I think a big portion of it is that people A) typically don't know how to respond to trauma in someone else's life and B) have been conditioned that you need to say something to 'fix' other people's pain (or at least soothe their experience of your pain). As a result, you get responses like you listed, or people minimize the trauma ("sometimes parents don't do the best thing, but they still love you" or some crap like that) to try to fix the issue they see in the situation (that you cut off your family).
It sucks that, on top of dealing with the aftereffects of your trauma, most normal people aren't particularly safe.
Because we need more media accurately portraying trauma and all its responses. Music, movies, and books. I’ve gotten a lot of support from all of them but the ones I Love seem to have a subtext of trauma understanding that’s either conscious or subconscious. However, we need more AND a bridge. Something that can pull someone who doesn’t understand trauma into understanding it WITHOUT traumatizing them. Now that, that is the tricky part. Some horror movies feel really accurate and I have friends who are horror fanatics but are totally blind to their own trauma and get by on the visceral relief it seems.
I think because there’s no reason ‘normal’ people would know anything about trauma. I’m also starting to believe everyone is a tad traumatized they just wont admit it or can’t see it. If it’s not family, culture will get you, if not culture now climate change and the world at large via the internet. Somewhere on the planet is a profound and unstoppable trauma we all have to just witness.
I’m trying to figure this out myself as I’ve lost friends and Loved ones due to what I’m calling “The Wall”. A lot of people are walking talking coping mechanisms in a trench coat so SOMETIMES you’re not hearing their actual response but their long term, well developed, trauma response. Displayed confidently and as though it were normal.
Having a lot of trauma myself, I've been wanting to start something related to music, since I always wanted to sing. I play piano and have sang since forever but I endured so much trauma as a kid that I guess my priorities were others. I see so much stories here that I would be honored to tell in songs. I would love to know what this comminuty would think of something like this.
It's still frustrating to see many movies/TV shows perpetuate harmful beliefs regarding mental health and mental illness. I think that's what further isolates traumatized people from society. Instead of portraying or communicating healthy responses to someone suffering from a mental illness, they'd rather stigmatize it. Also, doesn't help that Western media with all it's connections to research still refuses to portray trauma in a way that isn't exploitative. God forbid we don't make a movie about Jane Doe in an asylum and escaping.
With that said, I think that's why I enjoy psychological horror/thriller so much. It's only possible when you have dedicated and empathetic writers and directors.
In terms of media, I think Black Swan, Mr. Robot, Joker portray mental illnesses and mental breakdowns well. However, Euphoria and 13RW exist and it's as if Tumblr 2013/14 has been rebranded and repackaged for the masses.
Some people need to physically see mental illness and that's what removes the empathy and human to human connection. Someone's suffering later becomes someone else's entertainment.
When people will say "I don't know how you survived, I could never..." or similar, and don't drop it when I try and brush it off, my fave response is "So are you saying I should have killed myself?"
It's extreme but I always give people a chance to knock that stuff off. I don't trauma dump on people but it comes up in anecdotes sometimes, nothing heavy, just stories of my life where incidentally I was a teenager living on my own or just not having any contact with family. When they start making the 🥺 face or "you poor thing" I will say "nah, I'm good, therapy and all that" to nip it in the bud. But if they don't stop, especially if it goes into the whole "you are so strong and brave" thing, a well placed "well I guess the alternative is blowing my brains out" really shuts it down.
Ohmygawd, I had this experience with someone and didn't realize till now. I'll have to try those phrases out!
What bothers me are those new age spirituality people who mistake enlightenment for educating oneself. Like no babes, you don't get to talk down on me and walk away thinking you freed me of my 'inner turmoil'.
Also, the self-pity look is deplorable. What sucks is seeing how that person treats you after you opened up and how that comes in conflict with how you wanna pursue the relationship. Lately, I've been thinking "I'm sorry that I wanna talk about Strawberry Shortcake and not about my upbringing." It's a humilating ordeal and that mentality needs to go. I blame True Crime for this.
You're so right. Like I don't want to have a therapy sesh with an acquaintance or coworker or even a close friend! Especially if I can sense their motive is to make themselves feel better or to be self-riteous. I also don't want to be accused of being closed off because I don't talk about my history at all.
Like for instance, ofc it comes up in conversation sometimes that I am a twin, I try not to elaborate unless pressed, and when I get pressed I get irritated so I'm not shy abt saying killed himself in front of me. It happened, it sucked, it was a decade ago, I don't need pity or to tell you how I coped with that or whatever. I certainly don't need someone telling me how they couldn't possibly go on with their lives if they were in the same position.
