Eh, I mean trauma itself doesn't give people agency. Trauma responses tend to overwhelmingly limit agency by overriding / reducing the capacity to actually act thoughtfully or intentionally based on our desires, beliefs, even our honed coded of ethics.
Powerful corporations, political entities, oppressive states, and just individuals with authority, use whatever tools at their disposal to maintain that power. If a trauma narrative is a tool, they'll use it.
But the person / entity who accesses or wields a trauma narrative to maintain power (or control an outcome in a conflict) isn't usually (ever?) the person / entity who has sustained the most trauma. Nor is there decent evidence to suggest that the trauma - or even the trauma narrative - is a *source* of political, economic, or social power or authority.
The source of power is material (access to resources), violence, and social placement at the top of a given hierarchy, usually due to a violent history.
The correlation between the ability to wield a trauma narrative, and the garnering or maintenance of power to assert one's will over others, just isn't causal. If there was no trauma narrative to wield, they would choose a different weapon.
This is more clear when you look at the stronger correlation between the most traumatized people (for example, people who experience the highest incidence of Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs) and their degree of social, economic, and political power as adults. In these cases, the correlation is more trauma --> less power.
Individual agency and social/ political power are distinct, but highly related. For example, if a person's traumatic experiences have altered their sensory perception, energy levels, endurance, clarity of thought (etc), those alternations limit their ability to register to vote and exercise that right. Non-voters, as a group, have less political power, and thus significantly less input on, say, zoning laws or homeless rights. Thus, they have less ability to control outcomes that could make a difference between their being housed or not - the latter being an undeniably traumatic experience (one that limit the body and mind's function even further, creating a "downward spiral" of agency loss).
While that is just one example, looking at the data in aggregate, it becomes clear that more trauma --> less power / autonomy / agency is a more viable general rule.
The incidents wherein more trauma *seems* to grant more power are so outside the normative trend, it's wiser to interrogate those incidences as rhetorical tools to power.
Outliers - in this case, the Israeli govt and occupation forces use of trauma narrative to push their imperialist / political agenda - are not useful case studies to observe the impact of *actual trauma itself* on power dynamics. If anything, the odd, inverse correlation presented here - so opposite the typical direction of correlation- is a clue that political leaders are distorting or manipulating the realities of trauma rhetorically, not representing it accurately.
The distortion means we really cannot / should not apply any reasonable, evidence-based ethical or psychological frameworks we have for navigating trauma in conflict, or accounting for the role of trauma in a given social context, to this specific context. If the reality is being rhetorically distorted (which, it is) any political or social thesis has to address the distortion head on.
Tl;dr - conflating the personal, experiential effect actual trauma (less agency) with the social-political effect of the trauma narrative as rhetorical device (more agency / power) is confusing, and it doesn't really get us closer to either social or personal solutions on either front.
Really this needs to be two different posts, imo. I respect your passion and pov, this post just really confusing by smashing two really different things together under the label "trauma."
Exactly right. The fact that P.E. confuses the two very different things by referring to them both as "trauma" makes for incredibly confusing reading that muddies the waters further. Thank you for pointing out that there tends to be an inverse relationship between trauma and power.
Yeah, agree with everything you are saying here—this post seems to me to be an impulse to meld a critique of just one rhetorical tool of many at empire’s disposal with the (very fair) desire to vent about “Sock.”
Similar to the examples here, Democrats use the language/reference points of social justice, equity, etc to leverage their own goals, but that in no way means that otherwise radical prerogatives necessarily serve those purposes and should be discarded.
Very well written. I share your perspective and recommend Man's Search for Meaning when working with clients with PTSD or cPTSD because Viktor Frankl honors the notion that even with significant trauma, we can still choose how we will respond to it. It is deeply personal.
it’s so crazy to me that israel is offering service from better help, especially considering my horrible experience with them. like, a therapist there told me a “heartwarming” story about a trans woman who became a police officer and how that’s so “inspiring” for people like me. i remember feeling so disgusted by it, and this was before one of my former activist friends was killed by a firing squad in the weelaunee forest (manny/tortuguita). that georgia state patrol literally trains with the israeli defense forces through the georgia international law enforcement exchange. but this being my experience with better help and a therapist being pro-cop apparently, and now israel giving what i’d call drive-through therapy to civilians. this whole article really touches on a lot!
