Something I've been thinking about lately is (what I see as) the overuse of the word 'trauma' as a catch-all for 'bad thing'.
It's hard to explain but one thing that strikes me about people saying things like 'I have trauma' with no additional specificity (sexual trauma, racial trauma etc) is the unspoken assertion that other people don't, which is just not the case.
Trauma isn't this big, mysterious, all-or-nothing concept. It doesn't have to be dramatic or shocking. It's a family member dying or being bullied at school. It's a difficult relationship or falling ill. It's anything and it happens to everyone more often than we like to admit.
I think part of the reason for the confusion is that 'trauma' sits in this weird place of being a word that's borrowed from clinical psychology (so seems very credible and scientific) but is actually incredibly broad in scope, so broad that it's almost impossible to find anyone who has not undergone something traumatising, regardless of whether they themselves view it in that way.
There's a couple of things at play here but one thing I disagree with is the idea that trauma is in any way unique or special among the population, and following on from that, that it gives the traumatised person any particular quality that the general species lacks, be that positive or negative, or sets them apart from the group. Certainly I think some specific/extreme types of trauma can have this effect (as can the symptoms of PTSD), but having experienced 'a bad thing that fucked you up in the head' is something that we all have in common, rather than something that sets certain people apart.
Looking back at human history, 'trauma' is not the exception, it's the rule. The facts of life are 'traumatic'. Everyone you love will die, people will treat you badly, you will be betrayed by those you trust and things out of your control can and will leave you with nothing. Birth is traumatic, death is traumatic and so is a lot of the stuff that comes in between. You will experience pain. You will experience loss. You will suffer and then you will get better only to suffer again. That's life.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying that the word 'trauma' should never be used, just that I see it being used in place of actually talking about what the speaker is meant to be talking about. I'm also not saying any of this to imply that some people don't have more traumatising lives than others, this is self-evident, but to highlight that the sentence 'I have trauma' (with no additional information) is ultimately meaningless. Like yeah, of course you do. Trauma is a part of the human animal. No-one is special merely for having experienced it and no-one is completely free of it.
I suppose a lot of this frustration with seeing this term become a buzzword comes from my personal experience as someone who has experienced 'traumatic' things but finds the word itself to be flat and reductive. The things that happened to me don't belong under an umbrella term and if I want to have a real discussion about them it requires specificity and nuance. I have to say what happened, not hide it behind clinical terminology that wasn't designed to be used in personal conversation.
For example, saying 'X character is like this because they have trauma' means nothing. That's not good character analysis. You didn't say anything. If they were bullied, say that. If they were beaten, say that. If they were discriminated against or assaulted or neglected then say that. It's allowed, no, it's neccessary. Say what you mean. These things are not to be censored or obscured. They are a part of life and need to be talked about with the detail they deserve. Anyone else feel this? Am I just crazy?
Who the fuck knows, this was probably completely unfollowable but it helped to type it all out. For anyone who bothered to read all of this, I shall leave you with a quote and urge you to take your pain and use it connect with others, rather than thinking yourself freakish for having it at all.
'Under the present brutal and primitive conditions on this planet, every person you meet should be regarded as one of the walking wounded. We have never seen a man or woman not slightly deranged by either anxiety or grief. We have never seen a totally sane human being.' - Robert Anton Wilson.
