This Sutta, however, does not completely address your challenge. 

What is also taught in Buddhism is that the four great elements of earth, water, fire and air are real, but they are material and therefore any form/body/divine being which is comprised of these, does not last and therefore is "not self".  One experiences this in meditation, and I have to a degree experienced it.  As I introspect deeply there is a falling away of form (body), feelings (emotions), perceptions (viewpoints), mental formations (thoughts/ memories/ imaginations) and consciousness fades too because the sensual  mechanisms become defunct.  I have reached a state of knowing and emptiness.  I do not find a person, a spiritual self or form there, at least not anything with gender, limbs, senses, such as heavenly forms.  Maybe I will some day, but just as Erinn Earth is not inclined to imagine a state of not self, so holds the reverse, whereby I have no inclination to imagine a spiritual divine self.  

Regarding this:

When I was a self, I suffered. Therefore I became a Buddhist to no longer be a self, to no longer be targeted by nature or by personal agency for suffering. I will meditate myself out of existence, out of objectivity. That will solve the issue of being a target for trauma.

I don't feel that this is unique to Buddhist seekers.  I believe there is a statement in the Anu Gita saying that one who reaches liberation comes to an ultimate conclusion that all in the material universe is trauma.  Lord Krishna also stated that different types people seek him out, including those who are distressed.  One's original motive in seeking out a spiritual path surely can and should change as one becomes purified and  reduces ignorance.  I don't think it  has much  to do with becoming un-objective or out of existence because my direct experiences in meditation actually yield more objectivity and clarity within emptiness.

May we all break out of the cycle of birth and death!