Interestingly this line of thought often overlaps with the “well *I* have mental illness and *I’ve* never [manifestation of severe mania/psychosis]” response to someone being crazy and doing something very socially unacceptable. Personal responsibility for thee but not for me vibes.
You’ve taken something about /literature/ and applied it as a blanket statement about anyone’s trauma in your defined “reality,” for the purpose of political activism. I’m no Zionist but you’ve gone above and beyond in your impropriety here.
Trauma is the psychological/spiritual evidence of the damage done to queer/mad/ND people (for example) in the name of profit, politics, and power. Just because trauma is treated as a norm, doesn’t mean that everyone has a normalized capacity to deal with it. So it’s really victim-blamey to be moralizing about the impact trauma has on people, saying they should get over it. Snap their fingers and just wipe the mind clear of its impact, because you have an agenda and they’re delaying it for you.
I got into peer support to encourage people to be well enough to participate in their own liberation. A sort of field medic for the body politic.
I thought I could trust this substack as a valuable source of community-based information about peer support, but it’s become a political soapbox to now voice the impact that trauma has had over generations, saying it should have NO power in the conversation. Sounds exactly like what a clinician would say. Or our own political enemies who would wipe us out with legislation.
Just another form of fascism: as an ableist stance that “everyone should be able to get over it.” Well, not everyone has the same abilities as you. Ever thought of that? No, because you base your understanding of others’ capacity upon your own narrative and experience, as though it were some gold standard all should follow. You’re just another online “celebrity” of sorts.
I’m really glad that you’ve been able to heal from your own trauma so much so that you get to point at everyone else who hasn’t that they need to “get over it” so your intentions can advance. That’s really powerful. Your stance of “I’m more recovered than you” is really impressive and I hope you can take it to its logical conclusion.
This article is ready evidence of just how backwardly people can justify their own perspectives, despite what even studied professionals might say.
You are not an expert on anyone’s trauma. In fact, I’ll remind you that you are only the expert of your OWN experience. Everything else beyond that is either projection or prescription.
You’ve lost a reader. Good luck with your kool-aid.
as i say like 5 times in the piece, having trauma is legitimate and deserves empathy. weaponizing it to have power over others is what is wrong. i wish you luck on your reading comprehension skills in the future.
Unfortunately, you conflate the weaponization of trauma in rhetorical debate with trauma itself. You don't actually make that distinction in the article, which leads to a lot of semantic confusion. If I failed in reading comprehension, please tell me which section I need to reread. I've reread the article twice looking for more nuance, and I don't see it. The end result is you tell people that the solution to their trauma (the very real impacts on their mental and physical health as a result of unprocessed, unsupported suffering leading to a dysregulated nervous system) is to grow up.
That might be the solution to misusing the word as a bludgeon in rhetorical debate, but it is decidedly not the solution to having trauma. That is what traumatized individuals who have struggled to function in society have been told their whole lives by people with more power than them. It throws fuel on the flames of chronic shame and self-loathing that are the result of childhood trauma. I'm humbly asking you to consider rewriting your article or at least adding some more clarification. I understand the point it is trying to make, but the way it's written now is harmful and muddies the waters.
You say P.E.'s points "Sound exactly like what a clinician would say" but then say "This article is ready evidence of just how backwardly people can justify their own perspectives, despite what even studied professionals might say." So it's bad to sound like a clinician (whatever that means) but at the same time one has to make sure their own perspectives align with what "studied professionals might say"?
Also saying P.E. Moskowitz is enacting "another form of fascism" has me chuckling into my coffee. Go touch grass.
As someone diagnosed with schizoaffective bipolar disorder who is just now entering treatment for trauma: infant/childhood neglect and emotional abuse, childhood sexual abuse, adolescent sexual assault and bullying, adolescent and adult rape and disorganized attachment patterns…I dunno, I think I’m dealing with a lot and not ashamed to say it. I know the victim mentality is scorned by society these days. I know it’s unhelpful and counterproductive, but I can’t just get over my trauma. I’m paying $$$ for EMDR not because I’m self-indulgent and privileged but because I’m severely mentally ill and trauma has impacted my life in big ways. I know the article addresses that but all the exclamation marks after the clickbait title are a bit much for me. I am self-aware and directly address negative trauma responses and explain I am doing everything I can to fix myself. I am sometimes met with eye rolls as if an attractive white woman cannot have legit trauma lol
i'm glad you're getting treatment for your trauma. as i said throughout the piece, having trauma is legitimate. it is using the trauma to wield power over others that is wrong. if you don't do that, then this piece really isn't talking about you.
