For instance, when someone describes going to school as “traumatic,” they often simply refer to it as a negative experience. This is not to say that everyone who went to school never had a traumatic experience; however, some individuals appear to overuse the term. Another example could be considering being lightly pushed into a locker as “traumatic.”
Op… schools have mass shooter drills. So yes going to school can be traumatic especially if you are bullied or you actually end up witnessing a mass shooting yourself. I was bullied for years which made school fairly traumatizing for me. And having someone threaten to shoot up the school I went to did not help things. They were caught before they acted on that threat but it could just as easily have been another dozen dead kids.
If OP isn’t American, school shootings probably aren’t something to even consider… My thoughts go towards being treated poorly by educators more than anything. Bullying from other kids can suck, but in my anecdotal experience (outside the US) the lasting and impactful traumas stem from how teachers and staff deal with the kids.
No, but I do think there are varying levels of trauma. I had a coworker that was traumatized by a former abusive partner who frequently chewed gum - I greatly enjoy chewing gum but avoided doing it around them because it deeply effected them… they never offered details about their traumatic experience and I never pushed them on it.
Extremely minor seeming actions can produce trauma, trauma can even be internally manufactured - perseveration, a common habit in autism, can produce trauma simply by the person imaging what might happen in a way convincing to them way and that leads to a reasonable position. Just because someone’s trauma is focused on an action someone else did doesn’t necessarily mean that other person is responsible for that trauma… rape and assault are awful and obviously lead directly to trauma but normal acceptable actions like grounding may traumatize a child - that doesn’t mean we should tar and feather that child’s parents but nor does it mean their trauma isn’t real.
Trauma is about how you react to a situation and what emotional baggage you carry away from it - it’s a very personal thing and we should respect other people’s trauma within reason. It’s not our job to judge trauma valid or invalid but to be kind to one another and considerate of what people are going through because, honestly, some people have deep scars and we don’t need to cut them any deeper.
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Yes and no. I think we all experience a lot more trauma than most people recognize and that we undersell the trauma we do acknowledge.
The thing is, life is made up of one trauma after another, often that we learn from. We are disposed to finding the silver lining and so we look at a lot of these negative experiences that do have a lasting impact and choose to address it with the positive outcomes. It’s just that some traumas aren’t as easily addressed and result in things like PTSD or cPTSD.
It’s not a matter of trauma being overused as a term so much an issue of how we define trauma.
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I worry that I am someone who does this because I know I’ve let things get to me to the point of being paralyzed or unproductive in life. I made a post on this earlier in which I talk about some of my “trauma”, but tbh I just to want to be productive. I know other people go through worse and do amazing things. I don’t know if I am just making excuses for myself.
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It absolutely is. I’ve been traumatized by seeing that word used too often.
Yes. 100% overused.
It’s almost like it’s 2024 and there’s more knowledge about mental health
