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Interesting comments here. There's no way to put an objective scale on an internal experience, and not all effects are going to be externally measurable with an
by keepamovin 3y ago
Interesting comments here. There's no way to put an objective scale on an internal experience, and not all effects are going to be externally measurable with any imposed schema of observations.
There's no point disagreeing with people about what trauma is, the point of the video is not to define it in a 'programming language' sense of absolute disambiguation, the point is to raise awareness of what's real.
Some of the commentary is confused in the sense that it is arguing over this thing which is subjective and cannot be pinned down, at least not in a way where you can objectively compare one person to another. To deny the reality of that internal emotional experience (which nevertheless can have diverse external manifestations) is to minimize people's pain and emotions, and effectively retraumatize them. It's a position which lacks empathy. Fixating on diagnostic criteria as prescriptive absolutes, rather than the non-exhaustive useful guides that is all they can be in this case, encodes this lack of empathy in a persistent formalism, which is very harmful. It's unlikely that those with an understanding of this would be trying to do that, tho it is possible as noted below.
Even if you believed that trauma were completely capturable via external measurements, it would be beneficial for people suffering, and a society as a whole, to move the cutoff for what constitutes trauma toward a more inclusive direction. This would enable and encourage more of the very many people who live with unresolved trauma (either in awareness, ignorance or wilful suppression that that's what ails them), to take steps to heal themselves. In a real sense, these people are disabled in one or more aspects of their lives, because of the trauma. This trauma is harder for them to deal with and heal from to the extent that there is large portion of society who hampers attempts to acknowledge it as real.
Pushing the needle in a more restrictive direction, as some of the comments sadly advocate for here, lacks empathy, harms society, is out of touch with the reality of the epidemic of unresolved emotional issues in society that often span generations, and even cultures, and is fundamentally incorrect.
In short, people will be reluctant to seek help, and unlikely to receive support, for what they or those around them do not believe is real. Reducing stigma around trauma (and mental illness) in general) , is crucial to developing the fairer, more just, happier and healthier society, and individuals in it, that we all deserve.
But why would people want to push the needle in the other direction, insist solely on limited objective measures of subjective experiences that you will not know unless you experience it, and in effect, try to minimize and disrespectfully dismiss other people's suffering?
Probably there's a small amount of mimicry commentary that's merely picking a side without thinking it through. Aside from that, the greatest share looks to be people who seek to minimize or deny the reality of trauma to hide from their own. That's because, as they are too afraid to face their own trauma, so therefore they want to pretend it's not real for any, except in the most obvious, and safely distant to them, cases. This is because their own suppressed suffering, and their lack of knowledge of how to deal with it, so frightens them, that they don't even want to acknowledge it. Akin to a young child (or even an adult) keep their eyes tight shut and their ears covered, to avoid facing a traumatic scene in a film. These suffering in silence, likely also do not know how to even begin to deal with what so ails them, and do not like the sense of powerlessness that even thinking about opening that 'can of worms' to face, process and heal their own trauma, seems to them to be. This is very understandable.
The last category of deniers or minimizers, while less understandable, are no less expected. These consist of people who seek to minimize other's trauma because they are so afraid that their own actions have hurt people, and do not want to see themselves called out for, or punished for this. Therefore, they think that by trying to minimize, mock, discredit and dismiss the feelings and experience of many traumatized people, they will make themselves safter from the feared punishment for the trauma they believe they caused others.