Hmmm, well I mention the title is a bit cringe for me and I suppose from the POV of a man I am no longer in touch with I did exactly like that. I tried to rationalize my behavior according to him. So it’s a slippery slope.
I read this first when it was published and loved it -- I reread it after your recent twitter thread where you linked it, and was kinda astounded at the comments section. I think there is maybe no better proof of the exact phenomenon of commodifying (fetishizing?) trauma into trauma narratives which can be used as simultaneous assertions of power/victimhood (practically/rhetorically, respectively) and substituted for material arguments than this exact comments section. Primarily this is done by those who already have power, but it is a pattern that I think has been internalized by those who do not have power but would like to. I sincerely wonder if people cannot see that they are *doing the thing you describe* while asserting that the thing you describe does not exist and is not real, or if it’s a wholly intentional and disingenuous tactic. Probably the answer is a mix of these two and more, if I had to guess.
Anyways, fantastic piece and I appreciate your continued analyses and the moral clarity you bring to the conversation. Keep it up!
Gosh darn it, this article is expertly crafted to induce engagement because it lacks so much understanding and nuance for what trauma actually is that I need to respond further.
"To have more trauma is to have more power than others, and to have less trauma is to therefore have less power."
This demonstrates what I think is fundamentally a misunderstanding of trauma, conflating it with co-opted and opportunistic perversions people use to gain advantage. The two need to be differentiated. Otherwise, you end up saying things that are completely backwards and unscientific like the above sentence. More trauma does not grant more power, not if trauma is properly defined as what happens in the body as a result of what has happened to you: the numbness or overwhelm that characterize a trauma response, understood through the lens of science. Defined properly, more trauma definitely translates to less power and agency, because one is not able to act from a regulated nervous system and will be caught in cycles of reactivity, numbing, fighting, and fleeing.
If you redefine trauma to mean "an identity that gives us victimhood and is used to control others" then sure, I would agree people should get over their trauma. That's definitely not what trauma is, though! You're muddying the waters by not being more specific about that.
"If we continue to see our lives solely through the lens of trauma, then we cannot move forward, only backward. We become destined to repeat the very things done to us that made us feel traumatized in the first place. That’s part of what’s so upsetting to me about the state of Israel: it has weaponized legitimate Jewish trauma to carry out the very same kinds of actions we as Jews claim to detest."
Again, deep misunderstanding here. It is the denial of trauma, not the awareness of it, that creates the repetition compulsion that trauma so often engenders. We escape the hold of the past by healing from our trauma and finding genuine agency. Awareness of trauma is not an excuse to repeat the wrongs of the past, but an opening to transform it in the present. Please stop conflating misunderstanding of trauma with the real thing: it's harmful.
To go back to the example of Israelis, the fact that the violence and brutal oppression exhibited by the Israelis in Palestine is, at least in part, a trauma response, a repetition compulsion of the Holocaust, does not mean that we excuse it and allow it to keep happening! Quite the opposite. It means that, through understanding and compassion, a genuine reckoning with the past (rather than a suppression of it in the bodymind, which is what trauma is) people have an opportunity to transform and heal, an ability to respond to the present from the present, not their past conditioning. They gain the awareness that they were acting from their pain and confusion, from overwhelm and numbness, rather than genuine agency, and thus now have the ability to change course. By denying the role of trauma in perpetuating cycles of harm and oppression, you're undermining the redemptive promise behind a genuine understanding of trauma.
Ah, yes, I just need to get over my trauma. Thank you, that saves me the hell I've gone through in therapy, support groups, journaling, and doing somatic work and meditation. No more hours of being in a dysregulated fight or flight state each day, my body trembling to try to discharge the shock. No more screaming, shaking, and crying on the floor. I just need to get over it... wow, if only someone had told me this before!
I have seen the light, someone telling me trauma (which is what happens inside your body as a result of what happens to you, not painful or difficult events) doesn't remove agency has given me all of my agency back! Thank you for your piercing insight, my trauma will never again impact my agency, energy levels, ability to think clearly, or feel a baseline amount of safety required to exit sympathetic nervous system activation.