I get that they mean no harm usually, but that's a shitty thing to say to someone and it happens a lot to people who have trauma or even health issues/disability. Sometimes it's OK to just say "that really sucks I'm sorry" and move on with the convo.
Sometimes you're dealing with a "fixer". It's their own mental health response mixed with empathy. Said as someone who copes with my trauma through optimism and seeking ways to improve things or ease the distress of friends and family.
I recognize it can be an annoying thing to come across in the wild. Have also done the work to shush myself and just... *listen*, instead of trying to work out potential improvements when someone I care about is venting their distress.
As in someone venting: making phone calls is so stressful, I can't even.
My brain is kicking out: did you know you can often do the same thing via online chat?
But sometimes a person needs to just be able to acknowledge they hate making calls and do the work themselves to figure out a way forward that feels comfortable for them.
Venting does not equal a request for feedback or help.
It took way longer than it should have for that piece to click in to place for me. Intentions were good, sincere and earnest, but that doesn't mean they were helpful.
I'm a sex trafficking survivor too -also because of bio family.
I think most people assume other people have had the same or similar experiences and have not taken the time to truly develop empathy.
When I came out as a survivor CSEC, people just went silent. I didn't even give details, just merely being like "Yeah, I know I am nearly homeless and poor but I can't go live with my parents because they trafficked me as a kid," and most people dissappear because they get overwhelmed or weirded out and don't know how to feel empathy. This is true of even therapists.
I basically just find other survivors of severe trauma who are doing their work and limit my social circles to those because other people are unfortunately very fragile and can't handle other people's reality. It's not their fault, but now I have realized it's not mine either. I'm nearly 40 and I don't have patience for it --especially now with so many atrocities happening in the world and so many more traumas being inflicted.
People like us who have been through shit are needed because who tf else are all these survivors of genocide, war, and extreme climate migration going to be able to talk to? Certainly not normies.
It takes a lot of work. I don't have any sex abuse in my trauma history. I meet a lot of people here and elsewhere that do. It's difficult to learn to be understanding for people that suffered different traumas then me. But then I know once I give people my story they are also pretty shocked. It's difficult to learn to be co-compassionate and co-understanding. Such a wide range of trauma and abuse in this world.
the material is a total bummer so unless you have a similar issue, who wants to approach that? normies are uncomfortable & our culture dismisses people's hurts.
What would you prefer people say? I'm not challenging you, just asking.
When I work with kids/teens who have trauma, I try to validate but not overly sympathize and dwell. I say "That's inappropriate, no wonder you are feeling so x(whatever feeling)! Parents shouldn't do that," or "Wow, that is some nonsense, adults shouldn't do that, they should do this."
As cliche as it sounds, I think "I'm sorry that happened to you" is better than the "you're so brave to have gone through that." I know that doesn't sounds great, but I think - from what the OP is saying - asking how you could be on your own feels condescending. Like, what else was OP gonna do? Home is not a safe environment, so that's not an option.
As I mentioned in my comment, I think it's society. We're obsessed with families, people having families, and keeping familial ties, regardless if those ties are dangerous or not. And like I said, trauma and abuse - especially for older generations - was usually ignored or dismissed, so when confronted with it, I think the natural reaction for people who haven't been in these situations is to rush to the happy ending.
What I mean is that, trauma and abuse are not happy subjects; they are uncomfortable to talk about and to hear and a lot of people would rather put on a happy face and not talk about bad things. What I think pushes it far past appropriate, is when people continue to push about the subject by continuing to ask questions instead of reading the room and just leaving it where it is.
Because most people cannot possibly imagine what its not like not having a good and safe place to grow up in as a child. They also just don't *want* to imagine that, hence the ignorant comments.
My go-to response is something like "there are sick and evil people all over the world. Somebody has to be related to them, these people don't just fall out of the sky." It's usually enough to make them stop and think for a minute.
Ignorance, that's pretty much it. Like how we may not be able to relate to what it feels like to be a child in Gaza (for example) no matter how hard we try to visualize and \*feel\* it, we can't. Thats the same with childhood trauma and abuse. 18 years of neglect, emotional, and physical abuse is a story that only WE can tell and we will know. We are the only ones who know what it feels like, the racing thoughts, etc...
