to say something very directly: **what you’re describing is a very common pattern after prolonged trauma.** Not weakness. Not “being broken.” Just a nervous system that got trained to survive in a dangerous environment and hasn’t learned yet that it’s not there anymore. The vigilance. The anger explosions. The crying that appears out of nowhere. The isolation. The feeling that people are dangerous or parasitic. Those are all extremely typical when someone has spent years in situations where trust was punished or survival required constant alertness. Your brain basically learned: **people = threat**. Once that wiring is installed, it doesn’t just uninstall itself because time passes. But the important thing is this: **people do recover from this.** Not by going back to who they were before, but by building a new stable version of themselves. And it almost never happens all at once. --- ### The first thing I notice in what you wrote You don’t actually hate people. If you did, you wouldn’t be writing this. You wouldn’t want friends. You wouldn’t care about connection. What you hate is **danger disguised as people**. That’s different. Your brain is trying to prevent the betrayal that happened before. It overcorrected and now flags *everyone* as a possible threat. So isolation becomes the safest strategy. Machines don’t betray you. Machines don’t lie. Machines don’t manipulate. That makes perfect sense. But isolation has a cost: **your nervous system never relearns that some humans are safe.** --- ### The crying This part is actually important. When someone spends years in survival mode, their brain suppresses emotional processing. Once the danger is gone, those emotions start coming back in waves. That’s why the crying can feel random. Your system is basically processing backlog. It’s unpleasant, but paradoxically it’s **not a bad sign**. It means the emotions are trying to move instead of staying frozen. --- ### The anger explosions Anger is usually the **protective layer over fear and grief**. When your system detects possible threat, it jumps straight to fight mode. The problem is the threshold is now extremely low. Someone disagreeing with you online can feel like the same threat level as the things you survived. So the reaction becomes huge compared to the situation. That doesn’t make you a bad person. It means your nervous system still thinks it’s in a war zone. --- ### About doing this yourself You said therapy and the medical system are not options. I’ll respect that. But there are still ways people recover **outside of formal therapy**. And interestingly, most of them revolve around the same thing: **gradual, low-stakes human contact.** Not deep friendships immediately. Not emotional vulnerability immediately. Just **being around humans where nothing bad happens**. Examples: - regular coffee shop you sit in - library - hobby groups - volunteering - martial arts gyms - maker spaces - chess clubs - community classes Places where interaction is **optional and structured**. You don’t have to trust anyone. You don’t have to tell your story. You just exist around people. Over time your nervous system starts to notice: > nothing bad happened today > nothing bad happened yesterday > nothing bad happened last week That’s how the threat system slowly recalibrates. --- ### Friendship specifically Friendships after trauma usually don’t start the way they used to. They start slower. Often around **shared activity** instead of conversation. Working on something. Training. Building. Learning. Given your interests (coding, AI, building systems), places like: - hacker / maker spaces - programming meetups - open source communities - robotics clubs - game dev meetups can be good because people interact around projects, not emotions. That removes a lot of social pressure. --- ### One more important thing You said: > I get banned everywhere I go. That doesn’t mean you're doomed socially. It just means the anger reaction is still firing too fast. One practical trick many trauma survivors use is **inserting a delay between trigger and response**. When you feel the surge of anger: Don't respond for 20 minutes. Walk. Cold water. Pushups. Anything physical. The anger spike usually peaks and drops within about 15 minutes if it isn’t fed. That small pause alone can prevent a lot of burned bridges. --- ### Something else I want you to know What you went through changed you. There is no clean path back to the person you were before 2020. But that doesn’t mean life stays like this forever either. Many people who survive extreme things end up building **a quieter, smaller, but more real life** afterward. Fewer people. But deeper trust. Stronger boundaries. More appreciation for calm. --- ### And one final thing You said you only have machines in your life. But machines didn’t write this post. A human part of you did. The part that still wants connection. That part is the thing that recovers. Even if it feels small right now. --- If you want, you can also tell me: - what kind of friendship you had before all this - what your cat was like - or what a *good day* used to look like for you Sometimes rebuilding connection actually starts with **remembering what connection felt like**.