I can't wait to tell this to the unhoused people I know who grew up in horrifically abusive foster care systems and find it even more terrifying to inhabit their own bodies than I do, don't have enough support, and as a result, can't stay employed or housed very long. I'm sure they will be relieved to find this out, and the addiction and mental health crisis will terminate when people realize it's all just a lack of personal responsibility.
I also am excited to inform the Palestinians who are using the language of violence they learned from their oppressors (see the latest Chris Hedges article) in this conflict that they have full control and agency, and they are just using their trauma to justify military attacks on civilian targets. Peace will be achieved, because the cycle of violence will stop now that everyone knows it is as easy as getting over one's trauma and clearly thinking through one's decisions.
Palestinians will reclaim their agency, and so will the Israelis! The repetition compulsion that is clearly playing out as a result of the Holocaust, the cycle of violence that will not stop until the people affected can look at and process their pain, fear, hatred, and yes, trauma, will no longer be a factor now that they know they can just get over it.
I'm tempted to go on, but yeah, this article takes something incredibly complex and difficult and simplifies it to unscientific rhetoric meant to garner engagement. I guess I'm the fool for taking the bait, but you've also likely lost a long time subscriber. I have a few things to say before I go:
Trauma, like literally anything, can be weaponized in narrative warfare or in conflict between roommates over the dishes. That does not make it, and its impacts on the human nervous system (which inevitably contributes to level of consciousness of one's actions and thus impacts genuine agency) somehow fake or trivial to overcome. You are not healing people by telling them they are using their trauma as an excuse, that they could be better people and just don't want to. You are not empowering them, and you're not empowering yourself either.
You are fueling a trauma response, a denial of the impact of emotional, somatic, and physical phenomena on human behavior. Trauma doesn't have to affect our agency, but supporting the idea that people can just get over it, or override it with enough willpower, is an old canard that is used to justify unsurvivable, traumatic societies and economic systems. We aren't granted agency by denying the impacts of trauma. We gain our agency back through awareness, healing, and support, which requires empathy for ourselves and others alongside meaningful collective action. I don't think articles like this contribute much to that effort.
At the core of it, however, is likely a wish that it were really that easy, that we aren't in the midst of massive collective traumas shaking the planet and making any kind of real agency (found only through genuine collective action rooted in love and connection, not denial or suppression) incredibly difficult to achieve. That there isn't massive tragedy and grief to confront if we wish to be authentic to ourselves and our experience. In that sense, I suppose I can have some empathy for what you must have been going through when you wrote this. This article pisses me off, but I wish you well.
At the end you say, Grow up! Grow up? Please, you need to reread your own article, and make it more clear. I read it twice. You may not be trying to shame people with trauma, but it sure the hell had that effect on me.
You’ve put in line about how you have empathy for people with trauma but your piece still reeks of victim blaming, ableism, and insensitivity. You have no idea what trauma is and what it is to live with it—that’s quite evident. Any word or idea can be weaponised. That doesn’t give you the license to lecture people living with trauma. Your arrogance in comments is also very revealing.
i have many of my own traumas that have taken me many years to work through. but this is exactly my point. i should not have to trot them out to win an argument. that is a losing game.
“Many of my own traumas?” In plural? You either live with symptoms of trauma or you don’t. You seem to be using “trauma” casually to label setbacks. If you really knew what it is to live with symptoms of trauma or cPTSD, doubt you’d be saying “get over it!” Because you’d know that’s not how it works. Lol.
I understand what you're saying, but maybe we shouldn't be trying to "win" arguments in the first place? The idea that people and things change as a result of linguistic combat, a survival of the fittest ideas, as opposed to authentic relating and understanding, is very common. I fall into it at times as well. It's very hard to exit out of "debate mode" when having conversations about important, contentious topics. I do think it's worth trying, however. That isn't to say we shouldn't be blunt and speak truth to power. I just am not sure whether the goal of "winning" is going to get us where we want to go, a world beyond systems of domination and power-over dynamics.
This applies just as much to my sarcasm-laden response to your article as it does to the article itself, to be fair, although I did try, towards the end, to understand where you were coming from and not merely communicate critique and challenge.
Eh, I mean trauma itself doesn't give people agency. Trauma responses tend to overwhelmingly limit agency by overriding / reducing the capacity to actually act thoughtfully or intentionally based on our desires, beliefs, even our honed coded of ethics.
Powerful corporations, political entities, oppressive states, and just individuals with authority, use whatever tools at their disposal to maintain that power. If a trauma narrative is a tool, they'll use it.