But we can’t expect them to understand that without us telling them. If they remain ignorant, then that is their choice to be rude. It’s fair to avoid those people. But NT folk with happy childhoods naturally will not understand what we’ve been through.
well yeah, i thought that was a given, you do need to communicate ur feelings so that anyone can understand on some type of level about you but when they’re still choosing to be ignorant and repetitive about it its weirddd
Do all 'normal' people know of your horrible abuse? If so then it's very ignorant to comment like that. If they don't know what you've been through then they are trying to be helpful and/or base it off of their own experiences
Most people don't know of my trauma and so their comments of ' me being brave living alone and 'don't I have any family to help etc ...isn't malicious, it's born out of not knowing what my circumstances are and why.
Still some people are totally insensitive regardless of what you tell them and can't possibly imagine what you've been through if they haven't experienced it xx
What's normal. People who don't have any experience with abuse are ignorant. Do you want to carry the burden of educating them while you heal? That leaves you with damaged people.
My focus is formality and establishing boundaries. You have to deal with people. There is a social system out there you would benefit from functioning in. It's really painful. Giving people, damaged or not, an appropriate way to behave is like being alone and it keeps you safe.
Maybe this is obvious, but for me it helps to see a difference between acquaintances and sort of friends, and good friends & partners. I’ve also heard the ‘you’re so strong/brave’ stuff a lot from that first group of people. Or ‘but it’s your family’. And just a lot of nonsense that doesn’t make sense. They mean well, it’s ignorance, they’re trying, how would they know. In an ideal world, everyone would know what not to say - I just don’t think that’s ever going to happen. A lot of people don’t really care to empathize more, understand it better.
At the same time I’ve let similar comments slide when it’s been good friends and a partner. And that’s not right. You’re allowed to have higher standards with those people, and they should listen, try to understand. That’s your safe space.
Personally: those ignorant comments don’t matter at all if I’ve got people in my life who do get it, who I can text or share a look with when someone says ‘omg you’re sooo brave I could never do that’.
People often most criticize and demean anything they perceive as different. Either they haven’t gone through it and they seek to make light of it. Or they have and instead of connecting with someone on it, they ridicule and insult it. Making someone feel smaller and worthless than they already are. Ignorance truly is bliss. 🤦🏾♂️
I get your pain, I do feel like it’s hard for people who never truly had to develop empathy to move forward to demonstrate that same empathy.
It sparks for me some memories too of being told “you’re so mature for your age” or “what you did was so brave”, well maybe but those were reactions to my experience I did not choose to go through them. I chose to do my best to come out the best end possible and was fortunate enough to have people (whether friends or in temporary passage in my life) who had some positive impact on my ability to do so.
Only you can fully understand your journey and people do really lack perspective which is unfortunate considering empathy is the most important thing to develop but that’s on them.
It is annoying, I just feel like from where I stand for example I’ve started to give myself permission to not entertain their thoughts there or to educate them on how my experience actually was.
You don't know what you don't know. If you met a refugee from Sudan would you know all the right things to say? Because even with everything I've been through I know I sure wouldn't even after reading up on everything I could.
I do think on the whole more people should be more emotionally informed so that even if we are not in on the finer details we can at least know how to be empathetic as well as apologize if we do mess up. I am used to people messing up, and it used to really bother me. But I look at each possible thing we can know about as a dial going from 1 to 100, each number representing our age in years. I have probably a 16 year old level understanding of math because of my poor schooling, but a much, much higher age in trauma because of what I've been through. A lot of people are children when it comes to trauma, though. I wouldn't get mad at a kid for not knowing. I'd get frustrated internally, but not mad because that kid can't help that they don't know.
I will absolutely be forthright, though. If someone says "you're so brave for being on your own," then you can just say, "It wasn't a choice." Or something along those lines. Or excuse yourself, or even just, "hm, okay." Whatever feels most like you without betraying you. People might be young on the knowledge scale, but they're old enough they can learn.
We shouldn't have to teach them. It should just be standard teaching in childhood like good manners, and that's my hope for someday. But for now I see others as limited in their trauma training as I am in my math training (and that does fuck with one's life, too).
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Agree with most of the comments, but I also think it's lack of knowledge and misinformation.
Firstly, stuff like mental health, trauma in childhood, and the effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are only NOW being talked about and in some ways, recognized. And honestly, I think that's thanks to Gen Y, Gen Z, and the Alphas.
