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How we became a country where bad hair days and campaign signs cause 'trauma'
How we became a country where bad hair days and campaign signs cause 'trauma'
These days, "trauma" seems epidemic. A group of Columbia Law School students felt the " traumatic effects" of the Michael Brown grand jury decision so keenly, they argued, that they needed their finals postponed. A handful of Emory University students were " traumatized" by finding "Trump 2016" chalked on campus sidewalks.
washingtonpost.com




I'm torn on this. On the one hand, I don't like the idea of an extreme word being co-opted to describe an entire spectrum of emotions, simply because I believe precise language is valuable. On the other hand, I'm generally in favor of our society's current trend toward erring on the side of taking our emotions too seriously rather than not seriously enough. The paragraph about PTSD really brought that home to me. I'm part of a military family and have many friends in the military, and I've seen the impacts of PTS on an awful lot of people. I would always, always rather they get too much help for any mental strain they experienced during their service than not get enough.
So... I don't know. I get that using the word for everything might reduce its meaning, but at the same time, I can't really coax myself into feeling upset about this cultural shift.
I feel the misuse of this word might harm people who really are affected by PTSD etc.
Yeah, I agree. Using the word "trauma" so cavalierly cheapens it. It makes it easier to dismiss people who are actually traumatized.
I feel like this is a trend with psychological terms in general being over-applied. How many times have you heard lay-people diagnose themselves or others with psychosis, autism, ADHD, or depression. I really agree with the following quote from the article.
Nobody has a "normal" mind. We all have our quirks and idiosyncrasies. I'm not saying there's no such thing as mental illness. People who actually suffer from severe mental illness do deserve attention and care. But we can't give them that care when practically everyone could be diagnosed with something from the DSM.
Also, this quote from the end of the article is important.
The words we use for experiences affect how we deal with them. If we call something a "trauma", it makes it seem like something we can't control or confront by ourselves.
I'm not sure that it does. On the contrary, the word "trauma," to me, implies something that I have the power to confront and deal with. I might be able to ignore/repress or "walk off" a smaller injury (mental or physical), but a trauma is something I need to face and heal from, and dealing with it is entirely within my control. Perhaps the word is just evolving, as words tend to do in English.
Possibly. But the word "trauma" definitely implies something more serious than an ordinary unpleasant event. Also, I'm not just talking about the word being used, but how that reflects the way we respond to these events. If we tell someone they should feel "traumatized" by something, they might actually become more distressed than they would otherwise. It's sort of a nocebo (opposite of placebo) effect.
I get that. I was viewing it more in terms of how I choose to interpret events that happen to me, rather than in terms of Person A deciding how Person B should feel, if that makes sense.
I.e., I reserve the right to determine when I use the word "trauma" to describe things that happened to me. It's my life and my experience, and I get to choose how seriously I take it. But I'm not down with determining what's "traumatic" for other people, and I'm not down with other people trying to determine what's "traumatic" for me.
More about the trauma faced by many in the US:
https://medium.com/race-condition/processing-e8bc638aae1a
@dookie Nice article, and something I've been thinking about for a while. You might be interested in my community /socialjusticedebates - this topic would be wonderful to discuss.
I do absolutely believe that the word "trauma" has been overused nowadays, and that discomfort in life is something that has to be dealt with, but let's not forget that in the past there has been a deadly lack of concern for mental health, and correcting that is a step in the right direction.