But the person / entity who accesses or wields a trauma narrative to maintain power (or control an outcome in a conflict) isn't usually (ever?) the person / entity who has sustained the most trauma. Nor is there decent evidence to suggest that the trauma - or even the trauma narrative - is a *source* of political, economic, or social power or authority.
The source of power is material (access to resources), violence, and social placement at the top of a given hierarchy, usually due to a violent history.
The correlation between the ability to wield a trauma narrative, and the garnering or maintenance of power to assert one's will over others, just isn't causal. If there was no trauma narrative to wield, they would choose a different weapon.
This is more clear when you look at the stronger correlation between the most traumatized people (for example, people who experience the highest incidence of Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs) and their degree of social, economic, and political power as adults. In these cases, the correlation is more trauma --> less power.
Individual agency and social/ political power are distinct, but highly related. For example, if a person's traumatic experiences have altered their sensory perception, energy levels, endurance, clarity of thought (etc), those alternations limit their ability to register to vote and exercise that right. Non-voters, as a group, have less political power, and thus significantly less input on, say, zoning laws or homeless rights. Thus, they have less ability to control outcomes that could make a difference between their being housed or not - the latter being an undeniably traumatic experience (one that limit the body and mind's function even further, creating a "downward spiral" of agency loss).
While that is just one example, looking at the data in aggregate, it becomes clear that more trauma --> less power / autonomy / agency is a more viable general rule.
The incidents wherein more trauma *seems* to grant more power are so outside the normative trend, it's wiser to interrogate those incidences as rhetorical tools to power.
Outliers - in this case, the Israeli govt and occupation forces use of trauma narrative to push their imperialist / political agenda - are not useful case studies to observe the impact of *actual trauma itself* on power dynamics. If anything, the odd, inverse correlation presented here - so opposite the typical direction of correlation- is a clue that political leaders are distorting or manipulating the realities of trauma rhetorically, not representing it accurately.
The distortion means we really cannot / should not apply any reasonable, evidence-based ethical or psychological frameworks we have for navigating trauma in conflict, or accounting for the role of trauma in a given social context, to this specific context. If the reality is being rhetorically distorted (which, it is) any political or social thesis has to address the distortion head on.
Tl;dr - conflating the personal, experiential effect actual trauma (less agency) with the social-political effect of the trauma narrative as rhetorical device (more agency / power) is confusing, and it doesn't really get us closer to either social or personal solutions on either front.
Really this needs to be two different posts, imo. I respect your passion and pov, this post just really confusing by smashing two really different things together under the label "trauma."
Exactly right. The fact that P.E. confuses the two very different things by referring to them both as "trauma" makes for incredibly confusing reading that muddies the waters further. Thank you for pointing out that there tends to be an inverse relationship between trauma and power.
Yeah, agree with everything you are saying here—this post seems to me to be an impulse to meld a critique of just one rhetorical tool of many at empire’s disposal with the (very fair) desire to vent about “Sock.”
Similar to the examples here, Democrats use the language/reference points of social justice, equity, etc to leverage their own goals, but that in no way means that otherwise radical prerogatives necessarily serve those purposes and should be discarded.
It’s just kind of a muddled post.
Very well written. I share your perspective and recommend Man's Search for Meaning when working with clients with PTSD or cPTSD because Viktor Frankl honors the notion that even with significant trauma, we can still choose how we will respond to it. It is deeply personal.
Trauma Affirmative Action😭 so well-written, thanks P.E.M. Have you read Conflict is Not Abuse? She talks about the narrative-as-power thing too
it’s so crazy to me that israel is offering service from better help, especially considering my horrible experience with them. like, a therapist there told me a “heartwarming” story about a trans woman who became a police officer and how that’s so “inspiring” for people like me. i remember feeling so disgusted by it, and this was before one of my former activist friends was killed by a firing squad in the weelaunee forest (manny/tortuguita). that georgia state patrol literally trains with the israeli defense forces through the georgia international law enforcement exchange. but this being my experience with better help and a therapist being pro-cop apparently, and now israel giving what i’d call drive-through therapy to civilians. this whole article really touches on a lot!
there needs to be a deep dive into better help for sure. there's something very strange going on!!!
Interestingly this line of thought often overlaps with the “well *I* have mental illness and *I’ve* never [manifestation of severe mania/psychosis]” response to someone being crazy and doing something very socially unacceptable. Personal responsibility for thee but not for me vibes.