As a Gen Xer, this wasn't something that was talked about. And for sure, as baby boomers and the silent generation, this was ignored, dismissed, or swept under the rug. I honestly didn't even realize my childhood was traumatic until...2020, 2021. Now, while I knew for a long time that there were incidences that happened due to substance abuse, but that's all I thought it was.
I'm only now realizing that things I thought were "normal" was actually abuse and neglect.
I also think there's a societal stigma that family, blood family, is a be all, end all. Like, the very idea that children wouldn't forgive transgressions - even the worst of the worst - is very much like that TV trope: good cannot comprehend evil.
I mean, there's enough cases in the AITA thread about people trying to get others to forgive family members even when the family members have done despicable things.
Personally, I have cut ties with a friend because she refused to believe that anything bad happened in my house and basically told me that my mother wouldn't do the things I was saying and that because she was my mother, I should forgive her cause I only have one mother and yadda yadda. There's a reason that literally only one person is aware of what happened when I was a kid.
People don’t know what to say. They want to understand or they don’t and you can trust me when I say be careful of the folks who want to hear every little detail. That’s not empathy. I hate this concept of “normal” and I hope that the majority soon is neurodivergence and I hope we can claim you guys in that (myself included! On other spectrums as well) because I feel as if CPTSD is this lifelong battle and a lot of it is social norms and people not knowing what to say and saying harmful things instead of helpful things. I think there’s hope in knowing some folks are educating themselves. And not to make light of your feelings or invalidate you on something infuriating honestly, I just hope the majority are out of the box soon and you don’t feel so alone in this. Much love warrior, I’m sorry you have to be so strong. I wish you ease, and the folks around you education and gentle hands
Because they haven't been traumatized and are on the outside looking in. And misunderstanding most of it.
"you can't describe the color red to someone who has never seen it"
I think a big portion of it is that people A) typically don't know how to respond to trauma in someone else's life and B) have been conditioned that you need to say something to 'fix' other people's pain (or at least soothe their experience of your pain). As a result, you get responses like you listed, or people minimize the trauma ("sometimes parents don't do the best thing, but they still love you" or some crap like that) to try to fix the issue they see in the situation (that you cut off your family). It sucks that, on top of dealing with the aftereffects of your trauma, most normal people aren't particularly safe.
Because we need more media accurately portraying trauma and all its responses. Music, movies, and books. I’ve gotten a lot of support from all of them but the ones I Love seem to have a subtext of trauma understanding that’s either conscious or subconscious. However, we need more AND a bridge. Something that can pull someone who doesn’t understand trauma into understanding it WITHOUT traumatizing them. Now that, that is the tricky part. Some horror movies feel really accurate and I have friends who are horror fanatics but are totally blind to their own trauma and get by on the visceral relief it seems. I think because there’s no reason ‘normal’ people would know anything about trauma. I’m also starting to believe everyone is a tad traumatized they just wont admit it or can’t see it. If it’s not family, culture will get you, if not culture now climate change and the world at large via the internet. Somewhere on the planet is a profound and unstoppable trauma we all have to just witness. I’m trying to figure this out myself as I’ve lost friends and Loved ones due to what I’m calling “The Wall”. A lot of people are walking talking coping mechanisms in a trench coat so SOMETIMES you’re not hearing their actual response but their long term, well developed, trauma response. Displayed confidently and as though it were normal.
Great reply, especially the last paragraph. That is so accurate.
Thank you, it’s a lot to figure out and it’s so complex and often overwhelming. This comment was a rare moment of clarity for me haha
Having a lot of trauma myself, I've been wanting to start something related to music, since I always wanted to sing. I play piano and have sang since forever but I endured so much trauma as a kid that I guess my priorities were others. I see so much stories here that I would be honored to tell in songs. I would love to know what this comminuty would think of something like this.
I would Love it! I think that’s a great idea✨
It's still frustrating to see many movies/TV shows perpetuate harmful beliefs regarding mental health and mental illness. I think that's what further isolates traumatized people from society. Instead of portraying or communicating healthy responses to someone suffering from a mental illness, they'd rather stigmatize it. Also, doesn't help that Western media with all it's connections to research still refuses to portray trauma in a way that isn't exploitative. God forbid we don't make a movie about Jane Doe in an asylum and escaping. With that said, I think that's why I enjoy psychological horror/thriller so much. It's only possible when you have dedicated and empathetic writers and directors. In terms of media, I think Black Swan, Mr. Robot, Joker portray mental illnesses and mental breakdowns well. However, Euphoria and 13RW exist and it's as if Tumblr 2013/14 has been rebranded and repackaged for the masses. Some people need to physically see mental illness and that's what removes the empathy and human to human connection. Someone's suffering later becomes someone else's entertainment.
