So about trauma: I’ve had a therapist friend speak with mild contempt about what some of his patients called “trauma.”
We don’t talk often. Partly because he says things like that. He’s fun to talk to, but has a firm grip on his apparent right to define what is right for others.
As someone with pretty heavy CPTSD, I was irritated. But I repressed it, because CPTSD. And hey, maybe I could explain. I always feel like explaining will help, though it usually doesn’t.
So I tried talking about how small interactions could have big impacts, or how a person could be erased by everyday demonstrations of their unimportance. Or how parents or partners could push their idea of truth in a way that erased the experience of the other. And how continued practice of such things could cause a cratered self-esteem and constant anxiety. CPTSD. Which he then said he most likely had.
I think it landed a little bit. Maybe not. It can be very hard to take in a new way of seeing things.
But I still think of his contempt for some of his patients. Which was most likely him applying the pointless judgement learned from his own traumatic upbringing.
This thing of gatekeeping trauma is just stupid, really. There’s enough to go around.
It seems more likely to me that we all have trauma to some degree. We aren’t, as a species, naturally wise or good. Though with luck and effort we might become that way.
But we mostly aren’t, and that means that our blind struggles toward life and connection are going to run over some people until we learn to look out for them.
And that can be a painful thing to learn, so some people never do.
