Trauma from minor experiences

[sqbr]

A continuation of my reply to this tumblr post because my brain said STOP THINKING ABOUT THIS before I'd proof read it enough to feel sure it says what I want it to say. Poking at how trauma works is valuable but tricky!

EDIT: Looks like I stumbled into an existing technical semantic argument, which is one of my least favourite kind of arguments, so I may take a while to reply to any comments!

Content note: bullying and trauma.

A quote which I found useful while pondering how to fit my own experience of trauma into this framework: “The person may not remember what actually happened, while emotions experienced during the trauma may be re-experienced without the person understanding why“. For me recognising my own trauma has been a very slow and unpleasant puzzle of (1) recognising a ‘weird mood’ as me disassociating and re-experiencing traumatic emotions (2) Figuring out what triggered it in the present (3) Figuring out what trauma it’s based on from the past. I mean I wouldn’t be too fussed if there was a different word for what I’m experiencing, but afaict "trauma” is the correct word for reminders of previous bad experiences triggering an overwhelming anxiety attack/regressing to childhood emotional state and thoughts.

And the message that trauma can be connected to seemingly minor events has been really useful for me in untangling the puzzle. Partly because I have a tendency to under-rate and repress my own negative experiences, and partly because these traumas are often made of up lots of little moments, not all of which are very dramatic.

Like, it’s connected to other more blatant/physically threatening etc bullying, but I could still have the experience of going “Wow that conversation messed me up, why is that? *pokes brain* OH. It reminded me of being picked last for teams at school, and that’s connected to trauma for me.” I don’t have low self esteem about being bad at sport (I have low self esteem about other things, but not that), I just get triggered into an anxiety attack by certain sports related topics, and I don’t have a better word for that than “trauma”.

That said, people who have self esteem issues around sport but not trauma can be annoying when they don’t get that my issues are different to theirs.

Meanwhile, I have self esteem issues around my art, and get anxious posting it etc, but don't feel like I have any specifically art related trauma.

So yeah, the OP is still kinda wrong, I just disagree slightly as to why.

This all gets complicated by the fact that for various reasons my negative emotional responses to things can in general be way overblown, due to trauma or otherwise, which can lead to something getting strong negative associations in my head even though it wasn't objectively that bad. I'm still not good at untangling the line between "strong bad associations that aren't trauma" and trauma etc, especially since thinking deeply about traumatic responses, even in an abstract intellectual way, tends to make me very anxious.

AND SO I SHALL STOP THERE AND HOPE THIS ALL MAKES SENSE.

Comments

[winterbird]

I'm still not good at untangling the line between "strong bad associations that aren't trauma" and trauma etc

The line isn't super clear and must be self-defined while understanding the meaning of the word trauma, which is why the first paragraph in the definition on Wiki actually focuses on trying to make it clear: that it's something that makes the person fear for their lives or the life of someone else, and that it blows past every one of their limits to cope with something negative and has no 'space' in the brain to be processed.

Other events that aren't traumatic, can still, for example, cause memory loss or emotional re-experiencing. Anything that damages the self-esteem can do this, as an example. I was talking about it to a friend, and I put it like this:

A kid is bitten by a dog. It doesn't draw blood or leave a scar. However, the kid genuinely feared for his life when it happened, and doesn't want anything to do with dogs. Down the track, he doesn't like having friends who have dogs, and he will change routes if he walks down streets that have dogs that bark at fences. He won't have relationships with people who own dogs or even like them. This is trauma. (The most key part of it is that he feared for his life when the event happened.)

A kid is bullied at school. It never gets violent, but the kid fundamentally believes that they will never be loved by anyone, and no longer believe their life is worth living (i.e. that their life is in danger, but obliquely). They self-harm and become destructive, and avoid all future friendships, relationships etc. because of it. They cannot self-direct their way out of this, and it's not without professional intervention that they come to see the other side of it. That is trauma. (Though some therapists wouldn't think it was, imho, that would be more 'grey space trauma.' Where it's good to self-define.)