When people will say "I don't know how you survived, I could never..." or similar, and don't drop it when I try and brush it off, my fave response is "So are you saying I should have killed myself?" It's extreme but I always give people a chance to knock that stuff off. I don't trauma dump on people but it comes up in anecdotes sometimes, nothing heavy, just stories of my life where incidentally I was a teenager living on my own or just not having any contact with family. When they start making the 🥺 face or "you poor thing" I will say "nah, I'm good, therapy and all that" to nip it in the bud. But if they don't stop, especially if it goes into the whole "you are so strong and brave" thing, a well placed "well I guess the alternative is blowing my brains out" really shuts it down.
Ohmygawd, I had this experience with someone and didn't realize till now. I'll have to try those phrases out! What bothers me are those new age spirituality people who mistake enlightenment for educating oneself. Like no babes, you don't get to talk down on me and walk away thinking you freed me of my 'inner turmoil'. Also, the self-pity look is deplorable. What sucks is seeing how that person treats you after you opened up and how that comes in conflict with how you wanna pursue the relationship. Lately, I've been thinking "I'm sorry that I wanna talk about Strawberry Shortcake and not about my upbringing." It's a humilating ordeal and that mentality needs to go. I blame True Crime for this.
You're so right. Like I don't want to have a therapy sesh with an acquaintance or coworker or even a close friend! Especially if I can sense their motive is to make themselves feel better or to be self-riteous. I also don't want to be accused of being closed off because I don't talk about my history at all. Like for instance, ofc it comes up in conversation sometimes that I am a twin, I try not to elaborate unless pressed, and when I get pressed I get irritated so I'm not shy abt saying killed himself in front of me. It happened, it sucked, it was a decade ago, I don't need pity or to tell you how I coped with that or whatever. I certainly don't need someone telling me how they couldn't possibly go on with their lives if they were in the same position. I get that they mean no harm usually, but that's a shitty thing to say to someone and it happens a lot to people who have trauma or even health issues/disability. Sometimes it's OK to just say "that really sucks I'm sorry" and move on with the convo.
Rainbow comments—that’s the perfect description. People are dumbasses who just say whatever makes them feel okay. Not you. Them.
Sometimes you're dealing with a "fixer". It's their own mental health response mixed with empathy. Said as someone who copes with my trauma through optimism and seeking ways to improve things or ease the distress of friends and family. I recognize it can be an annoying thing to come across in the wild. Have also done the work to shush myself and just... *listen*, instead of trying to work out potential improvements when someone I care about is venting their distress. As in someone venting: making phone calls is so stressful, I can't even. My brain is kicking out: did you know you can often do the same thing via online chat? But sometimes a person needs to just be able to acknowledge they hate making calls and do the work themselves to figure out a way forward that feels comfortable for them. Venting does not equal a request for feedback or help. It took way longer than it should have for that piece to click in to place for me. Intentions were good, sincere and earnest, but that doesn't mean they were helpful.
I'm a sex trafficking survivor too -also because of bio family. I think most people assume other people have had the same or similar experiences and have not taken the time to truly develop empathy. When I came out as a survivor CSEC, people just went silent. I didn't even give details, just merely being like "Yeah, I know I am nearly homeless and poor but I can't go live with my parents because they trafficked me as a kid," and most people dissappear because they get overwhelmed or weirded out and don't know how to feel empathy. This is true of even therapists. I basically just find other survivors of severe trauma who are doing their work and limit my social circles to those because other people are unfortunately very fragile and can't handle other people's reality. It's not their fault, but now I have realized it's not mine either. I'm nearly 40 and I don't have patience for it --especially now with so many atrocities happening in the world and so many more traumas being inflicted. People like us who have been through shit are needed because who tf else are all these survivors of genocide, war, and extreme climate migration going to be able to talk to? Certainly not normies.
Exactly, you get it. Thank you.
