Epitome Anatomy: TRAUMA
EPISODE SUMMARY:
"Not all life challenges should be considered as trauma. They're just an experience."
Wish explores the concept of trauma, its definitions, and the implications of its overuse in modern society. There is an emphasis on the importance of distinguishing between genuine trauma and everyday life challenges, advocating for a more nuanced understanding of emotional experiences. This discussion highlights the need for sensitivity towards those who have experienced real trauma while also addressing the societal tendency to label minor inconveniences as traumatic. This conversation ultimately calls for a reevaluation of language and its impact on the internalised message of what is considered the norm today, which Wish finds somewhat disillusioning.
Listen to the Episode
MAIN TOPICS:
00:00 Understanding Trauma: A Modern Perspective
05:57 The Overuse of the Term Trauma
12:30 Distinguishing Trauma from Life Challenges
15:53 The Importance of Language in Defining Trauma
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Wish Peacocke (00:05.068)
Why does everything have to be associated with the word trauma nowadays? Simple life event, trauma. You scraped your leg while running in the park, trauma. You watched something gruesome on TV, trauma. Starbucks gave you the wrong order, trauma. This word is so overused given its generally insensitive context at this social media world. Let's clarify this.
Welcome to Human Thesaurus Presents Epitome Anatomy. My name is Wish and I talk about something, to dissect the word relevant from my life to yours. Ready for the epitome of trauma? Let's go.
Wish Peacocke (01:05.493)
Our keyword is trauma. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, there are a few meanings. A. An injury such as a wound to living tissue caused by an intrinsic agent. B. A disordered psychic or behavioral state resulting from severe mental or emotional stress or physical injury. C. an emotional upset. Its etymology came from the 17th century Greek word for wounds. Although the Greeks used the term only for physical injuries, nowadays trauma is used. Trauma is just as likely to refer to emotional wounds.
Most of us have different levels of traumatic moments in our lives. You can't really deny that. We all have different coping mechanisms. We all have different emotional states when we experience them. We all react differently to different things. We're such unique individuals that there is no same experience that our experiences are 100 % all the same for everyone. We viscerally react differently and we have to acknowledge that as well. So whatever, sometimes, you know, there's just an event that we all experience at the same time, at the same place, but we all may react to it differently. Some probably would have a shock, a shock. And some of us will have a panic. Some of us will have a calm and collected state. So we all react differently and we always have to be considerate about our different reactions to different things, whether they're big or small. Some would be more dramatic. Some would be reserved. Some, you know, you cannot assume that everyone
Wish Peacocke (03:25.314)
would react the same. For example, someone had an accident and their partner beside them reacted differently and it comes as suspicious. Probably yes, probably no. But again, we cannot jump into conclusions when it comes to that. So let's talk about traumatic experiences. I'm reading this. I'm going to read to you some things that I'm reading through mind.org.uk about trauma. What says here? I'm going to read it. There's no rule what experiences can be traumatic. It's more about how you react to them. What's traumatic is personal. Other people can't know how you feel about your own experiences or if they're traumatic for you.
You might have similar experiences to someone else but be affected differently or for longer. Trauma can include events where you feel frightened, under threat, humiliated, rejected, abandoned, invalidated, unsafe, unsupported, trapped, ashamed, powerless. Ways trauma can happen include one-off or ongoing events, being directly harmed or neglected, witnessing harm to someone else, living in a traumatic atmosphere, being affected by trauma in a family or community, including trauma that has happened before you were born. So there are some groups are more likely to experience trauma than others and experience it more often. They include people of color, people who have served or who are serving in the military, people who are in prison or have been in prison in the past, refugees and asylum seekers, LGBTQIA plus people, people experiencing poverty. For those of us who belong to these groups, we may find it harder to overcome trauma. This can be because there is a lack of support available or because of stigma and discrimination. I'm BIPOC, so I kind of relate to this. And there are also different types of trauma.
Wish Peacocke (05:44.591)
childhood trauma, collective trauma, what else, generational trauma, moral injury, racial trauma, secondary trauma. So there are lots of materials that you can read about trauma and how serious it is when it's being inflicted to an individual or a group of people. But now that we have this basis, right, what trauma could be, and it's widespread and it's not just a one thing, one type of a deal or one type of meaning. Now that we have this acknowledgement, I think that what I wanted to talk about or my observation recently in the present, not present, that I think that this word is now loosely or too loosely used nowadays.