A kid is bullied at school. It never gets violent, but it upsets the kid a lot, and they begin to think the kids are right about them being ugly or bad. They get upset and internalise some of what they're told, but over time they make good friends and realise they have good qualities, even though they still carry harm/scars over what happened. Sometimes things that remind them of the bullying make them upset all over again - they might not even remember why - but they never feared for their life, their fundamental sense of self, or another's life while the bullying was happening. This is not trauma, but it IS harmful, and damaging. In the past, therapists use to zone this as 'a significant event' or 'a significant series of events' or a damaging event etc.

My biggest issue with OP's post is that we have the word trauma for a reason, and it's not 'to apply to everything bad in the past that left some lasting damage.' It was never intended to be the word for 'everything that shaped you that wasn't great.' This obviously has to be self-defined though, especially on issues that aren't traumatic for *most* people on the same level. So if OP feels that being picked last for kickball made them fear for their lives or their entire way of living, then like, yes it was trauma. But if OP means that they were upset and felt bad and unloved, then no, it wasn't trauma, but it still deserves validation and they still deserve help, support and love for it. That still deserves therapy if they want therapy, for example.

Imho, I felt like they were talking cross purposes, or that OP needs the word trauma to validate something, without realising things can be validated without that word. (And that things used to be validated all the time without that word, until society became hyperfocused on trauma).

My issue is, using the word trauma for everything is going to hurt the people who have been traumatised by things and the people who haven't been. It would be like... *thinks*... needing to use the word 'agonising' for every single level of pain that has ever existed. After a while, the word 'agony' doesn't mean anything anymore. Obviously agony is and has to be self-defined under the larger umbrella of 'most pain I've ever felt / unbearable / cannot function at all', but actively arguing that the word applies to *all* levels of pain that feel bad (which is...all pain), is flawed at its most fundamental level.

And imho, that looks like a semantics argument on the surface, but I think that's a deep-seated issue about diluting the meaning of a word, and therefore, making it impossible to distinguish between the spectrum of experiences when it's already *really hard to distinguish between them.*

And frankly it'll mean we need another word for trauma (which we already have) and I don't want to live in a world that has Supertrauma, Megatrauma and Negatrauma to indicate the 7-10 part of the spectrum of 'unfun crap happened in my life' when trauma was doing a (mostly) great job of that beforehand.

Brought to you by: I own like 20 books on trauma, including one that's just straight up called The Trauma Spectrum. (Also maybe a fever).

[tree]

i don't know if you looked at the replies to the OP but they acknowledge that their example might not be the best, but they're coming from a place of being diagnosed with C-PTSD and unfortunately without that context the post does seem less than ideally worded (which they also acknowledge). however, even without that diagnosis i don't think the post is wrong. there are levels of trauma, just as there are levels of any sort of injury. events can be damaging to a person, whether they occur singularly or layered over time, and that's trauma. having a 3rd degree burn doesn't make someone's 2nd degree burn any less of an injury.

i frankly don't care what the DSM says because (a) it's a diagnostic tool and not a definitive all-powerful grail, (b) there is much disagreement amongst the psychiatric community about the validity of its various contents, (c) they wanted to include introversion as a disorder for the most recent edition, and (d) it's not that long ago that homosexuality was in there.

some people still believe the old adage that "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me;" some people still believe that there's no such thing as emotional abuse, that people just need to "toughen up," that no one can hurt you unless you let them. it took a lot of work and a hell of a paradigm shift to get to a place where it's now generally acknowledged that those things are traumatic and often a lot more damaging in the long term than experiencing physical violence.

i vehemently disagree that the concept of trauma has to be limited to a certain scope. that never works for anything. widening the circle to include other types of damage has no impact on the people already in the circle. it's just a bigger circle with more people in it. and if those people need to be there, if it helps them, then we'll make room for them. telling someone they haven't been hurt in the right way because it doesn't fit some arbitrary definition that's most likely going to be changed in the next revision of a psych text is wrong.

humans make language. we decide what words mean and those meanings evolve because we say so. the word "depression" encompasses an enormous variety of degrees of illness, symptoms, longevity, etc. but i've never seen anyone here in camp MDD say "oh well people with dysthimia have no right to say they have depression." that's utter bullshit.

okay, i'm sorry, i'm getting really angry because i made the mistake of reading winterbird's reply and i have to stop.

[sqbr]

My brain has been refusing to let me think about a decent reply to this for long enough that I'm going to give up (sadly a risk whenever I post about trauma) But this was a valuable perspective, thank you.