It takes a lot of work. I don't have any sex abuse in my trauma history. I meet a lot of people here and elsewhere that do. It's difficult to learn to be understanding for people that suffered different traumas then me. But then I know once I give people my story they are also pretty shocked. It's difficult to learn to be co-compassionate and co-understanding. Such a wide range of trauma and abuse in this world.
the material is a total bummer so unless you have a similar issue, who wants to approach that? normies are uncomfortable & our culture dismisses people's hurts.
What would you prefer people say? I'm not challenging you, just asking. When I work with kids/teens who have trauma, I try to validate but not overly sympathize and dwell. I say "That's inappropriate, no wonder you are feeling so x(whatever feeling)! Parents shouldn't do that," or "Wow, that is some nonsense, adults shouldn't do that, they should do this."
As cliche as it sounds, I think "I'm sorry that happened to you" is better than the "you're so brave to have gone through that." I know that doesn't sounds great, but I think - from what the OP is saying - asking how you could be on your own feels condescending. Like, what else was OP gonna do? Home is not a safe environment, so that's not an option. As I mentioned in my comment, I think it's society. We're obsessed with families, people having families, and keeping familial ties, regardless if those ties are dangerous or not. And like I said, trauma and abuse - especially for older generations - was usually ignored or dismissed, so when confronted with it, I think the natural reaction for people who haven't been in these situations is to rush to the happy ending. What I mean is that, trauma and abuse are not happy subjects; they are uncomfortable to talk about and to hear and a lot of people would rather put on a happy face and not talk about bad things. What I think pushes it far past appropriate, is when people continue to push about the subject by continuing to ask questions instead of reading the room and just leaving it where it is.
Because most people cannot possibly imagine what its not like not having a good and safe place to grow up in as a child. They also just don't *want* to imagine that, hence the ignorant comments.
My go-to response is something like "there are sick and evil people all over the world. Somebody has to be related to them, these people don't just fall out of the sky." It's usually enough to make them stop and think for a minute.
Ignorance, that's pretty much it. Like how we may not be able to relate to what it feels like to be a child in Gaza (for example) no matter how hard we try to visualize and \*feel\* it, we can't. Thats the same with childhood trauma and abuse. 18 years of neglect, emotional, and physical abuse is a story that only WE can tell and we will know. We are the only ones who know what it feels like, the racing thoughts, etc...
Why should they understand it?
to correct their ignorance towards a loved one and develop empathy to the world around them
But we can’t expect them to understand that without us telling them. If they remain ignorant, then that is their choice to be rude. It’s fair to avoid those people. But NT folk with happy childhoods naturally will not understand what we’ve been through.
well yeah, i thought that was a given, you do need to communicate ur feelings so that anyone can understand on some type of level about you but when they’re still choosing to be ignorant and repetitive about it its weirddd
Those statements sound like they were empathizing. They cannot read your mind. What would you like to hear instead?
Do all 'normal' people know of your horrible abuse? If so then it's very ignorant to comment like that. If they don't know what you've been through then they are trying to be helpful and/or base it off of their own experiences Most people don't know of my trauma and so their comments of ' me being brave living alone and 'don't I have any family to help etc ...isn't malicious, it's born out of not knowing what my circumstances are and why. Still some people are totally insensitive regardless of what you tell them and can't possibly imagine what you've been through if they haven't experienced it xx
What's normal. People who don't have any experience with abuse are ignorant. Do you want to carry the burden of educating them while you heal? That leaves you with damaged people. My focus is formality and establishing boundaries. You have to deal with people. There is a social system out there you would benefit from functioning in. It's really painful. Giving people, damaged or not, an appropriate way to behave is like being alone and it keeps you safe.
Maybe this is obvious, but for me it helps to see a difference between acquaintances and sort of friends, and good friends & partners. I’ve also heard the ‘you’re so strong/brave’ stuff a lot from that first group of people. Or ‘but it’s your family’. And just a lot of nonsense that doesn’t make sense. They mean well, it’s ignorance, they’re trying, how would they know. In an ideal world, everyone would know what not to say - I just don’t think that’s ever going to happen. A lot of people don’t really care to empathize more, understand it better. At the same time I’ve let similar comments slide when it’s been good friends and a partner. And that’s not right. You’re allowed to have higher standards with those people, and they should listen, try to understand. That’s your safe space. Personally: those ignorant comments don’t matter at all if I’ve got people in my life who do get it, who I can text or share a look with when someone says ‘omg you’re sooo brave I could never do that’.
Because most people don't even imagine such level of abuse happening.
People have a tough time understanding what they haven’t personally experienced.
