It’s often hard for neurotypical people to understand this, which I get. But it really can be traumatic
juSt Be yOUrSeLF
Yeah I’m not sure if I’m Autistic or what - but I empathize with consistently misunderstanding things, telling jokes in poor taste, etc.
I dislike the word ‘trauma’ being used to describe it. It wasn’t deeply distressing or disturbing, it was inconvenient. It didn’t stop me from living my life, the only thing it did was give me perspective on what ‘normal’ is.
I get that. For other people it can lead to being alienated and targeted for bullying… which really can be traumatic
If everything is a trauma, nothing is.
Not every bad experience is traumatic. Abusing that word devalues the actually traumatizing experiences. Being an outsider in school and being raped by your dad are categorically extremely different experiences. Lumping them into “traumatic” is just not helpful.
When people with a communication disability use a word differently than I might, I have been trying lately to understand what they’re attempting to communicate. I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding about what trauma is, but even if you didn’t, it might be a good practice.
Anyway, I get why the word use is upsetting, because it can feel like rape and social ostracization are being treated identically when the same word (traumatic) is used for both. But trauma, as I understand it, is more like a broken bone - it’s a bad result from an event or events. Me and grandma both fell down the stairs and she fell one step and I fell two flights, and we both broke something - the broken bone is still real, even when the fall was smaller. I fuck up my wrist in a car accident, and someone else fucks it up doing the same small action repetitively for years. Wrist’s still fucked.
If you think of it that way, there never was a comparison to dislike in the first place. Trauma is the injury, not the cause. Everything and nothing is traumatic, but some things are almost universally likely to cause injury, and some things aren’t.
Gatekeeping is also not very helpful. Perhaps it’s better to listen and try to understand other people’s experiences, because everyone experiences the world in different ways and intensity. Talking about a trauma is not a competition. It’s a cry for help and for empathy, no matter whether it fulfills your definition of the word.
If something was or is traumatic is not determined by the content but by how the person experienced it. You can have traumatic experiences with almost anything.
It’s really simple. If someone is traumatized by something, it was traumatic for them. Sure there are different kinds of trauma but there’s no need to gatekeep or invalidate people’s experiences.
Using the word ‘trauma’ isn’t about people trying to be dramatic. Most autistic people (especially late diagnosed autistic folks who don’t understand why they feel so alienated), suffer from actual, clinical trauma. It stems from a lifetime of misunderstandings, cruel treatment from nuerotypicals, and societies built on ableist systems:
I was really angry when I found out that most people aren’t being constantly mentally bombarded by a highlight reel of all of the fuckups they’ve ever done, all the time
I was even angrier when their solution for me was ‘Just don’t let it bother you’
I stopped caring when they forgot what I did and I forgot what they did that was embarrassing.
Oh hey it’s my experiences when trying to deal with people! Except it’s like the first half goes well then I just must be doing something because I leave thinking things went well then find out later no
No they did not
And I pull my hair because it’s usually something small and I’m just “why didn’t you say shit at the time???” and I’m told that’s rude but I was taught it’s ruder to let shit fester??
Improv and theater helped me. Being able to roll with the situation and turn it into something fun or different has saved me from constant anxiety. I also channeled that Simpsons energy of Homer’s First Day so when I fuck up I expect jeers and taunts, which I can handle, instead of outright anger. And being able to roll the taunt back into a burn or accept it as valid criticism helps drop the subject.