I do think you’re undermining your nuancecore argument with such an inflammatory title lol
thats fair lol
You’ve taken something about /literature/ and applied it as a blanket statement about anyone’s trauma in your defined “reality,” for the purpose of political activism. I’m no Zionist but you’ve gone above and beyond in your impropriety here.
Trauma is the psychological/spiritual evidence of the damage done to queer/mad/ND people (for example) in the name of profit, politics, and power. Just because trauma is treated as a norm, doesn’t mean that everyone has a normalized capacity to deal with it. So it’s really victim-blamey to be moralizing about the impact trauma has on people, saying they should get over it. Snap their fingers and just wipe the mind clear of its impact, because you have an agenda and they’re delaying it for you.
I got into peer support to encourage people to be well enough to participate in their own liberation. A sort of field medic for the body politic.
I thought I could trust this substack as a valuable source of community-based information about peer support, but it’s become a political soapbox to now voice the impact that trauma has had over generations, saying it should have NO power in the conversation. Sounds exactly like what a clinician would say. Or our own political enemies who would wipe us out with legislation.
Just another form of fascism: as an ableist stance that “everyone should be able to get over it.” Well, not everyone has the same abilities as you. Ever thought of that? No, because you base your understanding of others’ capacity upon your own narrative and experience, as though it were some gold standard all should follow. You’re just another online “celebrity” of sorts.
I’m really glad that you’ve been able to heal from your own trauma so much so that you get to point at everyone else who hasn’t that they need to “get over it” so your intentions can advance. That’s really powerful. Your stance of “I’m more recovered than you” is really impressive and I hope you can take it to its logical conclusion.
This article is ready evidence of just how backwardly people can justify their own perspectives, despite what even studied professionals might say.
You are not an expert on anyone’s trauma. In fact, I’ll remind you that you are only the expert of your OWN experience. Everything else beyond that is either projection or prescription.
You’ve lost a reader. Good luck with your kool-aid.
as i say like 5 times in the piece, having trauma is legitimate and deserves empathy. weaponizing it to have power over others is what is wrong. i wish you luck on your reading comprehension skills in the future.
Unfortunately, you conflate the weaponization of trauma in rhetorical debate with trauma itself. You don't actually make that distinction in the article, which leads to a lot of semantic confusion. If I failed in reading comprehension, please tell me which section I need to reread. I've reread the article twice looking for more nuance, and I don't see it. The end result is you tell people that the solution to their trauma (the very real impacts on their mental and physical health as a result of unprocessed, unsupported suffering leading to a dysregulated nervous system) is to grow up.
That might be the solution to misusing the word as a bludgeon in rhetorical debate, but it is decidedly not the solution to having trauma. That is what traumatized individuals who have struggled to function in society have been told their whole lives by people with more power than them. It throws fuel on the flames of chronic shame and self-loathing that are the result of childhood trauma. I'm humbly asking you to consider rewriting your article or at least adding some more clarification. I understand the point it is trying to make, but the way it's written now is harmful and muddies the waters.
More ableism! Great job.
lmao
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAJAHA
You say P.E.'s points "Sound exactly like what a clinician would say" but then say "This article is ready evidence of just how backwardly people can justify their own perspectives, despite what even studied professionals might say." So it's bad to sound like a clinician (whatever that means) but at the same time one has to make sure their own perspectives align with what "studied professionals might say"?
Also saying P.E. Moskowitz is enacting "another form of fascism" has me chuckling into my coffee. Go touch grass.
As someone diagnosed with schizoaffective bipolar disorder who is just now entering treatment for trauma: infant/childhood neglect and emotional abuse, childhood sexual abuse, adolescent sexual assault and bullying, adolescent and adult rape and disorganized attachment patterns…I dunno, I think I’m dealing with a lot and not ashamed to say it. I know the victim mentality is scorned by society these days. I know it’s unhelpful and counterproductive, but I can’t just get over my trauma. I’m paying $$$ for EMDR not because I’m self-indulgent and privileged but because I’m severely mentally ill and trauma has impacted my life in big ways. I know the article addresses that but all the exclamation marks after the clickbait title are a bit much for me. I am self-aware and directly address negative trauma responses and explain I am doing everything I can to fix myself. I am sometimes met with eye rolls as if an attractive white woman cannot have legit trauma lol
i'm glad you're getting treatment for your trauma. as i said throughout the piece, having trauma is legitimate. it is using the trauma to wield power over others that is wrong. if you don't do that, then this piece really isn't talking about you.
