Are People Really as Traumatized as They Say?

#trauma #legacytrauma #ptsd #racialethnictrauma #societaltrauma #traumahealing

In recent years, trauma and its impact have become a prominent topic. With that increase has come an increase in those lamenting that we’re overusing the word, trauma, and that it’s causing the younger generations to become soft and whiny. How often have I heard them sarcastically exclaim that “now everyone’s traumatized by everything. They just need to toughen up like we were at their age.” Are they right? Are too many people overusing the word? Do younger people just need to toughen up?

I’ll answer that question with another question: throughout history, how much have we traditionally ignored trauma? How much have we denied, ignored, repressed, or minimized it, while shaming anyone who talked about or exhibited the aftereffects of trauma? 

Trauma is a part of human life, but because we’re genetically built to avoid and run from pain, we rarely talk openly about trauma. Why? Because admitting the pervasiveness of trauma is painful. Are we really overusing the word, “trauma,” or are we just uncomfortable talking openly about trauma because it’s too painful to think about—especially the trauma of those we know personally?

Most therapists would say that it’s the latter. Therapists daily listen and care as people share their life-scarring and life-altering traumatic experiences, often for the first time. They share not only the trauma that happened, but the shame they feel for being traumatized due to the shushing of others telling them to keep it secret.

Every day our therapists help people heal from sexual trauma inflicted upon them from parents, relatives, teachers, pastors, cousins, neighbors, friends, and so many more. People share trauma from school and neighborhood bullying, violent physical abuse from family members, emotional abuse from authority figures, muggings, rapes, witnessing unexpected community violence, and more. People also talk about their trauma from accidents, illnesses, disease, afflictions, poverty, divorce, and neglect. That’s in addition to what they hear from war veterans, police officers, fire fighters, first responders, emergency room personnel, and so many who both witness and experience trauma related to their vocations. Culturally we embrace this last category of trauma, considering it a legitimate PTSD because we see these people as heroes. Others don’t get that same level of support because we don’t want to hear it—we don’t want to know about it.

All the traumas I’ve mentioned can create immediate and lifelong PTSD, but there’s more to trauma than just PTSD to events. There’s Legacy Trauma, which is trauma handed down through our familial or cultural history that burdens us generations later. There’s Racial/Ethnic Trauma—trauma experienced by virtue a life of facing bigotry and prejudice. There’s Global Trauma experienced from devastating global events.

A significant, ongoing trauma most of us are experiencing right now is Societal Trauma, which is the result of living in an aggressively polarized and divided society; often using social media as a tool to attack others without regard to how the ongoing division is traumatizing everyone, especially younger generations. Picture in your mind someone growing up in a divided household where the mom and dad are constantly criticizing, attacking, degrading, and inflicting pain on each other. We’d expect the kids to be traumatized. We’re living in a culture with leaders acting like those kinds of moms and dads. Can we recognize that we’re all living now in a traumatized society, and that maybe the rise in mental health needs among younger generations is societally inflicted?

The key in understanding trauma is that, as child trauma psychologist Gabor Mate, says: “Trauma is not what happens to you. Trauma is what happens inside you as a result of what happened to you… It is not the blow on the head, but the concussion I get.”

As you read the rest of this newsletter, please consider what our therapists, who are experts in treating trauma, can teach you about helping people heal from trauma just by being someone who cares and refuses to dismiss the reality of trauma all around us.

Blessings,

The Rev. N. Graham Standish, PhD, MSW, MDiv, MA

Executive Director, Samaritan Counseling, Guidance, Consulting