And it's quite daunting or it's quite even irritating for me to see this, to experience this around us that everything, just a tiny bit of a challenge in your life is already a trauma. It's not. For me, at least in my perspective, having been through a lot of trauma in my life,
And when I say that, I say that heavily because these traumas defined me but they never define who I am completely, how I react to things nowadays. I think they made me stronger, they made me braver. But I never hinged on the fact that these traumas would that they debilitate me in my life, they don't. I'm strong enough to move from it and I'm lucky enough to even recognize it that way. That's why it irritates me when everything is called trauma nowadays. again, words were here in my podcast because for me words really affect us differently. It rewires our brain into
Wish Peacocke (08:12.558)
a pathway on how we react or how we engage with words. So a lot of people, especially on social media, use the word trauma when it's not traumatic at all. It's all about inconveniences in life or even challenges in life because life wouldn't be about growth.
We're not gonna grow as people if we don't experience these inconveniences or even life challenges. And I believe that not all life challenges should be considered as trauma. They're just an experience. They're just something for us to experience because we're growing as people.
We encounter them because we're adulting. We encounter them because of other people's actions. But they're not necessarily need to be bank on a trauma. Some of them are really just experiences and life events and memories that you bank on and it gives you a challenge how you're going to take that situation.
Are you gonna take that situation as, okay, I'm gonna pick myself up and do something about it or I'm gonna just sit here and wallow and cry in darkness for six months and come out of it, which I did before. So these are the things that kind of baffles me sometimes that are we weak nowadays that are our major excuse is that everything is trauma? It should not be. Because we also needed to find this baseline for ourselves. That what's trauma and what is a situation? What is a challenge? What is something that happened to us in our daily lives that
Wish Peacocke (10:33.472)
It's just pushing us to grow up. That is pushing us to think differently. That is pushing us to find some lessons in them. And again, not everything is about us. We're not the main characters all the time. There's a thin line between self-love and narcissistic traits.
There is a thin line between a real traumatic personal experience and inconveniences in life. Let me find more words that would be synonyms for inconveniences. Inconvenience synonym. Let's see. So there are things in life that are not considered as trauma. They're just inconveniences or a state of being troublesome or difficult with regards to one personal requirements or comfort or a cause for trouble or difficulty such as disturbance or worry or annoyance or nuisance, a burden, aggravation or a hassle but they're not necessarily banking on traumatic experience or a trauma again like when i said earlier banking on referencing mind.org.uk about you know when you're frightened under threat humiliated rejected abandoned etc
They are two different factors. They are two different experiences. You may be inconvenienced, but that not necessarily you need to be a trauma. There's a big difference. A big difference that probably is harder for people to decipher or delineate nowadays.
Wish Peacocke (12:55.394)
because everything they see online is all about, it's trauma, it's trauma here, it's trauma there. But what the implications of this, right, of making the meaning of trauma as convoluted as it is nowadays is we take that away from real people who have real trauma. We're erasing, we're disqualifying what real trauma is for a lot of people. And most of them really, really need help. Most of them are reaching out or even not reaching out and putting up a face in public
Wish Peacocke (14:38.508)
Because their trauma is being swapped or interchanged with inconveniences of other with hassles of everyday lives. They are different. We have to shed a light on people who have real trauma for support for You know, to be a very decent society, supporting these people who really experience trauma. And there are personal battles that we have to fight every day, every single one of us, whether big or small. And that's the personal battle. It doesn't necessarily need to be a trauma.
It's just really important for us to define and redefine what's trauma and what is being said out there in different forms of media. We have to teach the younger generation that not everything is traumatic. These are just part of our lives.
These are just part of our experiences for us to grow.
There's a difference and we have to teach that. And here I am. I started this wanting to rant about it. But when I was writing my outline, it became more about morality. Again, going back to humanity and the morality of social media, of
Wish Peacocke (16:41.038)
how we say and when we say things. We cannot invalidate what's real from people who are taking the word for granted. We have to keep on teaching each other that it's okay to have challenges in life. We have to battle through it and you don't really need to be alone battling through it.
It's just important to put this out there.
Wish Peacocke (17:23.052)
Because words are still so valuable. Not everybody may be able to write script on pen and paper anymore. But it's still the same values that we have to uphold. That the words that we're using aren't necessarily the same thing in real life.
So you cannot just say, it's traumatic. I didn't get Taylor Swift tickets. It's not traumatic, girl. It's not. It's just, it may be a dismay. It may be a hassle. It may be, it may be crap. It may be crap that you didn't get that ticket, but it's not trauma.
It's more than that. So I just wanted to say the last for this is that if you really felt that you are traumatized by something, I hope that you are reaching out for help. You don't need to do or you don't need to deal with real trauma alone. That's for sure. But you also needed to assess with other people.
if you're also struggling. It doesn't need to be a trauma, but you're struggling with something. I hope that you have someone or a community or a village or just friend or family that you can reach out to. It's just really important.
Wish Peacocke (19:11.83)
So what's your story? How do you cope with traumatic experiences? How do you respond to inconveniences or truly terrifying moments in your life? How as a person do you delineate between trauma and challenge, just a life challenge?
Perhaps thinking about it can help you heal or reach out to others for help. Until next time, ciao.
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