Amazingly dishonest. Your piece is so obviously shaming people with trauma. You’re just using this disclaimer to legitimize your ableism.
Hmmm, well I mention the title is a bit cringe for me and I suppose from the POV of a man I am no longer in touch with I did exactly like that. I tried to rationalize my behavior according to him. So it’s a slippery slope.
I read this first when it was published and loved it -- I reread it after your recent twitter thread where you linked it, and was kinda astounded at the comments section. I think there is maybe no better proof of the exact phenomenon of commodifying (fetishizing?) trauma into trauma narratives which can be used as simultaneous assertions of power/victimhood (practically/rhetorically, respectively) and substituted for material arguments than this exact comments section. Primarily this is done by those who already have power, but it is a pattern that I think has been internalized by those who do not have power but would like to. I sincerely wonder if people cannot see that they are *doing the thing you describe* while asserting that the thing you describe does not exist and is not real, or if it’s a wholly intentional and disingenuous tactic. Probably the answer is a mix of these two and more, if I had to guess.
Anyways, fantastic piece and I appreciate your continued analyses and the moral clarity you bring to the conversation. Keep it up!
Gosh darn it, this article is expertly crafted to induce engagement because it lacks so much understanding and nuance for what trauma actually is that I need to respond further.
"To have more trauma is to have more power than others, and to have less trauma is to therefore have less power."
This demonstrates what I think is fundamentally a misunderstanding of trauma, conflating it with co-opted and opportunistic perversions people use to gain advantage. The two need to be differentiated. Otherwise, you end up saying things that are completely backwards and unscientific like the above sentence. More trauma does not grant more power, not if trauma is properly defined as what happens in the body as a result of what has happened to you: the numbness or overwhelm that characterize a trauma response, understood through the lens of science. Defined properly, more trauma definitely translates to less power and agency, because one is not able to act from a regulated nervous system and will be caught in cycles of reactivity, numbing, fighting, and fleeing.
If you redefine trauma to mean "an identity that gives us victimhood and is used to control others" then sure, I would agree people should get over their trauma. That's definitely not what trauma is, though! You're muddying the waters by not being more specific about that.
"If we continue to see our lives solely through the lens of trauma, then we cannot move forward, only backward. We become destined to repeat the very things done to us that made us feel traumatized in the first place. That’s part of what’s so upsetting to me about the state of Israel: it has weaponized legitimate Jewish trauma to carry out the very same kinds of actions we as Jews claim to detest."
Again, deep misunderstanding here. It is the denial of trauma, not the awareness of it, that creates the repetition compulsion that trauma so often engenders. We escape the hold of the past by healing from our trauma and finding genuine agency. Awareness of trauma is not an excuse to repeat the wrongs of the past, but an opening to transform it in the present. Please stop conflating misunderstanding of trauma with the real thing: it's harmful.
To go back to the example of Israelis, the fact that the violence and brutal oppression exhibited by the Israelis in Palestine is, at least in part, a trauma response, a repetition compulsion of the Holocaust, does not mean that we excuse it and allow it to keep happening! Quite the opposite. It means that, through understanding and compassion, a genuine reckoning with the past (rather than a suppression of it in the bodymind, which is what trauma is) people have an opportunity to transform and heal, an ability to respond to the present from the present, not their past conditioning. They gain the awareness that they were acting from their pain and confusion, from overwhelm and numbness, rather than genuine agency, and thus now have the ability to change course. By denying the role of trauma in perpetuating cycles of harm and oppression, you're undermining the redemptive promise behind a genuine understanding of trauma.
Ah, yes, I just need to get over my trauma. Thank you, that saves me the hell I've gone through in therapy, support groups, journaling, and doing somatic work and meditation. No more hours of being in a dysregulated fight or flight state each day, my body trembling to try to discharge the shock. No more screaming, shaking, and crying on the floor. I just need to get over it... wow, if only someone had told me this before!
I have seen the light, someone telling me trauma (which is what happens inside your body as a result of what happens to you, not painful or difficult events) doesn't remove agency has given me all of my agency back! Thank you for your piercing insight, my trauma will never again impact my agency, energy levels, ability to think clearly, or feel a baseline amount of safety required to exit sympathetic nervous system activation.
