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Yea I think some people can be quick to label discomfort as trauma nowadays. Like you said, if we’re going to expand usage of a term to include whole swaths of

Yea I think some people can be quick to label discomfort as trauma nowadays. Like you said, if we’re going to expand usage of a term to include whole swaths of experience, the term itself becomes less meaningful.

crawfordcomeaux 8y ago
This is probably super rambly. I chalk it up to new parent sleep dep and make no apologies for it. What if trauma is simply a response to discomfort we don't learn to accept and grow through? It stands to reason that if it's a common issue and situation, not learning from it could compound over time. I consider this to be "trauma," though I take a more expansive and meaningful take on trauma, in that I consider, for example, the lack of initiating into capitalism and the overwhelming difficulty of living a life outside of a capitalist society to be traumatic because it can keep us from meeting our need for autonomy. In that sense, I may be considering trauma to be a chronic denial of some need (needs being defined as the minimal set of things required to thrive). Without a clear awareness of needs, then, it becomes easy to deny trauma. I also consider codependency (which has also been said to be too broad to be meaningful) to be a form of trauma, in that it's a chronic denial of the need for interdependency. Personally, I think expanding a term to include everyone gives everyone an opportunity to more deeply self-examine and connect with others. I find it to be a way to bring more meaning in, not less. If you judge an expansive definition as meaningless, that doesn't actually make it true for others. It'll simply be true for whoever chooses to believe it. The issue, I think, is everyone really wants to hear very specific and targeted descriptions before accepting some diagnosis. I've seen it in friends suffering from depression, anxiety, and/or addiction: until they hear someone with a story really similar to theirs, they won't allow themselves to connect. I view this as one of the reasons black-and-white thinking is so difficult to heal through/from.
- darawk 8y ago
  > I consider, for example, the lack of initiating into capitalism and the overwhelming difficulty of living a life outside of a capitalist society to be traumatic because it can keep us from meeting our need for autonomy. What difficulty is that? Is something stopping you from living on public land in the wilderness? > Personally, I think expanding a term to include everyone gives everyone an opportunity to more deeply self-examine and connect with others. I find it to be a way to bring more meaning in, not less. If you judge an expansive definition as meaningless, that doesn't actually make it true for others. It's not that it's meaningless. It's that you can't use it to explain something. If everyone has experience X and 10% of people have outcome Y, then X cannot be used to explain Y.

crawfordcomeaux 8y ago

This is probably super rambly. I chalk it up to new parent sleep dep and make no apologies for it. What if trauma is simply a response to discomfort we don't learn to accept and grow through? It stands to reason that if it's a common issue and situation, not learning from it could compound over time. I consider this to be "trauma," though I take a more expansive and meaningful take on trauma, in that I consider, for example, the lack of initiating into capitalism and the overwhelming difficulty of living a life outside of a capitalist society to be traumatic because it can keep us from meeting our need for autonomy. In that sense, I may be considering trauma to be a chronic denial of some need (needs being defined as the minimal set of things required to thrive). Without a clear awareness of needs, then, it becomes easy to deny trauma. I also consider codependency (which has also been said to be too broad to be meaningful) to be a form of trauma, in that it's a chronic denial of the need for interdependency. Personally, I think expanding a term to include everyone gives everyone an opportunity to more deeply self-examine and connect with others. I find it to be a way to bring more meaning in, not less. If you judge an expansive definition as meaningless, that doesn't actually make it true for others. It'll simply be true for whoever chooses to believe it. The issue, I think, is everyone really wants to hear very specific and targeted descriptions before accepting some diagnosis. I've seen it in friends suffering from depression, anxiety, and/or addiction: until they hear someone with a story really similar to theirs, they won't allow themselves to connect. I view this as one of the reasons black-and-white thinking is so difficult to heal through/from.

darawk 8y ago
> I consider, for example, the lack of initiating into capitalism and the overwhelming difficulty of living a life outside of a capitalist society to be traumatic because it can keep us from meeting our need for autonomy. What difficulty is that? Is something stopping you from living on public land in the wilderness? > Personally, I think expanding a term to include everyone gives everyone an opportunity to more deeply self-examine and connect with others. I find it to be a way to bring more meaning in, not less. If you judge an expansive definition as meaningless, that doesn't actually make it true for others. It's not that it's meaningless. It's that you can't use it to explain something. If everyone has experience X and 10% of people have outcome Y, then X cannot be used to explain Y.