You're not traumatized you're just hurt

connect

shot by John Lee

grip - Melissa Gasca

sound - Jason Mobley

edited by Ben Chinapen

[rinciel]

"Being triggered is not an excuse for you to censor others."
YES. YES. YES. YES.

[abbypierce]

I’m a licensed psychologist and my boyfriend is a therapist. The past couple years have been…interesting to see at the very least. The narcissist “trend” is one of the more interesting and insidious one to me.

[sanderengelen]

I really hate the trend where people call other narcissists, while probably not even knowing the difference between a narcissistic personality disorder and narcissism

[anthonywheeler]

When everything's trauma, nothing's trauma. It just makes it harder to see the people who are truly in need of help

[ayla]

One of my best friends has childhood trauma and she has told me that she has a list of words that trigger her. One of them is “holiday”. Also “siblings”. She said whenever a friend talks about that type of stuff often, she cuts them off. I told her if any of her other friends even know that those things trigger her. She said no, she doesn’t want to talk about it she’d rather just cut the people off and I think that’s so fucked up. Now I’m constantly worried I’m mentioning something that could trigger her. I told her it would make more sense to work on those triggers through therapy but she doesn’t want to.

[Jeffrc]

"Boundaries are meant to keep people in, not out " amazing.

[weronikalinda]

I feel like some of that stems from the fact that hurt and stress are often dismissed as invalid or unimportant, which makes many people feel that they need to legitimize their experience through "therapy speak". Not an excuse, obviously

[quietwulf]

So very glad you called this out. It’s a destructive trend that’s beginning to damage relationships. Thank you Anna.

[ML-dilt]

I'm a licensed therapist and I agree that these terms are thrown around too easily and while it normalizes some things, it minimizes others. However, I feel that gatekeeping trauma is also harmful. PTSD isn't just from witnessing wartime or being the victim of physical abuse. Years of ongoing psychological and emotional abuse can actually be worse in some cases and create a more complicated case of PTSD. Hell, people can have PTSD from years of voluntarily taking care of a loved one. Literally doing something they *wanted* to do and wouldn't have changed for the world. This is still psychologically distressing. Sometimes people are genuinely traumatized without even recognizing it (because it wasn't *bad* enough) and gatekeeping trauma will prevent these individuals from seeking help they may actually need.

[syenite]

"Why would you want to be traumatized?" For real. I survived years of CSA starting when I was still an infant and it led to a severe trauma disorder that, for some reason, people think is fun and quirky and tell me "I wish I had that disorder!" And then they talk about how traumatizing it is that their ex has a slightly different recollection of n event, and the tiny differences are like she remembered he drank red wine at the gala and he is gaslighting her by saying he ordered white and now she's demanding that I not talk to him because it's triggering and I couldn't possibly understand the trauma.... It feels so dismissive and minimizing to put her trauma of "he had red wine" and my trauma of CSA on the same level and she gets to use it to tell me who I can be friends with. But heaven hecking forbid I show the messier symptoms of my disorder by forgetting what day it is and accidentally being late to lunch. Now I'm also toxic and don't honor her time and needs and she's so triggered that I could forget about her when actually I've just been stuck in a flashback for three days. But also she still wishes she had my quirky dissociative disorder cause it sounds fun?

I am so bitter, so, so bitter that people label simple misunderstandings as abuse and trauma when I can barely function and have to get by on disability payments because of the severity of what I experienced as a child. I am so bitter. I would do a crime to not have this trauma but there are people out there sifting through sand hoping to find a speck of trauma in their past so they can use it to justify their selfishness. I am so bitter.

[anneklj]

i really appreciate this, as someone that does have ptsd and went through real abuse and gaslighting, it's really important that these things don't lose their meaning or get used in a wrong way

[PeterZeeke]

C-PTSD is real, but most people who tthink they have it do not. It take prolonged abuse/neglect that causes the subject to repeat unhealthy patterns

[karendurtka]

I do want to note that trauma can also be something mildly bad that is prolonged, like how experiencing food scarcity is traumatic if its for a year instead of for an evening.

[jgrsxc]

This perfectly explains what I’ve been trying to tell my friends. Thank you for this. This should be a TED Talk.

[DanielleWhite]

Understanding this is very useful for those of us who have trauma, too. I have trauma (cPTSD from decades of enduring DV both as a child and from an intimate partner) and not everything was trauma, sometimes it was just hurt. Both affected me but understanding the distinction meant being able to work in appropriate ways to heal from each.

[Creativetheory]

Relational trauma is real and it manifests itself across a variety of experiences. Although I agree that every hurtful situation is not trauma, let's now downplay situations that actually are.

[PokhrajRoy.]

I loved the part where you illustrated needs and wants.

[MadAboutBrows]

One of the issues with experiencing Real Trauma™ is that it leaves people more vulnerable to future traumas.

Also experiencing divorce in itself may not be traumatic, but the abuse and neglect that came after surely are.

You don't know what others have been through. I don't talk about all the things ive been through, because it sounds unreal, even when I try to write about it -- but it's true, and I've survived it a mostly decent person 🤷🏻‍♀️

[Amozon]

This has been something on my mind for a while now and you put it into words perfectly. I got my psych degree before this therapy speak trend and its only made me more and more concerned for peoples ability to identify that they need to communicate their hurt feelings ibstead of just cutting ppl out for hurting them. Because everyone hurts everyone at somepoint. People u love most in the world will hurt you, it doesnt mean theyre bad ppl, more often then not they werent aware of sonething they said, or they made an assumption or they forgot about u mentioning sonething. Ppl are human and theyre going to make mistakes and thats why relationships are work because u need to put the time in to see if they actually are toxic or if theyre just soneone who needs to grow a little bit alongside you

[monishachippada]

this is everything. As someone who has c-PTSD and is pretty debilitated by it the mentioned behaviour takes away resources and help for people who need it. I find the throwing around of the word "triggered" and trauma deeply upsetting - like it's a GOOD THING if you don't experience this hellscape of existence. I certainly wish I didn't but we have to deal with the cards we are dealt. It takes away so much space and delegitimises the very real, painful experiences for those with these diagnoses. The same people in my experience who therapy speak so non-chalantly are the same people who will be completely unempathetic and judgemental of me actually experiencing a flashback or being activated or other symptoms of my c-ptsd