I can't wait to tell this to the unhoused people I know who grew up in horrifically abusive foster care systems and find it even more terrifying to inhabit their own bodies than I do, don't have enough support, and as a result, can't stay employed or housed very long. I'm sure they will be relieved to find this out, and the addiction and mental health crisis will terminate when people realize it's all just a lack of personal responsibility.
I also am excited to inform the Palestinians who are using the language of violence they learned from their oppressors (see the latest Chris Hedges article) in this conflict that they have full control and agency, and they are just using their trauma to justify military attacks on civilian targets. Peace will be achieved, because the cycle of violence will stop now that everyone knows it is as easy as getting over one's trauma and clearly thinking through one's decisions.
Palestinians will reclaim their agency, and so will the Israelis! The repetition compulsion that is clearly playing out as a result of the Holocaust, the cycle of violence that will not stop until the people affected can look at and process their pain, fear, hatred, and yes, trauma, will no longer be a factor now that they know they can just get over it.
I'm tempted to go on, but yeah, this article takes something incredibly complex and difficult and simplifies it to unscientific rhetoric meant to garner engagement. I guess I'm the fool for taking the bait, but you've also likely lost a long time subscriber. I have a few things to say before I go:
Trauma, like literally anything, can be weaponized in narrative warfare or in conflict between roommates over the dishes. That does not make it, and its impacts on the human nervous system (which inevitably contributes to level of consciousness of one's actions and thus impacts genuine agency) somehow fake or trivial to overcome. You are not healing people by telling them they are using their trauma as an excuse, that they could be better people and just don't want to. You are not empowering them, and you're not empowering yourself either.
You are fueling a trauma response, a denial of the impact of emotional, somatic, and physical phenomena on human behavior. Trauma doesn't have to affect our agency, but supporting the idea that people can just get over it, or override it with enough willpower, is an old canard that is used to justify unsurvivable, traumatic societies and economic systems. We aren't granted agency by denying the impacts of trauma. We gain our agency back through awareness, healing, and support, which requires empathy for ourselves and others alongside meaningful collective action. I don't think articles like this contribute much to that effort.
At the core of it, however, is likely a wish that it were really that easy, that we aren't in the midst of massive collective traumas shaking the planet and making any kind of real agency (found only through genuine collective action rooted in love and connection, not denial or suppression) incredibly difficult to achieve. That there isn't massive tragedy and grief to confront if we wish to be authentic to ourselves and our experience. In that sense, I suppose I can have some empathy for what you must have been going through when you wrote this. This article pisses me off, but I wish you well.
all of this
Yes 1000 times
Thank you for writing this!
At the end you say, Grow up! Grow up? Please, you need to reread your own article, and make it more clear. I read it twice. You may not be trying to shame people with trauma, but it sure the hell had that effect on me.
You’ve put in line about how you have empathy for people with trauma but your piece still reeks of victim blaming, ableism, and insensitivity. You have no idea what trauma is and what it is to live with it—that’s quite evident. Any word or idea can be weaponised. That doesn’t give you the license to lecture people living with trauma. Your arrogance in comments is also very revealing.
i have many of my own traumas that have taken me many years to work through. but this is exactly my point. i should not have to trot them out to win an argument. that is a losing game.
“Many of my own traumas?” In plural? You either live with symptoms of trauma or you don’t. You seem to be using “trauma” casually to label setbacks. If you really knew what it is to live with symptoms of trauma or cPTSD, doubt you’d be saying “get over it!” Because you’d know that’s not how it works. Lol.
I understand what you're saying, but maybe we shouldn't be trying to "win" arguments in the first place? The idea that people and things change as a result of linguistic combat, a survival of the fittest ideas, as opposed to authentic relating and understanding, is very common. I fall into it at times as well. It's very hard to exit out of "debate mode" when having conversations about important, contentious topics. I do think it's worth trying, however. That isn't to say we shouldn't be blunt and speak truth to power. I just am not sure whether the goal of "winning" is going to get us where we want to go, a world beyond systems of domination and power-over dynamics.
This applies just as much to my sarcasm-laden response to your article as it does to the article itself, to be fair, although I did try, towards the end, to understand where you were coming from and not merely communicate critique and challenge.
People with trauma generally understand that most survivors aren’t just sitting around to play games and win arguments.