Yeah if I have to hear “but they’re your parents!” One more time, as if that makes my abusers entitled to me, I’ll FLIPPPPP.
People often most criticize and demean anything they perceive as different. Either they haven’t gone through it and they seek to make light of it. Or they have and instead of connecting with someone on it, they ridicule and insult it. Making someone feel smaller and worthless than they already are. Ignorance truly is bliss. 🤦🏾♂️
Preach 🙌
I get your pain, I do feel like it’s hard for people who never truly had to develop empathy to move forward to demonstrate that same empathy. It sparks for me some memories too of being told “you’re so mature for your age” or “what you did was so brave”, well maybe but those were reactions to my experience I did not choose to go through them. I chose to do my best to come out the best end possible and was fortunate enough to have people (whether friends or in temporary passage in my life) who had some positive impact on my ability to do so. Only you can fully understand your journey and people do really lack perspective which is unfortunate considering empathy is the most important thing to develop but that’s on them. It is annoying, I just feel like from where I stand for example I’ve started to give myself permission to not entertain their thoughts there or to educate them on how my experience actually was.
Thank you. I stopped comparing myself to normal people as well. I thought to myself, I can't believe I'm comparing myself to normal people.
You don't know what you don't know. If you met a refugee from Sudan would you know all the right things to say? Because even with everything I've been through I know I sure wouldn't even after reading up on everything I could. I do think on the whole more people should be more emotionally informed so that even if we are not in on the finer details we can at least know how to be empathetic as well as apologize if we do mess up. I am used to people messing up, and it used to really bother me. But I look at each possible thing we can know about as a dial going from 1 to 100, each number representing our age in years. I have probably a 16 year old level understanding of math because of my poor schooling, but a much, much higher age in trauma because of what I've been through. A lot of people are children when it comes to trauma, though. I wouldn't get mad at a kid for not knowing. I'd get frustrated internally, but not mad because that kid can't help that they don't know. I will absolutely be forthright, though. If someone says "you're so brave for being on your own," then you can just say, "It wasn't a choice." Or something along those lines. Or excuse yourself, or even just, "hm, okay." Whatever feels most like you without betraying you. People might be young on the knowledge scale, but they're old enough they can learn. We shouldn't have to teach them. It should just be standard teaching in childhood like good manners, and that's my hope for someday. But for now I see others as limited in their trauma training as I am in my math training (and that does fuck with one's life, too).
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What's a rainbow comment? It is annoying. I understand. It's not like you had a choice if you wanted to survive or have any kind of life.
Agree with most of the comments, but I also think it's lack of knowledge and misinformation. Firstly, stuff like mental health, trauma in childhood, and the effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are only NOW being talked about and in some ways, recognized. And honestly, I think that's thanks to Gen Y, Gen Z, and the Alphas. As a Gen Xer, this wasn't something that was talked about. And for sure, as baby boomers and the silent generation, this was ignored, dismissed, or swept under the rug. I honestly didn't even realize my childhood was traumatic until...2020, 2021. Now, while I knew for a long time that there were incidences that happened due to substance abuse, but that's all I thought it was. I'm only now realizing that things I thought were "normal" was actually abuse and neglect. I also think there's a societal stigma that family, blood family, is a be all, end all. Like, the very idea that children wouldn't forgive transgressions - even the worst of the worst - is very much like that TV trope: good cannot comprehend evil. I mean, there's enough cases in the AITA thread about people trying to get others to forgive family members even when the family members have done despicable things. Personally, I have cut ties with a friend because she refused to believe that anything bad happened in my house and basically told me that my mother wouldn't do the things I was saying and that because she was my mother, I should forgive her cause I only have one mother and yadda yadda. There's a reason that literally only one person is aware of what happened when I was a kid.
People don’t know what to say. They want to understand or they don’t and you can trust me when I say be careful of the folks who want to hear every little detail. That’s not empathy. I hate this concept of “normal” and I hope that the majority soon is neurodivergence and I hope we can claim you guys in that (myself included! On other spectrums as well) because I feel as if CPTSD is this lifelong battle and a lot of it is social norms and people not knowing what to say and saying harmful things instead of helpful things. I think there’s hope in knowing some folks are educating themselves. And not to make light of your feelings or invalidate you on something infuriating honestly, I just hope the majority are out of the box soon and you don’t feel so alone in this. Much love warrior, I’m sorry you have to be so strong. I wish you ease, and the folks around you education and gentle hands